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American Skctcttook

THE MACMILLAN COMrANY

NEW YORK . JJOSTON . CHICAGO . DALLAS
ATLANTA . SAN FRANCISCO

MACMILLAN AND CO. LIMITED

LONDON . JJOMBAY . CALCUTTA . MADRAS
MELBOURNE

THE MACMTLLAN COMPANY
OF CANADA, LIMITED

TORONTO

AMERICAN
SKETCHBOOK

Collected by

TREMAINE McDOWELL
WINFIELD H. ROGERS
JOHN T. FLANAGAN
HAROLD A. ELAINE

New
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

1938

: Printed in the United States of America :
PUBLISHID MAY, 1938

Rockwell Kent Illustration for Moby Dick,through courtesy of R. R. Donnelley & Sons Company, Chicago

ON JOURNEYS THROUGH THE STATES

On journeys through the States we start

(Ay, through the world — urged by these songs,

Sailing henceforth to every land — to every sea;}

We, willing learners of all, teachers of all, and lovers of all.

We have watch 'd the seasons dispensing themselves, and passing on,

We have said, Why should not a man or woman do as much as the

seasons and effuse as much?
We dwell a while in every city and town;
We pass through Kanada, the North-east, the vast valley of the

Mississippi, and the Southern States;
We confer on equal terms with each of The States,
We mal^e trial of ourselves and invite men and women to hear;
We say to ourselves, Remember, fear not, be candid, promulge the

body and the Soul;
Dwell a while and pass on. . . .

WALT WHITMAN

CONTENTS

England

New England Profiles

1. The Landlady's Daughter, OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, 3

2. The Woodchuck Cap, HENRY THOREAU, 3

3. Yankee Canaler, HENRY THOREAU, 4

4. A Cape Cod Wrecker, HENRY THOREAU, 5

5. Captain Ahab, HERMAN MELVILLE, 6

6. Thaddeus Stevens, PHOEBE GARY, 7

7. Wendell Phillips, BRONSON ALCOTT, 8

8. Miss Asphyxia Smith, HARRIET BEECHER STOWE, 8

9. Miss Mehitabel Rossiter, HARRIET BEECHER STOWE, 9
10. Thoreau, RALPH WALDO EMERSON, 10

IT. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, WILLIAM WETMORE STORY, 10

12. James Russell Lowell, VAN WYCK BROOKS, n

13. The Camp Cook, WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS, 12

14. James Cardmaker, JAMES GOULD COZZENS, 13

15. Mrs. Talbot, JAMES GOULD COZZENS, 14
Y tin fee Incidents

1. The Courting JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL, 15

2. The Dutchman and the Dog, NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE, 18

3. Captain Nutter's Pipe, THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH, 19

4. Sunday, THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH, 20

5. Teaching Latin to the Cows, CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER, 21

6. Mr. Flood's Party, EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON, 22

7. Massachusetts Execution, UPTON SINCLAIR, 24
Leviathan in Cas^s, HERMAN MELVILLE, 28
Transcendental Wild Oats, LOUISA MAY ALCOTT, 39
Mary Moody Emerson, RALPH WALDO EMERSON, 49
Mrs. Bonny, SARAH ORNE JFWETT, 54

My Double and How He Undid Me, EDWARD EVERETT HALE, 60

• V

Vll

The Rise of Lapham Paint, WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS, 74

The Death of the Hired Man, ROBERT FROST, 81

Why Is a Bostonian? HARRISON RHODES, 86

Stride! WILLIAM ROLLINS, JR., 97

New England, There She Stands, BERNARD DE VOTO, 108

The Mid -Atlantic States

Eastern Scenes

1. The Kaatskill Mountains, WASHINGTON IRVING, 125

2. Niagara, NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE, 125

3. Saratoga, HENRY JAMES, 127

4. Dutch Barns, JOHN BURROUGHS, 128

5. Crossing Brooklyn Ferry, WALT WHITMAN, 129

6. Mannahatta, WALT WHITMAN, 130

7. The Night Hath a Thousand Eyes, JAMES HUNEKER, 131

8. Rockefeller Center, HULBERT FOOTNER, 132

9. The Bowery, HULBERT FOOTNER, 133

10. Port of New York, PAUL ROSENFELD, 133

11. Coney Island, JAMES HUNEKER, 134

12. Atlantic City at Night, JAMES HUNEKER, 135

13. Wilmington, HENRY SEIDEL CANBY, 136

14. Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, CHRISTOPHER MORLEY, 137
Recollections of Sleepy Hollow, WASHINGTON IRVING, 139

The Shakers of New Yor]^, ARTEMUS WARD, 149
At Schoharie Crossing, WALTER D. EDMONDS, 154
Old Pennsylvania, BAYARD TAYLOR, 169
I. The Raising, 169
II. Old Kennett Meeting, 172

Hans Breitmann in Maryland, CHARLES G. LELAND, 17
The Courier of the Czar, ELSIE SINGMASTER, 180
How I Found America, ANZIA YEZIERSKA, 196
Mister Morgan, A Portrait, THE STAFF OF Fortune f 209
Riveters in Manhattan, THE STAFF OF Fortune, 222
The Future of the Great City, STUART CHASE, 227

• • •

Vlll

The South

Southern Scenes

1. The Cotton Boll, HENRY TIMROD, 243

2. The Edge of the Swamp, WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS, 244

3. Charleston in the Seventies, EDWARD KING, 246

4. The Old Monteano Plantation, CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOL-
SON, 249

5. Belles Demoiselles, GEORGE WASHINGTON CABLE, 250

6. Contemplation in New Orleans, JOSEPH HERGESHEIMER, 252

7. Voudou Stronghold, FRANCES and EDWARD LAROCQUE
TINKER, 253

8. Virginia Farms, ELLEN GLASGOW, 253
Southern Anecdotes

1. A Change in the Judiciary, DAVID CROCKETT, 256

2. Kentucky Shooting, JOHN JAMES AUDUBON, 258

3. The Confederate Line, SIDNEY LANIER, 260

4. Jim Bludso of the Prairie Belle, JOHN HAY, 263

5. Caleb Catlum Meets John Henry, VINCENT MCHUGH, 265
Andrew Jackson, GERALD w. JOHNSON, 269

The Big Bear of Arkansas, T. B. THORPE, 274
Louisiana Journal, LESTANT PRUDHOMME, 278
Learning the River, MARK TWAIN, 287
Uncle Remus, JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS, 298
I. The Wonderful Tar-Baby Story, 298
II. How Mr. Rabbit Was Too Sharp for Mr. Fox, 299
Negro Songs

1. Mary Wore Three Links of Chain, 302

2. Revival Hymn, JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS, 303

3. Boll Weevil Song, 304

4. Coon Can (Poor Boy), 305

The Quare Women, LUCY FURMAN, 307 •
Daughter, ERSKINE CALDWELL, 320

Cotton Mill, SHERWOOD ANDERSON, 325

Reconstructed But Unregenerate, JOHN CROWE RANSOM, 339

The Middle West

Midwestern Portraits

1. A Dakota, FRANCIS PARKMAN, 353

2. Ishmael Bush, JAMES FENIMORE COOPER, 353

3. The Indian Hater, JAMES HALL, 354

4. The Doubledays, CAROLINE KIRKLAND, 355

5. Paul Bunyan, JAMES STEVENS, 357

6. Dick Garland, Lumberman, HAMLIN GARLAND, 357

7. The. Meek, E. w. HOWE, 359

8. The Proud Farmer, VACHEL LINDSAY, 360

9. Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight, VACHEL LINDSAY, 361
10. Ignatius Donnelly, JOHN D. HICKS, 362

n. Curtis Jadwin, FRANK NORRIS, 363

12. The Village Radical, SINCLAIR LEWIS, 364

13. Don Carlos Taft, HAMLIN GARLAND, 364

14. Mrs. Harling, WILLA GATHER, 365

15. Essie, RUTH SUCKOW, 366
Episodes in the Great Valley

1. Girl Hunting, CAROLINE KIRKLAND, 367

2. A Theater on the Ohio, SOL. SMITH, 369

3. Corner Lots, EDWARD EGGLESTON, 371

4. Among the Free Lovers, ARTEMUS WARD, 374

5. Hallowe'en, SHERWOOD ANDERSON, 376

6. First Blood, ROBERT HERRICK, 378
Pay ton Sfyah, WILLIAM JOSEPH SNELLING, 381
Spelling Down the Master, EDWARD EGGLESTON, 389

The Meanest Man in Spring County, JOSEPH KIRKLAND, 396

Colonel Sellers at Home, MARK TWAIN, 404

Threshing Day, HAMLIN GARLAND, 414

A Boyhood in the Bush, THOMAS j. LE BLANC, 421

Pacfyngtown, UPTON SINCLAIR, 430

Getting on the Chicago "Globe" THEODORE DREISER, 439

/ Was Marching, MERIDEL LE SUEUR, 444

The Middle West, FREDERICK j. TURNER, 453

The Far West

Scenes of the Far West

1. The Silence of the Plains, OLE E. ROLVAAG, 471

2. Homesteaders in Caravan, OLE E. ROLVAAG, 471

3. The Great American Desert, MARK TWAIN, 472

4. Fort Laramie, FRANCIS PARKMAN, 473

5. The Crest of the Divide, WASHINGTON IRVING, 475

6. Snow in the High Sierras, BRET HARTE, 477

7. Acoma, the City of the Sky, CHARLES F. LUMMIS, 478

8. The Harbor of Santa Barbara, RICHARD HENRY DANA, 480

9. By the Sun-Down Seas, JOAQUIN MILLER, 482
10. Polk Street, FRANK NORRIS, 483

n. Point Joe, ROBINSON JEFFERS, 485
Men and Deeds in the Far West

1. Rendezvous of Mountain Men, WASHINGTON IRVING, 487

2. Buffalo Hunting, FRANCIS PARKMAN, 489

3. The Pony Express, MARK TWAIN, 491

4. Little Breeches, JOHN HAY, 492

5. When You Call Me That, Smile, OWEN WISTER, 494

6. Appanoose Jim and His Friends, JAMES STEVENS, 496
The Feudal Lords of Spanish Days, HARVEY FERGUSSON, 500

The Golden Army Tal(es the California Trail, ARCHER BUTLER

HULBERT, 511

Tennessee's Partner, BRET HARTE, 517
Beechers Island, JOHN G. NEIHARDT, 526
Songs of the Broad Prairie

1. As I Walked Out on the Streets of Laredo, 545

2. When the Work's All Done This Fall, 546

3. Whoopee, Ti Yi Yo, Git Along, Little Dogies, 547
The Cattleman's Frontier, ERNEST s. OSGOOD, 549

Midas on a Goatskin, j. FRANK DOBIE, 565
Dubious Battle in California, JOHN STEINBECK, 574
The Spirit of the West, WILLIAM T. FOSTER, 579

These States

American Attitudes

1. Representative Government, JAMES FENIMORE COOPER, 591

2. Aristocrat vs Democrat, JAMES FENIMORE COOPER, 592

3. Self Reliance, RALPH WALDO EMERSON, 593

4. American Government, HENRY THOREAU, 595

5. Panacea for the Republic, HORACE MANN, 595

6. Letter to Horace Greeley, ABRAHAM LINC'OLN, 597

7. The Coach of Society, EDWARD BELLAMY, 598

8. The Class Struggle, JACK LONDON, 599

9. Le Contrat Social, H. L. MENCKEN, 602

10. America for Humanity, WOODROW WILSON, 603
n. Private Leslie Yawfitz, WILLIAM MARCH, 604

12. Unemployed: 2 A.M., s. FUNAROFF, 605

13. I Am the People, the Mob, CARL SANDBURG, 606

14. A Tall Man, CARL SANDBURG, 606

The Fortune of the Republic, RALPH WALDO EMERSON, 608
American Vistas, WALT WHITMAN, 622
I. American Feuillage, 622

11. Thou Mother with Thy Equal Brood, 626

What's Wrong with the United States, THOMAS JEFFERSON WERTEN-

BAKER, 632

These "United" States, WILLIAM B. MUNRO, 643
Sentimental America, HENRY SEIDEL CANBY, 651
The Myth of Rugged American Individualism, CHARLES BEARD, 660
Culture Versus Colonialism in America, HERBERT AGAR, 674
The American Plan, JOHN DOS PASSOS, 682
The American Dream, JAMES TRUSLOW ADAMS, 687

TABLE OF CONTENTS ARRANGED BY TYPES OF WRIT-
ING, 701

xil

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The editors gratefully acknowledge the kindness of publishers and
individuals in granting permission to reprint the following material
in this book:

D. APPLETON-CENTURY COMPANY for a selection from Widows
Only (copyright 1931), by Frances and Edward Larocque Tinker;
selections from the journal of Lestant Prudhomme, published in
Old Louisiana (copyright 1929), by Lyle Saxton.

CHARLES BEARD and THE JOHN DAY COMPANY for "The Myth of
Rugged American Individualism" (copyright 1931).

BRANDT AND BRANDT, literary agents, for "The American Plan"
from The Big Money, published by Harcourt, Brace and Company
(copyright 1933, 1934, 1935, 1936), by John Dos Passos.

HENRY SEIDEL CANBY and FARRAR AND RINEHART for a selection
from The Age of Confidence (copyright 1934).

J. FRANK DOBIE and THE SOUTHWEST PRESS for "Midas on a
Goatskin" from Coronado's Children (copyright 1931).

DOUBLEDAY, DORAN AND COMPANY for passages from McTeague
(copyright 1899, 1927) and The Pit (copyright 1903, 1931), by
Frank Norris.

E. P. DUTTON AND COMPANY for a selection from The Flowering
of New England (copyright 1936), by Van Wyck Brooks.

WALTER D. EDMONDS, The Forum, and LITTLE, BROWN AND
COMPANY for "At Schoharie Crossing" from Mostly Canallers
(copyright 1934).

FARRAR AND RINEHART for a passage from The Folios (copyright
1934), by Ruth Suckow.

The Forum for "These 'United' States" (copyright 1931), by
William B. Monro.

WILLIAM T. FOSTER and The Atlantic Monthly for "The Spirit
of the West" (copyright 1920).

S. FUNAROFF for "Unemployed : 2 A.M." from The Spider and the
(copyright 1938).

Xlll

ELLEN GLASGOW and DOUBLEDAY, DORAN AND COMPANY for a
selection from Barren Ground (copyright 1925, 1933).

HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY for selections from The Last
Adam (copyright 1933), by James Gould Cozzens; selections from
American Songbag (copyright 1927), edited by Carl Sandburg; a
passage from Main Street (copyright 1920), by Sinclair Lewis;
"Sentimental America" from Definitions (copyright 1922), by
Henry Seidel Canby.

HARPER AND BROTHERS for "Reconstructed But Unregenerate" by
John Crowe Ransom, from /'// TaJ(e My Stand (copyright 1930) ;
passages from Giants in the Earth (copyright 1927), by O. E.
Rolvaag.

Harper's Magazine for "Why Is a Bostonian?" (copyright 1916),
by Harrison Rhodes; "New England, There She Stands" (copy-
right 1932), by Bernard DeVoto.

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY for "The Middle West" from The
Frontier in American History (copyright 1920), by Frederick J.
Turner; "The Death of the Hired Man" from Collected Poems
(copyright 1930), by Robert Frost; "I Am the People, the Mob"
from Chicago Poems (copyright 1916) and "A Tall Man" from
Cornhus^ers (copyright 1918), by Carl Sandburg.

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY for a selection from The Rise of
Silas Lap ham (copyright 1884), by William Dean Ho wells; "The
Courier of the Czar" from Bred in the Bone (copyright 1925), by
Elsie Singmaster; a passage from My Antonia (copyright 1918), by
Willa Gather; a passage from Looking Backward (copyright 1888),
by Edward Bellamy; "Culture versus Colonialism" from The Law
of the Free (copyright 1936), by Herbert Agar; selections from the
collected works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Henry Thoreau, James
Russell Lowell, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson.

ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC. for a selection from Quiet Cities (copy-
right 1928), by Joseph Hergesheimer; selections from Paul Bunyan
(copyright 1925) and Brawnyman (copyright 1926), by James
Stevens; a passage from Prejudices: Third Series (copyright 1922),
by H. L. Mencken; "The Feudal Lords of the Spanish Days" from
Rio Grande (copyright 1933), by Harvey Fergusson.

THOMAS J. LEBLANC for "A Boyhood in the Bush" (copyright
1924).

MAXIM LIEBER, authors' representative, and THE NEW MASSES
xiv

for "I Was Marching" (copyright 1934), by Meridel Le Sueur;
MAXIM LIEBER for a passage from Company K (copyright 1933),
by William March.

J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY for extracts from New Yor^: City of
Cities (copyright 1937), by Hulbert Footner; a selection from
Travels in Philadelphia (copyright 1920), by Christopher Morley.

LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY for "The Quare Women" from
The Quare Women, an Atlantic Monthly Press publication (copy-
right 1923), by Lucy Furman; a selection from The Forty-Niners
(copyright 1931), by Archer Butler Hulbert; a chapter from The
Epic of America (copyright 1931), by James Truslow Adams.

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY for "Mr. Flood's Party" from Collected
Poems (copyright 1924), by Edwin Arlington Robinson; "The
Future of the Great City" from The Nemesis of American Business
(copyright 1933), by Stuart Chase; passages from A Son of the
Middle Border (copyright 1917), by Hamlin Garland; "The Proud
Farmer" and "Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight" from Col-
lected Poems (copyright 1925), by Vachel Lindsay; an extract from
The Memoirs of an American Citizen (copyright 1905), by Robert
Herrick; an extract from The Virginian (copyright 1902), by Owen
Wister; "Beecher's Island" from The Song of the Indian Wars
(copyright 1925), by John G. Neihardt.

ROBERT M. McBRiDE AND COMPANY for "Strike!" from The
Shadow Before (copyright 1934)? by William Rollins, Jr.

The Nation for "Dubious Battle in California" (copyright 1936),
by John Steinbeck.

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS for a selection from Andrew Jackson (copy-
right 1927), by Gerald W. Johnson.

RANDOM HOUSE, INC. for "Point Joe" from Roan Stallion, Tamar
and Other Poems (copyright 1924, 1925, 1935), by Robinson JerTers.

PAUL ROSENFELD for a selection from Port of New Yor^ (copy-
right 1924).

LOUISE KIRKLAND SANBORN for a selection from Zury (copyright
1887), by Joseph Kirkland.

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS for passages from The New Cosmopolis
(copyright 1915), by James Huneker; "Cotton Mill" (copyright
1931), by Sherwood Anderson; a passage from The Land of Poco
Tiempo (copyright 1893, 1925), by Charles F. Lummis.

ELIZA LONDON SHEPHERD for a passage from The War of the
Classes (copyright 1905), by Jack London.

SIMON AND SCHUSTER, INC. for a selection from Newspaper Days
(copyright 1922), by Theodore Dreiser.

STACKPOLE SONS for a selection from Caleb Catlum's America
(copyright 1936), by Vincent McHugh.

THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA PRESS for a passage from The
Populist Revolt (copyright 1931), by John D. Hicks; "The Cattle-
man's Frontier" from The Day of the Cattleman (copyright 1929),
by Ernest Osgood; and "Payton Skah" from Tales of the Northwest,
by William Joseph Snelling.

THE VIKING PRESS, INC. for "Daughter" from Kneel to the Rising
Sun (copyright 1935), by Erskine Caldwell; a passage from A
Story Teller's Story (copyright 1922), by Sherwood Anderson.

THOMAS JEFFERSON WERTENBAKER for "What's Wrong with the
United States" (copyright 1928).

TREMAINE MCDOWELL WINFIELD H. ROGERS

JOHN T. FLANAGAN HAROLD A. BLAINE

University of Minnesota Western Reserve University

A WORD CONCERNING THE DECORATIONS

Like the prose and poetry in this volume, the decorations by
Rockwell Kent first appeared elsewhere. With the approval of the
artist, drawings from an edition of Herman Melville's Moby Dic\
are reproduced through the courtesy of R. R. Donnelley & Sons
Company, Chicago, and from an edition of Walt Whitman's Leaves
of Grass through the courtesy of The Heritage Press, New York.

T.M.

xvi

England

ustration for Moby Dick, courtesy of R

by & Sons Company

England

1. The Landlady's Daughter

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES

What do you think of these verses, my friends? — Is that piece an
impromptu? said my landlady's daughter. (Aet. 19+* Tender-eyed
blonde. Long ringlets. Cameo pin. Gold pencil-case on a chain.
Locket. Bracelet. Album. Autograph book. Accordeon. Reads Byron,
Tupper, and Sylvanus Cobb, Junior, while her mother makes the
puddings. Says "Yes?" when you tell her anything.) — Ouiet non, ma
petite, — Yes and no, my child. Five of the seven verses were written
off-hand; the other two took a week, — that is, were hanging round
the desk in a ragged, forlorn, unrhymed condition as long as
that. . . .

"Yes?" said our landlady's daughter.

I did not address the following remark to her, and I trust, from
her limited range of reading, she will never see it; I said it softly to
my next neighbor.

When a young female wears a flat circular side-curl, gummed on
each temple, — when she walks with a male, not arm in arm, but
his arm against the back of hers, — and when she says "Yes?" with
the note of interrogation, you are generally safe in asking her what
wages she gets, and who the "feller" was you saw her with.

"What were you whispering?" said the daughter of the house,
moistening her lips, as she spoke, in a very engaging manner.

"I was only laying down a principle of social diagnosis."

"Yes?"

The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, 1858

2. The Woodchuck Cap

HENRY THOREAU

Passed a very little boy in the street to-day who had on a home-
made cap of a woodchuck's skin, which his father or older brother
had killed and cured and his mother or older sister had fashioned

into a nice warm cap. I was interested by the sight of it; it suggested
so much of family history, adventure with the animal, story told
about it, not without exaggeration, the human parents, care of their
young these hard times. Johnny had been promised a cap many
times, and now the work was completed. A perfect little Idyl, as
they say. The cap was large and round, big enough, you would say,
for the boy's father, and had some kind of cloth visor stitched to it.
The top of the cap was evidently the back of the woodchuck, as it
were, expanded in breadth, contracted in length, and it was as fresh
and handsome as if the woodchuck wore it himself. The great gray-
tipped hairs were all preserved and stood out above the brown ones,
only a little more loosely than in life. As if he had put his head into
the belly of a woodchuck, having cut off his tail and legs, and
substituted a visor for the head. The little fellow wore it innocently
enough, not knowing what he had on forsooth, going about his
small business pit-a-pat, and his black eyes sparkled beneath it when
I remarked on its warmth, even as the woodchuck's might have done.
Such should be the history of every piece of clothing that we wear.

Early Spring in Massachusetts, 1881

3. Yankee Canaler

HENRY THOREAU

There were several canal-boats at Cromwell's Falls passing through
the locks, for which we waited. In the forward part of one stood a
brawny New Hampshire man, leaning on his pole, bareheaded and
in shirt and trousers only, a rude Apollo of a man, coming down
from that "vast uplandish country" to the main; of nameless age,
with flaxen hair, and vigorous, weather-bleached countenance, in
whose wrinkles the sun still lodged, as little touched by the heats
and frosts and withering cares of life as a maple of the mountain;
an undressed, unkempt, uncivil man, with whom we parleyed
awhile and parted not without a sincere interest in one another.
His humanity was genuine and instinctive, and his rudeness only a
manner. He inquired, just as we were passing out of earshot, if we
had killed anything, and we shouted after him that we had shot a
buoy, and could see him for a long while scratching his head in vain
to know if he had heard aright.

A Weef( on the Concord and Merrimac\ Rivers, 1849

4. A Cape Cod Wrecker

HENRY THOREAU

We soon met one of these wreckers, — a regular Cape Cod man,
with whom we parleyed, with a bleached and weatherbeaten face,
within whose wrinkles I distinguished no particular feature. It was
like an old sail endowed with life, — a hanging-cliff of weather-
beaten flesh, — like one of the clay boulders which occurred in that
sand-bank. He had on a hat which had seen salt water, and a coat of
many pieces and colors, though it was mainly the color of the
beach, as if it had been sanded. His variegated back — for his coat
had many patches, even between the shoulders — was a rich
study to us when we had passed him and looked round. It might
have been dishonorable for him to have so many scars behind, it is
true, if he had not had many more and more serious ones in front.
He looked ... too grave to laugh, too tough to cry; as indifferent
as a clam, — like a sea-clam with hat on and legs, that was out walking
the strand. He may have been one of the Pilgrims, — Peregrine
White, at least — who has kept on the back side of the Cape, and
let the centuries go by. He was looking for wrecks, old logs, water-
logged and covered with barnacles, or bits of boards and joists, even
chips which he drew out of the reach of the tide and stacked up to
dry. When the log was too large to carry far, he cut it up where the
last wave had left it, or rolling it a few feet, appropriated it by stick-
ing two sticks into the ground crosswise above it. Some rotten trunk,
which in Maine. cumbers the ground and is, perchance, thrown into
the water on purpose, is here thus carefully picked up, split and
dried, and husbanded. Before winter the wrecker painfully carries
these things up the bank on his shoulders by a long diagonal slant-
ing path made with a hoe in the sand, if there is no hollow at hand.
You may see his hooked pike-staff always lying on the bank, ready
for use. He is the true monarch of the beach, whose "right there is
none to dispute/' and he is as much identified with it as a beach-
bird.

Cape Cod, 1865

5. Captain Ahab

HERMAN MELVILLE

There seemed no sign of common bodily illness about him nor of
the recovery from any. He looked like a man cut away from the
stake, when the fire has overrunningly wasted all the limbs without
consuming them, or taking away one particle from their compacted
aged robustness. His whole high, broad form seemed made of solid
bronze and shaped in an unalterable mould, like Cellini's cast of
Perseus. Threading its way out from among his grey hairs and con-
tinuing right down one side of his tawny scorched face and neck,
till it disappeared in his clothing, you saw a slender rod-like mark,
lividly whitish. It resembled that perpendicular seam sometimes
made in the straight, lofty trunk of a great tree, when the upper
lightning tearingly darts down it. ...

So powerfully did the whole grim aspect of Ahab affect me, and
the livid brand which streaked it, that for the first few moments
I hardly noted that not a little of this overbearing grimness was
owing to the barbaric white leg upon which he partly stood. It had
previously come to me that this ivory leg had at sea been fashioned
from the polished bone of the sperm whale's jaw. "Aye, he was
dismasted off Japan/' said the old Gay-Head Indian once; "but like
his dismasted craft, he shipped another mast without coming home
for it. He has a quiver of 'em."

I was struck with the singular posture he maintained. Upon each
side of the Pe quod's quarter-deck and pretty close to the mizzen
shrouds, there was an auger hole, bored about half an inch or so
into the plank. His bone leg steadied in that hole, one arm elevated,
and holding by a shroud, Captain Ahab stood erect, looking straight
out beyond the ship's ever-pitching prow. There was an infinity of
firmest fortitude, a determinate, unsurrenderable wilfulness, in
the fixed and fearless, forward dedication of that glance. Not a word
he spoke; nor did his officers say aught to him, though by all their
minutest gestures and expressions, they plainly showed the uneasy,
if not painful, consciousness of being under a troubled master-eye.
And not only that, but moody, stricken Ahab stood before them
with an apparently eternal anguish in his face, in all the nameless,
regal, overbearing dignity of some mighty woe.

Moby Dicl^9 1851

6. Thaddeus Stevens

PHOEBE GARY

An eye with the piercing eagle's fire,

Not the look of the gentle dove;
Not his the form that men admire,

Nor the face that tender women love.

Working first for his daily bread

With the humblest toilers of the earth;
Never walking with free, proud tread —

Crippled and halting from his birth.

Wearing outside a thorny suit

Of sharp, sarcastic, stinging power;
Sweet at the core as sweetest fruit,

Or inmost heart of fragrant flower.

Fierce and trenchant, the haughty foe

Felt his words like a sword of flame;
But to the humble, poor, and low

Soft as a woman's his accents came.

Not his the closest, tenderest friend —

No children blessed his lonely way;
But down in his heart until the end

The tender dream of his boyhood lay.

His mother's faith he held not fast;

But he loved her living, mourned her dead,
And he kept her memory to the last

As green as the sod above her bed.

He held as sacred in his home
Whatever things she wrought or planned,

And never suffered change to come
To the work of her "industrious hand."

For her who pillowed first his head
He heaped with a wealth of flowers the grave,

While he chose to sleep in an unmarked bed,
By his Master's humblest poor — the slave!

Suppose he swerved from the straightest course —
That the things he should not do he did —

That he hid from the eyes of mortals, close,
Such sins as you and I have hid?

Poems of Faith, Hope, and Love, 1874

7. Wendell Phillips

AMOS BRONSON ALCOTT

People's Attorney, servant of the Right!
Pleader for all shades of the solar ray,
Complexions dusky, yellow, red, or white;
Who, in thy country's and thy time's despite,
Hast only questioned, What will Duty say?
And followed swiftly in her narrow way:
Tipped is thy tongue with golden eloquence,
All honeyed accents fall from off thy lips, —
Each eager listener his full measure sips,
Yet runs to waste the sparkling opulence, —
The scorn of bigots, and the worldling's flout,
If Time long held thy merit in suspense,
Hastening, repentant now, with pen devout,
Impartial History dare not leave thee out.

Sonnets and Canzonets, 1882

8. Miss Asphyxia Smith

HARRIET BEECHER STOWE

Miss Asphyxia was tall and spare. Nature had made her, as she
often remarked of herself, entirely for use. She had allowed for her
muscles no cushioned repose of fat, no redundant smoothness of
outline. There was nothing to her but good, strong, solid bone, and
tough, wiry, well-strung muscle. She was past fifty, and her hair was
already well streaked with gray and so thin that, when tightly combed
and tied, it still showed bald cracks, not very sightly to the eye.

The only thought that Miss Asphyxia ever had had in relation to
the coiffure of her hair was that it was to be got out of her way.
Hair she considered principally as something that might get into
people's eyes, if not properly attended to; and accordingly, at a very
early hour every morning, she tied all hers in a very tight knot and
then secured it by a horn comb on the top of her head. To tie this
knot so tightly that, once done, it should last all day, was Miss
Asphyxia's only art of the toilet, and she tried her work every morn-
ing by giving her head a shake, before she left her looking-glass, not
unlike that of an unruly cow. If this process did not start the horn
comb from its moorings, Miss Asphyxia was well pleased. For the
rest, her face was dusky and wilted, — guarded by gaunt, high cheek-
bones, and watched over by a pair of small gray eyes of unsleeping
vigilance. The shaggy eyebrows that overhung them were grizzled,
like her hair.

Oldtown Folt(s, 1869

9. Miss Mehitabel Rossiter

HARRIET BEECHER STOWE

Next came the pew of Miss Mehitable Rossiter, who, in right of
being the only surviving member of the family of the former min-
ister, was looked upon with reverence in Oldtown and took rank
decidedly in the Upper House, although a very restricted and lim-
ited income was expressed in the quality of her attire. Her Sunday
suit in every article spoke of ages past, rather than of the present
hour. Her laces were darned, though still they were laces; her satin
gown had been turned and made over, till every possible capability
of it was exhausted; and her one Sunday bonnet exhibited a power
of coming out in fresh forms, with each revolving season, that was
quite remarkable, particularly as each change was somewhat odder
than the last. But still, as everybody knew that it was Miss Mehitable
Rossiter and no meaner person, her queer bonnets and dyed gowns
were accepted as a part of those inexplicable dispensations of the
Providence that watches over the higher classes, which are to be
received by faith alone.

Oldtown FolJ(st 1869

10. Thoreau

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

It was said of Plotinus that he was ashamed of his body, and 't is
very likely he had good reason for it, — that his body was a bad
servant and he had not skill in dealing with the material world, as
happens often to men of abstract intellect. But Mr. Thoreau was
equipped with a most adapted and serviceable body. He was of
short stature, firmly built, of light complexion, with strong, serious
blue eyes, and a grave aspect, — his face covered in the late years with
a becoming beard. His senses were acute, his frame well-knit and
hardy, his hands strong and skilful in the use of tools. And there was
a wonderful fitness of body and mind. He could pace sixteen rods
more accurately than another man could measure them with rod
and chain. He could find his path in the woods at night, he said,
better by his feet than his eyes. He could estimate the measure of a
tree very well by his eye; he could estimate the weight of a calf or
a pig, like a dealer. From a box containing a bushel or more of loose
pencils, he could take up with his hands fast enough just a dozen
pencils at every grasp. He was a good swimmer, runner, skater,
boatman, and would probably outwalk most countrymen in a day's
journey. And the relation of body to mind was still finer than we
have indicated. He said he wanted every stride his legs made. The
length of his walk uniformly made the length of his writing. If shut
up in the house he did not write at all.

Atlantic Monthly, August, 1862

11. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

WILLIAM WETMORE STORY

A pure sweet spirit, generous and large

Was thine, dear poet. Calm, unturbulent,

Its course along Life's varying ways it went,

Like some broad river on whose happy marge

Are noble groves, lawns, towns — which takes the charge

Of peaceful freights from inward regions sent

For human use and help and heart's content,

And bears Love's sunlit sails and Beauty's barge.

So brimming, deepening ever to the sea
Through gloom and sun, reflecting inwardly
The ever-changing heavens of day and night,
Thy life flowed on, from all low passions free,
Filled with high thoughts, charmed into Poesy
To all the world a solace and delight.

Poems, 1856

12. James Russell Lowell

VAN WYCK BROOKS

Meanwhile, the son of another Cambridge worthy, James Russell
Lowell, who lived at "Elmwood," — his father's house, the last in
Tory Row, — had also appeared as a man of letters. A little younger
than Dana, he had similar traits, although he was tethered to Cam-
bridge not by conscience but by an affection for the genius loci. With
the same animal spirits and boyish charm, he loved the soil as Dana
loved the sea. He felt the thrill of the earth under his feet and soaked
in the sunshine like a melon. Short, muscular, stocky, and shaggy, —
his friend William Page had painted him with long blond curls and
a pointed beard, a black jacket and a lace collar, as if he were some-
thing more than a reader of Shakespeare, — he liked to think that
his ear suggested a faun's. He had an air of the world, although he
was rather self-conscious, even a little jaunty. He seemed to be
pleased with himself and his early success, mercurial, impressionable,
plastic; but under the romantic, susceptible surface there was some-
thing timid, hard and wooden that was to show in the grain at cer-
tain moments. There was a streak of jealousy in him, an irreducible
amour-propre, an over-hasty zeal for "the niche and the laurel." He
was much at ease in all the Zions, and there were those who even
thought him shallow and found his self-confident air very provoking.
In fact, he was exuberant and impulsive, and, if there was some-
thing wooden in him, there was also something rich and buoyant.
His fancy was luxuriant. He was the cleverest young man in Cam-
bridge, and even the most intelligent. He had the makings of a first-
rate scholar. But his leading trait was a gift of pure enjoyment,
whether of books or garden-flowers, walking, talking, smoking,
drinking, reading, a gusto that was new in Brattle Street. He was a
capital idler. He could lie on his back for days on end, dreaming in

T T

the fragrant air or conning some Elizabethan poet. Moreover, he,
like Dana, had his trances, every year, when June, from its southern
ambush, "with one great gush of blossom stormed the world."

The Flowering of New England, 1936

13. The Camp Cook

WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS

Kinney was the cook. He had been over pretty nearly the whole
uninhabitable globe, starting as a gaunt and awkward boy from
the Maine woods and keeping until he came back to them in late
middle-life the same gross and ridiculous optimism. He had been
at sea, and shipwrecked on several islands in the Pacific; he had
passed a rainy season at Panama, and a yellow-fever season at Vera
Cruz, and had been carried far into the interior of Peru by a tidal
wave during an earthquake season; he was in the Border Ruffian
War of Kansas, and he clung to California till prosperity deserted
her after the completion of the Pacific road. Wherever he went, he
carried or found adversity; but, with a heart fed on the metaphysics
of Horace Greeley, and buoyed up by a few wildly interpreted
maxims of Emerson, he had always believed in other men, and their
fitness for the terrestrial millennium, which was never more than
ten days or ten miles off. It is not necessary to say that he had con-
tinued as poor as he began, and that he was never able to contribute
to those railroads, mills, elevators, towns, and cities which were sure
to be built, sir, sure to be built, wherever he went. When he came
home at last to the woods, some hundreds of miles north of Equity,
he found that some one had realized his early dream of a summer
hotel on the shore of the beautiful lake there; and he unenviously
settled down to admire the landlord's thrift, and to act as guide and
cook for parties of young ladies and gentlemen who started from
the hotel to camp in the woods. This brought him into the society
of cultivated people, for which he had a real passion. He had always
had a few thoughts rattling round in his skull, and he liked to make
sure of them in talk with those who had enjoyed greater advantages
than himself. He never begrudged them their luck; he simply and
sweetly admired them; he made studies of their several characters,
and .was never tired of analyzing them to their advantage to the
next summer's parties. Late in the fall, he went in, as it is called, with

a camp of loggers, among whom he rarely failed to find some re-
markable men. But he confessed that he did not enjoy the steady
three or four months in the winter woods with no coming out at all
till spring; and he had been glad of this chance in a logging camp
near Equity, in which he had been offered the cook's place by the
owner who had tested his fare in the Northern woods the summer
before. Its proximity to the village allowed him to loaf in upon
civilization at least once a week, and he spent the greater part of his
time at the Free Press office on publication day. He had always
sought the society of newspaper men, and, wherever he could, he
had given them his.

A Modern Instance, 1881

14. James Cardmaker

JAMES GOULD COZZENS

The old man procrastinated. He considered himself a genealogical
authority, because the Boston Transcript had frequently published
letters of his about Connecticut families on its Saturday page. The
hobby gave him something to do, or t y to do, through the miserable
tedium of dying. He took notes which he did not appear to recognize
as the almost letterless scrawls his drooping hands made them. At
least once Doctor Bull found him puzzling, in a bewilderment
more grim, or even ghastly, than comic, over pages of books held
upside down. Like his pendent wrists, his skin-covered face without
flesh, his shoulders humped to his little round head, this confusion
of aimless, vaguely human activity suggested one thing only. When
you saw him shaking and shifting the book held upside down, you
saw, too, what James Cardmaker — his notes in the Transcript, his
historic house and name, his college-educated daughter, aside — really
was. Not merely evolved from, or like an ape, Mr. Cardmaker was
an ape. The only important dissimilarities would be his relative
hairlessness and inefficient teeth.

The Last Adam, 1933

15. Mrs. Talbot

JAMES GOULD COZZENS

The figure huddled on the dusty boards in the corner against the
splintered, cob-webbed manger made no move, so he went in.
"What's the trouble, Mrs. Talbot?" he said. He drew her to her feet,
and, compellingly, out into the better light. "That yours?" he asked,
pointing to the knife, put down beside his bag. "You'd better not
carry things like that around. You'll hurt yourself."

Her mouth, twisted as though she had bitten a lemon; her eyes,
angry and injured under the tangle of hair imperfectly pinned up,
smeared now with cobwebs, made her look like one of those fantastic,
miserably sinister women whose surfeit of misfortunes might once
have started the idea that she had some to spare, could visit them on
others. An earlier New England, .in social and religious self-defense,
had sometimes felt that hanging such people was its disagreeable
duty. To remove her cheaply and forever from human society no
means existed but interring her in the ground. Now, at Middletown,
the State of Connecticut had a tomb for incurable witches. Im-
personally patient, the state provided for their disappearance with a
certainty never reached by the haphazard methods of a magistrate
or a crowd. One could hide from the rope or evade the hunters;
the state's lethal process was old age and decay.

The Last Adam, 1933

Yankee Incidents

I. The Courtin'

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

God makes sech nights, all white an' still

Fur'z you can look or listen,
Moonshine an' snow on field an' hill,

All silence an' all glisten.

Zekle crep' up quite unbeknown
An' peeked in thru' the winder,
An' there sot Huldy all alone,
> 'ith no one nigh to hender.

A fireplace filled the room's one side

With half a cord o' wood in —
There warn't no stoves (tell comfort died)

To bake ye to a puddin'.

The wa'nut logs shot sparkles out

Towards the pootiest, bless her,
An' leetle flames danced all about

The chiny on the dresser.

Agin the chimbley crook-necks hung,

An' in amongst 'em rusted
The ole queen's-arm thet gran'ther Young

Fetched back f'om Concord busted.

The very room, coz she was in,

Seemed warm fom floor to ceilin',
An' she looked full ez rosy agin

Ez the apples she was peelin'.

'Twas kin' o' kingdom-come to look

On sech a blessed cretur,
A dogrose blushin' to a brook

Ain't modester nor sweeter.

He was six foot o' man, A i,

Clear grit an' human natur'.
None couldn't quicker pitch a ton

Nor dror a furrer straighter.

He'd sparked it with full twenty gals,
Hed squired 'em, danced 'em, druv 'em,

Fust this one, an' then thet, by spells —
All is, he couldn't love 'em.

But long o' her his veins 'ould run

All crinkly like curled maple,
The side she breshed felt full o' sun

Ez a south slope in Ap'il.

She thought no v'ice hed sech a swing

Ez hisn in the choir;
My! when he made Ole Hunderd ring,

She knowed the Lord was nigher.

An' she'd blush scarlit, right in prayer,
When her new meetin'-bunnet

Felt somehow thru' its crown a pair
O' blue eyes sot upun it.

Thet night, I tell ye, she looked some!

She seemed to Ve gut a new soul,
For she felt sartin-sure he'd come,

Down to her very shoe-sole.

She heered a foot, an' knowed it tu,

A-raspin' on the scraper, —
All ways to once her feelins flew

Like sparks in burnt-up paper.

He kin' o' 1'itered on the mat,

Some doubtfle o' the sekle,
His heart kep' goin' pity-pat,

But hern went pity Zekle.

An' yit she gin her cheer a jerk
Ez though she wished him furder,

An' on her apples kep' to work,
Parin' away like murder.

"You want to see my Pa, I s'pose?"
"Wai ... no ... I come dasignin — ' "

"To see my Ma? She's sprinklin' clo'es
Agin to-morrer's i'nin'."

To say why gals acts so or so,

Or don't, 'ould be persumin';
Mebby to mean yes an' say no

Comes nateral to women.

He stood a spell on one foot fust,

Then stood a spell on t'other,
An' on which one he felt the wust

He couldn't ha' told ye nuther.

Says he, "I'd better call agin;"

Says she, "Think likely, Mister:"
Thet last word pricked him like a pin,

An' . . . Wai, he up an' kist her.

When Ma bimeby upon 'em slips,

Huldy sot pale ez ashes,
All kin' o' smily roun' the lips

An' teary roun' the lashes.

For she was jes' the quiet kind

Whose naturs never vary,
Like streams that keep a summer mind

Snowhid in. Jenooary.

The blood clost roun' her heart felt glued

Too tight for all expressing
Tell mother see how metters stood,

An' gin 'em both her blessin'.

Then her red come back like the tide

Down to the Bay o' Fundy,
An' all I know is they was cried

In meetin* come nex' Sunday.

Biglow Papers, Second Series, 1867

2. The Dutchman and the Dog

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

We left our horse in the shed, and, entering the little unpainted
bar-room, we heard a voice, in a strange, outlandish accent, exclaim-
ing, "Diorama." It was an old man, with a full, gray-bearded counte-
nance, and Mr. Leach exclaimed, "Ah, here's the old Dutchman
again!" And he answered, "Yes, Captain, here's the old Dutch-
man,"— though, by the way, he is a German, and travels the country
with this diorama in a wagon, and had recently been at South Adams,
and was now returning from Saratoga Springs, We looked through
the glass orifice of his machine, while he exhibited a succession of
the very worst scratches and daubings that can be imagined, —
worn out, too, and full of cracks and wrinkles, dimmed with tobacco
smoke, and every other wise dilapidated. There were none in a later
fashion than thirty years since, except some figures that had been
cut from tailors' show-bills. There were views of cities and edifices
in Europe, of Napoleon's battles and Nelson's sea-fights, in the midst
of which would be seen a gigantic, brown, hairy hand (the Hand
of Destiny) pointing at the principal points of the conflict, while
the old Dutchman explained. He gave a good deal of dramatic
effect to his descriptions, but his accent and intonation cannot be
written. He seemed to take interest and pride in his exhibition;
yet when the utter and ludicrous miserability thereof made us laugh,
he joined in the joke very readily. When the last picture had been
shown, he caused a country boor, who stood gaping beside the
machine, to put his head within it, and thrust out his tongue. The
head becoming gigantic, a singular effect was produced.

The old Dutchman's exhibition being over, a great dog, apparently
an elderly dog, suddenly made himself the object of notice, evidently
in rivalship of the Dutchman. He had seemed to be a good-natured,
quiet kind of dog, offering his head to be patted by those who were
kindly disposed towards him. This great, old dog, unexpectedly,
and of his own motion, began to run round after his not very long
tail with the utmost eagerness; and, catching hold of it, he growled
furiously at it, and still continued to circle round, growling and
snarling with increasing rage, as if one half of his body were at
deadly enmity with the other. Faster and faster went he, round and
roundabout, growing still fiercer, till at last he ceased in a state of
utter exhaustion; but no sooner had his exhibition finished than he
became the same, mild, quiet, sensible old dog as before; and no one

could have suspected him of such nonsense as getting enraged with
his own tail. He was first taught this trick by attaching a bell to the
end of his tail; but he now commences entirely of his own accord, and
I really believe he feels vain at the attention he excites.

American Note-BooJ(s, 1868

3. Captain Nutter's Pipe

THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH

[Miss Abigail] had affected many changes in the Nutter House
before I came there to live; but there was one thing against which
she had long contended without being able to overcome. This was
the Captain's pipe. On first taking command of the household, she
had prohibited smoking in the sitting-room, where it had been the
old gentleman's custom to take a whiff or two of the fragrant weed
after meals. The edict went forth, — and so did the pipe. An excellent
move, no doubt; but then the house was his, and if he saw fit to keep
a tub of tobacco burning in the middle of the parlor floor, he had
a perfect right to do so. However, he humored her in this as in other
matters, and smoked by stealth, like a guilty creature, in the barn,
or about the gardens. That was practicable in summer, but in
winter the Captain was hard put to it. When he couldn't stand it
longer, he retreated to his bedroom and barricaded the door. Such
was the position of affairs at the time of which I write.

One morning, a few days after the great snow, as Miss Abigail
was dusting the chronometer in the hall, she beheld Captain Nutter
slowly descending the staircase, with a long clay pipe in his mouth.
Miss Abigail could hardly credit her own eyes.

"Dan'el!" she gasped, retiring heavily on the hatrack.

The tone of reproach with which this word was uttered failed
to produce the slightest effect on the Captain, who merely removed
the pipe from his lips for an instant, and blew a cloud into the chilly
air. The thermometer stood at two degrees below zero in our hall.

"Dan'el!" cried Miss Abigail, hysterically, — "Dan'el, don't come
near me!" Whereupon she fainted away; for the smell of tobacco-
smoke always made her deadly sick.

Kitty Collins rushed from the kitchen with a basin of water, and
set to work bathing Miss Abigail's temples and chafing her hands.
I thought my grandfather rather cruel, as he stood there with a

half-smile on his countenance, complacently watching Miss Abigail's
sufferings. When she was "brought to," the Captain sat down beside
her, and, with a lovely twinkle in his eye, said softly: —

"Abigail, my dear, there wasn't any tobacco in that pipe! It was a
new pipe. I fetched it down for Tom to blow soap-bubbles with."

The Story of a Bad Boy, 1868

4. Sunday

THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH

It is Sunday morning. I should premise by saying that the deep
gloom which has settled over everything set in like a heavy fog early
on Saturday evening.

At seven o'clock my grandfather comes smilelessly down stairs.
He is dressed in black, and looks as if he had lost all his friends
during the night. Miss Abigail, also in black, looks as if she were
prepared to bury them, and not indisposed to enjoy the ceremony.
Even Kitty Collins has caught the contagious gloom, as I perceived
when she brings in the coffee-urn, — a solemn and sculpturesque urn
at any time, but monumental now, — and sets it down in front of
Miss Abigail. Miss Abigail gazes at the urn as if it held the ashes
of her ancestors, instead of a generous quantity of fine old Java
coffee. The meal progresses in silence.

Our parlor is by no means thrown open every day. It is open this
June morning, and is pervaded by a strong smell of centre-table.
The furniture of the room, and the little China ornaments on the
mantelpiece, have a constrained, unfamiliar look. My grandfather
sits in a mahogany chair, reading a large Bible covered with green
baize. Miss Abigail occupies one end of the sofa, and has her hands
crossed stiffly in her lap. I sit in the corner, crushed. Robinson
Crusoe and Gil Bias are in close confinement. Baron Trenck, who
managed to escape from the fortress of Glatz, can't for the life of
him get out of our sitting-room closet. Even the Rivermouth Barnacle
is suppressed until Monday. Genial converse, harmless books, smiles,
lightsome hearts, all are banished. If I want to read anything, I can
read Baxter's Saints' Rest. I would die first. So I sit there kicking my
heels, thinking about New Orleans, and watching a morbid blue-
bottle fly that attempts to commit suicide by butting his head against
the window pane. Listen! — no, yes, — it is — it is the robins singing

in the garden, — the grateful, joyous robins singing away like mad,
just as if it wasn't Sunday. Their audacity tickles me.

My grandfather looks up, and inquires in a sepulchral voice if I
am ready for Sabbath school. It is time to go. I like the Sabbath
school; there are bright young faces there, at all events. When I get
out into the sunshine alone, I draw a long breath; I would turn a
somersault up against Neighbor Penhallow's newly painted fence
if I hadn't my best trousers on, so glad am I to escape from the op-
pressive atmosphere of the Nutter House.

Sabbath school over, I go to meeting, joining my grandfather, who
doesn't appear to be any relation to me this day, and Miss Abigail,
in the porch. Our minister holds out very little hope to any of us of
being saved. Convinced that I am a lost creature, in common with
the human family, I return home behind my guardians at a snail's
pace. We have a dead cold dinner. I saw it laid out yesterday.

There is a long interval between this repast and the second
service, and a still longer interval between the beginning and the
end of that service; for the Rev. Wibird Hawkins's sermons are none
of the shortest, whatever else they may be.

After meeting, my grandfather and I take a walk. We visit —
appropriately enough — a neighboring graveyard. I am by this time
in a condition of mind to become a willing inmate of the place. The
usual evening prayer-meeting is postponed for some reason. At half
past eight I go to bed.

The Story of a Bad Boy, 1868

5. Teaching Latin to the Cows

CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER

Speaking of Latin reminds me that I once taught my cows Latin.
I don't mean that I taught them to read it, for it is very difficult
to teach a cow to read Latin or any of the dead languages, — a cow
cares more for her cud than she does for all the classics put together.
But if you begin early you can teach a cow, or a calf (if you can
teach a calf anything, which I doubt), Latin as well as English.
There were ten cows, which I had to escort to and from pasture night
and morning. To these cows I gave the names of the Roman
numerals, beginning with Unus and Duo, and going up to Decem.
Decem was of course the biggest cow of the party, or at least she

was the ruler of the others, and had the place of honor in the stable
and everywhere else. I admire cows, and especially the exactness with
which they define their social position. In this case, Decem could
"lick" Novem, and Novem could "lick" Octo, and so on down to
Unus, who couldn't lick anybody, except her own calf. I suppose I
ought to have called the weakest cow Una instead of Unus, con-
sidering her sex; but I didn't care much to teach the cows the de-
clensions of adjectives, in which I was not very well up myself; and
besides it would be of little use to a cow. People who devote them-
selves too severely to study of the classics are apt to become dried
up; and you should never do anything to dry up a cow. Well, these
ten cows knew their names after a while, at least they appeared to,
and would take their places as I called them. At least, if Octo at-
tempted to get before Novem in going through the bars (I have
heard people speak of a "pair of bars" when there were six or eight
of them), or into the stable, the matter of precedence was settled then
and there, and once settled there was no dispute about it afterwards.
Novem either put her horns into Octo's ribs, and Octo shambled to
one side, or else the two locked horns and tried the game of push
and gore until one gave up. Nothing is stricter than the etiquette of
a party of cows.

Being a Boy, 1877

6. Mr. Flood's Party

EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON

Old Eben Flood, climbing alone one night
Over the hill, bet ween the town below
And the forsaken upland hermitage
That held as much as he should ever know
On earth again of home, paused warily.
The road was his with not a native near;
And Eben, having leisure, said aloud,
For no man else in Tilbury Town to hear:

"Well, Mr. Flood, we have the harvest moon
Again, and we may not have many more;
The bird is on the wing, the poet says,
And you and I have said it here before.

Drink to the bird." He raised up to the light
The jug that he had gone so far to fill,
And answered huskily : "Well, Mr. Flood,
Since you propose it, I believe I will."

Alone, as if enduring to the end

A valiant armor of scarred hopes outworn,

He stood there in the middle of the road

Like Roland's ghost winding a silent horn.

Below him, in the town among the trees,

Where friends of other days had honored him,

A phantom salutation of the dead

Rang thinly till old Eben's eyes were dim.

Then, as a mother lays her sleeping child

Down tenderly, fearing it may awake,

He set the jug down slowly at his feet

With trembling care, knowing that most things break;

And only when assured that on firm earth

It stood, as the uncertain lives of men

Assuredly did not, he paced away,

And with his hand extended paused again:

"Well, Mr. Flood, we have not met like this
In a long time; and many a change has come
To both of us, I fear, since last it was
We had a drop together. Welcome home!"
Convivially returning with himself,
Again he raised the jug up to the light;
And with an acquiescent quaver said:
"Well, Mr. Flood, if you insist, I might.

"Only a very little, Mr. Flood —

For auld lang syne. No more, sir; that will do."

So, for the time, apparently it did,

And Eben evidently thought so too;

For soon amid the silver loneliness

Of night he lifted up his voice and sang,

Secure, with only two moons listening,

Until the whole harmonious landscape rang —

"For auld lang syne." The weary throat gave out,
The last word wavered; and the song being done,

He raised again the jug regretfully
And shook his head, and was again alone.
There was not much that was ahead of him,
And there was nothing in the town below —
Where strangers would have shut the many doors
That many friends had opened long ago.

Avon's Harvest, 1921

7. Massachusetts Execution

UPTON SINCLAIR

The executioner stood behind a screen in one corner, to the left of
the death chair; he could look over the screen, and see when it was
time for him to earn his money. Two guards stood by the door
leading to the cell corridor, and when the warden signaled that all
was ready, they stepped back to the first cell, and unlocked the
door. Madeiros lay asleep — not setting much value upon his last
moments. The guards awakened him, stood him on his feet, and led
him, half dazed, into the execution chamber, closing the door be-
hind them, out of kindness for the occupants of the other two cells.

The victim had on short gray trousers, with a slit cut up each
leg, and a blue shirt with short sleeves, made especially for the
occasion. He was seated in the chair, and as quickly as possible, the
deputy warden and a guard buckled the straps which would hold
his hands and feet immovable. The electrodes, from which the
current was to enter the body, were fastened, one to each leg, and
a third, the headpiece, covering the entire top of the head; they
contained wet sponges, to afford perfect transmission.

They tied a bandage over the victim's eyes, and then stepped
back; all was ready. It was the warden's part to signal with his hand
to the executioner, who would then move a switch. Since this did
the actual killing, the theory was that the executioner alone was
responsible, and for carrying this heavy responsibility the Common-
wealth paid him the sum of two hundred and fifty dollars for each
of three motions of the hand — plus traveling expenses from his
retreat in New York.

He made the first motion, and there was a whir of the current,
and the body of Madeiros gave a sudden leap, which would have
jerked it from the chair if it had not been that the straps were heavy.

Human flesh became of the rigidity of steel, and stayed that way for
several minutes, with the current of nineteen hundred volts passing
through it. A ghastly odor of burning hair spread through the
death chamber.

The current was turned off, the body sank back limp into the
chair, and the warden signed to the medical examiners, who stepped
forward with their stethoscopes. At nine minutes and thirty-five
seconds past midnight they pronounced the Wrentham bank robber
dead, and the body was lifted from the chair and carried to one of
three newly painted slabs hidden behind a screen in the death
chamber. Nothing could exceed the sense of propriety of the great
Commonwealth of Massachusetts, or the decency with which it
prepared for the elimination of its enemies.

The door leading to the cells was opened again, and the two
guards went in to the second cell. Nicola Sacco was not asleep, but
waiting, to do his last duty as a revolutionist. He walked out be-
tween the guards; he entered the execution chamber, and looked
about him at the row of solemn witnesses, the deputies, the chair,
and the screen with the face peering over it. His own face was white
and haggard, his lips set, his whole expression that of defiance. He
walked directly to the chair and sat down; then, as the guards began
to adjust the straps, he lifted himself slightly, raised his voice, and
said, in what came as a shout in that still brick-walled chamber of
death: "Viva 1'anarchia!"

("You see!" said all Massachusetts, when they read about it with
their morning coffee and codfish balls. "We told you so! We knew it
all along!")

The guards paid no attention to any words. They went on with
swift fingers, as if they feared that some one might come to stop
them at the last moment. When they were through, and stepped
back, Sacco opened his lips again, and the warden withheld the
signal. "Farewell, my wife and children and all my friends!" Then,
as the warden was in the act of lifting his hand: "Good evening,
gentlemen. Farewell, Mother."

The cue was given, and the executioner moved the switch, and
the body leaped so that it was like a blow against the straps. Twenty-
one hundred volts was the executioner's estimate of what it would
take to rid Massachusetts of this wiry peasant; the amperage was
from seven to nine, and it was nineteen minutes and two seconds
after midnight when the medical examiners pronounced the duty
done. The body of Nicola Sacco was lifted from the chair, and carried
behind the screen and laid upon the second slab.

Then for the third and last time the door into the cell corridor
was opened, and the guards entered. Bartolomeo Vanzetti had sat
upon his cot alone, knowing what was happening in the adjoining
chamber, but it had not shaken his nerve; he had had seven years
in which to work out his system of self-discipline. "This is our
career and our triumph." He rose from his cot, and walked with
firm steps, the guards holding him, one by each arm. When they
entered the execution chamber, the guards released him, and he
looked at them — men whom he had known for a long time, and
whom he had taught to respect him, no longer to call him a wop.
They were poor fellows, who maybe had wives and children to
keep, and could not help what they were doing; so he turned to
them first, as became a proletarian martyr. "Good-bye," he said to
each, and held out his hand to each in turn, and shook their hands
firmly.

Then he turned to Deputy Warden Hogsett, and took both his
hands and wrung them. "Good-bye, I thank you for your courtesy
to me." And then to the warden, a big towering figure. Vanzetti
was quiet and at ease, as if he were welcoming visitors to his home.
"Warden, I want to thank you for all that you have done for me."
He held out his hand, and the warden took it.

("Jesus!" he said, to one of the reporters afterwards. "He shook
my hand, and then I had to raise it to give the signal!")

Vanzetti walked to the chair and sat down. Then he spoke — words
which he had made the subject of much thought. "I wish to tell you
that I am innocent and never committed any crime, but sometimes
some sin. I thank you for everything you have done for me. I am
innocent of all crime, not only of this one, but of all. I am an

innocent man."

The guards, well trained, went on with their work, paying no
attention to eloquence. The electrodes were adjusted, the straps
made fast. As a guard started to apply the bandage to Vanzetti's
eyes, he spoke again; it was the question which Cornelia had asked
him, and to which he had promised an answer. He gave it with all
the world for an audience. "I wish to forgive some people for what
they are now doing to me."

The guards stepped back, and the warden gave the signal; the
executioner moved the switch, and the body of Bartolomeo Vanzetti
leaped as the others had done. Nineteen hundred and fifty volts were
estimated to be sufficient for this less robust person, a dreamer and
a man of words rather than of action. Many, many words he had
both spoken and written, but now no more. The current was turned

off, and the medical men made their examination, and at twenty-six
minutes and fifty-five seconds past midnight they pronounced that
the last spark of anarchism had been extinguished from the august
Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The warden had a solemn formula
to recite, but his voice almost failed him, and not all the witnesses
heard the words: "Under the law I now pronounce you dead, the
sentence of the court having been legally carried out."

The third body was laid on the slab, and the doors of the execution
chamber were opened — it had grown very hot, with the many volts
of electricity and the tense emotions of martyrs. Also, the odor of
burned hair made one ill; the night breeze was very welcome. The
guards and witnesses went outside, and wiped the sweat from their
foreheads, and from the backs of their wilted collars. "Christ!" said
the deputy warden. "Did you hear what he said? He forgave me!
Now what do you make of that?"

Boston, 1928

LeviatJwn in

HERMAN MELVILLE

I. STUBB KILLS A WHALE

It was my turn to stand at the foremast-head; and with my
shoulders leaning against the slackened royal shrouds, to and fro I
idly swayed in what seemed an enchanted air. No resolution could
withstand it; in that dreamy mood losing all consciousness, at last
my soul went out of my body; though my body still continued to
sway as a pendulum will, long after the power which first moved
it is withdrawn.

Ere forgetf ulness altogether came over me, I had noticed that the
seamen at the main and mizen mast-heads were already drowsy. So
that at last all three of us lifelessly swung from the spars, and for
every swing that we made there was a nod from below from the
slumbering helmsman. The waves, too, nodded their indolent crests;
and across the wide trance of the sea, east nodded to west, and the
sun over all.

Suddenly bubbles seemed bursting beneath my closed eyes; like
vices my hands grasped the shrouds; some invisible, gracious agency
preserved me; with a shock I came back to life. And lo! close under
our lee, not forty fathoms off, a gigantic sperm whale lay rolling in
the water like the capsized hull of a frigate, his broad, glossy back,
of an Ethiopian hue, glistening in the sun's rays like a mirror. But
lazily undulating in the trough of the sea, and ever and anon tran-
quilly spouting his vapory jet, the whale looked like a portly burgher
smoking his pipe of a warm afternoon. But that pipe, poor whale,
was thy last. As if struck by some enchanter's wand, the sleepy ship
and every sleeper in it all at once started into wakef ulness; and more
than a score of voices from all parts of the vessel, simultaneously with
the three notes from aloft, shouted forth the accustomed cry, as the
great fish slowly and regularly spouted the sparkling brine into the
air.

"Clear away the boats! Luff!" cried Ahab. And obeying his own
order, he dashed the helm down before the helmsman could handle
the spokes.

The sudden exclamations of the crew must have alarmed the
whale; and ere the boats were down, majestically turning, he swam
away to the leeward, but with such a steady tranquillity, and making

so few ripples as he swam, that thinking after all he might not as
yet be alarmed, Ahab gave orders that not an oar should be used,
and no man must speak but in whispers. So seated like Ontario
Indians on the gunwales of the boats, we swiftly but silently paddled
along, the calm not admitting of the noiseless sails being set. Pres-
ently, as we thus glided in chase, the monster perpendicularly
flitted his tail forty feet into the air, and then sank out of sight like
a tower swallowed up.

"There go flukes!" was the cry, an announcement immediately
followed by Stubb's producing his match and igniting his pipe, for
now a respite was granted. After the full interval of his sounding
had elapsed, the whale rose again, and being now in advance of the
smoker's boat, and much nearer to it than to any of the others,
Stubb counted upon the honor of the capture. It was obvious, now,
that the whale had at length become aware of his pursuers. All
silence of cautiousness was therefore no longer of use. Paddles were
dropped, and oars came loudly into play. And still puffing at his pipe,
Stubb cheered on his crew to the assault.

Yes, a mighty change had come over the fish. All alive to his
jeopardy, he was going "head out," that part obliquely projecting
from the mad yeast which he brewed.

"Start her, start her, my men! Don't hurry yourselves; take plenty
of time — but start her; start her like thunder-claps, that's all," cried
Stubb, spluttering out the smoke as he spoke. "Start her, now; give
'em the long and strong stroke, Tashtego. Start her, Tash, my boy —
start her, all; but keep cool — cucumbers is the word — easy, easy — only
start her like grim death and grinning devils, and raise the buried
dead perpendicular out of their graves boys — that's all. Start her!"

"Woo-hoo! Wa-hee!" screamed the Gay-Header in reply, raising
some old war-whoop to the skies, as every oarsman in the strained
boat involuntarily bounced forward with the one tremendous lead-
ing stroke which the eager Indian gave.

But his wild screams were answered by others quite as wild.
"Kee-hee! Kee-hee!" yelled Daggoo, straining forwards and back-
wards on his seat, like a pacing tiger in his cage.

"Ka-la! Koo-loo!" howled Queequeg, as if smacking his lips over
a mouthful of Grenadier's steak. And thus with oars and yells the
keels cut the sea. Meanwhile, Stubb, retaining his place in the van,
still encouraged his men to the onset, all the while puffing the smoke
from his mouth. Like desperadoes they tugged and they strained,
till the welcome cry was heard — "Stand up, Tashtego! — give it to
him!" The harpoon was hurled. "Stern all!" The oarsmen backed

water; the same moment something went hot and hissing along
every one of their wrists. It was the magical line. An instant before,
Stubb had swiftly caught two additional turns with it round the
loggerhead, whence, by reason of its increased rapid circlings, a
hempen blue smoke now jetted up and mingled with the steady
fumes from his pipe. As the line passed round and round the logger-
head; so also, just before reaching that point, it blisteringly passed
through and through both of Stubb's hands, from which the hand-
cloths, or squares of quilted canvas sometimes worn at these times,
had accidentally dropped. It was like holding an enemy's sharp two-
edged sword by the blade, and that enemy all the time striving to
wrest it out of your clutch.

"Wet the line! wet the line!" cried Stubb to the tub oarsman (him
seated by the tub) who, snatching ofi his hat, dashed the seawater
into it. More turns were taken, so that the line began holding its
place. The boat now flew through the boiling water like a shark all
fins. Stubb and Tashtego here changed places — stem for stern — a
staggering business truly in that rocking commotion.

From the vibrating line extending the entire length of the upper
part of the boat, and from its now being more tight than a harp-
string, you would have thought the craft had two keels — one cleaving
the water, the other the air — as the boat churned on through both
opposing elements at once. A continual cascade played at the bows,
a ceaseless whirling eddy in her wake; and, at the slightest motion
from within, even but of a little finger, the vibrating, cracking craft
canted over her spasmodic gunwale into the sea. Thus they rushed,
each man with might and main clinging to his seat, to prevent being
tossed to the foam; and the tall form of Tashtego at the steering oar
crouching almost double, in order to bring down his centre of
gravity. Whole Atlantics and Pacifies seemed passed as they shot
on their way, till at length the whale somewhat slackened his flight.

"Haul in — haul in!" cried Stubb to the bowsman, and, facing
round towards the whale, all hands began pulling the boat up to
him, while yet the boat was being towed on. Soon ranging up by
his flank, Stubb, firmly planting his knee in the clumsy cleat, darted
dart after dart into the flying fish, at the word of command, the
boat alternately sterning out of the way of the whale's horrible
wallow, and then ranging up for another fling.

The red tide now poured from all sides of the monster like brooks'
down a hill. His tormented body rolled not in brine but in blood,
which bubbled and seethed for furlongs behind in their wake. The
slanting sun playing upon this crimson pond in the sea, sent back

its reflection into every face, so that they all glowed to each other like
red men. And all the while, jet after jet of white smoke was agoniz-
ingly shot from the spiracle of the whale, and vehement puff after
puff from the mouth of the excited headsman, as at every dart, haul-
ing in upon his crooked lance (by the line attached to it), Stubb
straightened it again and again, by a few rapid blows against the
gunwale, then again and again sent it into the whale.

"Pull up — pull up!" he now cried to the bowsman, as the waning
whale relaxed in his wrath. "Pull up! — close to!" and the boat ranged
along the fish's flank. When reaching far over the bow, Stubb
slowly churned his long sharp lance into the fish, and kept it there,
carefully churning and churning, as if cautiously seeking to feel after
some gold watch that the whale might have swallowed, and which
he was fearful of breaking ere he could hook it out. But that gold
watch he sought was the innermost life of the fish. And now it is
struck; for, starting from his trance into that unspeakable thing
called his "flurry," the monster horribly wallowed in his blood, over-
wrapped himself in impenetrable, mad, boiling spray, so that the
imperilled craft, instantly dropping astern, had much ado blindly
to struggle out from that phrensied twilight into the clear air of the
day.

And now abating in his flurry, the whale once more rolled out into
view; surging from side to side; spasmodically dilating and con-
tracting his spout-hole, with sharp, cracking, agonized respirations.
At last, gush after gush of clotted red gore, as if it had been the
purple lees of red wine, shot into the frighted air; and falling back
again, ran dripping down his motionless flanks into the sea. His
heart had burst!

"He's dead, Mr. Stubb," said Daggoo.

"Yes; both pipes smoked out!" and withdrawing his own from
his mouth, Stubb scattered the dead ashes over the water; and, for
a moment, stood thoughtfully eyeing the vast corpse he had made.

II. CUTTING IN

It was a Saturday night, and such a Sabbath as followed! Ex
officio professors of Sabbath breaking are all whalemen. The ivory
Pequod was turned into what seemed a shamble; every sailor a
butcher. You would have thought we were offering up ten thousand
red oxen to the sea gods.

In the first place, the enormous cutting tackles, among other
ponderous things comprising a cluster of blocks generally painted
green, which no single man can possibly lift — this vast bunch of

grapes was swayed up to the main-top and firmly lashed to the lower
mast-head, the strongest point anywhere above a ship's deck. The
end of the hawser-like rope winding through these intricacies was
then conducted to the windlass, and the huge lower block of the
tackles was swung over the whale; to this block the great blubber
hook, weighing some one hundred pounds, was attached. And now
suspended in stages over the side, Starbuck and Stubb, the mates,
armed with their long spades, began cutting a hole in the body for the
insertion of the hook just above the nearest of the two side-fins.
This done, a broad, semicircular line is cut round the hole; the hook
is inserted; and the main body of the crew, striking up a wild chorus,
now commence heaving in one dense crowd at the windlass. When,
instantly, the entire ship careens over on her side; every bolt in her
starts like the nailheads of an old house in frosty weather; she
trembles, quivers, and nods her frighted mast-heads to the sky.
More and more she leans over to the whale, while every gasping
heave of the windlass is answered by a helping heave from the
billows; at last, a swift, startling snap is heard; with a great swash
the ship rolls upwards and backwards from the whale; and the
triumphant tackle rises into sight dragging after it the disengaged
semicircular end of the first strip of blubber. Now the blubber en-
velopes the whale precisely as the rind does an orange, so it is
stripped off from the body precisely as an orange is sometimes
stripped by spiralizing it. For the strain constantly kept up by the
windlass continually keeps the whale rolling over and over in the
water, and the blubber in one strip uniformly peels off along the
line called the "scarf," simultaneously cut by the spades of Star-
buck and Stubb, the mates. And just as fast as it is thus peeled off,
and indeed by that very act itself, it is all the time being hoisted
higher and higher aloft till its upper end grazes the main-top. The
men at the windlass then cease heaving, and for a moment or two
the prodigious blood-dripphig mass sways to and fro as if let down
from the sky, and every one present must take good heed to dodge
it when it swings, else it may box his ears and pitch him headlong
overboard.

One of the attending harpooneers now advances with a long keen
weapon called a boarding-sword, and watching his chance he
dexterously slices out a considerable hole in the lower part of the
swaying mass. Into this hole, the end of the second alternating great
tackle is then hooked so as to retain a hold upon the blubber, in
order to prepare for what follows. Whereupon, this accomplished
swordsman, warning all hands to stand off, once more makes a

scientific dash at the mass, and with a few sidelong, desperate, lung-
ing slicings, severs it completely in twain, so that while the short
lower part is still fast, the long upper strip, called a blanket-piece,
swings clear, and is all ready for lowering. The heavers forward now
resume their song, and while the one tackle is peeling and hoisting a
second strip from the whale, the other is slowly slackened away,
and down goes the first strip through the main hatchway right
beneath, into an unfurnished parlor called the blubber-room. Into
this twilight apartment sundry nimble hands keep coiling away the
long blanket-piece as if it were a great live mass of plaited serpents.
And thus the work proceeds; the two tackles hoisting and lowering
simultaneously, both whale and windlass heaving, the heavers sing-
ing, the blubber-room gentlemen coiling, the mates scarfing, the
ship straining, and all hands swearing occasionally, by way of
assuaging the general friction.

III. THE FUNERAL

"Haul in the chains! Let the carcase go astern!"

The vast tackles have now done their duty. The peeled white body
of the beheaded whale flashes like a marble sepulchre; though
changed in hue, it has not perceptibly lost anything in bulk. It is still
colossal. Slowly it floats more and more away, the water round it
torn and splashed by the insatiate sharks, and the air above vexed
with rapacious flights of screaming fowls, whose beaks are like so
many insulting poniards in the whale. The vast white headless
phantom floats further and further from the ship, and every rod
that it so floats, what seem square roods of sharks and cubic roods of
fowls augment the murderous din. For hours and hours from the
almost stationary ship that hideous sight is seen. Beneath the un-
clouded and mild azure sky, upon the fair face of the pleasant sea,
wafted by the joyous breezes, that great mass of death floats on and
on, till lost in infinite perspectives.

There's a most doleful and most mocking funeral! The sea-
vultures all in pious mourning, the air-sharks all punctiliously in
black or speckled. In life but few of them would have helped the
whale, I ween, if peradventure he had needed it; but upon the
banquet of his funeral they most piously do pounce. Oh, horrible
vulturism of earth! from which not the mightiest whale is free.

Nor is this the end. Desecrated as the body is, a vengeful ghost
survives and hovers over it to scare. Espied by some timid man-of-war
or blundering discovery-vessel from afar, when the distance obscur-
ing the swarming fowls nevertheless still shows the white mass

floating in the sun and the white spray heaving high against it,
straightway the whale's unharming corpse, with trembling fingers
is set down in the log — shoals, rocf{s, and breakers hereabouts: be-
ware! And for years afterwards, perhaps, ships shun the place,
leaping over it as silly sheep leap over a vacuum, because their leader
originally leaped there when a stick was held. There's your law of
precedents; there's your utility of traditions; there's the story of
your obstinate survival of old beliefs never bottomed on the earth,
and now not even hovering in the air! There's orthodoxy!

Thus, while in life the great whale's body may have been a real
terror to his foes, in his death his ghost becomes a powerless panic
to a world.

Are you a believer in ghosts, my friend? There are other ghosts
than the Cock-Lane one, and far deeper men than Doctor Johnson
who believe in them.

IV. THE TRY WORKS

Besides her hoisted boats, an American whaler is outwardly dis-
tinguished by her try-works. She presents the curious anomaly of the
most solid masonry joining with oak and hemp in constituting the
completed ship. It is as if from the open field a brick-kiln were
transported to her planks.

The try-works are planted between the foremast and mainmast,
the most roomy part of the deck. The timbers beneath are of a
peculiar strength, fitted to sustain the weight of an almost solid mass
of brick and mortar, some ten feet by eight square, and five in
height. The foundation does not penetrate the deck, but the masonry
is firmly secured to the surface by ponderous knees of iron bracing
it on all sides and screwing it down to the timbers. On the flanks it
is cased with wood, and at top completely covered by a large, sloping,
battened hatchway. Removing this hatch we expose the great try-
pots, two in number and each of several barrels' capacity. When not
in use, they are kept remarkably clean. Sometimes they are polished
with soapstone and sand till they shine within like silver punch-
bowls. During the night-watches some cynical old sailors will crawl
into them and coil themselves away there for a nap. While employed
in polishing them — one man in each pot, side by side — many con-
fidential communications are carried on, over the iron lips. It is a
place also for profound mathematical meditation. It was in the left
hand try-pot of the Pequod, with the soapstone diligently circling
round me, that I was first indirectly struck by the remarkable fact
that in geometry all bodies gliding along the cycloid, my soapstone

for example, will descend from any point in precisely the same time.

Removing the fire-board from the front of the try-works, the bare
masonry of that side is exposed, penetrated by the two iron mouths
of the furnaces directly underneath the pots. These mouths are fitted
with heavy doors of iron. The intense heat of the fire is prevented
from communicating itself to the deck by means of a shallow reser-
voir extending under the entire inclosed surface of the works. By a
tunnel inserted at the rear, this reservoir is kept replenished with
water as fast as it evaporates. There are no external chimneys; they
open direct from the rear wall. And here let us go back for a moment.

It was about nine o'clock at night that the Pequod's try-works
were first started on this present voyage. It belonged to Stubb to
oversee the business.

"All ready there? Off hatch, then, and start her. You, cook, fire
the works." This was an easy thing, for the carpenter had been
thrusting his shavings into the furnace throughout the passage.
Here be it said that in a whaling voyage the first fire in the try-
works has to be fed for a time with wood. After that no wood is
used, except as a means of quick ignition to the staple fuel. In a
word, after being tried out, the crisp, shrivelled blubber, now called
scraps or fritters, still contains considerable of its unctuous proper-
ties. These fritters feed the flames. Like a plethoric, burning martyr
or a self-consuming misanthrope, once ignited, the whale supplies
his own fuel and burns by his own body. Would that he consumed
his own smoke! for his smoke is horrible to inhale, and inhale it you
must, and not only that, but you must live in it for the time. It has
an unspeakable, wild, Hindoo odor about it, such as may lurk in the
vicinity of funereal pyres. It smells like the left wing of the day of
judgment; it is an argument for the pit.

By midnight the works were in full operation. We were clear from
the carcase; sail had been made; the wind was freshening; the wild
ocean darkness was intense. But that darkness was licked up by the
fierce flames, which at intervals forked forth from the sooty flues
and illuminated every lofty rope in the rigging, as with the famed
Greek fire. The burning ship drove on, as if remorselessly commis-
sioned to some vengeful deed. So the pitch and sulphur-freighted
brigs of the bold Hydriote, Canaris, issuing from their midnight
harbors, with broad sheets of flame for sails, bore down upon the
Turkish frigates and folded them in conflagrations.

The hatch, removed from the top of the works, now afforded a
wide hearth in front of them. Standing on this were the Tartarean
shapes of the pagan harpooneers, always the whaleship's stokers.

With huge prolonged poles they pitched hissing masses of blubber
into the scalding pots or stirred up the fires beneath, till the snaky
flames darted, curling, out of the doors to catch them by the feet.
The smoke rolled away in sullen heaps. To every pitch of the ship
there was a pitch of the boiling oil, which seemed all eagerness to
leap into their faces. Opposite the mouth of the works, on the
further side of the wide wooden hearth, was the windlass. This
served for a sea-sofa. Here lounged the watch, when not otherwise
employed, looking into the red heat of the fire till their eyes felt
scorched in their heads. Their tawny features, now all begrimed with
smoke and sweat, their matted beards, and the contrasting barbaric
brilliancy of their teeth — all these were strangely revealed in the
capricious emblazonings of the works. As they narrated to each
other their unholy adventures, their tales of terror told in words of
mirth; as their uncivilized laughter forked upwards out of them,
like the flames from the furnace; as to and fro, in their front, the
harpooneers wildly gesticulated with their huge pronged forks and
dippers; as the wind howled on, and the sea leaped, and the ship
groaned and dived, and yet steadfastly shot her red hell further and
further into the blackness of the sea and the night, and scornfully
champed the white bone in her mouth, and viciously spat round
her on all sides; then the rushing Pequod, freighted with savages,
and laden with fire, and burning a corpse, and plunging into that
blackness of darkness, seemed the material counterpart of her mono-
maniac commander's soul.

V. STOWING DOWN AND CLEARING UP

While still warm, the oil, like hot punch, is received into the six-
barrel casks. While, perhaps, the ship is pitching and rolling this
way and that in the midnight sea, the enormous casks are slewed
round and headed over, end for end, and sometimes perilously scoot
across the slippery deck fike so many land slides, till at last man-
handled and stayed in their course; and all round the hoops, rap, rap,
go as many hammers as can play upon them, for now, ex officio,
every sailor is a cooper.

At length, when the last pint is casked and all is cool, then the
great hatchways are unsealed, the bowels of the ship are thrown
open, and down go the casks to their final rest in the sea. This done,
the hatches are replaced and hermetically closed, like a closet walled
up.

In the sperm fishery, this is perhaps one of the most remarkable
incidents in all the business of whaling. One day the planks stream

with freshets of blood and oil; on the sacred quarter-deck enormous
masses of the whale's head are profanely piled; great rusty casks lie
about as in a brewery yard; the smoke from the try-works has
besooted all the bulwarks; the mariners go about suffused with
unctuousness; the entire ship seems great Leviathan himself; on all
hands the din is deafening.

But a day or two after, you look about you and prick your ears
in this self-same ship; and, were it not for the tell-tale boats and
try-works, you would all but swear you trod some silent merchant
vessel, with a most scrupulously neat commander. The unmanu-
factured sperm oil possesses a singularly cleansing virtue. This is the
reason why the decks never look so white as just after what they
call an affair of oil. Besides, from the ashes of the burned scraps of
the whale, a potent lye is readily made; and whenever any adhesive-
ness from the back of the whale remains clinging to the side, that
lye quickly exterminates it. Hands go diligently along the bul-
warks and with buckets of water and rags restore them to their full
tidiness. The soot is brushed from the lower rigging. All the
numerous implements which have been in use are likewise faith-
fully cleansed and put away. The great hatch is scrubbed and
placed upon the try-works, completely hiding the pots; every cask
is out of sight; all tackles are coiled in unseen nooks; and when by
the combined and simultaneous industry of almost the entire ship's
company, the whole of this conscientious duty is at last concluded,
then the crew themselves proceed to their own ablutions, shift them-
selves from top to toe, and finally issue to the immaculate deck,
fresh and all aglow, as bridegrooms new-leaped from out the
daintiest Holland.

Now, with elated step, they pace the planks in twos and threes,
and humorously discourse of parlors, sofas, carpets, and fine cambrics,
propose to mat the deck, think of having hangings to the top, ob-
ject not to taking tea by moonlight on the piazza of the forecastle.
To hint to such musked mariners of oil, and bone, and blubber,
were little short of audacity. They know not the thing you distantly
allude to. Away, and bring us napkins!

But mark: aloft there, at the three mast heads, stand three men
intent on spying out more whales, which, if caught, infallibly will
again soil the old oaken furniture and drop at least one small grease-
spot somewhere. Yes; and many is the time, when, after the
severest uninterrupted labors which know no night, continuing
straight through for ninety-six hours; when, from the boat where
they have swelled their wrists with all day rowing on the Line, they

step to the deck only to carry vast chains, and heave the heavy
windlass, and cut and slash, yea, and in their very sweatings to be
smoked and burned anew by the combined fires of the equatorial
sun and the equatorial try-works; when, on the heel of all this, they
have finally bestirred themselves to cleanse the ship and make a
spotless dairy room of it; many is the time the poor fellows, just
buttoning the necks of their clean frocks, are startled by the cry of
"There she blows!" and away they fly to fight another whale and go
through the whole weary thing again. Oh! my friends, but this is
man-killing! Yet this is life. For hardly have we mortals by long
toilings extracted from this world's vast bulk its small but valuable
sperm, and then, with weary patience, cleansed ourselves from
its defilements, and learned to live here in clean tabernacles of the
soul, hardly is this done, when — There she blows! — the ghost is
spouted up, and away we sail to fight some other world and go
through young life's old routine again.

Moby DicJ^, 1851

transcendental Wild Oats

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

On the first day of June, 184-, a large wagon drawn by a small
horse and containing a motley load went lumbering over certain
New England hills, with the pleasing accompaniments of wind,
rain, and hail. A serene man with a serene child upon his knee was
driving or rather being driven, for the small horse had it all his
own way. A brown boy with a William Penn style of countenance
sat beside him, firmly embracing a bust of Socrates. Behind them
was an energetic-looking woman with a benevolent brow, satirical
mouth, and eyes brimful of hope and courage. A baby reposed upon
her lap, a mirror leaned against her knee, and a basket of provisions
danced about at her feet, as she struggled with a large, unruly
umbrella. Two blue-eyed little girls with hands full of childish
treasures sat under one old shawl, chatting happily together.

In front of this lively party stalked a tall, sharp-featured man in a
long blue cloak; and a fourth small girl trudged along beside him
through the mud as if she rather enjoyed it.

The wind whistled over the bleak hills; the rain fell in a despond-
ent drizzle; and twilight began to fall. But the calm man gazed as
tranquilly into the fog as if he beheld a radiant bow of promise
spanning the gray sky. The cheery woman tried to cover every one
but herself with the big umbrella. The brown boy pillowed his head
on the bald pate of Socrates and slumbered peacefully. The little
girls sang lullabies to their dolls in soft, maternal murmurs. The
sharp-nosed pedestrian marched steadily on, with the blue cloak
streaming out behind him like a banner; and the lively infant
splashed through the puddles with a duck-like satisfaction pleasant
to behold.

Thus these modern pilgrims journeyed hopefully out of the old
world, to found a new one in the wilderness. . . . This prospective
Eden at present consisted of an old red farm-house, a dilapidated
barn, many acres of meadow-land, and a grove. Ten ancient apple-
trees were all the "chaste supply" which the place offered as yet; but,
in the firm belief that plenteous orchards were soon to be evoked
from their inner consciousness, these sanguine founders had chris-
tened their domain Fruitlands.

Here Charles Lane1 intended to found a colony of latter day
saints, who, under his patriarchal sway, should regenerate the world
and glorify his name for ever. Here Bronson Alcott, with the de-
voutest faith in the high ideal which was to him a living truth, desired
to plant a Paradise, where Beauty, Virtue, Justice, and Love might
live happily together, without the possibility of a serpent entering
in. And here his wife, unconverted but faithful to the end, hoped,
after many wanderings over the face of the earth, to find rest for
herself and a home for her children.

"There is our new abode," announced the enthusiast, smiling with
a satisfaction quite undamped by the drops dripping from his hat-
brim, as they turned at length into a cart-path that wound along a
steep hillside into a barren-looking valley.

"A little difficult of access," observed his practical wife, as she
endeavored to keep her various household gods from going over-
board with every lurch of the laden ark.

"Like all good things. But those who earnestly desire and patiently
seek will soon find us," placidly responded the philosopher from the
mud, through which he was now endeavoring to pilot the much-
enduring horse.

"Truth lies at the bottom of a well, Sister Abigail," said Brother
Charles, pausing to detach his small comrade from a gate whereon
she was perched for a clearer gaze into futurity.

"That's the reason we so seldom get at it, I suppose," replied
Mrs. Alcott, making a vain clutch at the mirror, which a sudden
jolt sent flying out of her hands.

"We want no false reflections here," said Charles with a grim smile,
as he crunched the fragments under foot in his onward march.

Sister Abigail Alcott held her peace and looked wistfully through
the mist at her promised home. The old red house with a hospitable
glimmer at its windows cheered her eyes; and, considering the
weather, was a fitter refuge than the sylvan bowers some of the more
ardent souls might have preferred.

The new-comers were welcomed by one of the elect — a regenerate
farmer, whose idea of reform consisted chiefly in wearing white
cotton raiment and shoes of untanned leather. This costume, with a
snowy beard, gave him a venerable and at the same time a somewhat
bridal appearance.

The goods and chattels of the Society not having arrived, the
weary family reposed before the fire on blocks of wood, while

1 In the original text of this narrative, Miss Alcott gave fictitious names to the
historical characters involved. Here the original names have been inserted. — Editors.

Brother Joseph Palmer regaled them with roasted potatoes, brown
bread, and water, in two plates, a tin pan, and one mug, his table
service being limited. But, having cast the forms and vanities of a
depraved world behind them, the elders welcomed hardship with
the enthusiasm of new pioneers, and the children heartily enjoyed
this foretaste of what they believed was to be a sort of perpetual
picnic.

During the progress of this frugal meal, two moire brothers ap-
peared. One was a dark, melancholy man, clad in homespun, whose
peculiar mission was to turn his name hind part before and use as
few words as possible. The other was a bland, bearded Englishman,
who expected to be saved by eating uncooked food and going with-
out clothes. He had not yet adopted the primitive costume, however,
but contented himself with meditatively chewing dry beans out of
a basket.

"Every meal should be a sacrament, and the vessels used should
be beautiful and symbolical," observed Brother Alcott, mildly,
righting the tin pan slipping about on his knees. "I priced a silver
service when in town, but it was too costly; so I got some graceful
cups and vases of Britannia ware."

"Hardest things in the world to keep bright. Will whiting be
allowed in the community?" inquired Sister Abigail, with a house-
wife's interest in labor-saving institutions.

"Such trivial questions will be discussed at a more fitting time,"
answered Brother Charles sharply, as he burnt his fingers with a
very hot potato. "Neither sugar, molasses, milk, butter, cheese, nor
flesh are to be used among us, for nothing is to be admitted which
has caused wrong or death to man or beast."

"Our garments are to be linen till we learn to raise our own cotton
or some substitute for woollen fabrics," added Brother Bronson,
blissfully basking in an imaginary future as warm and brilliant as
the generous fire before him.

"Haou abaout shoes?" asked Brother Joseph, surveying his own
with interest.

"We must yield that point till we can manufacture an innocent
substitute for leather. Bark, wood, or some durable fabric will be
invented in time. Meanwhile, those who desire to carry out our idea
to the fullest extent can go barefooted," said Lane, who liked extreme
measures.

"I never will, nor let my girls," murmured rebellious Sister Abigail,
under her breath.

"Haou do you cattle'ate to treat the ten-acre lot? Ef things ain't

'tended to right smart, we shan't hev no crops," observed the prac-
tical patriarch in cotton.

"We shall spade it," replied Bronson, in such perfect good faith
that Joseph said no more, though he indulged in a shake of the
head as he glanced at hands that had held nothing heavier than a
pen for years. He was a paternal old soul and regarded the younger
men as promising boys on a new sort of lark.

"What shall we do for lamps, if we cannot use any animal sub-
stance ? I do hope light of some sort is to be thrown upon the enter-
prise," said Mrs. Alcott with anxiety, for in those days kerosene
and camphene were not, and gas unknown in the wilderness.

"We shall go without till we have discovered some vegetable oil or
wax to serve us," replied Brother Charles, in a decided tone, which
caused Sister Abigail to resolve that her private lamp should be
always trimmed, if not burning.

"Each member is to perform the work for which experience,
strength, and taste best fit him," continued Dictator Lane. "Thus
drudgery and disorder will be avoided and harmony prevail. We
shall rise at dawn, begin the day by bathing, followed by music, and
then a chaste repast of fruit and bread. Each one finds congenial
occupation till the meridian meal; when some deep-searching con-
versation gives rest to the body and development to the mind.
Healthful labor again engages us till the last meal, when we as-
semble in social communion, prolonged till sunset, when we retire
to sweet repose, ready for the next day's activity."

"What part of the work do you incline to yourself?" asked Sister
Abigail, with a humorous glimmer in her keen eyes. .

"I shall wait till it \s made clear to me. Being in preference to
doing is the great aim, and this comes to us rather by a resigned
willingness than a wilful activity, which is a check to all divine
growth," responded Brother Charles.

"I thought so." And - Mrs. Alcott sighed audibly, for during
the year he had spent in her family Brother Charles had so
faithfully carried out his idea of "being, not doing," that she had
found his "divine growth" both an expensive and unsatisfactory
process. . . .

The furniture arrived next day, and was soon bestowed, for the
principal property of the community consisted in books. To this rare
library was devoted the best room in the house, and the few busts
and pictures that still survived many flittings were added to beautify
the sanctuary, for here the family was to meet for amusement, in-
struction, and worship.

Any housewife can imagine the emotions of Sister Abigail when
she took possession of a large dilapidated kitchen, containing an old
stove and the peculiar stores out of which food was to be evolved
for her little family of eleven. Cakes of maple sugar, dried peas and
beans, barley and hominy, meal of all sorts, potatoes, and dried fruit.
No milk, butter, cheese, tea, or meat appeared. Even salt was con-
sidered a useless luxury and spice entirely forbidden by these lovers
of Spartan simplicity. Her ten years' experience of vegetarian vagaries
had been good training for this new freak, and her sense of the
ludicrous supported her through many trying scenes.

Unleavened bread, porridge, and water for breakfast; bread,
vegetables, and water for dinner; bread, fruit, and water for supper
was the bill of fare ordained by the elders. No teapot profaned
that sacred stove, no gory steak cried aloud for vengeance from her
chaste gridiron; and only a brave woman's taste, time, and temper
were sacrificed on that domestic altar.

The vexed question of light was settled by buying a quantity of
bayberry wax for candles; and, [when it was discovered] that no
one knew how to make them, pine knots were introduced, to be
used when absolutely necessary. [As it was] summer, the evenings
were not long, and the weary fraternity found it no great hardship
to retire with the birds. The inner light was sufficient for most of
them. But Mrs. Alcott rebelled. Evening was the only time she had
to herself; and while the tired feet rested, the skilful hands mended
torn frocks and little stockings, or the anxious heart forgot its bur-
den in a book.

So mother's lamp burned steadily, while the philosophers built a
new heaven and earth by moonlight; and through all the meta-
physical mists and philanthropic pyrotechnics of that period Sister
Abigail played her own little game of throwing light, and none
but the moths were the worse for it.

Such farming probably was never seen before since Adam delved.
The band of brothers began by spading garden and field; but a few
days of it lessened their ardor amazingly. Blistered hands and aching
backs suggested the expediency of permitting the use of cattle till
the workers were better fitted for noble toil by a summer of the new
life. . . .

The sowing was equally peculiar, for, owing to some mistake,
the three brethren, who devoted themselves to this graceful task,
found when about half through the job that each had been sowing
a different sort of grain in the same field; a mistake which caused
much perplexity, as it could not be remedied. But, after a long

consultation and a good deal of laughter, [they] decided to say
nothing and see what would come of it.

The garden was planted with a generous supply of useful roots
and herbs; but, as manure was not allowed to profane the virgin
soil, few of these vegetable treasures ever came up. Purslane reigned
supreme, and the disappointed planters ate it philosophically, de-
ciding that Nature knew what was best for them and would
generously supply their needs, if they could only learn to digest
her "sallets" and wild roots.

The orchard was laid out, a little grafting done, new trees and
vines set, regardless of the unfit season and entire ignorance of the
husbandmen, who honestly believed that in the autumn they would
reap a bounteous harvest.

Slowly things got into order and rapidly rumors of the new
experiment went abroad, causing many strange spirits to flock
thither, for in those days communities were the fashion and tran-
scendentalism raged wildly. Some came to look on and laugh,
some to be supported in poetic idleness, a few to believe sincerely
and work heartily. Each member was allowed to mount his favorite
hobby and ride it to his heart's content. Very queer were some of
the riders, and very rampant some of the hobbies.

One youth, believing that language was of little consequence if
the spirit was only right, startled new-comers by blandly greeting
them with "Good-morning, damn you," and other remarks of an
equally mixed order. A second irrepressible being held that all the
emotions of the soul should be freely expressed, and illustrated his
theory by antics that would have sent him to a lunatic asylum, if, as
an unregenerate wag said, he were not already in one. When his spirit
soared, he climbed trees and shouted; when doubt assailed him,
he lay upon the floor and groaned lamentably. At joyful periods,
he raced, leaped, and sang; when sad, he wept aloud; and when a
great thought burst upon 'him in the watches of the night, he crowed
like a jocund cockerel, to the great delight of the children and the
great annoyance of the elders. One musical brother fiddled when-
ever so moved, sang sentimentally to the four little girls, and put
a music-box on the wall when he hoed corn.

Brother Bower ground away at his uncooked food, or browsed
over the farm on sorrel, mint, green fruit, and new vegetables.
Occasionally he took his walks abroad, airily attired in an unbleached
cotton poncho, which was the nearest approach to the primeval
costume he was allowed to indulge in. At midsummer he retired to
the wilderness, to try his plan where the woodchucks were without

prejudices and huckleberry-bushes were hospitably full. A sunstroke
unfortunately spoilt his plan, and he returned to semi-civilization
a sadder and wiser man.

Abram Everett preserved his Pythagorean silence, cultivated his
fine dark locks, and worked like a beaver, setting an excellent ex-
ample of brotherly love, justice, and fidelity by his upright life. He
it was who helped overworked Sister Abigail with her heavy washes,
kneaded the endless succession of batches of bread, watched over
the children, and did the many tasks left undone by the brethren,
who were so busy discussing and defining great duties that they
forgot to perform the small ones.

Joseph Palmer placidly plodded about, "chorin' raound," as he
called it, looking like an old-time patriarch with his silver hair and
flowing beard, and saving the community from many a mishap by
his thrift and Yankee shrewdness.

Brother Lane domineered over the whole concern, for, having
put the most money into the speculation, he was resolved to make
it pay — as if anything founded on an ideal basis could be expected
to do so by any but enthusiasts.

Bronson Alcott simply revelled in the Newness, firmly believing
that his dream was to be beautifully realized and in time not only
little Fruitlands, but the whole earth, be turned into a Happy
Valley. He worked with every muscle of his body, for he was in
deadly earnest. He taught with his whole head and heart, planned
and sacrificed, preached and prophesied, with a soul full of the
purest aspirations, most unselfish purposes, and desires for a life
devoted to God and man, too high and tender to bear the rough
usage of this world. . . .

About the time the grain was ready to house, some call of the
Oversoul wafted all the men away. An easterly storm was coming
up and the yellow stacks were sure to be ruined. Then Sister Abigail
gathered her forces. Three little girls, one boy (Charles' son), and
herself, harnessed to clothes-baskets and Russia-linen sheets, were
the only teams she could command; but with these poor appliances
the indomitable woman got in the grain and saved food for her
young, with the instinct and energy of a mother-bird with a brood
of hungry nestlings to feed. . . .

With the first frosts, the butterflies, who had sunned themselves
in the new light through the summer, took flight, leaving the few
bees to see what honey they had stored for winter use. Precious
little appeared beyond the satisfaction of a few months of holy
living.

At first it seemed as if a chance to try holy dying also was to be
offered them. Charles, much disgusted with the failure of the scheme,
decided to retire to the Shakers, who seemed to be the only success-
ful community going.

"What is to become of us?" asked Mrs. Abigail, for Bronson was
heart-broken at the bursting of his lovely bubble.

"You can stay here, if you like, till a tenant is found. No more
wood must be cut, however, and no more corn ground. All I have
must be sold to pay the debts of the concern, as the responsibility
rests with me," was the cheering reply.

"Who is to pay us for what we have lost? I gave all I had —
furniture, time, strength, six months of my children's lives — and
all are wasted. Bronson gave himself body and soul, and is almost
wrecked by hard work and disappointment. Are we to have no
return for this, but leave to starve and freeze in an old house, with
winter at hand, no money, and hardly a friend left; for this wild
scheme has alienated nearly all we had? You talk much about
justice. Let us have a little, since there is nothing else left."

But the woman's appeal met with no reply but the old one: "It
was an experiment. We all risked something, and must bear our
losses as we can."

With this cold comfort, Charles departed with his son and was
absorbed into the Shaker brotherhood, where he soon found that
the order of things was reversed and it was all work and no play.

Then the tragedy began for the forsaken little family. Desolation
and despair fell upon Bronson. As his wife said, his new beliefs
had alienated many friends. Some thought him mad, some un-
principled. Even the most kindly thought him a visionary, whom
it was useless to help till he took more practical views of life. All
stood aloof, saying: "Let him work out his own ideas, and see what
they are worth."

He had tried, but it was a failure. The world was not ready for
Utopia yet, and those who attempted to found it [were] only . . .
laughed at for their pains. In other days, men could sell all and
give to the poor, lead lives devoted to holiness and high thought,
and, after the persecution was over, find themselves honored as
saints or martyrs. But in modern times these things are out of
fashion. To live for one's principles at all costs is a dangerous specu-
lation; and the failure of an ideal, no matter how humane and
noble, is harder for the world to forgive and forget than bank robbery
or the grand swindles of corrupt politicians.

Deep waters now for Bronson, and for a time there seemed no

passage through. Strength and spirits were exhausted by hard work
and too much thought. Courage failed when, looking about for
help, he saw no sympathizing face, no hand outstretched to help
him, no voice to say cheerily:

"We all make mistakes, and it takes many experiences to shape
a life. Try again, and let us help you/'

Every door was closed, every eye averted, every heart cold, and
no way open whereby he might earn bread for his children. His
principles would not permit him to do many things that others did;
and in the few fields where conscience would allow him to work,
who would employ a man who had flown in the face of society,
as he had done?

Then this dreamer, whose dream was the life of his life, resolved
to carry out his idea to the bitter end. There seemed no place for
him here — no work, no friend. To go begging conditions was as
ignoble as to go begging money. Better perish of want than sell
one's soul for the sustenance of his body. Silently he lay down
upon his bed, turned his face to the wall, and waited with pathetic
patience for death to cut the knot which he could not untie. Days
and nights went by, and neither food nor water passed his lips.
Soul and body were dumbly struggling together, and no word of
complaint betrayed what either suffered. . . . [Then at length his
purpose altered, and he said:] "My faithful wife, my little girls —
they have not forsaken me, they are mine by ties that none can
break. What right have I to leave them alone? What right to escape
from the burden and the sorrow I have helped to bring? This duty
remains to me, and I must do it manfully. For their sakes, the
world will forgive me in time; for their sakes, God will sustain me

now."

Too feeble to rise, Bronson groped for the food that always lay
within his reach, and in the darkness and solitude of that memorable
night ate and drank what was to him the bread and wine of a
new communion, a new dedication of heart and life to the duties
that were left him when the dreams fled.

In the early dawn, when that sad wife crept fearfully to see what
change had come to the patient face on the pillow, she found it
smiling at her, saw a wasted hand outstretched to her, and heard
a feeble voice cry bravely, " Abigail !"

What passed in that little room is not to be recorded except in
the hearts of those who suffered and endured much for love's sake.
Enough for us to know that soon the wan shadow of a man came
forth, leaning on the arm that never failed him, to be welcomed

and cherished by the children, who never forgot the experiences
of that time.

"Hope" was the watchword now; and, while the last logs blazed
on the hearth, the last bread and apples covered the table, the new
commander, with recovered courage, said to her husband —

"Leave all to God — and me. He has done his part, now I will do

mine."

"But we have no money, dear."

"Yes, we have. I sold all we could spare and have enough to
take us away from this snowbank."

"Where can we go?"

"I have engaged four rooms at our good neighbor, Love joy's.
There we can live cheaply till spring. Then for new plans and a
home of our own, please God."

"But, Abigail, your little store won't last long, and we have no
friends."

"I can sew and you can chop wood. Lovejoy offers you the same
pay as he gives his other men; my old friend, Mrs. Truman, will
send me all the work I want; and my blessed brother stands by
us to the end. Cheer up, dear heart, for while there is work and
love in the world we shall not suffer."

"And while I have my good angel Abigail, I shall not despair,
even if I wait another thirty years before I step beyond the circle
of the sacred little world in which I still have a place to fill."

So one bleak December day, with their few possessions piled on
an ox-sled, the rosy children perched atop, and the parents trudging
arm in arm behind, the exiles left their Eden and faced the world
again.

"Ah, me! my happy dream. How much I leave behind that never
can be mine again," said Bronson, looking back at the lost Paradise,
lying white and chill in its shroud of snow.

"Yes, dear; but how much we bring away," answered brave-
hearted Abigail, glancing from husband to children.

"Poor Fruitlands! The name was as great a failure as the rest!"
continued Bronson with a sigh, as a frostbitten apple fell from a
leafless bough at his feet.

But the sigh changed to a smile as his wife added, in a half -tender,
half-satirical tone —

"Don't you think Apple Slump would be a better name for -it,
dear?"

Silver Pitchers, 1876

Mary Moody Emerson

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

Mary Moody Emerson was born just before the outbreak of the
Revolution. When introduced to Lafayette at Portland, she told
him that she was "in arms" at the Concord Fight. Her father, the
minister of Concord, a warm patriot in 1775, went as a chaplain
to the American army at Ticonderoga; he carried his infant daugh-
ter, before he went, to his mother in Maiden and told her to keep
the child until he returned. He died at Rutland, Vermont, of army-
fever, the next year; and Mary remained at Maiden with her grand-
mother, and, after her death, with her father's sister, in whose house
she grew up, rarely seeing her brothers and sisters in Concord.
This aunt and her husband lived on a farm, were getting old, and
the husband a shiftless, easy man. There was plenty of work for the
little niece to do day by day, and not always bread enough in the
house.

One of her tasks, it appears, was to watch for the approach of the
deputy-sheriff, who might come to confiscate the spoons or arrest
the uncle for debt. Later, another aunt, who had become insane,
was brought hither to end her days. More and sadder work for
this young girl. She had no companions, lived in entire solitude
with these old people, very rarely cheered by short visits from her
brothers and sisters. Her mother had married again, — married the
minister who succeeded her husband in the parish at Concord [Dr.
Ezra Ripley], and had now a young family growing up around
her.

Her aunt became strongly attached to Mary, and persuaded the
family to give the child up to her as a daughter, on some terms
embracing a care of her future interests. She would leave the farm
to her by will. This promise was kept; she came into possession of
the property many years after; and her dealings with it gave her
no small trouble, though they give much piquancy to her letters
in after years. Finally it was sold, and its price invested in a share
of a farm in Maine, where she lived as a boarder with her sister,
for many years. It was in a picturesque country, within sight of the
White Mountains, with a little lake in front at the foot of a high
hill called Bear Mountain. Not far from the house was a brook
running over a granite floor like the Franconia Flume, and noble

forests around. Every word she writes about this farm ("Elm
Vale," Waterford), her dealings and vexations about it, her joys
and raptures of religion and Nature, interest like a romance, and to
those who may hereafter read her letters, will make its obscure acres
amiable.

In Maiden she lived through all her youth and early woman-
hood, with the habit of visiting the families of her brothers and
sisters on any necessity of theirs. Her good will to serve in time of
sickness or of pressure was known to them and promptly claimed,
and her attachment to the youths and maidens growing up in those
families was secure for any trait of talent or of character. Her
sympathy for young people who pleased her was almost passionate
and was sure to make her arrival in each house a holiday.

Her early reading was Milton, Young, Akenside, Samuel Clarke,
Jonathan Edwards, and always the Bible. Later, Plato, Plotinus,
Marcus Antoninus, Stewart, Coleridge, Cousin, Herder, Locke,
Madame De Stael, Channing, Mackintosh, Byron. Nobody can read
in her manuscript or recall the conversation of old-school people
without seeing that Milton and Young had a religious authority,
. . . and nowise the slight, merely entertaining quality of modern
bards. And Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus — how venerable and organic
as Nature they are in her mind! What a subject is her mind and
life for the finest novel! When I read Dante the other day, . . .
whom do you think I was reminded of? Whom but Mary Emerson
and her eloquent theology? She had a deep sympathy with genius.
When it was unhallowed, as in Byron, she had none the less, whilst
she deplored and affected to denounce him. But she adored it when
ennobled by character. She liked to notice that the greatest geniuses
have died ignorant of their power and influence. She wished you
to scorn to shine. "My opinion," she writes, (is) "that a mind like
Byron's would never be satisfied with modern Unitarianism, — that
the fiery depths of Calvinism, its high and mysterious elections to
eternal bliss, beyond angels, and all its attendant wonders would
have alone been fitted to fix his imagination." . . .

She delighted in success, in youth, in beauty, in genius, in man-
ners. When she met a young person who interested her, she made
herself acquainted and intimate with him or her at once by sympathy,
by flattery, by raillery, by anecdotes, by wit, by rebuke, and stormed
the castle. None but was attracted or piqued by her interest and
wit and wide acquaintance with books and with eminent names.
She said she gave herself full swing in these sudden intimacies, for
she knew she should disgust [her new friends] soon, and resolved

5°

to have their best hours. "Society is shrewd to detect those who do
not belong to her train, and seldom wastes her attentions." She
surprised, attracted, chided and denounced her companion by turns,
and pretty rapid turns. But no intelligent youth or maiden could
have once met her without remembering her with interest, and
learning something of value. Scorn trifles, lift your aims; do what
you are afraid to do; sublimity of character must come from sub-
limity of motive: these were the lessons which were urged with
vivacity, in ever new language. But if her companion was dull, her
impatience knew no bounds. She tired presently of dull conversa-
tions and asked to be read to, and so disposed of the visitor. If
the voice or the reading tired her, she would ask the friend if he
would do an errand for her, and so dismiss him. If her companion
were a little ambitious and asked her opinions on books or matters
on which she did not wish rude hands laid, she did not hesitate
to stop the intruder with "How's your cat, Mrs. Tenner?" . . .

She had the misfortune of spinning with a greater velocity than
any of the other tops. She would tear into the chaise or out of it,
into the house or out of it, into the conversation, into the thought,
into the character of the stranger — disdaining all the graduation by
which her fellows time their steps. Though she might do very
happily in a planet where others moved with the like velocity,
she was offended here by the phlegm of all her fellow-creatures,
and disgusted them by her impatience. She could keep step with
no human being. Her nephew wrote of her: "I am glad the friend-
ship with Aunt Mary is ripening. As by seeing a high tragedy,
reading a true poem, or a novel like 'Corinne,' so, by society with
her, one's mind is electrified and purged. She is no statute-book of
practical commandments, nor orderly digest of any system of phi-
losophy, divine or human, but a bible, miscellaneous in its parts,
but one in its spirit, wherein are sentences of condemnation, prom-
ises and covenants of love that make foolish the wisdom of the
world with the power of God."

Our Delphian was fantastic enough, Heaven knows, yet could
always be tamed by large and sincere conversation. Was there
thought or eloquence, she would listen like a child. Her aspiration
and prayer would begin, and the whim and petulance in which by
diseased habit she had grown to indulge without suspecting it was
burned up in the glow of her pure and poetic spirit, which dearly
loved the Infinite. . . .

When Mrs. Thoreau called on her one day, wearing pink ribbons,
she shut her eyes, and so conversed with her for a time. By and by

she said, "Mrs. Thoreau, I don't know whether you have observed
that my eyes are shut." "Yes, Madam, I have observed it." "Per-
haps you would like to know the reasons?" "Yes, I should." "I
don't like to see a person of your age guilty of such levity in her
dress."

When her cherished favorite, E. H., was at the Vale, and had
gone out to walk in the forest with Hannah, her niece, Aunt Mary
feared they were lost, and found a man in the next house and begged
him to go and look for them. The man went and returned saying
that he could not find them. "Go and cry, 'Elizabeth!' " The man
rather declined this service, as he did not know Miss H. She was
highly offended, and exclaimed, "God has given you a voice that
you might use it in the service of your fellow-creatures. Go instantly
and call 'Elizabeth' till you find them." The man went immediately,
and did as he was bid, and having found them apologized for calling
thus, by telling what Miss Emerson had said to him.

When some ladies of my acquaintance by an unusual chance found
themselves in her neighborhood and visited her, I told them that
she was no whistle that every mouth could play on, but a quite
clannish instrument, a pibroch, for example, from which none but a
native Highlander could draw music.

In her solitude of twenty years, with fewest books and those
only sermons, and a copy of "Paradise Lost" without covers or title-
page, so that later, when she heard much of Milton and sought his
work, she found it was her very book which she knew so well —
she was driven to find Nature her companion and solace. She speaks
of "her attempts in Maiden, to wake up the soul amid the dreary
scenes of monotonous Sabbaths, when Nature looked like a pul-
pit." . . .

For years she had her bed made in the form of a coffin; and de-
lighted herself with the discovery of the figure of a coffin made every
evening on their sidewalk, by the shadow of a church tower which
adjoined the house. Saladin caused his shroud to be made and
carried it to battle as his standard. She made up her shroud and,
death still refusing to come, she, thinking it a pity to let [the gar-
ment] lie idle, wore it as a night-gown or a day-gown, nay, went out
to ride in it on horseback in her mountain roads, until it was worn
out. Then she had another made up, and as she never travelled
without being provided for this dear and indispensable contingency,
I believe she wore out a great many.

"1833. I have given up, the last year or two, the hope of dying.
In the lowest ebb of health nothing is ominous; diet and exercise

restore. So it seems best to get that very humbling business of
insurance. I enter my dear sixty the last of this month." "1835, June
16. Tedious indisposition; — hoped, as it took a new form, it would
open the cool, sweet grave. Now existence itself in any form is
sweet. Away with knowledge; — God alone. He communicates this
our condition and humble waiting, or I should never perceive Him.
Science, Nature, — O, I've yearned to open some page; — not now, too
late. Ill health and nerves. O dear worms, — how they will at some
sure time take down this tedious tabernacle, most valuable compan-
ions, instructors in the science of mind, by gnawing away the
meshes which have chained it. A very Beatrice in showing the
Paradise. Yes, I irk under contact with forms of depravity, while
I am resigned to being nothing, never expect a palm, a laurel, here-
after." . . .

Her friends used to say to her, "I wish you joy of the worm."
And when at last her release arrived, the event of her death had
really such a comic tinge in the eyes of every one who knew her,
that her friends feared they might not dare to look at each other
at her funeral, lest they should forget the serious proprieties of the
hour.

She gave high counsels. It was the privilege of certain boys to
have this immeasurably high standard indicated to their childhood;
a blessing which nothing else in education could supply. It is
frivolous to ask — "And was she ever a Christian in practice?" Cas-
sandra uttered, to a frivolous, skeptical time, the arcana of the Gods;
but it is easy to believe that Cassandra domesticated in a lady's house
would have proved a troublesome boarder. Is it the less desirable to
have the lofty abstractions because the abstractionist is nervous and
irritable? Shall we not keep Flamsteed and Herschel in the observa-
tory, though it should even be proved that they neglected to rectify
their own kitchen clock ? It is essential to the safety of every mackerel
fisher that latitudes and longitudes should be astronomically as-
certained; and so every banker, shopkeeper, and wood-sawyer has a
stake in the elevation of the moral code by saint and prophet. Very
rightly, then, the Christian ages, proceeding on a grand instinct, have
said: Faith alone, Faith alone.

Atlantic Monthly, December, 1881

Mrs. Bonny

SARAH ORNE JEWEf T

"Suppose we go down, now/' said Mr. Lorimer, long before
Kate and I had meant to propose such a thing; and our feeling
was that of dismay. "I should like to take you to make a call with
me. Did you ever hear of old Mrs. Bonny ?"

"No," said we, and cheerfully gathered our wraps and baskets;
and when Tommy finally came panting up the hill after we had
begun to think that our shoutings and whistling were useless, we
sent him down to the horses, and went down ourselves by an-
other path. It led us a long distance through a grove of young
beeches; the last year's whitish leaves lay thick on the ground, and
the new leaves made so close a roof overhead that the light was
strangely purple, as if it had come through a great church window
of stained glass. After this we went through some hemlock growth,
where, on the lower branches, the pale green of the new shoots
and the dark green of the old made an exquisite contrast each to
the other. Finally we came out at Mrs. Bonny 's. Mr. Lorimer had
told us something about her on the way down, saying in the first
place that she was one of the queerest characters he knew. Her
husband used to be a charcoal-burner and basket-maker, and she
used to sell butter, and berries, and eggs, and choke-pears preserved
in molasses. She always came down to Deephaven on a little black
horse, with her goods in baskets and bags which were fastened to
the saddle in a mysterious way. She had the reputation of not being
a neat housekeeper, and none of the wise women of the town would
touch her butter especially, so it was always a joke when she coaxed
a new resident or a strange -shipmaster into buying her wares; but
the old woman always managed to jog home without the freight
she had brought. "She must be very old, now," said Mr. Lorimer;
"I have not seen her in a long time. It cannot be possible that her
horse is still alive!" And we all laughed when we saw Mrs. Bonny 's
steed at a little distance, for the shaggy old creature was covered
with mud, pine-needles, and dead leaves, with half the last year's
burdock-burs in all Deephaven snarled into his mane and tail and
sprinkled over his fur, which looked nearly as long as a buffalo's.
He had hurt his leg, and his kind mistress had tied it up with
a piece of faded red calico and an end of ragged rope. He gave us

a civil neigh, and looked at us curiously. Then an impertinent little
yellow-and-white dog, with one ear standing up straight and the
other drooping over, began to bark with all his might; but he re-
treated when he saw Kate's great dog, who was walking solemnly
by her side and did not deign to notice him. Just now Mrs. Bonny
appeared at the door of the house, shading her eyes with her hand,
to see who was coming. "Landy!" said she, "if it ain't old Parson
Lorimer! And who be these with ye?"

"This is Miss Kate Lancaster of Boston, Miss Katharine Brandon's
niece, and her friend Miss Denis."

"Pleased to see ye," said the old woman; "walk in and lay off
your things." And we followed her into the house. I wish you could
have seen her: she wore a man's coat, cut off so that it made an
odd short jacket, and a pair of men's boots much the worse for
wear; also, some short skirts, beside two or three aprons, the inner
one being a full-dress-apron, as she took off the outer ones and threw
them into a corner; and on her head was a tight cap, with strings
to tie under her chin. I thought it was a nightcap, and that she had
forgotten to take it off, and dreaded her mortification if she should
suddenly become conscious of it; but I need not have troubled my-
self, for while we were with her she pulled it on and tied it tighter,
as if she considered it ornamental.

There were only two rooms in the house; we went into the
kitchen, which was occupied by a flock of hens and one turkey.
The latter was evidently undergoing a course of medical treatment
behind the stove, and was allowed to stay with us, while the hens
were remorselessly hustled out with a hemlock broom. They all
congregated on the doorstep, apparently wishing to hear every-
thing that was said.

"B'en up on the mountain?" asked our hostess. "Real sightly
place. Coin' to be a master lot o' rosbries; get any down to the
shore sence I quit comin'?"

"Oh, yes," said Mr. Lorimer, "but we miss seeing you."

"I a'pose so," said Mrs. Bonny, smoothing her apron complacently;
"but I'm getting old, and I tell 'em I'm goin' to take my comfort;
sence 'he' died I don't put myself out no great; I've got money
enough to keep me long's I live. Beckett's folks goes down often,
and I sends by them for what store stuff I want."

"How are you now?" asked the minister; "I think I heard you
were ill in the spring."

"Stirrin', I'm obliged to ye. I wasn't laid up long, and I was so's
I could get about most of the time. I've got the best bitters ye ever

see, good for the spring of the year. S'pose yer sister, Miss Lorimer,
wouldn't like some? she used to be weakly lookin'." But her brother
refused the orTer, saying that she had not been so well for many
years.

"Do you often get out to church nowadays, Mrs. Bonny ? I believe
Mr. Reid preaches in the school-house sometimes, down by the
great ledge; doesn't he?"

"Well, yes, he does; but I don't know as I get much of any good.
Parson Reid, he's a worthy creatur', but he never seems to have
nothin' to say about foreordination and them p'ints. Old Parson
Padelford was the man! I used to set under his preachin' a good
deal; I had an aunt living down to East Parish. He'd get worked
up till he'd shut up the Bible and preach the hair off your head,
'long at the end of the sermon. Couldn't understand more nor a
quarter part o' what he said," said Mrs. Bonny admiringly. "Well,
we were a-speaking about the meeting over to the ledge; I don't
know's I like them ledge people any to speak of. They had a great
revival over there in the fall, and one Sunday I thought's how I'd
go; and when I got there, who should be a-prayin' but old Ben
Patey, — he always lays out to get converted, — and he kep' it up
diligent till I couldn't stand it no longer; and by and by says he,
'I've been a wanderer;' and I up and says right out, 'Yes, you have,
I'll back ye up on that, Ben; ye've wandered round my wood-lot
and spoilt half the likely young oaks and ashes I've got, a-stealing
your basket-stuff.' And the folks laughed out loud, and up he got
and cleared. He's an awful old thief, and he's no idea of being any-
thing else. I wa'n't a-goin' to set there and hear him makin' b'lieve
to the Lord. If anybody's heart is in it, I ain't a-goin' to hender 'em;
I'm a professor, and I ain't ashamed of it, week-days nor Sundays
neither. I can't bear to see folks so pious to meeting, and cheat yer
eye-teeth out Monday morning. Well, there! we ain't none of us
perfect; even old Parson Moody was round-shouldered, they say."

"You were speaking of the Becketts just now," said Mr. Lorimer
(after we had stopped laughing, and Mrs. Bonny had settled her
big steel-bowed spectacles and sat looking at him with an expression
of extreme wisdom. One might have ventured to call her "peart,"
I think). "How do they get on? I am seldom in this region nowa-
days, since Mr. Reid has taken it under his charge."

"They get along somehow or 'nother," replied Mrs. Bonny;
"they've got the best farm this side of the ledge, but they're dreadful
lazy and shiftless, them young folks. Old Mis' Hate-evil Beckett was
tellin' me the other day — she that was Samanthy Barnes, you know

—that one of the boys got fighting, the other side of the mountain,
and come home with his nose broke and a piece o' one ear bit
off. I forget which ear it was. Their mother is a real clever,
willin' woman, and she takes it to heart, but it's no use for her
to say anything. Mis' Hate-evil Beckett, says she, 'It does make
my man feel dreadful to see his brother's folks carry on so.' 'But
there,' says I, 'Mis' Beckett, it's just such things as we read of;
Scriptur' is fulfilled: In the larter days there shall be disobedient
children.' "

This application of the text was too much for us, but Mrs. Bonny
looked serious, and we did not like to laugh. Two or three of
the exiled fowls had crept slyly in, dodging underneath our chairs,
and had perched themselves behind the stove. They were long-
legged, half -grown creatures, and just at this minute one rash
young rooster made a manful attempt to crow. "Do tell!" said his
mistress, who rose in great wrath; "you needn't be so forth-putting,
as I knows on!" After this we were urged to stay and have some
supper. Mrs. Bonny assured us she could pick a likely young hen
in no time, fry her with a bit of pork, and get us up "a good meat
tea;" but we had to disappoint her, as we had some distance to
walk to the house where we had left our horses, and a long drive
home.

Kate asked if she would be kind enough to lend us a tumbler
(for ours was in the basket, which was given into Tommy's charge) .
We were thirsty, and wished to go back to the spring and get
some water.

"Yes, dear," said Mrs. Bonny, "I've got a glass, if it's so's I can
find it." And she pulled a chair under the little cupboard over the
fireplace, mounted it, and opened the door. Several things fell
out at her; and after taking a careful survey she went in, head and
shoulders, until I thought that she would disappear altogether;
but soon she came back, and reaching in took out one treasure after
another, putting them on the mantelpiece or dropping them on the
floor. There were some bunches of dried herbs, a tin horn, a lump
of tallow in a broken plate, a folded newspaper, and an old boot,
with a number of turkey-wings tied together, several vials, and a
steel trap, and finally, such a tumbler! which she produced with
triumph, before stepping down. She poured out of it on the table
a mixture of old buttons and squash-seeds, beside a lump of beeswax
which she said she had lost, and now pocketed with satisfaction.
She wiped the tumbler on her apron and handed it to Kate; but
we were not so thirsty as we had been, though we thanked her and

went down to the spring, coming back as soon as possible, for we
could not lose a bit of the conversation.

There was a beautiful view from the doorstep, and we stopped
a minute there. "Real sightly, ain't it?" said Mrs. Bonny. "But
you ought to be here and look acrost the woods some morning just
at sun-up. Why, the sky is all yaller and red, and them lowlands
topped with fog! Yes, it's nice weather, good growin' weather, this
week. Corn and all the rest of the trade looks first-rate. I call it a
forrard season. It's just such weather as we read of, ain't it?"

"I don't remember where, just at this moment," said Mr. Lorimer.

"Why, in the almanac, bless ye!" said she, with a tone of pity in
her grum voice; could it be possible he didn't know, — the Deep-
haven minister!

We asked her to come and see us. She said she had always thought
she'd get a chance some time to see Miss Katharine Brandon's house.
She should be pleased to call, and she didn't know but she should
be down to the shore before very long. She was 'shamed to look
so shif'less that day, but she had some good clothes in a chist in
the bedroom, and a boughten bonnet with a good cypress veil,
which she had when "he" died. She calculated they would do,
though they might be old-fashioned some. She seemed greatly
pleased at Mr. Lorimer's having taken the trouble to come to see
her. All those people had a great reverence for "the minister." We
were urged to come again in "rosbry" time, which was near at
hand, and she gave us messages for some of her old customers and
acquaintances. "I believe some of those old creatur's will never die,"
said she; "why, they're getting to be ter'ble old, ain't they, Mr.
Lorimer? There! ye've done me a sight of good, and I wish I could
ha' found the Bible, to hear ye read a Psalm." When Mr. Lorimer
shook hands with her, at leaving, she made him a most reverential
courtesy. He was the greatest man she knew; and once during the
call, when he was speaking o£ serious things in his simple, earnest
way, she had so devout a look, and seemed so interested, that Kate
and I, and Mr. Lorimer himself, caught a new, fresh meaning in
the familiar words he spoke.

Living there in the lonely clearing, deep in the woods and far
from any neighbor, she knew all the herbs and trees, and the harm-
less wild creatures who lived among them by heart; and she had
an amazing store of tradition and superstition, which made her so
entertaining to us that we went to see her many times before we
came away in the autumn. We went with her to find some pitcher-
plants one day, and it was wonderful how much she knew about

the woods, what keen observation she had. There was something
so wild and unconventional about Mrs. Bonny that it was like taking
an afternoon walk with a good-natured Indian. We used to carry
her offerings of tobacco, for she was a great smoker, and advised
us to try it ourselves if ever we should be troubled with nerves, or
"narves," as she pronounced the name of that affliction.

Deephaven, 1877

My Doulle and How He Undid Me

EDWARD EVERETT HALE

It is not often that I trouble the readers of the Atlantic Monthly.
I should not trouble them now, but for the importunities of my
wife, who "feels to insist" that a duty to society is unfulfilled till I
have told why I had to have a double, and how he undid me.
She is sure, she says, that intelligent persons cannot understand
that pressure upon public servants which alone drives any man into
the employment of a double. And while I fear she thinks, at the
bottom of her heart, that my fortunes will never be remade, she
has a faint hope that, as another Rasselas, I may teach a lesson to
future publics, from which they may profit, though we die. Owing
to the behavior of my double, or, if you please, to that public pres-
sure which compelled me to employ him, I have plenty of leisure
to write this communication.

I am, or rather was, a minister of the Sandemanian connection.
I was settled in the active, wide-awake town of Naguadavick, on
one of the finest water-powers in Maine. We used to call it a
western town in the heart of the civilization of New England. A
charming place it was and is. A spirited, brave young parish had
I; and it seemed as if we might have all "the joy of eventful living"
to our heart's content.

Alas! how little we knew on the day of my ordination, and in
those halcyon moments of our first housekeeping. To be the confi-
dential friend in a hundred families in the town, — cutting the social
trifle, as my friend Haliburton says, "from the top of the whipped
syllabub to the bottom of the sponge-cake, which is the foundation,"
— to keep abreast of the thought of the age in one's study, and to
do one's best on Sunday to interweave that thought with the active
life of an active town, and to inspirit both and make both infinite
by glimpses of the Eternal Glory, seemed such an exquisite forelook
into one's life! Enough to do, and all so real and so grand! If this
vision could only have lasted!

The truth is, that this vision was not in itself a delusion, nor,
indeed, half bright enough. If one could only have been left to
do his own business, the vision would have accomplished itself and
brought out new paraheliacal visions, each as bright as the original.
The misery was and is, as we found out, I and Polly, before long,

that besides the vision, and besides the usual human and finite
failures in life (such as breaking the old pitcher that came over in
the Mayflower, and putting into the fire the alpenstock with which
her father climbed Mont Blanc) — besides these, I say (imitating
the style of Robinson Crusoe), there were pitchforked in on us a
great rowen-heap of humbugs, handed down from some unknown
seed-time, in which we were expected, and I chiefly, to fulfil certain
public functions before the community, of the character of those ful-
filled by the third row of supernumeraries who stand behind the
Sepoys in the spectacle of the "Cataract of the Ganges." They were
the duties, in a word, which one performs as member of one or
another social class or subdivision, wholly distinct from what one
does as A. by himself A. What invisible power put these functions
on me it would be very hard to tell. But such power there was and
is. And I had not been at work a year before I found I was living
two lives, one real and one merely functional, — for two sets of
people, one my parish, whom I loved, and the other a vague public,
for whom I did not care two straws. All this was in a vague notion,
which everybody had and has, that this second life would eventually
bring out some great results, unknown at present, to somebody
somewhere.

Crazed by this duality of life, I first read Dr. Wigan on the
Duality of the Brain, hoping that I could train one side of my head
to do these outside jobs, and the other to do my intimate and real
duties. . . . But Dr. Wigan does not go into these niceties of this
subject, and I failed. It was then that, on my wife's suggestion, I
resolved to look out for a double.

I was, at first, singularly successful. We happened to be recreating
at Stafford Springs that summer. We rode out one day, for one of
the relaxations of that watering-place, to the great Monson Poor-
house. We were passing through one of the large halls, when my
destiny was fulfilled! I saw my man!

He was not shaven. He had on no spectacles. He was dressed in
a green baize roundabout and faded blue overalls, worn sadly at
the knee. But I saw at once that he was of my height, five feet
four and a half. He had black hair, worn off by his hat. So have
and have not I. He stooped in walking. So do I. His hands were
large, and mine. And — choicest gift of Fate in all — he had, not "a
strawberry mark on his left arm," but a cut from a juvenile brickbat
over his right eye, slightly affecting the play of that eyebrow. Reader,
so have I! My fate was sealed!

A word with Mr. Holley, one of the inspectors, settled the whole

thing. It proved that this Dennis Shea was a harmless, amiable
fellow, of the class known as shiftless, who had sealed his fate by
marrying a dumb wife, who was at that moment ironing in the
laundry. Before I left Stafford I had hired both for five years. We
had applied to Judge Pynchon, then the probate judge at Spring-
field, to change the name of Dennis Shea to Frederic Ingham. We
had explained to the Judge what was the precise truth, that an
eccentric gentleman wished to adopt Dennis, under this new name,
into his family. It never occurred to him that Dennis might be
more than fourteen years old. And thus, to shorten this preface,
when we returned at night to my parsonage at Naguadavick, there
entered Mrs. Ingham, her new dumb laundress, myself, who am Mr.
Frederic Ingham, and my double, who was Mr. Frederic Ingham by
as good right as I.

Oh, the fun we had the next morning in shaving his beard to
my pattern, cutting his hair to match mine, and teaching him how
to wear and how to take off gold-bowed spectacles! Really, they were
electro-plate, and the glass was plain (for the poor fellow's eyes were
excellent). Then in four successive afternoons I taught him four
speeches. I had found these would be quite enough for the super-
numerary-Sepoy line of life, and it was well for me they were; for
though he was good-natured, he was very shiftless, and it was, as
Dur national proverb says, like pulling teeth to teach him. But at
the end of the next week he could say, with quite my easy and
frisky air, —

1. "Very well, thank you. And you?" This for an answer to casual
salutations.

2. "I am very glad you liked it."

3. "There has been so much said, and, on the whole, so well said,
that I will not occupy the time."

4. "I agree, in general, with my friend the other side of the

room."

At first I had a feeling that I was going to be at great cost for
clothing him. But it proved, of course, at once, that, whenever he
was out, I should be at home. And I went, during the bright period
of his success, to so few of those awful pageants which require a
black dress-coat and what the ungodly call, after Mr. Dickens, a
white choker, that in the happy retreat of my own dressing-gowns
and jackets my days went by as happily and cheaply as those of
another Thalaba. And Polly declares there was never a year when
the tailoring cost so little. He lived (Dennis, not Thalaba) in his

wife's room over the kitchen. He had orders never to show himself
at that window. When he appeared in the front of the house I re-
tired to my sanctissimum and my dressing-gown. In short, the
Dutchman and his wife, in the old weather-box, had not less to
do with each other than he and I. He made the furnace-fire and
split the wood before daylight; then he went to sleep again, and
slept late; then came for orders, with a red silk bandana tied
round his head, with his overalls on, and his dresscoat and spectacles
off. If we happened to be interrupted, no one guessed that he was
Frederic Ingham as well as I; and, in the neighborhood, there grew
up an impression that the minister's Irishman worked daytimes in
the factory village at New Coventry. After I had given him his
orders, I never saw him till the next day.

I launched him by sending him to a meeting of the Enlighten-
ment Board. The Enlightenment Board consists of seventy-four
members, of whom sixty-seven are necessary to form a quorum. . . .
At this particular time we had had four successive meetings, averag-
ing four hours each, — wholly occupied in whipping in a quorum.
At the first only eleven men were present; at the next, by force of
three circulars, twenty-seven; at the third, thanks to two days' can-
vassing by Auchmuty and myself, begging men to come, we had
sixty. Half the others were in Europe. But without a quorum we
could do nothing. All the rest of us waited grimly for our four
hours, and adjourned without any action. At the fourth meeting we
had flagged, and only got fifty-nine together. But on the first ap-
pearance of my double — whom 1 sent on this fatal Monday to the
fifth meeting — he was the sixty-seventh man who entered the room.
He was greeted with a storm of applause! The poor fellow had
missed his way — read the street signs ill through his spectacles (very
ill, in fact, without them) — and had not dared to inquire. He en-
tered the room, finding the president and secretary holding to their
chairs two judges of the Supreme Court, who were also members
ex officio and were begging leave to go away. On his entrance all
was changed. Presto, the by-laws were amended, and the western
property was given away. Nobody stopped to converse with him.
He voted, as I had charged him to do, in every instance, with the
minority. I won new laurels as a man of sense, though a little un-
punctual — and Dennis, alias Ingham, returned to the parsonage,
astonished to see with how little wisdom the world is governed. He
cut a few of my parishioners in the street; but he had his glasses off,
and I am known to be near-sighted. Eventually he recognized them
more readily than I.

I "set him again" at the exhibition of the New Coventry Academy;
and here he undertook a "speaking part" — as, in my boyish, worldly
days, I remember the bills used to say of Mile. Celeste. We are all
trustees of the New Coventry Academy; and there has lately been
a good deal of feeling because the Sandemanians are leaning toward
Free-Will, and that we have, therefore, neglected these semi-annual
exhibitions, while there is no doubt that Auchmuty last year went
to Commencement at Waterville. Now the head master at New
Coventry is a real good fellow, who knows a Sanskrit root when
he sees it, and often cracks etymologies with me; so that, in strictness,
I ought to go to their exhibitions. But think, reader, of sitting
through three long July days in that Academy chapel, following
the program from

TUESDAY MORNING. English Composition. "SUNRISE." Miss Jones,
round to —

Trio on Three Pianos. Duel from the Opera of "Midshipman
Easy." Marry/at,

coming in at nine, Thursday evening! Think of this, reader, for
men who know the world is trying to go backward, and who would
give their lives if they could help it on! Well! The double had
succeeded so well at the Board, that I sent him to the Academy.
(Shade of Plato, pardon!) He arrived early on Tuesday, when, in-
deed, few but mothers and clergymen are generally expected, and
returned in the evening to us, covered with honors. He had dined
at the right hand of the chairman, and he spoke in high terms of
the repast. The chairman had expressed his interest in the French
conversation. "I am very glad you liked it," said Dennis; and the
poor chairman, abashed, supposed the accent had been wrong. At
the end of the day the gentlemen present had been called upon for
speeches — the Rev. Frederic Ingham first, as it happened; upon
which Dennis had risen, and had said: "There has been so much
said, and, on the whole, so well said, that I will not occupy the
time." The girls were delighted, because Dr. Dabney, the year
before, had given them at this occasion a scolding on impropriety
of behavior at lyceum lectures. They all declared Mr. Ingham was a
love — and so handsome! (Dennis is good looking.) Three of them,
with arms behind the others' waists, followed him up to the wagon"
he rode home in; and a little girl with a blue sash had been sent
to give him a rosebud. After this debut in speaking, he went to the
exhibition for two days more, to the mutual satisfaction of all con-

cerned. Indeed, Polly reported that he had pronounced the trustees'
dinners of a higher grade than those of the parsonage. When the
next term began I found six of the Academy girls had obtained
permission to come across the river to attend our church. But this
arrangement did not long continue.

After this he went to several Commencements for me, and ate
the dinners provided. He sat through three of our Quarterly Con-
ventions for me — always voting judiciously, by the simple rule men-
tioned above, of siding with the minority. And I, meanwhile, who
had before been losing caste among my friends, as holding myself
aloof from the associations of the body, began to rise in everybody's
favor. "Ingham's a good fellow, always on hand;" "never talks
much, but does the right thing at the right time;" "is not as un-
punctual as he used to be — he comes early, and sits through to the
end." "He has got over his old talkative habit, too. I spoke to a
friend of his about it once; and I think Ingham took it kindly," etc.,
etc.

This voting power of Dennis was particularly valuable at the
quarterly meetings of the proprietors of the Naguadavick Ferry.
My wife inherited from her father some shares in that enterprise,
which is not yet fully developed, though it doubtless will become
a very valuable property. The law of Maine then forbade stock-
holders to appear by proxy at such meetings. Polly disliked to go,
not being, in fact, a "hens'-rights hen," transferred her stock to me.
I, after going once, disliked it more than she. But Dennis went to
the next meeting, and liked it very much. He said the armchairs
were good, the collation good, and the free rides to stockholders
pleasant. He was a little frightened when they first took him upon
one of the ferry-boats, but after two or three quarterly meetings he
became quite brave.

Thus far I never had any difficulty with him. Indeed, being, as I
implied, of that type which is called shiftless, he was only too happy
to be told daily what to do, and to be charged not to be forthputting
or in any way original in his discharge of that duty. He learned,
however, to discriminate between the lines of his life, and very
much preferred these stockholders' meetings and trustees' dinners
and Commencement collations to another set of occasions, from
which he used to beg off most piteously. Our excellent brother, Dr.
Fillmore, had taken a notion at this time that our Sandemanian
churches needed more expression of mutual sympathy. He insisted
upon it that we were remiss. He said that if the bishop came to
preach at Naguadavick all the Episcopal clergy of the neighborhood

were present; if Dr. Pond came, all the Congregational clergymen
turned out to hear him; if Dr. Nichols, all the Unitarians; and he
thought we owed it to each other, that, whenever there was an
occasional service at a Sandemanian church, the other brethren
should all, if possible, attend. "It looked well," if nothing more.
Now this really meant that I had not been to hear one of Dr. Fill-
more's lectures on the Ethnology of Religion. He forgot that he did
not hear one of my course on the "Sandemanianism of Anselm."
But I felt badly when he said it; and afterwards I always made
Dennis go to hear all the brethren preach, when I was not preaching
myself. This was what he took exceptions to — the only thing, as I
said, which he ever did except to. Now came the advantage of his
long morning nap, and of the green tea with which Polly supplied
the kitchen. But he would plead, so humbly, to be let off, only from
one or two! I never exempted him, however. I knew the lectures
were of value, and I thought it best that he should be able to keep
the connection.

Polly is more rash than I am, as the reader has observed at the
outset of this memoir. She risked Dennis one night under the eyes
of her own sex. Governor Gorges had always been very kind to us,
and, when he gave his great annual party to the town, asked us. I
confess I hated to go. I was deep in the new volume of Pfeiffer's
Mystics, which Haliburton had just sent me from Boston. "But how
rude," said Polly, "not to return the Governor's civility and Mrs.
Qorges', when they will be sure to ask why you are away!" Still I
demurred, and at last she, with the wit of Eve and of Semiramis
conjoined, let me off by saying that if I would go in with her, and
sustain the initial conversations with the Governor and ladies staying
there, we would risk Dennis for the rest of the evening. And that
was just what we did. She took Dennis in training all that afternoon,
instructed him in fashionable conversation, cautioned him against
the temptations of the supper-table — and at nine in the evening he
drove us all down in the carryall. I made the grand star entree with
Polly and the pretty Walton girls, who were staying with us. We
had put Dennis into a great rough top-coat, without his glasses;
and the girls never dreamed, in the darkness, of looking at him.
He sat in the carriage, at the door, while we entered. I did the
agreeable to Mrs. Gorges, was introduced to her niece, Miss Fer-
nanda; I complimented Judge Jeffries on his decision in the great
case of D'Aulnay vs. Laconia Mining Company; I stepped into the
dressing-room for a moment, stepped out for another, walked home
after a nod with Dennis and tying the horse to a pump; — and while

I walked home, Mr. Frederic Ingham, my double, stepped in through
the library into the Gorges' grand saloon.

Oh! Polly died of laughing as she told me of it at midnight! And
even here, where I have to teach my hands to hew the beech for
stakes to fence our cave, she dies of laughing as she recalls it, and
says that single occasion was worth all we have paid for it. Gallant
Eve that she is! She joined Dennis at the library-door, and in an
instant presented him to Dr. Ochterlong, from Baltimore, who was
on a visit in town, and was talking with her as Dennis came in.
"Mr. Ingham would like to hear what you were telling us about
your success among the German population." And Dennis bowed
and said, in spite of a scowl from Polly, "I'm very glad you liked
it." But Dr. Ochterlong did not observe, and plunged into the
tide of explanation; Dennis listening like a prime minister, and
bowing like a mandarin, which is, I suppose, the same thing. . . .
Governor Gorges came to Dennis, and asked him to hand Mrs.
Jeffries down to supper, a request which he heard with great joy.

Polly was skipping round the room, I guess, gay as a lark. Auch-
muty came to her "in pity for poor Ingham," who was so bored
by the stupid pundit; and Auchmuty could not understand why
I stood so long. But when Dennis took Mrs. Jeffries down, Polly
could not resist standing near them. He was a little flustered, till
the sight of the eatables and drinkables gave him the same Mercian
courage which it gave Diggory. A little excited then, he attempted
one or two of his speeches to the judge's lady. But little he knew how
hard it was to get in even a promptu there edgewise. "Very well, I
thank you," said he, after the eating elements were adjusted; "and
you?" And then did not he have to hear about the mumps, and
the measles, and arnica, and belladonna, and camomile-flower, and
dodecatheon, till she changed oysters for salad; and then about the
old practice and the new, and what her sister said, and what her
sister's friend said, and what the physician to her sister's friend said,
and then what was said by the brother of the sister of the physician
of the friend of her sister? . . . There was a moment's pause, as
she declined champagne. "I am very glad you like it," said Dennis
again, which he never should have said but to one who compli-
mented a sermon. "Oh! you are so sharp, Mr. Ingham! No! I never
drink any wine at all, except sometimes in summer a little currant
shrub, from our own currants, you know. My own mother, that is,
I call her my own mother, because, you know, I do not remember,"
etc., etc., etc.; till they came to the candied orange at the end of
the feast, when Dennis, rather confused, thought he must say some-

thing, and tried No. 4, — "I agree, in general, with my friend the
other side of the room," — which he never should have said but at a
public meeting. But Mrs. Jeffries, who never listens expecting to
understand, caught him up instantly with "Well, I'm sure my
husband returns the compliment; he always agrees with you, though
we do worship with the Methodists; but you know, Mr. Ingham,"
etc., etc., etc., till the move upstairs; and as Dennis led her through
the hall, he was scarcely understood by any but Polly, as he said,
"There has been so much said, and, on the whole, so well said, that I
will not occupy the time."

His great resource the rest of the evening was standing in the
library, carrying on animated conversations with one and another
in much the same way. Polly had initiated him in the mysteries of
a discovery of mine, that it is not necessary to finish your sentences
in a crowd, but by a sort of mumble, omitting sibilants and dentals.
This, indeed, if your words fail you, answers even in public ex-
tempore speech, but better where other talking is going on. Thus:
"We missed you at the Natural History Society, Ingham." Ingham
replies, "I am very gligloglum, that is, that you were mmmmm."
By gradually dropping the voice, the interlocutor is compelled to
supply the answer. "Mrs. Ingham, I hope your friend Augusta is
better." Augusta has not been ill. Polly cannot think of explaining,
however, and answers, "Thank you, ma'am; she is very rearason
wewahwewoh," in lower and lower tones. And Mrs. Throckmorton,
who forgot the subject of which she spoke as soon as she asked
the question, is quite satisfied. Dennis could see into the cardroom,
and came to Polly to ask if he might not go and play all-fours.
But, of course, she sternly refused. At midnight they came home
delighted — Polly, as I said, wild to tell me the story of the victory;
only both the pretty Walton girls said, "Cousin Frederic, you did
not come near me all the evening."

We always called him Dennis at home, for convenience, though
his real name was Frederic Ingham, as I have explained. When the
election day came round, however, I found that by some accident
there was only one Frederic Ingham's name on the voting list; and
as I was quite busy that day in writing some foreign letters to Halle,
I thought I would forego my privilege of suffrage, and stay quietly
at home, telling Dennis that he might use the record on the voting-
list, and vote. I gave him a ticket, which I told him he might use
if he liked to. That was that very sharp election in Maine which
the readers of the Atlantic so well remember, and it had been inti-
mated in public that the ministers would do well not to appear at

the polls. Of course, after that, we had to appear by self or proxy.
Still, Naguadavick was not then a city, and this standing in a
double queue at town-meeting several hours to vote was a bore of
the first water; and so when I found that there was but one Frederic
Ingham on the list, and that one of us must give up, I stayed at
home and finished the letters (which, indeed, procured for Fother-
gill his coveted appointment of Professor of Astronomy at Leaven-
worth), and I gave Dennis, as we called him, the chance. Something
in the matter gave a good deal of popularity to the Frederic Ingham
name; and at the adjourned election, next week, Frederic Ingham
was chosen to the legislature. Whether this was I or Dennis I never
really knew. My friends seemed to think it was I; but I felt that
as Dennis had done the popular thing, he was entitled to the honor;
so I sent him to Augusta when the time came; and he took the
oaths. And a very valuable member he made. They appointed him
on the Committee on Parishes; but I wrote a letter for him, resign-
ing, on the ground that he took an interest in our claim to the
stumpage in the minister's sixteenths of Gore A, next to No. 7, in
the loth Range. He never made any speeches, and always voted
with the minority, which was what he was sent to do. He made
me and himself a great many good friends, some of whom I did
not afterwards recognize as quickly as Dennis did my parishioners.
On one or two occasions, when there was wood to saw, I kept him
at home; but I took those occasions to go to Augusta myself. Find-
ing myself often in his vacant seat at these times, I watched the pro-
ceedings with a great deal of care; and once was so excited that I
delivered my somewhat celebrated speech on the Central School-
District question, a speech of which the state of Maine printed some
extra copies. I believe there is no formal rule permitting strangers
to speak; but no one objected. . . .

After the double had become a matter of course, for nearly twelve
months before he undid me, what a year it was! Full of active life,
full of happy love, of the hardest work, of the sweetest sleep, and
the fulfilment of so many of the fresh aspirations and dreams of
boyhood! Dennis went to every school-committee meeting, and sat
through all those late wranglings, which used to keep me up till
midnight and awake till morning. He attended all the lectures to
which foreign exiles sent me tickets, begging me to come for the
love of Heaven and of Bohemia. He accepted and used all the tickets
for charity concerts which were sent to me. He appeared everywhere
where it was specially desirable that "our denomination," or "our
party," or "our class," or "our family," or "our street," or "our town,"

or "our country," or "our state," should be fully represented. And I
fell back to that charming life which in boyhood one dreams of,
when he supposes he shall do his own duty and make his own
sacrifices, Without being tied up with those of other people. My
rusty Sanskrit, Arabic, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, French, Italian, Span-
ish, German, and English began to take polish. Heavens! how little
I had done with them while I attended to my public duties! My
calls on my parishioners became the friendly, frequent, homelike
sociabilities they were meant to be, instead of the hard work of a
man goaded to desperation by the sight of his lists of arrears. And
preaching! what a luxury preaching was when I had on Sunday
the whole result of an individual, personal week, from which to
speak to a people whom all that week I had been meeting as hand-
to-hand-friend; — I, never tired on Sunday, and in condition to leave
the sermon at home, if I chose, and preach it extempore, as all men
should do always. Indeed, I wonder, when I -think that a sensible
people, like ours — really more attached to their clergy than they
were in the lost days, when the Mathers and Nortohs were noble-
men— should choose to neutralize so much of their minister's lives,
and destroy so much of their early training, by this undefined passion
for seeing them in public. . . .

Freed from these necessities, that happy year I began to know my
wife by sight. We saw each other sometimes. In those long morn-
ings, when Dennis was in the study explaining to map-peddlers
that I had eleven maps of Jerusalem already, she and I were at
work together, as in those old dreamy days, and in these of our log-
cabin again. But all this could not last; and at length poor Dennis,
my double, overtasked in turn, undid me.

It was thus it happened. There is an excellent fellow, once a
minister, — I will call him Isaacs, — who deserves well of the world till
he dies, and after, because he once, in a real exigency, did the right
thing, in the right way, at, the right time, as no other man could do
it. In the world's great football match, the ball by chance found him
loitering on the outside of the field; he closed with it, "camped" it,
charged it home — yes, right through the other side — not disturbed,
not frightened by his own success — and, breathless, found himself
a great man, as the Great Delta rang applause. But he did not find
himself a rich man; and the football has never come in his way
again. From that moment to this moment he has been of no use, that^
one can see at all. Still, for that great act we speak of Isaacs gratefully
and remember him kindly; and he forges on, hoping to meet the
football somewhere again. In that vague hope he had arranged a

7°

"movement" for a general organization of the human family into
Debating Clubs, County Societies, State Unions, etc., etc., with a
view of inducing all children to take hold of the handles of their
knives and forks, instead of the metal. Children have bad habits
in that way. The movement, of course, was absurd; but we all did
our best to forward, not it, but him. It came time for the annual
county meeting on this subject to be held at Naguadavick. Isaacs
came round, good fellow! to arrange for it — got the town-hall, got
the Governor to preside (the saint! — he ought to have triplet doubles
provided him by law), and then came to get me to speak. "No," I
said, "I do not believe in the enterprise. If I spoke it should be to
say children should take hold of the prongs of the forks and the
blades of the knives. I would subscribe ten dollars, but I would not
speak a mill." So poor Isaacs went his way sadly, to coax Auchmuty
to speak, and Delafield. I went out. Not long after he came back,
and told Polly that they had promised to speak, the Governor would
speak, and he himself would close with the quarterly report, and
some interesting anecdotes regarding Miss Biffin's way of handling
her knife and Mr. Nellis's way of footing his fork. "Now if Mr.
Ingham will only come and sit on the platform, he need not say one
word; but it will show well in the paper — it will show that the
Sandemanians take as much interest in the movement as the Ar-
menians or the Mesopotamians, and will be a great favor to me."
Polly, good soul! was tempted, and she promised. She knew Mrs.
Isaacs was starving, and the babies, — she knew Dennis was at home,
— and she promised! Night came, and I returned. I heard her story.
I was sorry. I doubted. But Polly had promised to beg me, and I
dared all! I told Dennis to hold his peace, under all circumstances,
and sent him down.

It was not half an hour more before he returned, wild with ex-
citement,— in a perfect Irish fury, — which it was long before I
understood. But I knew at once that he had undone me!

What happened was this. The audience got together, attracted by
Governor Gorges' name. There were a thousand people. Poor Gorges
was late from Augusta. They became impatient. He came in direct
from the train, at last, really ignorant of the object of the meeting.
He opened it in the fewest possible words, and said other gentlemen
were present who would entertain them better than he. The audi-
ence were disappointed, but waited. The Governor, prompted by
Isaacs, said, "The Honorable Mr. Delafield will address you." Dela-
field! He had forgotten the knives and forks, and was playing the
Ruy Lopez opening at the chess-club. "The Rev. Mr. Auchmuty will

address you." Auchmuty had promised to speak late, and was at
the school-committee. "I see Dr. Stearns in the hall; perhaps he
will say a w,ord." Dr. Stearns said he had come to listen and not to
speak. The Governor and Isaacs whispered. The Governor looked
at Dennis, who was resplendent on the platform; but Isaacs, to
give him his due, shook his head. But the look was enough. A
miserable lad, ill-bred, who had once been in Boston, thought it
would sound well to call for me, and peeped out, "Ingham!" A
few more wretches cried, "Ingham! Ingham!" Still Isaacs was
firm; but the Governor, anxious, indeed, to prevent a row, knew
I would say something, and said, "Our friend Mr. Ingham is always
prepared; and, although we had not relied upon him, he will say a
word perhaps." Applause followed, which turned Dennis's head.
He arose, fluttered, and tried No. 3. "There has been so much said,
and, on the whole, so well said, that I will not occupy the time!"
and sat down, looking for his hat; for things seemed squally. But
the people cried, "Go on! go on!" and some applauded. Dennis,
still confused, but flattered by the applause, to which neither he
nor I are used, rose again, and this time tried No. 2: "I am very
glad you liked it!" in a sonorous, clear delivery. My best friends
stared. All the people who did not know me personally yelled with
delight at the aspect of the evening; the Governor was beside him-
self, and poor Isaacs thought he was undone! Alas, it was I! A boy
in the gallery cried in a loud tone, "It's all an infernal humbug,"
just as Dennis, waving his hand, commanded silence, and tried No.
4: "I agree, in general, with my friend the other side of the room."
The poor Governor doubted his senses and crossed to stop him —
not in time, however. The same gallery-boy shouted, "How's your
mother?" and Dennis, now completely lost, tried, as his last shot,
No. i, vainly: "Very well, thank you. And you?"

I think I must have been undone already. But Dennis, like another
Lockhard, chose "to make* sicker." The audience rose in a whirl of
amazement, rage, and sorrow. Some other impertinence, aimed at
Dennis, broke all restraint, and, in pure Irish, he delivered himself
of an address to the gallery, inviting any person who wished to
fight to come down and do so — stating, that they were all dogs
and cowards, and the sons of dogs and cowards — that he would take
any five of them single-handed. "Shure, I have said all his Riverance
and the Misthress bade me say," cried he, in defiance; and, seizing •
the Governor's cane from his hand, brandished it, quarter-stafl
fashion, above his head. He was, indeed, got from the hall only
with the greatest difficulty by the Governor, the city marshal, who

had been called in, and the superintendent of my Sunday-School.

The universal impression, of course, was that the Rev. Frederic
Ingham had lost all command of himself in some of those haunts
of intoxication which for fifteen years I have been laboring to destroy.
Till this moment, indeed, that is the impression in Naguadavick.
This number of the Atlantic will relieve from it a hundred friends
of mine who have been sadly wounded by that notion now for
years; but I shall not be likely ever to show my head there again.

No! My double has undone me.

We left town at seven the next morning. I came to No. 9 in the
Third Range, and settled on the Minister's Lot. In the new towns
of Maine, the first settled minister has a gift of a hundred acres of
land. I am the first settled minister in No. 9. My wife and little
Paulina are my parish. We raise corn enough to live on in summer.
We kill bear's meat enough to carbonize it in winter. I work on
steadily on my Traces of Sandemanianism in the Sixth and Seventh
Centuries, which I hope to persuade Phillips, Samson & Co. to
publish next year. We are very happy, but the world thinks we are
undone.

//, Yes, and Perhaps, 1868

The Rise of Lapkam Paint

WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS

"I came down to a little place called Lumberville, and picked up
what jobs I could get. I worked round at the saw-mills, and I was
ostler a while at the hotel — I always did like a good horse. Well, I
want exactly a college graduate, and I went to school odd times. I
got to driving the stage after while, and by and by I bought the
stage and run the business myself. Then I hired the tavern-stand,
and — well to make a long story short, then I got married. Yes,"
said Lapham, with pride, "I married the school-teacher. We
did pretty well with the hotel, and my wife she was always at
me to paint up. Well, I put it off, and put Ft off, as a man will,
till one day I give in, and says I, 'Well, let's paint up. Why, Pert,' —
m'wife's name's Persis, — 'I've got a whole paint-mine out on the
farm. Let's go out and look at it.' So we drove out. I'd let the place
for seventy-five dollars a year to a shif'less kind of a Kanuck that
had come down that way; and I'd hated to see the house with him
in it; but we drove out one Saturday afternoon, and we brought
back about a bushel of the stuff in the buggy-seat, and I tried it
crude, and I tried it burnt; and I liked it. M'wife she liked it too.
There wa'nt any painter by trade in the village, and I mixed it
myself. Well, sir, that tavern's got that coat of paint on it yet, and
it hain't ever had any other, and I don't know's it ever will. Well,
you know, I felt as if it was a kind of harumscarum experiment,
all the while; and I presume I shouldn't have tried it, but I kind
of liked to do it because father'd always set so much store by his
paint-mine. And when I'd got the first coat on," — Lapham called
it cut, — "I presume I must- have set as much as half an hour, look-
ing at it and thinking how he would have enjoyed it. I've had my
share of luck in this world, and I ain't a-going to complain on my
own account, but I've noticed that most things get along too late
for most people. It made me feel bad, and it took all the pride
out of my success with the paint, thinking of father. Seemed to
me I might'a' taken more interest in it when he was by to see; but
we've got to live and learn. Well, I called my wife out, — I'd tried
it on the back of the house, you know, — and she left her dishes, —
I can remember she came out with her sleeves rolled up and set down
alongside of me on the trestle, — and says I, 'What do you think,

Persis?' And says she, 'Well, you hain't got a paint-mine, Silas
Lapham; you've got a gold-mine.' She always was just so enthusiastic
about things. Well, it was just after two or three boats had burnt up
out West, and a lot of lives lost, and there was a great cry about
non-inflammable paint, and I guess that was what was in her mind.
'Well, I guess it ain't any gold-mine, Persis,' says I; 'but I guess it is
a paint-mine. I'm going to have it analysed, and if it turns out
what I think it is, I'm going to work it. And if father hadn't had
such a long name, I should call it the Nehemiah Lapham Mineral
Paint. But, any rate, every barrel of it, and every keg, and every
bottle, and every package, big or little, has got to have the initials
and figures N. L. f. 1835, S. L. t. 1855, on it. Father found it in 1835,
and I tried it in 1855.' . . .

"I set to work and I got a man down from Boston; and I carried
him out to the farm, and he analysed it — made a regular job of it.
Well, sir, we built a kiln, and we kept a lot of that paint-ore red-hot
for forty-eight hours; kept the Kanuck and his family up, firing.
The presence of iron in the ore showed with the magnet from the
start; and when he came to test it, he found out that it contained
about seventy-five per cent, of the peroxide of iron."

Lapham pronounced the scientific phrases with a sort of reverent
satisfaction, as if awed through his pride by a little lingering un-
certainty as to what peroxide was. He accented it as if it were purr-
ox-eyed; and Bartley had to get him to spell it.

"Well, and what then?" he asked, when he had made a note
of the percentage.

"What then?" echoed Lapham. "Well, then, the fellow set down
and told me, 'You've got a paint here,' says he, 'that's going to
drive every other mineral paint out of the market. Why,' says he, 'it'll
drive 'em right into the Back Bay!' Of course, / didn't know what
the Back Bay was then; but I begun to open my eyes; thought I'd
had 'em open before, but I guess I hadn't. Says he, 'That paint has got
hydraulic cement in it, and it can stand fire and water and acids;'
he named over a lot of things. Says he, 'It'll mix easily with linseed
oil, whether you want to use it boiled or raw; and it ain't a-going
to crack nor fade any; and it ain't a-going to scale. When you've
got your arrangements for burning it properly, you're going to
have a paint that will stand like the everlasting hills, in every
climate under the sun.' Then he went into a lot of particulars, and
I begun to think he was drawing a long-bow, and meant to make
his bill accordingly. So I kept pretty cool; but the fellow's bill
didn't amount to anything hardly — said I might pay him after

I got going; young chap, and pretty easy; but every word he said
was gospel. Well, I ain't a-going to brag up my paint; I don't
suppose you came here to hear me blow — "

"Oh yes, I did," said Hartley. "That's what I want. Tell all there
is to tell, and I can boil it down afterward. A man can't make a
greater mistake with a reporter than to hold back anything out of
modesty. It may be the very thing we want to know. What we want
is the whole truth; and more; we've got so much modesty of our
own that we can temper almost any statement."

Lapham looked as if he did not quite like this tone, and he
resumed a little more quietly. "Oh, there isn't really very much
more to say about the paint itself. But you can use it for almost any-
thing where a paint is wanted, inside or out. It'll prevent decay,
and it'll stop it, after it's begun, in tin or iron. You can paint
the inside of a cistern or a bathtub with it, and water won't hurt
it; and you can paint a steam-boiler with it, and heat won't. You
can cover a brick wall with it, or a railroad car, or the deck of a
steamboat, and you can't do a better thing for either."

"Never tried it on the human conscience, I suppose," suggested
Bartley.

"No, sir," replied Lapham gravely. "I guess you want to keep that
as free from paint as you can, if you want much use of it. I never
cared to try any of it on mine." Lapham suddenly lifted his bulk up
out of his swivel-chair, and led the way out into the wareroom
beyond the office partitions, where rows and ranks of casks, barrels,
and kegs stretched dimly back to the rear of the building, and dif-
fused an honest, clean, wholesome smell of oil and paint. They
were labelled and branded as containing each so many pounds of
Lapham's Mineral Paint, and each bore the mystic devices, N. L. /.
1835 — S. L. 1. 1855. "There!" said Lapham, kicking one of the largest
casks with the toe of his boot, "that's about our biggest package;
and here," he added, laying his hand affectionately on the head of
a very small keg, as if it were the head of a child, which it resembled
in size, "this is the smallest. We used to put the paint on the market
dry, but now we grind every ounce of it in oil — very best quality
of linseed oil — and warrant it. We find it gives more satisfaction.
Now, come back to the office, and I'll show you our fancy brands."

It was very cool and pleasant in that dim wareroom, with the
rafters showing overhead in a cloudy perspective, and darkening*
away into the perpetual twilight at the rear of the building; and
Bartley had found an agreeable seat on the head of a half-barrel
of the paint, which he was reluctant to leave. But he rose and fol-

lowed the vigorous lead of Lapham back to the office where the
sun of a long summer afternoon was just beginning to glare in at
the window. On shelves opposite Lapham's desk were tin cans of
various sizes, arranged in tapering cylinders, and showing, in a
pattern diminishing toward the top, the same label borne by the
casks and barrels in the wareroom. Lapham merely waved his hand
toward these; but when Hartley, after a comprehensive glance at
them, gave his whole attention to a row of clean, smooth jars, where
different tints of the paint showed through flawless glass, Lapham
smiled, and waited in pleased expectation.

"Hello!" said Hartley. "That's pretty!"

"Yes," assented Lapham, "it is rather nice. It's our latest thing,
and we find it takes with customers first-rate. Look here!" he said,
taking down one of the jars, and pointing to the first line of the
label.

Hartley read, "THE PERSIS BRAND," and then he looked at Lapham
and smiled.

"After her, of course," said Lapham. "Got it up and put the first
of it on the market her last birthday. She was pleased."

"I should think she might have been" said Hartley, while he made
a note of the appearance of the jars.

"I don't know about your mentioning it in your interview," said
Lapham dubiously.

"That's going into the interview, Mr. Lapham, if nothing else
does. Got a wife myself, and I know just how you feel." . . .

"Is that so?" said Lapham, recognising with a smile another of
the vast majority of married Americans; a few underrate their
wives, but the rest think them supernal in intelligence and capa-
bility. ...

"I suppose," said Hartley, returning to business, "that you didn't
let the grass grow under your feet much after you found out what
was in your paint-mine?"

"No, sir," answered Lapham, withdrawing his eyes from a long
stare at Hartley, in which he had been seeing himself a young man
again, in the first days of his married life. "I went right back to
Lumberville and sold out everything, and put all I could rake
and scrape together into paint. And Mis' Lapham was with me
every time. No hang back about her. I tell you she was a
woman!"

Hartley laughed. "That's the sort most of us marry."

"No, we don't," said Lapham. "Most of us marry silly little girls
grown up to loot^ like women."

"Well, I guess that's about so/' assented Hartley, as if upon second
thought.

"If it hadn't been for her/' resumed Lapham, "the paint wouldn't
have come to anything. I used to tell her it wa'nt the seventy-five
per cent, of purr-ox-eyed of iron in the ore that made that paint go;
it was the seventy-five per cent, of purr-ox-eyed of iron in her." . . .

"In less'n six months there wa'nt a board-fence, nor a bridge-
girder, nor a dead wall, nor a barn, nor a face of rock in that whole
region that didn't have 'Lapham's Mineral Paint — Specimen' on it
in the three colours we begun by making." Hartley had taken his
seat on the window-sill, and Lapham standing before him, now put
up his huge foot close to Hartley's thigh; neither of them minded
that.

"I've heard a good deal of talk about that S. T. — 1860 — X. man,
and the stove-blacking man, and the kidney-cure man, because
they advertised in that way; and I've read articles about it in the
papers; but I don't see where the joke comes in, exactly. So long as
the people that own the barns and fences don't object, I don't see
what the public has got to do with it. And I never saw anything so
very sacred about a big rock, along a river or in a pasture, that it
wouldn't do to put mineral paint on it in three colours. I wish some of
the people that talk about the landscape, and write about it, had to
bu'st one of them rocks out of the landscape with powder, or dig a
hole to bury it in, as we used to have to do up on the farm; I guess
they'd sing a little different tune about the profanation of scenery.
There ain't any man enjoys a sightly bit of nature — a smooth piece
of interval with half a dozen good-sized wine-glass elms in it
— more than / do. But I ain't a-going to stand up for every big
ugjy rock I come across, as if we were all a set of dumn Druids.
I say the landscape was made for man, and not man for the land-
scape."

"Yes," said Hartley carelessly; "it was made for the stove-polish
man and the kidney-cure man."

"It was made for any man that knows how to use it," Lapham
returned, insensible to Hartley's irony. "Let 'em go and live with
nature in the -winter, up there along the Canada line, and I guess
they'll get enough of her for one while. Well — where was I?"

"Decorating the landscape," said Hartley.

"Yes, sir; I started right there at Lumberville, and it give the
place a start too. You won't find it on the map now; and you won't
find it in the gazeteer. I give a pretty good lump of money to build
a town-hall, about five years back, and the first meeting they held

in it they voted to change the name, — Lumberville wa'nt a name,
— and it's Lapham now." . . .

"Works there?"

"Yes; works there. Well, sir, just about the time I got started,
the war broke out; and it knocked my paint higher than a kite.
The thing dropped perfectly dead. I presume that if I'd had any
sort of influence, I might have got it into Government hands, for
gun-carriages and army wagons, and may be on board Government
vessels. But I hadn't, and we had to face the music. I was about
broken-hearted, but m'wife she looked at it another way. 7 guess
it's a providence,' says she. 'Silas, I guess you've got a country that's
worth fighting for. Any rate, you better go out and give it a
chance.' Well, sir, I went. I knew she meant business. It might
kill her to have me go, but it would kill her sure if I stayed. She
was one of that kind. I went. Her last words was, 'I'll look after
the paint, Si.' We hadn't but just one little girl then, — boy'd died,
— and Mis' Lapham's mother was livin' with us; and I knew if times
did anyways come up again, m'wife'd know just what to do. So I
went. I got through; and you can call me Colonel, if you want to.
Feel there!" Lapham took Hartley's thumb and forefinger and
put them on a bunch in his leg, just above the knee. "Anything
hard?"

"Ball?"

Lapham nodded. "Gettysburg. That's my thermometer. If it
wa'nt for that, I shouldn't know enough to come in when it rains."

Bartley laughed at a joke which betrayed some evidences of wear.
"And when you came back, you took hold of the paint and rushed
it." *

"I took hold of the paint arid rushed it — all I could," said Lapham,
with less satisfaction that he had hitherto shown in his autobiog-
raphy. "But I found that I had got back to another world. The day
of small things was past, and I don't suppose it will ever come again
in this country. My wife was at me all the time to take a partner —
somebody with capital; but I couldn't seem to bear the idea. That
paint was like my own blood to me. To have anybody else con-
cerned in it was like — well, I don't know what. I saw it was the
thing to do; but I tried to fight it off, and I tried to joke it ofT. I
used to say, 'Why didn't you take a partner yourself, Persis, while
I was away?' And she'd say, 'Well, if you hadn't come back, I
should, Si.' Always did like a joke about as well as any woman /
ever saw. Well, I had to come to it. I took a partner." Lapham
dropped the bold blue eyes with which he had been till now staring

into Hartley's face, and the reporter knew that here was a place
for asterisks in his interview, if interviews were faithful. "He had
money enough," continued Lapham, with a suppressed sigh; "but
he didn't know anything about paint. We hung on together for
a year or two. And then we quit."

"And he had the experience," suggested Hartley, with compan-
ionable ease.

"I had some of the experience too," said Lapham, with a scowl;
and Hartley divined, through the freemasonry of all who have sore
places in their memories, that this was a point which he must not
touch again.

"And since that, I suppose, you've played it alone."

"I've played it alone."

"You must ship some of this paint of yours to foreign countries,
Colonel?" suggested Hartley, putting on a professional air.

"We ship it to all parts of the world. It goes to South America,
lots of it. It goes to Australia, and it goes to India, and it goes to
China, and it goes to the Cape of Good Hope. It'll stand any climate.
Of course, we don't export these fancy brands much. They're for
home use. But we're introducing them elsewhere. Here." Lapham
pulled open a drawer, and showed Hartley a lot of labels in dif-
ferent languages — Spanish, French, German, and Italian. "We ex-
pect to do a good business in all those countries. We've got our
agencies in Cadiz now, and in Paris, and in Hamburg, and in
Leghorn. It's a thing that's bound to make its way. Yes, sir. Wherever
a man has got a ship, or a bridge, or a dock, or a house, or a car,
or a fence, or a pig-pen anywhere in God's universe to paint, that's
the' paint for him, and he's bound to find it out sooner or later.
You pass a ton of that paint dry through a blast-furnace, and you'll
get a quarter of a ton of pig-iron. I believe in my paint. I believe
it's a blessing to the world. When folks come in, and kind of smell
round, and ask me what I mix it with, I always say, 'Well, in the
first place, I mix it with Faith, and after that I grind it up with the
best quality of boiled linseed oil that money will buy."

The Rise of Silas Lapham,

The Death of the Hired Man

ROBERT FROST

Mary sat musing on the lamp-flame at the table
Waiting for Warren. When she heard his step,
She ran on tip-toe down the darkened passage
To meet him in the doorway with the news
And put him on his guard. "Silas is back."
She pushed him outward with her through the door
And shut it after her. "Be kind," she said.
She took the market things from Warren's arms
And set them on the porch, then drew him down
To sit beside her on the wooden steps.

"When was I ever anything but kind to him?

But I'll not have the fellow back," he said.

"I told him so last haying, didn't I?

'If he left then,' I said, 'that ended it.'

What good is he? Who else will harbour him

At his age for the little he can do?

What help he is there's no depending on.

Off he goes always when I need him most.

'He thinks he ought to earn a little pay,

Enough at least to buy tobacco with,

So he won't have to beg and be beholden.'

'All right,' I say, 'I can't afford to pay

Any fixed wages, though I wish I could.'

'Someone else can.' 'Then someone else will have to.'

I shouldn't mind his bettering himself

If that was what it was. You can be certain,

When he begins like that, there's someone at him

Trying to coax him off with pocket-money, —

In haying time, when any help is scarce.

In winter he comes back to us. I'm done."

"Sh! not so loud: he'll hear you," Mary said.
"I want him to: he'll have to soon or late."

"He's worn out. He's lasleep beside the stove.
When I came up from Kowe's I found him here,
Huddled against the barn-door fast asleep,
A miserable sight, and frightening, too —
You needn't smile — I didn't recognise him —
I wasn't looking for him — and he's changed.
Wait till you see."

"Where did you say he'd been?"

"He didn't say. I dragged him to the house,
And gave him tea and tried to make him smoke.
I tried to make him talk about his travels.
Nothing would do: he just kept nodding off."

"What did he say? Did he say anything?"
"But little."

"Anything? Mary, confess
He said he'd come to ditch the meadow for me."

"Warren!"

"But did. he? I just want to know."

"Of course he did. What would you have him say?

Surely you wouldn't grudge the poor old man

Some humble way to save his self-respect.

He added, if you really care to know,

He meant to clear the upper pasture, too.

That sounds like something you have heard before?

Warren, I wish you could have heard the way

He jumbled everything. I stopped to look

Two or three times — he made me feel so queer —

To see if he was talking in his sleep.

He ran on Harold Wilson — you remember —

The boy you had in haying four years since.

He's finished school, and teaching in his college.

Silas declares you'll have to get him back.

He says they two will make a team for work:

Between them they will lay this farm as smooth!

The way he mixed that in with other things.
He thinks young Wilson a likely lad, though daft
On education — you know how they fought
All through July under the blazing sun,
Silas up on the cart to build the load,
Harold along beside to pitch it on."

"Yes, I took care to keep well out of earshot."

"Well, those days trouble Silas like a dream.

You wouldn't think they would. How some things linger!

Harold's young college boy's assurance piqued him.

After so many years he still keeps finding

Good arguments he sees he might have used.

I sympathise. I know just how it feels

To think of the right thing to say too late.

Harold's associated in his mind with Latin.

He asked me what I thought of Harold's saying

He studied Latin like the violin

Because he liked it — that an argument!

He said he couldn't make the boy believe

He could find water with a hazel prong —

Which showed how much good school had ever done him.

He wanted to go over that. But most of all

He thinks if he could have another chance

To teach him how to build a load of hay — "

"I know, that's Silas' one accomplishment.

He bundles every forkful in its place,

And tags and numbers it for future reference,

So he can find and easily dislodge it

In the unloading. Silas does that well.

He takes it out in bunches like birds' nests.

You never see him standing on the hay

He's trying to lift, straining to lift himself."

"He thinks if he could teach him that, he'd be
Some good perhaps to someone in the world.
He hates to see a boy the fool of books.
Poor Silas, so concerned for other folk,
And nothing to look backward to with pride,
And nothing to look forward to with hope,
So now and never any different."

Part of a moon was falling down the west,
Dragging the whole sky with it to the hills.
Its light poured softly in her lap. She saw
And spread her apron to it. She put out her hand
Among the harp-like morning-glory strings,
Taut with the dew from garden bed to eaves,
As if she played unheard the tenderness
That wrought on him beside her in the night.
"Warren," she said, "he has come home to die:
You needn't be afraid he'll leave you this time."

"Home," he mocked gently.

"Yes, what else but home?
It all depends on what you mean by home.
Of course he's nothing to us, any more
Than was the hound that came a stranger to us
Out of the woods, worn out upon the trail."

"Home is the place where, when you have to go there,
They have to take you in."

"I should have called it
Something you somehow haven't to deserve."

Warren leaned out and took a step or two,
Picked up a little stick, and brought it back
And broke it in his hand and tossed it by.
"Silas has better claim on us you think
Than on his brother? Thirteen little miles
As the road winds would bring him to his door.
Silas has walked that far no doubt to-day.
Why didn't he go there? His brother's rich,
A somebody — director in the bank."

"He never told us that."

"We know it though."

"I think his brother ought to help, of course.
Ill see to that if there is need. He ought of right
To take him in, and might be willing to —

He may be better than appearances.

But have some pity on Silas. Do you think

If he'd had any pride in claiming kin

Or anything he looked for from his brother,

He'd keep so still about him all this time?"

"I wonder what's between them."

"I can tell you.

Silas is what he is — we wouldn't mind him —
But just the kind that kinsfolk can't abide.
He never did a thing so very bad.
He don't know why he isn't quite as good
As anyone. He won't be made ashamed •
To please his brother, worthless though he is."

"/ can't think Si ever hurt anyone."

"No, but he hurt my heart the way he lay

And rolled his old head on that sharp-edged chair-back.

He wouldn't let me put him on the lounge.

You must go in and see what you can do.

I made the bed up for him there to-night.

You'll be surprised at him — how much he's broken.

His working days are done; I'm sure of it."

"I'd not be in a hurry to say that."

"I haven't been. Go, look, see for yourself.
But, Warren, please remember how it is:
He's come to help you ditch the meadow.
He has a plan. You mustn't laugh at him.
He may not speak of it, and then he may.
I'll sit and see if that small sailing cloud
Will hit or miss the moon."

It hit the moon.

Then there were three there, making a dim row,
The moon, the little silver cloud, and she.
Warren returned — too soon, it seemed to her,
Slipped to her side, caught up her hand and waited.

"Warren," she questioned.

"Dead," was all he answered.

North of Boston, 1914

Why Is a Bostonian <

HARRISON RHODES

It is no bad thing to pass from ... the blousy beauty of Man-
hattan to ... the more frugal, nipped loveliness of Boston. Of
course, the New-Yorker might well feel terror on his arrival in
Boston, especially if it is after night-fall, in that strange Back Bay
station where the electric lamps seem to produce light without
shedding it. He might reasonably fear that now justice is at last
to be meted out to him. But when the first moment's panic is over
he cannot but feel, as does doubtless the repatriate Bostonian, that
the contrast is, for the time being at least, agreeable between what he
has left and the cooler, grayer, more distinguished civilization to
which he has come. More distinguished, in the accurate sense of that
word, Boston is. While the national metropolis is at once vehement
and vague, the New England capital is more measured, more clean-
cut, more distinguished in the sense of having somehow so con-
centrated and clarified its special flavor that no one can for a
moment doubt that — for better or worse — Boston is Boston. When
the sharp east wind has cleared away the vapors of Broadway, New
York becomes less an actuality than a nightmare, and the northern
town and its inhabitants are perceived to be standing very firmly
on their own feet.

These northern folk are passionately Bostonian — if they are
passionately anything. It is pleasant for a moment to think of the
lady living in Milton (a town of concentrated Bostonianism) who
said of her son, whose career in the diplomatic service of his
country had kept him in Paris for several years, that her only fear
was that he should "get out of touch with Milton"! There was no
confusion in her mind as to what is valuable in life. In this matter
of values and belief in Boston the Society for the Preservation of
New England Antiquities presented itself lately to great advantage,
gallantly going to the courts to prevent the alien — generally French-
Canadian — from changing his name by the ordinary legal processes
to that of any of Boston's old, historic families. There is a something
here that insists on being like the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta*
And yet there is also something magnificent — in a democracy — in
the fact that you can become Smith, but never — shall we say Homans?

The intentions of this article — though honorable — are not topo-

graphical, yet something must be said of the look of Boston, for it
is indicative of the town's inner quality — as indeed to any one who
has a feeling for the personality of places is always the look of streets
and squares and parks. New York sprawls; Boston really composes
itself around Beacon Hill, and falls away from the lovely, peaceful,
red-brick quarter which surrounds the State House to the business
district and the foreign North End on one side, and on the other
to the Back Bay, the great South End, the huge, trailing suburbs
that lie farther out, and finally the New England country of which
it is the metropolis and the commercial and spiritual head. Some-
how all through the town one gets hints of the great tributary
province. There is a little shop near the busy center where are dis-
played in the window slippery-elm and licorice sticks — does the
sight not bring all New England's rocky fields and white villages
immediately before your eyes ?

The State House is to the eye as to the imagination the center
of New England, and its gilded dome rising over the dark-green of
the elms on the Common is typical of the unexuberant, distinguished
beauty of this Northern Athens. There is probably quite as much
gold upon the dome as would be necessary to decorate a New York
bar-room. But in the former case there is no vulgar ostentation in its
use. There is not even the kind of warm, barbaric lavishness which
incrusts the Venetian St. Mark's with the precious metal. The
Bostonian State House seems instead to proclaim that here in a
shrewd, inclement climate and upon an arid, stony soil New England
industry and thrift have won a living and even wealth, and that
when the occasion reasonably and sanely demands it New England
can be lavish, almost spendthrift. You get a sense everywhere in
Boston that they spend money upon public enterprises like state
houses, opera-houses, art museums, and so forth because there is a
need to have such things and the money can be found, not because
the money is there and there is a need to find some way to spend
it — the latter being a much more characteristic American frame of
mind. Reason rather than emotion guides New England expendi-
ture, and the result is a cool and restrained distinction which the
wanton cities of the South and West never quite attain.

The old Boston dwellings upon Beacon Hill have this look of
tempered luxury to perfection. But what is more remarkable is
the sobriety of domestic architecture in the newer districts, even in
that decorous Commonwealth Avenue, in which the true Bostonian
so fantastically asks the stranger to detect a note of the vulgarity of
the nouveau riche. The Louises have never wrought much of their

French mischief in the Back Bay. A certain indigenous ugliness of
architecture is preferred, solid and roomy, suggesting comfort rather
than slender, gilded elegance. There is not much foreign lace non-
sense at the windows; instead sometimes only simple, colored silk
curtains drawn back to admit the sun and allow its due hygienic
effect. Where the outlook is toward the south, plants flourish in the
Bostonian windows, and the passer-by instinctively feels that they
actually grow there, and may even be watered by the ladies of the
house instead of being merely a temporary installation by some
expensive florist, to be lavishly and immediately replaced when
neglect has withered them.

The Bostonian interior, too, has something of this frugal quality,
and may be recognized even in houses in the Middle West where
the influence of the summer upon the North Shore has chastened
the exuberance of taste natural in those remoter regions. There is
something extremely pleasant in these sunny, cleanly scoured, airy,
rather scantily furnished rooms, with big expanses of polished floor
and well-worn furniture. They seem a little old-fashioned now, but
this is merely a proof that taste struck Boston in something like the
'yo's of the last century, a little before it hit our other towns.

There is, of course, a comic side to this frugality. One can imagine
that in the early esthetic days the inexpensiveness of the jar of
dried cattails was not without its appeal to the Bostonian decorator.
No Bostonian thinks of spending his income; no New-Yorker thinks
of spending merely his income: this is an exaggeration of something
fundamentally true. The solid, piled-up, quiet wealth of Massa-
chusetts is enormous— what the department-store experts call the
"shopping power" of the regions within a forty-mile circle around
the State House dome is some amazing proportion of the purchasing
ability of the whole country. Yet Boston shops have never the air of
inviting gay, wayward extravagance, the highest-priced ones are the
least obtrusive, and the best always seem as if they could be instantly
adapted to the sale of that traditional black silk of our grandmothers
which could "stand alone."

Bostonian spending is the result of mature and deliberate thought.
It is rarely vulgar, but it knows nothing of the spendthrift's joie de
vivre. People in New York may dine at the Ritz from obscure mo-
tives of economy, a vague feeling that a holiday for the servants at
home may make them more efficient at other times. In Boston they.,
eat in restaurants, one somehow feels, only after fasting and prayer.
The name given at once to the latest smart hotel, "The Costly-
Pleasure," is significant. There is even something a little grim about

the phrase; it is almost as if the costliness of pleasure repelled instead
of allured, as it does in less serious towns. Young men in evening
dress do not idly stroll forth into the Bostonian streets with their
overcoats carelessly unbuttoned; it would give a false idea that a
white-waistcoated Costly-Pleasure night-life is real Bostonianism.
They hurry into motors and taxis and are about their business of
dining and dancing seriously, almost half apologetically. There is,
in short, very little bead on native Boston pleasure; it does not run
to froth.

The job of being very young and very gay and very foolish is left
to Harvard undergraduates. The proximity of a great supply of
young men with hearty appetites and strong dancing legs has made
Boston fashion dependent and complaisant. The boys, in conse-
quence, do all the things which gay young men do in light magazine
fiction. They go to parties with a self-confident indifference as to
whether they have been invited or not. And there is a pretty story of
some lads bringing suit-cases from Cambridge, in which they packed
bottles of champagne, thus transferring supplies to the groves of
Academe after the ball. It is no idle boast of the enthusiastic advo-
cates of Harvard education that youth there is more prepared to
deal with the great world than are the students of a country college.
The crimson thread of Harvard is woven into the very fabric of
Bostonian existence; yet though it is perpetually there, it always
seems exotic.

The Bostonian opera — now temporarily suspended — was beauti-
fully Bostonian; it presented in agreeable clearness the indigenous
social quality. The decoration of the house was quiet gray and gold,
and the garb of the audience had on the whole something of the
same sobriety. To this effect the native frugality doubtless con-
tributed; on opera nights the streets leading to the edifice were
thronged with intrepid women equipped to give battle to extrava-
gance for music's sake, with galoshes and woolen scarfs — in this
rude Northern climate even "fascinators" must be woolen. If an
Italian lady in evening dress could not afford a cab to the opera,
she would quite simply stay at home — and yet we prate of the love
of music nourished in thqse sunny climes! This tribute to ladies in
fascinators is not to be taken as meaning that there were not more
luxurious women — and plenty — in the stalls and boxes — lovely,
carriage-borne creatures, expensively dressed and well jeweled,
probably with the best old Brazilian stones; the point is that the
total effect of the Bostonian audience was what it rarely is in opera-
houses — subordinate to the stage.

The opening night was an incredible event. Banquet parties of
the gayest Bostonians had gathered to dine at an hour when food
would poison the fashionable people of other cities, and the crush
of carriages was beyond everything ever known, not because more
people were going to the opera than go in other cities, but because,
for the first time in the history of opera, every one wanted to arrive
on time. The intervals of the performance were devoted to a general
promenade, in which many boxholders joined. Indeed, the attention
paid to the occupants of boxes by the general audience wa$ barely
sufficient to induce female loveliness to display its charm in the
traditional entr'acte manner — the ladies, if the truth be told, excited
about the same amount of admiration as did the silver-gilt soda-
water fountain which had been installed in the foyer. Here, it
seemed to the irreverent outsider, the last word had been said. To
have linked opera with the nut-sundae is to^ have, once for all,
domesticated the gay, wayward institution and made it Boston's
harmless, admirable own.

Light-minded comment, however, never discloses more than one
side of a medal. The Bostonian opera showed, as a matter of fact,
an admirable and sane sense of proportion. It was not the London,
the Paris, or the New York opera. Why, pray, should it have been?
It was opera of exactly the size and sumptuousness which it was
likely that a town of Boston's extent and wealth could afford. It
seemed something which could reasonably hope to exist, not the
product of a spasmodic, hysterical effort such as occasionally brings
fabulously paid singers to some of our smaller cities for a feverish
May Festival or special operatic week. It was not a provincial enter-
prise, because it was not aping any metropolis. It was the opera of
the capital of New England, and it stood firmly, like many other
neighboring institutions, upon its own sturdy galoshed, Bostonian
feet. It may, of course, always be open to question whether operatic
art is not a too essentialfy artificial and emotional blend ever to
please the Bostonian public as does the classically severe fare offered
in Symphony Hall. But the Huntington Avenue opera was meant
to stand or fall by the genuine music-loving support of its public.
Even if the operatic dose was bitter, it was to be disguised by no
"diamond horseshoe," by no soft Ionian ways. And who shall say
that, though now suspended, the Boston opera has not had its
nation-wide effect? Has not its gifted scene-painter already beerr
chosen by New York to do the decoration for its leading summer
"girl-show," and does he not thus continue to enliven Boston?

Culture has always seemed to the outsider a little rigorous in

Boston. But as one looks over the whole field of American life one is
inclined to say that desperate situations demand desperate remedies,
and that to have caught culture in any trap, even just to have got it
fighting in a corner, is an achievement.

This is not altogether a question of art, though art is no doubt one
of the town's chief preoccupations. Still less is it a question of pro-
ducing art. It is no great reproach to Boston that it is nowadays more
a center of appreciation than creation. There is no question of where
the divine afflatus blows most fiercely. New York is the mart, and
that is about all there is to be said upon an already threadbare subject.

Culture has, perhaps, more to do with education than with art.
We study enough in America — that is, we go to schools and col-
leges— but somehow, it may as well be admitted frankly, we do not
succeed in weaving our education into the very fabric of our daily
social intercourse; we are not cultivated in the unobtrusive, easy way
of the best Englishmen and Frenchmen. Now the newspaper humor-
ists' best jokes hinge upon the alleged universality of Boston culture.
And though the alien visitor may never find the infant who spouts
Greek while brandishing his rattle, he will in simple justice admit
that education has gone both far and deep in Boston, that, slang is
not the only dialect spoken, and that even among shop-girls and
elevator-boys some traces of our original national speech are still to
be detected.

Here, parenthetically, it may be said that what is meant by
Bostonians speaking English is the words themselves rather than the
intonation and pronunciation with which they are uttered. The
"Boston accent" is of course famous and cannot but fail to give the
keenest pleasure to even a child traveling thither. The point to be
made here is that it does not, as the Bostonians appear to think,
approximate to the English accent of England any more than any
other of our national accents. The total elision of the R and the
amazing broad, flat A — as in "Park Street" and "Harvard College" —
give to Bostonian speech a magnificently indigenous tang, hint at
juniper and spruce forests and rocky fields and pumpkins and
Thanksgiving and pie; make you feel again how triumphantly New
England is new, and not old, English. But its vocabulary is, on the
whole, the best chosen of all the American dialects.

It is somewhat difficult to find in ordinary Bostonian speech the
ten and twelve syllabled words of which it is popularly supposed to
be exclusively composed. But the joke is so old that there must be
something in it. As far back as Brook Farm it was alleged that
they said, "Cut the pie from the center to the periphery," and

asked, "Is the butter within your sphere of influence?" But this
was humor, as New England as a wintergreen lozenge. It was a
by-product of an unashamed passion for education which dis-
tinguished American antebellum days. Even in the Middle West,
when James Garfield, later to be President, with his friends in the
little fresh-water college of Hiram, indulged in "stilting," as they
termed this humorous riding of the high-horses of the language,
they were in the Bostonian tradition. "Stilting" has perhaps dis-
appeared. But there are here and there indications of the survival
of the English of a robuster period. The old lady who said that she
didn't, after all, know that Bostonians were so "thundering pious,"
produced with the phrase all the effect of an Elizabethan oath.
She made you feel that Bostonian culture was no mere thin affair of
yesterday.

It should be acknowledged handsomely that there is a certain
amenity of tone in the town which comes not so much from
exuberant good nature as from a reasoned belief in life's higher
interest. The policeman who in Commonwealth Avenue used to
stop promenading strangers and urge them to turn and admire
the sunset was extending the city's hospitality no less to nature's
beauty than to the visitors. He was notably Bostonian in that he was
ashamed neither of the sunset nor of his belief that pleasure was to
be derived from its contemplation. His culture was genuinely a part
of his existence, of his everyday life. And culture is unquestionably
a more integral part of Boston's normal existence than of our other
cities' lives. Only in Boston, to imagine a concrete and pleasing
example, could a lady, if she were so inclined, be distinguished by a
love for extreme decolletage and for early Buddhistic philosophy.
There is, in Boston, nothing essentially inharmonious in such a com-
bination.

In any case, variations from a standard type are not so severely
penalized in Boston as in other parts of our country. Eccentricity is
almost encouraged; to take but one example, old age is openly,
almost brazenly, permitted. Just how they kill the old off in New
York is not known, but they get rid of them somehow. Boston, on
the contrary, has famous old people, especially old ladies, and the
community's pride in them is not merely that they have been able
so long to withstand the Boston climate. These veterans do not eat
their evening meal up-stairs on a tray; instead, their visit to a
dinner-table honors and enlivens the board. There is something
extraordinarily exciting in meeting the lady whose witticisms were
famous when you were almost a child and finding her still tossing

them off so vigorously and gaily that you can with a clear conscience
encourage your own children to grow up with the promise that
when they are old enough to dine out they, too, shall be privileged
to go to Boston and hear really good talk.

The New England capital cherishes affectionately links with the
past. There was until lately for some favored people the possibility
of going to tea in a faded, old-fashioned Boston drawing-room, from
the windows of which you saw the sunset across the Charles River
basin, and hearing wise, graceful, tender talk that made the literary
past of England and America for almost three-quarters of a century
seem like the pleasant gossip of to-day. The delight of such moments
in the fading light was poignant — the tears would come into one's
eyes at the realization that it was all too good to be true and also too
good to last.

The respect for the person or the thing which has become "an
institution" is always to be noted with interest in our American life.
And for an evening newspaper — a vulgar and fly-blown thing else-
where— to have a half-sacred character is possible only in Boston.
The publication in question is not thought of as a mere private enter-
prise; it is integrally a part of the whole community's life, its policy
and its grammar are both constant matters for the searchings of the
New England conscience. It is even solemly asserted — by those who
should know — that more Bostonians die on Friday than on any other
day because they thus make sure of being in the special Saturday
night obituary notices! To pay, even in the date of death, such a
tribute to the Bostonian tradition is magnificent.

But if one is to speak of institutions, there is of course Harvard
College, without which it is impossible to imagine Boston and Boston
culture. Changes in Cambridge are changes in Boston. For a ten or
twenty year period there has been a determined and conscientious
attempt across the Charles to break down the old barriers and tradi-
tions which kept Harvard from being democratic and efficient in the
modern way. What has been accomplished in Cambridge is for the
purposes of this article less important than what has been wrought
in Boston. Undergraduates may take innovation lightly, but in the
fastnesses of clubs upon Beacon Hill irate old gentlemen declare
that Harvard is now nothing but a "slap-shoulder college," and
younger philosophers of a more suavely cynical turn of mind de-
plore the out-Yaleing of Yale, and the rough, boyish virility, wholly
unconnected with education, which, they maintain, now distinguishes
Cambridge rather than New Haven. They tell you that "college
spirit," with all its attendant vulgarities of tone, is rampant where

the college elms once stood, and there are no longer any disloyal sons
of Harvard. This is the pleasant, crabbed, characteristic way in
which Boston tells you that, after all, it is moving with the times,
and that if a big, regenerative movement as some believe is sweeping
over the country, it will have Harvard men in the very first battle-
line. Boston may bewail changes in the nation, but it knows they
cannot happen without changes in Harvard. Centuries of history
prove it.

These centuries of history are singularly alive in Boston. The
reference is not to Faneuil Hall or the Old South Church or any of
the historic spots about which our modern Marco Paulos from
Michigan and Oregon know so much. What is meant is the amazing
sense of a continuous social connection back to the very English
roots of the New England tree.

An unwise stranger, sitting at ease in the Somerset Club one
day of this very year of grace, ventured the observation, not deeply
original or stimulating, that Boston was remarkable for the way
in which the old Bostonian families had kept the money and the
position and were still, as it were, in the saddle. The Bostonians
looked at one another. They murmured a negative, and the faintest
trace of embarrassment seemed to creep over the group. The con-
fused stranger was so sure that his remark, if banal, was true that
he thought they had not understood. He carefully explained again.
The negative was now sharper and the embarrassment deeper.

"I don't think you quite understand — " began one of the Bos-
tonians; and it is possible that the miserable stranger might have
tried to explain still again had not his friend gone on :

"You see there are almost no Bostonians living here" — he paused
for an instant — "almost all the Bostonian families went back home
at the time of the Revolution. The inhabitants here now, with the
exception of perhaps four families, are all Salem people!"

There is no way of comlmenting upon such an episode; there it is,
in sheer Bostonian beauty, for such as are worthy of seeing its Bos-
tonianism. The tormented un-Bostonian mind will possibly seek
refuge in the thought of the club itself. (One does not say clubs,
although it is just possible to maintain that there are two in Boston.)
Its grave, suave distinction can only be savored by many visits and
by quiet, meditative hours. But once you have felt its charm you
will henceforth find the ordinary American organization more like
a hotel or a railway station than like a club. To sign no checks, but
instead to receive an unobtrusive and unitemized bill at the end of
the month, is at once to gain the impression that you are being

notably treated like a gentleman. The impression is deepened by
genuine blue Canton ware, by waiters of a dignified and ancient
kindliness which has elsewhere disappeared from American life, and
by food excellent in that strange, tempered New England way —
oysters from the club's own planted waters, and peppers and pepper
sauces dated and labeled like vintage wines.

The right to belong to such a club is, as it were, beyond the power
of the mere individual to acquire — it is something with or without
which he is born. The club, indeed, has been described as an "In-
stitution for the Congenitally Eminent." But within its doors you
catch furtive hints of an inaccessible inner eminence — caused pos-
sibly by Bostonian instead of Salem descent — which makes even its
exclusiveness seem common. There is a fabulous story of an eighth-
degree Bostonian who referred lightly to his rare visits to this holy
of club holies, of which he was, as it were automatically, a member,
and said that it was "at times a pleasure to be franchement canaille."
In this wind-swept Northern clime the phrase in the French language
somehow seems to accentuate the odd, bitter, cultivated venom of a
description of the greatest Bostonian exclusiveness as "frankly of
the gutter." Let Ohio and Oklahoma pause and think before they
too quickly describe our American civilization as twentieth-century
democracy.

Bostonian democracy is not the spontaneous product of naturally
genial temperaments; it is rather a thing extorted from oneself by
will and fierce conviction. But will, belief, and a conscience can
make the Northern city burst into flames. In Boston least of any-
where in the North does the passion for human freedom which
brought on our own Civil War seem a dead or forgotten thing.
And even now the black brother — though modern thought judges
him to be not quite a brother in the old sense — can still count on a
helping hand and some belief in his future. It is well for the visitor to
Boston to sit for a peaceful half-hour under the elms of the Common
and think of New England's part in the national life. Geograph-
ically and spiritually New England is a little apart. It is a tight,
small province, and it is a long way from there to Washington in
ordinary times. It is in the crises that Boston becomes most intensely
American; then you realize how far-flung is the battle-line of the
New England conscience. One never quite forgets in Boston the
great moments in our history when the country has kindled at New
England's burning heart.

Modern workers, who believe that charity and good deeds begin
at home, sometimes scoff at the Bostonian "long-distance philan-

thropy." And they cite you the story of the lady found wildly weep-
ing because she had just heard how cruel they were to cats in Persia
in the thirteenth century! She is indeed a shade fantastical, poor. lady;
but in the monotonous dead levels of American life we can be grate-
ful to Boston for her.

Indeed, is not gratitude, after all, the chief feeling one has for
Boston ? Nipped and sour though the fruit sometimes may be of the
tree which grows upon her thin soil in her bitter east wind, does
not every descendant of the old American stock, and every one who
has in his Americanization made the traditions of that stock his
own, know that the core of that fruit is sound, and the cider that
might be pressed from it the best of our native wines, if one may
put it that way ? The packed trains that carry Thanksgiving travelers
to Boston seem somehow symbolic. The statistics are not at hand —
when are statistics ever at hand when they are needed? — but it must
be that these trains are more heavily freighted than those that go
to any other of our great American cities. Whether we are from New
England or not, Boston is for many of us, in a deeper sense, our
"home town."

Harper's Magazine, January, 1916

Strike !

WILLIAM ROLLINS, JR.

Micky stood at her bench, her hands ready. With lowered head she
watched Ramon at the front of the room, his fingers on the switch,
his eyes on the clock.

Seventhirty. He threw down the switch —

Clamp them on; snap them off; UP; down. UP and down. She
saw him run up the three steps, push through the doors and disap-
pear; she snapped one on; snapped another on. Ramon, she whis-
pered. Her head was lowered between upraised moving arms to hide
her eyes.

He was probably in Watkins' office now, sitting on her desk,
swinging his legs, "Micky?" he'll be saying, "You mean Micky
Bonner? oh, she's allright; and as I was saying — " Only that lady
didn't come to work until nine o'clock. She raised her eyes to her
spindles; her tightpressed lips quivered as she clamped a bobbin on,
snapped one off, thinking of him up there, leaving her here in the
darkness of the sunlit room, in the silence of the clamp, clamp, girls,
girls, snapping them off, clamping them on — But she'd pay him back!
A wave of anger swept her, and she glared at the closed doors; he
could talk to Watkins all he wanted to, and then he'd turn around
and find he was boss of an empty room; in just a couple of hours! she
exalted . . . and then she was limp, snapping a bobbin, off. She
gazed at her bench with a chuckle, half a whimper; what difference
would it make to him what she did ?

She snapped a bobbin off, and thought of that cottage just out of
town on the little hill back from the road. They had walked out that
way one sunny Sunday, and Ramon, seeing the for rent sign, sud-
denly pulled her up the path. He didn't say a word; just grinned, his
eyes shining; and they stood at the foot of the steps talking to the
old Italian with the tight collar and unbuttoned black vest; talking
to him, arm in arm, like an engaged couple.

"Look at that grapevine, Micky!" Ramon pointed to the vine-
covered terrace and swung around to her. "See?" His eyes were
so eager! "You can make the wine, and we can sit out and have
supper there after I get home from work" . . . And then there was
that time just after she met him.

She thought of him only as a nice Portugee kid then; and they

were walking through the shortcut, up to the highroad, home, swish-
ing through the dead autumn leaves. He was behind her, talking;
and all at once he grabbed her arm and swung her around.

"I'm in love with you," he said, and his eyes were terribly intent;
"you're more than a sister to me, you're more than my own mother!"
Seeing her amazement, he stamped impatiently. "You understand?"
he cried.

She blinked the tears away, giggling at the memory, snapping a
bobbin off, snapping another off. Moving her hands up and down, she
stared at the closed door above the three steps; and an emptiness
gnawed at her, so that she felt dizzy in the swirling, clashing, shout-
ing. The room was a sweep of dead gray, spotted black by the ma-
chines, the noises; the world beyond was dead gray, stretching on,
without one break, one hope. She had to cry out (she snapped a
bobbin off), she had to run to him, throw herself on her knees,
Ramon, Ramon —

"Well, are you all set?"

Marvin was grinning there beside her. She grinned back as her
fingers played along the spindles.

"All set." She cleared her throat >"Yeh."

"All the girls going out?"

"All the ones I dared talk to. I ain't had a chance to talk to them
today."

"Better get them ready. The committee in this building's going
to meet just outside of Thayer's office. Eleventhirty sharp, you know."
He winked back at her as he walked up the aisle, toward the doors.

And slowly, as she watched him go, as her fingers mechanically
played up and down, a new feeling was born in her.

She felt it grow. Surprised, a little unsure at first, she stood very
still (save for her moving hands). She felt it spread warmly inside
her, she knew very consciously when it rose to flicker in her eyes.
It was something new; not like love, cloying, fearful, heart-rending;
it was fresh, clear, like cold air deep in her lungs, it was overwhelm-
ing, pitiless, like the triumphant march of an unvanquished army,
like the rise to crescendo of drums and bagpipes! it was vast, it was
as dazzlingly bright as the pain had been dark, it was one word:

STRIKE!

She laughed in surprise. She looked at the closed doors, and for
the first time her hands stopped their mechanical motion. She thought
of Ramon, sitting on Miss Watkins' desk, dangling his legs, and
she laughed with conscious wistfulness, as one should be wistful
about the dead. "Ramon," she whispered, tempting, challenging,

the old love, She looked at the bobbin in her hand, then slung it on
the bench.

She crossed to the girls on the other side of the aisle.

Clamp them on : snap them off ...

The sound, muffled by the closed doors of the mill rooms and his
office, seeped into Thayer, an overtone to his conversations, his
work, his thoughts. Like the rhythm of his pumping blood, the
rhythm of his respiration, came this dull sullen rhythm, unnoticed,
but life-sustaining; and when it stopped, as when his breathing and
his heart stopped, that would be the end. But there would be no end.

"Miss Watkins." His voice was low; he did not turn.

Miss Watkins glanced around, her fingers motionless above the
typewriter. She waited, eyebrows respectfully raised.

"Has there been ... have you heard any complaints about the
cut?"

"No, sir, I haven't."

He nodded slowly to the clock.

"There's probably ... a little discontent, though . . ." He turned
slightly, looked now at the wall calendar; "lowering their income
like that?"

"Yes sir ... Still, the cut wasn't very large, sir."

He nodded imperceptibly to the calendar; turned back to the clock.
Miss Watkins waited, fingers suspended.

Clamp them on; snap them off — . She turned back to her machine:

A moment longer Thayer stared at the clock, then he took up his
pen, and recommended his listing of the production for the week of
the 26th.

In 1637, William Thayer, with his wife, Hannabel (Smith) landed
in Salem. Through a bitter cold winter, they cut down the trees, hus-
band and wife along with their neighbors; they trimmed the logs
and built their cabin. They built a city by the power of their muscles,
the swing of their arms, saw it slowly rise into a community of
comfort; and William Thayer's sons moved on, hewed their way
westward through a forest wilderness and a race of savages. They
moved on again two generations later, leaving towns, villages, be-
hind them: Fitchburg, Deerfield. They moved west, then up into
Vermont. They fought off the Indians and the French, and then
the Indians and the British; they were carpenters, builders; and then,
their building done, millers, wheelwrights, tradesmen, in their
solidly bitterly, built communities . . . and sipping their scarlet
wine in cafes, lolling beneath cool arbors or on sunwarmed meadows,

in Portugal, Sicily, the African islands, these people lazed away their
lives, soft guitars strumming, indolent voices calling across the still
blue waters of the Mediterranean and South Atlantic; (he drew a
block of paper toward him to commence his report;) and now they're
discontented!

His head jerked up.

Oh, yes, they're discontented, all right, when they find themselves
suddenly halted in their easygoing joy ride! He smiled, tightlipped,
at the clock and a shiver passed over him. They come here soft,
flabby, to the Land of Plenty, made plentiful by lean hard labor —
(he looked at his clenched fist; why, that could knock out any of
them!) They play around, tail around, while we work, work, pull —
(his muscular neck tightened against his stiff collar;) and then
they're discontented, they stick out their hands for more of our
sweat money, and get it, GET IT, THE GODDAMNED —

Cut it.

His hand, clutching the pen, trembled.

Stop. Relax, like Doc said.

He slumped in his chair, mouth fallen open, hands carefully limp.
He waited a half minute, watching the clock . . . and then he drew
himself up, stomach in, tight, solid, his collar gripping his firm
neck. He pulled in his belt, sensing his slimness. He leaned over
his work.

Spinningroom. Production for the week of July 5th. Frame No.
I.. .

But this may be the beginning of rejuvenation. All over the country
wages are being lowered, and once again America will start at rock
bottom and build itself up, slowly, solidly, giving the best in brain
and brawn, and receiving in exchange the coin merited. I am worth,
in the coin of the nation, so much per hour, so many days in the year;
I am higher in the scale than they because I have proven by intelli-
gence and diligence I am worth just so much more, as Ramon is
worth more — and do they think they can slobber along and keep
up with him do they think they can fool around loaf grow fat and
make his intelligence and hard work show for nothing, well by
Christ they can't, we'll show them, I'll by GOD I'LL — . He checked
himself; held his mind suspended.

Clamp them on; snap them off; clamp them on; snap them off.

Quieted, he glanced at the clock.

"Tenthirty, Miss Watkins."

"Yes, sir. I just noticed it." She rose, went to the window and
opened it. Dark windclouds were crossing the sky, the wind rushed

100

in, and she contracted against it. She turned and waited until Thayer
reached her side, and they both faced the gray sky above the tene-
ments across the court. Miss Watkins, shivering in the cold air,
jerked in her chin, threw out her stomach, and with noisy breaths,
flapped her outstretched arms, up and down, up, down, dispiritedly,
eyeing darkly the windowframe.

But Thayer 's eyes glittered. He smiled grimly as he felt the keen
air cut into his lungs, searching out and purifying his whole body.
He felt his muscles ache, pressed back his shoulders and neck
until it was nearly unbearable; and held them there. He pulled at
his belt, but there were no more notches. (Have to cut another.)
For five minutes he stood, stretching every muscle, his toes,
legs, thighs, one after another, until he reached his head; he
worked his jaw and even his eyebrows. Then he turned back to his
seat.

The window slammed down and Miss Watkins returned to her
desk, blowing on her fingers.

"Feel a million times better now," murmured Thayer.

"Yes, sir; one feels refreshed," she replied, sitting on her hands.

He took up his pen, rubbed it along his lips, gazing at the wall.
But against his will he peered at her, sitting there on her hands.

Warm there; almost touching. But she's not thinking about it,
not conscious what it means to me. He turned back. Pure girl, un-
touched, unbroken — clothes stained with hot acrid blood — . He
stood up.

He loosened his belt, crossing to the window, where he stared down
at the gray windswept court.

The door noiselessly opened (clamp them on; snap — ) and shut
again, and Thayer looked up. Ramon was standing there, his eyes
uneasy.

He smiled to the young man; fresh, cleanlimbed, no sex business.
"Good morning, Ramon!"

Ramon smiled back.

"Good morning sir." He glanced at Miss Watkins. "Good morn-
ing," he murmured.

She looked up brightly. "Good morning, Ramon." Ticfotacfyac^-
tac!(, tic1(atac1(tacJ(tac1^. Thayer leaned back.

"Well, what's new, young man?"

Ramon's smile faded. He glanced at his foot and up again.

"I guess they're sort of sore, sir," he said in lowered voice. "About
the cut." He jerked back his head in the direction of the muffled
rumble.

101

Thayer's smile did not disappear; it tightened. He watched Ramon
with sharp humorous eyes.

"They are, are they?" he asked, slowly. "But I guess we're ready for
them, hey, Ramon?"

Ramon looked down again, kicking at the floor.

"Oh, they're just shooting their fac — just talking, that's all," he
murmured.

"Yes, but ... if they start anything, Ramon . . ." He waited
for Ramon to look up; Ramon looked up; "we're ready for them,
you and I. Hah?"

Ramon still kicked at the floor; but his eyes were caught by his
boss's. He forced a flickering smile.

"Yes, sir . . ." he said in a low voice.

Clamp them on; snap them off ...

and clamp them on and snap them off and clamp them on and
snap them off —

First to those beside her she talked with lowered voice; and then
to those beyond. The girls she talked with gathered in a huddle,
whispering when she left them, leaving their spindles darting UP
and down; UP, down.

Clamp them on and snap them off and clamp them on and snap
them off —

The second watched her furtively, and then found business some-
where else. And she circled wider; leaving behind small groups of
girls, whispering, murmuring, grumbling; clamp them on and snap
them off — . She watched the clock.

And at last she started up the aisle, up the steps; turned, grinned,
with a farewell wave to the girls below who all stood along the
aisles with no one now at "their" machines, that worked alone, UP
and down; with no one there to clamp them on and snap them off
and clamp —

She banged open the doors, leaving them open. Three boys, com-
mitteemembers, were coming quietly up the corridor; and then she
saw Doucet come out of the spinningroom, leaving those doors
open too. She waited for them, giggling, while they grinned sheep-
ishly back; and hearts pounding, without a word, they continued
along the corridor; halting in silence at the foot of the stairs for
the two young men and the girl who came noiselessly down to join
them.

Clamp them on; snap them off . . .

102

Louder, now that the mill room doors were open, came the rumble
to the three people in Thayer's office.

Clamp them on; snap them off . . .

Silent, ears alert, Miss Watkins' fingers held motionless above the
keyboard, they listened to the footsteps that came hesitating up the
corridor. Thayer half rose. Then he sank back and lifted his tele-
phone receiver.

"Mr. Holbrook," he said in a low voice into the mouthpiece. He
gazed at the bare floor, feeling the two faces watching him. Clamp
them on; snap them off; clamp them on — ; he turned back to the
mouthpiece.

"Holbrook? Thayer." His voice was quiet. "Any trouble in your
building? . . . Little uneasiness here . . . No; paying no attention
to it unless they force — what? The final decision, hah? No con-
ference, no nothing?" A slit of a smile spread on his lips. "Good! . . .
Oh, it'll be all right, I'm not worrying . . . Yeah . . . See you later."
He put down the receiver and looked at Ramon, still smiling.

"The cut is the final decision of Mr. Baumann and the directors,"
he said. "No conference, no nothing. Take it or leave it." Ramon
looked down at his wriggling foot.

Clamp them on; snap them off; clamp them on; snap them off.
The footsteps had halted outside the door. Now there was a knock.

"Come in!" The door opened.

CLAMP THEM ON; SNAP THEM OFF; CLAMP THEM ONJ SNAP THEM OFF.

Six men and two girls pushed in and huddled near the open door.
Most of them looked uneasily at Thayer, and then dropped their
eyes under his direct cold gaze; all save Doucet and Micky. Doucet's
grin was selfconscious, but his blue eyes were as hard as the superin-
tendent's as he returned his gaze. Wondering, pitying, Micky re-
garded Ramon who had eased back against the wall, kicking his heel
against it and looking down.

CLAMP THEM ONJ SNAP THEM OFF; CLAMP THEM ON; SNAP THEM OFF.

"You wanted to see me?"

A silence; then a low hissing yes sir, scarcely audible.

"And you left your machines running to do it?"

Micky swung around to him.

"It's the sectionhand's job to turn them off," she snapped; "and
he wasn't there." Her eyes shone, her face was tense with conscious
triumph. Ramon cleared his throat.

Til go turn—"

"Ramon!" Thayer waved his hands, his eyes on the committee.
Ramon, who had stood upright, again slouched back. "It's the section-

I03

hand's job," said Thayer, evenly, "to turn them on at seven-thirty in
the morning, and again at one in the afternoon; and to turn them
off at noon and at five-thirty. No other time. And it's your jobs to
stay by them and work them, the men in their rooms as well as the
girls in Ramon's."

"It's our job to stay by them, is it, after you cutting us ten percent,
and you and Ramon hanging around here leading the life of Riley!"

"Aw, Micky . . ."

Thayer looked down at his carefully drumming fingers, then up
again.

"I'm not used to having the hands talk to me in that fashion, young
lady," he said slowly; "however, if you — "

"Then lead us to somebody what is! That's what we've come here
for like the committees in the other buildings!"

" — however, if you have any complaint to make, I will hear it and
see what can be done about it."

"Complaint to make! We ain't making no complaint!" she cried,
glaring at him and feeling her passionate voice batter the helpless
boy against the wall; "we're just here demanding what's ours, and
then you bosses here can take the gravy and wallow to your necks
in it, it's nothing to me, I ain't in your class! I'm just after what's
coming to me, and so are the rest of us!"

"Aw, Micky . . ." Ramon looked up, to see Doucet's cold eyes
turned on him. Sullenly, he tried to return the gaze, and then looked
down again. I'll murder you, you bastard, he thought.

Thayer was tapping his pen, slowly and thoughtfully, on his desk.
Now, smiling, he looked up at Micky.

"You're going to get what's coming to you, young lady." He dipped
his pen in the ink and drew a pad toward him. "What is the young
lady's name, Ramon?" he asked, his pen poised.

Ramon's heel, about to tap the wall, stopped short. He glanced
swiftly up at Micky. Mick^ was smiling; her triumphant eyes were
like needles in his. He dropped his eyes.

"Ramon? I asked you . . ."

"Kathleen Bonner . . ." he murmured.

"Kath — You spell it with a K?" Thayer politely asked her.

"I spell it with a K. K-A-T-H-L-E-E-N! and C-A-T, CAT!"

"Yes . . . thank you." He was writing, "and d-o-g, dog. Kathleen,
Bon-ner . . . Well Miss Bonner." He looked up. "You won't have-
any more cause for complaint about wages in the Baumann-Jones
Mill after today. If you will see the paymaster on your way out."
Avoiding Doucet's gaze, leveled again on him, he turned to the group

104

huddled behind Micky. "And is there anything I can do for you?"
he asked.

Micky turned to look at them. They looked at her, at one another,
glanced at Thayer from the corner of their eyes. Her hands rose to
her hips; she tapped her foot, holding herself in.

"Nothing at all, gentlemen?"

Silence; while Micky waited. The other girl wet her lips; then
closed her mouth again.

"WELL? Why don't you open your face, you poor fishes, what do
you suppose God gave you a tongue for?"

"You know what He gave it for, don't you, young lady3" Thayer
said pleasantly.

"Damn right and I do — WELL?"

Doucet, suddenly aware, glanced at her, and then stepped quietly
forward. But Thayer held up his hand.

"Before you speak, however," he said, "I might as well tell you
it's a waste of time talking about the wagecut. I've just received
notification that it's the final decision of Mr. Baumann and the
directors. No conferences; no anything at all. I'm afraid you must
take it, or — like this young lady — leave it."

Doucet turned questioningly to the others. Thayer's face tightened.

"There's no need of conferring here — or anywhere. Take it or leave
it — And if you don't like it, if you want higher wages, get to work,
use a little elbow grease and a little gray MATTER AND — " His mouth
clamped shut; he looked down at his desk.

"Well?" Micky turned to the group behind her. "You heard what
he said, didn't you?" A grin flickered beneath her glaring eyes.

They looked quickly at one another; nodded to her. Doucet
herded them out the door.

At the threshold Micky turned back.

"Goodbye to you, Mr. Thayer," she said, her eyes shining; "and
I'm thinking the Baumann-Jones Mill won't have to worry about
paying the hands for a while yet! And goodbye to you, Mr. — " She
stopped as she saw the lonely figure slouched against the wall, wist-
ful eyes on her. "And you won't come along with the crowd,
Ramon?" she asked, softly.

He looked down; kicked back at the wall. Thayer's face hardened.

"Well, Ramon?"

"Yes, sir — I — " He looked up at Micky. "I guess I'll stay here,
Micky," he said.

They hurried back down the corridor, their feet clattering now,
their voices sharp, excited. As they passed the windingroom, the girls

105

were bunched at the opened doors; their machines were turned off.
"Come on!" called the committee; "everybody out to the court!"
The girls' hushed voices leaped shrilly. Shouting, chattering, laugh-
ing, they fell in behind. The men from the spinningroom joined
them; from the weavingroom. They came pouring down from the
third and fourth floors where they had been eagerly waiting. The
scuffle of their feet, their excited voices, vibrated hollowly in the
machine-stilled silence. They went down the stairs, out to the court.

They were pouring out from the other doors. They closed in a
tight mass in the center that widened, widened, as more and more
poured out; until at last they filled the court, a dark, agitated, com-
pact mass. They were like animals released from a cage, a little
frightened in the unaccustomed freedom of the windy, cloud-
darkened court, but exhilarated; laughing, punching, kidding, giddy;
their voices, sharp, deep, or shrill, fused in a mighty rumble, to rise
to the officials and office-workers watching in the windows above.

"Fellow workers!" The thin highpitched voice pierced the swollen
rumble, rising faint but clear to the listeners behind the closed win-
dows. The noise subsided. The crowd looked up, to see Marvin
standing on a box in their middle. He waited, his hand upheld for
silence.

"Fellow workers," he commenced again; "we've just come from the
bosses. Our committees have gone to all the bosses in every building
of the Baumann-Jones Mill. They went to them to asf( them if we
couldn't have a conference with them. Just a conference to tal\ over
this wagecut they've given us. And do you foow what they said?

"They said there wouldn't be no conference. They said we could
ta\e the wagecut or leave it. They wouldn't tal^ to us. Kicked us out
their offices and told us to go bac\ to our looms and slave for them.
They got to ma\e sure of their dividends. To HELL /'/ we starve. All
right, fellow workers; are you going to ta\e that lying down?"

"NO!"

"Are you going to ta\e the wage cut, or leave it?"

"LEAVE IT!"

"All right, Come up here, Fellow Worker Thumado . . ."

"Fellows and Girls.

"I have been wording at the Baumann-Jones Mill since before the
War. I was matting $24 a wee^ in 1921. Then they cut us jour times:
They cut us in 1924, cut us so I was only making $19 a weeJ^. Then
they cut us in 7926— all right, Marvin, I'm hurrying. Well, I'm only
making $11 now and I got a wife and two tyds to feed. Is that fair?"

"NO!"

1 06

"I wor\ lif(e hell nine hours a day and my tyds are hungry. And
they live on the dividends what we make for them and they got
automobiles and beautiful homes up on the hill. Is that fair?"

"NO!"

"All right. All right, Micky . . ."

"Fellows and girls, let's cut the tal\. We didn't come out here to

talk did we?"

"NO!"

"We come out here because our bosses want to cut our wages what
Tire too low already. We come out here because we tried to tal\ to
them and they wouldn't talf( to us. Allright, fellows and girls, there's
mst one thing we can do, and 'you foow what it is. Are we going to
do it, are we going to show them? What is it, fellows and girls?"

A moment's dead silence. Then, with the fearful impact of the
word itself:

"STRIKE!"

From up near the gate sounded a girl's clear voice.

"C'est la lutte finale—"

Immediately it was taken up in English by Marvin's original com-
mittee. A few old Portuguese followed; a half dozen Poles.

"Let each stand in his place . . ."

It rose here and there in the crowd. In English, Portuguese, French,
3reek, Polish. Some remembered it dimly from the past and
lummed it; some followed and hummed it; everybody made some
dnd of sound. And it blended, rose to the listening watchers at the
windows, to the lowhung clouds that scuttled darkly, silently by.

"THE INTERNATIONAL

SHALL BE THE HUMAN RACE!"

They crowded through the gate, singing, yelling, whistling through
.heir teeth. Someone jerked the watchman's cap over his nose, and
when he raised it, another jerked it down, and then another jerked
t down. They swept along the street behind their leaders, a dark
iormless unwieldy mob, fiercely exultant.

The Shadow Before, 1934

107

JS[eu> England, There SJie Stands

BERNARD DfiVOTO

In August, 1927, 1 resigned my assistant professorship and under-
took to support myself by what Ring Lardner has probably called
the pen. Implicit in the change was a desire to live in some more
agreeable community than the suburb of Chicago that had been my
residence for five years. Since I carried my pen with me, I might
live in any place on earth that pleased me. I might have gone to
Montparnasse or Bloomsbury, Florence or the Riviera or Cornwall.
I might, with respectable precedent, have chosen New Orleans or
San Francisco. I might have selected one of the Westchester or
Long Island towns in which writers are commoner than respectable
men. I didn't. To the consternation of my friends, I came to Cam-
bridge, Massachusetts.

The choice at once expelled me from a guild to which for eight
or nine years I had impeccably belonged, that of the intellectuals
who have right ideas about American life. For, of course, according
to those right ideas, New England was a decadent civilization. It
was no longer preeminent in America. Its economic leadership had
failed so long ago that hardly a legend of it remained. Its intellec-
tual leadership had expired not quite so early perhaps but, never-
theless, long, long ago. Its spiritual energy, never lovely but once
formidable, had been degraded into sheer poison, leaving New Eng-
land a province of repression, tyranny, and cowardice. At the very
moment of my arrival Mr. Heywood Broun announced that all New
England could not muster' a half-dozen first-class minds. Mr. Waldo
Frank had explained that nothing was left this people except the
slag of Puritanism — gloom, envy, fear, frustration. He had ex-
plored the waste-land and discovered that practically all New Eng-
land women suffered from neuroses (grounded in the Denial of
Life) and contemplated suicide. Mr. Eugene O'Neill had drama-
tized a number of Mr. Frank's discoveries and had added incest to
the Yankee heritage. In short, the guild had constructed another-
one of those logically invulnerable unities to the production of which
it devotes its time. New England was a rubbish heap of burnt-out

108

energies, suppressed or frustrated instincts, bankrupt culture, social
decay, and individual despair.

In the month of my arrival there was a vivid confirmation of these
right ideas. At Charlestown two humble Italians were executed be-
cause the ruling class did not like their political beliefs. The Sacco-
Vanzetti case completed the damnation of New England: the right
ideas were vindicated. Well, it helped to focus my ideas about the
society to which I was returning. Six years earlier I had served on a
committee which solicited funds for their defense. I believed them
innocent of the crimes for which they were executed, and I held
that any pretense of fairness in their trials was absurd. But several
inabilities cut me off from my fraternal deplorers of this judicial
murder. For one thing, I was unable to feel surprise at the mis-
carriage of justice — unable to recall any system of society that had
prevented it or to imagine any that would prevent it. I was unable to
believe that any commonwealth was or could be much better con-
stituted than New England for the amelioration of a class struggle.
I was unable to believe that any order of society would alter any-
thing but the terms in which social injustice expressed itself.

These inabilities added considerable force to my immediate,
private reasons for desiring to live in New England. The private
reasons were very simple: I wanted to use the Harvard College
Library. I liked the way New Englanders leave you alone. I had
lived in the West, the Middle West, the South, and New York, and
knew that the precarious income of a writer would assure me more
comfort, quiet, and decent dignity in New England than anywhere
else in America. But these personal motives were buttressed by
generalization. As the great case had shown, I profoundly dis-
believed in the perfectibility of Society. Societies, I believed, would
not become perfect and could not be made perfect. The most to be
hoped for was that, as a resolution of imponderable forces, as an
incidental by-product of temperaments and interests and accidents,
a way of living in society might arise that was somewhat better
than certain other ways. And, because I had lived in New England
before, I knew that accidental by-products of the Yankee nature
had given New England an attractive kind of civilization. I did
not believe in the perfect state but, like Don Marquis, I knew
something about the almost-perfect state. It had somehow begun
to be approximated in New England.

Two simple facts had conditioned it. For one thing, as my former
union announced, leadership had departed from New England
forever. That meant, among many other things, that the province

109

was delivered from a great deal of noise and stench and common
obscenity which are inseparable from leadership in America. It
meant that tht province was withdrawn from competition; and this
implied a vast amount of relief, decency, and ease. But there was
something more. In that fall of 1927 Mr. Ford Madox Ford was
writing a book whose title expressed the hopefulness of hundreds of
thousands of Kansans, Texans, and Californians, New Yor^ Is Not
America. Maybe it isn't; as an apprentice Yankee I am not interested.
What has been important in the development of the almost-perfect
state is that New England is not America. The road it chose to follow,
from the beginning, diverged from the highway of American prog-
ress. By voluntary act the Yankee, whose ancestral religion was based
on the depravity of human nature, refrained from a good deal that
has become indispensable and coercive in America. Thus delivered
and refraining, there was space for New England to develop the
equilibrium whose accidents had produced a species of almost-
perfect state.

So Mr. Mencken's laboriously assembled statistics have recently
made clear various superficial ways in which the burnt-out, frus-
trated, and neurotic province must be called the foremost civiliza-
tion in These States. And as I write, Mr. Allen Tate has just
explained a difference, not quite clear to me, between regionalism
and sectionalism. I do not quite understand the difference, but I do
make out that it's now orthodox and even virtuous to be sectional.
... I am encouraged to apply for a union card. The Yankees and
I seem to be in good standing again.

In New England the mills idled and passed their dividends. The
four-per-cents decayed. The trust funds melted. Outside, the Ameri-
can empire was conceived, was born, and attained its adolescence. Its
goods and capital overspread the earth. Detroit was a holy city.
The abolition of poverty drew near, and the empire's twilight flared
in murky scarlet. Then it was October, 1929, and midnight. . . .
Novel paragraphs worked their way into a press that had long
ignored the section it now reported. Business was sick, but New
England business, we heard, wasn't quite so sick. Panic possessed
America, but New England wasn't quite so scared. The depression
wasn't quite so bad in New England, despair wasn't quite so black,
the nightmare was not quite so ghastly. What the press missed was
its chance for a pretty study in comparatives. How, indeed, should
hard times terrify New England? It had had hard times for sixty

110

years — in one way or another for three hundred years. It had had
to find a way to endure a perpetual depression, and had found it.
It began to look as though the bankrupt nation might learn some-
thing from New England.

Some time ago I drove over December roads to the village in
northern Vermont where I spend my summers. Naturally, I called
on Jason, who is my neighbor there. Evergreen boughs were piled
as high as the windows outside his house; the first snow was on
them, and its successors would make them an insulation that would
be expensive in the city. Piles of maple and birch logs had grown
up back of the shed; they would increase through early January,
for they are the fuel that Jason burns all year round. Under the
floor of another shed was a pit that held potatoes, cabbages, and
beets. Emma, who is Jason's wife, had filled her pantry with jars
of home-grown corn, string beans, carrots, and a little fruit. She
was making bread and doughnuts when I arrived. We had them
for dinner, with cabbage, some of the string beans, and a rabbit
stew. Jason had shot a couple of rabbits, and Emma explained how
welcome they were. They didn't get much meat, she said; the deer
Jason killed a few weeks before had been a life-saver.

I stayed the night at Jason's, slept under a feather bed, ate a
breakfast which included doughnuts and pumpkin pie, and came
away with a dazed realization that I had visited a household which
was wholly secure. There was no strain here; no one felt appre-
hensive of the future. Jason lives far below "the American stand-
ard," yet he lives in comfort and security. He is so little of an
economic entity that he can hardly be classed as what the liberal
journals call a peasant, yet more than any one else I know, he lives
what those same periodicals call the good life. He has lived here
for fifty years and his forebears for sixty more, coming from more
southerly portions of Vermont where the breed had already spent
a century. During that time the same liberty, tenacity, and suc-
cess have formed a continuity of some importance.

Jason owns about seventy acres of hillside, sloping down to an
exquisite lake. He considers that, in view of his improvements, he
would have to get two thousand dollars for the place if he were
to sell it. Part of it is pasture for his horse and cow. Part of it is gar-
den; enormous labor forces the thin soil to produce the vegetables that
Emma cans. The rest is woodlot, for fuel, and sugar bush, for Jason's
one marketable crop. The maples produce, in syrup and sugar, an
annual yield of from one hundred and fifty to two hundred dollars —
about one half of all the cash that Jason handles in a year. A few

III

days of labor on the roads bring in a little more, and during the sum-
mer he does odd jobs for such aliens as I. His earnings and his one
crop bring him perhaps four hundred dollars a year, seldom or never
more, but frequently less. On such an income, less than a fifth of
what Mr. Hoover's Department of Commerce estimated to be the
minimum capable of supporting an American family, Jason has
brought up his children in health, comfort, and contentment.

There are thousands like Jason on the hillside farms of Vermont,
New Hampshire, and northwestern Massachusetts, and there have
been for three centuries. They have never thrown themselves upon
the charity of the nation. They have never assaulted Congress, de-
manding a place at the national trough. Wave after wave of clamor,
prayer, and desperation has crossed the farmsteads of the midland,
where the thinnest soil is forty feet deep and the climate will grow
anything; but from this frigid north, this six-inch soil sifted among
bowlders, has come no screaming for relief. The breed has clung
to its uplands, and solvency has been its righteousness and inde-
pendence has been its pride. The uplands have kept their walls plumb,
their barns painted, their farms unmortgaged. Somehow, out of
nothing at all, they have taxed themselves for the invisible State.
The district nurse makes her rounds. The town roads are hard. The
white schoolhouse sends its products to the crossroads high school
and on to the university. The inspector calls and tests the family cow;
State bulletins reach the mailbox at the corner. The crippled and
the superannuated are secure.

One of Mr. Mencken's incidental revelations provides a succinct,
if vulgar, summary of the statistics that verify it: if you want to
be listed in Who's Who in America your first step should be to get
yourself born in Vermont, and three of the next five best birth-
places are New England States. More briefly still: here are people
who have mastered the conditions of their life. With natural re-
sources the poorest in the Union, with an economic system incapable
of exploitation, in a geography and climate that make necessary
for survival the very extreme of effort, they have erected their State
and made it lovely. They have forfeited the wealth and advertise-
ment and glamorous turmoil of other sections, but they have pre-
served freedom and security. The basis is men who must make
their way as individuals, but the communism of the poor exists also.
If Jason falls ill he will be cared for; if his one crop fails his neigh-
bors will find food for his family; if he dies his widow (who will
never be a pauper) will find the town putting at her disposal a
means of making her way. ... I cannot imagine a change in the

112

social order that would much alter this way of life. I cannot imagine
a perfected state that could improve upon it.

These were hard times, I said to Jason. He agreed, ramming
cheap tobacco into his corncob pipe. Yes, hard times. Nothing to
do, though, but pull up your belt and hang on. Some folks thought
it might be good to move ten or fifteen miles north, over the line
into Canady. But on the whole, no — not for Jason. He and his
pa had made a living from this place for seventy years. There'd
been a lot of hard times in seventy years. He couldn't remember
any times that hadn't been hard. He went into a discussion of
Congress, so much more intelligent, so much less deluded by wish-
fulness than those I listen to in literary speakeasies in New York.
This lapsed, and he began to talk at his ease, with the undeluded
humor of his breed. It is the oldest humor in America, a realism
born of the granite hills, a rock-bottom wisdom. He was an un-
American anomaly as 1931 drifted to its close in panic and despair —
a free man, self-reliant, sure of his world, unfrightened by the
future.

He has what America, in our time and most of its past, has
tragically lacked — he has the sense of reality. The buffalo coat he
wore when we looked at his sugar bush is in its third generation
in his family, having had I do not know how many owners before
it strangely reached New England from the plains. I do not know
how long it is since Emma bought a union suit, but I am sure that
need dictated its purchase, not fashion or advertising. Here are
rag rugs she has made from garments whose other usefulness was
ended; here are carpets that were nailed long years on her grand-
mother's floor. The pans above her sink date from no ascertainable
period; she and her daughters will use them a long time yet, and
no salesman will ever bring color into her kitchen. Jason has patched
and varnished this rocker, and Emma has renewed its cushions in-
numerable times. The trademark on Jason's wagon is that of a
factory which has not existed for forty years. Jason does not know
how many shafts he has made for it; he has patched the bed, bent
iron for the running gear, set new tires on the wheels perhaps ten
times. Now he contemplates putting the bed and shafts on the frame
of an old Ford and will move his loads on rubber tires.

A squalid picture, a summary of penny-pinching poverty that de-
grades the human spirit? Not unless you have been victimized by
what has never deluded Jason and Vermont. To this breed, goods,
wares, chattels, the products of the industrial age, have been instru-
mentalities of living, not life itself. Goods are something which are

to be used; they are not the measure of happiness and success.
While America has roared through a prosperity based on a concep-
tion of goods as wealth-begetting waste, while it has pricked itself
to an accelerating consumption that has progressively lowered qual-
ity, while its solvency has depended on a geometrical progression of
these evils, the granite uplands have enforced a different standard
on their inhabitants. Debts, these farmers know, must eventually
be settled. It would be pleasant to wear silk stockings, but it is
better to pay your taxes. It would be nice to substitute a new car
for the 1922 model that came here at third hand, but it is better
to be free of chattel mortgages. It would be nice to have steak for
supper and go to Lyndonville for the movie. But at four hundred
a year and with the granite knowledge that one must not live be-
yond one's means — well, rabbits are good food, and from this can-
nily sited kitchen window sunset over the lake is good to look at.
Neatness, my guild assures us, proceeds from a most repulsive
subliminal guilt. Maybe; but these white farmhouses with their
scrubbed and polished interiors are very lovely. Also the peasants
are the enemies of beauty in our day, but somehow their houses
invariably stand where the hills pull together in natural composi-
tion and a vista carries the eye onward past the lake. Their an-
cestral religion told them that the world is a battleground whereon
mankind is sentenced to defeat — an idea not inappropriate to the
granite against which they must make their way. By the granite
they have lived for three centuries, tightening their belts and hang-
ing on, by the sense of what is real. They are the base of the
Yankee commonwealth, and America, staring apprehensively
through fog that may not lift in this generation, may find their
knowledge of hard things more than a little useful.

Since we do not believe in perfect states or in the beautiful sim-
plicities, composed by right ideas, it would be silly to expect the
Yankee to be a complete realist. He has ideas about himself which
are almost as romantic as those the intellectuals have developed
about him. He considers himself a cool, reticent person, dwelling
in iron restraint, sparse of speech, intensely self-controlled; whereas
he has no reserve whatever, indulges his emotions as flagrantly as
a movie queen, and at every level, from the upland farms to the
Beacon Street clubs, talks endlessly, shrilly, with a spring-flood
garrulity that amazes and appalls this apprentice, who was born
to the thrift of Rocky Mountain talk. He thinks that his wealthy

burghers are an aristocracy, and the burghers, who share that il-
lusion, consider their own mulishness a reasoned, enlightened con-
servatism of great philosophical value to the State. He thinks that
his bourgeoisie possesses a tradition of intelligence and a praise-
worthy thirst for culture; whereas it has only a habit of joining so-
cieties and a masochistic pleasure in tormenting itself with bad
music which it does not understand and worse books which it cannot
approve. He thinks that he is set apart in lonely pride to guard
the last pure blood in America; whereas he has absorbed and as-
similated three-score immigrations in three centuries. Recognizing
his social provinciality, he thinks that he is, nevertheless, an inter-
nationalist of the intellect; whereas his mind has an indurated
parochialism that makes a Kansan's or a Virginian's seem cosmo-
politan. That is what is important about his mind.

Nevertheless, he is fundamentally a realist, and these illusions
are harmonious in the Yankee nature. Accidental by-products of
that nature, of these qualities as well as more substantial ones,
have produced the Yankee commonwealth, the almost-perfect
state.

Let us begin with Cambridge's dead-end streets, which Mr. Lewis
Mumford was recently commending. Mr. Mumford, who writes
about the perfected municipalities of the future, had been looking
at Brattle Street, Concord Avenue, and the little streets that wander
or? them but end without joining them together. He believes that
cities must be planned so that quiet, safety, and seclusion will be
assured their inhabitants. In the automobile age, highways must be
constructed for through traffic, while the streets on which people
live must receive only the necessary traffic of their own cars and
those which make deliveries to their houses. Our little dead-end
streets accomplish that purpose perfectly. They are safe and quiet,
and they seem to Mr. Mumford a praiseworthy anticipation of
the machine age. They aren't that, of course. Their landscaped
crookedness represents the wanderings of Cambridge cows and the
strife of Yankee heirs when estates were settled. They come to
dead ends not because a prophet foresaw Henry Ford, but because
some primordial Cambridge individualist put up a spite fence or
fought a victorious court action against the condemnation of his
property. Similarly, though modern highways allow locust-swarms
of cars to approach Boston, its downtown streets will never experi-
ence Fifth Avenue's paralysis. Yankee mechanics, going homeward
across marshes, laid them down; a convulsion of nature could not
straighten or widen them, and accident anticipated Mr. Stuart

Chase's omnipotent engineer who would plan the almost-perfect
city.

I cannot praise some aspects of the Yankee city. Such ulcerous
growths of industrial New England as Lowell, Lawrence, Lynn,
Pawtucket, Woonsocket, and Chelsea seem the products of night-
mare. To spend a day in Fall River is to realize how limited were
the imaginations of the poets who have described Hell. It is only
when one remembers Newark, Syracuse, Pittsburgh, West Phila-
delphia, Gary, Hammond, Akron, and South Bend that this leprosy
seems tolerable. The refuse of industrialism knows no sectional
boundaries and is common to all America. It could be soundly ar-
gued that the New England debris is not so awful as that elsewhere
— not so hideous as upper New Jersey or so terrifying as the New
South. It could be shown that the feeble efforts of society to cope
with this disease are not so feeble here as elsewhere. But realism
has a sounder knowledge: industrial leadership has passed from
New England, and its disease will wane. Lowell will slide into the
Merrimack, and the salt marsh will once more cover Lynn — or
nearly so. They will recede; the unpolluted sea air will blow over
them, and the Yankee nature will reclaim its own.

But take the Yankee nature at a higher level — the sense of the
community. I know a Middlewesterner who, graduating from medi-
cal school with distinction, came to Boston to study under a great
surgeon. He has finished his work now and is going to begin prac-
ticing. He considered Chicago but has finally determined upon
New York. The rewards of distinction are highest there. Not Boston
— oh, not by any means. Boston fees are ridiculously small, and
Boston specialists neglect to capitalize their skill. They waste time
in free clinics, in research laboratories, on commissions for the in-
vestigation of poliomyelitis or rheumatic fever or cancer or glaucoma
— all highly commendable for the undistinguished, the rank and
file, but very foolish for the truly great, since they may treat million-
aires. My friend will be, when his chief dies, America's leading
surgeon in his specialty. So he goes to New York — and, I think,
something about the Yankee commonwealth is implicit in that de-
cision. ... In Chicago a member of my family required the services
of a specialist. The doctor grumbled about treating the family of a
college teacher, whose trade proclaimed his income, but there was
something about ethics and the Hippocratic oath and so he took
the case. He did his work hastily, botched the job and, after in-
quiring the exact figures of my income, charged me one-fourth of
a year's salary and said he would write off the rest to charity. So

116

in due time a Boston specialist had to do the job over again and
spend more than a year in treatments which, because his predecessor
had bungled, required close individual attention and the long, costly
technic of the laboratory. His fee, though my income had quad-
rupled, was one-fifth of the Chicago man's and, because the case
was a problem rather than a potential fee, he performed the cure.
He had the obstinacy of Boston doctors, the conservative notion
that medicine is a profession of healing and not an investment
trust.

The Yankee doctors are citizens of the invisible state. The drug
list of the Massachusetts General Hospital is about one-fourth as
long as that of the Presbyterian Hospital in New York; medicine
has its fads as often as architecture, and the Yankee mulishness
avoids fads. But the researches go on, and students come from all
over the world, and somehow these obstinate physicians fail to lose
their preeminence though they lag mightily behind in the possession
of Rolls-Royces. Citizenship shows up in them, and New England
witnesses what America has not seen for a long time — the wrath
of doctors, spoken in public places, against abuses. Yankee fore-
sight carries them into the slums, where they lose money but fore-
stall plague and, incidentally, relieve suffering. Yankee genialty
makes them friends of their patients, and we of the little bourgeoisie
find that the terror of disease is allayed for us so far as may be.
... I smoke a cigarette with the pediatrician who, at five dollars
instead of twenty-five, pays a monthly visit to my infant son. A
problem in sociology receives its Yankee dismissal, and the pediatri-
cian departs for the East End, where he manages a foundation that
promotes the respectable adoption of foundlings. It keeps him from
the golf course, and his waistline thickens; but he must maintain
his citizenship in the Yankee commonwealth. Or my furnace man
develops a queer pain, and I send him to the head physician of a
great hospital. He is kept in an observation ward, where for some
weeks all the resources of the laboratory are applied. Finally an
operation is performed, and he goes to a camp in Maine to recuper-
ate. No medical man receives a cent, and the hospital fees are paid
from a fund created in 1842 to care for the moral welfare of canal-
boat men. He will continue to tend furnaces for a long time yet.
But what, I wonder, would be done for him in a perfect state —
Mr. Swope's or Mr. Hoover's or Comrade Stalin's — that the almost-
perfect state has failed to do?

It is this Yankee citizenship that has created, upon the granite
base, the Yankee commonwealth. Our governments are corrupt —

117

not uniquely in America or history — but somehow they govern.
Racketeers exist but somehow they do not take over our munici-
palities. Fortunes are made from city contracts, but somehow our
garbage is collected and our streets are swept. Sojourn in Phila-
delphia or New York and then come back to Boston — see order
in place of anarchy, clean brick and stone in place of grime, washed
asphalt in place of oflfal. Babies starve in Yankee slums and rachitic
children play round the statues of our great, but not so many nor
so hopelessly. The citizens have no hope of perfection, and Mr.
Hoover's abolition of poverty found few adherents among them;
but, as Mr. Mencken's figures show, they have made the start. Some-
thing toward a solution of the problem of how to live in decent
cities has been here worked out. . . . Another friend of mine, a
lawyer, possesses a divided self that beautifully exhibits the Yankee
commonwealth. Professionally he creates trusts for the protection
of his clients' heirs, and conscientiously forbids the trustees to invest
in the securities of Massachusetts corporations. State socialism, he
is sure, has fatally encroached on their profits. Then, the business
day over, he enthusiastically pursues his lifelong avocation — agitating
for labor and pension laws that will more drastically cut down those
profits. Clearly, this is not Utopia, but it is a citizenship, and it
glances toward the almost-perfect state.

Drive southeastward from the Vermont uplands toward Boston,
through a countryside where the white steeples rise across the not
accidental vistas of village greens. It is here that, while the empire
roared away elsewhere, the Yankee learned the equilibrium of his
estate. Here is the New England town, the creation of the Yankee
nature, which exists as something the empire has forever passed
by. There are no booms here. The huntsmen are up in Chicago,
and they are already past to-day's high-pressure drive in Kansas
City, but in New England who can ever share an expectation of
bonanza again?

Here are the little mills that squatted beside a waterfall and for
some generations sent out their trickles of stockings and percales.
Manchester and New Bedford, Lowell and Lawrence absorbed them
in the end, and now these places go down in turn before the New
South. So the little mills closed up; shreds of belting hang from
their pulleys, and bats emerge from windows that will never again
be glized. Dover is only a pleasant place which had an Indian
attack once and has a handful of beautiful houses now. Orford

118

ships no products southward, but the loveliest mall in America
drowses under its elms, undisturbed when the wind brings across
the Connecticut the whistles of the railroad it would not suffer to
cross its borders. The last tall masts have slipped out of Salem
Harbor, and Hawthorne's ghost is more peaceful in the Custom
House than ever those living ghosts were among whose dusty papers
he found an initial bound with tarnished gold. Here are fifty inlets
once resonant with hammers pounding good white oak, once up-
roarious when new vessels slipped down the ways. They are marshes
now, and the high streets of Portsmouth and Newburyport re-
member a life once rich in the grain and wholly free of the repres-
sions Puritans are supposed to have obeyed. And down their high
streets will never come a procession of real estate men, promoters,
financiers, and fly-by-nights.

America is rachitic with the disease of Bigness, but New England
has built up immunity against the plague. It is impossible to imagine
Concord tattooing its lowlands with white stakes, calling itself "Villa
Superba: The Sunlight City of Happy Kiddies and Cheap Labor,"
and loosing a thousand rabid salesmen to barter lots on a Vista
Paul Revere or a Boulevarde de Ye Olde Inne to its own inhabitants
or suckers making the grand tour. There have been factories, of a
kind, at Easthampton and Deerfield for a hundred years, but their
Chambers of Commerce will never defile their approaches with
billboards inviting the manufacturer of dinguses to "locate here and
grow up with the livest community in God's country." Pomfret or
Tiverton or Pittsfield will never set itself a booster's ideal, "One
Hundred Thousand by 1940." Bigness, growth, expansion, the dou-
bling of last year's quota, the subdivision of this year's swamps, the
running round in circles and yelling about Progress and the Future
of Zenith — from these and from their catastrophic end, New England
is delivered for all time.

Here, if you have a Buick income, you do not buy a Cadillac
to keep your self-respect. You buy a Chevrolet and, uniquely in
America, keep it year after year without hearing that thrift is a
vice, a seditious, probably Soviet-inspired assault on the national
honor. The superannuation of straight-eights and the shift from
transparent velvet to suede lace are not imperatives. You paint the
Bulfinch front; you do not tear it down. You have your shoes
pegged while the uppers remain good. You patch the highway; you
do not rip it out. . . . The town abides. No Traveler's Rest with
an arcade of self-service hot dogs and powder puffs will ever be
reared on the Common. The white steeple rises at the far end,

119

and the white houses of the little streets that lead into it are buried
in syringa and forsythia, hollyhocks, Dorothy Perkinses, and the
blooms of rock gardens. Soap, paint, and Yankee fanaticism have
made an orderly loveliness not to be found elsewhere in America.
The town is beautiful, and something more. Boys toss baseballs on
the Common, infants tan themself in safety, dogs conduct their
tunneling and exploration. The Common and its tributary streets
are quiet. Beneath the exterior, an efficient organization deals with
the problems of the community; the townsman contributes his share
but mainly he lives here, uncrowded. There is time; there is room;
there is even, of a kind, peace. A society is here founded on granite.
No one supposes it is perfect. It is not an experiment; it was not
planned by enthusiasts or engineers or prophets of any kind. But out
of the Yankee nature and the procession of blind force somehow
dignity and community decency were here evolved.

The New England town, that is, has adjusted Itself to the condi-
tions of its life. It is a finished place. Concord was Concord when
Newark was a pup, the song almost says; and Shirley will be Shirley
when Great Neck is swallowed up. The butcher sells meat to his
townsmen; he does not attempt exports to the Argentine. The
turning-mill makes cupboards and cabinets for the local demand;
it does not expand into the gadget business, and so throws no
families on the town when next year's fashion demands gadgets of
aluminum. Mr. Stuart Chase went to Mexico to find a community
whose trades supported one another in something like security. He
found it, but recorded his hope that some day the Mexicans would
have dentists and bathtubs. In our imperfect way, we could have
shown Mr. Chase his desire. The butcher's boy grows up to be a
butcher, not a merchant prince; and meanwhile his teeth are taken
care of and he bathes in porcelain, though while the white tub con-
tinues to hold water he will not bathe in something mauve or green
that reproduces motifs from a Medici tomb. He has no hope of
unearned increment when a hundred thousand shall have come to
Shirley in 1940, but he has sunlight and clean air, quiet, a kind of
safety, and leisure for his friends. You will not find him in Los
Angeles — and the perfect state could offer him nothing that is denied
him in Shirley.

New England is a finished place. Its destiny is that of Florence
or Venice, not Milan, while the American empire careens onward
toward its unpredicted end. The Yankee capitalist will continue to
invest in that empire, while he can, so that the future will have
its echoes from the past, and an occasional Union Stockyards, Bur-

120

lington, or United Fruit will demonstrate that his qualities are his
own. But he, who once banked for the nation, will never bank for
it again. The Yankee manufacturer will compete less and less with
the empire. He will continue those specialties for which his skills
and geography best fit him, but mainly he will be a part of his
section's symbiosis. To find his market in his province, to sustain
what sustains him, to desire little more, to expect even less — that
is his necessity, but it implies the security of being able to look with
indifference on the mirage that lures the empire on. The section
becomes an economic system, a unity; it adjusts itself in terms of
its own needs and powers.

The desire of growth and domination is removed from it — and
with the desire is removed also their damnation. It will tranquilly,
if aloofly, observe whatever America in the future does and be-
comes, but it is withdrawn from competition in that future. Almost
alone in America, it has tradition, continuity. Not a tradition that
every one can admire, not a continuity of perfection, but something
fixed and permanent in the flux of change and drift. It is the first
American section to be finished, to achieve stability in the condi-
tions of its life. It is the first old civilization, the first permanent
civilization in America.

It will remain, of course, the place where America is educated,
for the preeminence of its schools and colleges must increase with
stability, and the place which America visits for recreation and for
the intangible values of finished things. It will be the elder glory
of America, free of smoke and clamor, to which the tourist comes
to restore his spirit by experiencing quiet, ease, white steeples, and
the release that withdrawal from an empire brings. It will be the
marble pillars rising above the nation's port.

Or if not, if the world indeed faces into darkness, New England
has the resources of the Yankee nature. They are not only the
will to tighten one's belt and hang on. They contain the wisdom
of three centuries whose teaching was, finally, defeat. They con-
tain the dynamics of a religion which verified experience by pro-
claiming that man is depraved, that his ways are evil, and that his
end must be eternal loss. Religion develops into the cynicism of
proved things, and the Yankee has experienced nothing but what
he was taught to expect. Out of this wisdom, in his frigid climate,
against the resistance of his granite fields, he built his common-
wealth. It was a superb equipment for his past; it may not be a
futile one for our future.

Forays and Rebuttals, 1936

121

The Mid-Atlantic States

Rockwell Kentllluftration for Leaves of Grass, courtesy of The Heritage Press

Eastern Scenes

I. The Kaatskill Mountains

WASHINGTON IRVING

Whoever has made a voyage up the Hudson, must remember
the Kaatskill mountains. They are a dismembered branch of the
great Appalachian family, and are seen away to the west of the
river, swelling up to a noble height, and lording it over the sur-
rounding country. Every change of season, every change of weather,
indeed every hour of the day produces some change in the magical
hues and shapes of these mountains; and they are regarded by all
the good wives, far and near, as perfect barometers. When the
weather is fair and settled, they are clothed in blue and purple,
and print their bold outlines on the clear evening sky; but some-
times, when the rest of the landscape is cloudless, they will gather
a hood of gray vapors about their summits, which, in the last rays
of the setting sun, will glow and light up like a crown of glory.

The Sketch Boo\, 1820

2. Niagara

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

It was an afternoon of glorious sunshine, without a cloud, save
those of the cataracts. I gained an insulated rock, and beheld a broad
sheet of brilliant and unbroken foam, not shooting in a curved line
from the top of the precipice, but falling headlong down from
height to depth. A narrow stream diverged from the main branch,
and hurried over the crag by a channel of its own, leaving a little
pine-clad island and a streak of precipice between itself and the
larger sheet. Below arose the mist, on which was painted a dazzling
sunbow with two concentric shadows, — one, almost as perfect as
the original brightness; and the other, drawn faintly round the
broken edge of the cloud.

Still I had not half seen Niagara. Following the verge of the
island, the path led me to the Horseshoe, where the . . . broad

125

[river], rushing along on a level with its banks, pours its whole
breadth over a concave line of precipice, and thence pursues its
course between' lofty crags towards Ontario. A sort of bridge, two
or three feet wide, stretches out along the edge of the descending
sheet, and hangs upon the rising mist, as if that were the founda-
tion of the frail structure. Here I stationed myself in the blast of
wind, which the rushing river bore along with it. The bridge was
tremulous beneath me, and marked the tremor of the solid earth.
I looked along the whitening rapids, and endeavored to distinguish
a mass of water far above the falls, to follow it to their verge, and
go down with it, in fancy, to the abyss of clouds and storm. Casting
my eyes across the river, and every side, I took in the whole scene
at a glance, and tried to comprehend it in one vast idea. After an
hour thus spent, I left the bridge, and, by a staircase, winding almost
interminably round a post, descended to the base of the precipice.
From that point, my path lay over slippery stones, and among great
fragments of the cliff, to the edge of the cataract, where the wind
at once enveloped me in spray, and perhaps dashed the rainbow
round me. Were my long desires fulfilled ? And had I seen Niagara ?

Oh that I had never heard of Niagara till I beheld it! Blessed
were the wanderers of old, who heard its deep roar, sounding
through the woods, as the summons to an unknown wonder, and
approached its awful brink, in all the freshness of native feeling.
Had its own mysterious voice been the first to warn me of its ex-
istence, then, indeed, I might have knelt down and worshipped.
But I had come thither, haunted with a vision of foam and fury,
and dizzy cliffs, and an ocean tumbling down out of the sky, — a
scene, in short, which nature had too much good taste and calm
simplicity to realize. My mind had struggled to adapt these false
conceptions to the reality, and finding the effort vain, a wretched
sense of disappointment weighed me down. . . .

Gradually, and after much contemplation, I came to know, by
my own feelings, that Niagara is indeed a wonder of the world,
and not the less wonderful, because time and thought must be
employed in comprehending it. Casting aside all preconceived no-
tions, and preparation to be dire-struck or delighted, the beholder
must stand beside it in the simplicity of his heart, suffering the
mighty scene to work its own impression. Night after night, I
dreamed of it, and was gladdened every morning by the conscious-
ness of a growing capacity to enjoy it.

The Dollivcr Romance and Other Pieces, 1876
126

3. Saratoga

HENRY JAMES

Its two main features are the two monster hotels which stand
facing each other along a goodly portion of its course. One, I believe,
is considered much better than the other, — less of a monster and
more of a refuge, — but in appearance there is little choice between
them. Both are immense brick structures, directly on the crowded,
noisy street, with vast covered piazzas running along the facade,
supported by great iron posts. The piazza of the Union Hotel, I
have been repeatedly informed, is the largest "in the world." There
are a number of objects in Saratoga, by the way, which in their
respective kinds are the finest in the world. One of these is Mr.
John Morrissey's casino. I bowed my head submissively to this
statement, but privately I thought of the blue Mediterranean, and
the little white promontory of Monaco, and the silver-gray verdure
of olives, and the view across the outer sea toward the bosky cliffs
of Italy. The Congress waters, too, it is well known, are excellent
in the superlative degree; this I am perfectly willing to maintain.

The piazzas of these great hotels may very well be the biggest of
all piazzas. They have not architectural beauty; but they doubt-
less serve their purpose — that of affording sitting-space in the open
air to an immense number of persons. They are, of course, quite the
best places to observe the Saratoga world. In the evening, when
the "boarders" have all come forth and seated themselves in groups,
or have begun to stroll in (not always, I regret to say, to the sad
detriment of the dramatic interest, bisexual) couples, the big hetero-
geneous scene affords a great deal of entertainment. Seeing it for
the first time, the observer is likely to assure himself that he has
neglected an important item in the sum of American manners. The
rough brick wall of the house, illumined by a line of flaring gas-
lights, forms a natural background to the crude, impermanent,
discordant tone of the assembly. In the larger of the two hotels, a
series of long windows open into an immense parlour — the largest,
I suppose, in the world, and the most scantily furnished in propor-
tion to its size. A few dozen rocking-chairs, an equal number of
small tables, tripods to the eternal ice-pitcher, serve chiefly to em-
phasize the vacuous grandeur of the spot. On the piazza, in the
outer multitude, ladies largely prevail, both by numbers and (you
are not slow to perceive) by distinction of appearance. The good

127

old times of Saratoga, I believe, as of the world in general, are
rapidly passing away. The time was when it was the chosen resort
of none but "nice people." At the present day, I hear it constantly
affirmed, "the company is dreadfully mixed."

"Saratoga," The Nation, August n, 1870

4. Dutch Barns

JOHN BURROUGHS

The Dutch took root at various points along the Hudson, and
about Albany and in the Mohawk valley, and jemnants of their
rural and domestic architecture may still be seen in these sections
of the State. A Dutch barn became proverbial. "As broad as a
Dutch barn" was a phrase that, when applied to the person of a
man or woman, left room for little more to be said. The main feature
of these barns was their enormous expansion of roof. It was a
comfort to look at them, they suggested such shelter and protection.
The eaves were very low and the ridgepole very high. Long rafters
and short posts gave them a quaint, short-waisted, grandmotherly
look. They were nearly square, and stood very broad upon the
ground. Their form was doubtless suggested by the damper climate
of the Old World, where the grain and hay, instead of being packed
in deep solid mows, used to be spread upon poles and exposed to
the currents of air under the roof. Surface and not cubic capacity
is more important in these matters in Holland than in this country.
Our farmers have found that, in a climate where there is so much
weather as with us, the less roof you have the better. Roofs will
leak, and cured hay will keep sweet in a mow of any depth and
size in our dry atmosphere.

The Dutch barn was the most picturesque barn that has been
built, especially when thatched with straw, as they nearly all were,
and forming one side of an inclosure of lower roofs or sheds also
covered with straw, beneath which the cattle took refuge from the
winter storms. Its immense, unpainted gable, cut with holes for
the swallows, was like a section of a respectable-sized hill, and its
roof like its slope. Its great doors always had a hood projecting over
them, and the doors themselves were divided horizontally into upper
and lower halves; the upper halves very frequently being left open,

128

through which you caught a glimpse of the mows of hay, or the
twinkle of flails when the grain was being threshed. . . .

Then the great timbers of these barns . . ., hewn from maple or
birch or oak trees from the primitive woods, and put in place by
the combined strength of all the brawny arms in the neighborhood
when the barn was raised, — timbers strong enough and heavy enough
for docks and quays, and that have absorbed the odors of the hay
and grain until they look ripe and mellow and full of the pleasing
sentiment of the great, sturdy, bountiful interior! The "big beam"
has become smooth and polished from the hay that has been pitched
over it, and the sweaty, sturdy forms that have crossed it. One feels
that he would like a piece of furniture — a chair, or a table, or a
writing-desk, a bedstead, or a wainscoting — made from these long-
seasoned, long-tried, richly-toned timbers of the old barn. But the
smart-painted, natty barn that follows the humbler structure, with
its glazed windows, its ornamented ventilator and gilded weather
vane, — who cares to contemplate it?

"Picturesque Aspects of Farm Life in New York," Scribner's
Monthly, November, 1878

5. Crossing Brooklyn Ferry

WALT WHITMAN

I too many and many a time crossed the river of old,

Watched the Twelfth-month sea-gulls, saw them high in the air

floating with motionless wings, oscillating their bodies,
Saw how the glistening yellow lit up parts of their bodies and left

the rest in strong shadow,
Saw the slow-wheeling circles and the gradual edging toward the

south,

Saw the reflection of the summer sky in the water,
Had my eyes dazzled by the shimmering track of beams,
Looked at the fine centrifugal spokes of light round the shape of

my head in the sunlit water,

Looked on the haze on the hills southward and south-westward,
Looked on the vapor as it flew in fleeces tinged with violet,
Looked toward the lower bay to notice the vessels arriving,
Saw their approach, saw aboard those that were near me,

129

Saw the white sails of schooners and sloops, saw the ships at anchor,

The sailors at work in the rigging or out astride the spars,

The round masts, the swinging motion of the hulls, the slender
serpentine pennants,

The large and small steamers in motion, the pilots in their pilot-
houses,

The white wake left by the passage, the quick tremulous whirl of
the wheels,

The flags of all nations, the falling of them at sunset,

The scallop-edged waves in the twilight, the ladled cups, the frolic-
some crests and glistening,

The stretch afar growing dimmer and dimmer, the gray walls of
the granite storehouses by the docks,

On the river the shadowy group, the big steam-tug closely flanked
on each side by the barges, the hay-boat, the belated lighter,

On the neighboring shore the fires from the foundry chimneys burn-
ing high and glaringly into the night,

Casting their flicker of black contrasted with wild red and yellow
light over the tops of houses, and down into the clefts of
streets. . . .

Leaves of Grass, 1881

6. Mannahatta

WALT WHITMAN

I was asking for something specific and perfect for my city,
Whereupon, lo! upsprang the aboriginal name!

Now I see what there is in a name, a word, liquid, sane, unruly,

musical, self-sufficient; .

I see that the word of my city is that word up there,
Because I see that word nested in nests of water-bays, superb, with

tall and wonderful spires,
Rich, hemm'd thick all around with sailships and steamships — an

island sixteen miles long, solid-founded,
Numberless crowded streets — high growths of iron, slender, strong,

light, splendidly uprising toward clear skies;
Tide swift and ample, well-loved by me, toward sundown,
The flowing sea-currents, the little islands, larger adjoining islands,

the heights, the villas,

The countless masts, the white shore-steamers, the lighters, the ferry-
boats, the black sea-steamers well-model'd;

The down-town streets, the jobbers' houses of business — the houses of
business of the ship-merchants, and money-brokers — the river-
streets;

Immigrants arriving, fifteen or twenty thousand in a week;

The carts hauling goods — the manly race of drivers of horses — the
brown-faced sailors;

The summer air, the bright sun shining, and the sailing clouds aloft;

The winter snows, the sleigh-bells — the broken ice in the river, pass-
ing along, up or down, with the flood-tide or ebb-tide;

The mechanics of the city, the masters, well-form'd, beautiful-faced,
looking you straight in the eyes;

Trottoirs throng'd — vehicles — Broadway — the women — the shops
and shows,

The parades, processions, bugles playing, flags flying, drums beating;

A million people — manners free and superb — open voices — hospital-
ity— the most courageous and friendly young men;

The free city! no slaves! no owners of slaves!

The beautiful city, the city of hurried and sparkling waters! the city
of spires and masts!

The city nested in bays! my city!

The city of such women, I am mad to be with them! I will return
after death to be with them!

The city of such young men, I swear I cannot live happy, without
I often go talk, walk, eat, drink, sleep, with them!

Leaves of Grass, 1860

7. The Night Hath a Thousand Eyes

JAMES HUNEKER

You see a cluster of lights on the West Side Circle, a ladder of
fire the pivot. Farther down, theatreland dazzles with its tongues
of flame. Across in the cool shadows are the level lines of twinkling
points of the bridges. There is always the sense of waters not afar.
All the hotels, from the Majestic to the Plaza, from the Biltmore to
the Vanderbilt, are tier upon tier starry with illumination. Beyond
the coppery gleam of the great erect synagogue in Fifth Avenue is
the placid toy lake in the park. Fifth and Madison Avenues are

131

long shafts of bluish-white electric globes. The monoliths burn to
a firegod, votive offerings. The park as if liquefied, flows in plastic
rhythms, a lake of velvety foliage, a mezzotint of dark green divid-
ing the east from the west. The dim, scattered plains of granite
housetops are like a cemetery of titans. At night New York loses
its New World aspect. Sudden furnace fires from tall chimneys
leap from the Brooklyn or New Jersey shores; they are of purely
commercial origin, yet you look for Whistler's rockets. Battery Park
and the bay are positively operatic, the setting for some thrilling
fairy spectacle. A lyric moonlight paves a path of tremulous silver
along the water. From Morningside Drive you gaze across a sunken
country of myriad lamps; on Riverside the panorama exalts. We
are in a city exotic, semibarbaric, the fantasy of an Eastern sorcerer
mad enough to evoke from immemorial seas a lost Atlantis.

New Cosmopolis, 1915

8. Rockefeller Center

HULBERT FOOTNER

In approaching Rockefeller Center on foot along the Avenue you
see a row of smallish buildings of good design, with beautifully
decorated doorways. Somebody had the inspiration to allot a unit
to each of the most prominent foreign nations and to rent the space
abroad. The idea was successful, and the French, British, Italian,
and International Buildings are the result. ... A wide walk lined
with flowers . . . leads through to the central plaza where, seen
between the low buildings, the naked tower salutes you with terrific
effect. Surely this is good planning. If we must have towers, let
them be stark and let them be sprung on us.

Seen from any angle, this tower is exciting. ... Its shape, narrow
and long, and the unrelieved gray stone give it ordinarily a somber
look, like a royal catafalque carried high above the town; but I
have seen it from the North River with a shaft of sunlight on it,
all the rest of the city under a cloud, when it was like a shout.
And once very late at night, walking along Forty-eighth Street with
a friend talking about anything but great works, we glanced side-
ways and there it was, pulling us up short, its dark, proud shape
blotting out the stars. That was something to remember.

New Yorf(: City of Cities, 1937

9. The Bowery

HULBERT FOOTNER

As for the Bowery, it looks much the same as it always did; the
elevated tracks have been moved out into the middle of the street,
that's all. Years ago there used to be a track running over each
sidewalk, and the steam trains pounded above your head letting
fall their little drops of oil or water. Modern improvement has
skipped the Bowery; the same ugly little buildings defaced with
the same cheap signs line both sides of the street, and much of
the original flagstone paving remains. Nobody goes there any more
for amusement; the dime museums, side shows, nickelodeons, auc-
tion sales have vanished. When the Bowery Theater burned down
for the third time, it was not rebuilt and the charming old Atlantic
Garden, next door, home of music and beer, is no more. The Bowery
is a drab business street now, the center of the restaurant supply
trade. . . .

All that remains of the old life are the flop-houses around Chatham
Square and the bums. There are newer bum centers like Corlears
Hook Park and "Scratch" Park up on the Harlem, but many of
the old fellows cling to the Bowery for old times' sake. Bums
never change their style; they look precisely as they looked in 1890.
They still sway on the corners at mid-day, filthy, drunken, and un-
abashed, or retire into some nearby alley to sleep it off on the
ground. It is in these alleys that their sudden, mysterious encoun-
ters take place, bloody but ineffectual. The bums constitute a race
apart. In a way they are superior to the rest of us; a bum despises
respectability, but where is the respectable man who has not at
some moment or other longed to be a bum?

New Yor{: City of Cities, 1937

10. Port of New York

PAUL ROSENFELD

The liners emerge from the lower bay. Up through the Narrows
they heave their sharp prows. In sleety, in blue, in sullen weather,
throughout the lighted hours, mouse-colored shapes are stretched

of! Quarantine. Between cheesebox fort and fume of nondescript
South Brooklyn waterfront, metal abdomens which were not seated
there yesterday are submitted to rising concrete sides, masts, red
iron, ferryslips. In New York harbor, always, new-come bodies
foreign to it; issued from Southampton and Bergen, Gibraltar and
Bremen, Naples, and Antwerp; now engirdled by sullen shorelines
and lapped by tired crisscrossed wavelets.

The lean voyagers steer under the tower-jumbled point of Man-
hattan. Flanks are lashed to the town; holds thrown open to the
cobbled street. Decks are annexes of the littoral, a portion of New
York no less than the leagues of "L" sweeping past dismal brick,
over caverned thoroughfares. And through periods of many days,
for weeks, even, the liners lie roped to their piersides, rows of cap-
tives handcuffed to policemen. The plated sides list obediently
toward bald sheds. Only feeble brownish wisps of smoke adrift
from silent smokestacks betray the incorporation* incomplete. Then,
one day, a pierside is found stripped. Next day, another; two. The
vigilantes stand stupid. In the open quadrangle between docks,
merely a dingy freighter, and small lighter-fry. By sea-coated piles,
the muckerish North River water shrugs its shoulders. The liners
have evaded; fled again through the straits. Beyond where eye can
reach iron rumps dwindle down the ocean.

Port of New Yorf(, 1924

11. Coney Island

JAMES HUNEKER

Coney Island is only another name for topsyturvydom. There the
true becomes the grotesque,- the vision of a maniac. Else why those
nerve-racking entertainments, ends of the world, creations, hells,
heavens, fantastic trips to ugly lands, panoramas of sheer madness,
flights through the air in boats, through water in sleds, on the earth
in toy trains! Unreality is as greedily craved by the mob as alcohol
by the dipsomaniac; indeed, the jumbled nightmares of a morphine
eater are actually realised at Luna Park. Every angle reveals some
new horror. Mechanical waterfalls, with women and children racing
around curving, tumbling floods; elephants tramping ponderously
through streets that are a bewildering muddle of many nations,
many architectures; deeds of Western violence and robbery, illus-

'34

trated with a realism that is positively enthralling; Japanese and
Irish, Germans and Indians, Hindus and Italians, cats and girls and
ponies and — the list sets whirring the wheels of the biggest of dic-
tionaries.

In Dreamland there is a white tower that might rear itself in Se-
ville and cause no comment. (This was so before fire destroyed the
place.) Hemming it about are walls of monstrosities — laughable,
shocking, sinister, and desperately depressing. In the centre flying
boats cleave the air; from the top of a crimson lighthouse flat, sled-
like barges plunge down a liquid railroad, while from every cavern
issue screams of tortured and delighted humans and the hoarse bark-
ing of men with megaphones. They assault your ears with their
invitations, protestations, and blasphemies. You are conjured to "go
to Hell — gate"; you are singled out by some brawny individual with
threatening intonations and bade enter the animal show where a
lion or a tiger is warranted to claw a keeper at least once a day.
The glare is appalling, the sky a metallic blue, the sun a slayer.

New Cosmopolis, 1915

12. Atlantic City at Night

JAMES HUNEKER

It is a picture for such different painters as Whistler or Toulouse-
Lautrec, and it is a sight not duplicated on earth. Miles of glittering
electric lamps light the Boardwalk. Even the dark spaces above the
Pickle pier are now festooned with lace-like fire. It is a carnival of
flame. You may start from the spot where in letters of fire you
read, "Will you marry me?" near the Heinz pier, and with a book
slowly walk for miles, perusing it all the while until you have
passed the lower end of the walk, which recalls Coney Island, and
finally touch the last wooden rail. Or, if you prefer riding, take one
of those comfortable sedan-chairs and be wheeled by a dark lad for
a small sum. The enormous amount of electricity consumed seems
to make the air vital. Through these garlands of light moves a mob
of well-behaved humans. The women are more mysterious than
in the daytime. Everywhere you encounter the glances of countless
eyes if you are still youthful. Evening toilets of the most dazzling
kind assault your nerves. Wealth fairly envelops you. There is ap-
parently no such thing as poverty or sickness in existence; the opti-

mistic exuberance of the American woman and man is seen here at
its ripest. There is a suggestion of the overblown, of the snobbish,
in this display, but I was not looking for the fly in the ointment, and
so I enjoyed the picture as I should have enjoyed some gorgeous
tableau in Ai'da or Salammbo. It was as real. The love-birds kept
up their whirring as from the lighthouse to the new pier the pro-
cession bubbled and boiled. No wonder Sarah Bernhardt exclaimed
in her effusive manner that Atlantic City is unique. And she saw
it in the winter-time.

New Cosmopolis, 1915

13. Wilmington

HENRY SEIDEL CANBY

In my youth it was still a red-brick town with streets of cobble,
through which horse cars bumped and rattled. Along one creek
shore railroads and factories covered the old marshes and meadows,
with here and there a fine gable of a settler's house unnoticed in
the dirt and smoke. As the town grew it climbed. Walking uphill
on Market Street was a progress through the history of American
architecture, past dilapidated Colonial houses and really lovely banks
and markets of the beginning of the century, to the Second Empire
of the Grand Opera House, and the shapeless severity of the library
and the one big hotel.

From the ballroom at the top of the Opera House where we went
for dancing school there was a view of the whole town at once;
and it always surprised me to see how deeply its criss-cross of streets
was buried in foliage. The factory districts below were grimy and
bare, but to the north and the west the roofs were hid in a forest
with only a "mansion" here and there or a church steeple projecting.

Beyond the business and shopping section, and toward the hill
tops, were tight little streets, heavily shaded and walled with red-
brick fronts built cheek to cheek, with decent chins of white marble
steps, and alley archways for ears. Here the well-to-do had lived
when the city was still a little town, and had been content to hide
their arbored side porches and deep if narrow gardens from the
street.

The industrial prosperity of the eighties had ended this Quaker
restraint. In my day those who could afford it lived further west-

136

ward in houses that sprawled in ample yards, thickset with trees
and shrubbery behind iron or wooden fences. Here was a God's
plenty of architecture. Brick boxes of the seventies, with cupolas
or mansard roofs, and porches screened with graceful scrolls of
iron work were set in old-fashioned contrast beside new contrap-
tions, some of green serpentine, but the latest of brick pseudo-Gothic,
with turrets, pointed towers, and Egyptian ornaments of wood. And
a little off line with the right-angle streets were still to be seen a
few old farm houses of weathered Brandywine granite as colorful
as a slice of plum cake, so severe and pure in line that they made the
neighboring mansions seem opulent and vulgar, as indeed many
of them were.

The Age of Confidence, 1934

14. Chestnut Street, Philadelphia

CHRISTOPHER MORLEY

There is something very individual about Chestnut street. It
could not possibly be in New York. The solid, placid dignity of
most of the buildings, the absence of skyscrapers, the plain stone
fronts with the arched windows of the sixties, all these bespeak a
city where it is still a little bit bad form for a building to be too
garishly new. I may be wrong, but I do not remember in New
York any such criss-cross of wires above the streets. Along Chestnut
street they run at will from roof to roof over the way.

Gazing from our little balcony the eye travels down along the
uneven profile of the northern flank of Chestnut street. From the
Wanamaker wireless past the pale, graceful minaret of the Federal
Reserve Bank, the skyline drops down to the Federal Building
which, standing back from the street, leaves a gap in the view.
Then the slant of roofs draws the eye upward again, over the little
cluster of conical spires on Green's Hotel (like a French chateau)
to the sharp ridges and heavy pyramid roof of the Merchants'
Union Trust Company. This, with its two attendant banks on
either side, is undoubtedly the most extraordinary architectural cu-
riosity Chestnut street can boast. The facade, with its appalling
quirks and twists of stone and iron grillwork, its sculptured Huns
and Medusa faces, is something to contemplate with alarm.

After reaching Seventh street, Chestnut becomes less adventur-

137

ous. Perhaps awed by the simple and stately beauty of Independence
Hall and its neighbors, it restrains itself from any further originality
until Fourth §treet, where the ornate Gothic of the Provident claims
the eye. From our balcony we can see only a part of Independence
Hall, but we look down on the faded elms along the pavement in
front and the long iron posts beloved of small boys for leapfrog.
Then the eye climbs to the tall and graceful staff above the Drexel
Building, where the flag ripples cleanly against the blue. And our
view is bounded, far away to the east, by the massive tower of the
Victor factory in Camdcn. . . .

The part of Chestnut street that is surveyed by our balcony is a
delightful highway: friendly, pleasantly dignified, with just a touch
of old fashioned manners and homeliness. It is rather akin to a
London street. And best of all, almost underneath our balcony is
a little lunch room where you can get custard ice cream with
honey poured over it, and we think it is the best thing in the world.

Travels in Philadelphia, 1920

138

Recollections of Sleepy Hollow

WASHINGTON IRVING

Having pitched my tent, probably for the remainder of my days,
in the neighborhood of Sleepy Hollow, I am tempted to give some
few particulars concerning that spell-bound region, especially as it
has risen to historic importance under the pen of my revered friend
and master, the sage historian of the New Netherlands, [Diedrich
Knickerbocker]. Beside, I find the very existence of the place has
been held in question by many, who, judging from its odd name
and from the odd stories current among the vulgar concerning it,
have rashly deemed the whole to be a fanciful creation, like the
Lubber Land of mariners. I must confess there is some apparent
cause for doubt, in consequence of the coloring given by the worthy
Diedrich to his descriptions of the Hollow, who, in this instance,
has departed a little from his usually sober if not severe style, be-
guiled, very probably, by his predilection for the haunts of his
youth and by a certain lurking taint of romance whenever any
thing connected with the Dutch was to be described. I shall en-
deavor to make up for this amiable error on the part of my vener-
able and venerated friend by presenting the reader with a more
precise and statistical account of the Hollow, though I am not sure
that I shall not be prone to lapse in the end into the very error I
am speaking of, so potent is the witchery of the theme.

I believe it was the very peculiarity of its name and the idea
of something mystic and dreamy connected with it that first led
me in my boyish ramblings into Sleepy Hollow. The character of
the valley seemed to answer to the name; the slumber of past ages
apparently reigned over it; it had not awakened to the stir of im-
provement which had put all the rest of the world in a bustle.
Here reigned good, old long-forgotten fashions; the men were in
home-spun garbs, evidently the product of their own farms and
the manufacture of their own wives; the women were in primitive
short gowns and petticoats, with the venerable sun-bonnets of
Holland origin. The lower part of the valley was cut up into small
farms, each consisting of a little meadow and corn-field, an orchard
of sprawling, gnarled apple-trees, and a garden, where the rose, the
marigold, and the hollyhock were permitted to skirt the domains of

139

the capacious cabbage, the aspiring pea, and the portly pumpkin.
Each had its prolific little mansion teeming with children, with
an old hat nailed against the wall for the housekeeping wren; a
motherly hen, under a coop on the grass-plot, clucking to keep
around her a brood of vagrant chickens; a cool, stone well with
the moss-covered bucket suspended to the long balancing-pole, ac-
1 cording to the antediluvian idea of hydraulics; and its spinning-
wheel humming within doors, the patriarchal music of home manu-
facture.

The Hollow at that time was inhabited by families which had
existed there from the earliest times and which, by frequent inter-
marriage, had become so interwoven as to make a kind of natural
commonwealth. As the families had grown larger the farms had
grown smaller, every new generation requiring a new subdivision,
and few thinking of swarming from the native hive. In this way
that happy golden mean had been produced, so* much extolled by
the poets, in which there was no gold and very little silver. One
thing which doubtless contributed to keep up this amiable mean
was a general repugnance to sordid labor. The sage inhabitants of
Sleepy Hollow had read in their Bible, which was the only book
they studied, that labor was originally inflicted upon man as a
punishment of sin; they regarded it, therefore, with pious abhor-
rence and never humiliated themselves to it but in cases of extremity.
There seemed, in fact, to be a league and covenant against it through-
out the Hollow as against a common enemy. Was any one com-
pelled by dire necessity to repair his house, mend his fences, build
a barn, or get in a harvest, he considered it a great evil that entitled
him to call in the assistance of his friends. He accordingly proclaimed
a "bee" or rustic gathering, whereupon all his neighbors hurried
to his aid like faithful allies, attacked the task with the desperate
energy of lazy men eager to overcome a job, and, when it was ac-
complished, fell to eating a"nd drinking, fiddling and dancing for
very joy that so great an amount of labor had been vanquished
with so little sweating of the brow.

Yet let it not be supposed that this worthy community was with-
out its periods of arduous activity. Let but a flock of wild pigeons
fly across the valley, and all Sleepy Hollow was wide awake in an
instant. The pigeon season had arrived! Every gun and net was
forthwith in requisition. The flail was thrown down on the barn
floor; the spade rusted in the garden; the plough stood idle in the
furrow; every one was to the hillside and stubble-field at daybreak
to shoot or entrap the pigeons in their periodical migrations.

140

So, likewise, let but the word be given that the shad were ascend-
ing the Hudson, and the worthies of the Hollow were to be seen
launched in boats upon the river setting great stakes and stretching
their nets like gigantic spider-webs half across the stream to the great
annoyance of navigators. Such are the wise provisions of Nature,
by which she equalizes rural affairs. A laggard at the plough is often
extremely industrious with the fowling-piece and fishing-net; and,
whenever a man is an indifferent farmer, he is apt to be a first-rate
sportsman. For catching shad and wild pigeons there were none
throughout the country to compare with the lads of Sleepy Hollow.

As I have observed, it was the dreamy nature of the name that
first beguiled me in the holiday rovings of boyhood into this se-
questered region. I shunned, however, the populous parts of the
Hollow, and sought its retired haunts far in the foldings of the
hills, where the Pocantico "winds its wizard stream," sometimes
silently and darkly through solemn woodlands, sometimes sparkling
between grassy borders in fresh, green meadows, sometimes stealing
along the feet of rugged heights under the balancing sprays of beech
and chestnut trees. A thousand crystal springs, with which this
neighborhood abounds, sent down from the hill-sides their whim-
pering rills, as if to pay tribute to the Pocantico. In this stream I first
essayed my unskilful hand at angling. I loved to loiter along it
with rod in hand, watching my float as it whirled amid the eddies
or drifted into dark holes under twisted roots and sunken logs,
where the largest fish are apt to lurk. I delighted to follow it into
the brown recesses of the woods, to throw by my fishing-gear and
sit upon rocks beneath towering oaks and clambering grape-vines,
bathe my feet in the cool current and listen to the summer breeze
playing among the tree-tops. My boyish fancy clothed all nature
around me with ideal charms and peopled it with the fairy beings I
had read of in poetry and fable. Here it was I gave full scope to my
incipient habit of day-dreaming and to a certain propensity to weave
up and tint sober realities with my own whims and imaginings,
which has sometimes made life a little too much like an Arabian
tale to me, and this "working-day world" rather like a region of
romance.

The great gathering-place of Sleepy Hollow in those days was the
church. It stood outside of the Hollow, near the great highway, on
a green bank shaded by trees, with the Pocantico sweeping round
it and emptying itself into a spacious millpond. At that time the
Sleepy Hollow church was the only place of worship for a wide
neighborhood. It was a venerable edifice, partly of stone and partly

141

of brick, the latter having been brought from Holland in the early
days of the province before the arts in the New Netherlands could
aspire to such, a fabrication. On a stone above the porch were in-
scribed the names of the founders, Frederick Filipsen, a mighty
patroon of the olden time, who reigned over a wide extent of this
neighborhood and held his seat of power at Yonkers, and his wife,
Katrina Van Courtlandt, of the no less potent line of the Van Court-
landts of Croton, who lorded it over a great part of the Highlands.

The capacious pulpit and its wide-spreading sounding-board were
likewise early importations from Holland, as [was] also the com-
munion-table, of massive form and curious fabric. The same might
be said of a weather-cock perched on top of the belfry, which was
considered orthodox in all windy matters until a small pragmatical
rival was set up on the other end of the church above the chancel.
This latter bore, and still bears, the initials of Frederick Filipsen
and assumed great airs in consequence. The usual contradiction
ensued that always exists among church weather-cocks, which can
never be brought to agree as to the point from which the wind
blows, having doubtless acquired from their position the Christian
propensity to schism and controversy.

Behind the church and sloping up a gentle acclivity, was its ca-
pacious burying-ground, in which slept the earliest fathers of this
rural neighborhood. Here were tombstones of the rudest sculpture,
on which were inscribed in Dutch the names and virtues of many
of the first settlers, with their portraitures curiously carved in simili-
tude of cherubs. Long rows of grave-stones, side by side, of similar
names but various dates, showed that generation after generation of
the same families had followed each other and been garnered to-
gether in this last gathering-place of kindred.

Let me speak of this quiet grave-yard with all due reverence, for
I owe it amends for the heedlessness of my boyish days. I blush to
acknowledge the thoughtldss frolic with which, in company with
other whipsters, I have sported within its sacred bounds during the
intervals of worship, chasing butterflies, plucking wild flowers, or
vying with each other who could leap over the tallest tomb-stones,
until checked by the stern voice of the sexton.

The congregation was in those days of a really rural character.
City fashions were as yet unknown, or unregarded, by the country
people of the neighborhood. Steam-boats had not as yet confounded
town with country. A weekly market-boat from Tarrytown, the
"Farmer's Daughter" navigated by the worthy Gabriel Requa, was
the only communication between all these parts and the metropolis.

142

A rustic belle in those days considered a visit to the city in much
the same light as one of our modern fashionable ladies regards a
visit to Europe: an event that may possibly take place once in the
course of a lifetime, but to be hoped for rather than expected. Hence
the array of the congregation was chiefly after the primitive fashions
existing in Sleepy Hollow; or if by chance there was a departure
from the Dutch sun-bonnet or the apparition of a bright gown of
flowered calico, it caused quite a sensation throughout the church.
As the dominie generally preached by the hour, a bucket of water
was providently placed on a bench near the door in summer with a
tin cup beside it, for the solace of those who might be athirst, either
from the heat of the weather or the drouth of the sermon.

Around the pulpit and behind the communion-table, sat the
elders of the church, reverend, gray-headed, leathern-visaged men,
whom I regarded with awe, as so many apostles. They were stern
in their sanctity, kept a vigilant eye upon my giggling companions
and myself, and shook a rebuking finger at any boyish device to
relieve the tediousness of compulsory devotion. Vain, however, were
all their efforts at vigilance. Scarcely had the preacher held forth for
half an hour on one of his interminable sermons, than it seemed
as if the drowsy influence of Sleepy Hollow breathed into the place;
one by one the congregation sank into slumber; the sanctified elders
leaned back in their pews, spreading their handkerchiefs over their
faces, as if to keep off the flies; while the locusts in the neighboring
trees would spin out their sultry summer notes, as if in imitation of
the sleep-provoking tones of the dominie.

I have thus endeavored to give an idea of Sleepy Hollow and
its church as I recollect them to have been in the days of my boy-
hood. It was in my stripling days, when a few years had passed
over my head, that I revisited them in company with the venerable
Diedrich. I shall never forget the antiquarian reverence with which
that sage and excellent man contemplated the church. It seemed
as if all his pious enthusiasm for the ancient Dutch dynasty swelled
within his bosom at the sight. The tears stood in his eyes as he
regarded the pulpit and the communion-table; even the very bricks
that had come from the mother country seemed to touch a filial
chord within his bosom. He almost bowed in deference to the stone
above the porch, containing the names of Frederick Filipsen and
Katrina Van Courtlandt, regarding it as the linking together of
those patronymic names, once so famous along the banks of the

143

Hudson, or rather as a key-stone, binding that mighty Dutch family
connexion of yore, one foot of which rested on Yonkers and the
other on the Groton. Nor did he forbear to notice with admiration
the windy contest which had been carried on, since time immemorial
and with real Dutch perseverance, between the two weather-cocks,
though I could easily perceive he coincided with the one which had
come from Holland.

Together we paced the ample church-yard. With deep veneration
would he turn down the weeds and brambles that obscured the
modest brown grave-stones, half sunk in earth, on which were re-
corded in Dutch the names of the patriarchs of ancient days, the
Ackers, the Van Tassels, and the Van Warts. As he sat on one of
the tomb-stones, he recounted to me the exploits of many of these
worthies; and my heart smote me, when I heard of their great doings
in days of yore, to think how heedlessly I had once sported over
their graves.

From the church, the venerable Diedrich proceeded in his re-
searches up the Hollow. The genius of the place seemed to hail its
future historian. All nature was alive with gratulation. The quail
whistled a greeting from the corn-field; the robin carolled a song
of praise from the orchard; the loquacious catbird flew from bush
to bush with restless wing, proclaiming his approach in every va-
riety of note, and anon would whisk about and perk inquisitively
into his face, as if to get a knowledge of his physiognomy; the wood-
pecker, also, tapped a tattoo on the hollow apple-tree, and then
peered knowingly round the trunk to see how the great Diedrich
relished his salutation; while the ground-squirrel scampered along
the fence and occasionally whisked his tail over his head, by way
of a huzza!

The worthy Diedrich pursued his researches in the valley with
characteristic devotion, entering familiarly into the various cottages
and gossiping with the simple folk in the style of their own sim-
plicity. I confess my heart yearned with admiration to see so great
a man, in his eager quest after knowledge, humbly demeaning him-
self to curry favor with the humblest, sitting patiently on a three-
legged stool, patting the children, and taking a purring grimalkin
on his lap, while he conciliated the good-will of the old Dutch house-
wife and drew from her long ghost stories, spun out to the humming
accompaniment of her wheel.

His greatest treasure of historic lore, however, was discovered
in an old goblin-looking mill, situated among rocks and waterfalls,
with clanking wheels, and rushing streams, and all kinds of uncouth

144

noises. A horse-shoe, nailed to the door to keep off witches and evil
spirits, showed that this mill was subject to awful visitations. As
we approached it, an old negro thrust his head, all dabbled with
flour, out of a hole above the water-wheel, and grinned, and rolled
his eyes, and looked like the very hobgoblin of the place. The illus-
trious Diedrich fixed upon him, at once, as the very one to give him
that invaluable kind of information never to be acquired from
books. He beckoned him from his nest, sat with him by the hour on
a broken mill-stone by the side of the waterfall, heedless of the noise
of the water and the clatter of the mill; and I verily believe it was
to his conference with this African sage and the precious revelations
of the good dame of the spinning-wheel, that we are indebted for
the surprising though true history of Ichabod Crane and the headless
horseman, which has since astounded and edified the world.

But I have said enough of the good old times of my youthful
days; let me speak of the Hollow as I found it, after an absence
of many years, when it was kindly given me once more to revisit
the haunts of my boyhood. It was a genial day, as I approached that
fated region. The warm sunshine was tempered by a slight haze,
so as to give a dreamy effect to the landscape. Not a breath of air
shook the foliage. The broad Tappan Sea was without a ripple, and
the sloops, with drooping sails, slept on its glassy bosom. Columns
of smoke, from burning brush-wood, rose lazily from the folds of
the hills on the opposite side of the river and slowly expanded in
mid-air. The distant lowing of a cow or the noontide crowing of a
cock, coming faintly to the ear, seemed to illustrate rather than
disturb the drowsy quiet of the scene.

I entered the hollow with a beating heart. Contrary to my appre-
hensions, I found it but little changed. The march of intellect, which
had made such rapid strides along every river and highway, had not
yet, apparently, turned down into this favored valley. Perhaps the
wizard spell of ancient days still reigned over the place, binding up
the faculties of the inhabitants in happy contentment with things as
they had been handed down to them from yore. There were the
same little farms and farmhouses, with their old hats for the house-
keeping wren, their stone wells, moss-covered buckets, and long
balancing poles. There were the same little rills, whimpering down
to pay their tributes to the Pocantico, while that wizard stream still
kept on its course as of old through solemn woodlands and fresh
green meadows: nor were there wanting joyous holiday boys to

145

loiter along its banks, as I have done, throw their pin-hooks in the
stream or launch their mimic barks. I watched them with a kind
of melancholy pleasure, wondering whether they were under the
same spell of the fancy that once rendered this valley a fairy land
to me. Alas! alas! to me every thing now stood revealed in its simple
reality. The echoes no longer answered with wizard tongues; the
dream of youth was at an end; the spell of Sleepy Hollow was
broken!

I sought the ancient church on the following Sunday. There it
stood on its green bank among the trees; the Pocantico swept by
it in a deep dark stream, where I had so often angled; there ex-
panded the mill-pond as of old, with the cows under the willows
on its margin, knee-deep in water, chewing the cud and lashing
the flies from their sides with their tails. The hand of improvement,
however, had been busy with the venerable pile. The pulpit fabri-
cated in Holland had been superseded by one of modern construc-
tion, and the front of the semi-Gothic edifice was decorated by a
semi-Grecian portico. Fortunately, the two weather-cocks remained
undisturbed on their perches at each end of the church and still
kept up a diametrical opposition to each other on all points of
windy doctrine.

[When I entered] the church, the changes of time continued to be
apparent. The elders round the pulpit were men whom I had left
in the gamesome frolic of their youth, but who had succeeded to
the sanctity of station of which they once had stood so much in
awe. What most struck my eye was the change in the female part
of the congregation. Instead of the primitive garbs of homespun
manufacture and antique Dutch fashion, I beheld French sleeves,
French capes, and French collars, and a fearful-fluttering of French
ribbands.

When the service was ended I sought the church-yard, in which
I had sported in my unthinking days of boyhood. Several of the
modest brown stones on which were recorded in Dutch the names
and virtues of the patriarchs had disappeared and had been suc-
ceeded by others of white marble, with urns and wreaths and scraps
of English tomb-stone poetry, marking the intrusion of taste and
literature and the English language is this once unsophisticated
Dutch neighborhood.

As I was stumbling about among these silent yet eloquent me-
morials of the dead, I came upon names familiar to me, of those
who had paid the debt of nature during the long interval of my
absence. Some I remembered — my companions in boyhood, who had

146

sported with me on the very sod under which they were now
mouldering; others who in those days had been the flower of the
yeomanry, figuring in Sunday finery on the church green; others,
the white-haired elders of the sanctuary, once arrayed in awful
sanctity around the pulpit, and ever ready to rebuke the ill-timed
mirth of the wanton stripling who, now a man, sobered by years
and schoobd by vicissitudes, looked down pensively upon their
graves. "Our fathers," thought I, "where are they! — and the prophets,
can they live for ever?"

I was disturbed in my meditations by the noise of a troop of idle
urchins, who came gambolling about the place where I had so often
gambolled. They were checked, as I and my playmates had often
been, by the voice of the sexton, a man staid in years and demeanor.
I looked wistfully in his face; had I met him any where else, I
should probably have passed him by without remark; but here I
was alive to the traces of former times and detected in the demure
features of this guardian of the sanctuary the lurking lineaments of
one of the very playmates I have alluded to. We renewed our ac-
quaintance. He sat down beside me on one of the tomb-stones over
which we had leaped in our juvenile sports, and we talked together
about our boyish days and held edifying discourse on the instability
of all sublunary things, as instanced in the scene around us. He
was rich in historic lore, as to the events of the last thirty years and
the circumference of thirty miles, and from him I learned the
appalling revolution that was taking place throughout the neigh-
borhood. All this I clearly perceived he attributed to the boasted
march of intellect, or rather to the all-pervading influence of steam.
He bewailed the times when the only communication with town
was by the weekly market-boat, the "Farmer's Daughter" which
under the pilotage of the worthy Gabriel Requa braved the perils
of the Tappan Sea. Alas! Gabriel and the "Farmer's Daughter"
slept in peace. Two steamboats now splashed and paddled up daily
to the little rural port of Tarrytown. The spirit of speculation and
improvement had seized even upon that once quiet and unambitious
little dorp. The whole neighborhood was laid out into town lots.
Instead of the little tavern below the hill, where the farmers used
to loiter on market days and indulge in cider and gingerbread, an
ambitious hotel with cupola and verandas now crested the summit,
among churches built in the Grecian and Gothic styles, showing
the great increase of piety and polite taste in the neighborhood. As
to Dutch dresses and sun-bonnets, they were no longer tolerated or
even thought of; not a farmer's daughter but now went to town

147

for the fashions; nay, a city milliner had recently set up in the
village, who threatened to reform the heads of the whole neighbor-
hood.

I had heard enough! I thanked my old playmate for his intelli-
gence and departed from the Sleepy Hollow church with the sad
conviction that I had beheld the last lingerings of the good old Dutch
times in this once favored region. If any thing were wanting to
confirm this impression, it would be the intelligence which has just
reached me that a bank is about to be established in the aspiring
little port just mentioned. The fate of the neighborhood is therefore
sealed. I see no hope of averting it. The golden mean is at an end.
The country is suddenly to be deluged with wealth. The late simple
farmers are to become bank directors and drink claret and cham-
pagne, and their wives and daughters to figure in French hats
and feathers, for French wines and French fashions commonly
keep pace with paper money. How can I hope that even Sleepy
Hollow can escape the general inundation? In a little while, I fear
the slumber of ages will be at end; the strum of the piano will
succeed to the hum of the spinning-wheel; the trill of the Italian
opera to the nasal quaver of Ichabod Crane; and the antiquarian
visitor to the Hollow, in the petulance of his disappointment, may
pronounce all that I have recorded of that once favored region a
fable.

Biographies and Miscellanies, 1866

148

The S kalcers of New York

ARTEMUS WARD

The Shakers is the strangest religious sex I ever met. I'd hearn
tell of 'em and I'd seen 'em, with their broad brim'd hats and
long wastid coats; but I'd never cum into immejit contack with 'em,
and I'd sot 'em down as lackin intelleck, as I'd never seen 'em to
my Show — leastways, if they cum they was disgised in white
peple's close, so I didn't know 'em.

But in the Spring of 18 — , I got swampt in the exterior of New
York State, one dark and stormy night, when the winds Blue
pityusly, and I was forced to tie up with the Shakers.

I was toilin threw the mud, when in the dim vister of the futer
I obsarved the gleams of a taller candle. Tiein a hornet's nest to my
off hoss's tail to kinder encourage him, I soon reached the place.
I knockt at the door, which it was opened unto me by a tall,
slick-faced, solum lookin individooal, who turn'd out to be a
Elder.

"Mr. Shaker," sed I, "you see before you a Babe in the Woods,
so to speak, and he axes shelter of you."

"Yay," sed the Shaker, and he led the way into the house, another
Shaker bein sent to put my bosses and waggin under kiver.

A solum female, lookin sumwhat like a last year's bean-pole stuck
into a long meal-bag, cum in and axed me was I athurst and did
I hunger, to which I urbanely anserd "a few." She went orf and I
endeverd to open a conversashun with the old man.

"Elder, I spect?" sed I.

"Yay," he sed.

"Keith's good, I reckon?"

"Yay."

"What's the wages of a Elder, when he understans his bizness —
or do you devote your sarvices gratooitus?"

"Yay."

"Stormy night, sir."

"Yay."

"If the storm continners there'll be a mess underfoot, hay?"

"Yay."

"It's onpleasant when there's a mess underfoot."

149

"Yay."

"If I may be so bold, kind sir, what's the price of that pecooler
kind of weskit you wear, incloodin trimmins?"

"Yay."

I pawsd a minit, and then, thinkin I'd be faseshus with him and
see how that would go, I slapt him on the shoulder, bust into a
harty larf, and told him that as a yayer he had no livin ekal.

He jumpt up as if Bilin water had bin squirted into his ears,
groaned, rolled his eyes up tords the sealin and sed: "You're a man
of sin!" He then walkt out of the room.

Jest then the female in the meal-bag stuck her hed into the
room and statid that refreshments awaited the weary traveler, and
I sed if it was vittles she ment the weary traveler was agreeable,
and I follered her into the next room.

I sot down to the table and the female in .the meal-bag pored
out sum tea. She sed nothin, and for five minutes the only live
thing in that room was a old wooden clock, which tickt in a sub-
dood and bashful manner in the corner. This dethly stillness made
me oneasy, and I determined to talk to the female or bust. So sez I,
"Marrige is agin your rules', I bleeve, marm?"

"Yay."

"The sexes liv strickly apart, I spect?"

"Yay."

"It's kinder singler," sez I, puttin on my most sweetest look and
speakin in a winnin voice, "that so fair a made as thou never got
hitched to some likely feller." (N.B. — She was upards of 40 and
homely as a stump fence, but I thawt I'd tickil her.)

"I don't like men!" she sed, very short.

"Wall, I dunno," sez I, "they're a rayther important part of the
populashun. I don't scacely see how we could git along without

em."

"Us poor wimin folks 'would git along a grate deal better if
there was no men!"

"You'll excoos me, marm, but I don't think that air would work.
It wouldn't be regler."

"I'm fraid of men!" she sed.

"That's onnecessary, marm. You ain't in no danger. Don't fret
yourself on that pint."

"Here we're shot out from the sinful world. Here all is peas. Here-
we air brothers and sisters. We don't marry and consekently we
hav no domestic difficulties. Husbans don't abooze their wives —
wives don't worrit their husbans. There's no children here to worrit

150

us. Nothin to worrit us here. No wicked matrimony here. Would
thow like to be a Shaker?"

"No," sez I, "it ain't my stile."

I had now histed in as big a load of pervishuns as I could carry
comfortable, and, leanin back in my cheer, commenst pickin my
teeth with a fork. The female went out, leavin me all alone with the
clock. I hadn't sot thar long before the Elder poked his hed in at -the
door. "You're a man of sin!" he sed, and groaned and went away.

Direckly thar cum in two young Shakeresses, as putty and slick
lookin gals as I ever met. It is troo they was drest in meal-bags
like the old one I'd met previsly, and their shiny silky har was hid
from sight by long white caps, sich as I spose female Josts wear;
but their eyes sparkled like diminds, their cheeks was like roses,
and they was charming enuff to make a man throw stuns at his
granmother, if they axed him to. They commenst clearin away the
dishes, castin shy glances at me all the time. I got excited. I forgot
Betsy Jane in my rapter, and sez I, "My pretty dears, how air you?"

"We air well," they solumly sed.

"What's the old man?" sed I, in a soft voice.

"Of whom dost thow speak — Brother Uriah?"

"I mean the gay and festiv cuss who calls me a man of sin.
Shoudn't wonder if his name was Uriah."

"He has retired."

"Wall, my pretty dears," sez I, "let's hav sum fun. Let's play Puss
in the corner. What say?"

"Air you a Shaker, sir?" they axed.

"Wall, my pretty dears, I haven't arrayed my proud form in a
long weskit yit, but if they was all like you perhaps I'd jine 'em.
As it is, I'm a Shaker pro-temporary."

They was full of fun. I seed that at fust, only they was a leetle
skeery. I tawt 'em Puss in the corner and sich like plase, and we
had a nice time, keepin quiet of course so the old man shouldn't
hear. When we broke up, sez I, "My pretty dears, ear I go you
hav no objections, hav you, to a innersent kiss at partin?"

"Yay," thay sed, and I yay'd.

I went up stairs to bed. I spose I'd bin snoozin half a hour when
I was woke up by a noise at the door. I sot up in bed, leaning on
my elbers and rubbin my eyes, and I saw the follerin picter: the
Elder stood in the doorway, with a taller candle in his hand. He
hadn't no wearin appeerel on except his night close, which
fluttered in the breeze like a Seseshun flag. He sed, "You're a man
of sin!" then groaned and went away.

I went to sleep agin, and drempt of runnin orf with the pretty
little Shakeresses, mounted on my Californy Bar. I thawt the Bar
insisted on steerin strate for my dooryard in Baldinsville, and that
Betsy Jane cum out and giv us a warm recepshun with a panful
of Bilin water. I was woke up arly by the Elder. He sed refresh-
ments was reddy for me down stairs. Then sayin I was a man of
sin, he went groanin away.

As I was goin threw the entry to the room where the vittles was,
I cum across the Elder and the old female I'd met the night before,
and what d'ye spose they was up to ? Huggin and kissin like young
lovers in their gushingist state. Sez I, "My Shaker friends, I reckon
you'd better suspend the rules, and git marrid!"

"You must excoos Brother Uriah," sed the female; "he's subjeck to
fits, and hain't got no command over hisself when he's into 'em."

"Sartinly," sez I; "I've bin took that way myself frequent."

"You're a man of sin!" sed the Elder.

Arter breakfust my little Shaker frends cum in agin to clear
away the dishes.

"My pretty dears," sez I, "shall we yay agin?"

"Nay," they sed, and I nay'd.

The Shakers axed me to go to their meetin, as they was to hav
sarvices that mornin, so I put on a clean biled rag and went. The
meetin house was as neat as a pin. The floor was white as chalk
and smooth as glass. The Shakers was all on hand, in clean weskits
and meal-bags, ranged on the floor like milingtery companies, the
mails on one side of the room and the females on tother. They
commenst clappin their hands and singin and dancin. They danced
kinder slow at fust, but as they got warmed up they shaved it down
very brisk, I tell you. Elder Uriah, in particler, exhiberted a right
smart chance of spryness in his legs, considerin his time of life, and
as he cum a dubble shuffle near where I sot, I rewarded him with
a approvin smile, and sed: *"Hunky boy! Go it, my gay and festiv
cuss!"

"You're a man of sin!" he sed, continnerin his shuffle.

The Sperret, as they called it, then moved a short fat Shaker to
say a few remarks. He sed they was Shakers and all was ekal.
They was the purest and seleckest peple on the yearth. Other peple
was sinful as they could be, but Shakers was all right. Shakers
was all goin kerslap to the Promist Land, and nobody wa'nt goin
to stand at the gate to bar 'em out; if they did they'd git run over.

The Shakers then danced and sang agin, and arter thay was threw,
one of 'em axed me what I thawt of it.

152

Sez I, "What duz it siggerfy?"

"What?" sez he.

"Why this jumpin up and singin? This longweskit bizniss, and
this anty-matrimony idee? My f rends, you air neat and tidy.
Your lands is flowin with milk and honey. Your brooms is fine,
and your apple sass is honest. When a man buys a kag of apple
sass of you he don't find a grate many shavins under a few layers
of sass — a little Game I'm sorry to say sum of my New Englan
ancesters used to practiss. Your garding seeds is fine, and if I
should sow 'em on the rock of Gibralter probly I should raise a good
mess of garding sass. You air honest in your dealins. You air quiet
and don't disturb nobody. For all this I giv you credit. But your
religion is small pertaters, I must say. You mope away your lives
here in single retchidness, and as you air all by yourselves nothing
ever conflicks with your pecooler idees, except when Human
Nater busts out among you, as I understan she sumtimes do. [I giv
Uriah a sly wink here, which made the old feller squirm like a
speared Eel.] You wear long weskits and long faces, and lead a
gloomy life indeed. No children's prattle is ever hearn around
your hearthstuns — you air in a dreary fog all the time, and you
treat the jolly sunshine of life as tho' it was a thief, drivin it from
your doors by them weskits, and meal-bags, and pecooler noshuns
of yourn. The gals among you, sum of which air as slick pieces
of caliker as I ever sot eyes on, air syin to place their heels agin
weskits which kiver honest, manly harts, while you old heds
fool yerselves with the idee that they air fulfillin their mishun
here, and air contented. Here you air, all pend up by yerselves,
talkin about the sins of a world you don't know nothin of. Mean-
while said world continners to resolve round on her own axletree
onct in every 24 hours, subjeck to the Constitution of the United
States, and is a very plesant place of residence. It's a unnatral,
onreasonable and dismal life you're leadin here. So it strikes me.
My Shaker frends, I now bid you a welcome adoo. You have treated
me exceedin well. Thank you kindly, one and all."

"A base exhibiter of depraved monkeys and onprincipled wax
works!" sed Uriah.

"Hello, Uriah," sez I, "I'd most forgot you. Wall, look out for
them fits of yourn, and don't catch cold and die in the flour of your
youth and beauty."

And I resoomed my jerney.

Artemus Ward: His BooJ^, 1862

J53

At Sdioharic Crossing

WALTER D. EDMONDS

One Friday evening, early in May, a line of sixty boats was drawn
up to the towpath at the Schoharie Creek crossing. In those first
years of the Erie, the crossing stream was let into the canal on one
side, with a guard lock below, and a dam on the other side to take
the overflow along its natural channel. It was easy enough to cross
above the dam with the water at normal level; but when a freshet
hit a creek, the space above the dam became a mill race, with
treacherous eddies to add trouble to the side pull. There were plenty
of such crossings on the old Erie, and the Schoharie was the worst
of the lot.

Their horns wailing, the boats had come in at fairly regular in-
tervals during the morning; but old Caleb, who tended the guard
lock, took one look at the two and a half feet of extra water boiling
over the dam and went on combing his beard. He was proud of
that beard. It reached well down toward his knees; and his con-
tinual combing kept it clean, so that it was glossy, and just about
the color of old pewter. Boat captains used to have trouble get-
ting him out of his hut in rainy weather (he was afraid that the
wet would take out the curl) until some of them bought him an
umbrella.

The captains were a tough lot. Freight companies were already
beginning to get a pretty solid hold on the long hauls and the
immigrant trade, which meant that speed was at a premium; and
as only the packet boats could afford to pay the ten-dollar fine for
speeding, the freighters tried to make up their time by fighting
for first place at the locks. It got soJsad that after a while a cap-
tain would feel a man's muscle before asking him what he knew
about boating.

Three or four of them who knew Caleb were sitting with him
in his hut, each with his rum balanced in a tumbler on his knee
and smoking or chewing to suit his taste; and they were mak-
ing a sociable session out of it, what with the wind on the roof
and the warmth inside. One sat on a chair and the rest had boxes;
and old Caleb perched on the edge of his bunk and combed his
beard.

154

One of the captains, a sly-looking little man who wore a pipe
hat and green galluses, got up and looked through a window at
the dam. He had to lift his voice for the others to hear him through
the roaring of that water. "How long will she stay up, Caleb?" he
asked.

"Why," said Caleb, "I don't rightly know as she's got all the way
up yet. She's the worst one I ever see."

"Well," said another one, a big red-headed man from Little Falls,
who had never been licked east of Utica and who wouldn't let any
man work on his boat unless he had red hair and could roll a
brogue as well as a quid on his tongue, "sipposin' it reaches high
water to-night, Caleb me honey, what time'd ye think I could get
the owld lady acrosst?"

As usual the Dublin Queen was the first freighter in the line.
Caleb got a bit of mirror down from the wall and put some finish-
ing touches on the part over his chin.

"Well," he said, "it might be a day, or it might be two, or it
might be more. I ain't saying. If it rains again, it might be more;
if it don't rain, it might not."

"That's a help, to be sure," said the red-headed man, whose name
was O'Mory.

"I can feel rain," announced the man on the chair.

"You, Joe?" asked the man with the pipe hat.

"Rain," said the other. "Barrels of it, Gratwick. An ocean, no
less. It's coming down from the north on my old peg." He thrust
out a wooden leg and began to rub the thigh above it.

"Hark to that, the wizen owld creature! Talkin' of rain, and
it only stopped this noon."

"I've got a Dutchman on my boat," said Gratwick, putting his
pipe hat inside the box he was sitting on. "He's all loaded up
with wagons and ploughs, and he's got his family. He offered
me twenty dollars extra if I could get him to Buffalo onside of two
weeks. Jeepers! If it don't commence to go down by to-morrow
night, I'll chance the crossing anyways."

"Haw, haw!" O'Mory guffawed. "You'll cross with them cheese-
horse mules of yourn?"

"Well, they be kind of poor," the other admitted. "But say,
O'Mory, you and me can club our teams on each boat and get 'em
over that way."

"Sure," said Caleb. "That'd be easy. It's been tried four times,
only the rope broke three of the times."

"That's right," said Joe, emphasizing his words with thrusts of

155

his wooden leg against the stove. "I was in line when Bellows 's
boat went over."

"The Manliuf?"

"That's right. There wasn't only a dog drowned and nobody
killed, though the horses got all tangled tumbling forward when
the rope broke."

"I heard Grimshaw was killed."

"He don't count," said Joe. "He was lying drunk on the forward
hutch and never knowed what struck him. You couldn't rightly
say he was killed."

"Was the boat smashed up?"

Caleb opened the back door into his little woodshed. When he
returned, he brought the northwest wind with him in a gust that
stuck out his beard in front. "There's what's left of her tiller,"
he said, showing them a twelve-inch stick before poking it into the
stove.

"Holy Mither!" cried O'Mory. "She must've sat down hard!"

"The other two boats wasn't hurt bad," said old Caleb, soothing
his whiskers back into place. "Only they had to float them back
down the river as far as Schenectady to get back into the canal."

The others cuffed their knees and roared with laughter. The
wind began to rattle hail against the shanty.

"There's my rain commencing," said Joe, triumphantly slapping
his wooden leg.

A flat wailing rose from down the canal, the sound of it crawling
haltingly through the gusts.

"That's Gurget's horn," said Caleb; "he got it off a ladder wagon
in New York."

The conversation came round to the high water again.

"I'm telling you," said Caleb sententiously, "it ain't safe for a
boat to try the crossing this water."

Gratwick agreed. "No. It ain't safe. And even if the rope held,
it would take more'n one team."

Joe considered the notion foolhardy.

"Phwat does that mean ? " asked O'Mory.

"You don't know nothing," retorted Joe, making a stab at the
Irishman with his wooden leg. "You ought to go to New York
where they're making a society for learning dumb folks to read!"

"They need it!" snorted Caleb. "They said Clinton couldn't
never build his 'ditch.' They said it would take more'n two years
to blast round Cohoes — and how long did it take?" He flourished
his comb. "Eighty days."

156

A moment's silence followed the old man's answer.

"Who was the feller whose rope didn't break?" O'Mory asked
suddenly.

"That was Simpson. He'd a load of ashes on, for the lye factory
to Little Falls," said Caleb.

"How'd he get acrosst?"

"He didn't."

"I thought ye said his rope didn't break, ye image."

"It didn't," said Caleb. "It was this way. He had a three-mule
team, see? And he got them just about to the end of the bridge
afore the water took the boat over the dam. The rope didn't break,
so the mules went over, too. One of them sat on his hind end
afore he went over, and brayed like prayer."

"I'll bet Simpson acted up," said Joe.

"He shed tears," Caleb admitted.

"Well . . ." said Gratwick, yawning and putting on his pipe-hat,
"it ain't safe to chance it. I guess we'll have to hang out round
here till Monday anyhow."

The rattle of hail faded away from the roof; and at the same
time the wind died down.

"Where's your rain now?" O'Mory asked Joe.

"Don't you get sad; it's just getting its second wind."

The sun came out from under the northwest clouds with a level,
shining light on the wet ground, and one of the men opened the
door. It had become suddenly warm, with an earth-smelling mist-
iness beginning to rise down by the river.

Old Caleb glanced out at the cross-anchor weather vane he had
stuck up on a pole above the lock. "Look at that!" he cried. "Wind's
switched to the southwest."

"That's the second wind I was telling you about," Joe said to
O'Mory. "Now we will have rain, by Jeepers!"

"Oh Lord!" groaned O'Mory.

Joe got up and stumped over to the door. There he jammed his
peg into the corner of the sill and braced his shoulders against
the frame, steady as a rock.

He stared away down the canal. "There's eight more boats come
in," he announced.

Calling to mind the long wails they had heard since they had
entered the hut, the others nodded.

"Any foights?" asked O'Mory.

"No."

"Here comes another boat," said Joe, after a minute.

157

As he spoke, the trilling of a French horn burst out on the water
and rang up and down the valley in diminishing echoes.

"Glory! What's that?" asked the Irishman.

"Red bullhead boat," said Joe. "Black team."

The horn rang out again and again. Caleb shifted his weight
uneasily. "That's Herman Peters, or I'm Tammany Hall."

"Peters!"

"Yeanh, the Utica bully. Never been licked for first place to a
lock. There ain't a man west of Utica's stood him out of the
place."

"He ain't been down to Little Falls nor met the Dublin Queen,"
observed O'Mory, giving his belt a hitch and straddling his legs.
He went over to the door with a chuckle in his nose, and the others
crowded after him.

The sunlight fell back along the course of the canal, past old
Fort Hunter, more than a mile to the first turn. For over half
the distance they could see the boats tied up to mooring posts, here
and there smoke rising from the cabin stovepipe, or, on some of
the smaller line boats, from stoves set up on the centre deck. The
gaudy-colored boats lay squat alongside of their reflections, in hues
of scarlet, green, magenta, blue, and the increasingly popular white.
The men strolled round the fields below the towpath or looked on
at a horseshoe tournament being pitched out between Schenectady
and Rome. An old graybeard sat with his skinny legs over the
bow of the last boat and fished with a hand line in the reflection
of a window.

Two packet boats fronted the line by natural prerogative, their
passengers keeping aloof. A clatter of crockery issued from the
cabin windows. From the first one floated the noise of a fiddle,
and a darky table-boy was doing a dance for a group of ladies. A
missionary was conversing earnestly with two drivers who listened
politely and spat with diffidence.

"There he is," said Joe, making a motion with his wooden leg.

The fanfare of the French bugle broke out again from a scarlet
freighter, trimmed green, which was drawing in to the end of the
queue. The steersman swung the boat inshore and the driver
snubbed the tie-ropes to posts. They left the horses on the tow-
path. Two men came out of the cabin and joined the steersman,
who seemed to be looking the situation over. Then the four
headed toward the lock-tender's shanty.

158

"He's looking for trouble," said Caleb.

"Sure, he's coming to the right place then," said O'Mory.

The captain of the scarlet boat was the shortest of his crew, but
he was heavy-set — two hundred and thirty pounds, as Gratwick
appraised him.

"I'll be giving him maybe twelve pounds," nodded O'Mory grin-
ning, "but look at me reach, will you?" He stretched out his
arms, shoulder high, as if he would embrace the whole Utica crew,
and broke into a laugh. He was taller by a head than the approach-
ing bully.

The newcomer had a black beard that reached to the middle but-
ton of his waistcoat. The sleeves of his blue shirt were rolled to
the elbows, revealing arms heavy as a blacksmith's. He had hands
like sledges and a straight, thick chest. His neck was so short that
with his sloping shoulders he appeared able to draw in his head
like a turtle. He stood up straight, his feet wide apart, and fronted
the Irishman.

"Where's the tender?" he demanded.

Caleb glanced at the sky and came out of the shanty without his
umbrella. "I'm that man," he said, stroking his beard.

"Why the hell don't you let this line through?"

Caleb pointed his thumb over his shoulder at the dam. "Want
to try it?"

The bully looked at the foaming water. "Think I'm a fool?"

"I've had suspicions of that same," O'Mory said, joyfully.

The others drew back; it was no business of theirs if O'Mory
wanted to start a fight. He had been spoiling for something to do
for the past two hours, and they preferred his bestowing his energy
on Peters instead of one of themselves. East of Utica there were
few men who wanted war with the Dublin Queen.

The Irishman whistled shrilly on his fingers. Instantly three
men hustled oflf the green freighter at the head of the line and ran
up to the shanty. Every one of them had red hair and a broad
grin. "Original Irishers," O'Mory called them. "The only bhoys
with gravy enough to dig out the Montezumy Swamp, by gorry!"
Still grinning, they lined up behind O'Mory and studied the three
men from the scarlet boat. After a moment the smallest of them
tipped a wink to the man on his right and exchanged places with
him to face the smallest of his opponents. It was evident that the
Dublin Queen managed these affairs on a systematic basis.

Peters hunched up his shoulders and looked O'Mory up and
down. "Who the hell are you?"

159

"Me father's bhoy," said O'Mory happily.

"Do you say I ain't?"

"God forbid! The O'Morys is Irish."

His men cheered and Peter's face flushed over his beard. But he
pulled himself in. "Before I lick you," he said, "I've got to lick
the lead boat in this line. I'm going to be first through when the
water falls."

"Sure, ye can put the two foights into one," said O'Mory, "and
give us some fun. I'm first in the line."

"All right, boys!" shouted Peters.

At that instant they heard a bell ringing down the line. The
sound was so unusual on the Erie, where the boaters for the most
part carried horns, that the men drew apart. What they saw put
the fight out of their minds for the moment. A big boat with
perfectly square ends and badly weathered white paint was coming
up past the others behind the rapid walk of a heavy roan team.
The towrope was attached to a standard in the bow, allowing it
just to clear the roofs of the boats tied up.

"Look at his hayseed rig, will you?" exclaimed Joe, with a thrust
of his peg.

The roans were hitched to an evener — not in tandem like the
other horses.

"Glory be!" cried O'Mory, while the Utica men broke out in a
rash of swearing. "What does he think he's going to do?"

"If he's going to fight for first place," said Peters, "I'll tend to
him first."

"Sure," said O'Mory, "it'll save me the throuble of licking two

men."

The team was coming on steadily, pulling without strain, and the
old boat cuddled the ripples in front of it and shoved them aside.
A woman, not more than twenty, was steering it. She had capable,
strong hands on the tiller, and she stood straight with her head
back and her eyes steady on the towrope. She wore no hat,
and her hair, which fell loose down her back, shone with a
white light like barley straw. As the boat neared the lock, the men
by the shanty made out that her eyes were blue and that her
face was as handsome as the rest of her. While they watched, she
unhooked a heavy dinner bell from the tiller and swung it back
and forth above her head, and through the noise they saw that she
was tall.

1 60

Compared to her, the man driving looked squat. When he came
to the end of the freight line, he pulled the horses up with a word,
and the young woman brought the old boat up beside O'Mory's.
Then she tossed a rope clean over the Dublin Queen, and the driver
caught it and snubbed it to a post, so that the rope pulled right
across the Queen's bows.

When he had spoken for a minute to the young woman, he
walked up to the lock-tender's hut. "Say," he asked in a sleepy
sort of voice, "what's all the line for?"

"Look there, son," said Caleb, pointing his thumb at the water,
"and ask me another one."

The young man did. "What of it?" he said.

He was short and very heavy, with a red, square face and light
hair like the woman's, and his wrists were overboned like a farm-
er's. He had a kind of dullness about him, which made one think
he was slow to make up his mind, but a deal slower to unmake it.
And right away all the men could see that he meant to get across
the Schoharie, high water or no high water. Most of the boaters
had come up when they saw O'Mory and Peters facing off, and
now a few sporty gentlemen stepped off the packets to see what
was going on. It made them all laugh to hear the young man say,
"What of it?" — and they laughed louder when he put his hands
in the pockets of his jeans and dug the toe of his shoe into the
sand. He got a little redder in the face, but he said, "I can get
across all right."

He lowered his head and shook it from side to side at Caleb.
"I got to get out to Ohio," he said. "I got a brother there setting
out a farm, and me and my wife is taking out the tools and stock.
We got to get there by June."

Joe tapped him on the knee with the end of his peg leg. "You
don't know how that current can drag onto a boat."

"I got a good team," said the young man. They were a big pair,
beyond a doubt — not the ordinary boat horses. Beside O'Mory's
mules they looked like a two-ton team.

"Maybe you have," said Joe; "but the last four boats that tried
crossing on high water went over the dam. One took three mules
with it, and the rope broke on the others."

"I got a new rope, and my team ain't mules."

"You're a stranger on this canal," said Gratwick, "or you'd know
it couldn't be did."

"It's a good team I got," said the young man. "They know how
to pull."

161

"Listen to reason," said O'Mory, as if that were a favorite habit
of his.

"We warned him," said Caleb. "It ain't no fault of ours if he
busts his boat."

Peters had been pushed into the background by the young man's
foolishness. It was a position for which he had no relish. He spat
in front of the young man's toe. "Look here, young squirt," he
growled, "you needn't set up for God A'mighty over us. I was just
telling him," jerking his head at O'Mory, "that there wasn't any
freighter going to cross ahead of mine."

"He did so," said O'Mory, cocking his head at the bystanders.
"Phwat do you know about that?"

"You'll get yours',' said Peters.

Then he turned to the young man. "Since she come on the Erie,
the Pretty Fashion ain't never been second on any lock she come

*. )»

to.

"Sure, she hasn't met the Dublin Queen yet," cried O'Mory.

The crowd surged to let the young woman into the circle. She
had a decisive chin, and her blue eyes gleamed. "What's the fuss?"

Her husband turned to her doubtfully. "They say the water's
too high."

She gazed at the dam, shading her eyes against the sun. "We'll
try it," she decided.

Her husband pointed to Peters. "This man says he won't let us
try ahead of him, and I guess he's afraid to try now."

"Thrue for you, lad," cried O'Mory.

"It don't make no difference," said Peters hoarsely. "There ain't
any boats crossing ahead of the Pretty Fashion."

"We can't waste no time," said the woman. "Lick him, Dan."

Her husband stared at Peters as if he were trying to make up his
mind. "I don't know as I can lick him," he said. "I'm slow."

"He ain't no whiplash himself, to look at him," said O'Mory in
encouragement. Next to having a good brawl, the crew of the
Dublin Queen enjoyed watching a good fight.

"Go ahead, Dan," said the woman. "You can do it. Make him
stand up to you."

Her husband lifted his gaze from the ground and stared again
at Peters, as a man might in judging a horse. And then he looked
on up the canal where the sun was beginning to sink to the rim
of the valley.

162

A silence hovered on the crowd; even the sky seemed to hold its
breath. Only the roar of the water in its ungovernable rush thudded
upon the ear, and faint supper smells bloomed in the stillness. A
few waiters had come out among the ladies on the packet boats.
By the towpath the roan team drowsed with collars loose on their
shoulders. The clear sunlight threw the shadows of the people far
behind them on the grass.

The young man, with his wife at his side, stared westward; and,
caught by the intentness of his gaze, the quiet crowd turned their
eyes up the valley. But they saw only the beginning of a sunset.
When they turned back to the young man, he was unbuttoning his
shirt.

"Hooroar!" yelled O'Mory. "It's on!"

Peters laughed suddenly out of his black beard, and the crowd
took up the Irishman's shout.

"Aw hell," said a boat captain nervously, "it ain't no fight — he's
just a kid."

"Lay you a dollar on the younker," cried Joe, driving his peg into
the sand and reaching for his wallet.

"All right."

"This ain't no place for a fight," said Gratwick. "You'd better
move up to the edge of the lock. It's level there. And all the rest
of us can see you."

Peters laughed shortly, for he was confident of having an easy
time. "That's right," he said. "You watch me."

The young man hesitated a moment, and then said that he was
agreeable.

Caleb took it upon himself to see fair play. He had watched a
fight once among the city rriobs on Long Island, so he got up beside
the lock with them and announced in style: "Herman Peters, bully
of Utica, and not licked yet, gentlemen!"

Peters grinned and took off his waistcoat. The level light threw
the figures into silhouette, so that color became a matter of con-
jecture, except where the sun shone through Caleb's beard, making
a yellow mist of the little hairs and his whole head beautiful. He
spat into the lock again and, clearing his throat, pointed to the
young man, who bent before his wife as she pulled his undershirt
over his head. "Peters versye Dan," cried Caleb, "versye Dan . . ."

"Wagner," said the young woman.

"Dan Wagner ... a young man going west!"

The crowd cheered as they swarmed to the foot of the embank-
ment. The two teamsters and the missionary called off their con-

163

ference; and while the men crowded in at the foot of the lock the
missionary debated in himself whether he should try to stop the
fight. The young woman stood on a lock beam, her husband's
shirt upon her arm; and the missionary stepped toward the crowd.
But as the two men faced each other against the sun, the bully in
his shirt, the other stripped to the waist with the light gleaming
on his skin, the missionary found that he had not the heart to speak,
and he remembered that it was not Sunday.

The ladies clustered the packet-boat decks under their parasols,
apparently unaware of what was toward; and the waiters crowded
upon the bows. The graybeard who had been fishing went below
deck, and when he reappeared he had a spyglass at his eye.

Caleb stood between the two combatants. They were both shorter
than he, and the young man looked almost tubby. He had a great
girth, like a wrestler's, and his legs had been made stiff by lifting
weights; but when he lowered his head and moved it a little from
side to side, you could see the power of an ox behind his shoul-
ders. Both he and Peters stood with their hands at their sides; but
Peters was erect and confident, and his grin showed through his
beard.

"The lad hasn't a chance," said Gratwick.

Stillness fell again upon the crowd, so that there was no noise but
the falling water, until old Caleb stepped back, lifting his voice, to
say, "I reckon you might as well commence."

The bully rushed with a shout, head drawn in, his fists driving
straight from his shoulders. And above the noise of the water, as
the young man tried ponderously to dodge, those in the foreground
heard two solid thuds. A curse slipped out of O'Mory's mouth and
the Dublin Queen groaned aloud, while Joe stamped his peg deeper
into the sand and tried to look away; for all of them had taken odds
on the young man — on the long chance, being Irishmen.

The bully rushed againj and the young man was too slow to get
out of the way, but he turned his body so that the blows lost a little
of their force in glancing. Even so, his knees gave, and the men of
the Pretty Fashion uttered a shout, which the crowd took up as they
surged one step forward. The sun made things black and white, so
that black spots smudged the white belly of the young man; and
the Irishmen yelled, "Low!"

"Niver mind," O'Mory said to his crew, "we'll remoind the
blackguard in a while."

Far down beyond the fight, the missionary cried out within him-
self as the bully rushed savagely again and yet again with the same

164

thud-thud, which the young man was too slow to dodge and too
clumsy to return.

After the sixth rush the young man still faced Peters, with his
feet braced and his head sunk forward; but instead of moving it
from side to side, he stared straight into the bully's eyes, and his line
of vision carried to the far corner of the level space, where the bal-
ance beam of the upper gate cut off a six-foot triangle. While
Peters caught his wind, the young man raised his hands — it seemed
for the first time. The woman cried out suddenly and waved the
shirt; and the crew of the Dublin Queen set up a shout, for they
saw what he intended.

The young man bored in and his back bent behind his hands;
and, though he landed only once, the men below heard a heavy
smash and a sob of wind from the bully's mouth; and they saw the
sun tangled in Caleb's beard as the old man scurried out of the way.

When the sun spots went out of their eyes, the crowd beheld the
fighters in the- triangle, on two sides the water, on one side the
tilted gate-beam. The young man stood with his head down, the
light glistening on his shoulders where the sweat ran down. Peters
was covering up; and a black smear that must have been blood
crawled out from under his beard and down his throat to the collar
of his shirt.

"Lick him!" screamed the young woman.

The Irishmen shouted. The crowd swayed as some men tried
to hedge their bets. There was no room for rushing there. The
fight hung now on weight and the sheer strength of shoulders,
backs, and arms. A family of French immigrants began to sing the
"Marseillaise," and the young man moved in on Peters. Neither
of them dared give ground; for if the young man was forced back
from the opening, he lost his advantage; and if Peters stepped back
more than once, the water would have him. . . .

The sun seemed to stand still behind them; and old Caleb lay on
his belly, his beard in the dirt, so that those below might see.

The two stood foot to foot and they drove their fists into each
other in great slow blows, behind which their backs bent and came
straight and bent again. At the sound of each blow, the crowd
heard the grunt of the man who had been hit and the sigh of the
man who had struck; and the roar of the water became something
small and far away. The shadows of the two men stretched out
and over the crowd and fought in the air where only Caleb could
see them. . . .

Little by little the crowd edged up on the lock. The Irishmen

165

in front lay down, and the men behind them kneeled, to let the
others watch. The ladies folded their parasols and looked on from
the packet boats, because the crews had gone ashore and there was
no one to notice them. The missionary found that the advancing
crowd spoiled his view, so he started to climb up to the roof of
Caleb's shanty, wondering if he would get up in time to see the
end. But the two men still stood together, and their elbows came
back against the sun and their hands drove in. They both struck
for the body, and they both landed, for they were too close to miss.

The crowd thought no more of betting. This fight had no like
in their memories : but a few of the gentlemen began to understand
how the Erie came to be built by the strength in the arms of men.
The crews of the Dublin Queen and the Pretty Fashion forgot their
quarrel and lay side by side like brothers, and the gentlemen took
off their tiles so that the teamsters behind could see.

Peters shifted his aim to the other's face; and blood made streaks
on the young man's jaw and went down over his chest, parting
above the little patch of hair, and ran down upon his belly; but he
shook the sun from his sight and sent his fists for the body. Once
he wiped the sweat from his eyes with a snatch of his hand; and
in the same instant the bully tore open the collar of his shirt. His
face streamed and his shirt looked wet. The onlookers saw that he
was afraid, and a little driver boy howled between the legs of his
captain. . . .

It was a long time for the crowd before the young man stepped
back, putting his hand to his mouth to stop the tremble, and tried
to speak. But he could not move his broken lips. So the young
woman cried, "Had enough?"

Peters put down his head and rushed. The Pretty Fashion mut-
tered that it was the end, now their captain had room; and the
Dublin Queen prayed that it was not. The young man drew him-
self up and raised his right fist above his shoulder and smashed
it down on top of the black hair — a blow to fell an ox. The bully
fell forward on top of his rush; his back wiggled a little before it
went still; and his teeth caught shut on the new grass between
the young man's feet.

The crowd caught their breath with a sound like wind upon the
snow; and as the young man stepped back the missionary on Caleb's
roof cried, "Praise God!" No one spoke, until a murmur grew

166

among those who had not seen the blow, and it swelled into a shout.
. . . The ladies put up their parasols. The cooks ran back to their
burned food. In little groups the boaters drifted back to their boats
to get supper.

The young woman wiped the blood off her husband's face with
the end of her skirt, and put the undershirt and shirt back over his
head and helped him to button them. "We've got to hurry and get
across before it gets dark," she said.

"Don't be a fool," O'Mory shouted. "Ye can't steer a boat as ye
are now. Ye've had fun enough."

"My wife can steer," said the young man.

"But ye can't drive like ye are at all," protested O'Mory, shaking
his hand and seeing the broken knuckles.

"I don't need to. I got a good team."

"Wait till the morning," said one of the Pretty Fashion crew,
grinning, for he liked a good fight. "There ain't any boat here'll
go over first. We'll tend to that. Even the Dublin Queen won't
argue that."

"No," said O'Mory. "Divel a bit.— Not that 7 couldn't lick the
whole mess of ye," he added.

"We've got to get out there by June," said the young woman.

"Yes," said her husband. "We got to get out there by June."

"Oh hell," said Caleb, but he went over to the sluice levers.

The young woman went aboard and her husband straightened out
the eveners behind the team. The crews of the Dublin Queen and
the Pretty Fashion helped to get the boat into the lock. With the
team on the tow bridge, the young man had them double the rope
and shorten it; and then, standing on the outside of the bridge, by
the off horse's head, he spoke to the pair.

They settled down and went ahead with an easy, forward, up-
ward pull into their collars, and the boat came out smoothly into
the current. As the side sweep hit the boat, they drove their shoes
into the planks. Their haunches puckered as they straightened their
legs against the strain, and with great deliberation they set their
hoofs carefully and heaved. The woman turned the bow out away
from them to keep the stern in to the bridge. There was no lost
motion. The young man said never a word. But when the boat
crossed an eddy, the men could hear the towline hum.

In a little while, as though they had been pulling on a plough,
they had the boat in the easy water beyond. They had seemed to
pull so easily that even then some men refused to believe they were
across. But when the young man told them to stop, they dropped

167

their heads and shook themselves; and the boaters saw that they
trembled all over and were black with sweat.

"They know how to pull," the young man said. "They know
how to pull."

The sun set as O'Mory helped him run the rope out to its full
length. The woman smiled, all at once, as she thanked him; and
O'Mory blushed redder than his hair.

"It was a fine foight, to be sure, if it was a thrifle slow." He
lit a lantern for her, which she hung over the stern.

"Thanks," said the young man, and he spoke to his team.

"So long!" cried Caleb.

"Luck!" shouted the others. They returned to their boats, the
crew of the Pretty Fashion picking up Peters as they went. He was
still out and they let him down with a bump on the deck. Old
Joe stumped away on his peg leg to try to collect his bet. O'Mory
and Caleb and a gentleman from one of the packet boats remained
on the lock and watched the boat glide into the dusk.

"By God!" said Caleb, beginning to untangle his beard. "By
God! I bet they'll get there."

"By God, I bet he will," said O'Mory.

"Yes," said the gentleman.

"Look!" cried O'Mory, pointing his arm. "There's the name
of the boat!" The lantern light fell over the stern and caught a
thin tracery of gilt.

"Ye're a scholard, Caleb. Can ye read it?"

Caleb tried and shook his head. "Not that far off," he said, glad
of the distance.

The gentleman took a small telescope from the pocket of his
coaching coat and focused it on the stern of the boat. "I can just
make out the letters," he said; and he spelled them out — "S-U-R-E
A-R-R-I-V-A-L."

"What's that?" asked Caleb.

"Sure Arrival," said the gentleman.

"Thank ye, sir," said O'Mory.

The Forum, June, 1929

168

Old Pennsylvania

BAYARD TAYLOR

I. THE RAISING

When Gilbert reached home, released from his labors abroad until
October, he found his fields awaiting their owner's hand. His
wheat hung already heavy-headed, though green, and the grass
stood so thick and strong that it suggested the rippling music of
the scythe-blade which should lay it low. ... In the midst of the
haying, however, came a message which he could not disregard, —
a hasty summons from Mark Deane, who, seeing Gilbert in the
upper hill-field, called from the road, bidding him to the raising
of Hallowell's new barn, which was to take place on the following
Saturday. "Be sure and come!" were Mark's closing words — "there's
to be both dinner and supper, and the girls are to be on hand!"

It was the custom to prepare the complete frame of a barn — sills,
plates, girders, posts, and stays — with all their mortices and pins,
ready for erection, and then to summon all the able-bodied men of
the neighborhood to assist in getting the timbers into place. This
service, of course, was given gratuitously, and the farmer who re-
ceived it could do no less than entertain, after the bountiful manner
of the country, his helping neighbors, who therefore, although the
occasion implied a certain amount of hard work, were accustomed
to regard it as a sort of holiday, or merry-making. Their oppor-
tunities for recreation, indeed, were so scanty that a barn-raising
or a husking-party by moonlight was a thing to be welcomed.

Hallowell's farm was just half-way between Gilbert's and Ken-
nett Square, and the site of the barn had been well-chosen on a
ridge, across the road which ran between it and the farm-house.
The Hallowells were what was called "good providers," and as they
belonged to the class of outside Quakers, . . . the chances were
that both music and dance would reward the labor of the day.

Gilbert, of course, could not refuse the invitation of so near a
neighbor. . . . When the day came he was early on hand, heartily
greeted by Mark, who exclaimed, — "Give me a dozen more such
shoulders and arms as yours, and I'll make the timbers spin!"

It was a bright, breezy day, making the wheat roll and the leaves
twinkle. Ranges of cumuli moved, one after the other like heaps

169

of silvery wool across the keen, dark blue of the sky. "A wonderful
hay-day," the old farmers remarked, with a half-stifled sense of
regret; but the younger men had already stripped themselves to
their shirts . . . , and set to work with a hearty good-will. Mark,
as friend, half-host, and commander, bore his triple responsibility
with a mixture of dash and decision, which became his large frame
and ruddy, laughing face. It was — really, and not in an oratorical
sense, — the proudest day of his life.

There could be no finer sight than that of these lithe, vigorous
specimens of a free, uncorrupted manhood, taking like sport the
rude labor which was at once their destiny and their guard of safety
against the assaults of the senses. As they bent to their work,
prying, rolling, and lifting the huge sills to their places on the
foundation-wall, they showed in every movement the firm yet elastic
action of muscles equal to their task. Though Hallowell's barn did
not rise, like the walls of Ilium, to music, a fine human harmony
aided in its construction.

There was a plentiful supply of whisky on hand, but Mark
Deane assumed the charge of it, resolved that no accident or other
disturbance should mar the success of this, his first raising. Every-
thing went well, and by the time [the men] were summoned to
dinner, the sills and some of the uprights were in place, properly
squared and tied.

It would require a Homeric catalogue to describe the dinner. To
say that the table groaned, is to give no idea of its condition. Mrs.
Hallowell and six neighbors' wives moved from kitchen to dining-
room, replenishing the dishes as fast as their contents diminished,
and plying the double row of coatless guests with a most stern and
exacting hospitality. The former would have been seriously morti-
fied had not each man endeavored to eat twice his usual require-
ment.

After the slight rest which nature enforced — though far less than
nature demanded, after such a meal — the work went on again with
greater alacrity, since every timber showed. Rib by rib the great
frame grew, and those perched aloft, pinning the posts and stays,
rejoiced in the broad, bright landscape opened to their view. They
watched the roads, in the intervals of their toil, and announced the
approach of delayed guests, all alert for the sight of the first
riding-habit.

Suddenly two ladies made their appearance, over the rise of the
hill, one cantering lightly and securely, the other bouncing in her
seat, from the rough trot of her horse.

170

"Look out! there they come!" cried a watcher.

"Who is it?" was asked from below.

"Where's Barton? He ought to be on hand,— it's Martha Deane,—
and Sally with her; they always ride together." . . .

By ones and twos the girls now gathered rapidly, and erelong
they came out in a body to have a look at the raising. Their coming
in no wise interrupted the labor; it was rather an additional
stimulus, and the young men were right. Although they were not
aware of the fact, they were never so handsome in their uneasy
Sunday costume and awkward social ways, as thus in their free,
joyous, and graceful element of labor. Greetings were interchanged,
laughter and cheerful nothings animated the company, and when
Martha Deane said, —

"We may be in the way, now— shall we go in?"

Mark responded, —

"No, Martha! No, girls! I'll get twice as much work out o' my
twenty-five 'jours,' if you'll only stand where you are and look
at 'em."

"Indeed!" Sally Fairthorn exclaimed. "But we have work to do as
well as you. If you men can't get along without admiring spectators,
we girls can."

The answer which Mark would have made to this pert speech
was cut short by a loud cry of pain or terror from the old half-
dismantled barn on the other side of the road. All eyes were at
once turned in that direction, and beheld Joe Fairthorn rushing at
full speed down the bank, making for the stables below. Mark,
Gilbert Potter, and Sally, being nearest, hastened to the spot.

"You're in time!" cried Joe, clapping his hands in great glee.
"I was awfully afeard he'd let go before I could git down to see
him fall. Look quick — he can't hold on much longer!"

Looking into the dusky depths, they saw Jake, hanging by his
hands to the edges of a hole in the floor above, yelling and kicking
for dear life.

"You wicked, wicked boy!" exclaimed Sally, turning to Joe,
"what have you been doing?"

"Oh," he answered, jerking and twisting with fearful delight,
"there was such a nice hole in the floor! I covered it all over with
straw, but I had to wait ever so long before Jake stepped onto it,
and then he ketched hold goin' down, and nigh spoilt the fun."

Gilbert made for the barn-floor, to succor the helpless victim; but
just as his step was heard on the boards, Jake's strength gave way.
His fingers slipped, and with a last howl down he dropped, eight

171

or ten feet, upon a bed of dry manure. Then his terror was instantly
changed to wrath; he bounced upon his feet, seized a piece of
rotten board, and made after Joe, who, anticipating the result, was
already showing his heels down the road.

Meanwhile the other young ladies had followed, and so, after
discussing the incident with a mixture of amusement and horror,
they betook themselves to the house, to assist in the preparations
for supper. Martha Deane's eyes took in the situation and im-
mediately perceived that it was capable of a picturesque improve-
ment. In front of the house stood a superb sycamore, beyond which
a trellis of grape-vines divided the yard from the kitchen-garden.
Here on the cool green turf, under shade, in the bright summer
air, she proposed that the tables should be set and found little
difficulty in carrying her point. It was quite convenient to the
outer kitchen door, and her ready invention found means of over-
coming all other technical objections. Erelong the tables were
transported to the spot, the cloth laid, and the aspect of the coming
entertainment grew so pleasant to the eye that there was a special
satisfaction in the labor.

An hour before sundown the frame was completed; the skeleton
of the great barn rose sharp against the sky, its fresh white-oak
timber gilded by the sunshine. Mark drove in the last pin, gave a
joyous shout, which was answered by an irregular cheer from
below, and lightly clambered down by one of the stays. Then the
black jugs were produced, and passed from mouth to mouth, and
the ruddy, glowing young fellows drew their shirt-sleeves across
their faces, and breathed the free, full breath of rest.

II. OLD KENNETT MEETING

On the Sunday succeeding his return, Gilbert Potter proposed
to his mother that they should attend the Friends' Meeting at Old
Kennett.

The Quaker element . . . largely predominated in this part of
the county; and even the many families who were not actually
members of the sect were strongly colored with its peculiar char-
acteristics. Though not generally using "the plain speech" among
themselves, they invariably did so towards Quakers, varied but
little from the latter in dress and habits, and with very few excep-
tions regularly attended their worship. In fact, no other religious
attendance was possible without a Sabbath journey too long for
the well-used farm-horses. To this class belonged Gilbert and his
mother, the Fairthorns, and even the Bartons. Farmer Fairthorn

172

had a birthright, it is true, until his marriage, which having been a
stolen match and not performed according to "Friends' ceremony,"
occasioned his excommunication. He might have been restored to
the rights of membership by admitting his sorrow for the offense,
but this he stoutly refused to do. The predicament was not an un-
usual one in the neighborhood; but a few, among whom was Dr.
Deane, Martha's father, submitted to the required humiliation. As
this did not take place, however, until after her birth, Martha was
still without the pale, and preferred to remain so for two reasons:
first, that a scoop bonnet was monstrous on a young woman's head;
and second, that she was passionately fond of music and saw no
harm in a dance. This determination of hers was, as her father ex-
pressed himself, a "great cross" to him; but she had a habit of
paralyzing his argument by turning against him the testimony of
the Friends in regard to forms and ceremonies, and their reliance
on the guidance of the Spirit.

Herein Martha was strictly logical, and though she and others
who belonged to the same class were sometimes characterized, by
a zealous Quaker in moments of bitterness, as being "the world's
people," they were generally regarded not only with tolerance but
in a spirit of fraternity. The high seats in the gallery were not for
them, but they were free to any other part of the meeting-house
during life, and to a grave in the grassy and briery enclosure ad-
joining when dead. The necessity of belonging to some organized
church was recognized but faintly, if at all; provided their lives
were honorable, they were considered very fair Christians.

Mary Potter but rarely attended meeting, not from any lack of
the need of worship, but because she shrank with painful timidity
from appearing in the presence of the assembled neighborhood.
She was, nevertheless, grateful for Gilbert's success, and her heart
inclined to thanksgiving; besides, he desired that they should go,
and she was not able to offer any valid objection. So, after breakfast,
the two best horses of the team were very carefully groomed,
saddled, and — Sam having been sent off on a visit to his father,
with the house-key in his pocket — the mother and son took the
road up the creek.

Both were plainly yet very respectably dressed, in garments of
the same home-made cloth, of a deep, dark brown color, but Mary
Potter wore under her cloak the new crape shawl which Gilbert
had brought to her from Wilmington, and his shirt of fine linen
displayed a modest ruffle in front. The resemblance in their faces
was even more strongly marked, in the common expression of

173

calm, grave repose which sprang from the nature of their journey.
A stranger meeting them that morning would have seen that they
were persons of unusual force of character and bound to each other
by an unusual tie.

Up the lovely valley, or rather glen, watered by the eastern
branch of Redley Creek, they rode to the main highway. It was an
early spring, and the low-lying fields were already green with the
young grass; the weeping- willows in front of the farm-houses
seemed to sprout up and fall like broad enormous geysers as the
wind swayed them, and daffodils bloomed in all the warmer
gardens. The dark foliage of the cedars skirting the road counter-
acted that indefinable gloom which the landscapes of early spring
in their grayness and incompleteness so often inspire, and mocked
the ripened summer in the close shadows which they threw. It
was a pleasant ride, especially after mother and son had reached
the main road, and other horsemen and horsewomen issued from
the gates of farms on either side, taking their way to the meeting-
house. Only two or three families could boast vehicles. . . . No
healthy man or woman, however, unless he or she were very old,
travelled otherwise than on horseback.

Now and then exchanging grave but kindly nods with their
acquaintances, they rode slowly along the level upland, past the
Anvil Tavern, through Logtown, — a cluster of primitive cabins at
the junction of the Wilmington Road, — and reached the meeting-
house in good season. Gilbert assisted his mother to alight at the
stone platform built for that purpose near the women's end of
the building, and then fastened the horses in the long, open shed in
the rear. Then, as was the custom, he entered by the men's door,
and quietly took a seat in the silent assembly.

The stiff, unpainted benches were filled with the congregation,
young and old, wearing their hats, and with a stolid, drowsy look
upon their faces. Over a -high wooden partition the old women in
the gallery, but not the young women on the floor of the house,
could be seen. Two stoves, with interminable lengths of pipe, sus-
pended by wires from the ceiling, created a stifling temperature.
Every slight sound or motion, — the moving of a foot, the drawing
forth of a pocket-handkerchief, the lifting or lowering of a head, —
seemed to disturb the quiet as with a shock and drew many of the
younger eyes upon it; while in front, like the guardian statues of
an Egyptian temple, sat the older members, with their hands upon
their knees or clasped across their laps. Their faces were grave
and severe.

174

After nearly an hour of this suspended animation, an old Friend
rose, removed his broad-brimmed hat, and placing his hands upon
the rail before him, began slowly swaying to and fro, while he
spoke. As he rose into the chant peculiar to the sect, intoning alike
his quotations from the Psalms and his utterances of plain, practical
advice, an expression of quiet but almost luxurious satisfaction
stole over the faces of his aged brethren. With half-closed eyes and
motionless bodies, they drank in the sound like a rich draught,
with a sense of exquisite refreshment. A close connection of ideas,
a logical derivation of argument from text, would have aroused
their suspicions that the speaker depended rather upon his own
active, conscious intellect, than upon the moving of the Spirit;
but this aimless wandering of a half-awake soul through the
cadences of a language which was neither song nor speech, was to
their minds the evidence of genuine inspiration.

When the old man sat down, a woman arose and chanted forth
the suggestions which had come to her in the silence, in a voice of
wonderful sweetness and strength. Here Music seemed to revenge
herself for the slight done to her by the sect. The ears of the
hearers were so charmed by the purity of tone, and the delicate,
rhythmical cadences of the sentences that much of the wise lessons
repeated from week to week failed to reach their consciousness.

After another interval of silence, the two oldest men reached their
hands to each other, — a sign which the younger members had
anxiously awaited. The spell snapped in an instant; all arose and
moved into the open air, where all things at first appeared to wear
the same aspect of solemnity. The poplar-trees, the stone wall, the
bushes in the corners of the fence, looked grave and respectful for
a few minutes. Neighbors said, "How does thee do?" to each
other in subdued voices, and there was a conscientious shaking of
hands all around before they dared to indulge in much conver-
sation.

Gradually, however, all returned to the out-door world and its
interests. The fences became so many posts and rails once more,
the bushes so many elders and blackberries to be cut away, and the
half-green fields so much sod for corn-ground. Opinions in regard
to the weather and the progress of spring labor were freely inter-
changed, and the few unimportant items of social news, which had
collected in seven days, were gravely distributed. This was at the
men's end of the meeting-house; on their side, the women were
similarly occupied, but we can only conjecture the subjects of their
conversation. The young men— as is generally the case in religious

175

sects of a rigid and clannish character — were by no means hand-
some. Their faces all bore the stamp of repression, in some form or
other, and as they talked their eyes wandered with an expression of
melancholy longing and timidity towards the sweet, maidenly
faces, whose bloom, and pure, gentle beauty not even their hideous
bonnets could obscure.

The Story of Kennett, 1865

176

Hans Brcitmann in Maryland

A Ballad of the Civil War

CHARLES G. LELAND

Der Breitmann mit his gompany,
Rode out in Marylandt.
"Dere's nichts to trink in dis countrie;
Mine troat's as dry as sand.
It's light canteen und haversack,
It's hoonger mixed mit doorst;
Und if we had some lager-bier
I'd trink oontil I boorst

Gling, glang, gloria!
We'd trink oontil we boorst.

"Herr Leut'nant, take a dozen men,

Und ride dis land around!
Herr Feldwebel, go foragin'

Dill somedings goot is found.
Gotts-doonder! men, go ploonder!

We hafn't trinked a bit
Dis fourdeen hours! If I had bier

I'd sauf oontil I shplit!
Gling, glang, gloria!

We'd sauf oontil we shplit!"

At mitternacht a horse's hoofs

Coom rattlin' troo de camp;
"Rouse dere! — coom rouse der house dere!

Herr Copitain — we moost tromp!
De scouds have found a repel town,

Mit repel davern near,
A repel keller in de cround,

Mit repel lager bier!!
Gling, glang, gloria!

All fool of lager-bier!"

177

Gottsdonnerkreuzschockschwerenoth!

How Breitmann broked de bush!
"O let me see dat lager bier!

O let me at him rush!
Und is mein sabre sharp und true,

Und is mein war-horse goot?
To get one quart of lager bier

I'd shpill a sea of ploot.
Gling, glang, gloria!

I'd shpill a sea of ploot.

"Fuenf hoonderd repels hold de down,

One hoonderd strong are we;
Who gares a tarn for all de odds

Wenn men so dirsty pe."
And in dey smashed and down* dey crashed,

Like donder-polts dey fly,
Rush fort as der wild yaeger cooms

Mit blitzen troo de shky.
Gling, glang, gloria!

Like blitzen troo de shky.

How flewed to rite, how flewd to left

De moundains, drees unt hedge;
How left und rite de yaeger corps

Went donderin troo de pridge.
Und splash und splosh dey ford de shtream

Where not some pridges pe:
All dripplin in de moondlight peam

S tracks went de cavallrie!
Gling, glang, gloria!

Der Breitmann's cavallrie.

Und hoory, hoory on dey rote,

Oonheedin vet or try;
Und horse und rider shnort und blowed,

Und shparklin bepples fly.
Ropp! ropp! I shmell de barley-prew!

Dere's somedings goot ish near.
Ropp! Ropp! — I scent de kneiperei;

We've got to lager bier!
Gling, glang, gloria!

We've got to lager bier.

178

Hei! how de carpine pullets klinged

Oopon de helmets hart!
Oh, Breitmann — how dy sabre ringed;

Du alter Knasterbart!
De contrapands dey sing for choy

To see de rebs go down,
Und hear der Breitmann grimly gry:

Hoorah! — we've dock de down.
Gling, glang, gloria!
Victoria, victoria!

De Dootch have dook de down.

Mid shout and crash and sabre flash,

And wild husaren shout
De Dootchmen boorst de keller in,

Unt rolled de lager out;
And in the coorlin powder shmoke,

While shtill de pullets sung.
Dere shtood der Breitmann, axe in hand,

A knockin out de boong.
Gling, glang, gloria!
Victoria! Encoria!

De shpicket beats de boong.

Gotts! vot a shpree der Breitmann had

While yet his hand was red,
A trinkin lager from his poots

Among de repel tead.
'Twas dus dey went at mitternight

Along der moundain side;
'Twas dus dey help make history!
Dis was der Breitmann's ride.
Gling, glang, gloria;
Victoria! Victoria!
Cer'visia, encoria?
De treadful mitnight ride
Of Breitmann's wild Freischarlinger,
All famous, broad, und wide.

Hans Breitmann's Ballads, 1871

179

The Courier of the Czar

ELSIE SINGMASTER

Hearing the clock strike twelve, Betsey Shindledecker opened
her eyes. She had not been asleep; she had merely been waiting
for her sister Tilly, who lay by her side, to be asleep. At eleven
o'clock Tilly had spoken, at half past she had turned from one
side to the other; but now for half an hour she had been lying
quietly.

Betsey lay blinking and looking round the room. The windows
were dim rectangles outlining a sky which was only a little brighter
than the black wall; the ancient bureau and washstand and dower
chest showed only as indistinct masses. All other objects were lost
— the two colored prints on the wall, one of Marianna, one of
Juliana; the mirror, the chairs, one draped with the plain Men-
nonite garb of Betsey, the other with the plain Mennonite garb
of Tilly. The two white caps hanging on the tall posts at the
foot of the bed were lost, and so were the stripes in the carpet
and the gay pattern of the coverlet. It would be impossible for
any night to be darker or for any wind to whistle more ominously
than the wind whistled at this moment round the corners of the
house.

Her mind relieved by Tilly's quiet breathing, Betsey explored
with hand and foot. Her foot sought her woolen slippers, her
hand the thick flannel gown which hung on the post near her
head. Finding both, she stood in a moment slippered and robed.
Still Tilly breathed quietly.

Moving slowly, Betsey approached the door. When a board
creaked beneath her great weight she stood still a long time; when
Tilly sighed she put out her hand to clutch the corner of the
bureau and thus to support herself. She grew no more comfortable
in mind as she advanced, because the steps would creak far more
loudly than the floor, and when she reached the bottom of the
flight she would have to speak a reassuring word to the dog and
the cat. This was not a new experience; for almost a month she
had been stealing nightly from her sister's side.

Compared to the bedroom, the kitchen was bright. The fire
shone through the mica doors of the stove and was reflected from

1 80

the luster ware on the mantel and the brass knobs on the ancient
cupboard. The black windowpanes formed mirrors, so that there
seemed to be many fires. On one side of the room a quilt was
stretched on a frame and on the taut surface lay scissors, spools of
thread, a little pincushion, two pairs of spectacles and two thimbles.
The ground of the quilt was dark and spread over it were multi-
tudes of white spots of various sizes.

Other reflecting surfaces were presented by the eyes of a large
gray cat and a large Airedale dog, the one lying on a chair, the
other beside the stove. Apparently unsurprised by this mysterious
advent in the middle of the night, the cat purred and the dog
parted his lips and teeth in a grin, and both having raised their
heads, laid them down. They paid no heed when Betsey, touching
a spill to the coals, lit the hanging lamp which illuminated bril-
liantly the quilt and the sewing implements lying upon it. The
background of the quilt was blue and the white spots were star-
shaped. The Milky Way crossed the surface diagonally and along
the edge, and in the dark spaces were set Orion, the Pleiades,
Ursa Major and other familiar constellations. Between the stars
the quilt was covered with tiny stitches set close together.

Sinking into one of the Windsor armchairs at the sicle of the
frame, Betsey selected a needle from the pincushion. It was not
one of the fine needles with which the delicate quilting had been
done, but a larger one, and she used it not to sew, but to destroy
sewing. Stitch by stitch she ripped the fine work, sighing as she
did so. It was clear that that which she ripped was not so even as
the section opposite the other chair.

The hands of the clock pointed to half past twelve, and presently
to one. Then Betsey exchanged the large needle for a smaller
one, and, threading it, began to replace the stitches she had ripped
out. Those she put in were as straight as a ruler and as much
alike as rice grains.

At three o'clock she rose stiffly. Though her back ached, and
though her eyes were heavy and her hands stiff, she was happy;
the catastrophe which she feared and against which she struggled
was postponed a little longer. Then suddenly she was smitten by
terror. She did not exactly hear Tilly move, but she knew that
Tilly had moved; moreover, that she was awake. If Tilly spoke
she believed she would die of shock. But when Tilly did speak
she answered calmly.

"Betsey!" The voice was sharp with terror. "Sister!"

"Yes?" Betsey walked toward the stairway.

181

"Where are you?"

"I'm coming." What should she say? It would be easy to invent
an excuse, but Betsey did not like to lie. "I did not lock the door,
Tilly."

"Why, no, of course not! I locked it, like always. Come back
to bed!"

"I'm coming," said Betsey.

Her voice was steady, but her heart jumped in her side, and
as she grasped the railing to ascend she was aware of her pulse
throbbing in her wrist. She felt her way across the room and lay
down, slippers, gown and all. She was trembling, not only because
she was frightened but because she was cold.

"I had a queer dream," said Tilly drowsily. "I dreamed I could
not see any more to sew straight."

"Are you awake?" asked Betsey sharply.

Tilly did not answer. Did she speak from a dream or from
full consciousness?

Hearing the clock strike twelve, Betsey opened her eyes. It was
harder to* open them to-night than last night, and last night it
had been harder than the night before. It was the twenty-eighth
night she had wakened at twelve o'clock and had gone faltering
down the stairs.

Beside her Tilly lay quietly, her breathing that of a child. The
sky was black outside the rectangle of the window and there was
again an uneasy whispering round the frame. The old furniture
showed only vague outlines.

"I can't do this forever," said Betsey to herself. "I'm getting thin
and I'm getting so tired I can't wake on time, and then what will
happen?"

Her exploring foot sought her slippers, her exploring hand
sought her bedgown. Anxiety made her nervous; she held her
breath to listen. But Tilly slept sweetly.

"If I'm no more so heavy the boards won't creak so under me,"
she thought as she felt her way across the room. "Ach, but I'm
tired!" She repeated the word mentally with each step — "Tired,
tired, tired!"

In the kitchen there was the same glow of the fire, the same,
loveliness of light and shadow. The Maltese cat lay on his chair,
the Airedale dog lay before the stove. Each lifted his head and each
settled himself and closed his eyes. The starry quilt had advanced

182

a little farther; a new section was set with two varieties of stitches,
one short and regular, the other long and irregular.

Betsey found her large needle and sat down heavily. She ripped
one stitch, then another. The point of the needle caught in the
material and made little marks. She bent lower and lower. Were
her eyes also growing dim? She picked out another stitch and
another; then her forehead touched the belt of Orion, her hand
lay quietly upon Ursa Major.

After a long time she became conscious of some impending
disaster. Was she hurt and helpless? When she opened her eyes
and saw Tilly standing by the quilting frame power was restored
to her and she sprang up. Tilly stood tall and bent in her gray
bedgown. Saying nothing, she looked at the quilt, then at her
sister, then at the quilt.

"What is it?" she asked at last. "What do you make alone here
in the middle of the night?"

Betsey stood paralyzed.

"You're ripping out my sewing and doing it over. That's how
it gets always all right by morning. Isn't it so, Betsey?"

Betsey did not answer.

"You think I can't see any more?" demanded Tilly.

Betsey said not a word.

"No, I can't see any more." Tilly answered her own question.
"This long time already I have trouble. I can't see to sew. I can't
see to read. Sometimes I can't see you. I've twice stepped on
the cat and once on the dog. If I don't step on them all the
time it's because they get nice out of my way. They know me.
I'll give up sewing. You'll have enough trouble with me yet,
Betsey, without ripping out my crooked stitches. Now come to
bed."

Betsey looked at the clock. The hands pointed to half past four.

"It's not worth while to go to bed. I'll get dressed ready to
milk, and I'll watch for Herr when he comes to fetch the milk
and I'll say he shall tell Doctor Landis to come to us. He'll cure
you, Tilly. He'll surely cure you."

The clock ticked solemnly. It was now eight o'clock, now nine.
Soft flakes of snow had begun to fall; the sky seemed to stoop
lower and lower. Tilly sat at the end of the settle, her elbow on
the arm, her hand supporting her bending face, a finger pressed
upon each eye. Now and then a tear rolled down her cheek.

"It's not that I'm crying," she explained angrily. "It's that my
eyes water."

"Yes," answered Betsey. Betsey was the only moving object ex-
cept the pendulum of the clock. The dog and cat lay motionless
but alert. Even the cupboard and the mantel and the starry quilt
seemed to be alert and waiting. "It's ten o'clock," cried Betsey
at last. "Why, then, does he not come?"

"He has perhaps a great many sick ones."

Betsey looked up the road and then down.

"You can't see far in the snow," she explained.

"Is it snowing?" asked Tilly.

Betsey turned from the window and looked at her sister.

"Do you ask because you want to keep your eyes covered, or
is it that you can't see?"

"I want to keep my eyes covered," answered Tilly. Tilly did
want to keep her eyes covered, but it was because she believed
that if she uncovered them she could not see. "I sewed perhaps
a little too late last evening. If you want to sew, sister," she said
heroically, "then sew."

"I don't need to sew," replied Betsey. "He's coming. He has
his buggy, not his auto. I guess he's afraid the snow will
get deep for him. He's driving his Minnie horse, the yellow
one. She's a good horse; they say when sometimes he's tired
and falls asleep she takes him home. I would rather have
a good horse than an auto. He's stopping at the gate." Bet-
sey's voice grew shrill, the dog and the cat lifted their heads,
the furniture seemed to stir as though that for which they
all waited was now imminent. "I don't believe he'll hurt you,
sister."

Doctor Landis tied his horse and came up the path, a stout,
ruddy-faced man with a short, bristling mustache. He walked
heavily, carrying his medicine case in one hand and a book in
the other. He was a worldly Lutheran and a great reader.

"He's carrying his book," said Betsey. "He forgets he has it,
I guess. If he would read the Bible, how fine that would be!"

Tilly did not answer. The water which streamed from her eyes
burned like fire.

Doctor Landis brought in with him a breath of cold air and
the pleasant odor of drugs. The room seemed to brighten, Tilly's
spirits rose and Betsey felt so relieved that she sank upon a chair.
Doctor Landis laid his medicine case and book on the settle and
pulled off his gloves. He was able to speak the fluent Pennsylvania

184

English of his generation, though he preferred the Pennsylvania
German of his ancestors.

"Well!" he exclaimed. "Did I bring that wicked book along? I
have no wife and no child, and I'm not a smoker, and I must have
something to fill in the time in this healthy place. It's twenty years
since I was in this house. Now what's the matter with the eyes,
Tilly?"

"They burn me and ache me." Tilly pressed her fingers against
the lids. "I can't see any more."

"You mean you can't see me?"

"I can see you if I take my hand away; but I can't see to sew."

Doctor Landis bent above the quilt. He made an inquiring sign
to Betsey, pointing first to the quilt, then to Tilly. Betsey nodded
and he completed the pantomime by shaking his fist at the starry
sky.

"Now let's see these eyes." He sat down beside Tilly on the
settle, and she put out her hand on the other side. It touched the
book which he had laid there and she clutched it and held it as
though it were a rope flung to a sinking swimmer. "Open your
eyes," commanded the doctor.

As Tilly obeyed with agony, the hot flood became hotter. She
could see the doctor's face, but nothing beyond it, not even Betsey
standing at his elbow.

"It's worse to-day than yesterday," she said, as though that light-
ened the seriousness of the case.

"And worse yesterday than day before, I dare say," mocked the
doctor. "Yet you kept on sewing?"

"We had the starry quilt to finish," explained Tilly. "I thought
when the starry quilt was done I'd rest my eyes, and then it would
also be soon time to work in the garden."

The doctor lifted the lid of Tilly's right eye, then the lid of
the left. Tilly could not suppress a groan, at sound of which Betsey
trembled from head to foot. The doctor rose heavily.

"Have you any black muslin, Betsey?"

Betsey took a roll from the cupboard drawer.

Standing by the table, the doctor folded a thick bandage and
laid white gauze upon it; then he turned to Tilly, a bottle and a
medicine dropper in his hand.

"Watch me, Betsey. See? Like this, four drops in each eye, night
and morning."

"Oh! Oh!" moaned Tilly.

"Keep your eyes tight shut. Now I'm going to bandage them

185

with a black bandage. If for any reason you have to remove it
you're to do it in a dark room."

"Must my. eyes be tied shut?" gasped Tilly.

"They must, indeed." The doctor stood at the table spreading
salve on the white gauze. "Put fresh gauze on, Betsey, and fresh
salve, night and morning."

"For how long?" faltered Tilly.

"A week from to-day I'll be back to look at them."

"A week!" cried Betsey. "Must she keep them covered for a
week?"

Smitten dumb, Tilly said nothing; she merely lifted the doctor's
book and opened it as if to read and thus prove that this was a
bad dream.

"A week at least," said the doctor. "Then we'll see how they
are. Too much quilting, Tilly. How old are you?"

"Only sixty-five," answered Tilly. "And I Have good spectacles.
I bought them from such a peddler twenty years ago."

"I'll bet you did," mocked the doctor.

He came across the room, holding the bandage as a child might
hold a cat's cradle, and tied it tight round Tilly's eyes.

"Not a whole week!" wailed Tilly.

"A whole week," said the doctor, pulling on his gloves. "Betsey
can surely amuse you for a week."

It was nine o'clock in the morning and the Shindledecker kitchen
was in order for the day. The cow had been milked hours ago,
the dog and cat had been fed, the human beings had eaten their
breakfasts, the dishes had been washed, and a dozen doughnuts,
four pans of rusks, three pies and one cake had been baked. At
the window sat Betsey, a mass of blue star-dotted material on her
lap. The starry quilt was out of the frame, and she was putting in
the hem. Outside, the rain poured upon the sodden earth. From
within the landscape looked inexpressibly dreary, but when the
door was opened, there came in the smell of spring.

Tilly did not sit at the window, nor was there sewing in her
lap; she sat in the corner of the settle ard her hands were empty.
The black bandage remained across her eyes.

"First it was a week," she said despairingly. "Then another
week and another week, and now yet another week."

"I have a feeling that next time it will be different." Betsey spoke
in the strained voice of one determined to be cheerful.

186

"I have no such feeling," answered Tilly. "I feel that he will
come and come and come and that I will sit and sit and sit. If
it was only something in the world to do!"

"I'll read to you," offered Betsey.

"I know the Bible from beginning to end," declared Tilly. "I've
read it every day since I was little. I don't believe it is meant that
we shall get stale on it. And the hymn book, that I not only know
but I can say it and sing it from the beginning to the doxology,
both German and English. And the Martyr Book — that I know
too. I know all about how they were persecuted and driven out
and sent to prison and beheaded. I know how one of the brethren
was burned with an iron. You can't catch me on the Martyr Book.
And the almanac — that I know also."

"We could sing," suggested Betsey. Her voice had a heart-
broken quality. Her heart was breaking.

"Sing!" mocked Tilly. "Sing! When I'm blind!"

The clock ticked on and on, the rain fell steadily, silently upon
the earth, audibly upon the roof of the porch, noisily through the
tin spouting. Another sort of rain fell quietly from Betsey's eyes
upon the starry quilt. Tilly did not cry; the consequent physical
agony was too keen.

"If I could only do something for you!" mourned Betsey in her
heart.

"You can do something for me if you will," said Tilly, as though
she could see into Betsey's heart.

"What can I do for you?" asked Betsey eagerly.

"There's a book in this house," said Tilly. "The doctor left it
the first time. I guess he forgot it. When he said I must have my
eyes tied shut I looked quickly at it. I could not read the reading,
but I saw the picture. It was a picture of an old woman kneeling,
and a sword was pointing at her and a man was standing with
a whip over her. Her back was bare and her breast was bare. I
must know what happened to that old woman. Will you not" —
Tilly's wheedling voice besought, pleaded; she knew but too well
how much she asked — "will you not read me that book, Betsey?"

"Where is the book?" asked Betsey, to gain time.

"Hidden in the upstairs," confessed Tilly. "I hid it. I was afraid
he would ask for it. I hid it first in the churn, then I carried
it in the upstairs."

"He did ask for it," said Betsey. "He said did I see such a book
laying round. I told him no."

"I heard you," acknowledged Tilly. "It was before I took it to

187

the upstairs. I was then sitting on it. Will you read me that book,
Betsey?"

"I cannot,'\wept Betsey. "Anything else I'll do for you. But that
is the world's book."

"You'll not find out what became of that poor old woman with
the sword pointing at her and the whip coming down on her?"
Tilly's voice was hard.

"No," wailed Betsey. "I can't. It's to resist temptations such
as this that we're given strength. We have done our duty all our
lives; let us not now break our rules when we're old."

The rain fell soddenly, the tears of Betsey fell steadily. Tilly sat
motionless and blind on the settle.

"The cat is getting all the time fatter," said Betsey, achieving
a brief composure.

There was no reply.

"But the dog gets a little thinner now that he goes so often
out rabbit chasing."

There was no answer.

"Sister," said Betsey, "won't you talk to me?"

"I have nothing to talk about," said Tilly. "Dogs, cats, rabbits,
baking, rain — how sick I am of all these subjects. I would like
something new to talk about. I'd like to know what became of
that poor old woman with the sword pointing at her and the
whip held over her. I'd like to talk about her."
, "It's a book of the world's people," said Betsey. She buried her
face in the starry quilt. "I can't! I can't!"

The sun rose at six o'clock and its earliest beam, shining in
the face of Betsey, woke her from sleep and to the consciousness
of a leaden heart. It was Sunday, and all her life until a few
weeks ago she had wakened cheerfully on Sunday. She enjoyed
the rest from labor, she loved to go to meeting, she loved all the
day's peace and opportunity for meditation. The meeting-house
stood across the road, and there had never been a rain so heavy
or a snow so deep that attendance was impossible. A few times
there had been no one else there but Wiljiam Hershey, and once
even William had not been able to get through the drifts on the
mountain road, but the sisters never missed.

Betsey waked now with no sense of peace or assurance. She
repressed a groan as, turning, she looked at the bandaged head
on the pillow beside her. Six weeks had passed since the doctor's

first visit, but Tilly's eyes were still useless. She slept quietly and
her mouth below the black cloth was not unhappy. The blind are
said to resign themselves more quickly than the deaf; perhaps
Tilly had resigned herself. Or, her fate still hanging in the balance,
she may have felt hope.

Betsey had not only her acute and tender anxiety about her
sister to trouble her; she had a sin to remember and a cruel
penance to look forward to. She had committed an offense and
this morning she meant to confess it in meeting.

"I can be a sinner," said she, weeping. "But a hypocrite I can-
not be. I can't look them any more in the eye over there."

Slipping carefully from bed, she went about her work. Tilly
slept late, and it was well that she did; her cruel hours of con-
scious darkness were that much shorter. Betsey opened the kitchen
shutters and let in the horizontal sunshine; then she shook down
the fire, and slipping into her working-jacket, took her milk pail
on her arm. The morning was not cold: the day which had
dawned was to be like a day of May dropped accidentally into
March. Tulips and hyacinths were pushing up through the soil
of the garden, buds were swelling, the woodland back of the
house had begun to have a look of misty purple as the twigs and
little branches changed color. Spring had always meant a fore-
taste of Heaven to Betsey. How strange it was to have an aching
heart!

Tilly slept on and on. Betsey prepared the breakfast, and still
she had not come. She stole upstairs and looked at her, aad
realized after a moment of panic that she was asleep and not
dead.

Pushing the breakfast to the back of the stove, she sat down
with her Bible. But she could not read. The Book lay strangely
in her hand, the words looked unnatural, there was no sense of
comfort from touch or sight.

At nine o'clock, when Tilly had not waked, Betsey stole to the
room once more and got her Sunday dress, and returning to the
kitchen, put it on. The devil tempted her to make an excuse of
Tilly's blindness to stay at home, but she resisted him. He seemed
to whisper in her ear; she saw his smile, his horns, his cloven
hoofs.

"Don't go this morning," he advised. "Go next Sunday. This
morning the meeting will be large. William Hershey will be there
with all his family; you don't wish those little children to hear
you make confession. Elder Nunnemacher will be there, and you

189

have always stood well before him. Perhaps next Sunday he will
have to go elsewhere. The StaurTer sisters will be there — think
how astonished they will be! And the Erlenbaughs and the
Lindakugels and the Herrs and the Schaffers— all will be amazed.
Wait, Betsey, wait!"

"No," said Betsey aloud to the empty room. "I'll not wait. I'll
leave my poor sister to find her way down, but I'll not wait."

Walking to the foot of the stairs, she called up to Tilly.

"It's time for me to go to meeting, sister. Can you eat your
breakfast alone, do you think? It's everything ready."

|Tes," answered Tilly. "Or perhaps I'll lay till you come back."

"Yes, well," said Betsey. "You can call the dog to you."

Betsey shuddered — she had told a lie; it was not quite time to
go; only William Hershey had driven up to the meeting-house,
and he came early to make the fire. But she dared not wait.

On the porch she lingered and breathed in the sweet air. If
she could only breathe enough, perhaps she could ease her heart.
But contemplation of Nature could not heal sin; that was certain
as the sin itself. She went slowly down the path to the gate,
and across the road and into the meeting-house. William Her-
shey was putting coal into the stove; Mary Hershey sat with
her baby in her arms; little Amos and little David walked sedately
about.

"Good-morning," said William. "How are you, Betsey, and
how's poor Tilly? We're coming soon to see you."

"She's not good," answered Betsey, selecting a seat.

She did not smile at the phildren or answer William's announce-
ment of his visit; she merely turned her face to the wall and sat
motionless. Her black bonnet hid her eyes, her stout shoulders were
bent, her woe was so apparent that the members entering happily
from the morning sunshine were cast down. Was poor Tilly,
indeed, doomed to blindness?

Elder Nunnemacher did not appear and William Hershey
preached a short sermon. He selected his subject for the benefit
of Betsey, pointing to the joys of Heaven as a reward for the
sufferings of earth, not dreaming that Betsey believed herself shut
out of Heaven. Her heart sank lower and lower, her lips trembled,
she could scarcely restrain herself from crying out. She knew that
everybody was looking at her and feeling sorry for her, and the
devil tempted her again through self-pity.

"You have nobody in the world but Tilly. You're not rich. You
have no husband and no children. Life has cheated you. Take

190

what pleasure you can. Show some spirit. Don't make a fool of
yourself."

"I will make confession," said Betsey in her soul.

"Wait till after the hymn, anyhow," advised the devil.

"No," said Betsey. As William finished she rose slowly. "I have
something to say," she announced in a muffled tone.

In the silence which followed Betsey looked at the floor. The
Shindledeckers never spoke in meeting; they never spoke to any
one who did not first speak to them; they almost never went from
home and they never willingly admitted strangers to their house.
There was, their friends believed, no one in the world so shy.
And here was Betsey on her feet. All sorts of wild notions flew
through their astonished minds. Was Tilly dead and had Betsey
lost her reason?

"I must confess my sins," declared Betsey in a stronger tone.
"1 have done wrong. I have done what is forbidden among us.
I have read a worldly book. It's a large book with pictures, called
'The Courier of the Czar.'" "The Courier of the Czar" was only
a secondary title; upon the real name, "Michael Strogoff," Betsey
did not dare to venture; as it was, she pronounced "Czar" in
two syllables, the first K. "It was called 'The Courier of the
K-zar.' "

She was heard not with disapproval but with stupefaction; her
audience did not understand what she meant. They knew the
Bible and the hymnal, and some of them knew the Martyr Book;
but they knew no other literature. They did not know the word
"courier" nor the word "K-zar."

Betsey saw their stupefaction.

"A courier is a messenger," she explained. "He's one that carries
messages and goes on errands. A K-zar is a king."

Still all the Hersheys and Erlenbaughs and Stauffers looked at
her blankly.

"It's a story," she went on. "We have stories in the Bible and
stories in the Martyr Book. But we know all the stories in the
Bible and the Martyr Book by heart. This is a new story. This
man is to carry a message for the K-zar to his brother, who's
in a city with enemies all round it. He must go three thousand
miles through enemies and forests and across great rivers. The
Susquehanna is nothing to those rivers. A wicked man, Ivan,
catches him; and in order to make him tell who he is he takes
his mother and puts a sword in front of her and is going to whip
her, and when she shrinks from the whip the sword will pierce

191

her. That's what Ivan does. It's like you read in the Martyr Book
when they burned the people and drowned them. Then when
this courier defended his poor mother this Ivan burned his eyes
with a hot sword and made him blind." Betsey's tongue failed her
on this word; she repeated it, and her effort produced a prolonged
and tragic sound — "b-1-i-n-d!"

"But he went on and on, and a young girl helped him. They
find a good young man who is their friend, and this Ivan has
had him buried in the sand up to his neck and big birds get after
him and he dies. They come at last to the place where he is to
give his message to the brother of the K-zar and they are floating
on an iceberg down the river, and there are springs of something
like coal oil near the river, and it's on fire, and they're floating
on the ice in the midst of the fire."

Stupefaction continued, but it was now not the stupefaction of
amazement but of enchantment. Betsey told her story well, and
every eye was fixed upon her; every pair of lungs was either full
of air or empty of air; inhalation and exhalation had ceased.
Betsey, alas, ceased also.

"That's as far as I have gone," she said, exhausted. "But I'm
going to finish this book. I'm going to finish it this afternoon, on
the Sabbath, whether or no."

Now eye met eye, color came back into pale cheeks. The pre-
vailing expression was one of excitement touched with horror.
Betsey remained standing; she seemed about to leave; as though,
willing to bear the consequences of her crime, she would ex-
communicate herself and depart. Onty William Hershey was able
to reason. He rose slowly, his gentle bearded face turned toward
Betsey. Were there tears in William Hershey 's eyes?

"Betsey," he asked slowly, "do you do this for your poor sister?"

Betsey seized the back of the bench before her. She looked
smitten, as he looks the secret of whose heart is discovered.

"Don't blame Tilly," she said. "The doctor says she must be
yet for a long time in the dark. She knows the Bible and the
Martyr Book and the hymns, and now her mind has to work all
the time on itself."

"You're reading this to her?"

"I'm reading it aloud," said Betsey stubbornly. "If she lister «
I can't help it."

"Sit down," bade William gently and commandingly. "It's here
something that this sister must decide. She must do what she
thinks is right. Let us sing Number Thirty-Seven."

192

But Betsey was not through.

"I like this reading," she confessed wildly. "I don't feel wicked
in my sin. It makes me feel good; it sorts of clears out my soul.
I would rather read than quilt. And we have fifty-eight quilts.
Many times Tilly and I wept over the poor martyrs; why should
we not weep over these poor others? Our forefathers fought with
wolves where this meeting-house now stands. The Hersheys were
in it, I'll bet, and the Stauflfers and the Erlenbaughs — all had to
fight with wolves and Indians. I forgot to say that when this poor
courier of the K-zar and the young girl were floating down the
fiery river the wolves got after them. They — "

William Hershey was alarmed; he despaired of Betsey's reason.
He started Hymn Number Thirty-Seven.

The stewed chicken and the mashed potatoes and dried corn
and slaw and cherry pie which composed the Shindledecker dinner
were consumed and all evidences of the meal removed. The cat
lay on his chair; he slept, then woke and looked about, then slept
again. Betsey went to the porch to hang up the dish towels and
the dog came back with her. He had an expectant air, and when
he lay down he did not rest his head on his paws, but kept it
high. Below her black bandage Tilly's mouth looked happy. Betsey
was pale, but she too looked happy. Tilly's head turned, following
her sister as though she could see. She looked impatient.

Betsey opened the door of the kitchen cupboard and got out a
book. The doctor knew now where his book was, and he had
promised Tilly to bring her others by the same author. One was
called "From the Earth to the Moon," another "Twenty Thousand
Leagues Under the Sea." But Tilly knew there was no book like
this in the world and she meant to ask Betsey to read it again, and
perhaps again. Her necessity knew no consideration for others;
she would take all the blame for Betsey's sin, if there were blame;
but Betsey must read.

"I'm ready," she said. The smile on her face was beatific.

Betsey opened the book. Ignoring one of the unities, the author
had brought the villainous Ivan into the foreground of the narra-
tive. Himself disguised as the courier of the Czar, he had entered
the besieged city and was about to betray it. Upon him, in a room
of the grand duke's palace, having escaped the burning river,
came the real courier led by his faithful maiden. In terror, Betsey
laid the book upon her knee.

193

"Now everything is at an end," she warned her sister. "Re-
member, he cannot see, and here is this wicked Ivan, who can
see. What can he do?" Her face was pale. "You must be prepared,

sister."

Tilly clasped her hands.

"Go on," she commanded. "I'm ready."

Betsey's eyes traveled down the page.

"Oh, sister!" she cried sharply.

"What is it?" asked Tilly.

"Oh, listen!"

"Go on!" urged Tilly.

" 'Ivan uttered a cry,' " read Betsey. " 'A sudden light flashed
across his brain. "He sees!" he exclaimed. "He sees!" and like a
wild beast trying to retreat into its den, step by step, he drew back
to the edge of the room.' "

"He's not blind, then?" gasped Tilly. "But it 'said he was blind!"

Betsey read on.

"'Stabbed to the heart, the wretched Ivan fell.'"

"But how—"

Betsey lifted her hand for silence. Here were medical words
she could not pronounce, but she could give the blessed sense of
what she saw.

"Listen once! When they held the hot sword before his eyes,
Tilly, he was crying to think of his poor mother and his tears
saved his eyesight."

"Oh, I am thankful to God," cried Tilly. "Oh, read that part
again, dear sister."

Betsey looked out the window; she needed, suddenly, a wider
view than she could get across the kitchen, broad as it was. She
looked out the window to the east, then out the window to the
west. She rose and walked first to the one, then to the other.

"Oh, do read it again!'1 besought Tilly. "Just once, sister. I'll
ask for no more. Oh, please!"

Betsey gazed out as though at some strange phenomenon. There
was a truly strange phenomenon to be seen.

"Oh, I would like to hear it again," begged Tilly. When Betsey
did not answer she was terrified. "Why don't you speak to me,
Betsey?"

Another person spoke for Betsey. The door opened and the
two Stauffer sisters came in. They were about the same age as the
Shindledeckers; and like them, one was tall and stout and the

194

other tall and thin. From under their black bonnets they looked
out, at once eager and guilty and excited.

"We came — " began one, and looked at her sister.

"We came to see how that fine man got through," finished the
sister. "We came to see if he is yet alive. It's surely no sin!"

Betsey stood looking at them and then out the window. Utterly
bewildered, Tilly sat turning her bandaged face first in one direc-
tion then in the other.

"Spare your wraps," invited Betsey pleasantly. She looked across
the fields to the south and saw Eleazar Herr approaching with
his long stride, and down the road to the east and saw six Erlen-
baughs walking in procession, and up the road to the west and
saw William Hershey's heavily laden buggy. If she was not mis-
taken, Mary was in it, and the baby and the little boys.

Her heart swelled; William's approach removed her last linger-
ing sense of wrong-doing. It had been delightful to have Tilly
hang upon her words; it had been thrilling to hold the Improved
New Mennonite congregation spellbound; now she would have
both pleasures in one. She would make these people sad and then
how happy! The muscles of her arms tingled as though preparing
for dramatic gestures.

"Wait once a little," she said, addressing Tilly. "Then I will
begin again in the beginning."

Bred in the Bone, 1925

195

How I Found America

ANZIA YEZIERSKA

Every breath I drew was a breath of fear, every shadow a stifling
shock, every footfall struck on my heart like the heavy boot of
the Cossack. On a low stool in the middle of the only room in
our mud hut sat my father, his red beard falling over the Book
of Isaiah, open before him. On the tile stove, on the benches
that were our beds, even on the earthen floor, sat the neighbors'
children, learning from him the ancient poetry of the Hebrew
race. As he chanted, the children repeated:

The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness,

Prepare ye the way of the Lord.

Make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

Every valley shall be exalted,

And every mountain and hill shall be made low,

And the crooked shall be made straight,

And the rough places plain,

And the glory of God shall be revealed,

And all flesh shall see it together.

Undisturbed by the swaying and chanting of teacher and pupils,
Did Kakah, our speckled hen, with her brood of chicks, strutted
ind pecked at the potato-peelings that fell from my mother's lap
as she prepared our noon meal.

I stood at the window watching the road, lest the Cossack come
upon us unawares to enforce the ukase of the czar, which would
:ear the last bread from our mouths: "No chadir (Hebrew school)
jhall be held in a room used for cooking and sleeping."

With one eye I watched ravenously my mother cutting chunks
:>f black bread. At last the potatoes were ready. She poured them
:>ut of an iron pot into a wooden bowl and placed them in the
renter of the table.

Instantly the swaying and chanting ceased. The children rushed
forward. The fear of the Cossack was swept away from my heart
3y the fear that the children would get my potato, and deserting
ny post, with a shout of joy I seized my portion and bit a huge
nouthful of mealy delight.

At that moment the door was driven open by the blow of an
ron heel. The Cossack's whip swished through the air. Screaming,

196

we scattered. The children ran out — our livelihood with them.

"Oi wehl" wailed my mother, clutching at her breast, "is there
a God over us and sees all this?"

With grief-glazed eyes my father muttered a broken prayer as
the Cossack thundered the ukase: "A thousand-ruble fine, or a
year in prison, if you are ever found again teaching children where
you're eating and sleeping."

"Gottuniu!" then pleaded my mother, "would you tear the last
skin from our bones? Where else should we be eating and sleep-
ing ? Or should we keep chadir in the middle of the road ? Have we
houses with separate rooms like the czar?"

Ignoring my mother's protests, the Cossack strode out of the
hut. My father sank into a chair, his head bowed in the silent
grief of the helpless.

My mother wrung her hands.

"God from the world, is there no end to our troubles? When
will the earth cover me and my woes?"

I watched the Cossack disappear down the road. All at once I
saw the whole village running toward us. I dragged my mother to
the window to see the approaching crowd.

"Gevalt! What more is falling over our heads?" she cried in
alarm.

Masheh Mindel, the water-carrier's wife, headed a wild proces-
sion. The baker, the butcher, the shoemaker, the tailor, the goat-
herd, the workers in the fields, with their wives and children
pressed toward us through a cloud of dust.

Masheh Mindel, almost fainting, fell in front of the doorway.

"A letter from America!" she gasped.

"A letter from America!" echoed the crowd as they snatched
the letter from her and thrust it into my father's hands.

"Read, read!" they shouted tumultuously.

My father looked through the letter, his lips uttering no sound.
In breathless suspense the crowd gazed at him. Their eyes shone
with wonder and reverence for the only man in the village who
could read. Masheh Mindel crouched at his feet, her neck stretched
toward him to catch each precious word of the letter.

To my worthy wife, Masheh Mindel, and to my loving son,
Sushkah Feivel, and to my darling daughter, the apple of my
eye, the pride of my life, Tzipkeleh!

Long years and good luck on you! May the blessings from
heaven fall over your beloved heads and save you from all harm!

197

First I come to tell you that I am well and in good health. May
I hear the same from you!

Secondly, I am telling you that my sun is beginning to shine
in America. I am becoming a person — a business man. I have
for myself a stand in the most crowded part of America, where
people are as thick as flies and every day is like market-day at a fair.
My business is from bananas and apples. The day begins with my
push-cart full of fruit, and the day never ends before I can count
up at least two dollars' profit. That means four rubles. Stand before
your eyes, I, Gedalyah Mindel, four rubles a day; twenty-four
rubles a week!

"Gedalyah Mindel, the water-carrier, twenty-four rubles a week!"
The words leaped like fire in the air.

We gazed at his wife, Masheh Mindel, a dried-out bone of a
woman.

"Masheh Mindel, with a husband in America, Masheh Mindel,
the wife of a man earning twenty-four rubles a week! The sky
is falling to the earth!"

We looked at her with new reverence. Already she was a being
from another world. The dead, sunken eyes became alive with
light. The worry for bread that had tightened the skin of her
cheekbones was gone. The sudden surge of happiness filled out
her features, flushing her face as with wine. The two starved chil-
dren clinging to her skirts, dazed with excitement, only dimly
realized their good fortune in the envious glances of the others.
But the letter went on :

Thirdly, I come to tell you, white bread and meat I eat every
day, just like the millionaires. Fourthly, I have to tell you that
I am no more Gedalyah Mindel. Mister Minotel they call me in
America. Fifthly, Masheh Mindel and my dear children, in Amer-
ica there are no mud huts where cows and chickens and people
live all together. I have for myself a separate room, with a closed
door, and before any one can come to me, he must knock, and
I can say, "Come in," or "Stay out," like a king in a palace. Lastly,
my darling family and people of the village of Sukovoly, there is
no czar in America.

My father paused. The hush was stifling. "No czar — no czar
in America!" Even the little babies repeated the chant, "No czar
in America!"

In America they ask everybody who should be the President.
And I, Gedalyah Mindel, when I take out my citizen's papers,
will have as much to say who shall be our next President as Mr.
Rockefeller, the greatest millionaire. Fifty rubles I am sending you
for your ship-ticket to America. And may all Jews who suffer in
Golluth from ukases and pogroms live yet to lift up their heads
like me, Gedalyah Mindel, in America.

Fifty rubles! A ship-ticket to America! That so much good luck
should fall on one head! A savage envy bit us. Gloomy darts *from
narrowed eyes stabbed Masheh Mindel. Why should not we, too,
have a chance to get away from this dark land! has not every heart
the same hunger for America, the same longing to live and laugh
and breathe like a free human being? America is for all. Why
should only Masheh Mindel and her children have a chance to
the New World?

Murmuring and gesticulating, the crowd dispersed. Every one
knew every one else's thought — how to get to America. What
could they pawn? From where could they borrow for a ship-ticket?

Silently, we followed my father back into the hut from which
the Cossack had driven us a while before. We children looked
from mother to father and from father to mother.

"Gottunieu! the czar himself is pushing us to America by this
last ukase." My mother's face lighted up the hut like a lamp.

"Meshugeneh Yideneh!" admonished my father. "Always your
head in the air. What — where — America? With what money?
Can dead people lift themselves up to dance?"

"Dance?" The samovar and the brass pots reechoed my mother's
laughter. "I could dance myself over the waves of the ocean to
America."

In amazed delight at my mother's joy, we children rippled and
chuckled with her. My father paced the room, his face dark with
dread for the morrow.

"Empty hands, empty pockets; yet it dreams itself in you —
America," he said.

"Who is poor who has hopes on America?" flaunted my mother.

"Sell my red-quilted petticoat that grandmother left for my
dowry," I urged in excitement.

"Sell the feather-beds, sell the samovar," chorused the children.

"Sure, we can sell everything — the goat and all the winter
things," added my mother. "It must be always summer in Amer-

ica."

I99

I flung my arms around my brother, and he seized Bessie by
the curls, and we danced around the room, crazy with joy.

"Beggars!", said my laughing mother. "Why are you so happy
with yourselves? How will you go to America without a shirt
on your back, without shoes on your feet?"

But we ran out into the road, shouting and singing:

"We'll sell everything we got; we're going to America. White
bread and meat we'll eat every day in America, in America!"

That very evening we brought Berel Zalman, the usurer, and
showed him all our treasures, piled up in the middle of the hut.

"Look! All these fine feather-beds, Berel Zalman!" urged my
mother. "This grand fur coat came from Nijny itself. My grand-
father bought it at the fair."

I held up my red-quilted petticoat, the supreme sacrifice of my
ten-year-old life. Even my father shyly pushed forward the sam-
ovar.

"It can hold enough tea for the whole village," he declared.

"Only a hundred rubles for them all!" pleaded my mother,
"only enough to lift us to America! Only one hundred little
rubles!"

"A hundred rubles! Pfui!" sniffed the pawnbroker. "Forty is
overpaid. Not even thirty is it worth."

But, coaxing and cajoling, my mother got a hundred rubles
out of him.

, Steerage, dirty bundles, foul odors, seasick humanity; but I saw
and heard nothing of the foulness and ugliness about me. I floated
in showers of sunshine; visions upon visions of the New World
opened before me. From lip to lip flowed the golden legend of
the golden country:

"In America you can say what you feel, you can voice your
thoughts in the open streets without fear of a Cossack."

"In America is a home -for everybody. The land is your land,
not, as in Russia, where you feel yourself a stranger in the village
where you were born and reared, the village in which your father
and grandfather lie buried."

"Everybody is with everybody alike in America. Christians and
Jews are brothers together."

"An end to the worry for bread, an end to the fear of the bosses
over you. Everybody can do what he wants with his life in
America."

"There are no high or low in America. Even the President holds
hands with Gedalyah Mindel."

20O

"Plenty for all. Learning flows free, like milk and honey."

"Learning flows free." The words painted pictures in my mind.
I saw before me free schools, free colleges, free libraries, where I
could learn and learn and keep on learning. In our village was
a school, but only for Christian children. In the schools of America
I'd lift up my head and laugh and dance, a child with other
children. Like a bird in the air, from sky to sky, from star to star,
I'd soar and soar.

"Land! land!" came the joyous shout. All crowded and pushed
on deck. They strained and stretched to get the first glimpse of
the "golden country," lifting their children on their shoulders
that they might see beyond them. Men fell on their knees to pray.
Women hugged their babies and wept. Children danced. Strangers
embraced and kissed like old friends. Old men and old women
had in their eyes a look of young people in love. Age-old visions
sang themselves in me, songs of freedom of an oppressed people.
America! America!

Between buildings that loomed like mountains we struggled
with our bundles, spreading around us the smell of the steerage.
Up Broadway, under the bridge, and through the swarming streets
of the Ghetto, we followed Gedalyah Mindel.

I looked about the narrow streets of squeezed-in stores and
houses, ragged clothes, dirty bedding oozing out of the windows,
ash-cans and garbage-cans cluttering the sidewalks. A vague sad-
ness pressed down my heart, the first doubt of America.

"Where are the green fields and open spaces in America?" cried
my heart. "Where is the golden country of my dreams?" A lone-
liness for the fragrant silence of the woods that lay beyond our
mud hut welled up in my heart, a longing for the soft, responsive
earth of our village streets. All about me was the hardness of
brick and stone, the smells of crowded poverty.

"Here's your house, with separate rooms like a palace," said
Gedalyah Mindel, and flung open the door of a dingy, airless flat.

"Oi wehl" cried my mother in dismay. "Where's the sunshine
in America?" She went to the window and looked out at the blank
wall of the next house. "Gottunieul Like in a grave so dark!"

"It ain't so dark; it's only a little shady," said Gedalyah Mindel,
and lighted the gas. "Look only!" — he pointed with pride to the
dim gaslight — "No candles, no kerosene lamps, in America. You
turn on a screw, and put to it a match, and you got it light like
with sunshine."

Again the shadow fell over me, again the doubt of America.

201

In America were rooms without sunlight; rooms to sleep in, to
eat in, to cook in, but without sunshine, and Gedalyah Mindel
was happy. Could I be satisfied with just a place to sleep in
and eat in, and a door to shut people out, to take the place of
sunlight? Or would I always need the sunlight to be happy?
And where was there a place in America for me to play?
I looked out into the alley below, and saw pale-faced chil-
dren scrambling in the gutter. "Where is America?" cried my
heart.

My eyes were shutting themselves with sleep. Blindly I felt
for the buttons on my dress; and buttoning, I sank back in sleep
again — the deadweight sleep of utter exhaustion.

"Heart of mine," my mother's voice moaned above me, "father
is already gone an hour. You know how they'll squeeze from you
a nickel for every minute you're late. Quick only!"

I seized my bread and herring and tumbled down the stairs
and out into the street. I ate running, blindly pressing through
the hurrying throngs of workers, my haste and fear choking every
mouthful. I felt a strangling in my throat as I neared the sweat-
shop prison; all my nerves screwed together into iron hardness
to endure the day's torture.

For an instant I hesitated as I faced the grated windows of the
old building. Dirt and decay cried out from every crumbling
brick. In the maw of the shop raged around me the roar and the
clatter, the merciless grind, of the pounding machines. Half-
maddened, half-deadened, I struggled to think, to feel, to remem-
ber. What am I? Who am I? Why am I here? I struggled in vain,
bewildered and lost in a whirlpool of noise. "America — America,
where was America?" it cried in my heart.

Then came the factory whistle, the slowing down of the ma-
chines, the shout of release -hailing the noon hour. I woke as from
a tense nightmare, a weary waking to pain. In the dark chaos of
my brain reason began to dawn. In my stifled heart feelings began
to pulse. The wound of my wasted life began to throb and ache.
With my childhood choked with drudgery, must my youth, too,
die unlived?

Here were the odor of herring and garlic, the ravenous munch-
ing of food, laughter and loud, vulgar jokes. Was it only I who
was so wretched? I looked at those around me. Were they happy
or only insensible to their slavery? How could they laugh and
joke? Why were they not torn with rebellion against this galling

2O2

grind, the crushing, deadening movements of the body, where
only hands live, and hearts and brains must die?

I felt a touch on my shoulder and looked up. It was Yetta
Solomon, from the machine next to mine.

"Here's your tea."

I stared at her half-hearing.

"Ain't you going to eat nothing?"

"Oi weh, Yetta! I can't stand it!" The cry broke from me. "I
didn't come to America to turn into a machine. I came to America
to make from myself a person. Does America want only my hands,
only the strength of my body, not my heart, not my feelings, my
thoughts?"

"Our heads ain't smart enough," said Yetta, practically. "We
ain't been to school, like the American-born."

"What for did I come to America but to go to school, to learn,
to think, to make something beautiful from my life?"

" 'Sh! 'Sh! The boss! the boss!" came the warning whisper.

A sudden hush fell over the shop as the boss entered. He raised
his hand. There was breathless silence. The hard, red face with
the pig's eyes held us under its sickening spell. Again I saw the
Cossack and heard him thunder the ukase. Prepared for disaster,
the girls paled as they cast at one another sidelong, frightened
glances.

"Hands," he addressed us, fingering the gold watch-chain that
spread across his fat stomach, "it's slack in the other trades, and
I can get plenty girls begging themselves to work for half what
you're getting; only I ain't a skinner. I always give my hands a
show to earn their bread. From now on I'll give you fifty cents
a dozen shirts instead of seventy-five, but I'll give you night-work,
so you needn't lose nothing." And he was gone.

The stillness of death filled the shop. Everyone felt the heart
of the other bleed with her own helplessness. A sudden sound
broke the silence. A woman sobbed chokingly. It was Balah Rifkin,
a widow with three children.

"Oi weh!" — she tore at her scrawny neck, — "the bloodsucker!
the thief! How will I give them to eat, my babies, my hungry
little lambs!"

"Why do we let him choke us?"

"Twenty-five cents less on a dozen — how will we be able to
live?"

"He tears the last skin from our bones."

"Why didn't nobody speak up to him?"

203

Something in me forced me forward. I forgot for the moment
how my whole family depended on my job. I forgot that my father
was out of work and we had received a notice to move for unpaid
rent. The helplessness of the girls around me drove me to strength.

"I'll go to the boss," I cried, my nerves quivering with fierce
excitement. "I'll tell him Balah Rifkin has three hungry mouths
to feed."

Pale, hungry faces thrust themselves toward me, thin, knotted
hands reached out, starved bodies pressed close about me.

"Long years on you!" cried Balah Rifkin, drying her eyes with
a corner of her shawl.

"Tell him about my old father and me, his only bread-giver,"
came from Bessie Sopolsky, a gaunt-faced girl with a hacking
cough.

"And I got no father or mother, and four of_them younger than
me hanging on my neck." Jennie Feist's beautiful young face
was already scarred with the gray worries of age.

America, as the oppressed of all lands have dreamed America
to be, and America as it is, flashed before me, a banner of fire.
Behind me I felt masses pressing, thousands of immigrants; thou-
sands upon thousands crushed by injustice, lifted me as on wings.

I entered the boss's office without a shadow of fear. I was not I;
the wrongs of my people burned through me till I felt the very
flesh of my body a living flame of rebellion. I faced the boss.

"We can't stand it," I cried. "Even as it is we're hungry. Fifty
cents a dozen would starve us. Can you, a Jew, tear the bread
from another Jew's mouth?"

"You fresh mouth, you! Who are you to learn me my business?"

"Weren't you yourself once a machine slave, your life in the
hands of your boss?"

"You loafer! Money for nothing you want! The minute they
begin to talk English they get flies in their nose. A black year
on you, trouble-maker! I'll have no smart heads in my shop! Such
freshness! Out you get! Out from my shop!"

Stunned and hopeless, the wings of my courage broken, I
groped my way back to them — back to eager, waiting faces, back
to the crushed hearts aching with mine.

As I opened the door, they read our defeat in my face.

"Girls," — I held out my hands, — "he's fired me." My voice died
in the silence. Not a girl stirred. Their heads only bent closer over
their machines.

"Here, you, get yourself out of here!" the boss thundered at

204

me. "Bessie Sopolsky and you, Balah Rifkin, take out her machine
into the hall. I want no big-mouthed Amcricanerins in my
shop."

Bessie Sopolsky and Balah Rifkin, their eyes black with tragedy,
carried out my machine. Not a hand was held out to me, not a
face met mine. I felt them shrink from me as I passed them on
my way out.

In the street I found I was crying. The new hope that had
flowed in me so strongly bled out of my veins. A moment before,
our unity had made me believe us so strong, and now I saw each
alone, crushed, broken. What were they all but crawling worms,
servile grubbers for bread?

And then in the very bitterness of my resentment the hardness
broke in me. I saw the girls through their own eyes, as if I were
inside of them. What else could they have done? Was not an
immediate crust of bread for Balah Rifkin's children more urgent
than truth, more vital than honor? Could it be that they ever
had dreamed of America as I had dreamed? Had their faith in
America wholly died in them? Could my faith be killed as theirs
had been?

Gasping from running, Yetta Solomon flung her arms around
me.

"You golden heart! I sneaked myself out from the shop only
to tell you I'll come to see you tonight. I'd give the blood from
under my nails for you, only I got to run back. I got to hold my
job. My mother — "

I hardly saw or heard her. My senses were stunned with my
defeat. I walked on in a blind daze, feeling that any moment I
would drop in the middle of the street from sheer exhaustion.
Every hope I had clung to, every human stay, every reality, was
torn from under me. Was it then only a dream, a mirage of the
hungry-hearted people in the desert lands of oppression, this age-
old faith in America?

Again I saw the mob of dusty villagers crowding about my
father as he read the letter from America, their eager faces thrust
out, their eyes blazing with the same hope, the same faith, that
had driven me on. Had the starved villagers of Sukovoly lifted
above their sorrows a mere rainbow vision that led them — where?
Where? To the stifling submission of the sweat-shop or the des-
peration of the streets!

"God! God!" My eyes sought the sky, praying, "where — where
is America?"

205

Times changed. The sweat-shop conditions that I had lived
through had become a relic of the past. Wages had doubled, tripled,
and went up^ higher and higher, and the working-day became
shorter and shorter. I began to earn enough to move my family
uptown into a sunny, airy flat with electricity and telephone serv-
ice. I even saved up enough to buy a phonograph and a piano.

My knotted nerves relaxed. At last I had become free from the
worry for bread and rent, but I was not happy. A more restless
discontent than ever before ate out my heart. Freedom from
stomach needs only intensified the needs of my soul.

I ached and clamored for America. Higher wages and shorter
hours of work, mere physical comfort, were not yet America. I
had dreamed that America was a place where the heart could
grow big with giving. Though outwardly I had become prosper-
ous, life still forced me into an existence of. mere getting and
getting.

Achl how I longed for a friend, a real American friend, some
one to whom I could express the thoughts and feelings that choked
me! In the Bronx, the uptown Ghetto, I felt myself farther away
from the spirit of America than ever before. In the East Side the
people had yet alive in their eyes the old, old dreams of America,
the America that would release the age-old hunger to give; but
in the prosperous Bronx good eating and good sleeping replaced
the spiritual need for giving. The chase for dollars and diamonds
deadened the dreams that had once brought them to America.

More and more the all-consuming need for a friend possessed
me. In the street, in the cars, in the subways, I was always seek-
ing, ceaselessly seeking for eyes, a face, the flash of a smile that
would be light in my darkness.

I felt sometimes that I was only burning out my heart for a
shadow, an echo, a wild dream, but I couldn't help it. Nothing
was real to me but my Hope of finding a friend. America was
not America to ;ne unless I could find an American that would
make America real.

The hunger of my heart drove me to the nightschool. Again
my dream flamed. Again America beckoned. In the school there
would be education, air, life for my cramped-in spirit. I would
learn to think, to form the thoughts that surged formless in me.
I would find the teacher that would make me articulate.

I joined the literature class. They were reading The De Coverley
Papers. Filled with insatiate thirst, I drank in every line with the
feeling that any moment I would get to the fountain-heart of

206

revelation. Night after night I read with tireless devotion. But
of what? The manners and customs of the eighteenth century>
of people two hundred years dead.

One evening, after a month's attendance, when the class had
dwindled from fifty to four, and the teacher began scolding us
who were present for those who were absent, my bitterness broke.

"Do you know why all the girls are dropping away from the
class? It's because they have too much sense than to waste them-
selves on The De Coverley Papers. Us four girls are four fools.
We could learn more in the streets. It's dirty and wrong, but it's
life. What are The De Coverley Papers? Dry dust fit for the
ash-can."

"Perhaps you had better tell the principal your ideas of the
standard classics," she scoffed, white with rage.

"All right," I snapped, and hurried down to the principal's
office.

I swung open the door.

"I just want to tell you why I'm leaving. I — "

"Won't you come in?" The principal rose and placed a chair
for me near her desk. "Now tell me all." She leaned forward with
an inviting interest.

I looked up, and met the steady gaze of eyes shining with light.
In a moment all my anger fled. The De Coverley Papers were for-
gotten. The warm friendliness of her face held me like a familiar
dream. I couldn't speak. It was as if the sky suddenly opened in
my heart.

"Do go on," she said, and gave me a quick nod. "I want to hear."

The repression of centuries rushed out of my heart. I told her
everything — of the mud hut in Sukovoly where I was born, of
the czar's pogroms, of the constant fear of the Cossack, of Gedalyah
Mindel's letter, of our hopes in coming to America, and my search
for an American who would make America real.

"I am so glad you came to me," she said. And after a pause,
"You can help me."

"Help you?" I cried. It was the first time that an American
suggested that I could help her.

"Yes, indeed. I have always wanted to know more of that mys-
terious, vibrant life — the immigrant. You can help me know my
girls. You have so much to give — "

"Give — that's what I was hungering and thirsting all these years
— to give out what's in me. I was dying in the unused riches of
my soul."

207

"I know; I know just what you mean," she said, putting her
hand on mine.

My whole being seemed to change in the warmth of her com-
prehension. "I have a friend," it sang itself in me. "I have a friend!"

"And you are a born American?" I asked. There was none of
that sure, all right look of the Americans about her.

"Yes, indeed. My mother, like so many mothers," — and her eye-
brows lifted humorously whimsical, — "claims we're descendants of
the Pilgrim Fathers, and that one of our lineal ancestors came
over in the Mayflower."

"For all your mother's pride in the Pilgrim Fathers, you your-
self are as plain from the heart as an immigrant."

"Weren't the Pilgrim Fathers immigrants two hundred years
ago?"

She took from her desk a book and read to me.

Then she opened her arms to me, and breathlessly I felt myself
drawn to her. Bonds seemed to burst. A suffusion of light filled
my being. Great choirings lifted me in space. I walked out un-
seeingly.

All the way home the words she read flamed before me: "We
go forth all to seek America. And in the seeking we create her.
In the quality of our search shall be the nature of the America
that we create."

So all those lonely years of seeking and praying were not in
vain. How glad I was that I had not stopped at the husk, a good
job, a good living! Through my inarticulate groping and reaching
out I had found the soul, the spirit of America.

Centurv Magazine, November, 1020

208

Mister Morgan, a Portrait

THE STAFF OF FORTUNE

John Pierpont Morgan Jr. was born in Irvington-on-Hudson,
New York, at twenty-six minutes past midnight of the sixth-
seventh September, 1867. Neither the weather nor the house was
appropriate. The weather was raw and gusty, overcast, with the
thermometer in the sixties and a heavy fog to the west along the
river — a fitting end to a wet, cold summer. The house was a
borrowed house, the property of John Pierpont Morgan Jr.'s paternal
aunt, Sarah, bride of a year to her remote relative, George H.
Morgan. Its name was Woodcliff. Its style was carpenters' Gothic.
Its aspect in its bank of humid trees above the Albany Post Road was
distinctly sad.

The event caused no commotion in the local press which, indeed,
ignored it. John Pierpont Morgan Jr. was the son of a large,
thickset, and unprepossessing native of Hartford, Connecticut, who
had put in two terms at the University of Gottingen and was
reputed to have made $53,286 in his twenty-seventh year. He was
also the grandson of one Junius S. Morgan, former drygoods
merchant in Boston and partner in London of the great banker and
philanthropist George Peabody. But neither Junius S. Morgan nor
J. Pierpont Morgan Sr. was as famous in 1867 as he was shortly to
become. The great banker of the day was the financier of the Civil
War, Jay Cooke. The great buccaneers were Fisks and Goulds and
Vanderbilts. And the press, lacking a prophetic eye, had something
better to record than the birth in a remote suburb among dank
trees of the son of a thirty-year-old boy. . . .

What the stars were interested in (and Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan
Sr. with them) was the future destiny of the child. And that destiny,
as Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan Senior was later to learn in his con-
sultations with Evangeline Adams, was superb — a chart such as
few astrologers have ever had the fortune to behold. Jack Morgan,
to be precise, was born with the sun in Virgo (a clear-thinking,
discriminatory mind, unbiased by emotion, interested in many
things), the moon in Sagittarius (a humane point of view, much
travel, a domestic and devoted life), Uranus in Cancer (an original

209

and farseeing mind modified by stomach trouble), Neptune (which
rules the stock market) in mid-heaven, Jupiter (meaning money)
in Pisces, and^a Cardinal Cross (the same Cross which appeared in
1930 and is astrologically associated with the Depression and with
strains and oppositions in general) among his planets — in brief, a
beautifully aspected ai\d most fortunate chart pointing to a long
and active and responsible life and a death sudden and easy.

This was a considerable burden of fate to carry back at the age
of a month or so from Irvington-on-Hudson to the brownstone
house at 227 Madison Avenue where J. Pierpont Morgan had set up
housekeeping two years before with Frances Tracy, his second
wife, the handsome, oval-faced daughter of a Utica-born lawyer.
But it nowhere appears that his planetary responsibilities unduly
oppressed the infant. He and his elder sister, Louisa, had other
things to think about than horoscopes. By 1870, year of Juliet's
birth, the family was boarding at the Mearris House near the
summer place of Mrs. Morgan's parents at Highland Falls, west of
the river. The Mearns House, famous for its food, was one of those
upper-class American boarding houses where for $18 to $20 per
week per person families ate together at large common tables,
with the children at the lower end and the waitresses panting at
the swinging doors. Mr. Morgan sat at the head of a table for
twelve and little Jack, a burly youngster with a look of his father
across the eyes, ate with the best of them and spent his days follow-
ing a little Cuban boy of maturer years into the branches of the
taller trees. But two years of boarding were enough. In 1872, a
year before Anne was born, the Morgans bought Cragston down
the Bear Mountain Road a bit with a fine view of the river and
several hundred acres for a boy to run. And there for the better
part of a decade, and save for the breaks of occasional European
trips, the family passed its summers. There were Satterlees and
Pells and Roes to play with. . . . There was Mr. Morgan himself
chugging across the river in a twenty-foot launch and beaching
it on the other side to catch his train or flagging a West Shore
express below the cliffs of Cragston. And there was Miss Rhett,
the governess, whose curriculum included many verses of the Bible.
But chiefly there were trees and fields and summer.

And a changing world. The changes to the children were merely
names and rumors but changes nevertheless. When they went to
board at the Mearns House their father was already "the man
who licked Jay Gould" and beefy gentlemen from Albany used
occasionally to push the rocking chairs on Mearns' front porch.

210

At the end of that first summer their London grandfather, Junius,
excellent judge of men and wines and credits, floated a 250,000,000-
franc loan for the defeated French — to put* himself, second only to
the Rothschilds, at the summits of international finance. In 1871
their father's firm, Dabney, Morgan & Co., dissolved and their
father's office moved to Tony Drexel's seven-story marble building
(with elevators) at the corner of Broad and Wall. The year after
the family moved into Cragston, Morgan and Drexel with their
English backing forced the great Jay Cooke and his German Jewish
allies to divide the refunding of the national debt. Six years later,
when Jack was twelve, his father sold 250,000 shares of frightened
Mr. W. H. Vanderbilt's New York Central in England at a profit
to Mr. Morgan of $3,000,000 plus a directorship. And within the
next three years Grandfather Junius retired in his son's favor, the
father of the four young Morgans joined the Union and the New
York Yacht clubs and bought from the Phelpses and the Dodges
the more impressive brownstone next door to Number 227 Madi-
son Avenue at Number 219, and the twenty-foot launch was re-
placed by a black-hulled, Cramp-built yacht which, with incorrigible
romanticism, its owner christened the Corsair.

It was a famous man's son and a rich man's grandson who, in
the fall of 1880, entered St. Paul's School at Concord, New Hamp-
shire, where parents and friends were requested not to furnish the
boys with pocket money except through the Rector, where boxes
and packages were forbidden, and where the Reverend and very
rigid Henry August Coit had for twenty-four years filled the sons
of the devout with awe, Latin, and the precepts of the Protestant
Episcopal Church. . . .

For four years and through four forms, while his father laid the
foundations of the great Morgan empire of railroads, Jack Morgan
labored at St. Paul's. His record was not brilliant. In a form of
fifty-odd boys he was, in Third, Fourth, and Fifth forms, one of
six or eight boys to receive Second Testimonials of the first or
second grade — an equal number receiving First Testimonials ahead
of him. And in a school of 275 to 280 he made no particular athletic
mark. But he was well liked if shy and one of his classmates — . . .
James Gore King, whom he found again at Harvard — became his
closest and his lifelong friend.

The natural and inevitable consequence of St. Paul's School was
and is and doubtless will continue to be Princeton or Yale or

21 T

Harvard. In Jack Morgan's case, his family having set no precedent
in the matter and the Connecticut influence of his great-grandfather,
the Hartford Jiotelkeeper, being overweighed by the Massachusetts
years and the British domicile of his grandfather, the choice was
Harvard. But it was not pure and unadulterated St. Paul's which
the young man after a year's travel carried into Cambridge in the
fall of '85. Something else, something much more important had
happened to him in the interim. He had seen the West! Not, be it
understood, the West of the long lands and the hard-bitten faces
and the American ways. Neither Jack Morgan nor his father nor
his grandfather nor the generations of ... farmers who lay behind
had ever seen that West. But the West of the Rockies and the
grizzlies and the game. It came about in a curious way — the way, to
be explicit, of the Protestant Episcopal Church. Mr. Morgan as a
member of his vestry had invited a progressive young parson of
Toronto named William Stephen Rainsford to the pulpit of his
church. The parson had turned out to be six feet, three inches in
height, brave enough to contradict a millionaire, and radical enough
to support a dangerous revolutionary named Theodore Roosevelt.
And when, in the summer of 1884, the Reverend Rainsford had
mentioned a longing for the Rockies, Mr. Morgan had suggested
that he take young Jack along. The result, so far as Jack was
concerned, was a dead grizzly, a three-days' blizzard, and a subject
of conversation which lasted him through that year and far enough
into Harvard to inspire his Class Poet with the memorable lines:

Jack Morgan, the wonderful talking machine and human

typewriter combined
Will spout three straight hours on 'Life on the Plains' and

eventually talk himself blind. . . .

The lines are, however, suggestive of something more than the
Morgan interest in the Rockies. They are suggestive of the under-
graduate estimate of the Morgan character — an estimate which
jangles harshly with the current tradition. For thirty years the
newspapers have presented the junior Morgan as a cross between
an ogre, a Bourbon magnifico, and the Man in the Iron Mask. He
has been the large and muscular millionaire with the hunched-up
shoulder bones who threatens cameras with his cane. He has been
the ambiguous banker with a head like Pinturrichio's bull-necked,
thick-jawed Borgia Pope who stands for contemptuous capitalism
in the Left cartoons. He has been the mysterious figure who comes
charging at you out of the front page of a tabloid with a raincoat

212

over his face, the caption reading "Money King Sees Harvard
Out-row Yale." He has been the ruddy landowner with the British
eyebrows and the grouse-fed British jowls who shouts at reporters
bobbing in small boats beside his yacht landing. He has been the
man of silence whose sole authentic interview consists of two
sentences, the first beginning: "I don't like being interviewed ..."
and the second ending: "... to keep out of the newspapers."
He has been the arrogant millionaire who told the Walsh Com-
mission, when that Senatorial body demanded his opinion of the
adequacy of a $io-a-week wage for longshoremen: "If that's all
he can get and he takes it, I should say that is enough." He has
been the huge and pompous shape with the cold eyes and the
continually crunching jaws who is visible at four o'clock of a Wall
Street afternoon wading through the stockbrokers to the open door
of his car. . . . And forty-five years ago and among his Harvard
classmates (Harvard classmates being no more redolent of charity
than any other classmates) he was "the wonderful talking-machine
and human typewriter combined" who could be counted on to
hold forth on his grizzly and his blizzard for three hours running
and to end up (poetic license understood) in a state of complete fog!
The two reports do not harmonize. And as between them any
man with an experience of journalistic judgments and under-
graduate judgments will unreservedly accept the latter — particularly
where, as in Jack Morgan's case, the testimony is unanimous.
Eighteen Eighty-Nine was in no sense a remarkable class. Its most
distinguished graduate is Professor Irving Babbitt of Harvard and
it was chiefly memorable in college for the athletic feats of Perry
TrarTord and for the first public appearance of John the Orangeman
at the head of one of its freshman parades. But even so it was an
observant class. And Jack Morgan was, to its members, a large,
somewhat uncouth young man with an enormous voice who lived
alone in Beck Hall, took no scholastic honors and not much exercise
except a bit of cricket and an occasional pull at an oar, liked his
friends (chiefly Jim King, later a New York lawyer, and James
Hardy Ropes, who became a professor of divinity at Harvard)
with an extremely warm and very cordial liking, paid no particular
attention to those who weren't his friends, rooted enthusiastically
for the university teams, expressed his opinions openly and elo-
quently and with heat and was, in general, as full of energy and
geniality and easy, undergraduate loquaciousness as any youngster,
banker's son or parson's son or grocer's son, a man would be likely
to meet in the Harvard of his day. His whole record bears the

213

judgment out. He was a member of the usual undergraduate clubs —
the Hasty Pudding, the Dickey, the Institute. He coached a Hasty
Pudding play (Sheridan's Duenna). And he ended up in the Gas
House, a "final club" which was notable then as now if not for the
families of its members (in which regard Harvard opinion places
it well after the Porcellian and the AD) at least for its members'
undergraduate accomplishments and personal collegiate merits.
Moreover the Morgan attachment to Harvard and the Harvard
reciprocation of that regard were sufficient after graduation to
return him to various university committees, to the Board of
Overseers and eventually to the presidency of the Alumni Associa-
tion. It is asserted on excellent authority that he has yet to miss a
class reunion: the man who can continue to return to class reunions
is neither the arrogant bully of the journalistic Morgan tradition nor
the shy and retiring scholar whom Mr. Morgan's friends have on
occasion presented to the public view. ...

The young B. A. who in July of 1889 left Cambridge and America
for a six-months' tramp in Germany may or may not have dis-
covered what the moon was made of, but of his own future he was
relatively sure. He would be a banker. And he would marry Jane
Grew. The first had been decided for him by the one man whose
decisions he could not ignore. And the second he had decided for
himself. Jane Grew was the sister of Edward Wigglesworth Grew,
a class and club-mate, and the daughter of Henry Sturgis Grew,
a Boston merchant-banker with interests in the East. She was also a
young lady of great charm and human wisdom. And when the
German pilgrimage was over it was to Boston, an apprenticeship
in the banking house of Jacob C. Rogers & Co., and a wedding in
the Arlington Street Church that young Morgan returned. The
wedding which took place at 12:30 on December n, 1890, with
Junius Morgan as the groomsman, Juliet and Louisa Morgan among
the bridesmaids, and James Gore King among the ushers was, in
the bright phrase of the Herald "a very gay and brilliant as-
semblage." And the apprenticeship, if it did no more, served to
prepare the young man by easy stages for eight arduous years in
his father's New York office. . . .

The education of J. Pierpont Morgan Jr., like the education of
Henry Adams, was a long time in progress. And London was its
greatest school. London, to the rich young American of the '90*5,
was the center of the earth. For America, throughout the 'po's and

214

down indeed to the period of the War, was still, in its over-layers,
confessedly provincial. American letters were as much like British
letters as it was possible to make them. . . . And the same thing
on a different level was true of business and society. New York
bankers emulated London bankers and built the ethics of their
trade upon the ancient ethics of The City. American millionaires
dressed like British millionaires and married their daughters when
they could to European titles. American "estates" copied English
estates. American horse racing followed British horse racing. Ameri-
can yachts were like British yachts. American butlers differed from
British butlers only in the fact that there was no difference. Certain
cities like Boston and Philadelphia were English even to those last
ultimate tests of loyalty, the dress of their rich women and the pipe
tobacco of their well-born men. And from one end of the North
Atlantic seaboard to the other the true hallmark of chic, the real
guarantee of aristocracy, was a domicile, however brief, in west-
end London.

If all this, however odd it may sound to post-War ears when the
North Atlantic seaboard faces west instead of east, was true of the
average rich man's son it was infinitely more true of young Jack
Morgan. . . . Mrs. Morgan by background and training took easily
to English country ways, English houses, English gardens — the
whole domestic economy of a life of which the life in Boston was
merely a more meager copy. And her husband found, as he must
long have suspected, that the life of a gentleman and an Episcopa-
lian could be more gracefully and naturally led in London than on
Wall Street in New York. White's, the old lyth century Tory Club
with its faint odor of fashion and romantic gambling still about it,
had a quality which even the Somerset in Boston lacked. And the
ugly, commodious house in Prince's Gate was pleasanter on any
count than Madison Avenue.

The result was that the Morgans as a family, flourished. But
there were other results which were to have an effect of a peculiar
kind upon the Morgan career. 1898 and 1899 and particularly 1901
were the great years of the senior Morgan's life. In the first of those
years Federal Steel was built up out of Illinois Steel and Minnesota
Iron and Lorain Steel to compete with Carnegie; and National
Tube and American Bridge were formed. In the last, that amazing
Gothic structure, U. S. Steel, was put together, flying buttresses,
window glass, choir, nave, and all, out of Federal Steel, Carnegie's
companies, Rockefeller's Lake Superior Consolidated Iron Mines,
and the Tin Plate combinations of the Moore Brothers; and the

215

long and costly stalemate of the Northern Pacific was fought with
Hill and Morgan on one side and Harriman on the other. And in
neither year was the younger Morgan at his father's side. That he
knew more or less accurately what was going on is probable. But
the Morgan House has long had a rule that any partner going
abroad loses his authority to speak for the firm after two weeks'
absence and the rule is doubtless the reflection of a practice. In
any event it is certain that the younger Morgan was active neither
in the gigantic consolidation which put his father temporarily at
the head of U. S. industry nor in the futile and mischievous stock
war which precipitated a shocking panic and did more than any-
thing else in his father's career to point the moral of his father's
financial generation. The fact is important. It means that the
present Morgan, though born and bred in the Morgan banking
tradition, never tasted blood in the Morgan buccaneering tradition.
His eight years in the New York office were eight years largely of
depression and railroad reorganizations in which great industrial
consolidations were impossible. And the eight years in which great
industrial consolidations did take place at 23 Wall were the eight
years of the junior Morgan's absence. At the age (thirty-two) when
his father, standing with President Ramsey of the Albany &
Susquehanna at the head of the stairs leading to that railway's
Albany office, was chucking Jim Fisk and a gang of Bowery
hoodlums bodily into the street, young J. P. Morgan was apologizing
to the senior partner of J. S. Morgan & Co. for turning up at the
office in gray flannels and a boater instead of the morning coat and
top coat of conventional City wear. There is more than paradox in
the story. . . .

In 1906, a pretty well inoculated Londoner with a wife who had
twice been presented at the* Court of St. James's, a new son named
Henry Sturgis, and a pipe with a British bowl, he returned to
introduce the practice of afternoon tea at the corner of Broad and
Wall. . . . Mr. Morgan thought of himself certainly as a citizen of
the United States. But he frankly preferred life in England. In
England his house was not broken into as 231 Madison Avenue
was broken into in January of 1912. In England he was not invited,
as he was invited on January 31 of the same year, to leave $100,000
under a bush inside the Seventh Avenue entrance to Central Park
on peril of his life. And in England his children did not suffer
from the fear of kidnapping which obsessed eleven-year-old Harry

2l6

when in September, 1912, he returned from England accompanied
by his British tutor. England was not only a more congenial, it
was a safer place. When Mr. Morgan told the Austro-Hungarian
Minister, Mr. Dumba, that his ideal of happiness would be an
entire year in Hertfordshire he told the simple and convincing truth.
But the ideal was not then to be realized. On March 31, 1913,
J. P. Morgan Sr., having painfully journeyed up the Nile in search
of sunlight, died in the Grand Hotel at Rome. And J. P. Morgan
Jr. became his father's residuary legatee. It was a curious legacy. . . .
The paradoxical result was that the heir J. Pierpont Morgan was
left with an enormous fortune and no money. And the upshot of
the whole matter was that a large part of the Morgan collection in
the Metropolitan, much of which had been imported from England
early in 1912 to escape English death duties, was sold. The public
complained. The newspapers screamed. But Mr. Morgan made no
defense. The collection had been left to him with a statement that
his father had intended to establish a public foundation but had
been unable to dp so and would leave his son free to make his own
decisions. And the decision followed the necessities of the case.
The Fragonard Room and the magnificent Chinese porcelains went
to Duveen. The elder Morgan's English country place, Dover House
at Roehampton, its 140 acres, and its registered Jerseys were sold.
But the Morgan Library, established in 1905, was held intact with
its thirty-seven shelves of Bibles, its Assyrian and Babylonian seals,
its Egyptian and Greek papyri, its Coptic texts, its lovely illuminated
manuscripts, its Blake drawings, its manuscripts of Shelley and
Dr. Johnson and Swift and Scott and Napoleon, and its famous
librarian, Miss Belle da Costa Greene. Books and manuscripts had
become, in some curious way, the passion of the younger Morgan's
life. And whatever might happen to the paintings and porcelains
his father had so spaciously collected he was determined that the
library should not go. For eleven years he held it. And in February,
1924, he devoted it to the use of scholars as a memorial to his father.
The value of buildings and collections was then put at $7,000,000
and the endowment at $1,500,000 while the collections constituted,
in the conservative estimate of Miss Greene, "one of the most
significant collections of interrelated original material in America."
Since the establishment of the foundation New York tabloids with
more interest in copy than in scholarship have attempted to make
capital out of the restrictions which limit a tax-free public library
to the use only of qualified persons. But Mr. Morgan himself had
forestalled them when the gift was made. "You cannot," said he,

217

"have large numbers of people going over these books. Think of it,
one soiled thumb could undo the work of 900 years and a mis-
placed cough would be a disaster."

But the chief and principal bequest of the elder Morgan to his
son was J. P. Morgan & Co. . . . The Morgans were bankers
again. But bankers with a difference. The elder Morgan had
established for his House a prestige built upon a curious mixture of
fear and respect but a prestige which owed nothing to anyone but
Morgan. The younger Morgan and the War between them had
built up a different prestige — a prestige based upon respect without
fear but a prestige which owed almost everything to the relations
of the House to the great nations of Europe. In 1907 Morgan's was
powerful because J. P. Morgan headed it. In 1920 Morgan's was
powerful because it was the banker for England and for France.

And that change in the character of the firm, had its effect also
upon the firm's fortunes. Business came crowding in upon it. All
the nations of the earth wanted American money and wanted
American money through Morgan's. Until Kreuger displaced the
firm as banker to the French in 1928, Morgan's rode the international
world. Between January i, 1920, and December 15, 1931, the firm
floated thirty-nine separate loans for Argentina, Australia, Austria,
Belgium, Canada, Chile, Cuba, France, Germany, Italy, Japan,
Switzerland, and some of their subdivisions totaling $1,807,578,000
on which it made a gross profit of $10,313,919.71 and a net profit
of nine and a half millions. In addition to which there were seven
issues for great foreign corporations totaling $68,000,000 and yielding
a net profit of better than half a million. These loans, moreover,
like the great bulk of loans made by the partners during the
period, were the cream of the business. They were the best loans
of their kind available and they have stood up even through the
depression. None of the foreign loans made by Morgan's from
January i, 1919, to May, 1933, are in default, 40 per cent have been
redeemed or retired, 33 per cent of those remaining were selling
above offering price in May, 1933, and the average decline was only
13% per cent. The extraordinary record of all Morgan bond offerings
during the post-War period, as testified to by Mr. Whitney in
Washington, may well be a witness to me sound judgment and
excellent banking sense of the firm. But even more it is evidence of
the extent to which the best loans of the period were offered to
J. P. Morgan & Co. to make. . . .

218

Mr. Morgan is today at sixty-six the undoubted master of J. P.
Morgan & Co. He is in his New York office less than seven months
out of the year and even when there he arrives late and leaves
early. He has been known to defer a sailing because his tulips
were about to bloom. He loves to putter around in the sunken
English rose garden his wife, who died of sleeping sickness eight
years ago, designed at Matinicock Point. His tulips have won prizes
at the Nassau County Show and in New York year after year, and
it is his annual practice to visit the New York Show with his
superintendent at the crack of dawn on the opening day. He has a
great knowledge of his wife's lace collections, now divided among
his daughters. He spends much time in the Morgan Library and
corresponds with Pope Pius XI, who is a great authority on Coptic
texts. When the Morgan manuscripts were exhibited at the Public
Library in 1924 he conducted a personal tour of the cases, ex-
plaining as he went: "That is the manuscript of Shelley's Indian
Serenade. That was found in his pocket when they recovered his
body. That's why the ink is so pale. It was soaked in water. I'm
afraid it's getting paler. . . . Here's Marryat. I don't know whether
they like Marryat nowadays [he is one of Ernest Hemingway's
great admirations] but I did when I was a boy. ..." He loves his
Corsair IV, launched at Bath, Maine, in 1930 with her 6,000
horsepower and her clipper bow and her imported India teak and
her big lounge with the open fireplace and the beamed ceiling and
his own two suites, one on the main deck and the other on the
boat deck forward, and he has taken his friend Dr. Cosmo Lang,
the Archbishop of Canterbury, cruising in her off the Dalmatian
Coast and as far east as Palestine. He likes to drive through the
South with his secretary-chauffeur, Charles Robertson, reading the
signs along the roadside as he goes. He dominates the American
Episcopal Church, having financed the limited edition of the third
revision of the American Book of Common Prayer and served long
as a vestryman of his father's old church, St. George's (but his
political duties weigh more lightly: he registered in Glen Cove in
May, 1933, for the first time in fifteen years). He gives his own
Foochow tea as a Christmas present to his friends. And the
British Isles still hold him. At Wall Hall he is a Tory squire with
the whole of Aldenham Village as his property except the ancient
church, and with all the villagers in his employ, each supplied with
a rent-free house and registered milk and free medical treatment and

219

an old-age pension and membership in the Aldenham Parish
Social Club. While at Gannochy, his hunting lodge in Scotland,
he is the hunting laird with forty servants in the season for his
thirty-room house and carload after carload of "guns" and gifts of
the "Morgan tartan" (a variety of native tweed, the Morgans as
Welshmen having no proper tartan) to his guests and the admira-
tion of his Scots servants and the frank dislike of his neighbors
nearby in Edzell Village who, lacking the servility of the English
villager, remark grimly: "A man may be rich and weel respectit
but he'll no be respectit only because he's rich, not in Scotland."
But in spite of Tory squiring and sea-voyaging and tulip-growing
and Christmas-giving, Mr. Morgan remains the master of his House.
He lets other men attend to details. He lets other men make
decisions. But the ultimate destiny of the House is his: under the
articles of partnership no partner can remain whom Mr. Morgan
wishes out, but no partner whom Mr. Morgan wished out would
care to remain if he could. . . .

Mr. Morgan's horoscope was prophetic. He is a very fortunate
man — a man fortunate in the sense that those nations are fortunate
which have no history and those men blessed whose two-volume
biographies are the pious labor of their friends. The press has
attempted at one time or another to create a mystery of Mr. Morgan.
There is no mystery of Mr. Morgan. There is merely a mystification.
Had he himself and his associates not practiced a highly publicized
ritual of privacy — had they borne in mind the elder Morgan's
warning that "the time is coming when all business will have to
be done with glass pockets" — the present head of the House would
have attracted less interest and suffered far less embarrassment.
For he is in reality a very unexciting man, a man remarkable
neither for rapacity and imagination and insolence as was his father
nor for the opposite qualities of the ordinary inheritor, but merely
for the once simple virtues of personal integrity and personal honor
and personal loyalty — virtues which, like Shakespeare's candle,
shine only because the world is naughty. In a generation of financiers
so clever, so subtle, and so unprincipled that they brought the
Federal Securities Act upon their heads; Mr. Morgan fairly glows
with that fundamental private honesty of which a Federal Securities
Act can enforce only a very feeble copy. But beyond those basic,
invaluable but negative gifts of character and a certain force of
stubborn will Mr. Morgan gives off but little light. No one has ever
seriously contended that he was a man of intellect: his degree of
erudition is noticeable, as his knowledge of his own collections is

220

remarked, because any degree of erudition among American
bankers is rare and because most American millionaires collect
with no knowledge of their collections whatever. Neither has any
man ever pictured Mr. Morgan as a leader in his generation: both
chronologically and geographically he is out of touch with his time;
the West is to him merely a section of the country where grizzlies
can no longer be shot; London remains the capital of the civilized
world and the medieval business of private banking is an inviolable
business with which there is nothing whatsoever wrong. But Mr.
Morgan himself would probably be the last to pretend either to an
understanding of his age or to the possession of an important mind.
He has modeled himself upon the type of the British investment
banker with his virtues of integrity as well as his vices of limitation.
And it is probably a sufficient reward for J. Pierpont Morgan's only
son to know that his competitors on Wall Street will "trust Jack
Morgan behind their backs as far as any man living." J. Pierpont
Morgan in his Hartford grave must sometimes smile.

Fortune, August, 1933

221

Riveters in Manhattan

THE STAFF OF FORTUNE

The trouble with all the talk about the decay of'artisanship is
that it is true. It has always been true. It was true when the last
wattle-weaver died and they took to building houses of brick. And
it will be true when the tools and machinery of the contemporary
arts are replaced by atomic explosions. It is so true that no one
takes time to remark that the decay of one kind of artisanship is
almost always caused by the growth of another. Modern carpenters
would have been laughed off one of the Adam Brothers' jobs. But
a riveter can't be expected to break his heart over that.

The most curious fact about a riveter's skill is that he is not one
man but four: "heater," "catcher," "bucker-up," and "gun-man."
The gang is the unit. Riveters are hired and fired as gangs, work
in gangs, and learn in gangs. If one member of a gang is absent
on a given morning, the entire gang is replaced. A gang may con-
tinue to exist after its original members have all succumbed to slip-
pery girders or the business end of a pneumatic hammer or to a
foreman's zeal or merely to the temptations of life on earth. And the
skill of the gang will continue with it. Men overlap each other in
service and teach each other what they know. The difference be-
tween a gang which can drive 525 inch-and-an-eighth rivets in a
working day and a gang which can drive 250 is a difference of co-
ordination and smoothness. You learn how not to make mistakes
and how not to waste time. You learn how to heat a rivet and
how not to overheat it, how to throw it accurately but not too
hard, how to drive it and when to stop driving it, and precisely
how much you can drink 'in a cold wind or a July sun without
losing your sense of the width and balance of a wooden plank.
And all these things, or most of them, an older hand can tell
you.

Eagle's Gang, a veteran of the Forty Wall Street job, is re-
puted in the trade to be one of the best gangs in the city. The gang
takes its name from its heater and organizer, E. Eagle, a native of
Baltimore. It is the belief of timekeepers, foremen, and the leaders
of other gangs that Mr. Eagle is a man of property in his home
town and indulges in the sport of riveting for mysterious reasons.
There are also myths about the gun-man and the bucker-up, brothers

222

named Bowers from some South Carolina town. They are said
never to speak. Even in a profession where no man is able to speak,
their silence stands out. The catcher is George Smith, a New
Yorker. There are no stories about George.

The actual process of riveting is simple enough — in description.
Rivets are carried to the job by the rivet boy, a riveter's apprentice
whose ambition it is to replace one of the members of the gang —
which one, he leaves to luck. The rivets are dumped into a keg
beside a small coke furnace. The furnace stands on a platform of
loose boards roped to steel girders which may or may not have been
riveted. If they have not been riveted there will be a certain amount
of play in the temporary bolts. The furnace is tended by the heater
or passer. He wears heavy clothes and gloves to protect him from
the flying sparks and intense heat of his work, and he holds a pair
of tongs about a foot-and-a-half long in his right hand. When a
rivet is needed, he whirls the furnace blower until the coke is white-
hot, picks up a rivet with his tongs, and drives it into the coals. His
skill as a heater appears in his knowledge of the exact time neces-
sary to heat the steel. If he overheats it, it will flake, and the flakes
will permit the rivet to turn in its hole. And a rivet which gives in
its hole is condemned by the inspectors.

When the heater judges that his rivet is right, he turns to face
the catcher, who may be above or below him or fifty or sixty or
eighty feet away on the same floor level with the naked girders be-
tween. There is no means of handing the rivet over. It must be
thrown. And it must be accurately thrown. And if the floor beams
of the floor above have been laid so that a flat trajectory is essential,
it must be thrown with considerable force. The catcher is there-
fore armed with a smallish, battered tin can, called a cup, with
which to catch the red-hot steel. Various patented cups have been
put upon the market from time to time but they have made little
headway. Catchers prefer the ancient can.

The catcher's position is not exactly one which a sportsman
catching rivets for pleasure would choose. He stands upon a nar-
row platform of loose planks laid over needle beams and roped to
a girder near the connection upon which the gang is at work. There
are live coils of pneumatic tubing for the rivet gun around his feet.
If he moves more than a step or two in any direction, he is gone,
and if he loses his balance backward he is apt to end up at street
level without time to walk. And the object is to catch a red-hot
iron rivet weighing anywhere from a quarter of a pound to a pound
and a half and capable, if he lets it pass, of drilling an automobile

223

radiator or a man's skull 500 feet below as neatly as a shank of
shrapnel. Why more rivets do not fall is the great mystery of
skyscraper construction. The only reasonable explanation offered to
date is the reply of an erector's foreman who was asked what would
happen if a catcher on the Forty Wall Street job let a rivet go by
him around lunch hour. "Well," said the foreman, "he's not sup-
posed to."

There is practically no exchange of words among riveters. Not
only are they averse to conversation, which would be reasonable
enough in view of the effect they have on the conversation of others,
but they are averse to speech in any form. The catcher faces the
heater. He holds his tin can up. The heater swings his tongs,
releasing one handle. The red iron arcs through the air in one of
those parabolas so much admired by the stenographers in the neigh-
boring windows. And the tin can clanks.

Meantime the gun-man and the bucker-up have prepared the
connection — aligning the two holes, if necessary, with a drift pin
driven by a sledge or by a pneumatic hammer — and removed the
temporary bolts. They, too, stand on loose-roped boards with the
column or the beam between them. When the rivet strikes the
catcher's can, he picks it out with a pair of tongs held in his right
hand, knocks it sharply against the steel to shake off the glowing
flakes, and rams it into the hole, an operation which is responsible
for his alternative title of sticker. Once the rivet is in place, the
bucker-up braces himself with his dolly bar, a short heavy bar of
steel, against the capped end of the rivet. On outside wall work he
is sometimes obliged to hold on by one elbow with his weight out
over the street and the jar of the riveting shaking his precarious
balance. And the gun-man lifts his pneumatic hammer to the rivet's
other end.

The gun-man's work is the hardest work, physically, done by the
gang. The hammers in Use for steel construction work are sup-
posed to weigh around thirty pounds and actually weigh about
thirty-five. They must not only be held against the rivet end, but
held there with the gun-man's entire strength, and for a period of
forty to sixty seconds. (A rivet driven too long will develop a
collar inside the new head.) And the concussion to the ears and
to the arms during that period is very great. The whole platform
shakes and the vibration can be felt down the column thirty stories-
below. It is common practice for the catcher to push with the gun-
man and for the gun-man and the bucker-up to pass the gun back
and forth between them when the angle is difficult. Also on a heavy

224

rivet job the catcher and the bucker-up may relieve the gun-man
at the gun.

The weight of the gups is one cause, though indirect, of acci-
dents. The rivet set, which is the actual hammer at the point of
the gun, is held in place, when the gun leaves the factory, by clips.
Since the clips increase the weight of the hammer, it is good riveting
practice to knock them off against the nearest column and replace
them with a hank of wire. But wire has a way of breaking, and
when it breaks there is nothing to keep the rivet set and the pneu-
matic piston itself from taking the bucker-up or the catcher on the
belt and knocking him into the next block.

Riveters work ordinarily eight hours a day at a wage of $15.40 a
day. They are not employed in bad or slippery weather, and they
are not usually on the regular pay roll of the erectors, but go from
job to job following foremen whom they like. There is no great
future for a riveter. A good gun-man may become an assistant
foreman, a pusher, whose duty it is to keep the various gangs at
work. But pushers are used for such work only on very large jobs.

It would perhaps be more accurate to say that a riveter's future
is not bright at all. The rates charged for compensation insurance
are generally accepted as the best barometer of risk. Starrett
Brothers & Eken fix, in their insurance department, a rate of
$23.45 Per $IO° °f PaY ^or erecting and painting steel frame struc-
tures. Rates of other companies run to $30 per $100 of pay. The
only higher rate is for wrecking work. The next lower rate
($15.08) is for building raising. Masonry is $6.07 and carpentry
$4.39. Figures on industrial accidents published by the U. S.
Department of Labor bear the same connotation. In one year the
frequency of accidents, per 1,000,000 hours' exposure, was 228.9 f°r
fabricators and erectors as against 54 for general building.

There was an adage at one time current to the effect that it cost
a life to a floor to build a skyscraper. The computation may have
originated with a famous downtown building of fifteen years ago in
which, with the steel at the fifth floor five deaths had already oc-
curred. (The Travelers Insurance Company, called in to take
over the insurance in that case, made a study of the conditions of
the job, recommended certain changes, enforced its own supervision,
and saw the remaining thirty-two stories built with but one more
fatality.) Or the saying may have arisen and may have been true
in the days of ten-story skyscrapers. But to apply it, like the archi-
tect's 6 per cent fee, to seventy-story buildings would be pure ex-
travagance. Nevertheless a bloodless building is still a marvel.

225

Five Hundred Fifth Avenue, which has had no deaths to date, is
used as an object lesson for builders by the insurance companies,
and the Chrysler Building, which was built with the loss of one
life, was awarded a certificate of merit by the Building Trades
Employers' Association. Four men were killed on The Manhattan
Company job, and five were reported to have been killed on the
Empire State by the middle of July. In general, deaths run from
three to eight on sizable buildings. These figures, in the opinion
of the Travelers company, are excessive. The Travelers would
allow a builder two at the most.

Such accidents are of course expensive, but injuries short of death
are more costly. Liability of $875,000 for deaths was incurred in
the building trades in the New York district in the last six months
of 1928, and $3,145,586 for deaths and injuries. The total of both
for the same period in 1929 was $3,885,881.

The safety campaign in the construction industry is blocked by
various causes of which the novelty of skyscraper construction and
the prevalence of shoestring construction projects are two of the
most obvious. More important than either, however, is the atti-
tude of construction workmen. Their trade inures them to danger
and they are, as a class, as willing to take risks for others as for
themselves. A riveter who has seen three or four hundred red hot
rivets a day kept off the heads of the members of the Stock Exchange
by an old tin can gets used to the idea. In a recent accident case
a man had been injured in the street by the fall of a hammer in use
on a building half a block away. No possible wind velocity would
account for the drift. The only explanation was that the hammer
had been thrown from one man to another. And had missed.

Fortune, October, 1930

226

The Future of the Great City

STUART CHASE

A distinguished savant has perfected a mechanical contrivance
which measures the intensity of noise. To my knowledge nobody
has yet invented a device to register quantitatively likes and dislikes.
During most of one's Conscious hours spent in a great city — or
anywhere else for that matter — one is so intent upon his job, his
food, his sweetheart, or his transit connections that no reactions, in
the sense of liking or disliking the impending environment, are
registered at all. Here it is, world without end: nothing can be
done about it; why bother to appraise it?

Suppose, however, we begin this inquiry into the future of the
great city by halting for a moment the remorseless pursuit of the
next sixty minutes and deliberately allowing both the pleasurable
and painful sensations of city living to filter through to conscious-
ness.

Fifteen years ago I enjoyed residing in Boston — pleasure slightly
outweighed pain. Ten years ago I enjoyed living in Washington,
with a higher pleasure margin. In the interim I took up residence
in Chicago and suffered a large debit balance. This was not due to
human intercourse but only to the physical impact of the town.
The people of Chicago are the pleasantest I have ever met. For the
past decade I have lived in New York, with an adverse reaction
only less than that experienced in the headquarters of the racketeers.

Coming into Manhattan, I begin to feel a strange uneasiness
like a slight attack of seasickness; leaving it, I suddenly grow more
cheerful. Why? I am no confirmed bucolic; no city-hater in cheese-
cloth and sandals. The thoughts which men generate in cities are
as important to me as bread. For the past few weeks I have been
noting specific impressions in an attempt to come to closer terms
with this mysterious total feeling. The record is voluminous, running
to hundreds of cases. Here is space for only a few of the more
typical, together with certain generalizations into which many of
the cases fall. You realize, of course, that we are here dealing more
with the testimony of the five senses than with economics, or
philosophy, or divination. You realize, too, that lacking a machine

227

like that of Dr. Free, the intensity of the reaction cannot be given,
only the bare fact.

Positive Reactions — pleasurable

The city from the East River at sunset

Brooklyn Bridge

Cube masses against blue sky

Corrugated ridges of step-backs — say at 34th Street

Fifth Avenue below i4th Street — where fine old houses and a Ghosjt
of dignity remain

The interior of the Graybar Building — many of the newer build-
ing interiors

Inside block gardens — say Mark Van Doren's

The view of the city from a high roof garden, particularly at night;
towers indirectly illuminated

Bars of sunlight under the elevated railroad

The interior of the Grand Central Station

The Bronx River Parkway

Girls on Fifth Avenue above 42nd Street (one out of six is lovely)

Building excavations with a nuzzling steam shovel

The inside of power houses

Morningside Heights and Riverside Drive, looking across to the
Palisades

The American Wing in the Metropolitan Museum

The new Hudson River Bridge

Here and there a shop window with extraordinary modern decora-
tions

The oaths of taxicab drivers

A Stadium concert on a summer night

Negative Reactions — painful

Jammed traffic

Fire-engine sirens, motor-car horns, the cacophony of riveting, loud
speakers, steamboat whistles (at night), most people's voices, the
rasp of elevator doors, the roar of traffic in general, and that of the
elevated in particular

All trucks- (probably because I saw a woman killed by one on
Seventh Avenue)

The insignificance of the sun and moon

A feeling akin to being at the bottom of a well

Central Park (it reminds me of a warmed-over meal)

The lower East Side with its dreadful old-law tenements

Park Avenue and its apartment houses like so many packing cases

The expression on the faces of most people

The smell of incompletely burned gasoline, of barber-shops, of Grand
Street, of the garbage mountain with the locomotives on the top
of it in Queens, of Chinatown, of the subway, of soda fountains

228

Movie palaces — with one or two exceptions

Delicatessen stores

Signboards and car signs

All travel by subway, tunnel or street car

The noon-hour crowd in front of establishments manufacturing

garments

Suburbs — with a few exceptions
The outside of power houses
The gentlemen with no immediate purpose in life around Times

Square

The ripping open of streets — like a public operation
Filling stations

Trees — probably because I love trees
Dust, dirt, and cinders
Most restaurants, particularly cafeterias (In Paris the reaction is

mainly pleasurable. Why the difference?)

The huddle of skyscrapers around the Grand Central — the big bullies
City refuse on Long Beach — even on Fire Island, forty miles away

These lists give, I fear, a shattering insight into the shortcomings
of the compiler's character, but they are at least honest. There is
not a "wisecrack" in either category. These are the sorts of things
which alternately elevate and depress that unique system of electrons
which comprises my earthly temple. You, gentle reader, will disagree
in detail, but will you disagree in general? Our electronic systems
may diverge but all follow a basic pattern known as homo sapiens.
What the lists say, in essence, is this:

There are more painful than pleasurable sensations in one's
contact with a huge American city of the present day.

Pleasure is found in sudden glimpses, in certain lights on archi-
tectural masses, in occasional arresting and amusing adventures,
in the arts which the great city has to display.

Pain is found in noise, dust, smell, crowding, the pressure of the
clock, in negotiating traffic, in great stretches of bleak and dour
ugliness, in looking always up instead of out, in a continually
battering sense of human inferiority.

These mile-high walls are everything, man is nothing. In Boston
and Washington the walls were negotiable; one could respect one-
self. That was years ago. Now the traffic roars on Boylston Street
and Pennsylvania Avenue as it does at Herald Square. Internal-
combustion engines are not so dwarfing as mile-high walls but
in such boiling steel masses they overawe the pedestrian, force him
below the plane of human dignity. Why should we scamper like
rats rather than walk like men?

229

Megalopolis is not a pleasant home for many of its citizens, awake
or asleep. Even for those — and they may be the majority — whose
pleasure quotient exceeds the pain, the gross volume of the latter,
however unconscious, does much to retard a gracious and civilized
life. Look at the faces in the street. The machine has gathered us
up and dumped us by the millions into these roaring canyons.
Year by year more millions are harvested, the canyon shadows
deepen, the roar grows louder. No man, no group of men, knows
where this conglomeration of steel and glass and stone, with the
most highly complicated nervous system ever heard of — a giant with
a weak digestion — is headed. So, with an open field, I make bold
to present three main alternatives.

' First — Megalopolis can continue its present course of becoming
increasingly congested, hectic, and biologically alien to an ordered
human life; its vast transportation systems pumping us back and
forth from "places where we would rather not live to places where
we would rather not work" — until a saturation point is reached.
This may take the form either of a sudden and disastrous technical
breakdown or a less dramatic surfeit of citizens with their environ-
ment, resulting in steady emigration and an ultimate collapse of
land values. In the case of New York, with its twenty billions on
the assessors' rolls, such a collapse would rock the financial structure
of the nation. A mechanical breakdown is not as probable for
horizontal cities, such as Washington; but Clarence Stein, the dis-
tinguished architect, regards it as very probable for vertical cities
such as New York.

Second — By virtue of an aroused public opinion or of a benevo-
lent dictatorship — of which there are few signs to date — it is con-
ceivable that in the case of those cities which had not entangled
and enmeshed themselves beyond all human aid, drastic measures
of coordination and preplanning might be introduced, fundamental
enough really to adapt Megalopolis to civilized existence. We have
the technical knowledge to do it, machines are always ready to
help as well as to hinder; we have the engineering ability, and
even for some areas the specific blueprints. But nobody has yet
found a practical way to reckon with the land speculator and his
colossal pyramid of values, duly capitalized on congestion. As Mr.
Lewis Mumford acutely points out, the trouble with American.,
cities is not that they have not been planned, but that the plan —
in the configuration of a gridiron — has had no other purpose than
to provide the most advantageous method for selling and reselling

230

real estate. Cities have been laid out for profitable speculation, not
for human use, and in the defense of that plan the most powerful
forces in the Republic have fought, now fight, and will fight so
long as they can stand and see. It is for this cogent reason that no
fundamentally constructive program can be anything more than
"impractical." In such a city as Washington, laid out a century ago
with an eye to living rather than to rent collecting, the chances of
introducing the necessary adjustments are, of course, somewhat
brighter than in Chicago or Philadelphia or New York.

Third — Whether we save our cities by functional planning or
continue somehow to exist in their ever grimmer canyons, there
is always the possibility that on some fine morning a swarm of
bombing planes will appear above the skyscraper tops, laugh heart-
ily at the impotent clamor of anti-aircraft guns and, by means of
a few judicious tons of radium atomite, poison gases, and, shall we
say, typhus-fever cultures, dropped at strategic points, put an end
to our hopes or to our miseries, as the case may be, and that quite
finally. In the next war it is the great city which is to come in for
the most intensive extermination. Upon this point all military ex-
perts of any intelligence seem singularly unanimous.

I shall not examine this last alternative in any detail. It deserves
mention and is now mentioned. Perhaps there will be no more
wars. Perhaps by virtue of the League of Nations and Mr. Kellogg
and Messrs. Hoover and MacDonald arm in arm, the institution
of war now stands officially liquidated. Your smile answers mine.
And as you smile you accept unreservedly the probability of an-
other major conflict. There is always the chance, of course, that it
will not be your city which the enemy selects for scientific experi-
mentation. But it will be some hefty member of genus megalopolis,
and probably more than one.

Turning now to the more immediate enemy within. What are
the chances of technical breakdown? Is a saturation point approach-
ing? What is the evidence, beyond the likes and dislikes of one
insignificant citizen, that Megalopolis provides physically and
spiritually an alien home? First let us sketch briefly its nervous
system.

Below its streets you will normally find:

1. Water mains — from six inches to six feet in diameter. If the latter

burst, they "cause more havoc than dynamite"

2. Gas mains — spreading wholesale death if punctured

3. Steam mains — carrying heat from central plants to office build-

ings, and also temperamental

231

4. Sewers — some of them big enough to drive a truck through, and

not particular where they end

5. Subways — 140 miles of them in New York. In some places there

are four tubes one below the other. They carry the equivalent
of the total population of the United States every two weeks.
The whole system is now being doubled at the cost of $700,-
000,000. It will only make congestion worse. Blasting must be
carried on close to four-foot water mains, while many men die
from silica 'dust. ("Fifty-seven per cent of all rock drillers,
blasters, and excavators examined were suffering from a prob-
ably fatal pulmonary disease resulting from the inhalation of
rock dust")

6. Electric light and power cables

7. Telephone cables — up to 2400 wires on a single cable

8. Telegraph cables

9. Pneumatic mail tubes

10. Sidewalk vaults — always good hosts to sewex gas, as we shall see

Here are ten subterranean nerves — that is, theoretically subter-
ranean. As a matter of fact, it is a dull day on any block when
gentlemen in goggles and dun-colored overalls, armed with prodi-
gious flares and ripping mechanisms, are not hauling one or an-
other of the arteries towards the surface, to pound and batter them
unmercifully. In a hundred yards of street, I counted eleven sepa-
rate assaults in a week. Four of them cost me a good many hours'
sleep. But Dante would have enjoyed the midnight spectacle.

On and above the surface is another great series of nerves, equally
important if less mysterious. It comprises:

1. Bridges and causeways which admit traffic, particularly foodstuffs,

to the city

2. Trolley lines

3. Elevated railways

4. Railroad terminals and switch yards

5. Milk and ice supply, the truck delivery service generally

6. Traffic control

7. Fire-fighting apparatus

8. Ambulance, hospital, and burial services

9. Garbage and waste collection — an obstreperous nerve

10. Street cleaning and snow disposal

11. Building and safety inspection

12. Elevator service — without which hardly more than ten per cent

of normal business could be carried on

13. Radio wave-length control. And soon

14. The maintenance of landing fields, and the control of transporta-

tion by air

232

There is hardly an item in either the subterranean or the surface
systems which is not cardinal to the continued functioning of
Megalopolis. If one prime nerve- is cut for any length of time, the
urban environment starts rapidly to disintegrate, leaving the way-
faring man — who has not the faintest notion of the technic which
provisions him — as helpless as an airplane in a tail spin. For him
the water supply runs no farther back than the faucet; the food
supply than the delicatessen store. Furthermore, so interlocked is
the whole structure that the failing of one nerve is almost sure to
result in the rupture of others.

That these arteries are not functioning altogether smoothly some
recent occurrences demonstrate. Last December a mile of London
streets was suddenly ripped open by gas explosions — "thrown into
the air like confetti." Many citizens were hurt, while the sur-
rounding population was frightened as it had not been since the
Zeppelin raids. The property damage was immense. The Surveyors
Institution proceeded to investigate this and other mysterious gas
explosions and has recently handed down its report. It finds that
automobiles and trucks are now putting a strain on road surfaces
and the terrain thereunder which they were never designed to
meet. Pipes, conduits, and mains continually increase their diame-
ters; the load from above grows heavier, and the vitally essential
cushion of earth between the two grows scantier. Steel, like flesh
and blood, is subject to fatigue. Iron and steel mains suffer an ac-
celerating deterioration due to vibration and the sudden tempera-
ture changes which the scantier earth promotes. Proper inspection
is utterly impossible under modern traffic conditions. Meanwhile
the steady removal of trees and the open spaces of loose earth about
them takes away the natural outlets through which gases may
harmlessly escape. Increasingly, gases are compressed beneath a
solid roof of stone, brick, and asphalt. "The closing of these outlets/'
says the Institution, "results in either the accumulation of gaseous
mixtures in abandoned sewers and subsoil cavities, or gas may
penetrate laterally into adjoining vaults and basements. Actual ig-
nition may occur through the use of a naked light or from a
spark produced by the short circuiting of an electric fitting." As
the vault and its inhabitants take their skyward way, it is often
difficult to determine which method of ignition furnished the in-
citing cause.

A great surgeon has given his life to mitigating human suffering.
He established a clinic in the city of Cleveland. Suddenly he found
himself working desperately to save the lives not only of his pa-

233

tients but of his colleagues and hospital staff. For forty-eight un-
interrupted hours he labored, but at the end more than a hundred
persons were dead. An unknown gas had exploded in the X-ray
film room, to kill every human being whose lungs it touched. Thus
a place of healing had turned into a shambles — no man quite know-
ing why.

A few weeks later a coroner's jury of pathologists and chemists
in Chicago were trying to determine how methyl chloride was lib-
erated in artificial ice machines and why it had just killed fifteen
people.

Among those who testified at the inquest was Dr. Robert Jacobson.
He told the jury that he had attended the family of Mr. and Mrs.
Irving Markowski of 4856 Milwaukee Avenue, when three young
children became ill and died mysteriously. The physician said the
same slight odor that was present in the Clark apartment was also
in the Markowski home and that he had become convinced that
all had died of methyl chloride. . . . Several representatives of the
ice machine company also testified, and said that 1500 of their
refrigerators were in use in Chicago.

Not long ago the Muggerberg Company of Hamburg, Germany,
allowed phosgene gas to escape through its stacks at night. It formed
a blanket over the city and, before it could be dissipated, eleven
persons had been suffocated to death.

On one page of one newspaper we read the headlines:

Sixteen Killed and Seven Injured in Factory Blast.

One Burned to Death, Twenty-five Overcome in Gas Explosion.

Man Rescues Four in Ammonia Blast.

In New York, the ninth car of a subway express jumped the
track at Times Square, crashed through a concrete wall and was
cut in two. All safety devices were working, but the switchman's
normal reflexes were momentarily in abeyance. This "man failure"
cost 17 killed and 101 wounded. The situation in the tunnel at the
rush hour was indescribable. Can we expect ever to eliminate man
failure in the gigantic pressure of the rush hour? Cars with seats
for 44, straps for 56, a total of 100, now carry 252 persons at the
morning and evening peaks. The close-up as the last sardines are
kicked and battered into their cans, strong-armed guards assisting,
is likewise indescribable. Indeed, subways have been shrewdly des-
ignated by Mr. E. K. Lindley as "feedpipes for skyscrapers," con-
stituting the perfect vicious circle. The higher the skyscrapers, the
more subways are dug to fill them. The greater the subway ca-

234

pacity, the more skyscrapers are reared to absorb it. Thus the new
Eighth Avenue line in New York produces automatically a new
one hundred and ten story building on Eighth Avenue.

A short circuit in a power house at Fiftieth Street started a tiny
fire, but a smoky one. Almost instantly all power left the Grand
Central Station. Throughout the night no train could move in or
out. In the tunnels powerful electric engines came helplessly to rest,
and the frightened passengers climbed ladders through manholes
to the street. The great haughty continental expresses stopped at
the city limits. Suburbanites milled and jostled in the terminal, ul-
timately to decide that it was a long walk home, and to begin
searching for a bed.

Two thousand truck drivers recently threatened to strike in one
great city. Immediately the entire perishable food supply was im-
periled. If they could have held their ranks, a mortgage on the
City Hall would not have been too great a price to buy them
off. Nor would two thousand have been necessary. An engineer
once explained to me how one hundred key technicians in power
houses, flood-gate stations, and signal towers could bring the entire
life of Megalopolis to an abrupt conclusion. A tiny piece of care-
lessness in a Springfield generating station shut off all light and
power from the city for many hours. Business was brought to a
standstill, traffic ceased, one factory alone lost 3,500 man hours.

An epidemic may secure a start in an hour's time from an un-
noticed flow of polluted water into the municipal supply. It is
physically impossible for chemists to analyze water continuously
in order to determine how much chlorine is needed to purify it.
And here at last is a ray of sunshine. A Swiss has invented an
"automatic chemist," which keeps the chlorinating process on duty
twenty-four hours in the day. It was exhibited recently but has
yet to be adopted and installed by any American city. It induces
speculation as to how many other vital services are in need of
similar automatic controls.

So much for the factor of technological tenuousness. The nerves
of Megalopolis are jumpy, and under the going custom of hit-
and-miss nobody makes it his business to find out how jumpy, or
to plan any rational system for lessening the pressure. The drift is
toward an even worse confusion, and so, inevitably, toward the
possibility of an ever more serious technical collapse.

Let us turn now to human nerves. The wayfaring man remains

235

sublimely unaware of a chlorine deficiency in his water until an
epidemic overwhelms him, but motor cars and their collateral smells
and noises pursue him every moment of the day and night. In the
first eight months of 1929, 821 persons were killed by automobiles
in the streets of New York, against 666 during a similar period in
1928. Deaths in all American cities from this cause have increased
nine per cent in the current year. In less than two years motor
cars have killed as many people in the United States as there were
American soldiers killed in the War and wounded seven times as
many as there were soldiers wounded. One in three of the fatalities
is a child under fifteen. City-driving speeds have doubled in twenty
years.

As I go about American cities, and particularly as I drive about
them in taxicabs, I notice how the margin of safety continually
declines. Where I allow, let us say, a five-foot tolerance when driv-
ing myself, the taxicab chauffeur will cut it to two feet, one foot,
aye, to nothing at all. Indeed, I have been forced to give up back-
seat driving altogether. I cannot bear to forecast the probabilities of
such narrow margins. At the present time motor traffic is operating
on inches where it used to operate on yards. Probably the only
thing which saves us from ten times the death toll is that when
we are not cutting corners on one wheel, we are hopelessly stalled
in a frozen traffic jam. Recently, on foot in New York, I started
with a bus at Washington Square, and proceeded north along
Fifth Avenue. At Fifty-ninth Street I halted and, taking out my
watch, counted out fifteen minutes before that particular bus ap-
peared. The trouble is that the nervous strain of waiting makes
for an embittered recklessness when the lanes are opened up — and
no better evidence of that strain can be found than in the insane
tooting of every horn in the whole congealed mass. The Queens-
boro Bridge has been christened by a New York editor, The Bridge
of Nervous Breakdowns. "Given a reasonable expectancy of life,
steady nerves, infinite patience, and a Christian resignation to fate,
a man will no doubt get from one end of it to the other. But how
many of us can boast these qualities at 6 P.M.?" He calls for double-
decking — which, when the news is abroad, would, one fears, simply
mean doubling the nervous breakdowns.

The evening of Labor Day, 1929, was unbearably hot and sultry.
It was — according to the sublime processes of the New York holi-
day custom — the evening selected by some three million people to
return to town. Two million had spent the day at Coney Island
(and there is one of Megalopolis' most incredible sights: lucky the

236

man who can fight his way into the water on such a day) or at
Long Beach or Rockaway Beach or Atlantic City; the other mil-
lion comprised the returning vacationists. Twenty-two persons were
killed on the streets. Eighteen sections of extra trains arrived si-
multaneously at the Grand Central Station. The subways were
choked beyond all endurance; trains ran ninety minutes late; buses,
five hours late; the jam of the Holland Tunnel under the Hudson
River was so prodigious that incoming motorists left their cars in
every New Jersey gutter and fought for standing room on the
ferries or in the tubes. Bumper to bumper, the steel files ran thirty,
forty miles into the country over the Albany Post Road, the Boston
Post Road, the Merrick Road, the Jericho Turnpike; with bed long
after sun-up for those at the remoter ends of the file. Thus
Megalopolis enjoys its holiday.

Citizen A: "Are you going to the country for the week-end?"

Citizen B: "How could I get back?"

It would be a great mistake to suppose that such conditions are
found only in New York. Manhattan is a sublime exhibit, but one
to which every other American city aspires with the utmost en-
thusiasm. Look at the skyscrapers snooting out of the Texas plain
— congestion deliberately created amid unending square miles of
open space. I sometimes wonder if the erection of lofty buildings
does not often transcend the economic basis altogether. How many
are built for the sheer satisfaction of registering the highest alti-
tude yet reached; how many to expand the ego of the promoter?

British scientists predict the coming of the deaf age owing to
metropolitan noises and, justly enough, select New Yorkers as the
first who are to lose their hearing. Herald Square, according to
Doctor Free's instrument, is fifty-five sensation units above quiet.
To talk to a person in front of Macy's one must shout as loudly as
to a person more than half deaf. Ordinary street noises produce a
result comparable to that of one-third deafness, with certain loca-
tions doubling this rate. A badly serviced truck will make five
times as much clamor as one of the same make in good repair. But
where is space for the repair shops? Typists require nineteen per
cent more energy to work in a noisy room than in a quiet one.
Twenty per cent of all office workers' energy is wasted combating
sound. The Wright Whirlwind motor and the New York subway
both register seventy-five units on Doctor Free's machine, five units
higher than a riveting machine in full cry.

The Health Commissioner of New York tells us that people are
taking to drugs and sedatives to make them sleep. In the labora-

237

tories of Colgate University white rats, continuously exposed to
normal city sounds, grow less, eat less, are less active and playful
than their brothers exposed only to quiet. School children, it has
been found, are very seriously handicapped in their work by street
noises. To make matters worse, it has been determined that short
skirts increase the racket. Legs bounce the sounds back, where
millions of yards of textiles on city streets used to absorb a measura-
ble fraction! Professor Spooner of Oxford, overwhelmed by such
facts, calls despairingly upon the League of Nations to attack the
problem. "Never," he says, "has civilization been confronted with
such a malignant plague."

Not to be outdone by Doctor Free, Mr. Howard C. Murphy, a
heating and ventilating engineer, has invented a machine for meas-
uring dust, and so deluged us with another shower of gloomy sta-
tistics. The dirtiest city in America is St. Louis, righting its way
through 17,600 dust particles per cubic foot — with Cincinnati, Pitts-
burgh, and Detroit, in that order, following close behind. New
York for once loses its crown, having only 9,700 particles per cubic
foot; but this is about four times as much as in country air. Winter
death rates in cities have now passed summer death rates "due to
one outstanding factor — smoke, dust and contaminated air." Mean-
while, though the sun may occasionally shine, all health-giving
ultra-violet rays are completely excluded by the dome of dust and
smoke which forever hangs above the skyscraper tops.

In brief, Megalopolis, for all its gaudy show, its towering archi-
tecture, its many refinements and cloistered comforts, is not physi-
cally fit for ordinary people to live in. And as the noise, dust, acci-
dent, explosion, and traffic congestion figures show, it grows
continually worse. The technological limits of the machine have
been repeatedly outraged until now the tangle of vital nerves is so
complicated and involved that it is safe to say no one understands
them or realizes in the faintest measure the probability and extent
of some major lesion.

This, the first of the three alternatives submitted earlier, is my
favorite for the future of great cities. They will drift blindly into
breakdown. The final collapse may be very sudden and very ter-
rible, due, let us say, to unendurable pressures of underground
gases. Or, and more probably, Megalopolis will become so alien to
normal living that even Jews, with two thousand years of urban
adaptation in their inheritance, will leave it. Nor will the irate citi-
zen return until guaranteed space in which to breathe, move, and
function adequately. This will demolish the whole structure of

238

land values, and in the end demand the complete rearrangement
of metropolitan anatomy.

Can we reverse the process, and rearrange before the breakdown?
Logically we can, psychologically we probably shall not. No one
in his senses would advocate that Megalopolis should abandon its
mechanical arteries, and go back to the London of Doctor Johnson.
But it is difficult to see why anyone in his senses should not demand
that technological tenuousness be adequately appraised and squarely
met. If we are to live in mechanical cities — and that is the path we
have chosen — we ought to respect the mechanism. If the structure
of real estate values — the subway-skyscraper complex, for instance
— insists on choking the mechanism, then we ought either to abolish
the structure and run the city on sound engineering principles or
abolish the city as a complicated mechanical phenomenon alto-
gether. Nor can the choice be indefinitely delayed.

If we want a city to use and enjoy we must give up great sec-
tions of the real estate racket. It must be planned for function, its
nervous channels protected with space, open areas, "balanced loads,"
adequate and incessant supervisions. Dynamite as a clearing agent
must be freely employed, a whole new orientation of work areas,
play areas, home areas, established. If the landlord refuses to budge,
then dynamite the landlord — by vigorous condemnation proceed-
ings if you prefer. Technically the thing is complicated, but cer-
tainly negotiable. One can nominate a dozen engineers and
architects who, given a free hand, could make even New York
genuinely habitable and reasonably safe within a decade — and at
a cost not so much greater than that of the new subway program.
Dynamite is relatively cheap.

But the job would have to be done with the same high-handed-
ness and vigor which characterized the War Industries Board when,
overriding a thousand encrusted traditions and petty rights, it put
the nation on a war footing. A perfectly ruthless civic will must
operate. Tear down a square mile here, a square mile there. Ob-
literate this reeking slum. Double the width of this street; abandon
and build on that one. Construct great causeways to by-pass through
traffic. A year in Sing Sing for any loud speaker audible after ten
o'clock. No private motor cars at certain hours below Fifty-ninth
Street, New York, and only 15,000 taxicabs. Two years in Atlanta
for an unserviced truck making five times the noise it should. Fifty
thousand trees to be set out immediately. Sidewalk cafes to be

239

widely encouraged. Half o£ all subways to be permanently sealed,
with a two-day festival and free beer. Three years in the Andaman
Islands for a reeking chimney. Garbage to be completely carbonized
and by-producted. Four years on Nova Zembla for polluting river
or harbor waters with oil refuse. Forty per cent of all industry to
move outside the city limits to designated areas. (Suburbanites can
thus commute outward as well as inward to their work.) The death
penalty for all the officers and employees of companies caught
broadcasting advertising matter from airplanes (as recently recom-
mended by a hospital doctor in a letter to the World). And so on.
You are smiling again. But I am not. When I think of the city
fit for the high gods to live in which modern engineering might
build . . . when I think of what Megalopolis might be ...

The Nemesis of American Business, 1933

240

Tk SouA

Rockwell Kent Illustration, courtesy ot R. R. Donnelley & Sons Company

Southern Scenes

1. The Cotton Boll

HENRY TIMROD

While I recline

At ease beneath

This immemorial pine,

Small sphere!

(By dusky ringers brought this morning here

And shown with boastful smiles),

I turn thy cloven sheath,

Through which the soft white fibres peer,

That, with their gossamer bands,

Unite, like love, the sea-divided lands,

And slowly, thread by thread,

Draw forth the folded strands,

Than which the trembling line,

By whose frail help yon startled spider fled

Down the tall spear-grass from his swinging bed,

Is scarce more fine;

And as the tangled skein

Unravels in my hands,

Betwixt me and the noonday light,

A veil seems lifted, and for miles and miles

The landscape broadens on my sight,

As, in the little boll, there lurked a spell

Like that which, in the ocean shell,

With mystic sound,

Breaks down the narrow walls that hem us round,

And turns some city lane

Into the restless main,

With all his capes and isles!

Yonder bird,

Which floats, as if at rest,

In those blue tracts above the thunder, where

No vapors cloud the stainless air,

And never sound is heard,

243

Unless at such rare time

When, from the City of the Blest,

Rings down some golden chime,

Sees' not from his high place

So vast a cirque of summer space

As widens round me in one mighty field,

Which, rimmed by seas and sands,

Doth hail its earliest daylight in the beams

Of gray Atlantic dawns;

And, broad as realms made up of many lands,

Is lost afar

Behind the crimson hills and purple lawns

Of sunset, among plains which roll their streams

Against the Evening Star!

And lo!

To the remotest point of sight,

Although I gaze upon no waste ot snow,

The endless field is white;

And the whole landscape glows,

For many a shining league away,

With such accumulated light

As Polar lands would flash beneath a tropic day! . . .

Poems, 1873

2. The Edge of the Swamp

WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS

'Tis a wild spot, and even in summer hours,

With wondrous wealth of beauty and a charm

For the sad fancy, hath the gloomiest look,

That awes with strange repulsion. There, the bird

Sings never merrily in the sombre trees,

That seem to have never known a term of youth,

Their young leaves all being blighted. A rank growth

Spreads venomously round, with power to taint;

And blistering dews await the thoughtless hand

That rudely parts the thicket. Cypresses,

Each a great ghastly giant, eld and gray,

Stride o'er the dusk, dank tract, — with buttresses

244

Spread round, apart, not seeming to sustain,
Yet link'd by secret twines, that, underneath,
Blend with each arching trunk. Fantastic vines,
That swing like monstrous serpents in the sun,
Bind top to top, until the encircling trees
Group all in close embrace. Vast skeletons
Of forests, that have perish'd ages gone,
Moulder, in mighty masses, on the plain;
Now buried in some dark and mystic tarn,
Or sprawl'd above it, resting on great arms,
And making, for the opossum and the fox,
Bridges, that help them as they roam by night.
Alternate stream and lake, between the banks,
Glimmer in doubtful light: smooth, silent, dark,
They tell not what they harbor; but, beware!
Lest, rising to the tree on which you stand,
You sudden see the moccasin snake heave up
His yellow shining belly and flat head
Of burnish'd copper. Stretch'd at length, behold
Where yonder Cayman, in his natural home,
The mammoth lizard, all his armor on,
Slumbers half-buried in the sedgy grass,
Beside the green ooze where he shelters him.
The place, so like the gloomiest realm of death,
Is yet the abode of thousand forms of life, —
The terrible, the beautiful, the strange, —
Winged and creeping creatures, such as make
The instinctive flesh with apprehension crawl,
When sudden we behold. Hark! at our voice
The whooping crane, gaunt fisher in these realms,
Erects his skeleton form and shrieks in flight,
On great white wings. A pair of summer ducks,
Most princely in their plumage, as they hear
His cry, with senses quickening all to .fear,
Dash up from the lagoon with marvellous haste,
Following his guidance. See! aroused by these,
And startled by our progress o'er the stream,
The steel-jaw'd Cayman, from his grassy slope,
Slides silent to the slimy green abode,
Which is his province. You behold him now,
His bristling back uprising as he speeds
To safety, in the center of the lake,

245

Whence his head peers alone, — a shapeless knot,
That shows no sign of life; the hooded eye,
Nathless, being ever vigilant and sharp,
Measuring the victim. See! a butterfly . . .
Lights on the monster's brow. The surly mute
Straightway goes down; so suddenly that he,
The dandy of the summer flowers and woods,
Dips his light wings, and soils his golden coat,
With the rank waters of the turbid lake.
Wondering and vex'd, the plumed citizen
Flies with an eager terror to the banks,
Seeking more genial natures, — but in vain.
Here are no gardens such as he desires,
No innocent flowers of beauty, no delights
Of sweetness free from taint. The genial growth
He loves, finds here no harbor. Fetid shrubs,
That scent the gloomy atmosphere, offend
His pure patrician fancies. On the trees,
That look like felon spectres, he beholds
No blossoming beauties; and for smiling heavens,
That flutter his wings with breezes of pure balm,
He nothing sees but sadness — aspects dread,
That gather frowning, cloud and fiend in one,
As if in combat, fiercely to defend
Their empire from the intrusive wing and beam.
The example of the butterfly be ours.
He spreads his lacquer'd wings above the trees,
And speeds with free flight, warning us to seek
For a more genial home, and couch more sweet
Than these drear borders offer us to-night.

Poems, 1853

3. Charleston in the Seventies

EDWARD KING

The approaches to Charleston from the sea are unique, and the
stranger yields readily to the illusion that the city springs directly
from the bosom of the waves. The bar at the harbor's mouth will
allow ships drawing seventeen feet of water to pass over it. The

246

entrance from the sea is commanded on either side by Morris and
Sullivan's Islands, the former the scene of terrific slaughter during
the dreadful days of 1863, and subsequently one of the points from
which the Union forces bombarded Charleston; and the latter at
present a fashionable summer resort, crowded with fine mansions.
On the harbor side of Sullivan's Island, Fort Moultrie, a solid and
well-constructed fortification, frowns over the hurrying waters.
Passing Sumter, which lies isolated and in semi-ruin, looking, at a
distance, like some coral island pushed up from the depths, one
sails by pleasant shores lined with palmettoes and grand moss-
hung oaks, and by Castle Pinckney, and anchors at the substantial
wharves of the proud little city.

Many ships from many climes are anchored at these wharves, and
the town seems the seaport of some thriving commercial state, so
little does it represent the actual condition of South Carolina. The
graceful Corinthian portico and columns of the new Custom-House,
built of pure white marble, rise up near the water-side. There is a
jolly refrain of the clinking of hammers, the rattling of drays, and
the clanking of chains, which indicates much activity. Here some
foreign vessel, which has come for phosphates, is unloading her
ballast; here a rice-schooner is unloading near a pounding-mill. On
one hand are lumberyards; on another, cottonsheds, filled with
bales. Hundreds of negroes, screaming and pounding their mules,
clatter along the piers and roadways; a great Florida steamer is
swinging round, and starting on her ocean trip to the Peninsula,
with her decks crowded with Northern visitors. Along "East Bay"
the houses are, in many places, solid and antique. The whole as-
pect of the harbor quarter is unlike that of any of our new and
smartly painted Northern towns. In Charleston the houses and
streets have an air of dignified repose and solidity. At the foot of
Broad street, a spacious avenue lined with banks and offices of pro-
fessional men, stands the old Post-office, a building of the co-
lonial type, much injured during the late war, but since renovated
at considerable expense. Most of the original material for the con-
struction of the edifice was brought from England in 1761. Within
its walls the voices of Rutledge, Pinckney, Gadsden, Lowndes and
Laurens were raised to vehemently denounce the Government
against whose tyranny the thirteen original states rebelled;
from the old steps Washington addressed the Charlestonians in
1791; and for many years during this century it was an Exchange
for the merchants of Charleston and vicinity. When the British
occupied Charleston, the building was the scene of many exciting

247

episodes. The basement was taken for a prison, and all who were
devoted to the cause of American liberty were confined therein.
From that prison the martyr, Isaac Hayne, was led to execution;
and in the cellar one hundred thousand pounds of powder lay
safely hidden from the British during the whole time of their occu-
pation. On the site of this building stood the old council-chamber
and watch-house used in the days of the proprietary government.

The original plan of Charleston comprised a great number of
streets running at right angles, north and south, east and west, be-
tween the two rivers. But many of these streets were very narrow,
being, in fact, nothing more than lanes; and they have remained
unchanged until the present day. The darkness and narrowness of
the old lanes, the elder colonists thought, would keep away the
glare of the bright sun; but the modern Charlestonians do not seem
of their opinion for they open wide avenues, and court the sun
freely in their spacious and elegant mansions on the Battery.
Some of the Charleston avenues present a novel appearance, bor-
dered as they are on either side by tall, weather-stained mansions,
whose gable-ends front upon the sidewalks, and which boast ve-
randas attached to each story, screened from the sun and from
observation by ample wooden lattices, and by trellised vines and
creepers. The high walls, which one sees so often in France and
England, surround the majority of the gardens, and it is only
through the gate, as in New Orleans, that one can catch a glimpse
of the loveliness within. In some of the streets remote from the
harbor front, the stillness of death or desertion reigns; many of the
better class of mansions are vacant, and here and there the resi-
dence of some former aristocrat is now serving as an abode for a
dozen negro families.

On King Street one sees the most activity in the lighter branches
of trade; there the ladies indulge in shopping, evening, morning,
and afternoon; there is located the principal theatre, the tasty, little
Academy of Music, and there also, are some elegant homes.
Along that section of King street, near the crossing of Broad, how-
ever, are numerous little shops frequented by negroes, in which
one sees the most extravagant array of gaudy but inexpensive arti-
cles of apparel; and of eatables which the negro palate cannot re-
sist. The residence streets of the "Palmetto City," on the side next
the Ashley river, are picturesque and lovely. They are usually bor-~
dered by many beautiful gardens. A labyrinth of long wooden
piers and wharves runs out on the lagoons and inlets near the Ash-
ley, and the boasted resemblance of Charleston to Venice is doubt-

248

less founded on the perfect illusion produced by a view of that
section from a distance. The magnificent and the mean jostle each
other very closely in all quarters.

The Great South, 1875

4. The Old Monteano Plantation

CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON

On the afternoon of the 23rd of December the thermometer
marked eighty-six degrees in the shade. . . . [Deal], lying on the
white sand, his head within the line of shadow cast by a live-oak,
but all the remainder of his body full in the hot sunshine, basked
like a chameleon, and enjoyed the heat. . . . He always took the
live-oak for a head-protector; but gave himself variety by trying new
radiations around the tree, his crossed legs and feet stretching from
it in a slightly different direction each day, as the spokes of a wheel
radiate from the hub. The live-oak was a symmetrical old tree, stand-
ing by itself; having always had sufficient space, its great arms were
straight, stretching out evenly all around, densely covered with the
small, dark, leathery leaves, unnotched and uncut, which are as un-
like the Northern oak-leaf as the leaf of the willow is unlike that of
the sycamore. Behind the live-oak two tall, ruined chimneys and a
heap of white stones marked where the mansion-house had been.
The old tree had watched its foundations laid; had shaded its blank,
white front and little hanging balcony above; had witnessed its
destruction, fifty years before, by the Indians; and had mounted
guard over its remains ever since, alone as far as man was con-
cerned. . . .

The ancient tree was Spanish to the core; it would have resented
the sacrilege to the tips of its small acorns, if the newcomer had
laid hands upon the dignified old ruin it guarded. The newcomer,
however, entertained no such intention; a small outbuilding, roof-
less, but otherwise in good condition, on the opposite side of the
circular space, attracted his attention, and became mentally his
residence, as soon as his eyes fell upon it. ... It was the old
Monteano plantation, and he had taken it for a year.

The venerable little outbuilding was now firmly roofed with
new, green boards; its square windows, destitute of sash or glass,
possessed new wooden shutters hung by strips of deer's hide; new

249

steps led up to its two rooms, elevated four feet above the ground.
But for a door it had only a red cotton curtain, now drawn for-
ward and thrown carelessly over a peg on the outside wall, a spot
of vivid color on its white. Underneath the windows hung flimsy
strips of bark covered with brightly-hued flowers. . . .

As he basked, motionless, in the sunshine, it could be noted that
this brother was a slender youth, with long, pale-yellow hair — hair
fine, thin, and dry, the kind that crackles if the comb is passed
rapidly through it. His face in sleep was pale and wizened, with
deep purple shadows under the closed eyes; his long hands were
stretched out on the white, hot sand in the blaze of the sunshine,
which, however, could not alter their look of blue-white cold. The
sunken chest and blanched temples told of illness; but if cure were
possible, it would be gained from this soft, balmy, fragrant air,
now soothing his sore lungs. He slept on in peace; and an old green
chameleon came down from the tree, climbed* up on the sleeve of
his brown sack-coat, occupied himself for a moment in changing
his own miniature hide to match the cloth, swelled out his scarlet
throat, caught a fly or two, and then, pleasantly established, went
to sleep also in company. Butterflies, in troops of twenty or thirty,
danced in the golden air; there was no sound. Everything was hot
and soft and brightly colored. Winter? Who knew of winter here?
Labor? What was labor? This was the land and the sky and the
air of never-ending rest.

Rodman the Keeper, 1880

5. Belles Demoiselles

GEORGE WASHINGTON CABLE

Coming up the Mississippi in the sailing craft of those early days,
about the time one first could descry the white spires of the old
St. Louis Cathedral you would be pretty sure to spy, just over to
your right under the levee, Belles Demoiselles Mansion, with its
broad veranda and red painted cypress roof, peering over the em-
bankment, like a bird in the nest, half hid by the avenue of wil-
lows which one of the departed De Charleus, — he that married
a Marot, — had planted on the levee's crown.

The house stood unusually near the river, facing eastward, and
standing foursquare, with an immense veranda about its sides, and

250

a flight of steps in front spreading broadly downward, as we open
arms to a child. From the veranda nine miles of river were seen;
and in their compass, near at hand, the shady garden full of rare
and beautiful flowers; farther away broad fields of cane and rice,
and the distant quarters of the slaves, and on the horizon every-
where a dark belt of cypress forest.

The master was old Colonel De Charleu, — Jean Albert Henri
Joseph De Charleu-Marot, and "Colonel" by the grace of the first
American governor. Monsieur, — he would not speak to anyone who
called him "Colonel," — was a hoary-headed patriarch. His step was
firm, his form erect, his intellect strong and clear, his countenance
classic, serene, dignified, commanding, his manners courtly, his
voice musical, — fascinating. He had had his vices, — all his life, but
had borne them, as his race do, with a serenity of conscience and
a cleanness of mouth that left no outward blemish on the surface
of the gentleman. He had gambled in Royal street, drank hard in
Orleans street, run his adversary through in the duelling-ground
at Slaughter-house Point, and danced and quarreled at the St.
Philippe-street-theatre quadroon balls. Even now, with all his
courtesy and bounty, and a hospitality which seemed to be enter-
taining angels, he was bitter-proud and penurious, and deep down
in his hard-finished heart loved nothing but himself, his name, and
his motherless children. But these! — their ravishing beauty was all
but excuse enough for the unbounded idolatry of their father.
Against these seven godesses he never rebelled. . . .

To those, who, by, whatever fortune, wandered into the garden
of Belles Demoiselles some summer afternoon as the sky was red-
dening towards evening, it was lovely to see the family gathered
out upon the tiled pavement at the foot of the broad front steps,
gaily chatting and jesting, with that ripple of laughter that comes
so pleasantly from a bevy of girls. The father would be found
seated in their midst, the center of attention, and compliment, wit-
ness, arbiter, umpire, critic, by his beautiful children's unanimous
appointment, but the single vassal, too, of seven absolute sovereigns.

Now they would draw their chairs near together in eager dis-
cussion of some new step in the dance, or the adjustment of some
rich adornment. Now they would start about him with excited
comments to see the eldest fix a bunch of violets in his button-hole.
Now the twins would move down a walk after some unusual
flower, and be greeted on their return with the high pitched notes
of delighted feminine surprise.

As evening came on they would draw more quietly about their

251

paternal center. Often their chairs were forsaken, and they grouped
themselves on the lower steps, one above another, and surrendered
themselves to the tender influences of the approaching night. At
such an hour the passer on the river, already attracted by the dark
figures of the broad-roofed mansion, and its woody garden stand-
ing against the glowing sunset, would hear the voices of the hidden
group rise from the spot clearer and clearer as the thrill of music
warmed them into feeling, and presently joined by the deeper
tones of the father's voice; then, as the daylight passed quite away,
all would be still, and he would know that the beautiful home had
gathered its nestlings under its wings.

Old Creole Days, 1879

6. Contemplation in New Orleans

JOSEPH HERGESHEIMER

He was in a city of small yellow brick and wooden dwellings,
with flat balconies of ornamental iron, set among tropical flowers
and trees. There were avenues of magnolias and wide-spreading
live oaks, groves of myrtles and cedars; the gardens and public
squares were luxurious with pomegranates and roses and jessa-
mines, blooming cactus and banana palms; the houses were veiled
in a waxen foliage of orange trees white-starred with blossoms. Gaut
saw window-ledges sweet with rosemary, starlings busy in willow
cages, and intimate courtyards green with moss. Slight pale girls
in brief calico were selling violets and cinnamon pinks; older negro
women had their heads tied in red or orange tignons. There was
a constant soft crying in French. Belles chandelles! Belles chandelles!

A patrol went up the Levee, here broad and paved with pounded
oyster shells; the gens d'armes wore blue frock-coats with gilt lace,
and cocked hats; they carried swords and flintlocks. Indian women,
standing in the doorways, cried gombo file and jambalaya and
biere douce. The gombo file was wrapped in large plantain leaves,
and the beer kept cool in tubs. There were Acadians smelling of
cattle. Humble Spanish merchants, Catalans, with hand-carts. Tow-
headed Germans. Choctaws naked but for bright casual rags. Greek
ice-cream venders in fezes. Everything, it seemed to Gaut Penny,
was for sale on the streets — red and white candies, pralines, ginger
cakes, live fowls, and meats and vegetables, charms and clothes and
jewelry. James Starin pressed forward.

252

"I might be better back yonder. Where I would be at home. This
isn't just the garden it looks like. Did you notice the canes on the
Levee? Most of them are sword-canes. There is something about
them you can tell. The nigger girls are too pretty and the air is
too sweet to be comfortable. Just the same it's a paradise. A para-
dise with a twist."

Quiet Cities, 1928

7. Voudou Stronghold

FRANCES and EDWARD LAROCQUE TINKER

There was another lamp like the one he held, on a board in the
back of the room, and through the smudged chimneys the yellow
flames gleamed feebly on the weird, uncanny furnishings and sent
long, slithering shadows across the white-washed walls. Bunches
of dried herbs were nailed up everywhere, and hung from the
ceiling were boxes of lizards and toads and small alligators, while
several tame chickens walked about unconcernedly. Bottles of queer
mixtures, some dark, some light, and some a vivid red, stood on
the shelves and tables, and in the corner of the room on the littered
floor, bundles of varied shapes were thrown in careless disorder.

A shallow basket stood on one side of the door, half full of white
pebbles and small shells, and over them crawled dark brown craw-
fish and grotesque crabs, the flickering half-light giving them fan-
tastic shapes of monstrous size. Dominating this Babel of objects
with supreme serenity was a large black crucifix, and innumerable
rosaries, like wavering stalactites, hung from every projection that
could hold their weight. Some had dropped to the floor and lay
curled up or tangled in the welter of an herb doctor's pharmacopoeia.

Widows Only, 1931

8. Virginia Farms

ELLEN GLASGOW

A girl in an orange-coloured shawl stood at the window of Ped-
lar's store and looked, through the falling snow, at the deserted

253

road. Though she watched there without moving, her attitude, in
its stillness, gave an impression of arrested flight, as if she were
running toward life.

Bare, starved, desolate, the country closed in about her. The last
train of the day had gone by without stopping, and the station of
Pedlar's Mill was as lonely as the abandoned fields by the track.
From the bleak horizon, where the flatness created an illusion of
immensity, the broomsedge was spreading in a smothered fire over
the melancholy brown of the landscape. Under the falling snow,
which melted as soon at it touched the earth, the colour was veiled
and dim; but when the sky changed the broomsedge changed with
it. On clear mornings the waste places were cinnamon-red in the
sunshine. Beneath scudding clouds the plumes of the bent grasses
faded to ivory. During the long spring rains, a film of yellow-green
stole over the burned ground. At autumn sunsets, when the red
light searched the country, the broomsedge caught fire from the
afterglow and blazed out in a splendour of colour. Then the meet-
ing of earth and sky dissolved in the flaming mist of the horizon.

At these quiet seasons, the dwellers near Pedlar's Mill felt scarcely
more than a tremor on the surface of life. But on stormy days, when
the wind plunged like a hawk from the swollen clouds, there was
a quivering in the broomsedge, as if coveys of frightened partridges
were flying from the pursuer. Then the quivering would become a
ripple and the ripple would swell presently into rolling waves. The
straw would darken as the gust swooped down, and brighten as
it sped on to the shelter of scrub pine and sassafras bushes. And
while the wind bewitched the solitude, a vague restlessness would
stir in the hearts of living things on the farms, of men, women,
and animals. "Broomsage ain't jest wild stuff. It's a kind of fate,"
old Matthew Fairlamb used to say.

Thirty years ago, modern methods of farming, even methods that
were modern in the benighted eighteen-nineties, had not penetrated
to this thinly settled part of Virginia. The soil, impoverished by
the war and the tenant system which followed the war, was still
drained of its lingering fertility for the sake of the poor crops it
could yield. Spring after spring, the cultivated ground appeared to
shrink into the "old fields," where scrub pine or oak succeeded
broomsedge and sassafras as -inevitably as autumn slipped into
winter. Now and then a new start would be made. Some thrifty
settler, a German Catholic, perhaps, who was trying his fortunes
in a staunch Protestant community, would buy a mortgaged farm
for a dollar an acre, and begin to experiment with suspicious,

254

strange-smelling fertilizers. For a season or two his patch of ground
would respond to the unusual treatment and grow green with
promise. Then the forlorn roads, deep in mud, and the surround-
ing air of failure, which was as inescapable as a drought, combined
with the cutworm, the locust, and the tobacco-fly, against the human
invader; and where the brief harvest had been, the perpetual broom-
sedge would wave.

Barren Ground, 1925

255

Southern Anecdotes

1. A Change in the Judiciary

DAVID CROCKETT

I went first into Heckman county, to see what I could do among
the people as a candidate. Here they told me that they wanted
to move their town nearer to the centre of the county, and I must
come out in favour of it. There's no devil if I knowed what this
meant, or how the town was to be moved; and so I kept dark,
going on the identical same plan that I now find is called "non-
committal." About this time there was a great squirrel hunt
on Duck river, which was among my people. They were to hunt
two days: then to meet and count the scalps, and have a big
barbecue, and what might be called a tip-top country frolic. The
dinner, and a general treat, was all to be paid for by the party
having taken the fewest scalps. I joined one side, taking the place
of one of the hunters, and got a gun ready for the hunt. I killed
a great many squirrels, and when we counted scalps, my party
was victorious.

The company had every thing to eat and drink that could be
furnished in so new a country, and much fun and good humour
prevailed. But before the regular frolic commenced, I mean the
dancing, I was called on to make a speech as a candidate; which
was a business I was as ignorant of as an outlandish negro.

A public document I had never seen, nor did I know there
were such things; and how to begin I couldn't tell. I made many
apologies, and tried to get off, for I know'd I had a man to run
against who could speak prime, and I know'd, too, that I wa'n't
able to shuffle and cut with him. He was there, and knowing my
ignorance as well as I did myself, he also urged me to make a
speech. The truth is, he thought my being a candidate was a mere
matter of sport; and didn't think, for a moment, that he was in
any danger from an ignorant backwoodo bear hunter. But I found
I couldn't get off, and so I determined just to go ahead, and leave
it to chance what I should say. I got up and told the people, I
reckoned they know'd what I come for, but if not, I could tell
them. I had come for their votes, and if they didn't watch mighty
close, I'd get them too. But the worst of all was, that I couldn't

256

tell them any thing about government. I tried to speak about
something, and I cared very little what, until I choaked up as
bad as if my mouth had been jam'd and cram'd chock full of
dry mush. There the people stood, listening all the while, with
their eyes, mouths, and years all open, to catch every word I
would speak.

At last I told them I was like a fellow I had heard of not long
before. He was beating on the head of an empty barrel near the
road-side, when a traveler, who was passing along, asked him
what he was doing that for? The fellow replied, that there was
some cider in that barrel a few days before, and he was trying
to see if there was any then, but if there was he couldn't get at
it. I told them that there had been a little bit of speech in me a
while ago, but I believed I couldn't get it .out. They all roared out
in a mighty laugh, and I told some other anecdotes, equally
amusing to them, and believing I had them in a first-rate way,
I quit and got down, thanking the people for their attention. But
I took care to remark that I was as dry as a powder horn, and
that I thought it was time for us to wet our whistles a little; and
so I put off to the liquor stand, and was followed by the greater
part of the crowd.

I felt certain this was necessary, for I knowed my competitor
could open government matters to them as easy as he pleased.
He had, however, mighty few left to hear him, as I continued with
the crowd, now and then taking a horn, and telling good hu-
moured stories, till he was done speaking. I found I was good for
the votes at the hunt, and when we broke up, I went on to the
town of Vernon, which was -the same they wanted to move. Here
they pressed me again on the subject, and I found I could get either
party by agreeing with them. But I told them I didn't know
whether it would be right or not, and so couldn't promise either
way.

Their court commenced on the next Monday, as the barbarcue
was on a Saturday, and the candidates for governor and for
Congress, as well as my competitor and myself, all attended.

The thought of having to make a speech made my knees feel
mighty weak, and set my heart to fluttering almost as bad as my
first love scrape with the Quaker's neice. But as good luck would
have it, these big candidates spoke nearly all day, and when they
quit, the people were worn out with fatigue, which afforded me
a good apology for not discussing the government. But I listened
mighty close to them, and was learning pretty fast about political

257

matters. When they were all done, I got up and told some laugh-
able story, and quit. I found I was safe in those parts, and so I
went home, and didn't go back again till after the election was
over. But to cut this matter short, I was elected, doubling my
competitor, and nine votes over.

A short time after this, I was in Pulaski, where I met with
Colonel Polk, now a member of Congress from Tennessee. He
was at that time a member elected to the Legislature, as well as
myself; and in a large company he said to me, "Well, colonel.
I suppose we shall have a radical change of the judiciary at the
next session of the Legislature." "Very likely, sir," says I, and I
put out quicker, for I was afraid some one would ask me what the
judiciary was; and if I knowed I wish I may be shot. I don't
indeed believe I had ever before heard that there was any such
thing in all nature; but still I was not willing that the people
there should know how ignorant I was about it.

When the time for meeting of the Legislature arrived, I went
on, and before I had been there long, I could have told what the
judiciary was, and what the government was too; and many other
things that I had known nothing about before.

Narrative of the Life of David Crockett, of the State of Ten-
nessee, 1834

2. Kentucky Shooting

JOHN JAMES AUDUBON

Several individuals who conceive themselves expert in the man-
agement of the gun, are often seen to meet for the purpose of
displaying their skill, and betting a trifling sum, put up a target,
in the centre of which a common-sized nail is hammered for
about 'two-thirds of its length. The marksmen make choice of
what they consider a proper distance, which may be forty paces.
Each man cleans the interior of his tube, which is called wiping
it, places a ball in jhe palm of his hand, pouring as much powder
from his horn upon it as will cover it. This quantity is supposed
to be sufficient for any distance within a hundred yards. A shot
which comes very close to the nail is considered as that of an
indifferent marksman; the bending of the nail is, of course, some-
what better; but nothing less than hitting it right on the head
is satisfactory. Well, kind reader, one out of three shots generally

258

hits the nail, and should the shooters amount to half a dozen, two
nails are frequently needed before each can have a shot. Those
who drive the nail have a further trial amongst themselves, and
the two best shots of these generally settle the affair, when all the
sportsmen adjourn to some house, and spend an hour or two in
friendly intercourse, appointing, before they part, a day for another
trial. This is technically termed Driving the Nail.

Barring off squirrels is delightful sport, and in my opinion re-
quires a greater degree of accuracy than any other. I first witnessed
this manner of procuring squirrels whilst near the town of Frank-
fort. The performer was the celebrated Daniel Boon. We walked
out together, and followed the rocky margins of the Kentucky
River, until we reached a piece of flat land thickly covered with
black walnuts, oaks and hickories. As the general mast was a good
one that year, squirrels were seen gambolling on every tree around
us. My companion, a stout, hale, and athletic man, dressed in a
homespun hunting-shirt, bare-legged and moccasined, carried a
long and heavy rifle, which, as he was loading it, he said had
proved efficient in all his former undertakings, and which he
hoped would not fail on this occasion, as he felt proud to show
me his skill. The gun was wiped, the powder measured, the ball
patched with six-hundred thread linen, and the charge sent home
with a hickory rod. We moved not a step from the place, for
the squirrels were so numerous that it was unnecessary to go
after them. Boon pointed to one of these animals which had ob-
served us, and was crouched on a branch about fifty paces distant,
and bade me mark well the spot where the ball should hit. He
raised his piece gradually, until the bead (that being the name
given by the Kentuckians to the sight) of the barrel was brought
to a line with the spot which he intended to hit. The whip-like
report resounded through the woods and along the hills in re-
peated echoes. Judge of my surprise, when I perceived that the
ball had hit the piece of the bark immediately beneath the squirrel,
and shivered it into splinters, the concussion produced by which
had killed the animal, and sent it whirling into the air, as if it
had been blown up by explosion of a powder magazine. Boon kept
up his firing, and before many hours had elapsed, we had pro-
cured as many squirrels as we wished; for you must know, that
to load a rifle requires only a moment, and that if it is wiped once
after each shot, it will do duty for hours. Since that first interview
with our veteran Boon, I have seen many other individuals per-
form the same feat.

259

The snuffing of a candle with a ball, I first had an opportunity
of seeing near the banks of Green River, not far from a large
pigeon-roost, to which I had previously made a visit. I heard many
reports of guns during the early part of a dark night, and knowing
them to be those of rifles, I went towards the spot to ascertain the
cause. On reaching the place, I was welcomed by a dozen of tall
stout men, who told me they were exercising, for the purpose of
enabling them to shoot under night at the reflected light from the
eyes of a deer or wolf, by torch-light, of which I shall give you
an account somewhere else. A fire was blazing near, the smoke
of which rose curling among the thick foliage of the trees. At
a distance which rendered it scarcely distinguishable, stood a burn-
ing candle, as if intended for an offering to the goddess of night,
but which in reality was only fifty yards from the spot on which
we all stood. One man was within a few yards, of it, to watch the
effects of the shots, as well as to light the candle should it chance
to go out, or to replace it should the shot cut it across. Each marks-
man shot in his turn. Some never hit either the snuff or the
candle, and were congratulated with a loud laugh; while others
actually snuffed the candle without putting it out, and were
recompensed for their dexterity by numerous hurrahs. One of
them, who was particularly expert, was very fortunate, and snuffed
the candle three times out of seven, whilst all the other shots
either put out the candle, or cut it immediately under the light.

Of the feats performed by the Kentuckians with the rifle, I could
say more than might be expedient on the present occasion. In every
thinly peopled portion of the State, it is rare to meet one without
a gun of that description, as well as a tomahawk. By way of recre-
ation they often cut off a piece of the bark of a tree, make a target
of it, using a little powder wetted with water and saliva for the
bull's eye, and shoot into the mark all the balls they have about
them, picking them out of the wood again.

Ornithological Biography, 1839

3. The Confederate Line

SIDNEY LANIER

Stopping the horses a moment, they heard the sound of a cannon
booming in the direction of Richmond. Another and another fol-

260

lowed. Presently came a loud report which seemed to loosen the bat-
tle as a loud thunder-peal releases the rain, and the long musketry-
rattle broke forth.

"Haygood's having a rough time of it. Let's get there, hearties!
It'll be three more of us, anyhow," said the major, sticking spurs
to his horse.

They approach the outskirts of the storm of battle.

There lies a man, in bloody rags that were gray, with closed
eyes. The first hailstone in the advancing edge of the storm has
stricken down a flower. The dainty petal of life shrivels, blackens:
yet it gives forth a perfume as it dies; his lips are moving, — he
is praying.

The wounded increase. Here is a musket in the road: there is
the languid hand that dropped it, pressing its fingers over a blue-
edged wound in the breast. Weary pressure, and vain, — the blood
flows steadily.

More muskets, cartridge-boxes, belts, greasy haversacks, strew
the ground.

Here comes the stretcher-bearers. They leave a dripping line of
blood. "Walk easy as you kin, boys," comes from a blanket which
four men are carrying by the corners. Easy walking is desirable
when each step of your four carriers spurts out the blood afresh,
or grates the rough edges of a shot bone in your leg.

The sound of a thousand voices, eager, hoarse, fierce all speaking
together yet differently, comes through the leaves of the under-
growth. A strange multitudinous noise accompanies it, — a noise
like the tremendous sibilation of a mile-long wave just before it
breaks. It is the shuffling of' two thousand feet as they march
over dead leaves.

"Surely that can't be reserves; Haygood didn't have enough for
his front! They must be falling back: hark! there's a Yankee
cheer. Good God! Here's three muskets on the ground, boys!
Come on!" said the major, and hastily dismounted.

The three plunge through the undergrowth. Waxen May-leaves
sweep their faces; thorns pierce their hands; the honeysuckles cry
"Wait!" with alluring perfumes; gnarled oak-twigs wound the
wide-opened eyes.

It is no matter.

They emerge into an open space. A thousand men are talking,
gesticulating, calling to friends, taking places in rank, abandoning
them for others. They are in gray rags.

"Where's Haygood?"

26l

He is everywhere! On right flank cheering, on left flank rallying,
in the center commanding: he is ubiquitous; he moves upon the
low-sweeping Ving of a battle genius : it is supernatural that he
should be here and yonder at once. His voice suddenly rings out, —

"Form, men! We'll run 'em out o' that in a second. Reinforce-
ments coming!"

"What's the matter with the Yanks? Look, Phil!" says Briggs.

The Federals, having driven the small Confederate force from
the railroad, stop in their charge as soon as they have crossed
the track. Behind their first is a second line. As if on parade this
second line advances to the railroad, and halts. "Ground arms!"
Their muskets fall in a long row, as if in an armory-rack. The
line steps two paces forward. It stoops over the track. It is a human
machine with fifty thousand clamps, moved by levers infinitely
flexible. Fifty thousand fingers insert themselves beneath the
stringers of the road. All together! They lift, and lay over, bottom
upwards, a mile of railroad.

But, O first line of Federals, you should not have stopped! The
rags have rallied. Their line is formed, in the centre floats the
cross-banner, to right and left gleam the bayonets like silver flame-
jets, unwavering, deadly; these, with a thousand mute tongues,
utter a silent yet magnificent menace.

"Charge! Steady, men!"

The rags flutter, the cross-flag spreads out and reveals its symbol,
the two thousand sturdy feet in hideous brogans, or without cover,
press forward. At first, it is a slow and stately movement; stately
in the mass, ridiculous if we watch any individual leg, with its
knee perhaps showing through an irregular hole in such panta-
loons!

The step grows quicker. A few scattering shots from the enemy's
retiring skirmishers patter like the first big drops of the shower.

From the right of the ragged line now comes up a single long
cry, as from the leader of a pack of hounds who has found the
game. This cry has in it the uncontrollable eagerness of the sleuth-
hound, together with a dry harsh quality that conveys an uncom-
promising hostility. It is the irresistible outflow of some fierce
soul immeasurably enraged, and it is tinged with a jubilant tone, as
if in anticipation of a speedy triumph and a satisfying revenge.
It is a howl, a hoarse battle-cry, a cheer, and a congratulation, all
in one.

They take it up in the centre, they echo it on the left, it swells,
it runs along the line as fire leaps along the rigging of a ship. It

262

is as if some one pulled out in succession all the stops of the
infernal battle-organ, but only struck one note which they all
speak in different voices.

The gray line nears the blue one, rapidly. It is a thin gray wave,
whose flashing foam is the glitter of steel bayonets. It meets with
a swell in the ground, shivers a moment, then rolls on.

Suddenly thousands of tongues, tipped with red and issuing
from smoke, speak deadly messages from the blue line. One
volley? A thousand would not stop them now. Even if they were
not veterans who know that it is safer at this crisis to push on
than to fall back, they would still press forward. They have for-
gotten safety, they have forgotten life and death: their thoughts
have converged into a focus which is the one simple idea, — to
get to those men in blue, yonder. Rapid firing from the blue
line brings rapid yelling from the gray.

But look! The blue line, which is like a distant strip of the sea,
curls into little waves; these dash together in groups, then fly
apart. The tempest of panic has blown upon it. The blue uniforms
fly, flames issue from the gray line, it also breaks, the ragged men
run, and the battle has degenerated to a chase.

Tiger Lilies, 1867

4. Jim Bludso of the Prairie Belle

JOHN HAY

Wall, no! I can't tell whar he lives,

Becase he don't live, you see;
Leastways, he's got out of the habit

Of livin' like you and me.
Whar have you been for the last three year

That you haven't heard folks tell
How Jimmy Bludso passed in his checks

The night of the Prairie Belle?

He weren't no saint, — them engineers

Is all pretty much alike, —
One wife in Natchez-under-the-Hill

And another one here, in Pike;

263

A keerless man in his talk was Jim,

And an awkward hand in a row,
But he never flunked, and he never lied, —

I reckon he never knowed how.

And this was all the religion he had, —

To treat his engine well;
Never be passed on the river;

To mind the pilot's bell;
And if ever the Prairie Belle took fire, —

A thousand times he swore,
He'd hold her nozzle agin the bank

Till the last soul got ashore.

All boats has their day on the Mississip,

And her day come at last, —
The Movastar was a better boat,

But the Belle she wouldn't be passed.
And so she come tearin' along that night —

The oldest craft on the line —
With a nigger squat on her safety-valve,

And her furnace crammed, rosin and pine.

The fire bust out as she clared the bar,

And burnt a hole in the night,
And quick as a flash she turned, and made

For that wilier-bank on the right.
There was runnin' and cursin', but Jim yelled out,

Over all the infernal roar,
"I'll hold her nozzle agin the bank

Till the last galoot's ashore."

Through the hot, black breath of the burnin' boat

Jim Bludso's voice was heard,
And they all had trust in his cussedness,

And knowed he would keep his word.
And, sure's you're born, they all got off

Afore the smokestacks fell, —
And Bludso's ghost went up alone

In the smoke of the Prairie Belle.

He weren't no saint, — but at jedgment

I'd run my chance with Jim,
'Longside of some pious gentlemen

That wouldn't shook hands with him.

264

He seen his duty, a dead-sure thing, —
And went for it thar and then ;

And Christ ain't a-going to be too hard
On a man that died for men.

Pi\e County Ballads, 1871

5. Caleb Catlum Meets John Henry

VINCENT McHUGH

Barney showed up two-three days later, red-eyed from carousing,
with big patches bit out of his hide. 1 put him to work helping
me round up my outfit for the North and by the end of the week
we settled our passage in a keelboat bound upriver to St. Louis.
We didn't pass no words 'bout Felice. We was both mighty
pleased to be shut of all them women.

One morning two-three days upriver we tied up at the bank by
a little shanty-town named Luna, Arkansas. Keelboat captain was
taking on water and supplies. I left Barney on deck sleeping
sprawled out in the sun and went moseying on off by myself to
stretch the kinks out of my legs.

I meandered out past the town till I come to a patch of wood-
land. Sun was shining hot and still and I hear the noise of a buck-
saw in a little clearing further on. Mighty pleasant sound she
made, all mixed in .'mongst the bird-calls. I calculated I'd stroll out
that way and show them boys -the tricks of handling a blade.

Pretty soon I could make out something kind of sticking up
top and when I come closer to it I see I was looking at what
must be pretty near the biggest Negro in the world. Even Pop
couldn't give him more'n an inch or two. He was standing there
quiet in the middle of the clearing, looking down easy and smiling,
whilst these two white Crackers with a bucksaw cut his leg off
'bout halfway to the knee.

They was mighty near through it when I come up to them.

"What's the trouble, boys?" I says. "Anything calls for a doctor
I'll be glad to help out. Got some reputation in that line myself."

Crackers didn't take no notice at first, sawing away like they
was in a dream. Then they let go the handles, slow-like, and
stretched out on the ground, turning their chaws of tobacco over
and spitting 'fore they spoke.

265

"Naw," one of 'em says. "We're jest aimin' to cut this nigger up
fer firewood. Plumb tired out a'ready. Pow'ful slow work, ain't it,
Fred?"

Fred he didn't say nothing for a minute. Just looks at me and
kind of jerks his head at the other.

"I tell Lawgett he's plumb crazy," Fred drawls. "Get more wuk
out'n a big strong nigger like that'n he'll ever be wuth cut up,
even if firewood is two dollars a cord."

Lawgett he just stares at him like he was surprised.

"What you talkin' 'bout, Fred?" he says. "You ain't see two
dollars since yore maw found you 'mongst that litter o' hound
pups."

I give a look at the big Negro feller and he winks slow down
at me.

"You better get back to work," I says. "That boy ain't goin' to
stand there forever. Don't make no diff'rence how patient he is."

They just give a nod. After a spell they got up and begun saw-
ing again, resting at the end of every stroke; but finally I hear the
leg begin to crack and the big Negro topples over with a crash
like an Oregon pine, grabbing at the top of a giant oak to ease
his fall. Fred and Lawgett they just stood there wiping their faces
and admiring him. Then they set to work to cut him in two
right 'bout at the waist.

All this time the big boy ain't said a word, 'cepting once or twice
he give a chuckle to himself. Them Crackers didn't get more'n
a quarter way through him 'fore they laid off again, taking another
chaw of tobacco and lodging it 'longside the teeth for further
reference. Lawgett he looks at me kind of speculating.

"Now that feller Fred," he says, "he's plumb chickenhearted.
Ain't fit to take a livin' out'n a country like this. He pretty near
gagged the night we burnt a couple o' niggers down Menopah
way. Calc'late he's got a mis'ry in his stomach."

"Don't care what you say 'bout them not bein' human," Fred
tells him. "Maybe they ain't, but I bet they feel it when you burn
'em. Little, anyways," he says, looking mulish at the other one.

Lawgett he haw-haws. "Why, burn my soul!" he says. "That
feller ain't got no more feelin' in him ihan a log o' wood. You
ain't studied on 'em like I have. Nothin' inside 'em but sawdust,
same's a young 'un's doll. You come an' give a look down 'long
here."

He picks up the leg they sawed off and takes a squint at the
cut. Seemed like he was right. Solid all the way through she was,

266

black stuff same as ebony, with black sawdust all 'round it.

"There now, you iggerunt old chicken-hearted whelp," Lawgett
says. "Satisfied, ain't ya? How tyn it hurt him when he ain't got
nothin' but wood to his insides."

Fred he was stubborn. He said maybe they had some kind of
feelings we didn't know nothing about and anyways they was
worth more alive than dead.

The two of 'em went back to work and sawed and sawed till
they got this Negro feller cut right through the middle. He was
chuckling all the time and when they finally busted through his
waist he give a big meller laugh. I was beginning to cotton to him.

'Bout noontime they set down under a tree and brung out
some pig sandwiches and a gallon of corn liquor. Offered the big
boy some, but he just kept shaking his head and smiling. I set
down with 'em and done a little eating and drinking. Asked 'em
who the Negro belonged to and Lawgett says he was his.

"Name o' John Henry," he says. "Workin'est nigger I ever
see in my life but I can't keep him no longer. Got to have the
cash."

We topped off the whole gallon and she seemed to put some
inspiration into the boys. They went back and worked so hard
that coming on sundown they had John Henry all cut and stacked
'cepting his head. They run into a lot of trouble working on
his head with the axe. Couldn't find no grain to split.

More they took off him and the smaller he got, the more he
seemed bent on laughing. I never come on a feller had so much
aplomb in a ticklish situation and by the time they got down to
sawing his head in two I looked on him same's if he was my
own born brother. He kept laughing even while they sawed clean
down through his mouth and I see his eye still winking at me
from the pile when they had the last splinter stacked up and ready
to burn.

Them boys was clean exhausted. Laid right down on the grass
and just kept looking tender-like at that pile of stovewood. I
figured she must run to three-four dozen cords.

"Well, fellers," I says. "Next thing is, you got to find a buyer,
an' as luck'd have it you stumbled on one right under your nose.
I come off a keelboat down here this mornin'. Got an order for
some wood a piece further upriver an' I'm aimin' to be generous
with you. Like the looks of 'er. I'll give you three dollars for the
lot."

Them boys been bragging when they talked 'bout two dollars

267

a cord and my offer of three spondulix sounded like the price
of the Louisiana purchase to 'em. They wasn't no barterers any-
way. Didn't have the get-up to 'em. They didn't say a word for
a half a minute, holding their breath case I'd change my mind.
Finally Lawgett he just swallers and nods. I handed him over
the three dollars and they shook hands 'thout saying a word and
lit out home.

When I see they was out of sight I walks over to. that heap of
black wood.

"John Henry," I says. "If you're the man I been thinkin' you
are, you'll put yourself together an' stand up out o' there on
your own hind feet."

I hear a whoop of meller laughter coming out the stack, and
in half a minute them chunks of wood begin flying 'round so
fast I drops flat on the ground to keep from -being hit. Pieces of
back and belly and ribs started jumping up and joining into
little hunks and then bigger ones, patches of black wool spinning,
and big hands and feet coming out the mixup. Then the hands
lifted up and squeezed the head together and jammed it onto his
big neck, legs sprung onto the body, and last of all them big arms
hooked into the shoulder-joints. He give himself a shake like a
dog that's been sleeping too long in the sun and stands up on his
big hind legs, straighter and taller'n a hill, same's if he'd never
been tampered with.

Stands there laughing with a big sound, the way Pop done
when I tried to fend him off from assaulting Mom; and I was
laughing right back up at him, pleased as all get-out.

"John Henry," I says, "I'm Caleb Catlum o' Catlumville, an'
you an' me ain't no more nor less than blood-brothers from now

on."

He's laughing at me, pleased at hearing 'bout the way I feel.

"Caleb Catlum," he says down to me. "Now you done gone
and got me laughin' again. Ah got laughs comin' from 'way
deep down in mah belly. Ah got laughs bubblin' an' rumblin' up
out of the ground Ah walk on. Ah'm John Henry the Natchral
Man an' when Ah laughs the 'Lantic Ocean stops slappin' on the
shore an' the waves o' the Pacific Ocean says to the little waves:
'Hush yo' mouf, chillun. Hush yo' mouf an' batten down yo'
bref, 'cause John Henry the Natchral Man is laughin' his big
laugh all the way cross the world."

Caleb Catlum's America, 1936
268

Andrew Jackson

GERALD W. JOHNSON

Tradition relates of Rachel Jackson that she explained a family
epidemic once by saying, "The General kicked the kivers off and
we all cotch cold."

Historians and biographers have written many estimates of
Andrew Jackson's career that might fairly be summed up in
Rachel's words. The General kicked right lustily. He kicked off
many of the warm wrappings that swathed the young republic
from the bitter blasts of democracy. He kicked away the existing
political system and substituted one more to his liking. He was
the most uncomfortable of political bed-fellows.

Nor is there any lack of mourners to trace to his intervention
most of the political ills that afflict us now. The Spoils System,
the party machine, the distrust of ability and the worship of medi-
ocrity and the peculiarly ruffianly politics that lead philosophers
to despair of democracy are all laid to his charge. The fact that
he neither invented nor first introduced into American political
life any of these things is ignored, as Rachel ignored the predis-
positions that made her family susceptible to colds. It is all the
General's fault. He kicked. We have suffered since. Let him bear
the blame for our ills.

In so far as Jackson is concerned, it is difficult even for a senti-
mentalist to pump up any great moral indignation in his behalf.
History perhaps never selected for an unjust burden shoulders
better able to bear it. In life the General throve on criticism; and
since his death the damnation pronounced upon his reputation
by countless learned clerks has not been able to bear it down.
James Parton, writing fifteen years after Jackson was buried, noted
the legend that in the backwoods citizens still went to the polls
at each succeeding election and voted happily for Andrew Jackson.
Parton thought it remarkable. One wonders what he would have
thought had he known that the legend would survive when he,
himself, had been in the grave for forty years. But survive it does.
Remote precincts today are described by political workers as places
where they are still voting for Andrew Jackson.

The man is a popular hero in the strictest sense of the word.
He is the hero of the people, not of the intelligentsia. The people

269

still delight in the legends of his prowess, of his lurid language,
of his imperious and dictatorial temper. The tale of his usurpa-
tions does not appall them, but delights them, for Americans have
always loved a really masterful man. If Jackson's spiritual heir
should appear now, there is every reason to believe America of
the twentieth century would hail him as rapturously and follow
him as blindly as it hailed and followed the hero a hundred years
ago.

Therefore he remains a significant figure. His faults stand out
with startling vividness. His errors are plain to the purblind. His
weaknesses are obvious, his follies patent, his egregiousness ines-
capable. But the man will not collapse. His fame is still dear to the
hearts of the people; therefore the prudent man will search dili-
gently for some residuum after the faults, errors and follies have
been taken into account. For if another appears with such quali-
ties, even handicaps as gigantic as those under which Jackson
labored cannot prevent his sweep to power. And the wise men of
that day will be those who recognize him early and align them-
selves with him, rather than against him. It is this that gives him
a severely practical significance in the century that has succeeded
his own.

But to the impractical idealist, to the dilettante, to the curious
seeker after the bizarre, the quaint, the colorful, Jackson makes
as powerful an appeal as to the student of public affairs. For he
was above all else vivid. He was a great actor, and on the national
scene he staged the most gorgeous, colorful and romantic show
in American history. He was fortunate in his supporting cast, it
is true. Rarely indeed has Washington been presented with such
a galaxy of talent as appeared in the administration and the oppo-
sition between 1828 and 1836. Webster, Clay, Calhoun, Taney, Liv-
ingston, Cass, Benton, Van Buren, John Quincy Adams — the length
of the list of celebrated names of the period is amazing. But
Jackson, alone, would have held the attention of the country.
When he first came to Washington certain Senators were informed
by alarmed friends that he had sworn to cut off their ears. He left
the city pensively regretting his failure either to shoot Henry Clay
or to hang John C. Calhoun. Yet during his tenure of power he
committed neither homicide nor mayhem. Americans have never
known how to resist a man who could talk like a pirate and act
like a Presbyterian, and Jackson could do both to a perfection not
approached by any of his successors until the days of Theodore
Roosevelt.

270

And he had one great advantage over Roosevelt, namely, a
record. Before he came to the Presidency, Jackson had both
hanged and shot men, and all the while he was in the White
House it was thrillingly uncertain when he might carry out some
of his threats literally. He was a canny man, and it is possible
that there never was a moment when he actually would have
hanged Calhoun; but there were several moments when the coun-
try believed that if the President could but lay hands on the Vice-
President, the latter's days would be numbered. It is said to be
an accepted dictum in the theatrical world that if you can work
into your play of three hours' length just thirty seconds during
which the spectator will sit on the edge of his seat while the hair
rises on the back of his neck, your success is assured, no matter
what fills up the rest of the time. Jackson gave the country many
such moments. It is no wonder that his performance was an im-
mense success, greeted with applause that has come rolling down
the years to the ears of a generation living a century after the
curtain first rose.

Yet the rejoicing galleries had more serious, if perhaps no better,
reasons for their plaudits than simply the entertainment purveyed
to them by Andrew Jackson. He did throw down the bars that
hedged them from effective participation in the conduct of their
own government. He did destroy a sinister alliance between poli-
tics and finance that was swiftly reducing them to economic serf-
dom. He did shatter the Nullification movement, thereby post-
poning for twenty years the day when half a million of them had
to die for the preservation of the Union. All these works were
impermanent, no doubt, but they were effective for the time and
the place. He richly earned the loyalty that common men gave him.

Yet Jackson lived for seventy-eight years and was President only
eight. The Washington days were merely the resultant of the
forces that had played upon him during the half century he existed
before he reached the White House. To one who understood fully
the fifty years in the wilderness, the eight in the capital would
be as an open book.

Now the delight of studying Jackson lies in the fact that the
first fifty years are less glamorous, perhaps, but not less gaudy,
than the succeeding eight. He had actually become legendary
before he became President, instead of afterward, as is the modern
practice. This is attested by the fact that when Senators were told
that General Jackson had arrived in town swearing to have their
ears it apparently never occurred to them to discredit the report.

271

In the popular estimation he was already a man set apart so far
from ordinary mortals as to be quite unpredictable. Probability
did not apply to Jackson. He conformed to no known rules. He
was a monster or a demigod, but not by any chance a man.

And so, to a large extent, he has since remained. Yet to the
student who makes even a superficial examination of the record
of his life it is apparent that few men who have figured largely
in public affairs have exhibited more conspicuously the traits
common to all humanity, both the worst and the best. Jackson
was intensely human. It is merely the intensity of his humanity,
indeed, that has given rise to the legends of a superman.

It was his fate to live on the frontier, where men were dis-
ciplined, indeed, but not with the discipline of settled communi-
ties. The discipline of the frontier hardens, but does not bleach.
Life retains its color. Halftones, all delicacy of ^shading, are intensi-
fied into the primary hues, and characters become black and white,
scarlet and yellow and blue. To the townsman, accustomed to
pink and lavender and baby-blue souls, the strong colors of the
frontier are barbarous and terrifying. But to the student who
encounters them only in books they are gorgeous.

Jackson, as a small boy, comes reeling into American history
with a sabre cut on his head and as the years gather upon him
they gleam with steel and blood. It was a roaring career, resound-
ing to the roars of cheering multitudes, of musketry, of artillery.
It was a theatrical career in the style of Gallic romance, astonish-
ingly like the career that Rostand imagined for Cyrano de Bergerac.
Jackson relied on pistols, not a rapier, and he has never been
accused of making a ballade or of being partial to Socrates and
Galileo. But he was a great duellist, a great soldier and a great
lover. He was fiery, quixotic, honest and loyal. He was curiously
romantic and incessantly dramatized himself and his surround-
ings, often to the exquisite embarrassment of more prosaic men.

And he carried a handicap that was the equivalent of Cyrano's
nose. Like the Frenchman's unfortunate feature, it was a fact
that could not be denied, and the circumstance that he knew no
evil impulse on his part had caused it only exacerbated his rage
when it was mentioned. But after one man had died violently at
his hands for the reason, as all the world believed, that he had
talked loosely, men became exceedingly cautious. None but-
would-be suicides said "nose" to Cyrano or "adultery" to Andrew
Jackson.

There would be neither sense nor dignity in denying that much

272

in his career the most sophistical of moralists have found it diffi-
cult to defend. Dead men tell tales on Andrew Jackson. There
were at least eight whose deaths are attributable, by the kindliest
interpretation, to qualities no more heroic than his impetuosity
and ignorance. There were quarrels and brawls innumerable that
did him no honor. There were moments when his mulish obstinacy
did the state harm. These things are not only morally indefensible,
but they are in themselves ugly and repellent.

But while a man may be judged on a single overt act, those who
knew his whole story love him or hate him for the sum of all his
deeds. Cyrano, too, came under the condemnation of the grave
citizens of his time. But in the eyes of the generations that have
followed, both men are saved by much the same qualities — cour-
age, sentiment, vigor and resolution. In both, these characteristics
were sometimes exaggerated into^ swashbuckling, sentimentality,
presumption and obstinacy, but in the final accounting the exag-
geration seems relatively unimportant.

So we see Andrew Jackson, in the perspective of a hundred
years, cutting and slashing his way to power, a raucous fellow,
an explosive, heavy-handed, dangerous and pestiferous fellow, but
withal a man who had a code and lived up to it. He hated and
loved and swore with a magnificence beyond all American expe-
rience. But he did not cringe, he did not fawn, he did not carry
water on both shoulders. When he lost — and he lost heavily and
frequently — he paid without whimpering. He loved a woman and
lost her, and of all his innumerable wounds that hurt worst and
longest.

Against admiration, respect and pity one must pile up moun-
tains of crime if they are to inspire no affection. Affection for
Andrew Jackson is impossible to avoid if one knows his story; for
let his enemies say what they will, here was one American who
carried himself with an air, unlettered, uncouth, unskilled in the
graces of polite society, but none the less a chevalier. He is almost
the only man who has figured in American public life of whom
it is imaginable that he might have quit the earthly stage with the
theatrical grace of Cyrano's closing lines:

"When I enter God's house my salutation shall sweep the blue
threshold with something free from creases, free from stains, which
I shall carry in spite of all of you — my plume!"

Andrew Jackjson, 1927

273

The Big Bear of Arkansas

T. B. THORPE

On a fine fall day, long time ago, I was trailing about for bar,
and what should I see but fresh marks on the sassafras trees,
about eight inches above any in the forests that I knew of. Says

I, "them marks is a hoax, or it indicates the d 1 bar that was

ever grown." In fact, stranger, I couldn't believe it was real, and
I went on. Again I saw the same marks, at the same height, and
/ knew the thing lived. That conviction came home to my soul
like an earthquake. Says I, "here is something a-purpose for me:
that bar is mine, or I give UB the hunting business." The very
next morning what should I see but a number of buzzards hov-
ering over my cornfield. "The rascal has been there," said I, "for
that sign is certain:" and, sure enough, on examining, I found
the bones of what had been as beautiful a hog the day before, as
was ever raised by a Buckeye. Then I tracked the critter out of
the field to the woods, and all the marks he left behind, showed
me that he was the bar.

Well, stranger, the first fair chase I ever had with that big critter,
I saw him no less than three distinct times at a distance: the dogs
run him over eighteen miles and broke down, my horse gave out,
and I was as nearly used up as a man can be, made on my prin-
ciple, which is patent. Before this adventure, such things were
unknown to me as possible; but, strange as it was, that bar got
me used to it before I was done with him; for he got so at last,
that he would leave me on a long chase quite easy. How he did
it, I never could understand. That a bar runs at all, is puzzling;
but how this one could tire down and bust up a pack of hounds
and a horse, that were used to overhauling everything they started
after in no time, was past my understanding. Well, stranger, that
bar finally got so sassy, that he used to help himself to a hog off
my premises whenever he wanted one; the buzzards followed
after what he left, and so between bar ai:d buzzard, I rather think
I was out of por^.

Well, missing that bar so often took hold of my vitals, and I
wasted away. The thing had been carried too far, and it reduced
me in flesh faster than an ager. I would see that bar in every
thing I did; he hunted me, and that, too, like a devil, which I

274

began to think he was. While in this fix, I made preparations to
give him a last brush, and be done with it. Having completed
every thing to my satisfaction, I started at sunrise, and to my
great joy, I discovered from the way the dogs run, that they were
near to him; finding his trail was nothing, for that had become
as plain to the pack as a turnpike road. On we went, and coming
to an open country, what should I see but the bar very leisurely
ascending a hill, and the dogs close at his heels, either a match
for him in speed, or else he did not care to get out of their way —
I don't know which. But wasn't he a beauty, though? I loved
him like a brother.

On he went, until he came to a tree, the limbs of which formed
a crotch about six feet from the ground. Into this crotch he got
and seated himself, the dogs yelling all around it; and there he
sat eyeing them as quiet as a pond in low water. A green-horn
friend of mine, in company, reached shooting distance before me,
and blazed away, hitting the critter in the centre of his forehead.
The bar shook his head as the ball struck it, and then walked
down from that tree as gently as a lady would from a carriage.
'Twas a beautiful sight to see him do that — he was in such a rage
that he seemed to be as little afraid of the dogs as if they had
been sucking pigs; and the dogs warn't slow in making a ring
around him at a respectful distance, I tell you; even Bowie-knife,
himself, stood off. Then the way his eyes flashed — why the fire of
them would have singed a cat's hair; in fact that bar was in a
wrath all over. Only one pup came near him, and he was brushed
out so totally with the bar's left paw, that he entirely disappeared;
and that made the old dogs more cautious still. In the meantime,
I came up, and taking deliberate aim as a man should do, at his
side, just back of his foreleg, /'/ my gun did not snap, call me a
coward, and I won't take it personal. Yes, stranger, it snapped,
and I could not find a cap about my person. While in this predica-
ment, I turned round to my fool friend — says I, "Bill," says I,
"you're an ass — you're a fool — you might as well have tried to kill
that bar by barking the tree under his belly, as to have done it
by hitting him in the head. Your shot has made a tiger of him,
and blast me, if a dog gets killed or wounded when they come to
blows, I will stick my knife into your liver, I will — " my wrath
was up. I had lost my caps, my gun had snapped, the fellow with
me had fired at the bar's head, and I expected every moment to
see him close in with the dogs, and kill a dozen of them at least.
In this thing I was mistaken, for the bar leaped over the ring

275

formed by the dogs, and giving a fierce growl, was off — the pack,
of course, in full cry after him.

The run this time was short, for coming to the edge of a lake
the varmint jumped in, and swam to a little island in the lake,
which it reached just a moment before the dogs. "I'll have him
now," said I, for I had found my caps in the lining of my coat —
so, rolling a log into the lake, I paddled myself across to the
island, just as the dogs had cornered the bar in a thicket. I rushed
up and fired — at the same time the critter leaped over the dogs
and came within three feet of me, running like mad; he jumped
into the lake, and tried to mount the log I had just deserted, but
every time he got half his body on it, it would roll over and send
him under; the dogs, too, got around him, and pulled him about,
and finally Bowie-knife clenched with him, and they sunk into
the lake together. Stranger, about this time, I was excited, and I
stripped off my coat, drew my knife, and intended to have taken
a part with Bowie-knife myself, when the bar rose to the surface.
But the varmint staid under — Bowie-knife came up alone, more
dead than alive, and with the pack came ashore. "Thank God,"
said I, "the old villain has got his deserts at last." Determined to
have the body, I cut a grapevine for a rope, and dove down where
I could see the bar in the water, fastened my queer rope to his
leg, and fished him, with great difficulty, ashore. Stranger, may
I be chawed to death by young alligators, if the thing I looked at
wasn't a she bar, and not the old critter after all. The way matters
got mixed on that island was onaccountably curious, and thinking
of it made me more than ever convinced that I was hunting the
devil himself. I went home that night and took to my bed — the
thing was killing me. The entire team of Arkansaw in bar-hunting,
acknowledged himself used up, and the fact sunk into my feelings
like a snagged boat will in the Mississippi. I grew as cross as a
bar with two cubs and a -sore tail. The thing got out 'mong my
neighbours, and I was asked how come on that individu-al that
never lost a bar once started? and if that same individ-u-al didn't
wear telescopes when he turned a she bar, of ordinary size, into
an old he one, a little larger than a horse? "Perhaps," said I,
"friends" — getting wrathy — "perhaps you want to call somebody
a liar." "Oh, no," said they, "we only heard such things as being
rather common of late, but we don't believe one word of it; oh,
no," — and then they would ride off and laugh like so many hyenas
over a dead nigger.

It was too much, and I determined to catch that bar, go to Texas,

276

or die, — and I made my preparations accordin'. I had the pack shut
up and rested. I took my rifle to pieces and iled it. I put caps in
every pocket about my person, for fear of the lining. I then told
my neighbours, that on Monday morning — naming the day — I
would start THAT BAR, and bring him home with me, or they
might divide my settlement among them, the owner having dis-
appeared. Well, stranger, on the morning previous to the great day
of my hunting expedition, I went into the woods near my house,
taking my gun and Bowie-knife along, just from habit, and there
sitting down also from habit, what should I see, getting over my
fence, but the bar! Yes, the old varmint was within a hundred
yards of me, and the way he walked over that fence — stranger, he
loomed up like a blacJ^ mist, he seemed so large, and he walked
right towards me. I raised myself, took deliberate aim, and fired.
Instantly the varmint wheeled, gave a yell, and walked through
the fence like a falling tree would through a cobweb. I started
after, but was tripped up by my inexpressibles, which either from
habit, or the excitement of the moment, were about my heels,
and before I had really gathered myself up, I heard the old
varmint groaning in a thicket near by, like a thousand sinners,
and by the time I reached him he was a corpse. Stranger, it took
five niggers and myself to put that carcase on a mule's back, and
old long-ears waddled under the load, as if he was foundered in
every leg of his body, and with a common whopper of a bar, he
would have trotted off, and enjoyed himself. 'T would astonish you
to know how big he was : I made a bed-spread of his s%in, and the
way it used to cover my bar mattress, and leave several feet on
each side to tuck up, would have delighted you. It was in fact a
creation bar, and if it had lived in Samson's time, and had met
him, in a fair fight, it would have licked him in the twinkling of
a dice-box. But, strangers, I never like the way I hunted, and
missed him. There is something curious about it, I could never
understand, — and I never was satisfied at his giving in so easy
at last. Perhaps, he had heard of my preparations to hunt him the
next day, so he jist come in, like Capt. Scott's coon, to save his
wind to grunt with in dying; but that ain't likely. My private
opinion is, that that bar was an unhuntable bar, and died when
his time come.

The Spirit of the Times, 1841

277

Louisiana Journal

LESTANT PRUDHOMME

TUESDAY — JANUARY 29TH, 1850

For the last fortnight we have had wet weather: the rain in-
cessant and the temperature high. From news received it appears
that it was the same on Red River, and the natural consequence
of so much rain was that the waters commenced rising at a rapid
rate, and frightened many planters who had but a few months ago
experienced the effects of the unprecedented rise of '49. Many com-
menced gathering their cattle so as to be ready for the emergency.
However, although a great rise above has been reported, the in-
habitants of this section of the country need entertain no fears,
for the water has almost stopped rising and before the second
freshet is felt here the water will be low enough for the channel
to contain the surplus.

Having finished my course of practical surveying with Mr.
Walmsley, deputy surveyor, and afterwards having assisted on the
2ist at the union of Miss Aspasie Lambre and Simeon Hart, I
this day resumed my study of law and commenced again reading
Chitty's Blackstone from the first beginning. I am studying under
J. G. Campbell, an eminent lawyer of Natchitoches.

Yesterday, during the whole morning, wild pigeons passed from
one swamp to the other. It was really a most astonishing thing to
see so many large flocks flying over with hardly any interruption.
Many of them were killed, for such persons as had any gun in
their possession made use of them, and this fact was the cause of
my not commencing my studies yesterday as I had concluded to do.

This evening, at about five o'clock, just as I had put away my law
book and had taken my stick and reading book to go and take a
walk, I heard of Edward Cloutier's arrival from Louisville where
he had gone to study the profession of dentist, and had been so
unfortunate as not to be able to find an institution nor any dentist
that would consent to teach him. Immediately my designs were
changed; I had my horse saddled and I went to see the new-comer.
Everybody was surprised at this young man's return but when the
causes became known, it was well conceived. His father, however,
seemed not to enter in the same spirit, and appeared much troubled
at his return.

278

THURSDAY — 3IST

The cold gave place to a warm and windless day.

In the morning we had the visit of Mrs. Cloutier and her son
Edward; the former went to spend the day at Aunt Benjamin's
and the latter remained with me.

In the evening, after my studies were over, we both went off
from here on foot to pay a visit to our Aunt Benjamin.

The water is still falling, a circumstance that pleases everyone,
as a strong rise is reported above.

In the evening on my way to my aunt Benjamin's I met my aunt
Baptiste, upon whom, not without some trouble, I prevailed to
come and spend the night at home.

Felix Metoyer accompanied my cousin and me back. The evening
was spent most agreeably, everyone appearing to be in fine spirits.
The conversation and the little games and amusements going on
were so animated no one thought of retiring before eleven o'clock.
We had also to enliven the party the company of Mr. and Mrs.
Adolphe Prudhomme.

FEBRUARY 8TH

After breakfast, to quit the table and form the happy family
circle around a good and hot fire place was done by unanimous
consent, then went on the ordinary conversation of the general
news, home and foreign, things that are of importance only in
small places or in the country were in their turn talked of, such as
the most important subject of where each one present intended to
spend the day. Mrs. Phanor's trip to town and also that of her
sister, Mrs. Archinard, when their return, etc., etc., when to the
satisfaction of all present Mr. Phanor walked in and helped to
adorn the circle, the conversation never, however, tarrying and new
subjects being constantly brought on the tapis.

In the meantime, I had my horse saddled, however without
knowing which way to go and spend my Sunday, but the arrival of
Emile and Gabriel Prudhomme soon settled the question, and I
spent the day at home, entertaining my company as well as possible.
A little shooting with the blow-gun and a fowl piece was practised.
At about ii o'clock A.M., Phanor went home, there to receive his
company, and had a real diner de garcon, no ladies being present,
and, to increase the pleasure of the guests, the steamboat passing by
put out a barrel of fine and nice oysters. At four in the evening I
went off with my two friends, paid a visit to Narcisse Prudhomme,

279

where my companions found their parents. Thence I went and
supped with them; some time after supper I went off to go and
see why John and Edward had not come home Saturday evenings
as they intended. However, I found no one up at Mr. Cloutier's
(my uncle) and was on the point of returning home when the
door was opened by a servant bawling out the apostrophe, "Misier
di vous entre." In I stepped and was introduced without any
ceremony into the bed room. My uncle then got up, took me in
the parlor where we sat in tete-a-tete before a good fire and talked
and puffed till about half past ten P.M., when I took leave of him
and returned home, with once in a while having a cold N.E. wind
full in the face. N. B. Last night, reading a New York paper, I
saw a northwestern passage had been found and also a new
continent which, however, was not approached very near, the cold
being too excessive.

SUNDAY — IOTH, 1850

Felix and myself left in the morning after breakfast to go to
town and meet Mrs. Benjamin and Mr. and Mrs. Adolphe. I
assisted at Mass. The church was full. There was no preaching,
the regulations to be followed during Lent were read and some
remarks, and very appropriate ones, on the manner the regulations
were to be fulfilled.

After Mass I started with several persons to go to the Convent
and see my cousins, but just as I was going to enter, perceiving
there were many persons present, and consequently fearing not to
have a seat where I wished, I came back. Afterwards I was sorry
for not having entered for I heard that instead of one parlor as
before there were two and that there was sufficient room.

I found the town very dull and did not know what to do with
myself and played , one or two games of billiards to while away
the time.

I had the pleasure of spending a pleasant soiree at Dr. Kerell's
where I and others had been invited. We had some music part of
the time. I was troubled with both of my feet that I had hurt
yesterday at the hunt, the wound however being slight, but
notwithstanding painful, so I did not dance but one set.

TUESDAY — I2TH, 1850
Mardi Gras

It rained the whole night and continued till 5 P.M.

Several young men and I intended to go and spend the day at

280

Theophile's and stay there over night to feast the day, but the
inclement state of the weather prevented us.

The Doswell came up at n P.M. She stopped here to put out
some freight and I put a letter on board for a young man, J.
Bolwing, from Baltimore, who has come to New Orleans with
negroes he has to sell, and has written to me to know whether any
member of my family would take them. I could not give him any
positive answer, and begged him to wait a few days when I would
be able to give him positive information. My uncle Adolphe spent
a part of the evening here; my father had sent for him to know if
he would not buy two or three of the whole lot (twelve) of those
negroes — he buying the rest. The wind at 6 P.M. turned to the N.W.

FRIDAY — I5TH

This morning a white frost spread over the earth, and ice was to
be seen in small holes of water.

I returned from my uncle's at n P.M. I left him taming some
wild mules.

Father went to his plantation and in the evening, shortly after
dinner, mother went at Phanor's where the children went to meet
her after school. Thus I was left alone in the house quietly reading
the dry and uninteresting Blackstone. The Governess remained in
her room, and I had not the pleasure of seeing her before the
family returned. For several days past the river has been rising
pretty fast. It has already attained what it had lost and is still
rising. From 3 P.M. yesterday to 4 P.M. today it has risen 7 inches.

This evening I had a little trouble correcting one of the slaves
who attempted to run away from me and bruised my hand a little
and sprained my thumb. Thus it seems that in this world we must
constantly suffer; my toe is hardly cured that I must hurt some
other part of my body.

SUNDAY — 24TH

The weather was again cloudy but there was no rain. I spent the
day most pleasantly and agreeably paying visits to different ladies
and to the priest, Mr. Martin, whom I had heard spoken of very
highly, and who came up to my expectations. I found him to be a
polite gentleman, entertaining and receiving his company admirably
well. He showed me a fine collection of natural curiosities, and
though I have visited many museums, I found things I had never
seen. After spending with him about half an hour very pleasantly,

281

I took leave, highly pleased. He has been here about six or seven
weeks, and preached a sermon during Mass which the whole
audience pronounced excellent. It was profuse with deep, profound,
conclusive, and convincing reasonings, beautifully worded, and
delivered in an audible and plain voice, with appropriate and
oratorical gestures.

At dinner we had the ever agreeable company of three or four
young ladies with whom Felix and I spent our time most pleasantly.
At about eight the company went to the convent to assist at the
Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, after which we had the
pleasure of seeing several young ladies, some my cousins (all
charming and beautiful), and spent with them several hours.
During that time Felix, Ursin Lambre, and I were taken through
the whole establishment by the superior, Mother Landry, whom
we had the good fortune of delighting with our (as she expressed
it) modest deportment in the chapel. The establishment is spacious,
the study rooms are large, the dormitories comfortable and orderly
and adorned with neat and good beds, the play grounds vast,
everything well calculated to promote the happiness and comfort
of those lovely creatures that are there to be secluded from the
world, till they come out to be the pride and glory of society.

TUESDAY — IpTH

How strange . . . how wonderful! how incomprehensible this
climate. Last night most beautiful weather. The wind coming from
the north. The firmament studded with millions of bright lumi-
naries, darting forth their brilliant and sweet light, to guide the
weary traveller during the absence of the powerful emperor of
the day.

Nothing in consequence is expected but a white frost in the
morning. But lo, to everyone's surprise a change in the night was
operated, and long before day-break the reservoir of heaven over-
flowed and the earth is bathed in the tears of angels, whose mourn-
ing for the sins of men are heard like the distant thunders, far off
in the west.

I spent the morning in my room with Edward Cloutier, whom I
entertained on the subject that occupied the principal part of my time
Saturday and Sunday. Proof I was looking for, and proofs I found
so natural, and so convincing, that if the works whence I derived
them had been at hand, I would have maintained my position with
more success and demonstrated its correctness with so much force
as to overthrow the great opposition against which I was arguing.

282

Soon after dinner, perceiving the smoke of the Hecla that was
coming up, Edward and I went to Phanor's landing where we
presumed she would stop. The cotton reported falling, and the
favorable and masterly speech of Webster, which it is supposed will
bring the slavery question to an amicable conclusion, was received.
Before returning we spent some agreeable moments at the house
with my uncle and aunt Adolphe, who were alone. When we were
about leaving, Leonce and Felix arrived, which circumstance de-
tained us a little longer.

After our return, I got at my studies and read till 7 o'clock at
night. Leonce and Felix came here and spent a part of the evening.
They came with Father who had gone a moment at Phanor's. It
was agreed that Edward and I, and perhaps Julie, would go to sup
at Phanor's and spend the soiree. However, Julie did not wish to
go, Edward was afraid to expose himself as the weather was
inclement, so that I also would not have gone, but had to do so,
having to see Felix to know at what time in the morning we would
start for our premeditated fishing party, but only went after supper
and did not stay long.

Leonce and Edward said they also would come, and all four of
us were in good spirits, proposing to ourselves fine fun.

MONDAY — I5TH

I commenced reading Blackstone early this morning, and before
breakfast, taking my book with me, I went at Phanor's. What I
read then is all I could read the whole day. A bricklayer came
soon after breakfast to finish the cistern, and before I could get
him everything that was necessary it was nearly twelve. At about
2 P.M. the Doswell arrived, and as she had a great deal of freight
on board for the plantation I was busy the best part of the afternoon,
and as I had to entertain Dr. Kerell, who arrived while we were
at dinner, the evening went off without my being able to come to
my studies.

Dr. Danglasse came here to hold a consultation with Dr. Kerell
about the governess who, though she teaches school no longer,
remains here. After the doctors had left I wrote a long letter to my
father to send by the Doswell.

The overseer told me this day he would have to replant nearly the
whole crop of cotton and that there was much corn missing. This is
generally the case everywhere; the crops have come up very badly.
Wherever the cotton is up it looks green, but the seed and roots are
perfectly rotten. Adolphe went to my father's plantation on the

283

Bondieu, and this evening when he came back he told me the
cotton had to be planted entirely over and there were no seeds,
but that the overseer here had told him he could spare as much as
would be necessary. Upon this I immediately dispatched a boy to
the plantation to tell the overseer to come over in the morning with
sufficient hands to transport some cotton seed.

TUESDAY — l6TH

I was kept busy the whole morning, tending to the plantation
business.

At about five Leonce and Felix came here on a visit, and left at
about six. Just at that time my aunt Adolphe arrived with Phanor's
children, but the boat which I had been expecting the whole day was
coming around the point, and as I had letters which had been written
here and others that had been sent to me for the same purpose, I
repaired to the bank. The Captain, to whom I had spoken yesterday
for the letters I would have to put on board, did not stop, but
passed at full speed and thus I had to throw the stick upon which
I had previously attached the letters. It fell on board but unfor-
tunately bounced back and fell overboard. It being soon sent to
shore by the waves, I lost no time but took a horse and cut across
the next point where I got before the boat, but she passed so fast
and far from shore that again I was disappointed; the stick not
reaching it; then there was no other chance remaining, and when
I had succeeded in getting the letters, which was not without trouble,
I started on my way home much disappointed, and far from admir-
ing the Captain's kindness to whom I had previously spoken,
being anxious not to miss the present opportunity. I felt much more
sorry on account of the other letters, which were business letters,
than for mine.

When I came back there was no one here, all having gone at
Phanor's to receive the Bishop and the Parish priest, who came to
spend the night. I got ready and went to meet the company. I
got there while they were at supper, and my disappointment having
taken away my appetite, and hence not wishing to disturb them,
I waited on the gallery till the meal w?s over. I spent my time
pleasantly, but it would have been more pleasant had I succeeded
with my letters. We returned at half past ten.

A peddlar stopped here today. The bricklayer went at Emile
Sompayrac's to commence a cistern.

284

THURSDAY —

Mother started early this morning to go and see Mrs. Hippolyte
Hertzog's who has been sick with the fever for several days. After
breakfast, desiring to see Adolphe I went at Phanor's and remained
after having done what I wanted, in the school house, to see how the
school was going on; and there wrote a letter to my brother
Anthony, who is at the Western Military Institute, Blue Dick,
Kentucky.

I had not yet got to the house when I was met by a negro boy who
wanted something. A few minutes after having satisfied him I was
again disturbed by others, and thus kept busy till near n A.M. And
then retiring to my room I there endeavoured to make a hair line,
but only succeeded after dinner, soon after taking that meal having
resumed the task. I then commenced reading Blackstone, and took
a long walk alone, but on my return I met some ladies and gentle-
men who were also taking a walk, and I thus returned in company.
I sent a little boy to town in order to have some sand brought by
the market cart that is to come tonight. The hands have not yet
commenced sowing the cotton, being busily engaged replacing the
corn.

SATURDAY — 2^IH

I crossed over this morning to go and see Lafille, an old woman,
to whom my grandfather has given her liberty, and who nursed me
when I was but an infant baby. She has been with the fever for
some time and for the last six months has been always unwell.
Her disease is old age. The fever has reduced her to a rather low
state, and fears are entertained for her life. I found her better this
morning, having no fever, and a good face. On my return at the
house I sent her some little delicacies or dainties and marked a
quilt for a girl to sew, and then it being nearly dinner time, I sat
to the piano and recreated myself a little playing some few tunes I
know. After dinner I got at my studies and kept on till about ten
but not without interruption. For, according to my orders, I was
called to put up my lamp I had given to clean, and, a very essential
screw being lost, I spent a good while looking for it, together with
the boy that had cleaned the lamp. After having given myself a
great deal of trouble I left and returned to my studies, hoping
that in the morning I would be more successful in my searches.

I did not enjoy my meals very well, taking them, contrary to my
habit, all alone, and though I was busy the whole day I found the

285

time passed on very slowly. I remain alone tonight, mother having
been prevented by the rain from coming. The water is rising very
fast. It has risen at least eight feet.

"Diary of Lestant Prudhomme," in Lyle Saxon's Old
Louisiana, 1929

286

Learning the River

MARK TWAIN

What with lying on the rocks four days at Louisville, and some
other delays, the poor old Paul Jones fooled away about two weeks
in making the voyage from Cincinnati to New Orleans. This gave
me a chance to get acquainted with one of the pilots, and he taught
me how to steer the boat, and thus made the fascination of river
life more potent than ever for me.

It also gave me a chance to get acquainted with a youth who had
taken deck passage — more's the pity; for he easily borrowed six
dollars of me on a promise to return to the boat and pay it back
to me the day after we should arrive. But he probably died or
forgot, for he never came. It was doubtless the former, since he
had said his parents were wealthy, and he only traveled deck
passage because it was cooler.

I soon discovered two things. One was that a vessel would not be
likely to sail for the mouth of the Amazon under ten or twelve
years; and the other was that the nine or ten dollars still left in my
pocket would not suffice for so imposing an exploration as I had
planned, even if I could afford to wait for a ship. Therefore it
followed that I must contrive a new career. The Paul Jones was now
bound for St. Louis. I planned a siege against my pilot, and at the
end of three hard days he surrendered. He agreed to teach me the
Mississippi River from New Orleans to St. Louis for five hundred
dollars, payable out of the first wages I should receive after gradu-
ating. I entered upon the small enterprise of "learning" twelve or
thirteen hundred miles of the great Mississippi River with the
easy confidence of my time of life. If I had really known what I
was about to require of my faculties, I should not have had the
courage to begin. I supposed that all a pilot had to do was to keep
his boat in the river, and I did not consider that that could be much
of a trick, since it was so wide.

The boat backed out from New Orleans at four in the afternoon,
and it was "our watch" until eight. Mr. B — , my chief, "straightened
her up," plowed her along past the sterns of the other boats that
lay at the Levee, and then said, "Here, take her; shave those
steamships as close as you'd peel an apple." I took the wheel, and
my heart went down into my boots; for it seemed to me that we

287

were about to scrape the side off every ship in the line, we were so
close. I held my breath and began to claw the boat away from the
danger; and J had my own opinion of the pilot who had known
no better than to get us into such peril, but I was too wise to express
it. In half a minute I had a wide margin of safety intervening
between the Paul Jones and the ships; and within ten seconds more
I was set aside in disgrace, and Mr. B — was going into danger
again and flaying me alive with abuse of my cowardice. I was
stung, but I was obliged to admire the easy confidence with which
my chief loafed from side to side of his wheel, and trimmed the
ships so closely that disaster seemed ceaselessly imminent. When
he had cooled a little he told me that the easy water was close
ashore and the current outside, and therefore we must hug the
bank, up-stream, to get the benefit of the former, and stay well out,
downstream, to take advantage of the latter. In my own mind I
resolved to be a down-stream pilot and leave the up-streaming to
people dead to prudence.

Now and then Mr. B — called my attention to certain things.
Said he, "This is Six-Mile Point." I assented. It was pleasant enough
information, but I could not see the bearing of it. I was not conscious
that it was a matter of any interest to me. Another time he said,
"This is Nine-Mile Point." Later he said, "This is Twelve-Mile
Point." They were all about level with the water's edge; they all
looked about alike to me; they were monotonously unpicturesque.
I hoped Mr. B — would change the subject. But no; he would crowd
up around a point, hugging the shore with affection, and then say:
"The slack water ends here, abreast this bunch of China-trees;
now we cross over." So he crossed over. He gave me the wheel
once or twice, but I had no luck. I either came near chipping off
the edge of a sugar plantation, or else I yawed too far from shore,
and so I dropped back into disgrace and got abused again.

The watch was ended at last, and we took supper and went to
bed. At midnight the glare of a lantern shone in my eyes, and the
night watchman said: —

"Come! turn out!"

And then he left. I could not understand this extraordinary
procedure; so I presently gave up trying to, and dozed off to sleep.
Pretty soon the watchman was back again, and this time he was
gruff. I was annoyed. I said: —

"What do you want to come bothering around here in the
middle of the night for? Now as like as not 111 not get to sleep
again to-night."

288

The watchman said: —

"Well, if this an't good, I'm blest."

The "off- watch" was just turning in, and I heard some brutal
laughter from them, and such remarks as "Hello, watchman! an't
the new cub turned out yet? He's delicate, likely. Give him some
sugar in a rag and send for the chambermaid to sing rock-a-by-
baby to him."

About this time Mr. B — appeared on the scene. Something like
a minute later I was climbing the pilot-house steps with some of
my clothes on and the rest in my arms. Mr. B — was close behind
commenting. Here was something fresh — this thing of getting up
in the middle of the night to go to work. It was a detail in piloting
that had never occurred to me at all. I knew that boats ran all night,
but somehow I had never happened to reflect that somebody had to
get up out of a warm bed to run them. I began to fear that piloting
was not quite so romantic as I had imagined it was; there was
something very real and work-like about this new phase of it.

It was a rather dingy night, although a fair number of stars were
out. The big mate was at the wheel, and he had the old tub pointed
at a star and was holding her straight up the middle of the river.
The shores on either hand were not much more than a mile apart,
but they seemed wonderfully far away and ever so vague and
indistinct. The mate said: —

"We've got to land at Jones's plantation, sir."

The vengeful spirit in me exulted. I said to myself, I wish you joy
of your job, Mr. B — ; you'll have a good time finding Mr. Jones's
plantation such a night as this; and I hope you never will find it
as long as you live.

Mr. B — said to the mate: —

"Upper end of the plantation, or the lower?"

"Upper."

"I can't do it. The stumps there are out of water at this stage.
It's no great distance to the lower, and you'll have to get along
with that."

"All right, sir. If Jones don't like it he'll have to lump it, I
reckon."

And then the mate left. My exultation began to cool and my
wonder to come up. Here was a man who not only proposed to
find this plantation on such a night, but to find either end of it
you preferred. I dreadfully wanted to ask a question, but I was
carrying about as many short answers as my cargo-room would
admit of, so I held my peace. All I desired to ask Mr. B — was

289

the simple question whether he was ass enough to really imagine
he was going to find that plantation on a night when all plantations
were exactly .alike and all the same color. But I held in. I used to
have fine inspirations of prudence in those days.

Mr. B — made for the shore and soon was scraping it, just the
same as if it had been daylight. And not only that, but singing —

"Father in heaven the day is declining," etc.

It seemed to me that I had put my life in the keeping of a
peculiarly reckless outcast. Presently he turned on me and said: —

"What's the name of the first point above New Orleans?"

I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I
didn't know.

"Don't tyow?"

This manner jolted me. I was down at the foot again, in a
moment. But I had to say just what I had said before.

"Well, you're a smart one," said Mr. B — . "What's the name of
the next point?"

Once more I didn't know.

"Well, this beats anything. Tell me the name of any point or
place I told you."

I studied a while and decided that I couldn't.

"Look-a-here! What do you start out from, above Twelve-Mile
Point, to cross over?"

"I-I— don't know."

"You — you — don't know?" mimicking my drawling manner of
speech. "What do you know?"

"I — I — nothing, for certain."

"By the great Caesar's ghost I believe you! You're the stupidest
dunderhead I ever saw or ever heard of, so help me Moses! The idea
of you being a pilot — you! Why, you don't know enough to pilot a
cow down a lane."

Oh, but his wrath was up! He was a nervous man, and he
shuffled from one side of his wheel to the other as if the floor was
hot. He would boil a while to himself, and then overflow and scald
me again.

"Look-a-here! What do you suppose I told you the names of
those points for?"

I tremblingly considered a moment, and then the devil of
temptation provoked me to say: —

"Well — to — to — be entertaining, I thought."

This was a red rag to the bull. He raged and stormed so (he was
crossing the river at the time) that I judge it made him blind,

290

because he ran over the steering oar of a trading scow. Of course
the traders sent up a volley of red-hot profanity. Never was a man
so grateful as Mr. B — was: because he was brim full, and here
were subjects who would talf( bacl(. He threw open a window,
thrust his head out, and such an eruption followed as I never had
heard before. The fainter and farther away the scowmen's curses
drifted, the higher Mr. B — lifted his voice and the weightier his
adjectives grew. When he closed the window he was empty. You
could have drawn a seine through his system and not caught
curses enough to disturb your mother with. Presently he said to
me in the gentlest way: —

"My boy, you must get a little memorandum-book, and every
time I tell you a thing, put it down right away. There's only one
way to be a pilot, and that is to get this entire river by heart. You
have to know it just like A B C."

That was a dismal revelation to me; for my memory was never
loaded with anything but blank cartridges. However, I did not
feel discouraged long. I judged that it was best to make some
allowances, for doubtless Mr. B — was "stretching." Presently he
pulled a rope and struck a few strokes on the big bell. The stars
were all gone, now, and the night was as black as ink. I could hear
the wheels churn along the bank, but I was not entirely certain
that I could see the shore. The voice of the invisible watchman
called up from the hurricane deck: —

"What's this, sir?"

"Jones's plantation."

I said to myself, I wish I might venture to offer a small bet that
it isn't. But I did not chirp. I only waited to see. Mr. B — handled
the engine bells, and in due time, the boat's nose came to the land,
a torch glowed from the forecastle, a man skipped ashore, a darky's
voice on the bank said, "Gimme de carpet-bag, Mars' Jones," and
the next moment we were standing up the river again, all serene.
I reflected deeply a while, and then said, — but not aloud — Well,
the finding of that plantation was the luckiest accident that ever
happened; but it couldn't happen again in a hundred years. And I
fully believed it was an accident, too.

By the time we had gone seven or eight hundred miles up the
river, I had learned to be a tolerably plucky up-stream steersman,
in daylight, and before we reached St. Louis, I had made a trifle
of progress in night-work, but only a trifle. I had a note-book that
fairly bristled with the names of towns, "points," bars, islands, bends,
reaches, etc.; but the information was to be found only in the

291

notebook — none of it was in my head. It made my heart ache
to think I had only got half of the river set down; for as our watch
was four hours off and four hours on, day and night, there was a
long four-hour gap in my book for every time I had slept since the
voyage began.

My chief was presently hired to go on a big New Orleans boat,
and I packed my satchel and went with him. She was a grand
affair. When I stood in her pilot-house I was so far above the
water that I seemed perched on a mountain; and her decks
stretched so far away, fore and aft, below me, that I wondered how
I could ever have considered the little Paul Jones a large craft.
There were other differences, too. The Paul Jones's pilot-house was
a cheap, dingy battered rattle-trap, cramped for room : but here was
a sumptuous glass temple; room enough to have a dance in; showy
red and gold window-curtains; an imposing sofa; leather cushions
and a back to the high bench where visiting pilots sit, to spin yarns
and "look at the river;" bright, fanciful "cuspadores" instead of a
broad wooden box filled with sawdust; nice new oil-cloth on the
floor; a hospitable big stove for winter; a wheel as high as my
head, costly with inlaid work; a wire tiller-rope; bright brass knobs
for the bells; and a tidy, white-aproned, black "texas-tender," to
bring up tarts and ices and coffee during mid-watch, day and
night. Now this was "something like;" and so I began to take heart
once more to believe that piloting was a romantic sort of occupation
after all. The moment we were under way I began to prowl about
the great steamer and fill myself with joy. She was as clean and as
dainty as a drawing-room; when I looked down her long, gilded
saloon, it was like gazing through a splendid tunnel; she had an
oil-picture, by some gifted sign-painter, on every state-room door;
she glittered with no end of prism-fringed chandeliers; the clerk's
office was elegant, the bar was marvelous, and the bar-keeper had
been barbered and upholstered at incredible cost. The boiler deck
(i.e., the second story of the boat, so to speak) was as spacious as a
church, it seemed to me; so with the forecastle; and there was no
pitiful handful of deckhands, firemen, and roust-abouts down there,
but a whole battalion of men. The fires were fiercely glaring from a
long row of furnaces, and over them were eight huge boilers!
This was unutterable pomp. The mighty engines — but enough of
this. I had never felt so fine before. And when I found that the*
regiment of natty servants respectfully "sir'd" me, my satisfaction
was complete. When I returned to the pilot-house St. Louis was
gone and I was lost. Here was a piece of river which was all down

292

in my book, but I could make neither head nor tail of it: you
understand, it was turned around. I had seen it, when coming
up-stream, but I had never faced about to see how it looked when
it was behind me. My heart broke again, for it was plain that I
had got to learn this troublesome river both ways.

The pilot-house was full of pilots, going down to "look at the
river." What is called the "upper river" (the two hundred miles
between St. Louis and Cairo, where the Ohio comes in) was low;
and the Mississippi changes its channel so constantly that the pilots
used to always find it necessary to run down to Cairo to take a
fresh look, when their boats were to lie in port a week, that is,
when the water was at a low stage. A deal of this "looking at the
river" was done by poor fellows who seldom had a berth and
whose only hope of getting one lay in their being always freshly
posted and therefore ready to drop into the shoes of some reputable
pilot, for a single trip, on account of such pilot's sudden illness, or
some other necessity. And a good many of them constantly ran up
and down inspecting the river, not because they ever really hoped
to get a berth, but because (they being guests of the boat) it was
cheaper to "look at the river" than stay ashore and pay board. In
time these fellows grew dainty in their tastes, and only infested boats
that had an established reputation for setting good tables. All
visiting pilots were useful, for they were always ready and willing,
winter or summer, night or day, to go out in the yawl and help
buoy the channel or assist the boat's pilots in any way they could.
They were likewise welcome because all pilots are tireless talkers,
when gathered together, and as they talk only about the river they
are always understood and are always interesting. Your true pilot
cares nothing about anything on earth but the river, and his pride
in his occupation surpasses the pride of kings.

We had a fine company of these river-inspectors along, this trip.
There were eight or ten; and there was abundance of room for
them in our great pilot-house. Two or three of them wore polished
silk hats, elaborate shirt-fronts, diamond breastpins, kid gloves, and
patent-leather boots. They were choice in their English, and bore
themselves with a dignity proper to men of solid means and
prodigious reputation as pilots. The others were more or less loosely
clad, and wore upon their heads tall felt cones that were suggestive
of the days of the Commonwealth.

I was a cipher in this august company, and felt subdued, not to
say torpid. I was not even of sufficient consequence to assist at the
wheel when it was necessary to put the tiller hard down in a hurry;

293

the guest that stood nearest did that when occasion required — and
this was pretty much all the time, because of the crookedness of the
channel and the scant water. I stood in a corner; and the talk I lis-
tened to took the hope all out of me. One visitor said to another: —

"Jim, how did you run Plum Point, coming up?"

"It was in the night, there, and I ran it the way one of the boys on
the Diana told me; started out about fifty yards above the wood
pile on the false point, and held on the cabin under Plum Point
till I raised the reef — quarter less twain — then straightened up for
the middle bar till I got well abreast the old one-limbed cotton-
wood in the bend, then got my stern on the cotton-wood and
head on the low place above the point, and carne through a-booming
— nine and a half."

"Pretty square crossing, an't it?"

"Yes, but the upper bar's working down fast,"

Another pilot spoke up and said: —

"I had better water than that, and ran it lower down; started out
from the false point — mark twain — raised the second reef abreast
the big snag in the bend, and had quarter less twain."

One of the gorgeous ones remarked: "I don't want to find fault
with your leadsmen, but that's a good deal of water for Plum
Point, it seems to me."

There was an approving nod all around as this quiet snub dropped
on the boaster and "settled" him. And so they went on talk-talk-
talking. Meantime, the thing that was running in my mind was,
"Now if my ears hear aright, I have not only to get the names of
all the towns and islands and bends, and so on, by heart, but I
must even get up a warm personal acquaintanceship with every
old snag and one-limbed cotton-wood and obscure wood pile that
ornaments the banks of this river for twelve hundred miles; and
more than that, I must actually know where these things are in
the dark, unless these gues'ts are gifted with eyes that can pierce
through two miles of solid blackness; I wish the piloting business
was in Jericho and I had never thought of it."

At dusk Mr. B — tapped the big bell three times (the signal to
land), and the captain emerged from his drawing-room in the for-
ward end of the texas, and looked up inquiringly. Mr. B — said: —

"We will lay up here all night, captain."

"Very well, sir."

That was all. The boat came to shore and was tied up for the
night. It seemed to me a fine thing that the pilot could do as he
pleased without asking so grand a captain's permission. I took my

294

supper and went immediately to bed, discouraged by my day's
observations and experiences. My late voyage's note-booking was
but a confusion of meaningless names. It had tangled me all up in
a knot every time I had looked at it in the daytime. I now hoped
for respite in sleep; but no, it revelled all through my head till
sunrise again, a frantic and tireless nightmare.

Next morning I felt pretty rusty and low-spirited. We went
booming along, taking a good many chances, for we were anxious
to "get out of the river" (as getting out to Cairo was called) before
night should overtake us. But Mr. B — 's partner, the other pilot,
presently grounded the boat, and we lost so much time getting her
off that it was plain the darkness would overtake us a good long
way above the mouth. This was a great misfortune especially to
certain of our visiting pilots, whose boats would have to wait for
their return, no matter how long that might be. It sobered the
pilot-house talk a good deal. Coming up-stream, pilots did not mind
low water or any kind of darkness; nothing stopped them but fog.
But down-stream work was different; a boat was too nearly helpless,
with a stiff current pushing behind her; so it was not customary
to run down-stream at night in low water.

There seemed to be one small hope, however: if we could get
through the intricate and dangerous Hat Island crossing before
night, we could venture the rest, for we would have plainer sailing
and better water. But it would be insanity to attempt Hat Island at
night. So there was a deal of looking at watches all the rest of the
day, and a constant ciphering upon the speed we were making;
Hat Island was the eternal subject; sometimes hope was high and
sometimes we were delayed in a bad crossing, and down it went
again. For hours all hands lay under the burden of this suppressed
excitement; it was even communicated to me, and I got to feeling
so solicitous about Hat Island, and under such an awful pressure
of responsibility, that I wished I might have five minutes on shore
to draw a good, full, relieving breath, and start over again. We
were standing no regular watches. Each of our pilots ran such
portions of the river as he had run when coming up-stream, because
of his greater familiarity with it; but both remained in the pilot-
house constantly.

An hour before sunset, Mr. B — took the wheel and Mr. W —
stepped aside. For the next thirty minutes every man held his
watch in his hand and was restless, silent, and uneasy. At last
somebody said, with a doomful sigh. "Well, yonder's Hat Island —
and we can't make it."

295

All the watches closed with a snap, everybody sighed and mut-
tered something about its being "too bad, too bad — ah, if we could
only have gQt here half an hour sooner!" and the place was thick
with the atmosphere of disappointment. Some started to go out,
but loitered, hearing no bell-tap to land. The sun dipped behind
the horizon, the boat went on. Inquiring looks passed from one
guest to another; and one who had his hand on the door-knob,
and had turned it, waited, then presently took away his hand and
let the knob turn back again. We bore steadily down the bend.
More looks were exchanged, and nods of surprised admiration —
but no words. Insensibly the men drew together behind Mr. B —
as the sky darkened and one or two dim stars came out. The dead
silence and sense of waiting became oppressive. Mr. B — pulled the
cord, and two deep, mellow notes from the big bell floated off on
the night. Then a pause, and one more note was struck. The
watchman's voice followed, from the hurricane deck: —

"Labboard lead, there! Stabboard lead!"

The cries of the leadsmen began to rise out of the distance, and
were gruffly repeated by the word-passers on the hurricane deck.

"M-a-r-k- three! M-a-r-k three! Quarter-less-three! Half twain!
quarter twain! M-a-r-k twain! Quarter-less" —

Mr. B — pulled two bell-ropes, and was answered by faint jinglings
far below in the engine-room, and our speed slackened. The steam
began to whistle through the gauge-cocks. The cries of the leadsmen
went on — and it is a weird sound, always, in the night. Every
pilot in the lot was watching, now, with fixed eyes, and talking un-
der his breath. Nobody was calm and easy but Mr. B — . He would
put his wheel down and stand on a spoke, and as the steamer swung
into her (to me) utterly invisible marks — for we seemed to be in
the midst of a wide and gloomy sea — he would meet and fasten her
there. Talk was going on, now, in low voices: —

"There; she's over the first reef all right!"

After a pause, another subdued voice: —

"Her stern's coming down just exactly right, by George! Now
she's in the marks; over she goes!"

Somebody else muttered: —

"Oh, it was done beautiful — beautiful!"

Now the engines were stopped altogether, and we drifted with
the current. Not that I could see the boat drift, for I could not,
the stars being all gone by this time. This drifting was the dismalest
work; it held one's heart still. Presently I discovered a blacker
gloom than that which surrounded us. It was the head of the

296

island. We were closing right down upon it. We entered its deeper
shadow, and so imminent seemed the peril that I was likely to
suffocate; and I had the strongest impulse to do something, any-
thing, to save the vessel. But still Mr. B — stood by his wheel,
silent, intent as a cat, and all the pilots stood shoulder to shoulder
at his back.

"She'll not make it!" somebody whispered.

The water grew shoaler and shoaler by the leadsmen's cries, till
it was down to —

"Eight-and-a-half! E-i-g-h-t feet! E-i-g-h-t feet! Seven-and" —

Mr. B — said warningly through his speaking tube to the
engineer : —

"Stand by, now!"

"Aye-aye, sir."

"Seven-and-a-half! Seven feet! 5/>-and" —

We touched bottom! Instantly Mr. B — set a lot of bells ringing,
shouted through the tube, "Now let her have it — every ounce you've
got!" then to his partner, "Put her hard down! snatch her! snatch
her!" The boat rasped and ground her way through the sand, hung
upon the apex of disaster a single tremendous instant, and then
over she went! And such a shout as went up at Mr. B — 's back
never loosened the roof of a pilot-house before!

There was no more trouble after that. Mr. B — was a hero that
night; and it was some little time, too, before his exploit ceased to
be talked about by river men.

Fully to realize the marvelous precision required in laying the
great steamer in her marks in that murky waste of water, one
should know that not only must she pick her intricate way through
snags and blind reefs, and then shave the head of the island so
closely as to brush the overhanging foliage with her stern, but at
one place she must pass almost within arm's reach of a sunken and
invisible wreck that would snatch the hull timbers from under
her if she should strike it, and destroy a quarter of a million dol-
lars' worth of steamboat and cargo in five minutes, and maybe
a hundred and fifty human lives into the bargain.

The last remark I heard that night was a compliment to Mr. B — ,
uttered in soliloquy and with unction by one of our guests. He
said : —

"By the Shadow of Death, but he's a lightning pilot!"

"Old Times on the Mississippi," The Atlantic Monthly, Feb-
ruary, 1875

297

Uncle Remus

JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS

I. THE WONDERFUL TAR-BABY STORY

"Didn't the fox never catch the rabbit, Uncle Remus?" asked
the little boy the next evening.

"He come mighty nigh it, honey, sho's you born — Brer Fox
did. One day atter Brer Rabbit fool 'im wid dat calamus root,
Brer Fox went ter wuk en got 'im some tar, en mix it wid some
turkentime, en fix up a contrapshun wat he call a Tar-Baby, en
he tuck dish yer Tar-Baby en he sot 'er in de big road, en den
he lay off in de bushes fer to see wat de news wuz gwineter be.
En he didn't hatter wait long, nudder, kaze bimeby here come
Brer Rabbit pacin' down de road — lippity-clippity, clippity-lippity
— des ez sassy ez a jay-bird. Brer Fox, he lay low. Brer Rabbit come
prancin' 'long twel he spy de Tar-Baby, en den he fotch up on
his behime legs like he wuz 'stonished. De Tar-Baby, she sot dar,
she did, en Brer Fox, he lay low.

"'Mawnin'!' sez Brer Rabbit, sezee — 'nice wedder dis mawnin','
sezee.

"Tar-Baby ain't sayin' nothin', en Brer Fox, he lay low.

"'How duz yo' sym 'turns seem ter segashuate?' sez Brer Rabbit,
sezee.

"Brer Fox, he wink his eye slow, en lay low, en de Tar-Baby,
she ain't sayin' nothin'.

"'How you come on, den? Is you deaf?' sez Brer Rabbit, sezee.
'Kaze if you is, I kin holler louder,' sezee.

"Tar-Baby stay still, en Brer Fox, he lay low.

" 'Youer stuck up, dat's w'at you is,' says Brer Rabbit, sezee,
'en I'm gwineter kyore you, dat's w'at I'm a gwineter do,' sezee.

"Brer Fox, he sorter chuckle in his stummuck, he did, but Tar-
Baby ain't sayin' nothin'.

" 'I'm gwineter larn you how ter talk ter 'specttubble fokes ef
hit's de las' ack,' sez Brer Rabbit, sezee. 'Ef you don't take off dat
hat en tell me howdy, I'm gwineter bus' you wide open,' sezee.

"Tar-Baby stay still, en Brer Fox, he lay low.

"Brer Rabbit keep on axin' 'im, en de Tar-Baby, she keep on
sayin' nothin', 'twel present'y Brer Rabbit draw back wid his fis',

he did, en blip he tuck 'er side er de head. His fis' stuck, en he can't
pull loose. De tar hilt 'im. But Tar-Baby, she stay still, en Brer Fox,
he lay low.

" 'Ef you don't lemme loose, I'll knock you agin,' sez Brer
Rabbit, sezee, en wid dat he fotch 'er a wipe wid de udder han',
en dat stuck. Tar-Baby, she ain't sayin' nothin', en Brer Fox, he
lay low.

" 'Tu'n me loose, fo' I kick de natal stuffin' outen you,' sez Brer
Rabbit, sezee, but de Tar-Baby, she ain't sayin' nothin'. She des
hilt on, en den Brer Rabbit lose de use er his feet in de same way.
Brer Fox, he lay low. Den Brer Rabbit squall out dat ef de Tar-
Baby don't tu'n 'im loose he butt 'er cranksided. En den he butted,
en his head got stuck. Den Brer Fox, he sa'ntered fort', lookin' des
ez innercent ez one er yo' mammy's mockin'-birds.

" 'Howdy, Brer Rabbit,' sez Brer Fox, sezee. 'You look sorter
stuck up dis mawnin',' sezee, en den he rolled on de groun', en
laughed en laughed twel he couldn't laugh no mo'. 'I speck you'll
take dinner wid me dis time, Brer Rabbit. I done laid in some
calamus root, en I ain't gwineter take no skuse', sez Brer Fox,

sezee."

Here Uncle Remus paused, and drew a two-pound yam out of
the ashes.

"Did the fox eat the rabbit?" asked the little boy to whom the
story had been told.

"Dat's all de fur de tale goes," replied the old man. "He mout,
en den agin he moutent. Some say Jedge B'ar come 'long en
loosed 'im — some say he didn't. I hear Miss Sally callin'. You better
run 'long."

II. HOW MR. RABBIT WAS TOO SHARP FOR MR. FOX

"Uncle Remus," said the little boy one evening, when he found
the old man with little or nothing to do, "did the fox kill and
eat the rabbit when he caught him with the Tar-Baby?"

"Law, honey, ain't I tell you 'bout dat?" replied the old darkey,
chuckling slyly. "I 'clar ter grashus I ought er tole you dat, but
old man Nod wuz ridin' on my eyeleds 'twel a leetle mo'n I'd
a dis'member'd my own name, en den on to dat here come yo'
mammy hollerin' atter you.

"Wat I tell you w'en I fus' begin? I tole you Brer Rabbit wuz
a monstus soon creetur; leas' ways dat's w'at I laid out fer ter
tell you. Well, den, honey, don't you go en make no udder
calkalashuns, kaze in dem days Brer Rabbit en his fambly wuz

299

at de head er de gang w'en enny racket wuz on han', en dar dey
stayed. To' you begins ter wipe yo' eyes 'bout Brer Rabbit, you
wait en sec whar'bouts Brer Rabbit gwineter fetch up at. But dat's
needer yer ner dar.

"W'en Brer Fox fine Brer Rabbit mixt up wid de Tar-Baby,
he feel mighty good, en he roll on de groun' en laff. Bimeby he
up'n say, sezee:

" 'Well, I speck I got you dis time, Brer Rabbit, sezee; 'maybe
I ain't, but I speck I is. You been runnin' roun' here sassin' atter
me a mighty long time, but I speck you done come ter de een'
er de row. You bin cuttin' up yo' capers en bouncin' 'roun' in
dis neighberhood ontwel you come ter b'leeve yo'se'f de boss er de
whole gang. En den youer allers some'rs whar you got no bizness,'
sez Brer Fox, sezee. 'Who ax you fer ter come en strike up a
'quaintance wid dish yer Tar-Baby? En who stuck you up dar
what you iz? Nobody in de roun' worril. You des tuck en jam
yo'se'f on dat Tar-Baby widout waitin' fer enny invite,' sez Brer
Fox, sezee, 'en dar you is, en dar you'll stay twel I fixes up a
bresh-pile and fires her up, kaze I'm gwineter bobbycue you dis
day, sho,' sez Brer Fox, sezee.

"Den Brer Rabbit talk mighty 'umble.

" 'I don't keer w'at you do wid me, Brer Fox,' sezee, 'so you
don't fling me in dat brier-patch. Roas' me, Brer Fox,' sezee, 'but
don't fling me in dat brier-patch,' sezee.

'"Het's so much trouble fer ter kindle a fier,' sez Brer Fox,
sezee, 'dat I speck I'll hatter hang you,' sezee.

" 'Hang me des ez high as you please, Brer Fox,' sez Brer
Rabbit, sezee, 'but do fer de Lord's sake don't fling me in dat
brier-patch,' sezee.

" 'I ain't got no string,' sez Brer Fox, sezee, 'en now I speck
I'll hatter drown you,' sezee.

" 'Drown me des ez deep ez you please, Brer Fox,' sez Brer
Rabbit, sezee, 'but do don't fling me in dat brier-patch,' sezee.

" 'Dey ain't no water nigh,' sez Brer Fox, sezee, 'en now I speck
I'll hatter skin you,' sezee.

" 'Skin me, Brer Fox,' sez Brer Rabbit, sezee, 'snatch out my
eyeballs, t'ar out my years by de roots, en cut off my legs,' sezee,
'but do please, Brer Fox, don't fling me in dat brier-patch,' sezee.

"Co'se Brer Fox wanter hurt Brer Rabbit bad ez he kin, so hev
cotch 'im by de behime legs en slung 'im right in de middle er
de brier-patch. Dar wuz a considerbul flutter whar Brer Rabbit
struck de bushes, en Brer Fox sorter hang 'round' fer ter see w'at

300

wuz gwineter happen. Bimeby he hear somebody call 'im, en way
up de hill he see Brer Rabbit settin' cross-legged on a chinkapin
log koamin' de pitch outen his har wid a chip. Den Brer Fox
know dat he bin swop off mighty bad. Brer Rabbit wuz bleedzed
fer ter fling back some er his sass, en he holler out:

" 'Bred en bawn in a brier-patch, Brer Fox — bred en bawn in a
brier-patch!' en wid dat he skip out des ez lively ez a cricket in de
embers."

Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings, 1880

301

JS[egro Songs

1. Mary Wore Three Links of Chain

Mary wore three links of chain,

Ev'ry link bearin' Jesus' name;

All my sins been taken away, taken away.

Mary weeped and Martha mourned,
Mary weeped and Martha mourned,
Mary weeped and Martha mourned,
Gabriel stood and bio wed his horn;
All my sins been taken away, taken away.

I don't know but I've been told,

The streets in heaven are paved with gold;

All my sins been taken away, taken away.

Can't you hear dem horses' feet?
Can't you hear clem horses' feet?
Can't you hear dem horses' feet
Slippin' and slidin' on de golden street?
All my sins been taken away, taken away.

My feet got wet in de midnight dew,
My feet got wet in de midnight dew,
My feet got wet in de midnight dew,
An' de mornin' star was a witness too;
All my sins been taken away, taken away.

I'm go'n home on de mornir?' train,

I'm go'n home on de mornin' train,

All don't see me go'n to hear me sing:

All my sins been taken away, taken away.

The American Songbag, 1927
302

2. Revival Hymn

Oh, whar shill we go w'en de great day comes,

Wid de blowin' er de trumpits en de bangin' er de drums?

How many po' sinners'll be kotched out late

En fine no latch ter de golden gate?

No use fer ter wait twel ter-morrer!

De sun musn't set on yo' sorrer,

Sin's ez sharp ez a bamboo-brier —

Oh, Lord! fetch de mo'ners up higher!

W'en de nashuns er de earf is a stan'in all aroun',
Who's a gwineter be chosen fer ter w'ar de glory-crown?
Who's a gwine fer ter stan' stiff-kneed en bol'.
En answer to der name at de callin' er de roll?

You better come now ef you comin' —

Ole Satun is loose en a bummin' —

De wheels er distruckshun is a hummin' —

Oh, come 'long, sinner, ef you comin'!

De song er salvashun is a mighty sweet song,

En de Pairidise win' blow fur en blow strong,

En Aberham's bosom, hit's saft en hit's wide,

En right dar's de place whar de sinners oughter hide!

Oh, you nee'nter be a stoppin' en a lookin';

Ef you fool wid ole Satun you'll git took in;

You'll hang on de aidge en get shook in,

Ef you keep on a stoppin' en a lookin'.

De time is right now, en dish yer's de place —
Let de sun er salvashun shine squar' in yo' face;
Fight de battles er de Lord, fight soon en fight late,
En you'll allers fine a latch ter de golden gate.

No use fer ter wait twel ter-morrer,

De sun musn't set on yo' sorrer —

Sin's ez sharp ez a bamboo-brier,

Ax de Lord fer ter fetch you up higher!

Joel Chandler Harris, Uncle Remus: His Songs and His
Sayings, 1880

303

3. Boll Weevil Song

O, de boll weevil am a little black bug,

Come from Mexico, dey say,
Come all de way to Texas, jus' a-lookin' foh

a place to stay,

Jus' a-lookin' foh a home, jus' a-lookin'
foh a home.

De first time I seen de boll weevil,

He was a-settin* on de square.
De next time I seen de boll weevil, he had

all of his family dere.
Jus' a-lookin' foh a home, jus' a-lookin'
for a home.

De farmer say to de weevil:

"What make yo' head so red?"
De weevil say to de farmer, "It's a wondah

I ain't dead,

A-lookin' foh a home, jus' a-lookin' foh
a home."

De farmer take de boll weevil,
An' he put him in de hot san'.

De weevil say: "Dis is mighty hot, but I'll

stan' it like a man,
Dis'll be my home, it'll be my home."

De farmer take de boll weevil,
An' he put him in a lump of ice;

De weevil say to de farmer: "Dis is mighty

cool and nice,
It'll be my home, dis'll be my home."

De farmer take de boll weevil,

An' he put him in de fire.
De weevil say to de farmer: "Here I are,
here I are,

Dis'll be my home, dis'll be my home."

De boll weevil say to de farmer:

"You better leave me alone;
I done eat all yo' cotton, now I'm goin' to
start on yo' corn,

I'll have a home, I'll have a home."

3°4

De merchant got half de cotton,

De boll weevil got de res'.
Didn't leave de farmer's wife but one old
cotton dress,

An' it's full of holes, it's full of holes.

De farmer say to de merchant:

uWe's in an awful fix;

De boll weevil et all de cotton up an' lef us
only sticks,

We's got no home, we's got no home."

De farmer say to de merchant:

"We ain't made but only one bale,
And befoh we'll give yo' dat one we'll fight
and go to jail,

We'll have a home, we'll have a home."

De cap'n say tt> de missus:

"What d' you t'ink o' dat?
De boll weevil done make a nes' in my bes'

Sunday hat,

Coin' to have a home, goin' to have a
home."

An' if anybody should ax you,

Who it was dat make dis song,
Jus' cell 'em 'twas a big buck niggah wid a
paih o' blue duckin's on,

Ain' got no home, ain' got no home.

The American Songbag, 1927

4. Coon Can (Poor Boy)

My mother called me to her deathbed side, these words she said

to me :
"If you don't mend your rovin' ways, they'll put you in the

penitentiary,
They'll put you in the penitentiary, poor boy, they'll put you in

the penitentiary,
If you don't mend your rovin' ways, they'll put you in the

penitentiary."

305

I sat me down to play coon can, could scarcely read my hand,
A thinkin' about the woman I loved, ran away with another man.
Ran away with.another man, poor boy, ran away with another man.
I was thinkin' about the woman I loved, ran away with another
man.

I'm a standin' on the corner, in front of a jewelry store,

Big policeman taps me on the back, says, "You ain't a goin' to

kill no more."
Says, "You ain't a goin' to kill no more, poor boy," says, "You

ain't a goin' to kill no more."
Big policeman taps me on the back, says, "You ain't a goin' to

kill no more."

"Oh, cruel, kind judge, oh, cruel, kind judge, what are you goin'

to do with me?"
"If that jury finds you guilty, poor boy, I'm goin' to send you

to the penitentiary.
I'm goin' to send you to the penitentiary, poor boy, goin' to send

you to the penitentiary.
If that jury finds you guilty, poor boy, I'm goin' to send you

to the penitentiary."

Well, the jury found him guilty, the clerk he wrote it down,
The judge pronounced his sentence, poor boy: ten long years in

Huntsville town.
Ten long years in Huntsville town, poor boy, ten long years in

Huntsville town;
The judge pronounced his sentence, poor boy, ten long years

in Huntsville town.

The iron gate clanged behind him, he heard the warden say,
"Ten long years for you in prison, poor boy, yes, it's ten long

years for you this day.
Ten long years for you in prison, poor boy, yes, it's ten long years

this day."
As the iron gate clanged behind him, that's what he heard the

warden say. /

The American Songbag, 1927

306

Women

LUCY FURMAN

Aunt Ailsie first heard the news from her son's wife, Ruthena,
who, returning from a trading trip to The Forks, reined in her
nag to call, —

"Maw, there's a passel of quare women come in from furrin
parts and sot 'em up some cloth houses there on the p'int above
the courthouse, and carrying on some of the outlandishest doings
ever you heared of. And folks a-pouring up that hill till no jury
can't hardly be got to hold court this week."

The thread of wool Aunt Ailsie was spinning snapped and flew,
and she stepped down from porch to palings. "Hit's a show!" she
exclaimed, in an awed voice. "I heared of one down Jackson-way
one time, where there was a elephant and a lion and all manner
of varmints, and the women rid around bareback, without no
clothes on 'em to speak of."

"No, hit hain't no show, neither, folks claim; they allow them
women is right women, and dresses theirselves plumb proper. Some
says they come up from the level land. And some that Uncle
Ephraim Kent fetched 'em in."

"Did n't you never go up to see?"

Ruthena laughed. "I'll bound I would if I'd a-been you," she
said; "and but for that sucking child at home, I allow I would
myself."

"Child or no child, you ought to have went," complained Aunt
Ailsie, disappointed. "I wisht Lot would come on back and tell
me about 'em."

Next morning she was delighted to see her favorite grandson,
Fult Fallen, dash up the branch on his black mare.

"Tell about them quare women," she demanded, before he could
dismount.

"I come to get some of your sweet apples for 'em, granny," he
said. " 'Feared like they was apple-hungry, and I knowed hit was
time for yourn."

"Light and take all you need," she said. "But, Fulty, stop a spell
first and tell me more about them women. Air they running a
show like we heared of down Jackson-way four or five year gone?"

Fult shook his head emphatically. "Not that kind," he said.

307

"Them women are the ladyest women you ever seed, and the
friendliest. And hit's a pure sight, all the pretties they got, and all
the things that goes on. I never in life enjoyed the like."

Aunt Ailsie followed him around to the sweet-apple tree, and
helped him fill his saddlebags.

"Keep a-telling about 'em," she begged. "Seems like I hain't
heared or seed nothing for so long I'm nigh starved to death."

"Well, they come up from the level country — the Blue Grass.
You ricollect me telling you how I passed through hit on my way
to Frankfort — as smooth, pretty country as ever was made; though,
being level, hit looked lonesome to me. And from what they have
said, I allow Uncle Ephraim Kent fotched 'em up here, some way or
'nother, I don't rightly know how. And they put up at our house
till me 'n' the boys could lay floors and set up their tents,"

The saddlebags were full now, and they turned back.

"Stay and set with me a while," she begged him.

"Could n't noways think of hit," he said; "might miss my sew-
ing-lesson."

"Sewing-lesson!" she exclaimed.

"Had n't you heared about me becoming a man of peace, setting
down sewing handkerchers and sech every morning?" he laughed.

"Now I know you are lying to me," she said, in an injured tone.

"Nary grain," he protested. "Come get up behind and go in
along and see if I hain't speaking the pure truth!"

"I would, too, if there was anybody to stay with the place and
the property," she replied. " 'Pears like your grandpaw will set
on that grand jury tell doomsday! How many indictments have
they drawed up again' you this time, Fulty?" she asked, anxiously.

Fult threw back his handsome dark head, and laughed again
as he sprang into the saddle. "Not more 'n 'leven or twelve!" he
said. "They're about wound up, now, I allow, and grandpaw will
likely be in by sundown. You ride in to-morrow to see them
women!"

It was past sundown, however, when Uncle Lot rode up, grave
and silent as usual. Aunt Ailsie hardly waited for him to hang
his saddle on the porch-peg before inquiring, —

"What about them quare women on ths p'int?"

Uncle Lot frowned. "What should I know about quare women?"
he demanded. "Hain't I a God-fearing man and a Old Primitive?"

"But setting on the grand jury all week, right there under the
p'int, you must have seed 'em, 'pears like?"

"I did see 'em," he admitted, disapprovingly. "Uncle Ephraim

Kent, he come in whilst we was a-starting up court a-Monday
morning, and says, 'Citizens, the best thing that ever come up
Troublesome is a-coming in now!' And the jedge he journeyed
court, and all hands went out to see. And here was four wagons,
one with a passel of women, three loaded with all manner of
plunder."

"What did they look like?"

"Well enough — too good to be a-traipsing over the land by their-
selves this way." He shook his head. "And as for their doings, hit's
a sight to hear the singing and merriment that goes on up thar
on that hill when the wind is right. Folks has wore a slick trail,
traveling up and down. But not me! Solomon says, 'Bewar' of the
strange woman'; and I hain't the man to shun his counsel."

"I allow they are right women — I allow you wouldn't have tuck
no harm," soothed Aunt Ailsie.

"Little you know, Ailsie, little you know. If you had sot on as
many grand juries as me, you would n't allow nothing about no
woman, not even them you had knowed all your life, let alone
quare, fotched-on ones that blows in from God knows whar, and
darrs their Maker with naught but a piece of factory betwixt them
and the elements!"

Aunt Ailsie dropped the subject. "What about Fulty?" she asked,
in a troubled voice.

"There was several indictments again' him and his crowd this
time — three for shooting on the highway, two for shooting up the
town, two for breaking up meetings — same old story."

"And you holped again to indict him?" remarked Aunt Ailsie,
somewhat bitterly.

"I did, too," he asserted, in some anger, "and will every time he
needs hit."

"Seems like a man ought to have a leetle mercy on his own blood."

He held up a stern forefinger. "Let me hear no more sech talk,"
he commanded; "I am a man of jestice, and I aim to deal hit out
fa'r and squar', let hit fall whar hit may."

Next morning, which was Saturday, Aunt Ailsie mildly sug-
gested at breakfast: "I might maybe ride in to town to-day, if you
say so. I can't weave no furder till I get some thread, and there's
a good mess of eggs, and several beans and sweet apples, to
trade."

Uncle Lot fixed severe eyes upon her. "Ailsie," he said, "you
would n't have no call to ride in to The Forks to-day if them quare
women was n't thar. You allus was possessed to run alter some

3°9

new thing. My counsel to you is the same as Solomon's — 'Bewar*
of the strange woman'!"

However, he did not absolutely forbid her to go; and she said
gently, as he started up to the cornfield a little later, hoe in hand : —

"If I do ride in, you'll find beans and 'taters in the pot, and
coffee and a good pone of cornbread on the hairth, and the table
all sot."

Two hours later, clothed in the hot brown-linsey dress, black
sunbonnet, new print apron, and blue-yarn mitts, which she wore
on funeral occasions and like social events, she set forth on old
Darb, the fat, flea-bitten nag, with a large poke of beans across
her side-saddle, and baskets of eggs and apples on her arms.

The half-mile down her branch and the two miles up Trouble-
some Creek had never seemed so long, and the beauty of green
folding mountains and tall trees mirrored in winding waters was
thrown away on her.

"I am plumb wore out looking at nothing but clifts and hillsides
and creek-beds for sixty year," she said aloud, resentfully. " Tears
like I would give life hitself to see something different."

She switched the old nag sharply, and could hardly wait for the
first glimpse of the "cloth houses."

They came in sight at last — a cluster of white tents, one above an-
other, near the top of a spur overlooking the courthouse and village.
Drawing nearer, she could see people moving up the zigzag path
toward them. Leaving the beans across her saddle, she did not
even stop at the hotel to see her daughter, Cynthia Fallon, but,
flinging her bridle over a paling, went up the hill at a good gait,
baskets on arms, and entered the lowest tent with a heart beating
more rapidly from excitement than from the steep climb.

The sides of this tent were rolled up. A group of ten or twelve
girls stood at one end of a long white table, where a strange and
very pretty young woman, in a crisp gingham dress and large white
apron, was kneading a batch of light-bread dough, and explaining
the process of bread-making as she worked. Men, women, and
children, two or three deep, in a compact ring, looked on. Gently
pushing her way so that she could see better, Aunt Ailsie was a
little shocked to find that the man who ga/e way at her touch was
none other than Darcy Kent, the young sheriff, and Fult's arch-
enemy.

After the dough was moulded into loaves and placed in the oven
of a shining new cook-stove, most of the crowd moved on to the
next tent, which was merely a roof of canvas stretched between

310

tall trees. Beneath was another table, and this was being carefully
set by two girls, one of whom was Charlotta Fallen, Aunt Ailsie's
granddaughter.

"The women teached me the pine-blank right way to set a
table," she said importantly to her granny, "and now hit's aiming
to be sot that way every time."

The smooth white cloth was laid just so; the knives, forks, spoons,
and white enameled cups and plates were placed in the proper spots;
even the camp-stools observed a correct spacing. There were small
folded squares of linen at each plate.

"What air them handkerchers for, Charlotty?" inquired Aunt
Ailsie, under her breath.

"Them's napkins, granny," replied Charlotta in a lofty tone.

"And what's that for?" indicating the glass of flowers in the
centre of the table. "Them women don't eat posies, do they?"

"Hit's for looks," answered Charlotta. "Them women allows
things eats better if they look good. I allus gather a flower-pot every
morning and fotch up to 'em."

Soon Aunt Ailsie and the crowd went up farther, to a wider
"bench," or shelf, where the largest tent stood. Within were nu-
merous young men and maidens, large boys and girls, sitting about
on floor or camp-stools, talking and laughing, and every one of
them engaged upon a piece of sewing. Another strange young
woman, in another crisp dress, moved smilingly about, directing
the work.

But Aunt Ailsie's eyes were instantly drawn to the tent itself,
the roof of which was festooned with red cheesecloth and many-
colored paper chains, a great flag being draped at one end, while
every remaining foot of roof-space and wall-space was covered with
bright pictures. Pushing back her black sunbonnet, she moved
around the tent sides, gazing rapturously.

" 'Pears like I never seed my fill of pretties before," she said
aloud to herself again and again.

"You like it then, do you?" asked a soft voice behind her. And,
turning, she confronted still another strange young woman, stand-
ing by some shelves filled with books.

"Like hit!" repeated Aunt Ailsie, with shining eyes, "Woman,
hit's what my soul has pined for these sixty year — jest to see things
that are pretty and bright!"

"You must spend the day with us, and have dinner, and get
acquainted," smiled the stranger.

"I will, too — hit's what I come for. Rutheny she told me a Thurs-

311

day of you fotched-on women a-being here; and then Fulty he
give some account of you, too — "

"You are not Fult's granny, he talks so much about?"

"I am, too — Ailsie Pridemore, his maw's maw, that holp to raise
him, and that loves him better than anybody. How many of you
furrin women is there?"

"Five — but we're not foreign."

"Why not? Did n't you come up from the level land?"

"Yes, from the Blue Grass. But that's part of the same state,
and we're all from the same stock, and really kin, you know."

"No, I never heared of having no kin down in the level country."

"Yes, our forefathers came out together in the early days. Some
stopped in the mountains, some went farther into the wilderness
— that's all the difference."

"Well, hain't that a sight now! I'm proud to hear hit, though,
and to have sech sprightly looking gals for kin. 'Did you ride on
the railroad train to get here?"

"Yes, one day by train, and a little over two days by wagon."

Aunt Ailsie sighed deeply. " 'Pears like I'd give life hitself to see
a railroad train!" she said. "I hain't never been nowhere nor seed
nothing. Ten mile is the furdest ever I got from home."

"Well, it's not too late — you must travel yet."

"Not me, woman," declared Aunt Ailsie. "My man is again'
women-folks a-going anywheres; he allows they'll be on the traipse
allus, if ever they take a start. What might your name be?"

"Virginia Preston."

"And how old air you, Virginny?"

"How old would you guess?"

"Well, I would say maybe eighteen or nineteen."

"I'm twenty-eight," replied Virginia.

"Now you know you hain't! No old woman could n't have sech
rosy jaws and tender skin!".

"Yes, I am; but I don't call it old."

"Hit's old, too; when I were twenty-eight, I were very nigh a
grandmaw."

"You must have married very young."

"No, I were fourteen. That hain't yourg — my maw, she mar-
ried at twelve, and had sixteen in family. I never had but a small
mess of young-uns, — eight, — and they're all married and gone, or
else dead, now, and me and Lot left alone. Where's your man while
you traveling the country this way?"

"I have no man— I'm not married."

312

"What?" demanded Aunt Ailsie, as if she could not have heard
aright.

"I have no husband — I am not married," repeated the stranger.

Aunt Ailsie stared, dumb, for some seconds before she could
speak. "Twenty-eight, and hain't got a man!" she then exclaimed.
She looked Virginia all over again, as if from a new point of view,
and with a gaze in which curiosity and pity were blended. "I never
in life seed but one old maid before, and she was fittified," she re-
marked tentatively.

"Well, at least I don't have fits," laughed Virginia.

Lost in puzzled thought, Aunt Ailsie turned to the books. "What
did you fotch them up here for?" she asked.

"For people to read and enjoy."

"They won't do me no good," — with a sigh, — "nor nobody else
much. I hain't got nary grain of larning, and none of the women-
folks hain't got none to speak of. But a few of the men-folks they
can read: my man, he can," — with pride, — "and maybe some of
the young-uns."

A collection of beautifully colored sea-shells next claimed her
attention; and then Virginia adjusted a stereopticon before her
eyes, and for a long time she was lost in wonderful sights. At last,
when she was again conscious of her surroundings, her eyes fell
upon Fult's dark head near-by, close to Aletha Lee's fair one, both
bent over pieces of sewing, while Lethie's baby brother, her constant
charge, played on the floor between them.

"If there hain't my Fulty, jest like he said," she exclaimed joy-
fully. "And I made sure he was lying to me. Hit shore is a sight for
sore eyes, to see him with sech a harmless weepon in hand! Does
he behave hisself that civil all the time?"

"Yes, indeed — always."

A sudden cloud fell upon Aunt Ailsie's face. "As I come up,"
she said, "I seed Darcy Kent there in the cook's house. Hit would
n't never do for him and Fulty to meet here on the hill. They
hain't hardly met for two year without gun-play."

"Oh, I'm sure they'd never do such things in our presence!"

"Don't you be too sure, woman," admonished Aunt Ailsie. "There
is sech feeling betwixt them boys, they hain't liable to stop for
nothing. For twenty-five year their paws fit, — the war betwixt Fal-
lons and Kents has gone on nigh thirty year now, — and they hate
each other worse 'n pizen. I raised Fulty myself, mostly, hoping
he never would foller in the footsteps of Fighting Fult, his paw.
And he never, neither, till Fighting Fult was kilt by Rafe Kent,

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Darcy's paw, four year gone. Then, of course, hit was laid on him,
you might say, to revenge his paw, — being the first born, and the
rest mostly gals, — and the day he were eighteen he rid right out in
the open and shot Rafe in the heart — the Fallons never did foller
lay way ing. And of course the jury felt for him and give him jest
a light sentence — five year. And then the Governor pardoned him
out atter one year. And then he fit in Cuby nigh a year. Then,
when he come back home, hit wa'n't no time till him and Darcy
was a-warring nigh as bad as their paws had been; and for two
year we hain't seed naught but trouble, and I have looked every
day for Fulty to be fetched in dead."

"Yes, Uncle Ephraim told us about the feud between them. It
is very sad, when both are such fine young men."

There was a stir among the young folks, who rose, put away
their work, and gathered at one end of the tent, under the big
flag. Then the strange woman who had taught "them sewing sat
down before a small box and began to play a tune.

"Is there music in that-air cupboard?" asked Aunt Ailsie, aston-
ished.

"It is a baby-organ we brought with us," explained Virginia.

"And who's that a-picking on hit?"

"Amy Scott, my best friend."

"How old is she?"

"About my age."

"She's got a man, sure, hain't she?"

"No."

"What — as fair a woman as her — and with that friendly smile?"

"No."

The anxious, puzzled look again fell upon Aunt Ailsic's face.

Then a song was started up, in which all the young folks joined
with a will. It was a new kind of singing to Aunt Ailsie, — rousing
and tuneful, — very different from the long-drawn hymns, or the
droning ancient ballads, she had loved in her young days.

"They are getting ready for our Fourth of July picnic next
Wednesday," said Virginia.

"I follered singing when I were young," Aunt Ailsie said after a
period of delighted listening. "I could very nigh sing the night
through on song-ballats."

"That's where Fult must have learned the ones he sings so well,"
cried Virginia. "You must sing some for us, this very day."

Aunt Ailsie raised her hands. "Me sing!" she said; "woman, hit
would be as much as my life is worth to sing a song-ballat now;

I hain't dared to raise nothing but hime-tunes sence Lot j'ined."

"Since when?"

"Sence my man, Lot, got religion and j'ined. He allows now that
song-ballats is jest devil's ditties, and won't have one raised under
his roof. When Fulty he wants me to larn him a new one, we
have to go clean up to the top of the ridge and a little grain on
yan side, before I dairst lift my voice."

A little later Aunt Ailsie was taken by her new friend to see the
two bedroom tents, with their white cots and goods-box wash-
stands; and then to the top of the spur, where, in an almost level
space under the trees, a large ring of tiny children circled and sang
around another strange young woman.

"The least ones!" exclaimed Aunt Ailsie. "What a love-lie sight!
I never heard of laming sech as them nothing before. And if there
hain't Cynthy's leetle John Wes, God bless hit!" as a dark-eyed,
impish-looking four-year-old went capering by. "Hit were borned
the very day hit's paw got kilt — jest atter Cynthy got the news. I
tell you, Virginny, hit were a sorry time for her — left a widow-
woman with seven young-uns, mostly gals."

"Little John Wes is very bright and attractive."

"Hit is that — and friendly, too; hit never sees a stranger!"

"He gives us a good deal of trouble, though, with his smoking
and chewing."

"Yes, hit's pyeert every way; I hain't seed hit for a year or two
without a chaw in hit's jaw. And liquor! Hit's a sight the way
that young-un can drink. Fulty and t'other boys they jest load
him up, to see the quare things he'll do."

At this moment the little kindergartners were dismissed, and
marched, as decorously as they were able, down the hill after their
teacher, followed by all the onlookers. The tents were discharging
their crowds, too, and Aunt Ailsie recognized several more of her
grandchildren on the way down.

Arrived at the lowest tent, Aunt Ailsie presented her baskets of
apples and eggs to the women. A dozen or more elderly folk, and
as many young girls who were deeply interested in learning "furrin"
cooking, remained to dinner. The rest of the strange women, Amy,
the kindergartner, the cooking teacher and the nurse, Aunt Ailsie
now met, putting to each the inevitable questions as to name, age,
and condition of life. As each smilingly replied that she had no
man, a cloud of real distress gathered on Aunt Ailsie's brow, which
not all the novel accompaniments of the meal could entirely banish.

Afterward, when the dishes were washed and all sat around in

groups under the trees, resting, she said confidentially to Virginia: —

"I am plumb tore up in my mind over you women, five of you,
and as good-lookers as ever I beheld, and with sech nice, common
ways, too, not having no man. Hit hain't noways reasonable. Maybe
the men in your country does a sight of fighting, like ourn, and has
been mostly kilt off?"

"No, we have no feuds or fighting down there — there are plenty
of men."

"Well, what's wrong with 'em, then? Hain't they got no feelings
— to let sech a passel of gals get past 'em? That-air cook, now, —
her you call Annetty, with the blue eyes and crow's-wing hair, and
not but twenty-three; now what do you think about men-folks
that would let her live single?"

"Maybe they can't help themselves," laughed Virginia; "maybe
she does n't want to marry."

"Not want to marry? Everybody does, don't they?"

"Did you?"

"I did, too. My Lot was as pretty a boy as ever rid down a creek
— jest pine-blank like Fulty."

"And you've never been sorry for it?"

"Nary a day." Then she caught her breath, leaned forward, and
spoke in Virginia's ear: "Nary a day till he j'ined! I allus was
gayly-like and loved to sing song-ballats, and get about, and sech;
and my ways don't pleasure him none sence then, and hit's hard
to ricollect and not rile him. But, woman, while I've got the chanct,
I want to ax you one more thing, for I know hit's the first question
my man will put when I get home. How come you furrin women
to come in here, and what are you aiming to do?"

"We came because Uncle Ephraim Kent asked us," was the re-
ply. "A lot of women from down in the state — the State Federation
of Women's Clubs — sent us up to Perry County last summer, to
see what needed to be done for the young people of the mountains.
And one day, while we were there, Uncle Ephraim walked over
and made us promise to come to the Forks of Troublesome if we
ever returned. And we are here to learn all we can, and teach all
we can, and make friends, and give the young folks something
pleasant to do and to think about. But here comes Uncle Ephraim
up the hill: he'll tell you more about it."

An impressive figure was approaching — that of a tall, thin old
man, with smooth face, fine dark eyes, and a mane of white hair,
uncovered by a hat, wearing a crimson-linsey hunting-jacket, linen
homespun trousers, and moccasins, and carrying a long staff. Amy,

316

who had joined him, brought him over to the bench where Virginia

and Aunt Ailsie were sitting.
"Well, how-dye, Uncle Ephraim, how do you find yourself?"

was Aunt Ailsie's greeting.

"Fine, Ailsie — better, body and sperrit, than ever I looked to be."
"I allow you done a good deed when you fetched these furrin

women m."

"I did, too, the best I ever done," he said, with conviction. Sit-
ting down, he looked out over the valley of Troublesome, the vil-
lage below, and the opposite steep slopes. "You know how things
has allus been with us, Ailsie, shut off in these rugged hills for
uppards of a hundred year, scarce knowing there was a world
outside, with nobody going out or coming in, and no chance ever
for the young-uns to get laming or manners. When I were jest a
leetle chunk of a shirt-tail boy, hoeing corn on yon hillsides," —
pointing to the opposite mountain, — "I would look up Trouble-
some, and down Troublesome, and wonder if anybody would ever
come in to larn us anything. And as I got older, I follered praying
for somebody to come. I growed up; nobody come. My offsprings,
to grands and greats, growed up; still nobody come. And times
a-getting wusser every day, with all the drinking and shooting and
wars and killings — as well you know, Ailsie."

"I do, too," sighed Aunt Ailsie.

"Then last summer, about the time the crap was laid by, I heared
how some strange women had come in and sot up tents over in
Perry, and was a-doing all manner of things for young-uns. And
one day I tuck my foot in my hand, — though I be eighty-two,
twenty mile still hain't no walk for me, — and went acrost to see
'em. Two days I sot and watched them and their doings. Then I
said to 'em, 'Women, my prayers is answered. You air the ones I
have looked for for seventy year — the ones sont in to help us. Come
next summer to the Forks of Troublesome and do what the spirit
moves you for my grands and greats and t'other young-uns that
needs hit.' And here they be, doing not only for the young, but for
every age. And there hain't been a gun shot off in town sence the
first night they come in. And all hands is a-larning civility and
God-fearingness."

"Yes, and Fulty and his crowd sets up here and sews every
morning."

"And that hain't all. I allow you won't hardly believe your years,
when I tell you that I'm a-getting me laming." He drew a new
primer from his pocket, and held it out to her with pride. "Al-

317

ready, in three lessons, Amy here has teached me my letters, and
I am beginning to spell. And I will die a larned man yet, able to
read in my grandsir's old Bible!"

Aunt Ailsie was speechless a moment before replying, "I'm proud
for you, Uncle Ephraim — I shore am glad. I wisht hit was me!"

But already the young people were trooping blithely up the hill
and past the dining-tent. For, from two to three was "play-time"
on the hill, and every young creature from miles around came to it.
Fult went by with his pretty sweetheart, Lethie, whose two-year
old baby brother he carried on his arm. For Lethie, though but
seventeen, had had to be mother to her father's five younger chil-
dren for two years, and would never let little Madison out of her
sight.

The older folks followed to the top of the spur, and Virginia
told a hero-story, and the nurse gave a five-minute talk; and then
the play-games began, all taking partners and forming a large
ring, and afterward going through many pretty figures, singing as
they played, Fult's rich voice in the lead. Aunt Ailsie had played
all the games when she was young; her ancestors had played them
on village greens in Old England for centuries. Her eyes shone as
she watched the flying feet and happy faces.

They were in the very midst of a play-game and song called "Old
Betty Larkin," when the singing suddenly broke off, and everybody
stood stock still in their tracks. The cooking-teacher — the young
woman with the blue eyes and crow's-wing hair — was stepping
into the circle, and with her was Darcy Kent.

All eyes were riveted upon Fult. He stiffened for a bare instant,
a deep flush overspread his face as his eyes met Darcy's; then, with
scarcely a break, he took up the song again and deliberately turned
and swung his partner, Lethie.

Astonishment took the place of apprehension, faces relaxed, feet
became busy. Aunt Ailsie, who had not been able to suppress a
cry of fear, laid a trembling hand on Uncle Ephraim's arm.

"Hit's a meracle!" she exclaimed.

"Hit is," he agreed, solemnly.

She ran to Virginia and Amy, in her excitement throwing an
arm about each.

"Do you see that sight— Fulty and Darcy a-playing together in
the same game, as peaceable as lambs?"

"Yes," they said.

"I would n't believe if I did n't see," she declared. "Women, if
I was sot down in Heaven, I could n't be more happier than I am

318

this day; and two angels with wings could n't look half as good
to me as you two gals. And I love you for allus-to-come, and I
want you to take the night with me a-Monday, if you feel to."

"We shall love to come."

"And I'll live on the thoughts of seeing you once more. And,
women," — she drew them close and dropped her voice low, — "seems
like hit purely breaks my heart to think of you two sweet creaturs
a-living a lone-lie life like you do, without ary man to your name.
And there hain't no earthly reason for hit to go on. I know a
mighty working widow-man over on Powderhorn, with a good
farm, and a tight house, and several head of property, and nine
orphant young-uns. I'll get the word acrost to him right off; and
if one of you don't please him, t'other will; and quick as I get one
fixed in life I'll start on t'other. And you jest take heart — I'll gor-
rontee you won't live lone-lie much longer, neither of you!"

The Quare Women, 1923

319

Daughter

ERSKINE CALDWELL

At sunrise a Negro on his way to the big house to feed the
mules had taken the word to Colonel Henry Maxwell, and Colonel
Henry 'phoned the sheriff. The sheriff had hustled Jim into town
and locked him up in the jail, and then he went home and ate
breakfast.

Jim walked around the empty cell-room while he was button-
ing his shirt, and after that he sat down on the bunk and tied
his shoe laces. Everything that morning had taken place so quickly
that he even had not had time to get a drink of water. He got
up and went to the water bucket near the door, but the sheriff
had forgotten to put water in it.

By that time there were several men standing in the jail yard.
Jim went to the window and looked out when he heard them
talking. Just then another automobile drove up, and six or seven
men got out. Other men were coming towards the jail from both
directions of the street.

"What was the trouble out at your place this morning, Jim?"
somebody said.

Jim stuck his chin between the bars and looked at the faces in
the crowd. He knew everyone there.

While he was trying to figure out how everybody in town had
heard about his being there, somebody else spoke to him.

ult must have been an accident, wasn't it, Jim?"

A colored boy hauling a load of cotton to the gin drove up the
street. When the wagon got in front of the jail, the boy whipped
up the mules with the ends of the reins and made them trot.

"I hate to see the State have a grudge against you, Jim," some-
body said.

The sheriff came down the street swinging a tin dinner pail
in his hand. He pushed through the crowd, unlocked the door,
and set the pail inside.

Several men came up behind the sheriff and looked over his
shoulder into the jail.

"Here's your breakfast my wife fixed up for you, Jim. You'd
better eat a little, Jim boy."

Jim looked at the pail, at the sheriff, at the open jail door, and
Jim shook his head.

320

"I don't feel hungry," he said. "Daughter's been hungry, though
— awfully hungry."

The sheriff backed out the door, his hand going to the handle of
his pistol. He backed out so quickly that he stepped on the toes
of the men behind him.

"Now, don't get careless, Jim boy," he said. "Just sit and calm
yourself."

He shut the door and locked it. After going a few steps towards
the street he stopped and looked into the chamber of his pistol
to make sure that it had been loaded.

The crowd outside the window pressed in closer. Some of the
men rapped on the bars until Jim came and looked out. When
he saw them, he stuck his chin between the iron and gripped his
hands around it.

"How come it to happen, Jim?" somebody asked. "It must have
been an accident, wasn't it?"

Jim's long thin face looked as if it would come through the
bars. The sheriff came up to the window to see if everything
was all right.

"Now just take it easy, Jim boy," he said.

The man who had asked Jim to tell what had happened, el-
bowed the sheriff out of the way. The other men crowded
closer.

"How come, Jim?" he said. "Was it an accident?"

"No," Jim said, his fingers twisting about the bars. "I picked
up the shotgun and done it."

The sheriff pushed towards the window again.

"Go on, Jim, and tell us what it's all about."

Jim's face squeezed between the bars until it looked as though
only his ears kept his head from coming through.

"Daughter said she was hungry, and I just couldn't stand it
no longer. I just couldn't stand to hear her say it."

"Don't get all excited now, Jim boy," the sheriff said, pushing
forward one moment and being elbowed away the next.

"She waked up in the middle of the night again and said she
was hungry. I just couldn't stand to hear her say it."

Somebody pushed all the way through the crowd until he got
to the window.

"Why, Jim, you could have come and asked me for something
for her to eat, and you know I'd have given you all I got in the
world."

The sheriff pushed forward once more.

321

"That wasn't the right thing to do," Jim said. "I've been work-
ing all year and I made enough for all of us to eat."

He stopped and looked down into the faces on the other side
of the bars.

"I made enough working on shares, but they came and took
it all away from me. I couldn't go around begging after I'd made
enough to keep us. They just came and took it all off. .Then
daughter woke up again this morning saying she was hungry,
and I just couldn't stand it no longer."

"You'd better go and get on the bunk now, Jim boy," the sheriff
said.

"It don't seem right that the little girl ought to be shot like
that, Jim," somebody said.

"Daughter said she was hungry," Jim said. "She'd been saying
that for all the past month. Daughter'd wake up in the middle
of the night and say it. I just couldn't stand It no longer."

"You ought to have sent her over to my house, Jim. Me and
my wife could have fed her somehow. It don't look right to kill
a little girl like her."

"I'd made enough for all of us," Jim said. "I just couldn't
stand it no longer. Daughter'd been hungry all the past month."

"Take it easy, Jim boy," the sheriff said, trying to push forward.

The crowd swayed from one side to the other.

"And so you just picked up the gun this morning and shot
her?" somebody said.

"When she woke up again this morning saying she was hungry,
I just couldn't stand it."

The crowd pushed closer. Men were coming towards the jail
from all directions, and those who were then arriving pushed
forward to hear what Jim had to say.

"The State has got a grudge against you now, Jim," somebody
said; "but somehow it don't seem right."

"I can't help it," Jim said. "Daughter woke up again this morn-
ing that way."

The jail yard, the street, and the vacant lot on the other side
was filled with men and boys. All of them were pushing for-
ward to hear Jim. Word had spread all over town by that time
that Jim Carlisle had shot and killed his eight-year-old daughter,
Clara.

"Who does Jim share-crop for?" somebody asked.

"Colonel Henry Maxwell," a man in the crowd said. "Colonel
Henry has had Jim out there about nine or ten years."

322

"Henry Maxwell didn't have no business coming and taking all
the shares. He's got plenty of his own. It ain't right for Henry
Maxwell to come and take Jim's too."

The sheriff was pushing forward once more.

"The State's got a grudge against Jim now," somebody said.
"Somehow it don't seem right, though."

The sheriff pushed his shoulder between the crowd of men
and worked his way in closer.

A man shoved the sheriff away.

"Why did Henry Maxwell come and take your share of the
crop, Jim?"

"He said I owed it to him because one of his mules died a
month ago."

The sheriff got in front of the barred window.

"You ought to go to the bunk now and rest some, Jim boy,"
he said. "Take off your shoes and stretch out, Jim boy."

He was elbowed out of the way.

"You didn't kill the mule, did you, Jim?"

"The mule dropped dead in the barn," Jim said. "I wasn't no-
where around. It just dropped dead."

The crowd was pushing harder. The men in front were jammed
against the jail, and the men behind were trying to get within
earshot. Those in the middle were squeezed against each other
so tightly they could not move in any direction. Everyone was
talking louder.

Jim's face pressed between the bars and his fingers gripped the
iron until the knuckles were white.

The milling crowd was moving across the street to the vacant
lot. Somebody was shouting. He climbed up on an automobile
and began swearing at the top of his lungs.

A man in the middle of the crowd pushed his way out and
went to his automobile. He got in and drove off alone.

Jim stood holding to the bars and looking through the window.
The sheriff had his back to the crowd, and he said something
to Jim. Jim did not hear what he said.

A man on his way to the gin with a load of cotton stopped to
find out what the trouble was. He looked at the crowd in the
vacant lot for a moment, and then he turned and looked at Jim
behind the bars. The shouting across the street was growing
louder.

"What's the trouble, Jim?"

Somebody on the other side of the street came to the wagon.

323

He put his foot on a spoke in the wagon wheel and looked up
at the man on the cotton while he talked.

"Daughter woke up this morning again saying she was hungry,"
Jim said.

The sheriff was the only person who heard him.

The man on the load of cotton jumped to the ground, tied
the reins to the wagon wheel, and pushed through the crowd to
the car where all the swearing was being done. After listening
for awhile, he came back to the street, called a Negro who was
standing with the other colored men on the corner, and handed
him the reins. The Negro drove off with the cotton towards the
gin, and the man went back into the crowd.

Just then the man who had driven off alone in his car came
back. He sat for a moment under the steering wheel, and then
he opened the door and jumped to the ground. He opened the
rear door and took out a crowbar as long as he was tall.

uPry that jail door open and let Jim out,5' somebody said. "It
ain't right for him to be in there."

The crowd in the vacant lot was moving again. The man who
had been standing on top of the automobile jumped to the ground,
and the men moved towards the street in the direction of the
jail.

The first man to reach it jerked the six-foot crowbar out of the
soft earth where it had been jabbed.

The sheriff backed off.

"Now, take it easy, Jim boy," he said.

He turned and started walking rapidly up the street towards
his house.

Kneel to the Rising Sun, 1933

324

Cotton Mill

SHERWOOD ANDERSON

Of all the American industrial developments none I have seen
excites me more than the cotton mill. The cotton mill — all of them
I have seen are in the South — is usually housed in a long brick
building. The building is as large as a city block. To this build-
ing the cotton comes in its bales from the gins. You go in. It is
a little difficult to get into a Southern cotton mill these days.
Cotton-mill owners and managers have become suspicious of writ-
ers. I wish they would not be suspicious of me. I would like to
stay in such mills for long, long hours. I would like to go in
day after day, to sit for hours watching the mechanical wonders
of these places. To me modern industry is like an ocean, it is like
a river in flood. It is irresistible. There is a Mississippi of machinery
here. There is something stirring to the blood here. Here, in this
Southern cotton mill I have come into, is one of the finest mani-
festations surely of the modern American mind. There is some-
thing singing here, something dancing. Here, in making this mill,
man has created something as complex and strange as the growth
of a tree or a stalk of corn. I am enamoured of it all. Little fingers
seem playing over my nerves. See that doffer there. He is a work-
man. He has tuned his young body to the dance of the machine
he attends. It frightens me a little when I think of him making
those strange, rapid movements all day, in tune with that machine,
but I am not he. I am a man out of another age. I am getting old.
Old men are of no account. I do not understand my own sons.
See that workman there. He is fitting all the movements of his
young body to the rapid, jerky movements of that machine.

I would like to write prose like that. If I could write a volume
of such prose and the writing of it shook me to pieces, so that I
died, what would I care? I would like to make prose dance with
the strange, rapid, jerky movements of these machines. I would
like to make it dance as the machine dances and as that young
cotton-mill doffer is dancing there. I would like to make it dance
with the machine.

In here, in this mill, I forget the grim streets of this Southern
mill town. I forget the tired "lint-heads" pouring out at the gates

325

of the mill yard at night. I forget the long, hot, sultry summer days
in the mills, the dust and lint in the air. I am an American
enamoured of the machine. In here something inside me dances
with the machine.

You see here in this cotton mill— it is a modern one — the cotton
coming in. The bales are broken open. It is attacked by the pickers.
They are loosening and shaking the baled cotton. They shake it
out of the bales in which it has come from the gin, they roll and
toss it, they pick at it, they shake it.

See, it is becoming a fluffy, rolling mass now.

It is, however, not clean; it is not shaken, loosened enough. The
room is full of dust. Negroes work in here. Dust and dirt gather
in great pans under the machines, the pickers. The bales have
come directly from the fields to the mills. You know about the
movement in the South, the great movement, the movement to
take the cotton mill to the cotton fields.

The movement, when it started, sprang up all over the South.
It came after the South had begun to recover a bit from the de-
pressing effect of defeat in the Civil War and after reconstruction,
after the Tragic Era. The cotton barons of the old South had
come near ruining agriculture over great spaces of the South. In
the State of Georgia there are, I am told, millions of acres of un-
productive land. The land, after the great cotton barons had passed
on, was being cropped by tenant farmers, mostly blacks. The peo-
ple all over the South were poor. After the Civil War it was
thought rather a disgrace to have money anywhere in the South.
It meant you had not given all to the Cause. They have got well
over that.

Besides the merchants, the professional men, and the blacks
there was, from early days, a huge number of poor whites. These
people had lived miserable lives. Their lot had been a sorry one
in slavery days. It was worse afterward. They had fought for
the old South and after Lee's surrender came home to live on
the depleted land and in the hills. Every one has heard how they
are of the purest Anglo-Saxon stock, what fine old Anglo-Saxon
names are to be found among them, and all that. It is true enough
that there are some fine human types. They are certainly not all
fine. They stood absolutely still for a long time. America moved
forward into the new industrial age but, until the coming of the
cotton mill to the cotton fields, they did not move. As a class they
were poor, uneducated and miserable. There was no money for

326

education. The South was ruined. How can you have schools to
educate people if you cannot tax the people or collect taxes? It is
difficult to collect taxes from people who have nothing.

So there the South was and then the cotton mill came. A few
mills had been established before the Civil War and, when in-
telligently managed, they had been profitable. They were profitable
in more ways than one. Besides bringing in money for their owners
these early mills began at once to do something else. A few poor
whites began to trickle into the mill towns. The mills began to
bring into employment a class of people who, under the old South-
ern system — the labor in the fields being largely Negro labor —
had been apparently quite useless, not taken into account. After
all, only a very small percentage of the whites in the old South
were slave owners. There weren't so many barons.

These early mill builders were often quite heroic men. They
had to fight hard to get capital for the new and untried enter-
prise, they had to educate their labor to the work. Theirs was not
an easy task.

The poor white labor was scattered. It lived in the hills. It lived
in little, unpainted shacks out on the hot, red plains. The people
had to be gathered in, they had to be trained. Because most of
the early mills were run by water power they were built on the
banks of creeks and rivers, often far from the towns and cities.
It was necessary to build villages for the people. All of the early
mills had their villages. A tradition was established and it is to
be said for these early mill builders, the pioneers of the cotton-mill
industry of the South, that from the beginning they realized the
need of education for their people. It was the only way to raise
the standard of workmen. The early mill-village children were
worked at a tender age but this had been the old tradition of
cotton mills. In New England mill children of twelve were being
worked fourteen hours a day.

There was William Gregg, of Graniteville, in South Carolina.
Doctor Broadus Mitchell of Johns Hopkins has written a book
about Gregg. He was the master of one of the more famous pre-
Civil War mills. Here he comes, down along a dusty Southern
road on a spring day. He is coming from his own big house on a
hill and is going to his mill, at Graniteville.

He is driving his horse Jim, both he and the horse being widely
known in all that country, and sits there in his buggy, a huge
figure of a man with a buggy whip in his hand. Surely, at any
rate, here is not the typical figure of the old South as we, in the

327

North, have been taught to see it. There is no long, black coat
and black tie here. This man has not the orator's mouth. It is a
hard, strong-looking figure of a man with a shrewd eye. As you
look at the man, see him in an old print, you at once begin think-
ing of sturdy determined Northern men who helped to bring
on the industrial age — let's say Mr. Mark Hanna, of Ohio, or
Cyrus McCormick, of Illinois.

Mr. Gregg is looking about him with a wary eye as he rides
along the road. Now he sees a movement in the bushes. He climbs
quickly from his buggy and dashes into a thicket. Some boys of
six or eight are hiding in the thicket, having seen him coming.
They are playing hooky from the school set up by the mill. He
drives them out. He is holding his buggy whip in his hand.

"Get out of here, you. To school with you. If I catch you again,
not going to school, I'll take your hide off."

This William Gregg, who thus drives the children of the poor
whites into his school house and later to the mill, will go on picnics
with them. He will drive through his mill village in his buggy,
back of his old gelding Jim, the buggy piled high with peaches
and apples from his farm, throwing the peaches and apples to
children running beside him in the road. He died at sixty-seven,
after the Civil War, after he had re-established his mill, died of
a sickness got standing all day to the waist in icy-cold water —
it was in the winter — working among his workmen, repairing the
broken dam that brought the power to the mill.

The Civil War came and went and the South was a destroyed
South. The old cotton barons were gone now, the blacks were
free. No one knew quite what to do with them and they did not
know what to do with themselves. The South was broke. It was
a wreck. Then the people began a little to stir about. Life did go
on. The Negroes were getting back to the land. Gradually the
carpet-baggers were driven out. A new kind of Southern life
began. What began in the South then is going on now. The South
bad to make a complete readjustment.

There were the Negroes, brought thus suddenly into a new re-
lationship with the whites. That problem had to be handled and
it was a real problem. It isn't settled yet. In trying to settle it the
South has had to go through terrible times. There have been
outbursts of brutality, race riots, lynchings, queer cross-currents
of religious and social prejudices of all kinds.

Out of the old South, however, something did survive. The new
cotton mills survived. In some way, in some of the mills, after

328

the Civil War, the wrecked machinery was repaired, money was
found (at cruel rates of interest), new machinery was bought,
dams were repaired, the wheels started turning again. The South
knew how to make cotton and at that time the boll weevil had
not yet come. There was the land. The labor of the land, Negro
labor, knew how to crop for cotton, how to tend it. Cotton came
rolling in. The wheels in the mills turned. Profits began to trickle
in. The white South shook itself. It blinked. "Well, here's some-
thing," it cried.

The cotton mills were something for others besides the poor
whites. Not every young man who wanted to rise could be a
lawyer or a doctor. Already every Southern town was overloaded
with young lawyers and doctors. The North had gone in for in-
dustrial development and wealth was pouring in. Men from the
South, going North, looked about. The Civil War had passed,
apparently almost unnoticed there. There were a few old soldiers
standing about and telling war tales, politicians were waving the
bloody shirt and there were parades, but new lands were being
opened up, new factories being built everywhere, towns were
springing up and everywhere great, brick school houses and col-
leges. "The mills will do it for the South too," the Southerners
cried, going back South.

"Take the mills to the cotton fields."

The industrial movement in the South took on something of
the nature of a religious revival. There was Henry W. Grady, of
The Constitution, at Atlanta, crying out of the new South. Even
Northern schoolboys recited his rolling sentences. You may see
his statue on a busy street in Atlanta now, not far from the press
rooms of The Constitution — a short, strong, little figure of a man
he was — he stands there with an arm raised, one foot advanced.

"There was a South. . . .

"There is a South. . . ."

The new South wasn't yet, in spite of these stirring cries, but
it was in the air. Every one was in the movement, every Southern
town wanted a cotton mill. American towns, North or South,
have never yet had the courage to say to industries, "Come in but
come in on decent terms." They have always let them come on
any terms. Capital was in some way found. The records for profits,
under adverse conditions, made by the Southern mills that had
survived the Civil War brought in Northern capital. The East
always has been financially friendly to the South.

329

There was labor, cheap white labor, plenty of it. White labor
was poor, miserably poor. It could be had on almost any terms
and pretty much can yet.

Mills and mill villages were built everywhere. The South is
dotted with them. They are clustered about the edges of the
larger cities, strangely isolated, set distinctly off from neighboring
houses, they are in the very heart of big Southern American towns.
Sometimes the mill village stands alone. It very near makes up
a town. There are only a few houses, set outside the circle, and
these are for the necessary white men, the mill superintendents,
doctors and others. There is a sense in which the mill hands of
the South are not white men. They are "lint-heads." The mill
village is not a village. It is a hill. It matters not how level the
land on which it stands, it is on a hill. The mill village is called
"Mill Hill."

The cotton mill is a complex thing. Here is this cotton, brought
into the mill in its bales. The machines begin to handle it. They
roll and toss it. Now it has begun to move forward in the mill, a
moving snowy mass. As it moves forward the machines caress it,
they stir it — iron fingers reach softly and tenderly down to it.

The cotton has come into the mill still impregnated with the
dust of the fields. There are innumerable little black and brown
specks in it. Tiny particles, of trash from the fields, bits of the
dry, brown cotton boll, cling to it, tiny ends of sticks are enmeshed
in it. The cotton gin has removed the seed but there are these
particles left.

The fibre of the cotton is delicate and short.

Here is a great machine, weighing tons. See the great wheels,
the iron arms moving, feel the vibrations in the air now, all the
little iron fingers moving. See how delicately the fingers caress
the moving mass. They shake it, they comb it, they caress it. Every
movement here is designed to cleanse the cotton, making it always
whiter and cleaner, and to lay the delicate fibres of the mass, more
and more, into parallel lines.

And now it is clean and has begun to emerge from the larger
machines in a thin film. You have been in the fields in the early
morning and have seen how the dew on the spider webs, spun from
weed-top to weed-top, shines and glistens in the morning sun. See
how delicate and fragile it is.

But not more delicate or film-like, not more diaphanous, than
the thin sheet now emerging from yonder ruage machine. You
may pass your hand under the moving sheet. Look through it and

33°

you may see the lines in the palm of your hand. Yonder great
ponderous machine did that. Man made that machine. He made
it to do that thing. There is something blind or dead in those
of us who do not see and feel the wonder of it. What delicacy
of adjustment, what strength with delicacy. Do you won-
der that the little mill girls — half children, some of them — many
of them I have seen with such amazingly delicate and sensitive
faces — do you wonder that they are half in love with the machines
they tend, as modern boys are half in love with the automobiles
they drive?

I myself have heard mill girls talk. I have sat with them in
rooms in their houses in the mill villages talking. They are almost
always tired. The great body of these girls and women in Southern
mills work twelve hours a day sixty hours a week. They are, by
any decent modern standard of living, criminally underpaid and
often criminally young for such work. No doubt there is being
done through them, through this exploitation of the young white
working womanhood of the South, what the cotton barons
once did to so many thousands of acres of the Southern soil.
They are being depleted, sapped of their strength while they are
young.

They talk, always of the mills. They speak of the low wages
and long hours, but that is often but a passing phase of their talk.
They are quite hopeless about any remedy for that now. "There
are so many of us wanting work," they say. "There are so many
of us." They speak of that but you should see the fire in their
eyes when they speak of the superintendent or the mill owner who
does not know how to run his mill, who does not know how to
keep the machines clean and in order, who is not up to the efficiency
of the machines. There is American scorn of the bad mechanic in
every one I have heard talk.

But now the thin sheet, the diaphanous film-like sheet that has
come from the more ponderous of the machines — quite clean now,
the fibres lying in their parallel lines — comes forth and gathers it-
self together to be spun. It passed over and, by some inner convo-
lutions too complex for my brain, about a flying spool.

It has emerged from the great machine in a thread as large as
my finger, soft and fluffy.

Now it begins to travel, faster, faster, faster. The thread flies
through the air. It darts down into other machines and emerges
again. It flies on and on. It flies in the air. It is picked up by iron
fingers. It is caressed by rolls covered with leather made from the

33 *

tender bellies of sheep. It is elongated. It is twisted. The air in the
great room is filled with the flying thread.

The room is* as large as a city block.

There are flying belts everywhere.

Long rows of spools whirl and clatter.

Fingers, like the fingers of a violin virtuoso, touch it.

They pick it up.

They grasp it.

Two threads are twisted into one.

Now four, now six, now eight, now ten.

The thread breaks and a little mill girl springs forward.

Her quick fingers clutch it.

They twist it, they tie it.

On it goes.

(A conversation overheard.)

"Jim, did you see the face of that tyd down there? Loo\ at the
forced intensity of the eyes. The eyes looJ^ tired, don't they?"

"Well, it is a filling pace. Faster, j aster, j aster. We are sure nuts
on speed, Joe."

"The speed-up, eh? Sure."

"Well, cotton is still fyng. Long live the \ing"

"Do you tyiow, Jim, that they spea\ of fyds lifte that in this
town as 'trash, Crackers, lint-heads' do you know that travelling
salesmen, insurance agents, soda fountain clerks, a lot of gabby
guys, that couldn't do nothing with their hands, have contempt
for such tyds?"

"Does she do that all day, Joe?"

"Sure, Jim, she cant ta\e a chance on losing her job, can she?"

"Ta^e a loo\ at these machines, Jim, listen to them. You don't
thinly they can stop, do you, because a tyd life that is a little tired,
because maybe she's sic%? If she can't stand the gaff let her get
out of the way. There's plenty of fyds."

The thread is moving. It is getting firmer and harder. It flies
here and there faster and faster. Watch and, if you are made that
way, you will think of gulls flying.

You know how the gulls above the red river, down at Savannah,
whirl and dive and fall and rise.

The thread you see flying there will make cord to tie Christmas
packages, it will make cord for fish nets, it will make thread for
weaving fine cloth and rough cloth, firm soft cloth and hard cloth.

332

It will make a thousand kinds of cloth, ten thousand kinds. The
journey of the spun thread has just begun.

It is with an odd feeling of futility that a man interested in mod-
ern industry, sensing something of its possibilities, moved by the
strength and power of its marching stride through the world con-
templates the attitude taken toward it by so many of our modern
American writers. To be quite in line now a man should be quite
hopeless of everything American and surely America is industrial.
There the factories are. They are everywhere. They have crept out
through the Middle West. They are invading town after town
of the South.

The factories are there and they have walls, too many walls.
Nowadays more and more of them have fences built about them.
Every one speaks of them in an impersonal way. It is too much
taken for granted that all of this marvellous American advance in
the manufacture of goods means nothing, that there is, in the
American people, in the American character, nothing that may
eventually turn all this to account.

We see communistic Russia striving desperately to industrialize.
What does that mean? The attitude toward the factories and in-
dustrialism is too much like the present popular attitude toward
the American small town.

We all remember that, a few years ago, there was published
here a certain very popular novel built about an American small
town. It has been read all over the world. It has made a certain
definite fixed picture of life in the American small town in innu-
merable minds. . . .

I have seen recently a sample of what can be done in the field of
Southern industry. A certain well-known and very popular writer
recently issued a small book about the cotton mills. As I under-
stand the matter the writer went to a town in the South in the
employ of a certain newspaper syndicate. There was a terrible
situation there. Certain people, mill hands, were fighting for
better working conditions in the mill. They wanted, of course,
better wages and shorter hours. A strike was called.

The strike was called at night when the night shift was on
and the workers, men and women who had left the mill, gathered
about the mill gate. This was in the early morning, in the gray
dawn. The strikers at the mill gate tried to stop the workers of
the day shift from passing through the gate. The sheriff, with his

333

deputies, had been called. A struggle started and five or six workers
were killed. It is said they were all shot in the back as they were
fleeing from the scene. It is about this incident that the story of
Southern industry, as told in the booklet is built.

It is a booklet that sets forth the wrongs of labor, and I have no
quarrel with that. It attacks certain people, mill managers, a cer-
tain merchant and others. Let these people look out for themselves.
All the usual stage figures, so commonly used nowadays in writing
of the small town, are in this town. There are, of course, the Ki-
wanians and the Rotarians. There are bullies swaggering through
the streets.

It is like so many of this kind of books and magazine articles.
You can't quarrel with its facts, only it does not tell enough facts.
This sort of thing is no doubt good reporting of certain phases
of life now in all American towns and, in particular, of our in-
dustrial towns. It is good reporting of certain phases of life now
in towns and cities all over the industrial world. It is good report-
ing and it is to my mind very bad reporting. There are too many
bullies, too many Kiwanians.

For example, in the description of the Southern town to which
I refer, there is a lot of space devoted to a certain lady stockholder
of the mill. We are given a quick, sketchy picture of the woman.
She, it seems, is a maiden lady who sits, I presume, in a great
house, somewhere in a distant city, and receives dividend checks.
From time to time she is presumed to issue orders. The screws
are put to the little mill girls of the South at her command. It
is this kind of writing that seems to be all nonsense, and that is at
the bottom of the harm such ink-slinging can do.

To my mind this particular rich woman (I know nothing of
her, but let us take her as a type) is simply an American woman
who has money. . . . There is this unknown maiden lady of a
distant city who has this money invested in a cotton mill. Let
us say she inherited it. She may never have been in a mill town.
As an individual, put into personal touch with one of the little
mill girls, she might well be more moved, more personally sympa-
thetic than the writer who uses her as a kind of terrible ex-
ample.

Labor in America, and in particular in the South, has got a
long struggle ahead of it. The situation is infinitely complex. As
we all know, the coming of the machine and the constant improve-
ment of the machine has everywhere intensified the problem of
American life. The machine — and at work it is a gorgeously beau-

334

tiful thing — is every year throwing more and more men and
women out of employment.

And out of all this situation what will we get from much of
the writing about the Southern labor situation? We will get new
people to hate. A few individuals, a few mill managers will be
selected. We will be made to feel that he or she is to blame.

American people need now, more than they ever did need any-
thing in the whole span of our complex civilization, to realize that
working people are people. They need to know that the woman
investor in a cotton mill is just a woman, caught in the trap as
we are all caught. They need to know that the little mill girl,
flying about down there, so intense, so weary sometimes, beneath
that huge beautiful machine, is a little girl. They need to know
that she is exactly like your daughter and my daughter. The travel-
ling salesman needs to know that, the Rotarian, the mill owner,
the intellectual.

As to a particular woman investor in the stock of a cotton mill,
selected here as a type, I know nothing of her, but a few days ago,
as an experiment, I went with her case into a mill village. It was
a Sunday afternoon. There was a little mill girl I had met who
lived in the worst mill village in the Southern city I was in, a mill
village of which the other mill owners of the city were all ashamed,
and I went to see her. Her father was ill. He was an old workman
lying on a cheap bed in a cheap, ugly room. I sat in the chair
beside his bed. The day was cold and gray, and there was a small
fire burning in a fire-place. The old workman had hurt his back,
lifting a bale of cotton in the mill, and said he would have to
stay in bed for two or three weeks. I passed him a cigarette and
we smoked. It was just such a house and such a mill village as
I had seen described in many of the articles about mill towns.
The walls of the room were dirty. There were old newspapers
pasted on the walls to keep out the cold. The old workman's
daughter sat there, and during the afternoon other girls, all mill
girls, all lint-heads, came and went. There were fat girls and slim
girls. Some of the girls had coarse sensual faces, while the faces
of others were fine and sensitive. They were just people.

And so I took up with them the case of our lady investor. I
described her position, gave her a fictitious name. I spoke bitterly
of her. I blamed her for the poverty of the mill village in which
they lived. They did not know who owned the mill in which they
worked. I pretended my fictitious lady owned it.

We discussed her. One of the girls laughed. I remember that

335

she had just explained that she was tired. She couldn't have been
over fifteen. All of these girls worked in that particular mill twelve
hours a day.. "I never do get rested," she said. She laughed about
my fictitious lady and her case. "I'd sure like to have a million
dollars myself," she said. "I wouldn't speak to any of you kids,"
she laughed at the others. "Gee, but I would wear swell clothes,"
she said.

Again I brought the conversation back to my rich woman in-
vestor. "Ah, you let her alone," the girls said. They were all agreed
that she should not be thus attacked.

"Ah, you let her alone," they said, "what does she know about
us?"

Again I have returned to the mill. I am in a weaving room now.
It is another huge room. This room is a forest of belts. The belts,
hundreds of them in this one room, go up to the ceiling as straight
as pine trees in a Georgia wood.

They are flying, flying, flying.

There are fifteen hundred looms in here. This mill has fifty
thousand spindles. The looms are not so large. They come up to
a man's waist. They clatter and shout. They talk like a million
blackbirds in a field. Here, in this room, as everywhere in modern
industry, there is something vibrant in the air. The inside of such
a room is like the inside of a piano, being played furiously. It is
like the inside of an automobile, going at eighty miles an hour.

All modern industry is like that. We who stand aside from it
know nothing. (Most of us do stand aside. We know nothing
about it.) It is only these women in this room, these boys, these
young girls, these dim figures that come here in the dawn, stum-
bling along the streets of mill villages — some of the villages quite
neat, well-built villages, with paved streets and flowers in the yard
— others horrible enough — these people stumbling home at night
filled with a weariness unknown to us who do not stand all day
by these machines, these are the ones who know.

Drive a high-powered automobile at sixty miles an hour, twelve
hours a day for twelve months. That will tell you something. How
can a man stand for even an hour in the presence of modern ma-
chinery and not get into his own being at least some desire for
something of the balance, the delicacy, the truth that in some
queer way do lie in the machine?

I am protesting against an unbalanced view of modern indus-
trial life. I protest against the point of view that sees nothing in

336

the small town but Rotarians and boosters, that sees nothing in
industry but devils and martyrs, that does not see people as people,
realizing that we are all caught in a strange new kind of life. Is
this man, this mill superintendent, showing me through this mill,
a brute? Is every man and woman in America who owns stock
in a mill thereby outside the human circle? It is true perhaps that
these people do not see what all this modern, gorgeous machinery
is doing to people. Who does see?

There is, in a recent article I have seen regarding a Southern
mill town where there was a strike, the figure of a little merchant.
He is a little brute. Often the merchants of these small towns
where there are mills do turn against labor when labor is in trouble,
when labor is striving to better its conditions. But in the article to
which I refer the particular merchant is again taken as a type of
all American small-town merchants. He swaggers up and down
the lobby of a small hotel. He calls people names. He tells what he
would do to labor if he had a chance. He is but one figure. Right
now, in towns all over the South — the textile industry being in
the slack period, many people being out of work — are quiet, small
merchants who are going broke, giving credit to down-and-out
mill people they know can never pay.

Let me repeat again. American people need, more than they
have ever needed anything else, to realize that working people, in
factories and mills everywhere, and the industrialist too, are people.

Let us return for a moment to the American small town. A
moment ago I spoke of a certain book, taken as a type, that has
created a certain impression. We have to presume that any writer,
writing thus of life in American small towns, got his impression
from the small town from which he himself came. He must have
seen his home town as an ugly place and so all towns became ugly
to him. The conclusion seems inevitable.

There it is.

There is a young painter living in the city of New York. He
works there at night in a stockbroker's office. When he is not too
tired he tries to paint in his room during the day. Once, by chance,
I saw a painting of his. I bought the painting. I own it now. The
painting was of fruit in a basket. There were apples in the basket
and pears and peaches and grapes. A bottle sat on a table. I bought
the painting because it seemed to me that the young man had
painted apples because he felt apples. He felt the ripeness of grapes,
the flesh of peaches.

337

He was a young painter who, having no money and wanting to
paint in the daytime, worked at night. He dreamed of a day com-
ing when he would not be tired. "Perhaps I will really paint a
little then," he said. He spoke of open fields, of apples growing on
trees. He spoke of red apples fallen on dry, gray grass in an orchard
in the fall. He spoke of many things and among others of a
country from which he had come as a young boy, and to which
he hopes some day to return. "I want to go back there," he said.
"I want to paint there." He spoke of river valleys and of creeks
at the edge of his native town. It was an American town. He said
willows grew along the creek. He spoke of white farmhouses seen
through trees, of white farmhouses clinging to the sides of hills.

"There is something to paint there," he said. "If I ever get money
enough I'll go back there and I'll stay there."

"It is a lovely town," he said, and I speak of. this young man
here because, by an odd chance, my young painter came from the
very town from which had come the writer mentioned above who,
we must conclude, by the way in which he has written of the
American small town, has hated it so.

Scribner's Magazine, January, 1931

338

Reconstructed But Unre^enerate

JOHN CROWE RANSOM

It is out of fashion in these days to look backward rather than
forward. About the only American given to it is some unrecon-
structed Southerner, who persists in his regard for a certain terrain,
a certain history, and a certain inherited way of living. He. is
punished as his crime deserves. He feels himself in the American
scene as an anachronism, and knows he is felt by his neighbors as
a reproach.

Of course he is a tolerably harmless reproach. He is like some
quaint local character of eccentric but fixed principles who is
thoroughly and almost pridefully accepted by the village as a
rare exhibit in the antique kind. His position is secure from the
interference of the police, but it is of a rather ambiguous dignity.

I wish now that he were not so entirely taken for granted, and
that as a reproach he might bear a barb and inflict a sting. I wish
that the whole force of my own generation in the South would
get behind his principles and make them an ideal which the nation
at large would have to reckon with. But first I will describe him in
the light of the position he seems now to occupy actually before
the public.

His fierce devotion is to a lost cause — though it grieves me that
his contemporaries are so sure it is lost. They are so far from fear-
ing him and his example that they even in the excess of confidence
offer him a little honor, a little petting. As a Southerner I have
observed this indulgence and I try to be grateful. Obviously it
does not constitute a danger to the Republic; distinctly it is not
treasonable. They are good enough to attribute a sort of glamour
to the Southern life as it is defined for them in a popular tradi-
tion. They like to use the South as the nearest available locus for
the scenes of their sentimental songs, and sometimes they send
their daughters to the Southern seminaries. Not too much, of
course, is to be made of this last gesture, for they do not expose
to this hazard their sons, who in our still very masculine order
will have to discharge the functions of citizenship, and who must
accordingly be sternly educated in the principles of progress at

339

progressive institutions of learning. But it does not seem to make
so much difference what principles of a general character the
young women acquire, since they are not likely to be impaired
by principles 'in their peculiar functions, such as virtue and the
domestic duties. And so, at suitable seasons, and on the main-line
trains, one may see them in some numbers, flying south or flying
north like migratory birds; and one may wonder to what extent
their philosophy of life will be affected by two or three years in
the South. One must remember that probably their parents have
already made this calculation and are prepared to answer, Not
much.

The Southerner must know, and in fact he does very well know,
that his antique conservatism does not exert a great influence
against the American progressivist doctrine. The Southern idea
today is down, and the progressive or American idea is up. But
the historian and the philosopher, who take views that are thought
to be respectively longer and deeper than most, may very well
reverse this order and find that the Southern idea rather than the
American has in its favor the authority of example and the ap-
proval of theory. And some prophet may even find it possible to
expect that it will yet rise again. . . .

The Southern states were settled, of course, by miscellaneous
strains. But evidently the one which determined the peculiar tra-
dition of the South was the one which came out of Europe most
convinced of the virtues of establishment, contrasting with those
strains which seem for the most part to have dominated the other
sections, and which came out of Europe feeling rebellious toward
all establishments. There are a good many faults to be found with
the old South, but hardly the fault of being intemperately addicted
to work and to gross material prosperity. The South never con-
ceded that the whole duty of man was to increase material pro-
duction, or that the index to the degree of his culture was the
volume of his material production. His business seemed to be
rather to envelop both his work and his play with a leisure which
permitted the activity of intelligence. On th:s assumption the South
pioneered her way to a sufficiently comfortable and rural sort of
establishment, considered that an establishment was something
stable, and proceeded to enjoy the fruits thereof. The arts of the
section, such as they were, were not immensely passionate, creative,
and romantic; they were the eighteenth-century social arts of dress,

340

conversation, manners, the table, the hunt, politics, oratory, the
pulpit. These were arts of living and not arts of escape; they were
also community arts, in which every class of society could partici-
pate after its kind. The South took life easy, which is itself a
tolerably comprehensive art.

But so did other communities in 1850, I believe. And doubtless
some others do so yet; in parts of New England, for example. If
there are such communities, this is their token, that they are settled.
Their citizens are comparatively satisfied with the life they have
inherited, and are careful to look backward quite as much as
they look forward. Before the Civil War there must have been
many such communities this side of the frontier. The difference
between the North and the South was that the South was consti-
tuted by such communities and made solid. But solid is only a
comparative term here. The South as a culture had more solidity
than another section, but there were plenty of gaps in it. The
most we can say is that the Southern establishment was completed
in a good many of the Southern communities, and that this estab-
lishment was an active formative influence on the spaces between,
and on the frontier spaces outlying, which had not yet perfected
their organization of the economic life.

The old Southern life was of course not so fine as some of the
traditionalists like to believe. It did not offer serious competition
against the glory that was Greece or the grandeur that was Rome.
It hardly began to match the finish of the English, or any other
important European civilization. It is quite enough to say that
it was a way of life which had been considered and authorized.
The establishment had a sufficient economic base, it was meant
to be stable rather than provisional, it had got beyond the pioneer-
ing stage, it provided leisure, and its benefits were already being
enjoyed. It may as well be admitted that Southern society was
not an institution of very showy elegance, for the so-called aristo-
crats were mostly home-made and countrified. Aristocracy is not
the word which defines this social organization so well as squire-
archy, which I borrow from a recent article by Mr. William Frier-
son in the Sewanee Review. And even the squires, and the other
classes, too, did not define themselves very strictly. They were
loosely graduated social orders, not fixed as in Europe. Their re-
lations were personal and friendly. It was a kindly society, yet a
realistic one; for it was a failure if it could not be said that people
were for the most part in their right places. Slavery was a feature
monstrous enough in theory, but, more often than not, humane

341

in practice; and it is impossible to believe that its abolition alone
could have effected any great revolution in society.

The fullness .of life as it was lived in the ante-bellum South by
the different social orders can be estimated today only by the ap-
plication of some difficult sociological technique. It is my thesis
that all were committed to a form of leisure, and that their labor
itself was leisurely. The only Southerners who went abroad to
Washington and elsewhere, and put themselves into the record,
were those from the top of the pyramid. They held their own
with their American contemporaries. They were not intellectually
as seasoned as good Europeans, but then the Southern culture
had had no very long time to grow, as time is reckoned in these
matters: it would have borne a better fruit eventually. They had
a certain amount of learning, which was not as formidable as
it might have been: but at least it was classical and humanistic
learning, not highly scientific, and not wildly scattered about over
a variety of special studies.

Then the North and the South fought, and the consequences
were disastrous to both. The Northern temper was one of jubi-
lation and expansiveness, and now it was no longer shackled by
the weight of the conservative Southern tradition. Industrialism,
the latest form of pioneering and the worst, presently overtook the
North, and in due time has now produced our present American
civilization. Poverty and pride overtook the South; poverty to
bring her institutions into disrepute and to sap continually at her
courage; and a false pride to inspire a distaste for the thought of
fresh pioneering projects, and to doom her to an increasing physi-
cal enfeeblement.

It is only too easy to define the malignant meaning of industrial-
ism. It is the contemporary form of pioneering; yet since it never
consents to define its goal, it is a pioneering on principle, and with
an accelerating speed. Industrialism is a program under which
men, using the latest scientific paraphernalia, sacrifice comfort,
leisure, and the enjoyment of life to win Pyrrhic victories from
nature at points of no strategic importance. Ruskin and Carlyle
feared it nearly a hundred years ago, and now it may be said
that their fears have been realized partly in England, and with
almost fatal completeness in America. Industrialism is an insidious
spirit, full of false promises and generally fatal to establishments
since, when it once gets into them for a little renovation, it pro-

342

poses never again to leave them in peace. Industrialism is rightfully
a menial, of almost miraculous cunning but no intelligence; it
needs to be strongly governed or it will destroy the economy of
the household. Only a community of tough conservative habit
can master it.

The South did not become industrialized; she did not repair
the damage to her old establishment, either, and it was in part
because she did not try hard enough. Hers is the case to cite when
we would show how the good life depends on an adequate pioneer-
ing, and how the pioneering energy must be kept ready for call
when the establishment needs overhauling. The Southern tradi-
tion came to look rather pitiable in its persistence when the twenti-
eth century had arrived, for the establishment was quite depreci-
ated. Unregenerate Southerners were trying to live the good life
on a shabby equipment, and they were grotesque in their effort to
make an art out of living when they were not decently making
the living. In the country districts great numbers of these broken-
down Southerners are still to be seen in patched blue-jeans, sitting
on ancestral fences, shotguns across their laps and hound-dogs at
their feet, surveying their unkempt acres while they comment
shrewdly on the ways of God. It is their defect that they have
driven a too easy, an unmanly bargain with nature, and that their
aestheticism is based on insufficient labor.

But there is something heroic, and there may prove to be yet
something very valuable to the Union, in their extreme attachment
to a certain theory of life. They have kept up a faith which was
on the point of perishing from this continent.

Of course it was only after the Civil War that the North and
the South came to stand in polar opposition to each other. Im-
mediately after Appomattox it was impossible for the South to
resume even that give-and-take of ideas which had marked her
ante-bellum relations with the North. She was offered such terms
that acquiescence would have been abject. She retired within her
borders in rage and held the minimum of commerce with the
enemy. Persecution intensified her tradition, and made the South
more solid and more Southern in the year 1875, or thereabouts,
than ever before. When the oppression was left off, naturally her
guard relaxed. But though the period of persecution had not been
long, nevertheless the Southern tradition found itself then the less
capable of uniting gracefully with the life of the Union; for that
life in the meantime had been moving on in an opposite direction.
The American progressive principle was like a ball rolling down

343

the hill with an increasing momentum, and by 1890 or 1900 it was
clear to any intelligent Southerner that it was a principle of bound-
less aggression against nature which could hardly offer much to
a society devoted to the arts of peace.

But to keep on living shabbily on an insufficient patrimony is to
decline, both physically and spiritually. The South declined.

And now the crisis in the South's decline has been reached.

Industrialism has arrived in the South. Already the local cham-
bers of commerce exhibit the formidable data of Southern progress.
A considerable party of Southern opinion, which might be called
the New South party, is well pleased with the recent industrial
accomplishments of the South and anxious for many more.
Southerners of another school, who might be said to compose an
Old South party, are apprehensive lest the section become com-
pletely and uncritically devoted to the industrial ideal precisely as
the other sections of the Union are. But reconstruction is actually
under way. Tied politically and economically to the Union, her
borders wholly violable, the South now sees very well that she can
restore her prosperity only within the competition of an industrial
system.

After the war the Southern plantations were often broken up
into small farms. These have yielded less and less of a living, and
it said that they will never yield a good living until once more they
are integrated into large units. But these units will be industrial
units, controlled by a board of directors or an executive rather
than a squire, worked with machinery, and manned not by farm-
ers living at home, but by "labor." Even so they will not, according
to Mr. Henry Ford, support the population that wants to live
on them. In the off seasons the laborers will have to work in fac-
tories, which henceforth are to be counted on as among the charm-
ing features of Southern landscape. The Southern problem is
complicated, but at its center is the farmer's problem, and this
problem is simply the most acute version of that general agrarian
problem which inspires the despair of many thoughtful Ameri-
cans today.

The agrarian discontent in America is deeply grounded in the
love of the tiller for the soil, which is probably, it must be con-
fessed, not peculiar to the Southern specimen, but one of the more
ineradicable human attachments, be the tiller as progressive as he
may. In proposing to wean men from this foolish attachment,

344

industrialism sets itself against the most ancient and the most
humane of all the modes of human livelihood. Do Mr. Hoover
and the distinguished thinkers at Washington see how essential
is the mutual hatred between the industrialists and the farmers,
and how mortal is their conflict? The gentlemen at Washington
are mostly preaching and legislating to secure the fabulous "bless-
ings" of industrial progress; they are on the industrial side. The
industrialists have a doctrine which is monstrous, but they are
not monsters personally; they are forward-lookers with nice man-
ners, and no American progressivist is against them. The farmers
are boorish and inarticulate by comparison. Progressivism is against
them in their fight, though their traditional status is still so strong
that soft words are still spoken to them. All the solutions recom-
mended for their difficulties are really enticements held out to
them to become a little more cooperative, more mechanical, more
mobile — in short, a little more industrialized. But the farmer who
is not a mere laborer, even the farmer of the comparatively new
places like Iowa and Nebraska, is necessarily among the more
stable and less progressive elements of society. He refuses to
mobilize himself and become a unit in the industrial army, because
he does not approve of army life.

I will use some terms which are hardly in his vernacular. He
identifies himself with a spot of ground, and this ground carries
a good deal of meaning; it defines itself for him as nature. He
would till it not too hurriedly and not too mechanically to observe
in it the contingency and the infinitude of nature; and so his life
acquires its philosophical and even its cosmic consciousness. A
man can contemplate and explore, respect and love, an object as
substantial as a farm or a native province. But he cannot contem-
plate nor explore, respect nor love, a mere turnover, such as an
assemblage of "natural resources," a pile of money, a volume of
produce, a market, or a credit system. It is into precisely these
intangibles that industrialism would translate the farmer's farm.
It means the dehumanization of his life.

However that may be, the South at last, looking defensively
about her in all directions upon an industrial world, fingers the
weapons of industrialism. There is one powerful voice in the South
which, tired of a long status of disrepute, would see the South
made at once into a section second to none in wealth, as that is
statistically reckoned, and in progressiveness, as that might be
estimated by the rapidity of the industrial turnover. This desire
offends those who would still like to regard the South as, in the

345

old sense, a home; but its expression is loud and insistent. The
urban South, with its heavy importation of regular American ways
and regular American citizens, has nearly capitulated to these
novelties. It is the village South and the rural South which supply
the resistance, and it is lucky for them that they represent a vast
quantity of inertia.

Will the Southern establishment, the most substantial exhibit
on this continent of a society of the European and historic order,
be completely crumbled by the powerful acid of the Great Pro-
gressive Principle? Will there be no more looking backward but
only looking forward? Is our New World to be dedicated forever
to the doctrine of newness?

It is in the interest of America as a whole, as well as in the inter-
est of the South, that these questions press for an answer. I will
enter here the most important items of the situation as well as
I can; doubtless they will appear a litle over-sharpened for the sake
of exhibition.

(1) The intention of Americans at large appears now to be
what it was always in danger of becoming: an intention of being
infinitely progressive. But this intention cannot permit of an
established order of human existence, and of that leisure which
conditions the life of intelligence and the arts.

(2) The old South, if it must be defined in a word, practiced
the contrary and European philosophy of establishment as the
foundation of the life of the spirit. The ante-bellum Union pos-
sessed, to say the least, a wholesome variety of doctrine.

(3) But the South was defeated by the Union on the battlefield
with remarkable decisiveness, and the two consequences have been
dire: the Southern tradition was physically impaired, and has
ever since been unable to offer an attractive example of its phi-
losophy in action; and the American progressive principle has
developed into a pure industrialism without any check from a
Southern minority whose voice ceased to make itself heard.

(4) The further survival of the Southern tradition as a detached
local remnant is now unlikely. It is agreed that the South must
make contact again with the Union. And in adapting itself to the
actual state of the Union, the Southern tradition will have to
consent to a certain industrialization of its own.

(5) The question at issue is whether the South will permit her-
self to be so industrialized as to lose entirely her historic identity,
and to remove the last substantial barrier that has stood in the
way of American progress! vism; or will accept industrialism, but

346

with a very bad grace, and will manage to maintain a good deal
of her traditional philosophy.

The hope which is inherent in the situation is evident from
the terms in which it is stated. The South must be industrialized
— but to a certain extent only, in moderation. The program which
now engages the Southern leaders is to see how the South may
handle this fire without being burnt badly. The South at last is to
be physically reconstructed; but it will be fatal if the South should
conceive it as her duty to be regenerated and get her spirit reborn
with a totally different orientation toward life.

Fortunately, the Southern program does not have to be per-
fectly vague. There are at least two definite lines, along either of
which an intelligent Southern policy may move in the right gen-
eral direction; it may even move back and forth between them
and still advance.

The first course would be for the Southern leaders to arouse
the sectional feeling of the South to its highest pitch of excitement
in defense of all the old ways that are threatened. It might seem
ungrateful to the kind industrialists to accept their handsome
services in such a churlish spirit. But if one thing is more certain
than another, it is that these gentlemen will not pine away in their
discouragement; they have an inextinguishable enthusiasm for
their role. The attitude that needs artificial respiration is the atti-
tude of resistance on the part of the natives to the salesmen of
industrialism. It will be fiercest and most effective if industrialism
is represented to the Southern people as — what it undoubtedly is
for the most part — a foreign invasion of Southern soil, which is
capable of doing more devastation than was wrought when Sher-
man marched to the sea. From this point of view it will be a great
gain if the usually-peaceful invasion forgets itself now and then,
is less peaceful, and commits indiscretions. The native and the
invader will be sure to come to an occasional clash, and that will
offer the chance to revive ancient and almost forgotten animosities.
It will be in order to proclaim to Southerners that the carpet-
baggers are again in their midst. And it will be well to seize upon
and advertise certain Northern industrial communities as horrible
examples of a way of life we detest — not failing to point out the
human catastrophe which occurs when a Southern village or
rural community becomes the cheap labor of a miserable factory
system. It will be a little bit harder to impress the people with the

347

fact that the new so-called industrial "slavery" fastens not only
upon the poor, but upon the middle and better classes of society,
too. To make this point it may be necessary to revive such an
antiquity as the old Southern gentleman and his lady, and their
scorn for the dollar-chasers.

Such a policy as this would show decidedly a sense of what the
Germans call Realpoliti^. It could be nasty and it could be effective.

Its net result might be to give to the South eventually a position
in the Union analogous more or less to the position of Scotland
under the British crown — a section with a very local and peculiar
culture that would, nevertheless, be secure and respected. And
Southern traditionalists may take courage from the fact that it
was Scottish stubbornness which obtained this position for Scot-
land; it did not come gratuitously; it was the consequence of an
intense sectionalism that fought for a good many years before
its fight was won.

That is one policy. Though it is not the only one, it may be
necessary to employ it, with discretion, and to bear in mind its
Scottish analogue. But it is hardly handsome enough for the best
Southerners. Its methods are too easily abused; it offers too much
room for the professional demagogue; and one would only as a
last resort like to have the South stake upon it her whole chance
of survival. After all, the reconstruction may be undertaken with
some imagination, and not necessarily under the formula of a
literal restoration. It does not greatly matter to what extent the
identical features of the old Southern establishment are restored;
the important consideration is that there be an establishment for
the sake of stability.

The other course may not be so easily practicable, but it is cer-
tainly more statesmanlike. That course is for the South to reenter
the American political field with a determination and an address
quite beyond anything she has exhibited during her half-hearted
national life of the last half a century. And this means specifically
that she may pool her own stakes with the stakes of other minority
groups in the Union which are circumstanced similarly. There is
in active American politics already, to start with, a very belligerent
if somewhat uninformed Western agrarian party. Between this
party and the South there is much community of interest; both
desire to defend home, stability of life, the practice of leisure, and
the natural enemy of both is the insidious industrial system. There
are also, scattered here and there, numerous elements with the
same general attitude which would have some power if united:

348

the persons and even communities who are thoroughly tired of
progressivism and its spurious benefits, and those who have re-
cently acquired, or miraculously through the generations preserved,
a European point of view — sociologists, educators, artists, religion-
ists, and ancient New England townships. The combination of
these elements with the Western farmers and the old-fashioned
South would make a formidable bloc. The South is numerically
much the most substantial of these three groups, but has done
next to nothing to make the cause prevail by working inside the
American political system.

The unifying effective bond between these geographically diverse
elements of public opinion will be the clean-cut policy that the
rural life of America must be defended, and the world made safe
for the farmers. My friends are often quick to tell me that against
the power of the industrial spirit no such hope can be entertained.
But there are some protests in these days rising against the indus-
trial ideal, even from the centers where its grip is the stoutest; and
this would indicate that our human intelligence is beginning again
to assert itself. Of course this is all the truer of the European
countries, which have required less of the bitter schooling of ex-
perience. Thus Dean Inge declares himself in his Romanes Lecture
on "The Idea of Progress":

I believe that the dissastisfaction with things as they are is caused
not only by the failure of nineteenth-century civilization, but partly
also by its success. We no longer wish to progress on those lines if
we could. Our apocalyptic dream is vanishing into thin air. It may
be that the industrial revolution which began in the reign of George
the Third has produced most of its fruits, and has had its day. We
may have to look forward to such a change as is imagined by Anatole
France at the end of his Isle of the Penguins, when, after an orgy of
revolution and destruction, we shall slide back into the quiet rural
life of the early modern period. If so, the authors of the revolution will
have cut their own throats, for there can be no great manufacturing
towns in such a society. Their disappearance will be no great loss. The
race will have tried a great experiment, and will have rejected it as un-
satisfying.

The South has an important part to play, if she will, in such
a counter-revolution. But what pitiful service have the inept
Southern politicians for many years been rendering to the cause!
Their Southern loyalty at Washington has rarely had any more
imaginative manifestation than to scramble vigorously for a

349

Southern share in the federal pie. They will have to be miracu-
lously enlightened.

I get quickly beyond my depth in sounding these political possi-
bilities. I will utter one last fantastic thought.

No Southerner ever dreams of heaven, or pictures his Utopia
on earth, without providing room for the Democratic party. Is
it really possible that the Democratic party can be held to a prin-
ciple, and that the principle can now be defined as agrarian, con-
servative, anti-industrial? It may not be impossible, after all. If
it proves possible, then the South may yet be rewarded for a
sentimental affection that has persisted in the face of many be-
trayals.

/'// Tafe My Stand, 1930

35°

The Middle West

Rockwell Kent Illustration for Moby Dick, courtesy of R.R. Donnelley & Sons Company

Midwestern Portraits

1. A Dakota

FRANCIS PARKMAN

He was a young fellow, of no note in his nation; yet in his
person and equipments he was a good specimen of a Dakota
warrior in his ordinary traveling dress. Like most of his people,
he was nearly six feet high; lithely and gracefully, yet strongly
proportioned; and with a skin singularly clear and delicate. He
wore no paint; his head was bare; and his long hair was gathered
in a clump behind, to the top of which was attached transversely,
both by way of ornament and of talisman, the mystic whistle,
made of the wingbone of the war eagle, and endowed with vari-
ous magic virtues. From the back of his head descended a line
of glittering brass plates, tapering from the size of a doubloon
to that of a half-dime, a cumbrous ornament, in high vogue among
the Dakotas, and for which they pay the traders a most extrava-
gant price; his chest and arms were naked, the buffalo robe, worn
over them when at rest, had fallen about his waist, and was con-
fined there by a belt. This, with the gay moccasins on his feet,
completed his attire. For arms he carried a quiver of dogskin at
his back, and a rude but powerful bow in his hand. His horse had
no bridle; a cord of hair, lashed around his jaw, served in place
of one. The saddle was of most singular construction; it was
made of wood covered with raw hide, and both pommel and
cantle rose perpendicularly full eighteen inches, so that the warrior
was wedged firmly in his seat, whence nothing could dislodge
him but the bursting of the girths.

The California and Oregon Trail, 1849

2. Ishmael Bush

JAMES FENIMORE COOPER

At some little distance in front of the whole, marched the
individual, who, by his position and air, appeared to be the leader

353

of the band [of plainsmen]. He was a tall, sunburnt man, past
the middle-age, of a dull countenance and listless manner. His
frame appeared loose and flexible; but it was vast, and in reality
of prodigious power. It was only at moments, however, as some
slight impediment opposed itself to his loitering progress, that
his person, which, in its ordinary gait, seemed so lounging and
nerveless, displayed any of those energies which lay latent in his
system, like the slumbering and unwieldy, but terrible, strength
of the elephant. The inferior lineaments of his countenance were
coarse, extended, and vacant; while the superior, or those nobler
parts which are thought to affect the intellectual being, were low,
receding, and mean.

The dress of this individual was a mixture of the coarsest vest-
ments of a husbandman, with the leathern garments that fashion,
as well as use, had in some degree rendered necessary to one
engaged in his present pursuits. There was, however, a singular
and wild display of prodigal and ill-judged ornaments blended
with his motley attire. In place of the usual deerskin belt, he wore
around his body a tarnished silken sash of the most gaudy colors;
the buckhorn haft of his knife was profusely decorated with plates
of silver; the martin's fur of his cap was of a fineness and shadow-
ing that a queen might covet; the buttons of his rude and soiled
blanket-coat were of the glittering coinage of Mexico; the stock
of his rifle was of beautiful mahogany, riveted and banded with
the same precious metal; and the trinkets of no less than three
worthless watches dangled from different parts of his person. In
addition to the pack and the rifle which were slung at his back,
together with the well-filled and carefully guarded pouch and
horn, he had carelessly cast a keen and bright wood-axe across
his shoulder, sustaining the weight of the whole with as much ap-
parent ease as if he moved unfettered in limb, and free from in-
cumbrance.

The Prairie, 1827

3. The Indian Hater

JAMES HALL

He was a man who might have been about fifty years of age.
His height did not exceed the ordinary stature, and his person

354

was rather slender than otherwise; but there was something in
his air and features which distinguished him from common men.
The expression of his countenance was keen and daring. His
forehead was elevated, his cheek bones high, his lips thin and
compressed. Long exposure to the climate had tanned his complex-
ion to a deep brown, and had hardened his skin and muscles,
so as to give him the appearance of a living petrifaction. He
seemed to have lived in the open air, exposed to the elements,
and to every extreme of temperature.

There was nothing in the dress of this individual to attract
attention; he was accosted occasionally by others, and seemed fa-
miliar with all who were present. Yet there was an air of ab-
straction, and standing aloof about him, so different from the
noisy mirth and thoughtless deportment of those around him, that
I could not help observing him. In his eye there was something
peculiar, yet I could not tell in what that peculiarity consisted. It
was a small grey orb, whose calm, bold, direct glances, seemed to
vouch that it had not cowered with shame, or quailed in danger.
There was blended in that eye a searching keenness, with a quiet
vigilance — a watchful, sagacious self-possession — so often observ-
able in the physiognomy of those who are in the habit of expecting,
meeting, and overcoming peril. His heavy eyebrows had been
black, but time had touched them with his pencil. He was dressed
in a coarse grey hunting shirt, of homespun cotton, girded round
the waist with a broad leathern belt, tightly drawn, in which
rested the long knife, with which the western hunter despatches
his game, cuts his food, picks his flint and his teeth, and whittles
sticks for amusement.

Tfie Wilderness and the War Path, i

4. The Doubledays

CAROLINE KIRKLAND

One of my best neighbors is Mr. Philo Doubleday, a long, awk-
ward, honest, hard-working Maine man; ... so good-natured that
he might be mistaken for a simpleton, but that must be by those
that do not know him. He is quite an old settler, came in four
years ago, bringing with him a wife who is to him as vinegar-
bottle to oil-cruet, or as mustard to the sugar which is used to

355

soften its biting qualities. Mrs. Doubleday has the sharpest eyes,
the sharpest nose, the sharpest tongue, the sharpest elbows, and
above all, the sharpest voice that ever "penetrated the interior" of
Michigan. She has a tall, straight, bony figure, in contour some-
what resembling two hard-oak planks fastened together and stood
on end; and, strange to say, she was full five-and-thirty when her
mature graces attracted the eye and won the affections of the
worthy Philo. What eclipse had come over Mr. Doubleday's usual
sagacity when he made choice of his Polly, I am sure I never
could guess; but he is certainly the only man in the wide world
who could possibly have lived with her; and he makes her a most
excellent husband.

She is possessed with a neat devil; I have known many such
cases; her floor is scoured every night, after all are in bed but
the unlucky scrubber, Betsey, the maid of all work; and woe to
the unfortunate "indiffidle," as neighbor Jenkins says, who first
sets dirty boot on it in the morning. If men come in to talk over
road-business, for Philo is much sought when "the public" has
any work to do, or school-business, for that being very trouble-
some, and quite devoid of profit, is often conferred upon Philo,
Mrs. Doubleday makes twenty errands into the room, expressing
in her visage all the force of Mrs. Raddle's inquiry, "Is them
wretches going?" And when at length their backs are turned,
out comes the bottled vengeance. The sharp eyes, tongue, elbow,
and voice are all in instant requisition.

"Fetch the broom, Betsey! and the scrub-broom, Betsey! and
the mop, and that 'ere dish of soap, Betsey; and why on earth
didn't you bring some ashes? You didn't expect to clean such a
floor as this without ashes, did you?"

"What time are you going to have dinner, my dear?" says the
imperturbable Philo, who is getting ready to go out.

"Dinner! I'm sure I don't know! there's no time to cook dinner
in this house! nothing but slave, slave, slave, from morning till
night, cleaning up after a set of nasty, dirty — "

"Phew!" says Mr. Doubleday, looking at his fuming helpmate
with a calm smile, "It'll all rub out when it's dry, if you'll only
let it alone."

"Yes, yes; and it would be plenty clean enough for you if there
had been forty horses in here."

Philo on some such occasion waited till his Polly had stepped
out of the room, and then with a bit of chalk wrote on the broad
black- walnut mantel-piece:

356

Bolt and bar hold gate of wood
Gate of iron springs make good,
Bolt nor spring can bind the flame,
Woman's tongue can no man tame.

and then took his hat and walked off.

A New Home— Who'll Follow?, 1839

5. Paul Bunyan

JAMES STEVENS

Paul Bunyan strapped on his snow shoes and started out through
the Border forests in search of Niagara. His was a kingly figure
as he mushed through the pine trees, looming above all but the
very tallest of them. He wore a wine-red hunting cap, and his
glossy hair and beard shone under it with a blackness that blended
with the cap's color perfectly. His unique eyebrows were black
also; covering a fourth of his forehead above the eyes, they nar-
rowed where they arched down under his temples, and they ended
in thin curls just in front of his ears. His mustache had natural
twirls and he never disturbed it. He wore a yellow muffler this
morning under his virile curly beard. His mackinaw coat was of
huge orange and purple checks. His mackinaw pants were sober-
seeming, having tan and light gray checks, but some small crim-
son dots and crosses brightened them. Green wool socks showed
above his black boots, which had buckskin laces and big brass
eyelets and hooks. And he wore striped mittens of white and plum
color. Paul Bunyan was a gorgeous picture this morning in the
frozen fields and forests, all covered with blue snow which spar-
kled in a pale gold light.

Paul Bunyan, 1925

6. Dick Garland, Lumberman

HAMLIN GARLAND

In addition to his military career, Dick Garland also carried
with him the odor of the pine forest and exhibited the skill and

357

training of a forester, for in those early days even at the time when
I began to remember the neighborhood talk, nearly every young
man who could get away from the farm or the village went north,
in November, into the pine woods which covered the entire upper
part of the State, and my father, who had been a raftsman and
timber cruiser and pilot ever since his coming west, was deeply
skilled with axe and steering oars. The lumberman's life at that
time was rough but not vicious, for the men were nearly all of
native American stock, and my father was none the worse for
his winters in camp.

His field of action as lumberman was for several years, in and
around Big Bull Falls (as it was then called), near the present
town of Wausau, and during that time he had charge of a crew
of loggers in winter and in summer piloted rafts of lumber down
to Dubuque and other points where saw mills were located. He
was called at this time, "Yankee Dick, the Pilot."

As a result of all these experiences in the woods, he was almost
as much woodsman as soldier in his talk, and the heroic life he
had led made him very wonderful in my eyes. According to his
account (and I have no reason to doubt it) he had been exceed-
ingly expert in running a raft and could ride a canoe like a Chip-
pewa. I remember hearing him very forcefully remark, "God
forgot to make the man I could not follow."

He was deft with an axe, keen of perception, sure of hand and
foot, and entirely capable of holding his own with any man of
his weight. Amid much drinking he remained temperate, and
strange to say never used tobacco in any form. While not a large
man he was nearly six feet in height, deep-chested and sinewy,
and of dauntless courage. The quality which defended him from
attack was the spirit which flamed from his eagle-gray eyes. Ter-
rifying eyes they were, at times, as I had many occasions to note.

As he gathered us all around his knee at night before the fire,
he loved to tell us of riding the whirlpools of Big Bull Falls, or
of how he lived for weeks on a raft with the water up to his knees
(sleeping at night in his wet working clothes), sustained by the
blood of youth and the spirit of adventure. His endurance even
after his return from the war, was marvellous, although he walked
a little bent and with a peculiar measured swinging stride — the
stride of Sherman's veterans.

A Son of the Middle Border, 1917

358

7. The. Meek

E. W. HOWE

My father received little aid in the conduct of these meetings
except from a very good farmer, but very bad exhorter, named
Theodore Meek, whose name had been gradually shortened by
neighborhood familiarity until he was known as The. Meek; and
for a long time I thought he was meant when reference was made
to "The Meek and lowly," supposing that Lowly was an equally
good man living in some of the adjoining settlements. This re-
markable man laughed his religion rather than preached, or
prayed, or shouted, or sang it. His singing would be regarded at
this day as a very expert rendering of a laughing song, but to us
it was an impressive performance, as were his praying and oc-
casional preaching, though I wonder we were not amused. The.
Meek was, after my father, the next best man in Fairview; the
next largest farmer, and the next in religion and thrift. In moving
to the country I think his wagons were next to ours, which headed
the procession. He sat nearest the pulpit at the meetings, was
the second to arrive — my father coming first — and always took
up the collection. If there was a funeral, he stood next to my
father, who conducted the services; at the school-meetings he was
the second to speak; and if a widow needed her corn gathered,
or her winter's wood chopped, my father suggested it, and The.
Meek immediately said it should have been attended to before.
He also lived nearer our house than any of the others, and was
oftener there; and his house was built so much like ours that
only experts knew it was cheaper, and not quite so large. His
family, which consisted of a wife by a second marriage, and so
many children that I never could remember all their names —
there was always a new baby whenever its immediate predecessor
was old enough to name — were laughers like him, and to a
stranger it would have seemed that they found jokes in the Bible,
for they were always reading the Bible, and always laughing.

The Story of a Country Town, 1882

359

8. The Proud Farmer

VACHEL LINDSAY

Into the acres of the newborn state
He poured his strength, and plowed his ancient name,
And, when the traders followed him, he stood
Towering above their furtive souls and tame.

That brow without a stain, that fearless eye
Oft left the passing stranger wondering
To find such knighthood in the sprawling land,
To see a democrat well-nigh a king.

He lived with liberal hand, with guests from far,
With talk and joke and fellowship to spare, —
Watching the wide world's life from sun to sun,
Lining his walls with books from everywhere.

He read by night, he built his world by day,

The farm and house of God to him were one.

For forty years he preached and plowed and wrought —

A statesman in the fields, who bent to none.

His plowmen-neighbors were as lords to him.
His was an ironside, democratic pride.
He served a rigid Christ, but served him well —
And, for a lifetime, saved the countryside.

Here lie the dead, who gave the church their best
Under his fiery preaching of the word.
They sleep with him beneath the ragged grass . . .
The village withers, by his voice unstirred.

And tho' his tribe be scattered to the wind
From the Atlantic to the China Sea,
Yet do they think of that bright lamp he burned
Of family worth and proud integrity.

And many a sturdy grandchild hears his name
In reverence spoken, till he feels akin
To all the lion-eyed who build the world —
And lion-dreams begin to burn within.

Collected Poems, 1925
360

9. Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight

VACHEL LINDSAY

It is portentous, and a thing of state
That here at midnight, in our little town
A mourning figure walks, and will not rest,
Near the old court-house pacing up and down,

Or by his homestead, or in shadowed yards
He lingers where his children used to play,
Or through the market, on the well-worn stones
He stalks until the dawn-stars burn away.

A bronzed, lank man! His suit of ancient black,
A famous high top-hat and plain worn shawl
Make him the quaint great figure that men love,
The prairie-lawyer, master of us all.

He cannot sleep upon his hillside now.
He is among us: — as in times before!
And we who toss and lie awake for long
Breathe deep, and start, to see him pass the door.

His head is bowed. He thinks on men and kings.
Yea, when the sick world cries, how can he sleep?
Too many peasants fight, they know not why,
Too many homesteads in black terror weep.

The sins of all the war-lords burn his heart.
He sees the dreadnaughts scouring every main.
He carries on his shawl-wrapped shoulders now
The bitterness, the folly and the pain.

He cannot rest until a spirit-dawn
Shall come; — the shining hope of Europe free:
The league of sober folk, the Workers' Earth,
Bringing long peace to Cornland, Alp and Sea.

It breaks his heart that kings must murder still,
That all his hours of travail here for men
Seem yet in vain. And who will bring white peace
That he may sleep upon his hill again?

The Congo and Other Poems, 1914

10. Ignatius Donnelly

JOHN D. HICKS

Ignatius Donnelly of Minnesota, perhaps the greatest orator of
Populism, had broken a lance for every considerable reform cause
that the United States had known, beginning with pre-Civil War
Republicanism. He was born in Pennsylvania on November 3,
1831, of Irish parents and had come to Minnesota in time to suffer
the full effects of the panic of 1857, had turned from real estate
promotion and the law to antislavery politics, and had served
three terms in Congress during and after the war. He had become
a Republican when to do so branded him a born reformer, and
he was once again an irregular when Liberal Republicanism won
his full support. Afterwards he led the Grangers of Minnesota
in their war on the railroads; he went through a clean-cut and
complete conversion from hard-money principles to Greenback-
ism; he flirted with the Union Laborites in 1888 and almost became
their candidate for governor of Minnesota that year; and he now
landed fairly and squarely in the forefront of the latest movement
for reform. As the New Yor/^ Sun remarked, a reform conven-
tion in Minnesota without Donnelly would have been "like catfish
without waffles in Philadelphia."

The Minnesota "sage" — his neighbors called him the "sage of
Nininger" — was a man of varied talents: he wrote books on popu-
lar science; delivered side-splitting lectures on "Wit and Humor";
defended in print and on the platform the Baconian theory o*
the authorship of Shakespeare; and talked convincingly on any
subject whatever that had to do with politics or economics. No
one ever denied Donnelly's oratorical skill, although his orations
showed no great profundity. He was at his best in unsparing
denunciation or encomium. His argumentative triumphs were
won by reasoning that was adroit and clever but usually full of
sophistry. No one could more easily make the worse appear the
better reason, and apparently no one delighted more in doing so.
He possessed remarkable facility in the use of statistics for this
purpose and could fairly breathe the breath of life into the dullest
of figures. Audiences listened to his deductions with interest and
almost invariably with at least temporary conviction.

The Populist Revolt, 1931
362

11. Curtis Jadwin

FRANK NORRIS

Curtis Jadwin was a man about thirty-five, who had begun life
without a sou in his pockets. He was a native of Michigan. His
people were farmers, nothing more nor less than hardy, honest
fellows, who ploughed and sowed for a living. Curtis had only a
rudimentary schooling, because he had given up the idea of finish-
ing his studies in the high school in Grand Rapids, on the chance
of going into business with a livery stable keeper. Then in time
he had bought out the business and had run it for himself. Some
one in Chicago owed him money, and in default of payment had
offered him a couple of lots on Wabash Avenue. That was how
he happened to come to Chicago. Naturally enough as the city
grew the Wabash Avenue property — it was near Monroe Street
— increased in value. He sold the lots and bought other real estate,
sold that and bought somewhere else, and so on, till he owned
some of the best business sites in the city. Just his ground rent
alone brought him, heaven knew how many thousands a year.
He was one of the largest real estate owners in Chicago. But he
no longer bought and sold. His property had grown so large that
just the management of it alone took up most of his time. He
had an office in the Rookery, and perhaps being so close to the
Board of Trade Building, had given him a taste for trying a little
deal in wheat now and then. As a rule, he deplored speculation.
He had no fixed principles about it, like Charlie. Only he was
conservative; occasionally he hazarded small operations. Somehow
he had never married. There had been affairs. Oh, yes, one or
two, of course. Nothing very serious. He just didn't seem to have
met the right girl, that was all. He lived on Michigan Avenue,
near the corner of Twenty-first Street, in one of those discouraging
eternal yellow limestone houses with a basement dining-room.
His aunt kept house for him, and his nieces and nephews over-
ran the place. There was always a raft of them there, either coming
or going; and the way they exploited him! He supported them
all; heaven knew how many there were; such drabs and gawks,
all elbows and knees, who soaked themselves with cologne and
made companions of the servants. They and the second girls
were always squabbling about their things that they found in each
other's rooms.

The Pit, 1903
363

12. The Village Radical

SINCLAIR LEWIS

The universal sign of winter was the town handyman — Miles
Bjornstam, a tall, thick, red-mustached bachelor, opinionated athe-
ist, general-store arguer, cynical Santa Glaus. Children loved him,
and he sneaked away from work to tell them improbable stories
of sea-faring and horse-trading and bears. The children's parents
either laughed at him or hated him. He was the one democrat in
town. He called both Lyman Cass the miller and the Finn home-
steader from Lost Lake by their first names. He was known as
"The Red Swede," and considered slightly insane.

Bjornstam could do anything with his hands — solder a pan,
weld an automobile spring, soothe a frightened filly, tinker a
clock, carve a Gloucester schooner which magically went into
a bottle. Now, for a week, he was commissioner general of Gopher
Prairie. He was the only person besides the repairman at Sam
Clark's who understood plumbing. Everybody begged him to look
over the furnace and the water-pipes. He rushed from house to
house till after bedtime — ten o'clock. Icicles from burst water-
pipes hung along the skirt of his brown dogskin overcoat; his
plush cap, which he never took off in the house, was a pulp of ice
and coal-dust; his red hands were cracked to rawness; he chewed
the stub of a cigar.

Main Street, 1920

13. Don Carlos Taft

HAMLIN GARLAND

Don Carlos Taft was a singular and powerful figure, as I have
already indicated, a stoic, of Oriental serenity, one who could
smile in the midst of excruciating pain. With his eyes against a
blank wall he was able to endlessly amuse himself by calling up
the deep-laid concepts of his earlier years of study. Though affected
with some obscure spinal disorder which made every movement"
a punishment, he concealed his suffering, no matter how intense
it might be, and always answered, "Fine, fine!" when any of us
asked "How are you to-day?"

364

He lived in Woodlawn, Illinois, as he had lived in Kansas, like
a man in a diving bell. His capacious brain filled with "knowledges'*
of the days when Gladstone was king and Darwin an outlaw, had
little room for the scientific theories of Bergson and his like.
He remained the old-fashioned New England theologian con-
verted to militant agnosticism.

Although at this time over seventy years of age his mind was
notably clear, orderly and active, and his talk (usually a carefully
constructed monologue) was stately, formal and precise. He used
no slang, and retained scarcely a word of his boyhood's vernacular.
The only emotional expression he permitted himself was a chuckle
of glee over an intellectual misstatement or a historical bungle.
Novels, theaters, music possessed no interest for him.

He had read, I believe, one or two of my books but never alluded
to them, although he manifested a growing respect for my ability
to earn money, and especially delighted in my faculty for living
within my means. He watched the slow growth of my income with
approving eyes. To him as to my father, earning money was a
struggle, saving it a virtue, and wasting it a crime.

A Daughter of the Middle Border, 1921

14. Mrs. Harling

WILLA GATHER

Grandmother often said that if she had to live in town, she
thanked God she lived next the Harlings. They had been farming
people, like ourselves, and their place was like a little farm, with
a big barn and a garden, and an orchard and grazing lots, — even
a windmill. The Harlings were Norwegians, and Mrs. Harling
had lived in Christiania until she was ten years old. Her husband
was born in Minnesota. He was a grain merchant and cattle buyer,
and was generally considered the most enterprising business man
in our county. He controlled a line of grain elevators in the little
towns along the railroad to the west of us, and was away from
home a great deal. In his absence his wife was the head of the
household. >i

Mrs. Harling was short and square and sturdy-looking, like her
house. Every inch of her was charged with an energy that made
itself felt the moment she entered a room. Her face was rosy and

365

solid, with bright, twinkling eyes and a stubborn little chin. She
was quick to anger, quick to laughter, and jolly from the depths of
her soul. How well I remember her laugh; it had in it the same
sudden recognition that flashed into her eyes, was a burst of humor,
short and intelligent. Her rapid footsteps shook her own floors,
and she routed lassitude and indifference wherever she came. She
could not be negative or perfunctory about anything. Her en-
thusiasm, and her violent likes and dislikes, asserted themselves
in all the every-day occupations of life. Wash-day was interesting,
never dreary, at the Harlings'. Preserving-time was a prolonged
festival, and house-cleaning was like a revolution. When Mrs.
Harling made garden that spring, we could feel the stir of her
undertaking through the willow hedge that separated our place
from hers.

\iy Antonia, 1918

15. Essie

RUTH SUCKOW

She made motions that . . . seemed almost crazily fantastic.
And her appearance was almost as weird as her manner. Essie
made her own clothes, and she still wore a modification of the
waists and skirts of her girlhood. In her own feeling about her-
self, she could never permit herself to get really beyond that time.
There was a fantastic, superannuated youthfulness now about her
whole appearance. Gray had gradually encroached upon the whole
mass of her hair, but she still wore the brown sidecombs and the
great bone hairpins to match its remnants of faded color. Her old
archness had changed from a mere slight silliness, at which "the
young people" secretly laughed, into a weird exaggeration that to
Jesse, in the clean youthfulness of his vision, was almost horrible in
its contrast to the kind of starved, shining, fearful valiance he dis-
cerned in her eyes. But to Dorothy, although it was "sort of funny"
and she was a little troubled, this was just Essie Bartlett. This
manner was only the gradually developed, provincial accentuation
of Essie's "way."

The Folf(st 1934

366

Episodes in the Gnat Valley

1. Girl Hunting

CAROLINE KIRKLAND

Lifting the sooty curtain with some timidity, I found [Dame
Lowndes] with a sort of reel before her, trying to wind some dirty,
tangled yarn; and ever and anon kicking at a basket which hung
suspended from the beam overhead by means of a strip of hickory
bark. This basket contained a nest of rags and an indescribable
baby; and in the ashes on the rough hearth played several dingy
objects, which I suppose had once been babies.

"Is your daughter at home now, Mrs. Lowndes?"

"Well, yes! M'randy's to hum, but she's out now. Did you want
her?"

"I came to see if she could go to Mrs. Larkins, who is very un-
well and sadly in want of help."

"Miss Larkins! why, do tell! I want to know! Is she sick agin?
and is her gal gone? Why! I want to know! I thought she had
Lo-i-sy Paddon! Is Lo-i-sy gone?"

"I suppose so. You will let Miranda go to Mrs. Larkins, will
you?"

"Well, I donnow but I would let her go for a spell, just to 'com-
modate 'em. M'randy may go if she's a mind ter. She needn't live
out unless she chooses. She's got a comfortable home, and no thanks
to no-body. What wages do they give?"

"A dollar a week."

"Eat at the table?"

"Oh! certainly."

"Have Sundays?"

"Why no — I believe not the whole of Sunday — the children, you
know — "

"Oh ho!" interrupted Mrs. Lowndes with a most disdainful toss
of the head, giving at the same time a vigorous impulse to the
cradle, "if that's how it is, M'randy don't stir a step! She don't
live nowhere if she can't come home Saturday night and stay till
Monday morning." . . .

My next effort was at a pretty-looking cottage, whose overhang-
ing roof and neat outer arrangements spoke of English ownership.

367

The interior by no means corresponded with the exterior aspect,
being even more bare than usual and far from neat. The presiding
power was a> prodigious creature, who looked like a man in
women's clothes and whose blazing face, ornamented here and
there by great hair moles, spoke very intelligibly of the beer-barrel,
if of nothing more exciting. A daughter of this virago had once
lived in my family; and the mother met me with an air of defiance,
as if she thought I had come with an accusation. When I unfolded
my errand, her manner softened a little, but she scornfully rejected
the idea of her Lucy's living with any more Yankees.

"You pretend to think everybody alike," said she, "but when it
comes to the pint, you're a sight more uppish and saasy than the
ra'al quality at home; and I'll see the whole Yankee race to — " . . .

So I passed on for another effort at Mrs. Randall's, whose three
daughters had sometimes been known to lay aside their dignity
long enough to obtain some much-coveted article of dress. Here
the mop was in full play; and Mrs. Randall, with her gown turned
up, was splashing diluted mud on the walls and furniture. . . .
I did not venture in, but asked from the door, with my best di-
plomacy, whether Mrs. Randall knew of a girl.

"A gal! No; who wants a gal?"

"Mrs. Larkins."

"She! Why don't she get up and do her own work?"

"She is too feeble."

''Law sakes! too feeble! She'd be as able as anybody to thrash
round, if her old man didn't spile her by waitin' on."

We think Mr. Larkins deserves small blame on this score.

"But, Mrs. Randall, the poor woman is really ill, and unable to
do anything for her children. Couldn't you spare Rachel for a few
days to help her?"

This was said in a most guarded and deprecatory tone, and with
a manner carefully moulded between indifference and undue so-
licitude.

"My gals has got enough to do. They a'n't able to do their own
work. Cur'line hasn't been worth the fust red cent for hard work
ever since she went to school at Albion."

"Oh! I did not expect to get Caroline. 1 understand she is going
to get married."

"What! to Bill Greene! She wouldn't let him walk where she
walk'd last year!"

Here I saw I had made a misstep. Resolving to be more cautious,
I left the selection to the lady herself, and only begged for one of

the girls. But my eloquence was wasted. The Miss Randalls had
been a whole quarter at a select school and will not live out again
until their present stock of finery is unwearable. Miss Rachel, whose
company I had hoped to secure, was even then paying attention
to a branch of the fine arts.

"Rachel Amandy!" cried Mrs. Randall at the foot of the ladder
which gave access to the upper regions, — "fetch that thing down
here. It's the prettiest thing you ever see in your life!" turning to
me. And the educated young lady brought down a doleful-looking
compound of cardboard and many-coloured wafers, which had, it
seems, occupied her mind and fingers for some days.

"There!" said the mother, proudly, "a gal that's learnt to make
sich baskets as that, a'n't a goin* to be nobody's help, I guess!"

I thought the boast likely to be verified as a prediction, and
went my way, crestfallen and weary. Girl-hunting is certainly
among our most formidable "chores."

"Half-Lengths from Life," in The Gift for i

2. A Theater on the Ohio

SOL. SMITH

I have said the young men of the company who preceded us in
our downward course were to display a flag as a signal to us when-
ever they had "taken a town." One day we discovered a white
handkerchief flying at the end of a pole on the river-bank, where
there was not a house (much less a town) to be seen. We obeyed
the signal and pulled to the shore. . . . Before we reached the land
we were hailed from the top of a high bluff — "Halloo! the boat! Pull
ashore; this is the town you are to stop at; your actors are up at
my house waiting for you!" The person who spoke soon came
down to us, and, sure enough, we found we were advertised to
perform that same night at Lewiston. "Yes," continued the man,
whose name was Cartwright, "it's all fixed — look at the bills posted
on the trees — you'll have a good house; the citizens are delighted
with your visit." . . . But no town could we see. "Oh, you are look-
ing for the houses! Bless ye, they are not built yet; but we shall
have some splendid buildings shortly. . . . Oh, Lewiston is des-
tined to be a place." Thus spoke our guide and landlord as he

369

drove his little wagon through the but partially cleared paths
toward his house.

We arrived at length, and found our party very comfortably
situated in a double log cabin, which was literally covered with
playbills, which playbills most respectfully announced to the in-
habitants of Lewiston and vicinity that Mr. Sol. Smith and his
dramatic company would perform on such an evening the comic
opera of the POOR SOLDIER, with the afterpiece of LOVERS' QUARRELS.
I scarcely knew what to think of the whole proceeding. An audience
seemed to me out of the question. Where they were to come from
I could not imagine. "Come up and look at the theater," invitingly
spoke the landlord, when he had introduced our wives to his wife.
I followed him up stairs. "You see we have fitted up this room
pretty neatly," said he — and so they had. The room was twelve by
sixteen, and the scenery and curtain were rigged up in one end of
it — while three large benches represented tKe boxes and pit.
Whether it was all a joke, or whether the man was mad, I did not
stop to inquire, for dinner was announced, and there was "no
mistake" in that; it was a first-rate one. . . .

Dinner over, we soon found it was really expected we should
play, for the audience began to assemble from every direction —
the men and women all coming on horseback. An unexpected dif-
ficulty now presented itself — there was not a candle in the town
— that is, in the house! What was to be done? Night was coming
on; we could not act in the dark, that was certain. The landlord
hit upon an expedient at last. He tore up some linen, of which he
made wicks, and, rolling them in tallow, soon made six decent
candles. He thereupon took half a dozen large potatoes, and, bor-
ing holes in them, converted them into candlesticks, placing them
on the floor in front of the curtain for foot-lights! He next called
his neighbors up to the bar by proclamation, and told them the
box-office was open. In ten- minutes they were all supplied with
tickets (mostly on a credit), and he proceeded to open the doors
— acting himself as door-keeper — informing all who entered that
checks were not transferable, and no smoking was allowed in any
part of the theater — "and, gentlemen, no admission behind the
scenes under any pretense whatever!" When our audience was
seated, he announced the fact to us, and admonished us that the
curtain was advertised to rise at "eight o'clock precisely."

In our narrow quarters, a change of dress, after we once entered
the theater, was not to be thought of — there was no getting to the
dressing-rooms without passing among the auditors, there being

37°

but one door to the room. So Norah and Leonora, being played by
the same person, wore the same dress; and so with the other char-
acters— Patric^ and Carlos, Darby and Sancho, Father Luke and
Lopez, Kathleen and Jacinta, etc. Mr. Cartwright was enthusiastic
in his applause, declaring to his friends and neighbors that the
performances were nearly equal to those at the Park — only in the
latter establishment, he was free to admit, the scenery and decora-
tions were a shade better than those of the Lewiston theater. The
benches being all occupied, he squatted himself down by the po-
tato foot-lights, and, at intervals, amused himself by snuffing the
candles. At length, one by one, the lights began to give out, and
we were in danger of being left in total darkness! Observing the
state of affairs, I thought it time to bring the farce to a close, which
I did by cutting LOVERS' QUARRELS rather short, reconciling the
parties in the middle of the piece, and speaking the "tag." Down
came the curtain, and out went the last candle! The potatoes were
all tenantless; so was the room in a few minutes, the auditors mak-
ing their way down stairs the best way they could, highly delighted
with their entertainment. Mr. Cartwright and his worthy wife soon
raised a sort of lamp, constructed out of a piece of twisted linen and
some hog's lard in a saucer, and after listening to our landlord's
critical remarks on the whole performance and discussing an ex-
cellent supper, we retired for the night.

Theatrical Management in the West and South, 1868

3. Corner Lots

EDWARD EGGLESTON

Mr. Plausaby spread his "Map of Metropolisville" on the table,
let his hand slip gently down past the "Depot Ground" so that the
fat gentleman saw it without seeming to have had his attention
called to it; then Plausaby, Esq., looked meditatively at the ground
set apart for "College" and seemed to be making a mental calcu-
lation. Then Plausaby proceeded to unfold the many advantages
of the place, and Albert was a pleased listener; he had never before
suspected that Metropolisville had prospects so entirely dazzling. He
could not doubt the statements of the bland Plausaby, who said
these things in a confidential and reserved way to the fat gentle-
man. Charlton did not understand but Plausaby did, that what is

37r

told in a corner to a fat gentleman with curly hair and a hopeful
nose is sure to be repeated from the house-tops.

"You are an Episcopalian, I believe?" said Plausaby, Esq. The fat
gentleman replied that he was a Baptist.

"Oh! well, I might have known it from your cordial way of
talking. Baptist myself, in principle. In principle, at least. Not a
member of any church, sorry to say. Very sorry. My mother and
my first wife were both Baptists. Both of them. I have a very warm
side for the good old Baptist church. Very warm side. And a warm
side for every Baptist. Every Baptist. To say nothing of the feeling
I have always had for you — well, well, let us not pass compliments.
Business is business in this country. In this country, you know. But
I will tell you one thing. The lot there marked 'College' I am just
about transferring to trustees for a Baptist university. There are
two or three parties, members of Dr. Armitage's church in New
York City, that are going to give us a hundred thousand dollars
endowment. A hundred thousand dollars. Don't say anything about
it. There are people who — well, who would spoil the thing if they
could. We have neighbors, you know. Not very friendly ones. Not
very friendly. Perritaut, for instance. It isn't best to tell one's neigh-
bor all one's good luck. Not all one's good luck," and Plausaby,
Esq., smiled knowingly at the fat man, who did his best to screw
his very transparent face into a crafty smile in return. "Besides,"
continued Squire Plausaby, "once let it get out that the Baptist
University is going to occupy that block, and there'll be a great
demand — "

"For all the blocks around," said the eager fat gentleman, grow-
ing impatient at Plausaby's long-windedness.

"Precisely. For all the blocks around," went on Plausaby. "And I
want to hold on to as much of the property in this quarter as — "

"As you can, of course," said the other.

"As I can, of course. As. much as I can, of course. But I'd like
to have you interested. You are a man of influence. A man of
weight. Of weight of character. You will bring other Baptists. And
the more Baptists, the better for — the better for — "

"For the college, of course."

"Exactly. Precisely. For the college, of course. The more, the
better. And I should like your name on the board of trustees of
-of-"

"The college?"

"The university, of course. I should like your name."

The fat gentleman was pleased at the prospect of owning land

372

near the Baptist University, and doubly pleased at the prospect of
seeing his name in print as one of the guardians of the destiny of
the infant institution. He thought he would like to buy half of
block 26.

"Well, no. I couldn't sell in 26 to you or any man. Couldn't sell
to any man. I want to hold that block because of its slope. I'll sell
in 28 to you, and the lots there are just about as good. Quite as
good. Quite as good, indeed. But I want to build on 26."

The fat gentleman declared that he wouldn't have anything but
lots in 26. That block suited his fancy, and he didn't care to buy
if he could not have a pick.

"Well, you're an experienced buyer, I see," said Plausaby, Esq.
"An experienced buyer. Any other man would have preferred 28
to 26. But you're a little hard to insist on that particular block. I
want you here, and I'll give you half of 28 rather than sell you out
of 26."

"Well, now, my friend, I am sorry to seem hard. But I fastened
my eye on 26. 1 have a fine eye for direction and distance. One, two,
three, four blocks from the public square. That's the block with
the solitary oak-tree in it, if I'm right. Yes? Well, I must have
lots in that very block. When I take a whim of that kind, heaven
and earth can't turn me, Mr. Plausaby. So you'd just as well let
me have them."

Plausaby, Esq., at last concluded that he would sell to the plump
gentleman any part of block 26 except the two lots on the south-
east corner. But that gentleman said that those were the very two
he had fixed his eyes upon. . . . He always took his very pick out
of each town.

"Well," said Mr. Plausaby coaxingly, "you see I have selected
those two lots for my step-daughter. For little Katy. She is going
to get married next spring, I suppose, and I have promised her
the two best in the town, and I had marked off these two. Marked
them off for her. I'll sell you lots alongside, nearly as good, for
half-price. Just half-price."

But the fat gentleman was inexorable. Mr. Plausaby complained
that the fat gentleman was hard, and the fat gentleman was pleased
with the compliment. Having been frequently lectured by his
wife for being so easy and gull^le, he was now eager to believe
himself a very Shylock. Did not like to rob little Kate of her mar-
riage portion, he said, but he must have the best or none. He
wanted the whole south half of 26.

And so Mr. Plausaby sold him the corner-lot and the one next to

373

it for ever so much more than their value, pathetically remarking
that he'd have to hunt up some other lots for Kate. And then Mr.
Plausaby took the fat gentleman out and showed him the identical
corner, with the little oak and the slope to the south.

The Mystery of Metropolisville, 1873

4. Among the Free Lovers

ARTEMUS WARD

Some years ago I pitched my tent and onfurled my banner to the
breeze in Berlin Hites, Ohio. I had hearn that Berlin Hites was
ockepied by a extensive seek called Free Lovers, who beleeved in
affinertys and sich, goin back on their domestic ties without no
hesitation whatsomever. They was likewise spirit rappers and high-
presher reformers on gineral principles. If I can improve these 'ere
misgided peple by showin them my onparalleld show at the usual
low price of admitants, methunk, I shall not hav lived in vane!
But bitterly did I cuss the day I ever sot foot in the retchid place. I
sot up my tent in a field near the Love Cure, as they called it, and
bimeby the free lovers begun for to congregate around the door.
A ornreer set I have never sawn. The men's faces was all covered
with hare, and they lookt half-starved to deth. They didn't wear
no weskuts, for the purpuss (as they sed) of allowin the free air
of hevun to blow onto their buzzums. Their pockets was filled
with tracks and pamplits, and they was bare-footed. They sed the
Postles didn't wear boots, £ why should they? That was their stile
of argyment. The wimin was wuss than the men. They wore
trowsis, short gownds, straw hats with green ribbins, and all car-
ried bloo cotton umbrellers*.

Presently a perfeckly orful lookin female presented herself at the
door. Her gownd was skanderlusly short, and her trowsis was
shameful to behold.

She eyed me over very sharp, and then startin back she sed, in
a wild voice:

"Ah, can it be?"

"Which?" said I.

"Yes, 'tis troo, O 'tis troo!"

"15 cents, marm," I anserd.

She bust out a cry in & sed:

374

"And so I hav found you at larst — at larst, O at larst!"

"Yes," I anserd, "you have found me at larst, and you would
have found me at fust, if you had cum sooner."

She grabd me vilently by the coat collar, and brandishin her um-
breller wildly round, exclaimed:

"Air you a man?"

Sez I, "I think I air, but if you doubt it, you can address Mrs. A.
Ward, Baldinsville, Injianny, postage pade, & she will probly giv
you the desired informashun."

"Then thou ist what the cold world calls marrid?"

"Madam, I istest!"

The exsentric female then clutched me franticly by the arm and
hollerd :

"You air mine, O you air mine!"

"Scacely," I sed, endeverin to git loose from her. But she clung
to me and sed:

"You air my Affinerty!"

"What upon arth is that?" I shouted.

"Dost thou not know?"

"No, I dostent!"

"Listin, man, & I'll tell ye!" sed the strange female; "for years
I hav yearned for thee. I knowd thou wast in the world, sumwhares,
tho I didn't know whare. My hart sed he would cum and I took
courage. He has cum — he's here — you air him — you air my Af-
finerty! O 'tis too mutch! too mutch!" and she sobbed agin.

"Yes," I anserd, "I think it is a darn site too mutch!"

"Hast thou not yearned for me?" she yelled, ringin her hands
like a female play acter.

"Not a yearn!" I bellerd at the top of my voice, throwin her
away from me.

The free lovers who was standin roun obsarvin the scene com-
menst for to holler "shame!" "beast!" etsettery, etsettery.

I was very much riled, and fortifyin myself with a spare tent
stake, I addrest them as follers: "You pussy lanermus critters, go
way from me and take this retchid woman with you. I'm a law-
abidin man, and bleeve in good, old-fashioned institutions. I'm
marrid & my orfsprings resemble me, if I am a showman. I think
your Affinity bizniss is cussed noncents, besides bein outrajusly
wicked. Why don't you behave desunt like other folks? Go to work
and earn a honist livin, and not stay round here in this lazy, shift-
less way, pizenin the moral atmosphere with your pescifrous idees!
You wimin folks, go back to your lawful husbands if you've got

375

any, and take orf them skanderlous gownds and trowsis, and dress
respectful, like other wimin. You men folks, cut orf them pirattercal
whiskers, burn up them infurnel pamplits, put sum weskuts on, go
to work choppin wood, splittin fence rales, or tillin the sile." I
pored 4th my indignashun in this way till I got out of breth, when
I stopt. I shant go to Berlin Hites agin, not if I live to be as old as
Methooseler.

Artemus Ward: His Boo\, 1862

5. Hallowe'en

SHERWOOD ANDERSON

It was the custom among the lads of our town, particularly among
those who lived on the farms near town, to make cabbages part of
their celebration of [Hallowe'en]. Such lads, living as 'they did in
the country, had the use of horses and buggies, and on Hallowe'en
they hitched up and drove off to town.

On the way they stopped at the cabbage fields and, finding in
some of the fields many cabbages yet uncut, pulled them out by
the roots and piled them in the backs of their buggies.

The country lads, giggling with anticipated pleasure, drove into
one of the quieter residence streets of our town and, leaving the
horse standing in the road, one of them got out of the buggy and
took one of the cabbages in his hand. The cabbage had been pulled
out of the ground with the great stalklike root still clinging to it
and the lad now grasped this firmly. He crept toward one of the
houses, preferably one that was dark — an indication that the
people of the house, having spent a hard day at labor, had already
gone to bed. Approaching, the house cautiously, he swung the
cabbage above his head, holding it by the long stalk, and then he
let it go. The thing was to just hurl the cabbage full against the
closed door of the house. It struck with a thunderous sound and
the supposition was that the people of the house would be startled
and fairly lifted out of their beds by the hollow booming noise,
produced when the head of cabbage landed against the door and,
as a matter of fact, when a stout country boy had hurled the
cabbage the sound produced was something quite tremendous.

The cabbage having been thrown the country boy ran quickly
into the road, leaped into his buggy and, striking his horse with

376

the whip, drove triumphantly away. He was not likely to return
unless pursued, and there it was that mother's strategy came into

play.

On the great night she made us all sit quietly in the house.
As soon as the evening meal was finished the lights were put
out and we waited while mother stood just at the door, the knob
in her hand. No doubt it must have seemed strange to the boys of
our town that one so gentle and quiet as mother could be so
infuriated by the hurling of a cabbage at the door of our house.

But there was the simple fact of the situation to tempt and
darkness had no sooner settled down upon our quiet street than
one of the lads appeared. It was worth while throwing cabbages
at such a house. One was pursued, one was scolded, threats were
hurled: "Don't you dare come back to this house! I'll have the
town marshal after you, that's what I'll do! If I get my hands on
one of you I'll give you a drubbing!" There was something of the
actor in mother also.

What a night for the lads! Here was something worth while
and all evening the game went on and on. The buggies were not
driven to our house, but were stopped at the head of the street, and
town boys went on pilgrimages to cabbage fields to get ammuni-
tion and join in the siege. Mother stormed, scolded, and ran out
into the darkness waving a broom while we children stayed indoors,
enjoying the battle — and when the evening's sport was at an end,
we all fell to and gathered in the spoils. As she returned from each
sally from the fort mother had brought into the house the last
cabbage thrown — if she could find it; and now, late in the evening
when our provident tormentors were all gone, we children went
forth with a lantern and got in the rest of our crop. Often as many
as two or three hundred cabbages came our way and these were all
carefully gathered in. They had been pulled from the ground, with
all the heavy outer leaves still clinging to them, so that they were
comparatively uninjured and, as there was also still attached to
them the heavy stalklike root, they were in fine shape to be
kept. A long trench was dug in our back yard and the cabbages
buried, lying closely side by side, as I am told the dead are usually
buried after a siege.

Perhaps indeed we were somewhat more careful with them than
soldiers are with their dead after a battle. Were not the cabbages
to be, for us, the givers of life? They were put into the trench care-
fully and tenderly with the heads downward and the stalks
sticking up, mother supervising, and about each head straw was

377

carefully packed — winding sheets. One could get straw from a straw-
stack in a near-by field at night, any amount of it, and one did
not pay or even bother to ask.

When winter came quickly, as it did after Hallowe'en, mother
got small white beans from the grocery and salt pork from the
butcher, and a thick soup, of which we never tired, was concocted.
The cabbages were something at our backs. They made us feel safe.

A Story Idler's Story, 1924

6. First Blood

ROBERT HERRICK

I was getting only twenty dollars a week, and no rosy prospects.
My little schemes of making sausages on a large scale and kosher
meat had been turned down. I stowed them away in my mind for
future use. Meantime, after working at the Yards for nearly two
years, I had managed to lay by about a thousand dollars, what
with my savings when I was at the Enterprise. That thousand
dollars was in a savings-bank downtown, and it made me restless
to think that it was drawing only three and a half per cent, when
chances to make big money were going by me all the time just
out of my grasp. I kept turning over and over in my mind how I
might use that thousand and make it breed money. There were lively
times then on the Board of Trade. Nothing much was done in the
stock market in Chicago in those early days, but when a man
wanted to take his flyer he went into pork or grain. I used to hear
more or less about what was being done on the Board of Trade
from Dick Pierson, who had been promoted from scrubbing black-
boards to a little clerkship in the same office, which operated on
the Board.

Dick had grown to be a sallow-faced, black-mustached youth
who had his sisters' knack of smart dressing, and a good deal of
mouth. He was always talking of the deals the big fellows were
carrying, and how this man made fifty thousand dollars going
short on lard and that man had his all take.i away from him in the
wheat pit. He was full of tips that he had picked up in his office —
always fingering the dice, so to speak, but without the cash to
make a throw. Dick knew that I had some money in the bank, and
he was ever at me to put it up on some deal on margin. Slocum
used to chaff him about his tips, and I didn't take his talk very

378

seriously. It was along in the early summer of my third year at
Dround's when Dick began to talk about the big deal Strauss was
running in pork. Pork was going to twenty dollars a barrel, sure.
According to Dick, all any one had to do to make a fortune was to
get on the train now. This time his talk made some impression on
me; for the boys were saying the same thing over in the office at
the Yards. I thought of asking Carmichael about it, but I suspected
John might lie to me and laugh to see the "kid" robbed. So I said
nothing, but every time I had occasion to go by the bank where I
kept my money it seemed to call out to me to do something. And
I was hot to do something! I had about made up my mind after
turning it over for several weeks, to make my venture in Strauss's
corner. Pork was then selling about seventeen dollars a barrel,
and there was talk of its going as high as twenty-five dollars by the
October delivery.

It happened that the very day I made up my mind to go down to
the city and draw out my money I was in the manager's office
talking to him about one of our small customers. Carmichael was
opening his mail and listening to me. He would rip up an envelope
and throw it down on his desk, then let the letter slide out of his
fat hand, and pick up another. I saw him grab one letter in a
hurry. On the envelope, which was plain, was printed JOHN CAR-
MICHAEL in large letters. As he tore open the enclosure I could
see that it was a broker's form, and printed in fat capitals beneath
the firm name was the word SOLD, and after it a written item that
looked like pork. As Carmichael shoved this slip of paper back in
the envelope I took another look and was sure it was pork. I
went out of the office thinking to myself: "Carmichael isn't buying
any pork this trip: he's selling. What does that mean?"

As I have said, the manager had charge of those private agree-
ments with which the trade was kept together. In this way he
came in contact with all our rivals, and among them the great
Strauss. After thinking for a time, it was clear to me that the
Irishman had some safe inside information about this deal which
Dick did not have, nor any one else on the street. That afternoon
when I could get off I went down to the bank and drew my money.
At first I thought I would take five hundred dollars and have
something left in the bank in case I was wrong on my guess. But
the nearer I got to the bank the keener I was to make all I could.
I took the thousand and hurried over to the office on La Salle
Street, where Dick worked. I beckoned him out of the crowd in
front of the board and shoved my bunch of money into his hand.

379

"I want you to sell a thousand barrels of pork for me," I said.

"Gee!" Dick whistled, "you've got nerve. What makes you
want to go short of pork?"

"Never you mind," I said; "go on and tell your boss to sell, and
there's your margin."

"I'll have to speak to the old man himself about this," Dick re-
plied soberly. "This ain't any market to fool with."

"Well, if he don't want the business there are others."

Dick disappeared into the back office, and I had to wait some
time. Presently a fat little smooth-shaven man shoved his head
through the door and looked me over for a moment with a grin on
his face. I suppose he thought me crazy, but he didn't object to
taking my money all the same.

"All right," he called out with another grin, "we'll take his deal."
And Dick came out from the door and told me in a big voice: —

"All right, old man! We sell a thousand for yo'u."

When I got out into the street I wasn't as sure of what I had
done as I had been when I went into the broker's office; but I had
too much nerve to admit that I wished I had my money back in my
fist. And I kept my courage the next week, while pork hung just
about where it was or maybe went up a few cents. Then it began
to slide back just a little — $i6.871/2, $16.85, $16.80, were the quota-
tions— and so on until it reached $16.50, where it hung for a week.
Then it took up its retreat again until it had slid to an even $16.
Dkk, who congratulated me on my luck, advised me to sell and be
content with doubling my money. Strauss was just playing with
the street, he said. This was only the end of August: by the middle
of September there would be a procession. But my head was set.
To be sure, when, after the first of September, pork began to climb,
I rather wished I had been content with doubling my money. But
I pinned my faith on Carmichael. I didn't believe he was selling
yet. For a fortnight at the -close of September, pork hung about
$16.37%, witn littk variation either way. Then the last three days
of the month, as the time for October deliveries drew near, it began
to sag and dropped to $16.10. I hung on.

It was well for me that I did. October first Strauss began deliver-
ing, and he poured pork into the market by the thousand barrels.
Pork dropped, shot down, and touched $13. One morning I called
at the broker's office and gave the order to buy. I had cleared four
thousand dollars in my deal.

It was first blood!

The Memoirs of an American Citizen, 1905
380

Payton Skah: An Indian Tale

WILLIAM JOSEPH SNELLING

We have before intimated that we cannot pretend to much ac-
curacy with regard to dates. So we are not certain that the events
we are about to relate did not happen five centuries ago, perhaps
more; but it is probable that the time was not so remote. Be that
as it may, we shall give the facts in the same order in which tradi-
tion hands them down.

The Dahcotahs were at war with the Mandans. Many were the
onslaughts they made on each other, and long were they remem-
bered. Among the Sioux warriors who struck the post and took
the war path, none was more conspicuous than Payton Skah or the
White Otter. He belonged to the Yankton band. When he returned
from the field with his head crowned with laurels or more properly
with his bridle rein adorned with Mandan scalps, the seniors of the
tribe pointed to him and exhorted their sons to ride, to draw the
bow, and to strike the enemy like Payton Skah.

Payton Skah was a husband and a father. As soon as he was
reckoned a man and able to support a family, he had taken to his
bosom the young and graceful Tahtokah (The Antelope), thought
to be the best hand at skinning the buffalo, making moccasins,
whitening leather, and preparing marrow fat in the tribe. She was
not, as is common among the Dahcotahs, carried an unwilling or
indifferent bride to her husband's lodge. No, he had lighted his
match in her father's tent and held it before her eyes, and she had
blown it out, as instigated by love to do. And when he had espoused
her in form, her affection did not diminish. She never grumbled
at pulling of? his leggins and moccasins when he returned from the
chase nor at drying and rubbing them till they became soft and
pliant. A greater proof of her regard was that she was strictly
obedient to her mother in law. And Payton Skah's attachment,
though his endearments were reserved for their private hours, was
not less than hers. No woman in the camp could show more wam-
pum and other ornaments than the wife of the young warrior.
He was even several times known, when she had been to bring
home the meat procured by his arrows, to relieve her of a part of
the burthen by taking it upon his own manly shoulders. In due
time, she gave him a son; a sure token that however many more

wives he might see proper to take, he would never put her away.
The boy was the idol of his old grandmother, who could never
suffer him out of her sight a moment and used constantly to
prophesy that he would become a brave warrior and an ex-
pert horse stealer; a prediction that his manhood abundantly veri-
fied.

< In little more than a year the youngster was able to walk erect.
About this time the band began to feel the approach of famine.
Buffaloes were supposed to abound on the river Des Moines, and
thither Payton Skah resolved to go. His mother had cut her foot
while chopping wood and was unable to travel; but she would
not part with her grandchild. Tahtokah unwillingly consented to
leave her boy behind, at the request of her husband. . . . One other
family accompanied them. They soon reached the Des Moines and
encamped on its banks. Many wild cattle were killed, and much
of their flesh was cured. The young wife now reminded her spouse
that his mother must by this time be able to walk and that she
longed to see her child. In compliance with her wishes he mounted
his horse and departed, resolved to bring the rest of the band to
the land of plenty.

At his arrival, his compatriots on his representations packed up
their baggage and threw down their lodges. A few days brought
them to where he had left his wife and her companions. But the
place was desolate. No voice hailed their approach; no welcome
greeted their arrival. The lodges were cut to ribbons, and a bloody
trail marked where the bodies of their inmates had been dragged
into the river. Following the course of the stream, the corpses of
all but Tahtokah were found on the shores and sand-bars. Hers
was missing, but this gave her husband no consolation. He knew
that neither Sioux nor Mandans spared sex or age and supposed
it to be sunk in some eddy of the river. And Mandans, the marks
[which] the spoilers had left behind them proved them to be.

Now Payton Skah was, for an Indian, a kind and affectionate
husband. The Sioux mothers wished their daughters might obtain
partners like him; and it was proverbial to say of a fond couple
that they loved like Payton Skah and Tahtokah. Yet on this occa-
sion, whatever his feelings might have beer., he uttered no sigh, he
shed no tear. But he gave what was, in the eyes of his mates, a
more honorable proof of his grief. He vowed that he would not
take another wife nor cut his hair, till he had killed and scalped
five Mandans. And he filled his quiver, saddled his horse, and
raised the war song immediately. He found followers and departed

382

incontinently. At his return but three obstacles to his second mar-
riage remained to be overcome.

In the course of the year he fulfilled the conditions of his vow.
The five scalps were hanging in the smoke of his lodge, but he
evinced no inclination towards matrimony. On the contrary, his
countenance was sorrowful, he pined away, and every one thought
he was in a consumption. His mother knew his disposition better.
Thinking, not unwisely, that the best way to drive the old love
out of his head was to provide him a new one, she with true
female perseverance compelled him by teasing and clamor to do as
she wished.

So the old woman selected Chuntay Washtay (The Good Heart)
for her son and demanded her of her parents, who were not sorry
to form such a connection. The bride elect herself showed no
alacrity in the matter; but this was too common a thing to excite
any surprise or comment. She was formally made over to Payton
Skah and duly installed in his lodge.

He was not formed by nature to be alone. Notwithstanding the
contempt an Indian education inculcates for the fair sex, he was
as sensible to female blandishments as a man could be. Though
his new wife was by no means so kind as the old one, . . . she
fulfilled the duties of her station with all apparent decorum, [and]
he began to be attached to her. His health improved, he was again
heard to laugh, and he hunted the buffalo with as much vigor as
ever. Yet when Chuntay Washtay, as she sometimes would, raised
her voice higher than was consistent with conjugal affection, he
would think of his lost Tahtokah and struggle to keep down the
rising sigh.

A young Yankton who had asked Chuntay Washtay of her
parents previous to her marriage, and who had been rejected by
them, now became a constant visitor in her husband's lodge. He
came early and staid and smoked late. But as Payton Skah saw
no appearance of regard for the youth in his wife, he felt no
uneasiness. If he had seen what was passing in her mind, he would
have scorned to exhibit any jealousy. He would have proved by
his demeanor that his heart was strong. He was destined ere long
to be more enlightened on this point.

His mother was gone with his child on a visit to a neighboring
camp, and he was left alone with his wife. It was reported that
buffaloes were to be found at a little oasis in the prairie, at about
the distance of a day's journey, and Chuntay Washtay desired
him to go and kill one and hang its flesh up in a tree out of the

383

reach of the wolves. "You cannot get back to night," she said, "but
you can make a fire and sleep by it, and return tomorrow. If fat
cows are to be found there we will take down our lodge and move."

The White Otter did as he was desired. His wife brought his
beautiful black horse, which he had selected and stolen from a
drove near the Mandan village, to the door of the lodge. He threw
himself on its back and having listened to her entreaties that he
would be back soon, rode away.

His gallant steed carried him to the place of his destination with
the speed of the wind. The buffaloes were plenty, and in the space
of two hours he had killed and cut up two of them. Having hung
the meat upon the branches, he concluded that, as he had got some
hours of daylight, he would return to his wife. He applied the lash
and arrived at the camp at midnight.

He picketed his horse carefully and bent his way to his own lodge.
All was silent within, and the dogs, scenting their master, gave
no alarm. He took up a handful of dry twigs outside the door and
entered. Raking open the coals in the center of the lodge he laid on
the fuel, which presently blazed and gave a bright light. By its
aid he discovered a spectacle that drove the blood from his heart
into his face. There lay Chantay Washtay, fast asleep by the side
of her quondam lover. Payton Skah unsheathed his knife and stood
for a moment irresolute; but his better feelings prevailing, he re-
turned it to its place in his belt and left the lodge without awaken-
ing them. Going to another place he laid himself down, but not
to sleep.

But when the east began to be streaked with grey, he brought
his horse, his favorite steed, to the door of the tent. Just as he
reached it those within awoke, and the paramour of Chantay Wash-
tay came forth and stood before him. He stood still. Fear of the fa-
mous hunter and renowned warrior kept him silent. Payton Skah in
a stern voice commanded him to re-enter; and when he had obeyed
followed him in. The guilty wife spoke not, but covered her face
with her hands, till her husband directed her to light a fire and
prepare food. She then rose and hung the earthen utensil over the
fire, and the repast was soon ready. At the command of Payton
Skah she placed a wooden platter or bowl before him and another
for his unwilling guest. This last had now arrived at the conclusion
that he was to die and had screwed up his courage to meet his fate
with the unshrinking fortitude of an Indian warrior. He ate, there-
fore, in silence but without any sign of concern. When the repast
was ended Payton Skah produced his pipe, filled the bowl with

384

tobacco mixed with the inner bark of the red willow and, after
smoking a few whirls himself, gave it to the culprit. Having passed
from one to the other till it was finished, the aggrieved husband
ordered his wife to produce her clothing and effects and pack them
up in a bundle. This done he rose to speak.

"Another in my place," he said to the young man, "had he de-
tected you as I did last night, would have driven an arrow through
you before you awoke. But my heart is strong, and I have hold
of the heart of Chantay Washtay. You sought her before I did,
and I see she would rather be your companion than mine. She is
yours; and that you may be able to support her, take my horse,
and my bow and arrows also. Take her and depart, and let peace
be between us."

At this speech the wife, who had been trembling lest her nose
should be cut off, and her lover, who had expected nothing less than
death, recovered their assurance and left the lodge. Payton Skah
remained, and, while the whole band was singing his generosity,
brooded over his misfortunes in sadness and silence.

Notwithstanding his boast of the firmness of his resolution, his
mind was nearly unsettled by the shock. He had set his whole
heart upon Tahtokah, and when the wound occasioned by her loss
was healed, he had loved Chantay Washtay with all his might. . . .

Though one of the bravest of men, his heart was as soft as a
woman's, in spite of precept and example. At this second blight of
his affections, he fell into a settled melancholy; and one or two
unsuccessful hunts convinced him that he was a doomed man, an
object of the displeasure of God, and that he need never more look
for any good fortune. A post dance, at which the performers
alternately sung their exploits, brought this morbid state of feeling
to a crisis. Like the rest, he recounted the deeds he had done and
declared that to expiate the involuntary offense he had committed
against the Great Spirit, he would go to the Mandan village and
throw away his body. All expostulation was vain; and the next
morning he started on foot and alone to put his purpose in execution.

He travelled onward with a heavy heart, and the eighth evening
found him on the bank of the Missouri, opposite the Mandan
village. He swam the river, and saw the lights shine through the
crevices, and heard the dogs bark at his approach. Nothing dis-
mayed, he entered the village, and promenaded through it two
or three times. He saw no man abroad and, impatient of delay,
entered the principal lodge. Within he found two women, who
spoke to him; but he did not answer. He threw his robe over his

385

face and sat down in a dark corner, intending to nwait the en-
trance of some warrior by whose hands he might honorably die,
The women addressed him repeatedly but could not draw from
him any reply. Finding him impenetrable, they took no further
notice but continued their conversation as if no one had been present,
Had they known to what tribe he belonged they would have fled
in terror; but they supposed him to be a Mandan. He gathered
from it that the men of the village were all gone to the buffalo
hunt and would not return till morning. Most of the females were
with them. Here then, was an opportunity to wreak his vengeance
on the tribe such as had never before occurred and would probably
never occur again. But he refrained in spite of his Indian nature,
He had not come to kill any one as on former occasions but to lay
down his own life; and he remained constant in his resolution.

If it be asked why the Mandans left their village in this de-
fenceless condition, we answer that Indian camps are frequently
left in the same manner. Perhaps they relied on the broad and
rapid river to keep ofT any roving band of Dahcotahs that might
come thither. Payton Skah sat in the lodge of his enemies till the
tramp of a horse on the frozen earth and the jingling of the little
bells round his neck announced that a warrior had returned from
the hunt. Then the White Otter prepared to go to whatever lodge
the Mandan might enter and die by his arrows or tomahawk
But he had no occasion to stir. The horseman rode straight to the
lodge in which he sat, dismounted, threw his bridle to a squaw,
and entered. The women pointed to their silent guest and related
how unaccountably he had behaved. The new comer turned tc
Payton Skah and asked who and what he was. Then the Yankton,
like Caius Marcius within the walls of Corioli, rose, threw off his
robe, and drawing himself up with great dignity, bared his breast
and spoke. "I am a man. Of that, Mandan, be assured. Nay, more:
I am a Dahcotah, and my name is Payton Skah. You have heard
it before. I have lost friends and kin by the arrows of your people,
and well have I revenged them. See, on my head I wear ten feathers
of the war eagle. Now it is the will of the Master of life that 1
should die, and to that purpose came I hither. Strike therefore, and
rid your tribe of the greatest enemy it ever had."

Courage, among the aborigines as charity among Christians,
covereth a multitude of sins. The Mandan warrior cast on his
undaunted foe a look in which respect, delight, and admiration
were blended. He raised his war club as if about to strike, but the
Sioux blenched not; not a nerve trembled — his eyelids did not quiver.

386

The weapon dropped from the hand that held it. The Mandan tore
open his own vestment, and said, "No, I will not kill so brave
a man. But I will prove that my people are men also. I will not
be outdone in generosity. Strike thou; then take my horse and 'fly."

The Sioux declined the offer and insisted upon being himself the
victim. The Mandan was equally pertinacious; and this singular
dispute lasted till the latter at last held out his hand in token of
amity. He commanded the women to prepare a feast, and the two
generous foes sat down and smoked together. The brave of the
Missouri accounted for speaking the Dahcotah tongue by saying
that he was himself half a Sioux. His mother had belonged to that
tribe and so did his wife, having both been made prisoners. In the
morning Payton Skah should see and converse with them. And
the Yankton proffered, since it did not appear to be the will of the
Great Spirit that he should die, to become the instrument to bring
about a firm and lasting peace between the two nations.

In the morning the rest of the band arrived and were informed
what visitor was in the village. The women screamed with rage
and cried for revenge. The men grasped their weapons and rushed
tumultuously to the lodge to obtain it. A great clamor ensued.
The Mandan stood before the door, declaring that he would
guarantee the rights of hospitality with his life. His resolute de-
meanor, as well as the bow and war club he held ready to make
his words good, made the impression he desired. The Mandans
recoiled, consulted, and . . . decided that Payton Skah must be
carried as a prisoner to the council lodge, there to abide the result
of their deliberations.

Payton Skah, indifferent to whatever might befall him, walked
proudly to the place appointed in the midst of a guard of Mandans.
. . . The preliminary of smoking over, the consultation did not
last long. His new friend related how the prisoner had entered
the village, alone and unarmed save with his knife; how he had
magnanimously spared the women and children when at his
mercy; and how he had offered to negotiate a peace between the
two tribes. Admiration of his valor overcame the hostility of the
Mandans. Their hatred vanished like snow before the sun; and it
was carried by acclamation that he should be treated as became
an Indian brave and dismissed in safety and with honor.

At this stage of proceedings a woman rushed into the lodge, broke
through the circle of stern and armed warriors, and threw herself
into the arms of the Dahcotah hero. It was Tahtokah, his first, his
best beloved! He did not return her caresses, [for] that would have

387

derogated from his dignity; but he asked her how she had escaped
from the general slaughter at the Des Moines, and who was her
present husband.

She pointed to the Mandan to whom he had offered his breast.
He it was, she said, who had spared her and subsequently taken
her to wife. He now advanced and proposed to Payton Skah to
become his \odali, or comrade, and to receive his wife back again;
two propositions to which [he] gladly assented. For according to
the customs of the Dahcotahs, a wife may be lent to one's kodah
without any impropriety.

The Mandans devoted five days to feasting the gallant Yankton.
At the end of that time he departed with his recovered wife, taking
with him three horses laden with robes and other gifts bestowed
on him by his late enemies. His kodah accompanied him half way
on his return, . . . and at parting received his promise that he
would soon return. We leave our readers to imagine the joy of
Tahtokah at seeing her child again on her arrival among the Sioux,
as well as the satisfaction of the tribe at hearing that its best man
had returned from his perilous excursion alive and unhurt. In
less than two months, Payton Skah was again among the Mandans
with six followers, who were hospitably received and entertained.
An equal number of Mandans accompanied them on their return
home, where they experienced like treatment. As the intercourse
between the tribes became more frequent, hostilities were discon-
tinued; and the feelings that prompted them were in time for-
gotten. The peace brought about as above related has continued
without interruption to this day. As to Payton Skah, he recovered
his health and spirits, was successful in war and the chase, and
was finally convinced that the curse of the Almighty had departed
from him.

Tales of the Northwest, 1830

388

Spelling Down tke Master

EDWARD EGGLESTON

Every family furnished a candle. There were yellow dips and
white dips, burning, smoking, and flaring. There was laughing,
and talking, and giggling, and simpering, and ogling, and flirting,
and courting. What a full-dress party is to Fifth Avenue, a spelling-
school is to Hoopole County. It is an occasion which is meta-
phorically inscribed with this legend: "Choose your partners."
Spelling is only a blind in Hoopole County, [Indiana,] as is danc-
ing on Fifth Avenue. But as there are some in society who love
dancing for its own sake, so in Flat Creek district there were those
who loved spelling for its own sake and who, smelling the battle
from afar, had come to try their skill in this tournament, hoping
to freshen the laurels they had won in their school-days.

"I 'low," said Mr. Means, speaking as the principal school trustee,
"I 'low our friend the Square is jest the man to boss this 'ere consarn
to-night. Ef nobody objects, I'll app'int him. Come, Square, don't
be bashful. Walk up to the trough, fodder or no fodder, as the
man said to his donkey."

There was a general giggle at this, and many of the young
swains took occasion to nudge the girls alongside them, ostensibly
for the purpose of making them see the joke but really for the pure
pleasure of nudging. The Greeks figured Cupid as naked, probably
because he wears so many disguises that they could not select a
costume for him.

The Squire came to the front. Ralph made an inventory of the
agglomeration which bore the name of Squire Hawkins, as follows :

1. A swallow-tail coat of indefinite age, worn only on state oc-
casions, when its owner was called to figure in his public capacity.
Either the Squire had grown too large or the coat too small.

2. A pair of black gloves, the most phenomenal, abnormal, and
unexpected apparition conceivable in Flat Creek district, where
the preachers wore no coats in the summer, and where a black glove
was never seen except on the hands of the Squire.

3. A wig of that dirty, waxen color so common to wigs. This one
showed a continual inclination to slip off the owner's smooth, bald
pate, and the Squire had frequently to adjust it. As his hair had
been red, the wig did not accord with his face, and the hair un-

grayed was doubly discordant with a countenance shrivelled by age.

4. A semicircular row of whiskers hedging the edge of the jaw
and chin. These were dyed a frightful dead-black, such a color as
belonged to no natural hair or beard that ever existed. At the roots
there was a quarter of an inch of white, giving the whiskers the
appearance of having been stuck on.

5. A pair of spectacles with tortoise-shell rim. Wont to slip off.

6. A glass eye, purchased of a peddler, and differing in color from
its natural mate, perpetually getting out of focus by turning in or
out.

7. A set of false teeth, badly fitted, and given to bobbing up and
down.

8. The Squire proper, to whom these patches were loosely at-
tached.

It is an old story that a boy wrote home to his father begging him
to come West, because "mighty mean men get into office out here."
But Ralph concluded that some Yankees had taught school in
Hoopole County who would not have held a high place in the
educational institutions of Massachusetts. Hawkins had some New
England idioms, but they were well overlaid by a Western pro-
nunciation.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he began, shoving up his spectacles and
sucking his lips over his white teeth to keep them in place, "ladies
and gentlemen, young men and maidens, raley I'm obleeged to Mr,
Means fer this honor;" and the Squire took both hands and turned
the top of his head round half an inch. Then he adjusted his spec-
tacles. Whether he was obliged to Mr. Means for the honor of being
compared to a donkey was not clear. "I feel in the inmost compart-
ments of my animal spirits a most happifying sense of the success
and futility of all my endeavors to sarve the people of Flat Creek
deestrick and the people of Tomkins township, in my weak way and
manner." This burst of eloquence was delivered with a constrained
air and an apparent sense of a danger that he, Squire Hawkins,
might fall to pieces in his weak way and manner. . . . For by this
time the ghastly pupil of the left eye, which was black, was look-
ing away round to the left, while the little blue one on the right
twinkled cheerfully toward the front. The front teeth would drop
down so that the Squire's mouth was kept nearly closed, and his
words whistled through.

"I feel as if I could be grandiloquent on this interesting occasion,"
twisting his scalp round, "but raley I must forego any such exertions.
It is spelling you want. Spelling is the corner-stone, the grand,

39°

underlying subterfuge, of a good eddication. I put the spellin'-
book prepared by the great Daniel Webster alongside the Bible. I
do, raley. I think I may put it ahead of the Bible. For if it wurn't
fer spellin '-books and sich occasions as these, where would the Bible
be? I should like to know. The man who got up, who compounded
this work of inextricable valoo was a benufactor to the whole
human race or any other." Here the spectacles fell off. The Squire
replaced them in some confusion, gave the top of his head another
twist, and felt of his glass eye, while poor Shocky stared in wonder,
and Betsey Short roiled from side to side in the effort to suppress her
giggle. Mrs. Means and the other old ladies looked the applause
they could not speak.

"I app'int Larkin Lanham and Jeems Buchanan fer captings,"
said the Squire. And the two young men thus named took a stick
and tossed it from hand to hand to decide which should have the
"first choice." One tossed the stick to the other, who held it fast
just where he happened to catch it. Then the first placed his hand
above the second, and [thus] the hands were alternately changed
to the top. The one who held the stick last without room for the
other to take hold had gained the lot. This was tried three times.
As Larkin held the stick twice out of three times, he had the choice.
He hesitated a moment. Everybody looked toward tall Jim Phillips.
But Larkin was fond of a venture on unknown seas and so he said,
"I take the master," while a buzz of surprise ran round the room
and the captain of the other side, as if afraid his opponent would
withdraw the choice, retorted quickly, and with a little smack of
exultation and defiance in his voice, "And / take Jeems Phillips."

And soon all present, except a few of the old folks, found them-
selves ranged in opposing hosts, the poor spellers lagging in, with
what grace they could, at the foot of the two divisions. The Squire
opened his spelling-book and began to give out the words to the
two captains, who stood up and spelled against each other. It was
not long till Larkin spelled "really" with one I, and had to sit down
in confusion, while a murmur of satisfaction ran through the ranks
of the opposing forces. His own side bit their lips. The slender
figure of the young teacher took the place of the fallen leader,
and the excitement made the house very quiet. Ralph dreaded the
loss of prestige he would suffer if he should be easily spelled down.
[Therefore he] listened carefully to the words which the Squire did
not pronounce very distinctly, spelling them with extreme delibera-
tion. This gave him an air of hesitation which disappointed those
on his own side. They wanted him to spell with a dashing assurance.

391

But he did not begin a word until he had mentally felt his way
through it. After ten minutes of spelling hard words, Jeems
Buchanan, the captain of the other side, spelled "atrocious" with an
s instead of a c, and subsided, his first choice, Jeems Phillips, coming
up against the teacher. This brought the excitement to fever-heat.
For though Ralph was chosen first, it was entirely on trust, and most
of the company were disappointed. The champion who now stood
up against the schoolmaster was a famous speller.

Jim Phillips was a tall, lank, stoop-shouldered fellow who had
never distinguished himself in any other pursuit than spelling.
Except in this one art of spelling he was of no account. He could
not catch well or bat well in ball. He could not throw well enough
to make his mark in that famous Western game of bull-pen. He
did not succeed well in any study but that of Webster's Elementary.
But in that he was — to use the usual Flat Creek locution — in that
he was "a hoss." This genius for spelling is in some people a sixth
sense, a matter of intuition. Some spellers are born and not made,
and their facility reminds one of the mathematical prodigies that
crop out every now and then to bewilder the world. Bud Means,
foreseeing that Ralph would be pitted against Jim Phillips, had
warned his friend that Jim could "spell like thunder and lightning,"
and that it "took a powerful smart speller" to beat him, for he
knew "a heap of spelling-book." To have "spelled down the
master" is next thing to having whipped the biggest bully in
Hoopole County, and Jim had "spelled down" the last three
masters. He divided the hero-worship of the district with Bud
Means.

For half an hour the Squire gave out hard words. What a blessed
thing our crooked orthography is! Without it there could be no
spelling-schools. As Ralph discovered his opponent's mettle he be-
came more and more cautious. He was now satisfied that Jim would
eventually beat him. The fellow evidently knew more about the
spelling-book than old Noah Webster himself. As he stood there,
with his dull face and long sharp nose, his hands behind his back,
and his voice spelling infallibly, it seemed to Hartsook that his
superiority must lie in his nose. Ralph's cautiousness answered a
double purpose; it enabled him to tread surely, and it was mistaken
by Jim for weakness. Phillips was now confident that he should
carry off the scalp of the fourth schoolmaster before the evening was
over. He spelled eagerly, confidently, brilliantly. Stoop-shouldered
as he was, he began to straighten up. In the minds of all the com-
pany the odds were in his favor. He saw this and became ambitious

392

to distinguish himself by spelling without giving the matter any
thought.

Ralph . . . did not take hold until he was sure of his game.
When he took hold, it was with a quiet assurance of success. As
Ralph spelled in this dogged way for half an hour the hardest
words the Squire could find, the excitement steadily rose in all parts
of the house, and Ralph's friends even ventured to whisper that
"maybe Jim had cotched his match, after all!"

But Phillips never doubted of his success.

"Theodolite," said the Squire.

"T-h-e, the, o-d, od, theod, o, theodo, 1-y-t-e, theodolite," spelled
the champion.

"Next," said the Squire, nearly losing his teeth in his excitement.
Ralph spelled the word slowly and correctly, and the conquered
champion sat down in confusion. The excitement was so great for
some minutes that the spelling was suspended. Everybody in the
house had shown sympathy with one or the other of the com-
batants. . . .

"Gewhilliky crickets! Thunder and lightning! Licked him all to
smash!" said Bud, rubbing his hands on his knees. "That beats
my time all holler!" And Betsey Short giggled until her tuck-comb
fell out, though she was on the defeated side. Shocky got up and
danced with pleasure. . . .

"He's powerful smart, is the master," said old Jack to Mr. Pete
Jones. "He'll beat the whole kit and tuck of 'em afore he's through.
I know'd he was smart. That's the reason I tuck him," proceeded
Mr. Means.

"Yaas, but he don't lick enough. Not nigh," answered Pete Jones.
"No lickin', no larnin', says I."

It was now not so hard. The other spellers on the opposite side
went down quickly under the hard words which the Squire gave
out. The master had mowed down all but a few, his opponents
had given up the battle, and all had lost their keen interest in a
contest to which there could be but one conclusion, for there were
only the poor spellers left. But Ralph Hartsook ran against a
stump where he was least expecting it. It was the Squire's custom,
when one of the smaller scholars or poorer spellers rose to spell
against the master, to give out eight or ten easy words, that they
might have some breathing-spell before being slaughtered, and
then to give a poser or two which soon settled them. He let them
run a little, as a cat does a doomed mouse. There was now but
one person left on the opposite side, and, as she rose in her blue

393

calico dress, Ralph recognized Hannah, the bound girl at old Jack
Means's. She had not attended school in the district, and had never
spelled in spelling-school before, and was chosen last as an uncer-
tain quantity. The Squire began with easy words of two syllables,
from that page of Webster, so well known to all who ever thumbed
it, as "baker," from the word that stands at the top of the page. She
spelled these words in an absent and uninterested manner. As
everybody knew that she would have to go down as soon as this
preliminary skirmishing was over, everybody began to get ready
to go home, and already there was the buzz of preparation. Young
men were timidly asking girls if "they could see them safe home,"
which was the approved formula, and were trembling in mortal fear
of "the mitten." Presently the Squire, thinking it time to close
the contest, pulled his scalp forward, adjusted his glass eye, which
had been examining his nose long enough, and turned over the
leaves of the book to the great words at the place known to spellers
as "incomprehensibility," and began to give out those "words of
eight syllables with the accent on the sixth." Listless scholars now
turned round, and ceased to whisper, in order to be in at the
master's final triumph. But to their surprise "ole Miss Meanses*
white nigger," as some of them called her in allusion to her slavish
life, spelled these great words with as perfect ease as the master.
Still not doubting the result, the Squire turned from place to place
and selected all the hard words he could find. The school became
utterly quiet; the excitement was too great for the ordinary buzz.
Would "Meanses' Manner" beat the master? Beat the master that
had laid out Jim Phillips? Everybody's sympathy was now turned
to Hannah. Ralph noticed that even Shocky had deserted him, and
that his face grew brilliant every time Hannah spelled a word.
In fact, Ralph deserted himself. As he saw the fine, timid face of
the girl so long oppressed flush and shine with interest, as he looked
at the rather low but broad and intelligent brow and the fresh,
white complexion and saw the rich, womanly nature coming to
the surface under the influence of applause and sympathy — he did
not want to beat. If he had not felt that a victory given would insult
her, he would have missed intentionally. The bulldog, the stern,
relentless setting of the will, had gone, he knew not whither. And
there had come in its place, as he looked in that face, a something
which he did not understand. . . .

The Squire was puzzled. He had given out all the hard words
in the book. He again pulled the top of his head forward. Then
he wiped his spectacles and put them on. Then out of the depths

394

of his pocket he fished up a list of words just coming into use in
those days — words not in the spelling-book. He regarded the paper
attentively with his blue right eye. His black left eye meanwhile
fixed itself in such a stare on Mirandy Means that she shuddered
and hid her eyes in her red silk handkerchief.

"Daguerreotype?" sniffed the Squire. It was Ralph's turn.

"D-a-u, dau "

"Next."

And Hannah spelled it right.

Such a buzz followed that Betsey Short's giggle could not be
heard, but Shocky shouted: "Hanner beat! my Hanner spelled down
the master!" And Ralph went over and congratulated her. . . .

And then the Squire called them to order, and said: "As our
friend Hanner Thomson is the only one left on her side, she will
have to spell against nearly all on t'other side. I shall therefore take
the liberty of procrastinating the completion of this interesting and
exacting contest until to-morrow evening. I hope our friend Hanner
may again carry off the cypress crown of glory. There is nothing
better for us than healthful and kindly simulation."

Hoosier Schoolmaster, 1871

395

The Meanest Man in Spring County

JOSEPH KIRKLAND

Ephraim [Prouder] wanted [his son] Zury to marry, but it was
with "a sharp eye to the main chance." Property and personal
service at no wages might both be secured by a judicious choice.
Girls were not plenty, but at the Peddicombs' there were three of
marriageable age. Their place was only three miles from Prouder's,
and they were still the nearest neighbors. Mrs. Peddicomb had not
long survived the birth of her three daughters. She died (as was
and is common among farmers' wives) at not much over thirty
years of age, just when her life ought to have bejsn in its prime.

She was called a "Come-gals kind of a woman" by neighbors;
partly in ridicule of her enthusiasm, and partly in admiration of
her energy. It was told of her that she would get up before light on
Monday, "fly 'raound," uncover the fire, hang on the kettle, and
call up the ladder to the loft, —

"Come gals! Dew git up 'n' start in! To-day's Monday, to-
morrow's Tuesday, 'n' next day's Wednesday; 'n' then comes Thurs-
day, Friday, 'n' Saturday, — the hull week gone 'n' nothin' done."

The two younger girls had been cared for by the oldest, and so
had retained some girlish freshness and delicacy, but as for Mary
(the caretaker after her mother's death), she was "good-looking"
only because she looked good.

On this marriage subject Ephraim took occasion to speak to Zury.

"Mary Peddicomb, she's a likely gal."

"Mary? Why not S'manthy 'n' Flory?"

"Oh, yes; they're all right tew. Th' ol' man he's got th' best part
rf a section. Some stawk, tew; 'n' th' haouse 'n' barn's fust rate."

"Ya-as. Ef th' haouse 'n' barn worn't so good he'd have more
>tawk th't 'd pay him right smart better'n th' haouse 'n' barn dooz."

"Peddicomb ain't like t' marry ag'in. Mary she'll have her sheer."

"Any more'n th' others?"

"Oh, no. All same. But I reck'n Mary she'd be more of a manager.
She kin work. I've watched her ever sence she wuz knee-high to a
tioppy-toad, 'n' / tell ye she kin work!"

"Ef ye mean more manageable ye mought's well say so."

"Wai, I dew 'llaow she'd be full 's little likely t' be uppish 's th'
Dthers."

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"Ye 'llaow 't humbly and humble goes t'gether?"

"Wai, yes; 'mongst the wimmin folks, substantially. Nothin' sets
'em so bad up 's bein' ha'ans'm. Spiles 'em fer use abaout the place.
Th' humbly ones take t' milkin' more willin' like; 'n' I don't see
but what the caows give daown tew 'em full 's well 's tew the
ha'ans'm ones. 'N' then when ther' looks goes the' 're apt t' kick."

"What, the caows?"

"No, the wimmin."

("Humbly" in country parlance is a corruption of "homely," the
opposite of handsome; plain, ungainly. "Humbly as a hedge fence.")

Zury pondered on this shrewd counsel from time to time, but
took no step toward marrying.

"Right smart o' things t' think on afore th' '11 be any hurry
'baout a-gittin' marr'd. Th' feller th't 's in an orfle sweat t' marry, he
's li'ble t' be the very feller th't 's behind-hand with everythin' else.
Takes Time by the forelock 'baout gittin' a wife; 'n' by the fetlock
'baout gittin' suthin' fer her t' eat."

The boy was wedded to his idols quite as faithfully, if not quite
so sordidly, as was his father. Their dispositions were much alike.
No draft on their powers of endurance and self-denial could be too
great.

As to niggardliness, there was a confessed rivalry between them.
Each would tell of the money-making and money-saving exploits
of the other, and of his efforts to surpass them.

"Dad's a screamer t' save money! D' ye ever see him withe a
plaow-pint ontew a plaow? Give him a hickory grub, 'n' he kin
dew it so it'll run a good half a day; 'n' then withe it on agin in
noon-spell whilst th' team 's a eatin', 'n' then withe it on agin come
night so 's t' be ready fer nex' morn'n', 'n' keep it up fer a week
that-a-way, sonner 'n pay th' smith a cent t' rivit it fast."

"Thasso, thasso, Zury. Hickory twigs is cheaper ner iron any day."

"Ya-as, dad; but then I kin make a shillin' while ye 're a savin'
a cent. Look at it wunst. I upped 'n' sold the smith a half an acre,
'n' took a mortgage on it, 'n' made him dew all aour repairin' b'
way of interest on the mortgage, 'n' then foreclosed th' mortgage
when it come dew, 'n' got th' land back, shop 'n' all. Business is
business!"

Ephraim always wanted to buy at the shop where they wrapped up
the purchases with the largest and strongest paper and twine, and
the harnesses on the farm gradually grew to be largely composed of
twine. Zury could buy everything at wholesale, half price, includ-
ing merchandise, paper, twine, harnesses, and all.

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One day Zury came across a poor little boy carrying a poorer little
puppy and crying bitterly.

"What 's tlje matter, sonny?"

"Our folks gimme a dime t' draownd this h'yer purp, 'n' I — I —
I— hate t' dew it."

"Wai, ne' mind, bub; gimme the dime 'n' I'll draownd him fer

ye."

Whereupon he took the cash and the pup and walked to the mill-
pond, while the boy ran home. Zury threw the little trembling
creature as far as he could into the pond. A few seconds of wildly
waving small ears, legs, and tail, and then a splash, and then
nothing but widening ripples. But out of one of the ripples is poked
a little round object, which directs itself bravely toward the shore.
Nearer and nearer struggles the small black nozzle, sometimes
under water, and sometimes on top, but always nearer.

"Ye mis'able, ornery little fyce, ye! Lemme ketch ye swimmin'
ashore! I'll throw ye furder nex' time."

At last poor little roly-poly drags itself to the land and squats
down at the very water's edge, evidently near to the end of its
powers. Zury picks it up and swings it for a mighty cast, but stops
and studies it a moment.

"Looks fer all the world like a sheep-dawg-purp."

Whereupon he slipped it into his pocket and carried it home,
where it grew up to be a fit mate to old Shep, and the ancestress of
a line of sheep dogs which ornament Spring County to this day.

Later, when the same boy, grown older, applied to Zury for
one of the pups, he charged him the full price, fifty cents, took all
he had, thirty-six cents, and his note on interest for the balance, the
dog being pledged as security. The note being unpaid when due,
Zury took back the dog. "Business is business!"

Years passed, and it came time for the old man to be gathered
to his fathers and the son to reign in his stead. When Ephraim lay
on his deathbed, he whispered to Zury: —

"What day 's to-day?"

"Tuesday, father."

"I hope I'll live ontel Thursday, 'n' then ye kin hev the fun'rl
Sunday, 'n' not lose a day's work with the teams."

He did not die till Saturday night, but Zury had the funeral on
Sunday all the same, like a dutiful son as he was, bent on carrying
out his father's last request.

After Zury had grown to be a prosperous farmer, Chicago be-
came the great market for the sale of grain. Teams by the score

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would start out from far down the State, and, driving during the
day and camping at night, make the long journey. They would go
in pairs or squads so as to be able to double teams over the bad
places. Forty or fifty bushels could thus be carried in one load,
when the chief parts of the roads were good, and "the ready John"
(hard cash), could be got for the grain, at twenty or thirty cents
a bushel for corn or wheat. This sum would provide a barrel or
two of salt, and perhaps a plow and a bundle of dry goods and
knickknacks for the women folks, the arrival of which was a great
event in the lonely farm-houses.

Zury had now working for him (beside Jule, who kept house
and attended to the live stock), a young fellow who became a
score of years afterward private, corporal, sergeant, lieutenant, and
captain in the — th Illinois Volunteer Infantry in the great war.
From his stories, told in bivouacs and beside camp fires, to toiling,
struggling, suffering "boys in blue," these tales are taken almost
verbatim. (Some of them have already found their way into
print.)

"Zury always wanted to get onto the road with farmers whose
housekeeping was good, because his own was — well, wuss th'n what
we git down here in Dixie, an' there 's no need of that. Well, when
they'd halt for noon-spell, Zury he 'd happen along promiscuous-
like, an' most generally some of 'em would make him stop an'
take a bite. He was good company if he was so near. 'N' then a
man's feed warn't counted fer much, unless it was some store-truck
or boughten stuff.

"But one day they jest passed the wink and sot it up on him,
and come noon-spell nobody asked Zury an' me to eat. Zury left
me to take care of both teams while he walked up and down the
line of wagins. Everybody who hadn't 'jest eat,' warn't 'quite ready'
yet, an' by the next time he came to those who hadn't been 'quite
ready,' they'd 'jest eat.'

"Wai, Zury swallered his disappointment and I swallered all the
chawed wheat I could git away with, and the first settlement we
passed Zury went and bought a monstrous big bag of sody-crackers,
and we eat them for supper and breakfast. And still we were not
happy.

"Next noon-spell Zury said, 'Boys, s'posin' we kinder whack up
'n' mess together.' Wai, the others 'd had enough of their joke, and
so they all agreed, and chipped in. Ham, pickles, pies, cakes, honey,
eggs, apples, and one thing another. Ye see every man's o' woman
knew that when they got together, her housekeep would be com-

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pared with everybody else's; so these long drives were like donation
parties, or weddings, or funerals, — well fed.

"Of course, Zury's sody-crackers went in with the rest, an' me an'
Zury always ate some anyhow for appearance sake. I could see the
fellers were all makin' fun of Zury's cute dodge of gettin' a dozen
good meals for him an' me at the price of a few pounds of sody-
crackers. But then, they did n't know Zury so well as they thought
they did. By an' by the trip was done an' settlin'-up-time came,
when each man was called on for his share of pasturage, ferriage,
an' one thing another. Zury paid his, but he deducted out twenty-
five cents paid for sody-crackers. Said it was one of the cash outlays
for the common good, an' if any of the rest of 'em spent money an'
did n't put it in, more fools they. Business is business."

So Zury in the soda-cracker episode came out "top of the heap"
as usual. The top of the heap was his accustomed place, but still
he perceived that he was living under one useless disability, and,
with his quick adaptation of means to ends and remedies to de-
ficiencies, he simply — married. In doing this, he was guided by his
father's shrewd words; counsel which had lain fallow in his
memory for years.

Zury's marriageability had, of course, not been unobserved in the
household of the three daughters. Peddicomb had remarked what
a good "outin' " the Prouders had made in their purchase of swine
from him, and cherished the same kind of feeling toward them
that most of us experience when some other person has done better
in a joint transaction than we did.

"Them Praouders, the' '11 skin outer the land all the' kin skin,
V then sell offen the place all 't anybody '11 buy, 'n' then feed t'
the hawgs all a hawg '11 eat, 'n' then give th' rest t' th' dawg, 'n'
then what th' dawg won't tech the' '11 live' on theirselves."

"Yew bet," tittered Samantha, the second. "That thar ornery Zury
Praouder he'd let a woman 'starve t' death ef he could. 'N' o' man
Praouder wuz th' same way, tew. Th' o' woman she wuz near
abaout skin 'n' bone when the' buried her. I seen her in her coffin,
'n' I know."

"Oh, don't yew be scaret, S'manthy. I hain't saw Zury a-lookin*
over t' your side o' the meetin'-haouse, no gre't," kindly rejoined
Flora, the youngest daughter.

"Who, me? He knows better! Not ef husbands wuz scarcer ner
hen's teeth."

"Six hundred 'n' forty acres o' good land, all fenced 'n' paid fer;
'n' a big orchard; 'n' all well stocked, tew." (He added this with

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a pang, remembering once more the pig-purchase, which by this
time had grown to a mighty drove, spite of many sales.)

"Don't care ef he owned all ou' doors. Th' more the' Ve got, th'
more it shows haow stingy the' be."

Then the meek Mary ventured a remark.

"Mebbe ef Zury wuz t' marry a good gal it 'd be the makin' on
him."

"Oh, Mary, yew hain't no call t' stan' up fer Zury! Th' o' man
he 'd a ben more in yewr line."

"No, Zury would n't want me, ner no other man, I don't expect,"
she answered with a laugh — and a sigh.

One Sunday afternoon Zury rode over to Peddicomb's to get a
wife. He tried to decide which girl to ask, but his mind would
wander of? to other subjects, — crops, live stock, bargains, invest-
ments. He did n't much think that either girl he asked would say
no, but if she did, he could ask the others. When he came near the
house he caught sight of one of the girls, in her Sunday clothes,
picking a "posy" in the "front garding." It was Mary.

"Good day, Mary. Haow 's all the folks?"

"Good day, Zury — Mr. Praouder, I s'pose I should say. Won't
ye light?"

"Wai, I guess not. I jes' wanted t' speak abaout a little matter."

"Wai, father he 's raoun' some 'ers. Haow 's the folks t' your 'us?"

"All peart; that is t' say th' ain't no one naow ye know, but me 'n*
Jule 'n' Mac. That makes a kind of a bob-tail team, ye know, Mary.
Nobody but Jule t' look out fer things. Not b't what he 's a pretty
fair of a nigger as niggers go. He c'd stay raoun' 'n' help some
aoutsidc."

"Whatever is he a-drivin' at?" thought Mary, but she said nothing.

"The's three of you gals to hum. Ye don't none of ye seem t' go
off yit, tho' I sh'd a-thought Flory she 'd a-ben picked up afore this,
'n' S'manthy tew fer that matter."

Neither of them saw the unintended slur this rough speech cast
upon poor Mary.

"Don't ye think we 'd better git married, Mary?"

"What, me?"

"Wai, yes." He answered this in a tone where she might have
detected the suggestion, "Or one of your sisters," if she had been
keen and critical. But she was neither. She simply rested her work-
worn hand upon the gate post and her chin upon her hand, and
looked dreamily off over the prairie. She pondered the novel
proposition for some time, but fortunately not quite long enough

401

to cause Zury to ask if either of her sisters was at home, as he was
quite capable of doing.

She looked up at him, the blood slowly mounting to her face,
and considered how to say yes. He saw that she meant yes, so he
helped her out a little. He wanted to have it settled and go.

"Wai, Mary, silence gives consent, they say. When shall it be?"

"Oh, yew ain't in no hurry, Zury, I don't expect."

He was about to urge prompt action, but the thought occurred to
him that she must want to get her "things" ready, and the longer
she waited the more "things" she would bring with her. So he
said: —

"Suit yerself, Mary. I'll drop over 'n' see ye nex' Sunday, 'n' we 11
fix it all up."

Mary had no objection to urge, though possibly in her secret
heart she wished there had been a little more sentiment and ro-
mance about it. No woman likes "to be cheated out of her wooing,"
but then this might come later. He called for her with the wagon
on the appointed day, and they drove to the house of a justice of the
peace who lived a good distance away. This was not for the sake
of making 'a wedding trip, but because this particular justice owed
Zury money, as Zury carefully explained.

And so Mary went to work for Zury very much as Jule did, only
it was for less wages, as Jule got a dollar a month besides his board
and clothes, while Mary did not.

For a year or two or three after marriage (during which two
boys were born to them) Zury found that he had gained, by this
investment, something more than mere profit and economy — that
affection and sympathy were realities in life. But gradually the old
dominant mania resumed its course, and involved in its current
the weak wife as well as the strong husband. The general verdict
was that both Zury and Mary were "jest 'as near 's they could stick
'n' live." "They 'd skin a flea fer its hide 'n' taller."

"He gin an acre o' graound fer the church 'n' scule-house, 'n'
it raised the value of his hull farm more 'n' a dollar an acre. 'N'
when he got onto the scule-board she 'llaowed she had n't released
her daower right, 'n' put him up t' tax the deestrick fer the price of
that same acre o' ground."

So Zury, claiming the proud position of "the meanest ma-an in
Spring Caounty," would like to hear his claim disputed. If he had
a rival he would like to have him pointed out, and would "try
pootty hard but what he 'd match him."

Strange as it may seem, these grasping characteristics did not

402

make Zury despised or even disliked among his associates. His
"meanness" was not underhanded.

"Th' ain't nothin' mean abaout Zury, mean 's he is. Gimme a man
as sez right aout 'look aout fer yerself,' 'n' I kin git along with him.
It 's these h'yer sneakin' fellers th't 's one thing afore yer face 'n'
another behind yer back th't I can't abide. Take ye by th' beard
with one hand 'n' smite ye under th' fifth rib with t' other! He
pays his way 'n' dooz 's he 'grees every time. When he buys 'taters
o' me, I 'd jest 's live 's hev him measure 'em 's measure 'em myself
with him a-lookin' on. He knows haow t' trade, 'n' ef yew don't,
he don't want ye t' trade with him, that 's all; ner t' grumble if ye
git holt o' the hot eend o' th' poker arter he 's give ye fair notice.
Better be shaved with a sharp razor than a dull one."

On an occasion when the honesty of a more pretentious citizen
was compared with Zury's to the advantage of the latter, he said: —

"Honest? Me? Wai, I guess so. Fustly, I would n't be noth'n'
else, nohaow; seck'ndly, I kin 'flford t' be, seein' 's haow it takes a
full bag t' stand alone; thirdly, I can't 'fford t' be noth'n' else, coz
honesty 's th' best policy."

He was evidently quoting, unconsciously but by direct inheritance,
the aphorisms of his fellow Pennsylvanian, Dr. Franklin.

In peace as in war strong men love foemen worthy of their
steel. Men liked to be with Zury and hear his gay, shrewd talk; to
trade with him, and meet his frankly brutal greed. He enjoyed his
popularity, and liked to do good turns to others when it cost him
nothing. When elected to local posts of trust and confidence he
served the public in the same efficient fashion in which he served
himself, and he was therefore continually elected to school director-
ships and other like "thank 'ee jobs."

Zury: The Meanest Man in Spring County, 1887

403

Colonel Sellers at Home

MARK TWAIN

Bearing Washington Hawkins and his fortunes, the stage-coach
tore out of Swansea at a fearful gait, with horn tooting gaily
and half the town admiring from doors and windows. But it did
not tear any more after it got to the outskirts; it dragged along
stupidly enough, then — till it came in sight of the next hamlet;
and then the bugle tooted gaily again, and again the vehicle went
tearing by the houses. This sort of conduct marked every entry to
a station and every exit from it; and so in those days children grew
up with the idea that stage-coaches always tore and always tooted;
but they also grew up with the idea that pirates went into action
in their Sunday clothes, carrying the black flag in one hand and
pistoling people with the other, merely because they were so
represented in the pictures: but these illusions vanished when
later years brought their disenchanting wisdom. They learned
then that the stage-coach is but a poor, plodding, vulgar thing in
the solitudes of the highway; and that the pirate is only a seedy,
unfantastic "rough," when he is out of the pictures.

Toward evening, the stage-coach came thundering into Hawkeye
with a perfectly triumphant ostentation — which was natural and
proper, for Hawkeye was a pretty large town for interior Missouri.
Washington, very stiff and tired and hungry, climbed out, and
wondered how he was to proceed now. But his difficulty was quickly
solved. Colonel Sellers came down the street on a run and arrived
panting for breath. He said:

"Lord bless you — I'm glad to see you, Washington — perfectly
delighted to see you, my boy! I got your message. Been on the
lookout for you. Heard the stage horn, but had a party I couldn't
shake ofT — man that's got an enormous thing on hand — wants me
to put some capital into it — and I tell you, my boy, I could do
worse, I could do a deal worse. No, now, let that luggage alone;
I'll fix that. Here, Jerry, got anything to do? All right — shoulder
this plunder and follow me. Come along, Washington. Lord,
I'm glad to see you! Wife and the children are just perishing to
look at you. Bless you, they won't know you, you've grown so.
Folks all well, I suppose? That's good — glad to hear that. We're

404

always going to run down and see them, but I'm into so many
operations, and they're not things a man feels like trusting to other
people, and so somehow we keep putting it off. Fortunes in them!
Good gracious, it's the country to pile up wealth in! Here we
are — here's where the Sellers dynasty hangs out. Dump it on the
doorstep, Jerry — the blackest niggro in the state, Washington, but
got a good heart — mighty likely boy, is Jerry. And now I suppose
you've got to have ten cents, Jerry. That's all right — when a man
works for me — when a man — in the other pocket, I reckon —
when a man — why, where the mischief is that portmonnaie! —
when a — well now that's odd — Oh, now I remember, must have
left it at the bank; and b' George I've left my check-book, too —
Polly says I ought to have a nurse — well, no matter. Let me have
a dime, Washington, if you've got — ah, thanks. Now clear out,
Jerry, your complexion has brought on the twilight half an hour
ahead of time. Pretty fair joke — pretty fair. Here he is, Polly!
Washington's come, children! — come now, don't eat him up —
finish him in the house. Welcome, my boy, to a mansion that is
proud to shelter the son of the best man that walks on the ground.
Si Hawkins has been a good friend to me, and I believe I can
say that whenever I've had a chance to put him into a good thing
I've done it, and done it pretty cheerfully, too. I put him into that
sugar speculation — what a grand thing that was, if we hadn't held
on too long!"

True enough; but holding on too long had utterly ruined both
of them; and the saddest part of it was, that they never had had so
much money to lose before, for Sellers's sale of their mule crop
that year in New Orleans had been a great financial success. If
he had kept out of sugar and gone back home content to stick
to mules it would have been a happy wisdom. As it was, he man-
aged to kill two birds with one stone — that is to say, he killed the
sugar speculation by holding for high rates till he had to sell at
the bottom figure, and that calamity killed the mule that laid
the golden egg — which is but a figurative expression and will be
so understood. Sellers had returned home cheerful but empty-
handed, and the mule business lapsed into other hands. The sale
of the Hawkins property by the sheriff had followed, and the
Hawkins hearts been torn to see Uncle Dan'l and his wife pass from
the auction-block into the hands of a negro trader and depart for
the remote South to be seen no more by the family. It had seemed
like seeing their own flesh and blood sold into banishment.

Washington was greatly pleased with the Sellers mansion. It

405

was a two-story-and-a-half brick, and much more stylish than any
of its neighbors. He was borne to the family sitting-room in
triumph by the swarm of little Sellerses, the parents following
with their arms about each other's waists.

The whole family were poorly and cheaply dressed; and the
clothing, although neat and clean, showed many evidences of
having seen long service. The Colonel's "stovepipe" hat was nap-
less and shiny with much polishing, but nevertheless it had an
almost convincing expression about it of having been just pur-
chased new. The rest of his clothing was napless and shiny, too,
but it had the air of being entirely satisfied with itself and blandly
sorry for other people's clothes. It was growing rather dark in the
house, and the evening air was chilly, too. Sellers said:

"Lay off your overcoat, Washington, and draw up to the stove
and make yourself at home — just consider yourself under your
own shingles, my boy — I'll have a fire going, in a jiffy. Light the
lamp, Polly, dear, and let's have things cheerful — just as glad to
see you, Washington, as if you'd been lost a century and we'd
found you again!"

By this time the Colonel was conveying a lighted match into a
poor little stove. Then he propped the stove-door to its place by
leaning the poker against it, for the hinges had retired from busi-
ness. This door framed a small square of isinglass, which now
warmed up with a faint glow. Mrs. Sellers lit a cheap, showy
lamp, which dissipated a good deal of the gloom, and then everybody
gathered into the light and took the stove into close companion-
ship.

The children climbed all over Sellers, fondled him, petted him,
and were lavishly petted in return. Out from this tugging, laugh-
ing, chattering disguise of legs and arms and little faces, the
Colonel's voice worked its way and his tireless tongue ran blithely
on without interruption; and the purring little wife, diligent with
her knitting, sat near at hand and looked happy and proud and
grateful; and she listened as one who listens to oracles and gospels
and whose grateful soul is being refreshed with the bread of life.
By and by the children quieted down to listen ; clustered about their
father, and resting their elbows on his legs, they hung upon his
words as if he were uttering the music of the spheres.

A dreary old haircloth sofa against the wall; a few damaged
chairs; the small table the lamp stood on; the crippled stove —
these things constituted the furniture of the room. There was no
carpet on the floor; on the wall were occasional square-shaped

406

interruptions of the general tint of the plaster which betrayed
that there used to be pictures in the house — but there were none
now. There were no mantel ornaments, unless one might bring
himself to regard as an ornament a clock which never came within
fifteen strokes of striking the right time, and whose hands always
hitched together at twenty-two minutes past anything and traveled
in company the rest of the way home.

"Remarkable clock!" said Sellers, and got up and wound it.
"I've been offered — well, I wouldn't expect you to believe what
I've been offered for that clock. Old Governor Hager never sees
me but he says, 'Come, now, Colonel, name your price — I must
have that clock!' But my goodness, I'd as soon think of selling
my wife. As I was saying to — silence in the court, now, she's begun
to strike! You can't talk against her — you have to just be patient
and hold up till she's said her say. Ah — well, as I was saying,
when — she's beginning again! Nineteen, twenty, twenty-one,
twenty-two, twen — ah, that's all. Yes, as I was saying to old Judge
— go it, old girl, don't mind me. Now how is that ? Isn't that a good,
spirited tone? She can wake the dead! Sleep? Why you might as
well try to sleep in a thunder factory. Now just listen at that.
She'll strike a hundred and fifty, now, without stopping — you'll
see. There ain't another clock like that in Christendom."

Washington hoped that this might be true, for the din was
distracting — though the family, one and all, seemed filled with
joy; and the more the clock "buckled down to her work" as the
Colonel expressed it, and the more insupportable the clatter be-
came, the more enchanted they all appeared to be. When there
was silence, Mrs. Sellers lifted upon Washington a face that beamed
with a child-like pride, and said:

"It belonged to his grandmother."

The look and the tone were a plain call for admiring surprise,
and therefore Washington said — (it was the only thing that offered
itself at the moment) :

"Indeed!"

"Yes, it did, didn't it, father!" exclaimed one of the twins. "She
was my great-grandmother — and George's too; wasn't she, father!
You never saw her, but Sis has seen her, when Sis was a baby —
didn't you, Sis! Sis has seen her most a hundred times. She was
awful deef — she's dead, now. Ain't she, father!"

All the children chimed in, now, with one general Babel of
information about the deceased — nobody offering to read the riot
act or seeming to discountenance the insurrection or disapprove

407

of it in any way — but the head twin drowned all the turmoil and
held his own against the field:

"It's our clock, now — and it's got wheels inside of it, and a
thing that flutters every time she strikes — don't it, father! Great-
grandmother died before hardly any of us were born — she was an
Old-School Baptist and had warts all over her — you ask father
if she didn't. She had an uncle once that was bald-headed and
used to have fits; he wasn't our uncle, I don't know what he was
to us — some kin or another I reckon — father's seen him a thousand
times — hain't you, father! We used to have a calf that et apples
and just chawed up dishrags like nothing, and if you stay here
you'll see lots of funerals— won't he, Sis! Did you ever see a house
afire? I have! Once me and Jim Terry — "

But Sellers began to speak now, and the storm ceased. He
began to tell about an enormous speculation he, .was thinking of
embarking some capital in — a speculation which some London
bankers had been over to consult with him about — and soon he
was building glittering pyramids of coin, and Washington was
presently growing opulent under the magic of his eloquence. But
at the same time Washington was not able to ignore the cold
entirely. He was nearly as close to the stove as he could get, and yet
he could not persuade himself that he felt the slightest heat, not-
withstanding the isinglass door was still gently and serenely glow-
ing. He tried to get a trifle closer to the stove, and the consequence
was, he tripped the supporting poker and the stove-door tumbled
to the floor. And then there was a revelation — there was nothing
in the stove but a lighted tallow candle!

The poor youth blushed and felt as if he must die with shame.
But the Colonel was only disconcerted for a moment — he straight-
way found his voice again:

"A little idea of my own, Washington — one of the greatest things
in the world! You must write and tell your father about it —
don't forget that, now. I have been reading up some European
scientific reports — friend of mine, Count Fugier, sent them to
me — sends me all sorts of things from Paris — he thinks the world
of me, Fugier does. Well, I saw that the Academy of France had
been testing the properties of heat, and they came to the con-
clusion that it was a non-conductor or something like that, and
of course its influence must necessarily be deadly in nervous organi-
zations with excitable temperaments, especially where there is any
tendency toward rheumatic affections. Bless you, I saw in a mo-
ment what was the matter with us, and says I, out goes your

408

fires! — no more slow torture and certain death for me, sir. What
you want is the appearance of heat, not the heat itself — that's the
idea. Well, how to do it was the next thing. I just put my head
to work, pegged away a couple of days, and here you are! Rheuma-
tism? Why a man can't any more start a case of rheumatism in
this house than he can shake an opinion out of a mummy! Stove
with a candle in it and a transparent door — that's it — it has been
the salvation of this family. Don't you fail to write your father
about it, Washington. And tell him the idea is mine— I'm no
more conceited than most people, I reckon, but you know it is
human nature for a man to want credit for a thing like that."

Washington said with his blue lips that he would, but he said
in his secret heart that he would promote no such iniquity. He
tried to believe in the healthfulness of the invention, and succeeded
tolerably well; but after all he could not feel that good health
in a frozen body was any real improvement on the rheumatism.

Two months had gone by and the Hawkins family were domi-
ciled in Hawkeye. Washington was at work in the real-estate
office. . . . Colonel Sellers had asked him several times to dine
with him, when he first returned to Hawkeye, but Washington,
for no particular reason, had not accepted. ... It occurred to
him, now, that the Colonel had not invited him lately — could he
be offended ? He resolved to go that very day, and give the Colonel
a pleasant surprise. . . .

The Sellers family were just starting to dinner when Washing-
ton burst upon them with his surprise. For an instant the Colonel
looked nonplussed, and just a bit uncomfortable; and Mrs. Sellers
looked actually distressed: but the next moment the head of the
house was himself again, and exclaimed:

"All right, my boy, all right — always glad to see you — always
glad to hear your voice and take you by the hand. Don't wait
for special invitations — that's all nonsense among friends. Just come
whenever you can, and come as often as you can — the oftener the
better. You can't please us any better than that, Washington; the
little woman will tell you so herself. We don't pretend to style.
Plain folks, you know — plain folks. Just a plain family dinner,
but such as it is, our friends are always welcome, I reckon you
know that yourself, Washington. Run along, children, run along;
Lafayette, stand off the cat's tail, child, can't you see what you're
doing? Come, come, come, Roderick Dhu, it isn't nice for little

409

boys to hang on to young gentlemen's coat-tails — but never mind
him, Washington, he's full of spirits and don't mean any harm.
Children will be children, you know. Take the chair next to Mrs.
Sellers, Washington — tut, tut, Marie Antoinette, let your brother
have the fork if he wants it, you are bigger than he is."

Washington contemplated the banquet, and wondered if he were
in 'his right mind. Was this the plain family dinner? And was it
all present? It was soon apparent that this was indeed the dinner:
it was all on the table: it consisted of abundance of clear, fresh
water, and a basin of raw turnips — nothing more.

Washington stole a glance at Mrs. Sellers's face, and would
have given the world, the next moment, if he could have spared
her that. The poor woman's face was crimson, and the tears stood
in her eyes. Washington did not know what to do. He wished
he had never come there and spied out this cruel poverty and
brought pain to that poor little lady's heart and shame to her
cheek; but he was there, and there was no escape. Colonel Sellers
hitched back his coat-sleeves airily from his wrists as who should
say "Now for solid enjoyment!" seized a fork, flourished it and
began to harpoon turnips and deposit them in the plates before
him:

"Let me help you, Washington — Lafayette, pass this plate to
Washington — ah, well, well, my boy, things are looking pretty
bright, now, / tell you. Speculation — my! the whole atmosphere's
full of money. I wouldn't take three fortunes for one little opera-
tion I've got on hand now — have anything from the casters? No?
Well, you're right, you're right. Some people like mustard with
turnips, but — now there was Baron Poniatowski — Lord, but that
man did know how to live! — true Russian you know, Russian to
the backbone; I say to my wife, give me a Russian every time,
for a table comrade. The Baron used to say, 'Take mustard,
Sellers, try the mustard — a man can't know what turnips are in
perfection without mustard,' but I always said, 'No, Baron, I'm
a plain man, and I want my food plain — none of your embellish-
ments for Beriah Sellers — no made dishes for me! And it's the
best way — high living kills more than it cures in this world, you
can rest assured of that. Yes, indeed, Washington, I've got one
little operation on hand that — take some more water — help your-
self, won't you? help yourself, there's plenty of it. You'll find it
pretty good, I guess. How does that fruit strike you?"

Washington said he did not know that he had ever tasted better.
He did not add that he detested turnips even when they were

410

cooked— loathed them in their natural state. No, he kept this to
himself, and praised the turnips to the peril of his soul.

"I thought you'd like them. Examine them — examine them —
they'll bear it. See how perfectly firm and juicy they are — they
can't start any like them in this part of the country, I can tell you.
These are from New Jersey — I imported them myself. They cost
like sin, too; but, Lord bless me, I go in for having the best of a
thing, even if it does cost a little more — it's the best economy, in
the long run. These are the Early Malcolm — it's a turnip that
can't be produced except in just one orchard, and the supply never
is up to the demand. Take some more water, Washington —
you can't drink too much water with fruit — all the doctors say
that. The plague can't come where this article is, my boy!"

"Plague? What plague?"

"What plague, indeed? Why the Asiatic plague that nearly
depopulated London a couple of centuries ago."

"But how does that concern us? There is no plague here, I
reckon."

" 'Sh! I've let it out! Well, never mind — just keep it to your-
self. Perhaps I oughtn't said anything, but it's bound to come out
sooner or later, so what is the odds? Old McDowells wouldn't like
me to — to — bother it all, I'll just tell the whole thing and let it
go. You see, I've been down to St. Louis, and I happened to run
across old Dr. McDowells — thinks the world of me, does the doctor.
He's a man that keeps himself to himself, and well he may, for
he knows that he's got a reputation that covers the whole earth —
he won't condescend to open himself out to many people, but,
Lord bless you, he and I are just like brothers; he won't let me
go to a hotel when I'm in the city — says I'm the only man that's
company to him, and I don't know but there's some truth in it,
too, because although I never like to glorify myself and make a
great to-do over what I am or what I can do or what I know,
I don't mind saying here among friends that I am better read up in
most sciences, maybe, than the general run of professional men in
these days. Well, the other day he let me into a little secret, strictly
on the quiet, about this matter of the plague.

"You see it's booming right along in our direction — follows
the Gulf Stream, you know, just as all those epidemics do — and
within three months it will be just waltzing through this land
like a whirlwind! And whoever it touches can make his will and
contract for the funeral. Well, you can't cure it, you know, but
you can prevent it. How? Turnips! that's it! Turnips and water!

Nothing like it in the world, old McDowells says, just fill your-
self up two or three times a day, and you can snap your fingers
at the plague. 'Sh! keep mum, but just you confine yourself to
that diet and you're all right. I wouldn't have old McDowells
know that I told about it for anything — he never would speak
to me again. Take some more water, Washington — the more water
you drink, the better. Here, let me give you some more of the
turnips. No, no, -no, now, I insist. There, now. Absorb those.
They're mighty sustaining — brimful of nutriment — all the medical
books say so. Just eat from four to seven good-sized turnips at a
meal, and drink from a pint and a half to a quart of water, and
then just sit around a couple of hours and let them ferment. You'll
feel like a fighting-cock next day."

Fifteen or twenty minutes later the Colonel's tongue was still
chattering away — he had piled up several future fortunes out of
several incipient "operations" which he had blundered into within
the past week, and was now soaring along through some bril-
liant expectations born of late promising experiments upon the
lacking ingredient of the eye-water. And at such a time Washing-
ton ought to have been a rapt and enthusiastic listener, but he
was not, for two matters disturbed his mind and distracted his
attention. One was, that he discovered, to his confusion and
shame, that in allowing himself to be helped a second time to
the turnips, he had robbed those hungry children. He had not
needed the dreadful "fruit," and had not wanted it; and when he
saw the pathetic sorrow in their faces when they asked for more
and there was no more to give them, he hated himself for his
stupidity and pitied the famishing young things with all his heart.
The other matter that disturbed him was the dire inflation that
had begun in his stomach. It grew and grew, it became more and
more insupportable. Evidently the turnips were "fermenting." He
forced himself to sit still as long as he could, but his anguish
conquered him at last.

He rose in the midst of the Colonel's talk and excused himself
on the plea of a previous engagement. The Colonel followed him
to the door, promising over and over again that he would use'
his influence to get some of the Early Malcolms for him, and
insisting that he should not be such a stranger but come and
take pot-luck with him every chance he got. Washington was
glad enough to get away and feel free again. He immediately
bent his steps toward home.

In bed he passed an hour that threatened to turn his hair gray,

412

and then a blessed calm settled down upon him that filled his
heart with gratitude. Weak and languid, he made shift to turn
himself about and seek rest and sleep; and as his soul hovered
upon the brink of unconsciousness, he heaved a long, deep sigh,
and said to himself that in his heart he had cursed the Colonel's pre-
ventive of rheumatism, before, and now let the plague come if it
must — he was done with preventives; if ever any man beguiled
him with turnips and water again, let him die the death.

The Gilded Age, 1873

4*3

Threshing Day

HAMLIN GARLAND

Life on a Wisconsin farm, even for the women, had its com-
pensations. There were times when the daily routine of lonely
and monotonous housework gave place to an agreeable bustle,
and human intercourse lightened the toil. In the midst of the
slow progress of the fall's plowing, the gathering of the threshing
crew was a most dramatic event to my mother, as to us, for it
not only brought unwonted clamor, it fetched her brothers William
and David and Frank, who owned and ran a threshing machine,
and their coming gave the house an air of festivity which offset
the burden of extra work which fell upon us all.

In those days the grain, after being brought in and stacked
around the barn, was allowed to remain until October or Novem-
ber when all the other work was finished.

Of course some men got the machine earlier, for all could not
thresh at the same time, and a good part of every man's fall
activities consisted in "changing works" with his neighbors, thus
laying up a stock of unpaid labor against the home job. Day after
day, therefore, father or the hired man shouldered a fork and
went to help thresh, and all through the autumn months, the
ceaseless ringing hum and the bow-ouw, ouw-woo, boo-oo-oom
of the great balance wheels on the separator and the deep bass
purr of its cylinder could be heard in every valley like the droning
song of some sullen and gigantic autumnal insect.

I recall with especial clearness the events of that last threshing
in the coulee. — I was eight, my brother was six. For days we
had looked forward to the coming of "the threshers," listening
with the greatest eagerness to father's report of the crew. At
last he said, "Well, Belle, get ready. The machine will be here

tomorrow."

All day we hung on the gate, gazing down the road, watch-
ing, waiting for the crew, and, even after supper, we stood at
the windows still hoping to hear the rattle of the ponderous
separator.

Father explained that the men usually worked all day at one
farm and moved after dark, and we were just starting to "climb
the wooden hill" when we heard a far-off faint halloo.

414

"There they are," shouted father, catching up his old square
tin lantern and hurriedly lighting the candle within it. "That's
Frank's voice."

The night air was sharp, and as we had taken off our boots
we could only stand at the window and watch father as he piloted
the teamsters through the gate. The light threw fantastic shadows
here and there, now lighting up a face, now bringing out the
separator which seemed a weary and sullen monster awaiting
its den. The men's voices sounded loud in the still night, causing
the roused turkeys in the oaks to peer about on their perches,
uneasy silhouettes against the sky.

We would gladly have stayed awake to greet our beloved uncles,
but mother said, "You must go to sleep in order to be up early
in the morning," and reluctantly we turned away.

Lying thus in our cot under the sloping raftered roof we could
hear the squawk of the hens as father wrung their innocent necks,
and the crash of the "sweeps" being unloaded sounded loud and
clear and strange. We longed to be out there, but at last the dance
of lights and shadows on the plastered wall died away, and we
fell into childish, dreamless sleep.

We were awakened at dawn by the ringing beat of the iron
mauls as Frank and David drove the stakes to hold the "power"
to the ground. The rattle of trace chains, the clash of iron rods,
the clang of steel bars, intermixed with the laughter of the men,
came sharply through the frosty air, and the smell of sizzling
sausage from the kitchen warned us that our busy mother was
hurrying the breakfast forward. Knowing that it was time to get
up, although it was not yet light, I had a sense of being awakened
into a romantic new world, a world of heroic action.

As we stumbled down the stairs, we found the lamp-lit kitchen
empty of the men. They had finished their coffee and were out
in the stack-yard oiling the machine and hitching the horses to
the power. Shivering, yet entranced by the beauty of the frosty
dawn, we crept out to stand and watch the play. The frost lay
white on every surface, the frozen ground rang like iron under
the steel-shod feet of the horses, and the breath of the men rose
up in little white puffs ofi steam.

Uncle David on the feeder's stand was impatiently awaiting
the coming of the fifth team. The pitchers were climbing the
stacks like blackbirds, and the straw-stackers were scuffling about
the stable door. — Finally, just as the east began to bloom and
long streamers of red began to unroll along the vast gray dome

4J5

of sky, Uncle Frank, the driver, lifted his voice in a "Chippewa
war-whoop."

On a still morning like this his signal could be heard for miles.
Long drawn and musical, it sped away over the fields, announcing
to all the world that the McClintocks were ready for the day's
race. Answers came back faintly from the frosty fields where dim
figures of laggard hands could be seen hurrying over the plowed
ground, the last team came clattering in and was hooked into its
place, David called "All right!" and the cylinder began to hum.

In those days the machine was either a "J. I. Case" or a "Buffalo
Pitts," and was moved by five pairs of horses attached to a "power"
staked to the ground, round which they traveled pulling at the
ends of long levers or sweeps, and to me the force seemed tre-
mendous. "Tumbling rods" with "knuckle joints" carried the
motion to the cylinder, and the driver who stood upon a square
platform above the huge, greasy cog-wheels (round which the
horses moved) was a grand figure in my eyes.

Driving, to us, looked like a pleasant job, but Uncle Frank
thought it very tiresome, and I can now see that it was. To stand
on that small platform all through the long hours of a cold Novem-
ber day, when the cutting wind roared down the valley sweeping
the dust and leaves along the road, was work. Even I perceived
that it was far pleasanter to sit on the south side of the stack
and watch the horses go round.

It was necessary that the "driver" should be a man of judgment,
for the horses had to be kept at just the right speed, and to do
this he must gauge the motion of the cylinder by the pitch of its
deep bass song.

The three men in command of the machine were set apart as
"the threshers."— William and David alternately "fed" or "tended,"
that is, one of them "fed" the grain into the howling cylinder,
while the other, oil-can in hand, watched the sieves, felt of the
pinions, and so kept the machine in good order. The feeder's
position was the high place to which all boys aspired, and on this
day I stood in silent admiration of Uncle David's easy powerful
attitudes as he caught each bundle in the crook of his arm and
spread it out into a broad, smooth band 01 yellow straw on which
the whirling teeth caught and tore with monstrous fury. He was
the ideal man in my eyes, grander in some ways than my father,
and to be able to stand where he stood was the highest honor
in the world.

It was all poetry for us and we wished every day were threshing

416

day. The wind blew cold, the clouds went flying across the bright
blue sky, and the straw glistened in the sun. With jarring snarl
the circling zone of cogs dipped into the sturdy greasy wheels,
and the single-trees and pulley-chains chirped clear and sweet
as crickets. The dust flew, the whip cracked, and the men working
swiftly to get the sheaves to the feeder or to take the straw away
from the tail-end of the machine, were like warriors, urged to
desperate action by battle cries. The stackers wallowing to their
waists in the fluffy straw-piles seemed gnomes acting for our amuse-
ment.

The straw-pile! What delight we had in that! What joy it
was to go up to the top where the men were stationed, one behind
the other, and to have them toss huge forkfuls of the light fragrant
stalks upon us, laughing to see us emerge from our golden cover.
We were especially impressed by the bravery of Ed Green, who
stood in the midst of the thick dust and flying chaff close to the
tail of the stacker. His teeth shone like a negro's out of his dust-
blackened face and his shirt was wet with sweat, but he motioned
for "more straw" and David, accepting the challenge, signaled
for more speed. Frank swung his lash and yelled at the straining
horses, the sleepy growl of the cylinder rose to a howl and the
wheat came pulsing out at the spout in such a stream that the
carriers were forced to trot on their path to and from the granary
in order to keep the grain from piling up around the measurer. —
There was a kind of splendid rivalry in this backbreaking toil,
for each sack weighed ninety pounds. Tired of wallowing in the
straw at last, we went down to help Rover catch the rats un-
covered by the pitchers as they reached the stack bottom. The
horses, with their straining, outstretched necks, the loud and
cheery shouts, the whistling of the driver, the roar and hum
of the great wheel, the flourishing of the forks, the supple
movement of brawny arms, the shouts of the men, all blended
with the wild sound of the wind in the creaking branches
of the oaks, and formed a glorious poem in our unforgetting
minds.

At last the call for dinner sounded. The driver began to callj
"Whoa there, boys! Steady, Tom," and to hold his long whip
before the eyes of the more spirited of the teams in order to con-
vince them that he really meant "stop." The pitchers stuck their
forks upright in the stack and leaped to the ground. Randal, the
band-cutter, drew from his wrist the looped string of his big knife,
the stackers slid down from the straw-pile, and a race began

417

among the teamsters to see whose span would be first unhitched
and at the watering trough. What joyous rivalry it seemed to
us!

Mother and Mrs. Randal, wife of our neighbor, who was "chang-
ing works," stood ready to serve the food as soon as the men were
seated. — The table had been lengthened to its utmost and pieced
out with boards, and planks had been laid on stout wooden chairs
at either side.

The men came in with a rush, and took seats wherever they
could find them, and their attack on the boiled potatoes and
chicken should have been appalling to the women, but it was
not. They enjoyed seeing them eat. Ed Green was prodigious.
One cut at a big potato, followed by two stabbing motions, and
it was gone. — Two bites laid a leg of chicken as bare as a slate
pencil. To us standing in the corner waiting our turn, it seemed
that every "smitch" of the dinner was in danger, for the others
were not far behind Ed and Dan.

At last even the gauntest of them filled up and left the room
and we were free to sit at "the second table" and eat, while the
men rested outside. David and William, however, generally had
a belt to sew or a bent tooth to take out of the "concave." This
seemed of grave dignity to us and we respected their self-sacrificing
labor.

Nooning was brief. As soon as the horses had finished their
oats, the roar and hum of the machine began again and continued
steadily all the afternoon, till by and by the sun grew big and
red, the night began to fall, and the wind died out.

This was the most impressive hour of a marvelous day. Through
the falling dusk, the machine boomed steadily with a new sound,
a solemn roar, rising at intervals to a rattling impatient yell as
the cylinder ran momentarily empty. The men moved now in
silence, looming dim and 'gigantic in the half-light. The straw-
pile mountain high, the pitchers in the chaff, the feeder on his
platform, and especially the driver on his power, seemed almost
super-human to my childish eyes. Gray dust covered the handsome
face of David, changing it into something both sad and stern,
but Frank's cheery voice rang out musically as he called to the
weary horses, "Come on, Tom! Hup there, Dan!"

The track in which they walked had been worn into two deep
circles and they all moved mechanically round and round, like
parts of a machine, dull-eyed and covered with sweat.

At last William raised the welcome cry, "All done!" — the men

418

threw down their forks. Uncle Frank began to call in a gentle,
soothing voice, "Whoa, lads! Steady, boys! Whoa, there!"

But the horses had been going so long and so steadily that
they could not at once check their speed. They kept moving,
though slowly, on and on till their owners slid from the stacks
and seizing the ends of the sweeps, held them. Even then, after
the power was still, the cylinder kept its hum, till David throwing
a last sheaf into its open maw, choked it into silence.

Now came the sound of dropping chains, the clang of iron
rods, and the thud of hoofs as the horses walked with laggard
gait and weary down-falling heads to the barn. The men, more
subdued than at dinner, washed with greater care, and combed
the chaff from their beards. The air was still and cool, and the
sky a deep cloudless blue starred with faint fire.

Supper though quiet was more dramatic than dinner had been.
The table lighted with kerosene lamps, the clean white linen,
the fragrant dishes, the women flying about with steaming plat-
ters, all seemed very cheery and very beautiful, and the men who
came into the light and warmth of the kitchen with aching mus-
cles and empty stomachs, seemed gentler and finer than at noon.
They were nearly all from the neighboring farms, and my mother
treated even the few hired men like visitors, and the talk was
all hearty and good tempered, though a little subdued.

One by one the men rose and slipped away, and father withdrew
to milk the cows and bed down the horses, leaving the women
and the youngsters to eat what was left and "do up the dishes."

After we had eaten our fill Frank and I also went out to the
barn (all wonderfully changed now to our minds by the great
stack of straw), there to listen to David and father chatting as
they rubbed their tired horses. — The lantern threw a dim red
light on the harness and on the rumps of the cattle, but left
mysterious shadows in the corners. I could hear the mice rustling
in the straw of the roof, and from the farther end of the dimly-
lighted shed came the regular strim-stram of the streams of milk
falling into the bottom of a tin pail as the hired hand milked the
big roan cow.

All this was very momentous to me as I sat on the oat box,
shivering in the cold air, listening with all my ears, and when we
finally went toward the house, the stars were big and sparkling.
The frost had already begun to glisten on the fences and well-
curb, and high in the air, dark against the sky, the turkeys were
roosting uneasily, as if disturbed by premonitions of approaching

419

Thanksgiving. Rover pattered along by my side on the crisp grass
and my brother clung to my hand.

How bright and warm it was in the kitchen, with mother put-
ting things to rights while father and my uncles leaned their
chairs against the wall and talked of the west and of moving. "I
can't get away till after New Year's," father said. "But I'm going.
I'll never put in another crop on these hills."

With speechless content I listened to Uncle William's stories of
bears and Indians, and other episodes of frontier life, until at last
we were ordered to bed and the glorious day was done.

Oh, those blessed days, those entrancing nights! How fine they
were then, and how mellow they are now, for the slow-paced
years have dropped nearly fifty other golden mists upon that
far-off valley. From this distance I cannot understand how my
father brought himself to leave that lovely farm and those good
and noble friends.

A Son of the Middle Border, 1917

420

A Boyhood in the Bush

THOMAS j. LEBLANC

My boyhood was spent in a small northern lumbering town in
the heart of the pine forests that cluster along the Canadian
border, and my earliest memories are of the whine of the great
whirling disk saws in the mills, the crunch of the logs as they
crowded the river that ran through the center of the town, the
slap of the boards as they fell into place on the decks of the
waiting schooners, and the call of the sealers and tally-men. At
night the village was bathed in the radiance of the burners that
stood against the dark sky like huge torches, each giving off its
own flaming feather of sparks. Always there was the closeness of
the bush that jostled the edges of the town and made inroads at
some of the weaker spots. Over all was the clean fragrant smell
of the pines.

Children were not numerous in such wild settlements and I
had few playmates. To the few of us living there winter was
a time of dog teams and, if we were lucky, an occasional visit
to a lumber-camp. In this respect I was fortunate in having Billy.
Billy was a friend of the family whose business I never knew. It
was sufficient for me that he would call at our house with his
sleigh, load me into the box, buried in bearskins, and whisk
me away behind his jangling bells for a two- or three-day visit
to a camp. For miles we rode, enveloped in a cloud of vapor from
the horses, the bobs of the sleigh ringing on the surface of the
snow. Finally we would turn on to the glistening surface of a tote
road and I would cautiously raise myself and expose my face to
the biting cold. We would be gliding down an icy lane, shining
like a mirror, and with the tall snow-shrouded pines rising on
either side. I used to liken it to riding down the aisle of a cathedral,
a giant cathedral with a polished floor. I had once been in one
at Christmas time, when the columns were hung with evergreens.
Soon we would swing into the camp, a cluster of long, low log
buildings huddled in a small clearing and completely buried in
snow. Here we received a boisterous and profane greeting from
the cook and cookee, and whoever else happened to be in camp.

421

At noon I sat proudly on the front seat of the stew sleigh, which
was loaded with the noon meal for the men at the cutting. Upon
our arrival at some central point the cook beat upon a dishpan with
a large spoon and roared at the top of his voice, "Yow! 'S goin'
to waste!" The ring of axes would then suddenly cease and
answering calls would come from the white depths of the woods.
Woolen-clad figures came tumbling in from all directions and
soon the sleigh was surrounded by a noisy crowd of cutters, and
they were served their noon meal of stew, bread, beans and tea
by the cookee, who by the way, was the butt of most lumber-camp
humor. The meal finished, the men engaged in various diversions:
jacking blue jays, wrestling, or throwing things at the cookee.
The noon hour over, they returned their various ways and soon
the woods rang with the clear resonant notes of their biting axes,
with now and then a call of "Comin' down!" followed by the
crash of some old forest giant that shook the great folds of snow
from the near-by trees as though a shiver had run through them.

At night the lumberjacks came riding in on loads of logs if the
tote road passed near the camp, and it usually did. Supper was
served at a long low table in one of the buildings and was a
roaring and swashbuckling feast presided over by the foreman.
The foreman held his position for the same reason that a leader-
dog in a team holds his. If the occasion arose he could lick any
one in camp, or at least his side could lick the other. All disputes
were settled in this manner, promptly forgotten, and no grudge
held. Immediately after supper the men gathered in the bunkhouse,
a low cabin heated by a huge cylindrical base-burner stove that
glowed cherry red in the dim light of the kerosene lamps. The
walls were lined by a layer of double- or triple-decked bunks.
There was no ventilation and when twenty or thirty lumberjacks
gathered about the stove, all smoking cut plug tobacco, and with
the place draped with steaming socks, mittens and mackinaws,
the atmosphere was almost tangible. Add to this the melancholy
whine of some inspired genius of the Jew's harp and the whole
took on the air of a witch's cavern. Truly it was a sinister place.

Here as a boy, I sat silently drinking in every word of the tales
that flew back and forth: epic tales of battles against thaws, floods,
and log jams; tales of record cuttings, of how Black Bill beat Joe
into the water with his logs, of the intense rivalry that existed
between camps; tales of smallpox, the only disease that these men
knew; of the legendary Paul Bunyan and his famous ox that
was sixty feet between the eyes; of how Jean Frechette picked up

422

a three hundred pound cask of chain and loaded it into the box
of a sleigh; of Georges St. Pierre, who, upon hearing of this,
snorted, and, placing his arms around a small horse that stood near
by, lifted it clear off the ground and held it struggling; and, lastly,
tales of great fights and great fighters . . . tales of men.

During the night a teamster with a sprinkling sleigh flooded
the tote road with water and by morning it was a smooth, un-
broken sheet of ice. Getting out at two in the morning in weather
that was always ten to twenty below zero required considerable
enthusiasm, but one who did venture forth was magnificently
repaid. These teamsters, and especially the night men, were the
most picturesquely profane fellows that I have ever heard, and
I have heard many. They were no ordinary blasphemers, but
virtuosi. Their horses were full of spirit, and sprinkling the road
at night was always attended by unlooked for contingencies. On
these occasions, if you were fortunate enough to be present, you
were afforded the treat of hearing an artist perform. There was
no ordinary disconnected and unrelated flow of vulgarities, but
a symphony of rational and harmonious phrases. Let us suppose
that it was the off horse that offended. The teamster began his
picture by addressing the horse in a low restrained voice. The main
theme was genealogical and concerned the horse's ancestors. This
was then amplified by a counterpoint that dealt with the horse's
present status. The teamster had a fine feeling for the climax,
and as he progressed his voice grew louder and louder, and his
harmonies more full and round, finally ending in one completely
summarizing and devastating phrase. One unconsciously listened
for the rumble of the tympani and the crash of the cymbals. I have
heard some of the older artists lecture to a horse on some of its
major deficiencies for a full five minutes without once repeating the
same phrase. Needless to say, their bark was worse than their bite,
and sometimes I suspected that the horses appreciated that fact.

Such visits to the camps were the high lights in the winter
season and served to hasten the coming of spring. With spring
came the drive and with the drive came the lumberjacks, and
with their coming the boys of the town looked forward to days
and days of riotous entertainment. When the ice melted, the logs
that had been piled along the headwaters of the river and on the
shores of the lakes were tumbled into the water and their journey

423

to the mills began. The crews followed the drive along the lakes
and slower reaches of the river until the current was fast enough
to swing the logs along, with the occasional untangling of a jam.
Booms of logs fastened together by chains were thrown across
the mouth of the river, and soon the bay was a heaving carpet
of pine logs, each branded on the end with the mark of its owner.
As the drive neared completion and the last fleet of logs swung
into view around the upper bend of the river, the lumberjacks
began to appear, at first singly and then in groups. Each rode a
log easily and gracefully, his calked boots sunk into the soft bark,
and leaning on his pike-pole or peavy. I remember how the sight
used to thrill me. These fellows, superb in their disdain for danger,
with such an air of complete poise, apparently gliding down the
surface of a boiling river, seemed more like gods than mere men.
I thought that if the gods ever actually visited the earth they
would travel like this.

Across the river, some distance from the mouth and connect-
ing the two halves of the town, was a bridge. During the drive
the water level was high enough for the bridge to be reached by
a leap from the logs that swirled beneath. This made a natural
terminal for the lumberjacks. As each one approached the bridge
on his log he let out a howl that would have sent the shivers up
and down the spine of a lone wolf. This was to notify the town
that it was about to be honored by his presence; it also called
his friends to the bridge ends. At the proper time he gave forth
another howl, a howl of warning to the passers-by as he hurled
his pike-pole up on the floor of the bridge. Then, crouching on
his log and measuring his distance accurately, at just the proper
instant he leaped, caught the lower stringer of the bridge and like
a cat swung himself up over the rail. A third howl, answered by
his friends, denoted that he had officially arrived. Sometimes, but
only rarely, he misjudged the distance and missed the lower
stringer, in which case he never gave the third howl. His friends
stood for a few minutes gazing mutely down stream at the pound-
ing logs and then hurried off to tell the town bartenders that
so-and-so had missed the bridge. Telling the bartenders was in the
nature of a published obituary.

When the drive was finished and the last man in, down to the
cook and cookee, the men were paid off. This pay amounted to a
considerable sum, since they received three to five dollars a day
all winter and had no expenses. Upon receipt of his money each
jack hurried to his favorite boarding-house and purchased a ticket

424

which assured him board, room, tobacco and laundry all summer.
The last item was merely a concession to gentility. Purchase of
his ticket left him a considerable balance and with this thrust in
the breast pocket of his shirt he swaggered forth . . . and the fun
began.

First came the burling contests. Burling consisted of standing
on a log with calked boots and, by running or walking at right
angles to the axis of the log, imparting a spinning motion to it,
somewhat in the manner of a treadmill. Two men on the same
log constituted a burling contest. The river near the bridge was
dotted with logs, each supporting a pair of burlers. One man
won as soon as the other missed his footing and fell into the water.
After this elimination the contest narrowed down to the two
most skilful burlers. This ended the first day and the final spin
was held over until the next. In the meantime the jacks were
usually about evenly divided in opinion as to which was the better
man of the two final contestants. Betting went on furiously and
it was nothing for a whole camp crew to bet their last cent on
one of the burlers if he happened to be from their camp. It made
no practical difference whether they won or lost, for the money
was spent in any case, the winners spending lavishly because they
had won, and the losers accepting their hospitality for the equally
good reason that they had lost.

All this occurred late in June. After the burling contest was de-
cided, together with the score of fights that always attended such
a public show, the next great social event, as it were, was the series
of Fourth of July dances. They were so designated because they
began on the Fourth, but they lasted until men and maidens, and
especially the last, had been exhausted. They were held in places
called boweries erected on vacant lots by the lumberjacks them-
selves. A bowery consisted of a large square floor, roofed over
and buried in fragrant cedar and balsam boughs; it resembled
somewhat a band stand or pavilion but it was built of clear, knot-
less white-pine boards, most of them two feet in width. At one
end was a platform for the orchestra and the caller. The music
was provided by an organ and a fiddler, not a violinist. The dis-
tinction is very real. A violinist clamps a violin between the lower
border of his mandible and the prominence of his clavicle. With
half-closed eyes he sways with the music, while his fingers flutter
up and down the length of the fingerboard as he coaxes out the
velvet tones. A fiddler, and especially a lumberjack fiddler, lays
a fiddle carelessly against his chest, thumps loudly with one foot,

425

and uses only the middle six inches of the bow and a single posi-
tion on the keyboard to tear out a melody that sets the calked boots
to chewing up the new pine floor. While he plays he stares defiantly
at his audience and only lowers his eyes at intervals to expectorate
over the edge of the platform with sufficient accuracy to avoid
harsh criticism from the dancers.

The dances in favor were the so-called square ones, and the
party was continuous. There were halts only at the end of the
different sets of figures to change partners or to allow fresh couples
to replace jaded ones. The whole thing was full of gaudy color,
with the lumberjacks in their brilliant woolens, the girls in their
calicoes, and the cedar boughs and festoons of bunting over all.
The girls were the town's finest and many were the romances that
began to the tune of "Swing Yer Partner" or "All Join Hands."
I hope I am not divulging any secret when I observe that some of
these same girls, thrilled in those far-off days by a whirl in the
arms of a perspiring jack, are now matrons of society in the North.
A lumberjack, when he went to a dance, was fascinating in direct
proportion to the vigor with which he whirled his partner, while
the girls were classified as charming or not according to whether
their skirts stood out gracefully when they were whirled through
the figures. Undoubtedly some of the matrons that I have men-
tioned will be furious when I whisper that the girls resorted to
the unfair device of sewing buckshot into the lower hems of their
skirts. I know this to be a fact because once, in my childish absorp-
tion of what was going on at one end of the hall, I was struck
over the eye by three whirling shot. The dances stopped when all
the girls in town were so exhausted that they had to go home. By
this time the bowery had spent its usefulness; the floor was chewed
paper-thin by the grinding and stamping of calked boots.

The social activity of the town now moved to the saloons. Four
stood at each end of the bridge, and as a boy I posted myself every
night to command a view of all eight doors. When a fight started,
I could be at the scene of battle in an instant. I never had long to
wait. The show began with the sudden bursting open of the
swinging doors by the rocketing rush of the two contestants, fol-
lowed more leisurely by the crowd from within. Sometimes the
fighters stopped their mauling upon reaching the road, and then
each would regain the proper state of frenzy by reciting in a loud,
vivid and profane manner what he intended to do to the other.
These announced plans were usually very extravagant and grue-
some, such as complete removal of the heart, plucking out an

426

eye, or tearing off a leg to be used as a club. The audience listened
attentively, if a little bored, but never interrupted the recital. When
the proper pitch of battle fury had been reached the two jacks
hurled themselves upon each other, and in an instant became a
gyrating, cursing mass of thrashing fists and flying feet. They
cursed and clawed, sometimes, for an hour at a time, and ended
a half mile from their starting point. Sometimes the oratorical
preliminaries were dispensed with and the two jacks set imme-
diately to the task of doing each other bodily harm.

These man-like animals, with the hearts and minds of children,
set simple rules to govern their encounters. They operated on the
rather logical premise that when one fights one does it in order
to mutilate or maim the other fellow. There was no code. The
task in hand was to beat the other fellow thoroughly, and the
quickest and most efficient method was the best. Therefore, noth-
ing was barred. Clawing, gouging, biting, butting, choking, knee-
ing and kicking were among the better known maneuvers, and
not the least of the finer points of the game was to flop your ad-
versary to the ground, and, just as he landed, to plant your calked
boot accurately on his face. Many a jack had intricate if not beau-
tiful designs tattooed on his cheeks by this method. They asked
no quarter and gave none. The fight was continuous and ended
only when one man could no longer resist. He was then officially
out. Usually his opponent was the first to assist him to his feet
and it was no uncommon sight to see two such fighters a half
hour later arm in arm at the bar, singing each other's praises. A
grudge never existed and the difference that caused a fight was
considered permanently settled when the fight was concluded.

The favorite refreshment was a quart bottle of rot-gut whisky
into which had been stuffed a handful of fine-cut chewing tobacco.
The whole was shaken vigorously and was then ready for con-
sumption. A treat on the street consisted in hauling out one's bottle,
giving it a shake, drawing the cork with the teeth, running a
thumb around the neck (a mark of good breeding, as the ruder
members of the guild neglected this charming office) and extend-
ing it with the remark, "Have a smile, Jack." A refusal on any
grounds constituted an insult, which in turn meant a fight. Very
few ever refused.

But life for Jack was not all laughter, dancing and fighting.
Sometimes there was a tear in his eye, for underneath his hard
surface was a soft sentiment and a heart that could swell. I have
seen a whole barroom, including the bartender, sad and tearful

427

when some husky, whisky baritone sang, "The Little Boy in
Green" or recited "Father, Dear Father, Come Home With Me
Now." When the Widow Monahan's cottage at the edge of town
burned early one morning, the whole saloon population swarmed
to the scene, and by nightfall, after numerous fights and much
profanity, the widow gazed through her tears over a flashing new
picket fence at a handsome new cottage, complete even to the
chicken-coop full of chickens. On another occasion Smoky Pa-
quette, one of the hardest fighters of the North, was told that
Father de Vere, the parish priest, had been pining for years for
a stained-glass window for his little church. Though none of the
jacks had ever seen the inside of a church, least of all Smoky,
he, after a proper mellowing with rot-gut, elected himself collector
for the worthy pastor. He mounted a table in the Deerhead Saloon
and in a bellow that made the flames of the kerosene lamps quiver
announced, "I jest heerd that le bon pere d'Vere wants a picture
windy fer his church, an' I'm 'nouncing that you lousy log rollers
is about to tally in fer it." Then with his round felt bush-hat in a
fist like a Smithfield ham, he made the rounds of the eight saloons.
His method was simple and to the point. He approached each
jack, thrust the hat under the victim's nose with his left hand,
cocked back his right, and in a voice like a peevish bear, announced
that he was collecting for a picture windy for the church. Since
Smoky had proven his ferocity on a hundred occasions, his method
brought results, and soon one of the cookees, properly lickered up,
was wobbling on his way to the priest's house with the money for
a picture windy stuffed in the front of his shirt.

So day followed day, each jammed with action and excitement,
until all the cash of the men was spent and the town settled down
into its summer doze. Then Jack sat in front of his boarding-house
and whittled miniature cant-hooks and peavies for the kids. Or
he and his friends strolled along in pairs, and where they walked
their calked boots gouged the sidewalk into two parallel troughs.
After a summer shower these troughs filled with water, and when
the sun reappeared I sat fascinated, watching the men swaggering
along the little silvery lanes, their heavy boots throwing out sprays
of diamonds at every step. Or sometimes 1 crouched near the base-
ment window of a saloon in the cool, moist draft that came from
the beer coils, and listened to tales by my favorite old jack, Pop
Gardner. Once I said to him, "Pop, you're getting old. Some day
a tree will get you, or you'll die in a barroom. Why don't you
quit f1" Pop bristled up in his red arm-chair and, glaring down at

428

me, replied, "Sure thing, bucko, a tree will get me, er I'll turn in
my check in a barroom; but what of it? Ain't I pickin* my own
way of goin', eh? An' won't I be cashin' in among frien's? 'N
that's a hell of a lot mor' 'n some of these soft bellies can say. God
a-mighty, kid, think o' peterin' out in a hoss-pee-tal among
strangers!"

Jack had no thought of the hereafter. His religion was chance,
and chances existed only to be taken. If you were lucky certain
things happened to you, and if you were unlucky other things
happened. In either case you could do nothing about it. His life
was hard. He worked hard, played hard, and fought hard. His
liquor was hard, his muscles were hard and so was his voice.
Everything about him was hard except his heart, and that was
soft, full of rough sentiment, and a capacity for loyalty, friendship
and generosity that knew no bounds. Clean, hard and vital, Jack
was an honest man.

The river that formerly writhed with logs is now lined with
summer cottages. The lake shore where Jack stacked his logs
is strewn with he-fairies, in life-guard bathing suits, and with
grease on their hair. The bridge at either end is flanked by filling
stations that pump gasoline into the digestive tracts of thirsty Fords.
The vacant lots where the boweries once stood now swarm with
tea-rooms, and instead of the buxom damsels of the buckshot
skirts, we have their hollow-chested daughters, faces daubed like
clowns, smoking cigarettes over plates of cinnamon toast. The
kindly, tolerant Father de Vere has given place to a half dozen
pulpit-pounders who hurl politics at dull and stupid congregations.
All of them, chips . . . chips and edgings from what once was a
noble stand of timber.

American Mercury, September, 1924

429

Poclcingt

own

UPTON SINCLAIR

They passed down the busy street that led to the yards. It wa
still early morning, and everything was at its high tide of activity
A steady stream of employees was pouring through the gate — em
ployees of the higher sort, at this hour, clerks and stenographer:
and such. For the women there were waiting big two-horse wag
ons, which set off at a gallop as fast as they were filled. In th(
distance there was heard again the lowing of the cattle, a sounc
as of a far-off ocean calling. They followed it, this time, as eagej
as children in sight of a circus menagerie — which, indeed, the scene
a good deal resembled. They crossed the railroad tracks, and ther
on each side of the street were the pens full of cattle; they woulc
have stopped to look, but Jokubas hurried them on, to where then
was a stairway and a raised gallery, from which everything coulc
be seen. Here they stood, staring, breathless with wonder.

There is over a square mile of space in the yards, and more than
half of it is occupied by cattle-pens; north and south as far as ttu
eye can reach there stretches a sea of pens. And they were all fillec
— so many cattle no one had ever dreamed existed in the world
Red cattle, black, white, and yellow cattle; old cattle and youn£
cattle; great bellowing bulls and little calves not an hour born:
meek-eyed milch cows and fierce, long-horned Texas steers. The
sound of them here was as of all the barnyards of the universe;
and as for counting them — it would have taken all day simply tc
count the pens. Here and there ran long alleys, blocked at inter-
vals by gates; and Jokubas told them that the number of these
gates was twenty-five thousand. Jokubas had recently been reading
a newspaper article which was full of statistics such as that, and he
was very proud as he repeated them and made his guests cry out
with wonder. Jurgis, too, had a little of this sense of pride. Had
he not just gotten a job, and become a sharer in all this activity,
a cog in this marvelous machine?

Here and there about the alleys galloped men upon horseback,
booted, and carrying long whips; they were very busy, calling to
each other, and to those who were driving the cattle. They were
drovers and stock-raisers, who had come from far States, and
brokers and commission-merchants, and buyers for all the big

430

packing-houses. Here and there they would stop to inspect a bunch
of cattle, and there would be a parley, brief and businesslike. The
buyer would nod or drop his whip, and that would mean a bar-
gain; and he would note it in his little book, along with hundreds
of others he had made that morning. Then Jokubas pointed out
the place where the cattle were driven to be weighed, upon a great
scale that would weigh a hundred thousand pounds at once and
record it automatically. It was near to the east entrance that they
stood, and all along this east side of the yards ran the railroad
tracks, into which the cars were run, loaded with cattle. All night
long this had been going on, and now the pens were full; by tonight
they would all be empty, and the same thing would be done again.

"And what will become of all these creatures?" cried Teta
Elzbieta.

"By to-night," Jokubas answered, "they will all be killed and
cut up; and over there on the other side of the packing-houses are
more railroad tracks, where the cars come to take them away."

There were two hundred and fifty miles of track within the
yards, their guide went on to tell them. They brought about ten
thousand head of cattle every day, and as many hogs, and half as
many sheep — which meant some eight or ten million live creatures
turned into food every year. One stood and watched, and little by
little caught the drift of the tide, as it set in the direction of the
packing-houses. There were groups of cattle being driven to the
chutes, which were roadways about fifteen feet wide, raised high
above the pens. In these chutes the stream of animals was contin-
uous; it was quite uncanny to watch them, pressing on to their
fate, all unsuspicious — a very river of death. Our friends were not
poetical, and the sight suggested to them no metaphors of human
destiny; they thought only of the wonderful efficiency of it all. The
chutes into which the hogs went climbed high up — to the very top of
the distant buildings; and Jokubas explained that the hogs went up
by the power of their own legs, and then their weight carried them
back through all the processes necessary to make them into pork.

"They don't waste anything here," said the guide, and then he
laughed and added a witticism, which he was pleased that his
unsophisticated friends should take to be his own : "They use every-
thing about the hog except the squeal." In front of Brown's General
Office building there grows a tiny plot of grass, and this, you may
learn, is the only bit of green thing in Packingtown; likewise this
jest about the hog and his squeal, the stock in trade of all the
guides, is the one gleam of humour that you will find there.

431

After they had seen enough of the pens, the party went up the
street, to the mass of buildings which occupy the centre of the
yards. These buildings, made of brick and stained with innumer-
able layers of Packingtown smoke, were painted all over with ad-
vertising signs, from which the visitor realized suddenly that he
had come to the home of many of the torments of his life. It
was here that they made those products with the wonders of which
they pestered him so — by placards that defaced the landscape when
he travelled, and by staring advertisements in the newspapers and
magazines — by silly little jingles that he could not get out of his
mind, and gaudy pictures that lurked for him around every street
corner. Here was where they made Brown's Imperial Hams and
Bacon, Brown's Dressed Beef, Brown's Excelsior Sausages! Here
was the headquarters of Durham's Pure Leaf Lard, of Durham's
Breakfast Bacon, Durham's Canned Beef, Potted Ham, Devilled
Chicken, Peerless Fertilizer!

Entering one of the Durham buildings, they found a number
of other visitors waiting; and before long there came a guide to
escort them through the place. They make a great feature of show-
ing strangers through the packing-plants, for it is a good advertise-
ment. But ponas Jokubas whispered maliciously that the visitors
did not see any more than the packers wanted them to.

They climbed a long series of stairways outside of the building,
to the top of its five or six stories. Here was the chute, with its
river of hogs, all patiently toiling upward; there was a place for
them to rest to cool off, and then through another passage-way
they went into a room from which there is no returning for hogs.

It was a long, narrow room, with a gallery along it for visitors.
At the head there was a great iron wheel, about twenty feet in
circumference, with rings here and there along its edge. Upon both
sides of this wheel there wa§ a narrow space, into which came the
hogs at the end of their journey; in the midst of them stood a
great burly negro, bare-armed and bare-chested. He was resting
for the moment, for the wheel had stopped while men were clean-
ing up. In a minute or two, however, it began slowly to revolve,
and then the men upon each side of it sprang to work. They had
chains which they fastened about the leg of the nearest hog, and
the other end of the chain they hooked into one of the rings upon
the wheel. So, as the wheel turned, a hog was suddenly jerked
off his feet and borne aloft.

At the same instant the ear was assailed by a most terrifying
shriek; the visitors started in alarm, the women turned pale and

432

shrank back. The shriek was followed by another, louder and yet
more agonizing — for once started upon that journey, the hog
never came back; at the top of the wheel he was shunted off upon
a trolley, and went sailing down the room. And meantime another
was swung up, and then another, and another, until there was a
double line of them, each dangling by a foot and kicking in frenzy
— and squealing. The uproar was appalling, perilous to the ear-
drums; one feared there was too much sound for the room to
hold — that the walls must give way or the ceiling crack. There
were high squeals and low squeals, grunts, and wails of agony;
there would come a momentary lull, and then a fresh outburst,
louder than ever, surging up to a deafening climax. It was too
much for some of the visitors — the men would look at each other,
laughing nervously, and the women would stand with hands
clenched, and the blood rushing to their faces, and the tears starting
in their eyes.

Meanwhile, heedless of all these things, the men upon the floor
were going about their work. Neither squeals of hogs nor tears
of visitors made any difference to them; one by one they hooked
up the hogs, and one by one with a swift stroke they slit their
throats. There was a long line of hogs, with squeals and life-blood
ebbing away together; until at last each started again, and van-
ished with a splash into a huge vat of boiling water.

It was all so very businesslike that one watched it fascinated. It
was pork-making by machinery, pork-making by applied mathe-
matics. And yet somehow the most matter-of-fact person could
not help thinking of the hogs; they were so innocent, they came
so very trustingly; and they were so very human in their protests
— and so perfectly within their rights! They had done nothing to
deserve it; and it was adding insult to injury, as the thing was
done here, swinging them up in this cold-blooded impersonal way,
without a pretence at apology, without the homage of a tear. Now
and then a visitor wept, to be sure; but this slaughtering-machine
ran on, visitors or no visitors. It was like some horrible crime com-
mitted in a dungeon, all unseen and unheeded, buried out of sight
and of memory.

One could not stand and watch very long without becoming
philosophical, without beginning to deal in symbols and similes,
and to hear the hog-squeal of the universe. Was it permitted to
believe that there was nowhere upon the earth, or above the earth,
a heaven for hogs, where they were requited for all this suffering?
Each one of these hogs was a separate creature. Some were white

433

hogs, some were black; some were brown, some were spotted;
some were old, some were young; some were long and lean, some
were monstrous. And each of them had an individuality of his
own, a will of his own, a hope and a heart's desire; each was full
of self-confidence, of self-importance, and a sense of dignity. And
trusting and strong in faith he had gone about his business, the
while a black shadow hung over him and a horrid Fate waited
in his pathway. Now suddenly it had swooped upon him, and had
seized him by the leg. Relentless, remorseless, it was; all his pro-
tests, his screams, were nothing to it — it did its cruel will with him,
as if his wishes, his feelings, had simply no existence at all; it cut
his throat and watched him gasp out his life. And now was one to
believe that there was nowhere a god of hogs, to whom this hog-
personality was precious, to whom these hog-squeals and agonies
had a meaning? Who would take this hog into his arms and com-
fort him, reward him for his work well done, and show him the
meaning of his sacrifice? Perhaps some glimpse of all this was
in the thoughts of our humble-minded Jurgis, as he turned to go on
with the rest of the party, and muttered: "Dieve — but I'm glad
I'm not a hog!"

The carcass hog was scooped out of the vat by machinery, and
then it fell to the second floor, passing on the way through a won-
derful machine with numerous scrapers, which adjusted them-
selves to the size and shape of the animal, and sent it out at the
other end with nearly all of its bristles removed. It was then again
strung up by machinery, and sent upon another trolley ride; this
time passing between two lines of men, who sat upon a raised
platform, each doing a certain single thing to the carcass as it
came to him. One scraped the outside of a leg; another scraped the
inside of the same leg. One with a swift stroke cut the throat;
another with two swift strokes severed the head, which fell to the
floor and vanished through a hole. Another made a slit down the
body; a second opened the body wider; a third with a saw cut
the breast-bone; a fourth loosened the entrails; a fifth pulled them
out — and they also slid through a hole in the floor. There were
men to scrape each side and men to scrape the back; there were
men to clean the carcass inside, to trim it and wash it. Looking
down this room, one saw, creeping slowly, a line of dangling hogs
a hundred yards in length; and for every yard there was a man,
working as if a demon were after him. At the end of this hog's
progress every inch of the carcass had been gone over several
times; and then it was rolled into the chilling-room, where it

434

stayed for twenty-four hours, and where a stranger might lose
himself in a forest of freezing hogs.

Before the carcass was admitted here, however, it had to pass a
government inspector, who sat in the doorway and felt of the
glands in the neck for tuberculosis. This government inspector did
not have the manner of a man who was worked to death; he was
apparently not haunted by a fear that the hog might get by him
before he had finished his testing. If you were a sociable person,
he was quite willing to enter into conversation with you, and to
explain to you the deadly nature of the ptomaines which are found
in tubercular pork; and while he was talking with you you could
hardly be so ungrateful as to notice that a dozen carcasses were
passing him untouched. This inspector wore a blue uniform, with
brass buttons, and he gave an atmosphere of authority to the scene,
and, as it were, put the stamp of official approval upon the things
which were done in Durham's.

Jurgis went down the line with the rest of the visitors, staring
open-mouthed, lost in wonder. He had dressed hogs himself in the
forest of Lithuania; but he had never expected to live to see one
hog dressed by several hundred men. It was like a wonderful poem
to him, and he took it all in guilelessly — even to the conspicuous
signs demanding immaculate cleanliness of the employees. Jurgis
was vexed when the cynical Jokubas translated these signs with
sarcastic comments, offering to take them to the secret-rooms where
the spoiled meats went to be doctored.

The party descended to the next floor, where the various waste
materials were treated. Here came the entrails, to be scraped and
washed clean for sausage-casings; men and women worked here
in the midst of a sickening stench, which caused the visitors to
hasten by, gasping. To another room came all the scraps to be
"tanked," which meant boiling and pumping off the grease to
make soap and lard; below they took out the refuse, and this, too,
was a region in which the visitors did not linger. In still other
places men were engaged in cutting up the carcasses that had
been through the chilling-rooms. First there were the "splitters,"
the most expert workmen in the plant, who earned as high as
fifty cents an hour, and did not a thing all day except chop hogs
down the middle. Then there were "cleaver men," great giants
with muscles of iron; each had two men to attend him — to slide
the half carcass in front of him on the table, and hold it while he
chopped it, and then turn each piece so that he might chop it once
more. His cleaver had a blade about two feet long, and he never

435

made but one cut; he made it so neatly, too, that his implement did
not smite through and dull itself — there was just enough force for
a perfect cut, and no more. So through various yawning holes there
slipped to the floor below — to one room hams, to another fore-
quarters, to another sides of pork. One might go down to this
floor and see the pickling-rooms, where the hams were put into
vats, and the great smoke-rooms, with their air-tight iron doors.
In other rooms they prepared salt-pork — there were whole cellars
full of it, built up in great towers to the ceiling. In yet other rooms
they were putting up meat in boxes and barrels, and wrapping
hams and bacon in oiled paper, sealing and labelling and sewing
them. From the doors of these rooms went men with loaded
trucks, to the platform where freight-cars were waiting to be filled;
and one went out there and realized with a start that he had come
at last to the ground floor of this enormous buijding.

Then the party went across the street to where they did the kill-
ing of beef — where every hour they turned four or five hundred
cattle into meat. Unlike the place they had left, all this work
was done on one floor; and instead of there being one line of car-
casses which moved to the workmen, there were fifteen or twenty
lines, and the men moved from one to another of these. This made
a scene of intense activity, a picture of human power wonderful
to watch. It was all in one great room, like a circus amphitheatre,
with a gallery for visitors running over the centre.

Along one side of the room ran a narrow gallery, a few feet from
the floor; into which gallery the cattle were driven by men with
goads which gave them electric shocks. Once crowded in here,
the creatures were prisoned, each in a separate pen, by gates that
shut, leaving them no room to turn around; and while they stood
bellowing and plunging, over the top of the pen there leaned one
of the "knockers," armed with a sledge-hammer, and watching
for a chance to deal a blow. The room echoed with the thuds in
quick succession, and the stamping and kicking of the steers. The
instant the animal had fallen, the "knocker" passed on to another;
while a second man raised a lever, and the side of the pen was
raised, and the animal, still kicking and struggling, slid out to
the "killing-bed." Here a man put shacKles about one leg, and
pressed another lever, and the body was jerked up into the air.
There were fifteen or twenty such pens, and it was a matter of only
a couple of minutes to knock fifteen or twenty cattle and roll
them out. Then once more the gates were opened, and another lot
rushed in; and so out of each pen there rolled a steady stream of

436

carcasses, which the men upon the killing-beds had to get out of
the way.

The manner in which they did this was something to be seen
and never forgotten. They worked with furious intensity, literally
upon the run — at a pace with which there is nothing to be com-
pared except a football game. It was all highly specialized labour,
each man having his task to do; generally this would consist of
only two or three specific cuts, and he would pass down the line
of fifteen or twenty carcasses, making these cuts upon each. First
there came the "butcher," to bleed them; this meant one swift
stroke, so swift that you could not see it — only the flash of the
knife; and before you could realize it, the man had darted on to
the next line, and a stream of bright red was pouring out upon
the floor. This floor was half an inch deep with blood, in spite
of the best efforts of men who kept shovelling it through holes;
it must have made the floor slippery, but no one could have guessed
this by watching the men at work.

The carcass hung for a few minutes to bleed; there was no
time lost, however, for there were several hanging in each line,
and one was always ready. It was let down to the ground, and
there came the "headsman," whose task it was to sever the head,
with two or three swift strokes. Then came the "floorsman," to
make the first cut in the skin; and then another to finish ripping
the skin down the centre; and then half a dozen more in swift
succession, to finish the skinning. After they were through, the
carcass was again swung up; and while a man with a stick ex-
amined the skin, to make sure that it had not been cut, and another
rolled it up and tumbled it through one of the inevitable holes in
the floor, the beef proceeded on its journey. There were men to
cut it, and men to split it, and men to gut it and scrape it clean
inside. There were some with hose which threw jets of boiling
water upon it, and others who removed the feet and added the
final touches. In the end, as with the hogs, the finished beef was
run into the chilling-room, to hang its appointed time.

The visitors were taken there and shown them, all neatly hung
in rows, labelled conspicuously with the tags of the government
inspectors — and some, which had been killed by a special process,
marked with the sign of the "kosher" rabbi, certifying that it was
fit for sale to the orthodox. And then the visitors were taken to
the other parts of the building, to see what became of each particle
of the waste material that had vanished through the floor; and to
the pickling-rooms and the salting-rooms, the canning-rooms and

437

the packing-rooms, where choice meat was prepared for shipping
in refrigerator-cars, destined to be eaten in all the four corners of
civilization. Afterward they went outside, wandering about among
the mazes of buildings in which was done the work auxiliary to
this great industry. There was scarcely a thing needed in the busi-
ness that Durham and Company did not make for themselves.
There was a great steam-power plant and an electricity plant.
There was a barrel factory and a boiler-repair shop. There was a
building to which the grease was piped, and made into soap and
lard; and then there was a factory for making lard-cans, and
another for making soap-boxes. There was a building in which
the bristles were cleaned and dried, for the making of hair-cushions
and such things; there was a building where the skins were dried
and tanned, there was another where heads and feet were made
into glue, and another where bones were made into fertilizer. No
tiniest particle of organic matter was wasted m Durham's. Out
of the horns of the cattle they made combs, buttons, hair-pins, and
imitation ivory; out of the shin-bones and other big bones they
cut knife and tooth-brush handles, and mouthpieces for pipes; out
of the hoofs they cut hair-pins and buttons, before they made the
rest into glue. From such things as feet, knuckles, hide clippings,
and sinews came such strange and unlikely products as gelatin,
isinglass, and phosphorus, bone-black, shoe-blacking, and bone-oil.
They had curled-hair works for the cattle tails, and a "wool-
pullery" for the sheep skins; they made pepsin from the stomachs
of the pigs, and albumen from the blood, and violin strings from
the ill-smelling entrails. When there was nothing else to be done
with a thing, they first put it into a tank and got out of it all the
tallow and grease, and then they made it into fertilizer. All these
industries were gathered into buildings near by, connected by
galleries and railroads with the main establishment; and it was
estimated that they had handled nearly a quarter of a billion of
animals since the founding of the plant by the elder Durham a
generation and more ago. If you counted with it the other big
plants — and they were now really all one — it was, so Jokubas in-
formed them, the greatest aggregation of labour and capital ever
gathered in one place. It employed thirty thousand men; it sup-
ported directly two hundred and fifty thousand people in its
neighbourhood, and indirectly it supported half a million. It
sent its products to every country in the civilized world, and it
furnished the food for no less than thirty million people.

The Jungle, 1906

438

Getting on the, Chicago "Globe"

THEODORE DREISER

Picture a dreamy cub of twenty-one, long, spindling, a pair of
gold-framed spectacles on his nose, his hair combed & la pompadour,
a new spring suit consisting of light check trousers and bright blue
coat and vest, a brown fedora hat, new yellow shoes, starting out
to force his way into the newspaper world of Chicago. At that time,
although I did not know it, Chicago was in the heyday of its
newspaper prestige. Some of the nation's most remarkable editors,
publishers and newspaper writers were at work there: Melville
E. Stone, afterward general manager of the Associated Press;
Victor F. Lawson, publisher of the Daily News; Joseph Medill,
editor and publisher of the Tribune; Eugene Field, managing editor
of the Morning Record; William Penn Nixon, editor and publisher
of the Inter -Ocean; George Ade; Finley Peter Dunne; Brand
Whitlock; and a score of others subsequently to become well
known.

Having made up my mind that I must be a newspaper man,
I made straight for the various offices at noon and at six o'clock
each day to ask if there was anything I could do. Very soon I
succeeded in making my way into the presence of the various
city and managing editors of all the papers in Chicago, with the
result that they surveyed me with the cynical fishy eye peculiar to
newspaper men and financiers and told me there was nothing.

One day in the office of the Daily News a tall, shambling,
awkward-looking man in a brown flannel shirt, without coat or
waistcoat, suspenders down, was pointed out to me by an office
boy who saw him slipping past the city editorial door.

"Wanta know who dat is?" he asked.

"Yes," I replied humbly, grateful even for the attention of office
boys.

"Well, dat's Eugene Field. Heard o' him, ain'tcha?"

"Sure," I said, recalling the bundle of incoherent MS. which I
had once thrust upon him. I surveyed his retreating figure with
envy and some nervousness, fearing he might psychically detect
that I was the perpetrator of that unsolicited slush and abuse me
then and there.

In spite of my energy, manifested for one solid week between

439

the hours of twelve and two at noon and five-thirty and seven at
night I got nothing. Indeed it seemed to me as I went about these
newspaper offices that they were the strangest, coldest, most
haphazard and impractical of places. Gone was that fine ambassa-
dorial quality with which a few months before I had invested
them. These rooms, as I now saw, were crowded with common-
place desks and lamps, the floors strewn with newspapers. Office
boys and hirelings gazed at you in the most unfriendly manner,
asked what you wanted and insisted that there was nothing —
they who knew nothing. By office boys I was told to come after
one or two in the afternoon or after seven at night, when all
assignments had been given out, and when I did so I was told
that there was nothing and would be nothing. I began to feel
desperate.

Just about this time I had an inspiration. I determined that,
instead of trying to see all of the editors each day and missing
most of them at the vital hour, I would select one paper and see if
in some way I could not worm myself into the good graces of its
editor. I now had the very sensible notion that a small paper would
probably receive me with more consideration than one of the great
ones, and out of them all chose the Daily Globe, a struggling affair
financed by one of the Chicago politicians for political purposes
only.

You have perhaps seen a homeless cat hang about a doorstep for
days and days meowing to be taken in: that was I. The door in
this case was a side door and opened upon an alley. Inside was a
large, bare room filled with a few rows of tables set end to end,
with a railing across the northern one-fourth, behind which sat
the city editor, the dramatic and sporting editors, and one editorial
writer. Outside this railing, near the one window, sat a large,
fleshy gelatinous, round-faced round-headed young man wearing
gold-rimmed spectacles. He had a hard, keen, cynical eye, and at
first glance seemed to be most vitally opposed to me and everybody
else. As it turned out, he was the Daily Globe's copy-reader. Nothing
was said to me at first as I sat in my far corner waiting for
something to turn up. By degrees some of the reporters began to
talk to me, thinking I was a member of the staff, which eased my
position a little during this time. I noticed that as soon as all the
reporters had gone the city editor became most genial with the
one editorial writer, who sat next him, and the two often went off
together for a bite.

Parlous and yet delicious hours! Although I felt all the time as

44°

though I were on the edge of some great change, still no one
seemed to want me. The city editor, when I approached after all
the others had gone, would shake his head and say: "Nothing
today. There's not a thing in sight," but not roughly or harshly,
and therein lay my hope. So here I would sit, reading the various
papers or trying to write out something I had seen. I was always
on the alert for some accident that I might report to this city
editor in the hope that he had not seen it, but I encountered
nothing.

The ways of advancement are strange, so often purely accidental.
I did not know it, but my mere sitting here in this fashion eventu-
ally proved a card in my favor. A number of the employed re-
porters, of whom there were eight or nine (the best papers carried
from twenty to thirty), seeing me sit about from twelve to two
and thinking I was employed here also, struck up occasional genial
and enlightening conversations with me. Reporters rarely know
the details of staff arrangements or changes. Some of them, finding
that I was only seeking work, ignored me; others gave me a bit
of advice. Why didn't I see Selig of the "Tribune, or Herbst of the
Herald? It was rumored that staff changes were to be made there.
One youth learning that I had never written a line for a newspaper,
suggested that I go to the editor of the City Press Association or
the United Press, where the most inexperienced beginners were
put to work at the rate of eight dollars a week. This did not suit
me at all. I felt that I could write.

Finally, however, my mere sitting about in this fashion brought
me into contact with that copy-reader I have described, John
Maxwell, who remarked one day out of mere curiosity:

"Are you doing anything special for the Globe?"

"No," I replied.

"Just looking for work?"

"Yes."

"Ever work on any paper?"

"No."

"How do you know you can write?"

"I don't. I just feel that I can. I want to see if I can't get a
chance to try."

He looked at me, curiously, amusedly, cynically.

"Don't you ever go around to the other papers?"

"Yes, after I find out there's nothing here."

He smiled. "How long have you been coming here like this?"

"Two weeks."

44 1

"Every day?"

"Every day."

He laughed now, a genial, rolling, fat laugh.

"Why do you pick the Globe? Don't you know it's the poorest
paper in Chicago?"

"That's why I pick it," I replied innocently. "I thought I might
get a chance here."

"Oh, you did!" he laughed. "Well, you may be right at that.
Hang around. You may get something. Now I'll tell you something :
this National Democratic Convention will open in June. They'll
have to take on a few new men here then. I can't see why they
shouldn't give you a chance as well as anybody else. But it's a hell
of a business to be wanting to get into," he added.

He began taking ofl his coat and waistcoat, rolling up his sleeves,
sharpening his blue pencils and taking up stacks of copy. The
while I merely stared at him. Every now and then he would look
at me through his round glasses as though I were some strange
animal. I grew restless and went out. But after that he greeted me
each day in a friendly way, and because he seemed inclined to
talk I stayed and talked with him.

What it was that finally drew us together in a minor bond of
friendship I have never been able to discover. I am sure he con-
sidered me of little intellectual or reportorial import and yet also I
gathered that he liked me a little. He seemed to take a fancy to
me from the moment of our first conversation and included me in
what I might call the Globe family spirit. He was interested in
politics, literature, and the newspaper life of Chicago. Bit by bit
he informed me as to the various editors, who were the most
successful newspaper men, how some reporters did police, some
politics, and some just general news. From him I learned that
every paper carried a sporting editor, a society editor, a dramatic edi-
tor, a political man. There were managing editors, Sunday editors,
city editors, copy-readers and editorial writers, all of whom seemed to
me marvelous — men of the very greatest import. And they earned
— which was more amazing still — salaries ranging from eighteen
to thirty-five and even sixty and seventy dollars a week. From him I
learned that this newspaper world was a seething maelstrom in
which clever men struggled and fought as elsewhere; that some
rose and many fell; that there was a roving element among news-
paper men that drifted from city to city, many drinking themselves
out of countenance, others settling down somewhere into some
fortunate berth. Before long he told me that only recently he had

442

been copy-reader on the Chicago Times but due to what he char-
acterized as "office politics," a term the meaning of which I in no
wise grasped, he had been jockeyed out of his place. He seemed to
think that by and large newspaper men while interesting and in
some cases able, were tricky and shifty and above all, disturbingly
and almost heartlessly inconsiderate of each other. Being young and
inexperienced this point of view made no impression on me
whatsoever. If I thought anything I thought that he must be
wrong, or that, at any rate, this heartlessness would never trouble
me in any way, being the live and industrious person that I was.

It made me happy to know that whether or not I was taken on I
had at least achieved one friend at court. Maxwell advised me to
stick.

"You'll get on," he said a day or two later. "I believe you've
got the stuff in you. Maybe I can help you. You'll probably be like
every other damned newspaper man once you get a start: an
ingrate; but I'll help you just the same. Hang around. That con-
vention will begin in three or four weeks now. I'll speak a good
word for you, unless you tie up with some other paper before
then."

And to my astonishment really, he was as good as his word.
He must have spoken to the city editor soon after this, for the
latter asked me what I had been doing and told me to hang
around in case something should turn up. . . . On the day the
newspapers were beginning to chronicle the advance arrival of
various leaders from all parts of the country, I was taken on at
fifteen dollars a week, for a week or two anyhow, and assigned to
watch the committee rooms in the hotels Palmer, Grand Pacific,
Auditorium and Richelieu.

Newspaper Days, 1922

443

I Was Marching

MERIDEL LE SUEUR

I have never been in a strike before. It is like looking at something
that is happening for the first time and there are no thoughts and
no words yet accrued to it. If you come from the middle class,
words are likely to mean more than an event. You are likely to
think about a thing, and the happening will be the size of a pin
point and the words around the happening very large, distorting it
queerly. It's a case of "Remembrance of things past." When you
are in the event, you are likely to have a distinctly individualistic
attitude, to be only partly there, and to care more for the happening
afterwards than when it is happening. That is why it is hard for a
person like myself ... to be in a strike.

Besides, in American life, you hear things happening in a far
and muffled way. One thing is said and another happens. Our
merchant society has been built upon a huge hypocrisy, a cut-throat
competition which sets one man against another and at the same
time an ideology mouthing such words as "Humanity," "Truth,"
the "Golden Rule," and such. Now in a crisis the word falls away
and the skeleton of that action shows in terrific movement.

For two days I heard of the strike. I went by their headquarters,
I walked by on the opposite side of the street and saw the dark
old building that had been a garage and lean, dark young faces
leaning from the upstairs windows. I had to go down there often.
I looked in. I saw the huge black interior and live coals of living
men moving restlessly and orderly, their eyes gleaming from their
sweaty faces.

I saw cars leaving filled with grimy men, pickets going to the
line, engines roaring out. I stayed close to the door, watching. I
didn't go in. I was afraid they would put me out. After all, I
could remain a spectator. A man wearing a polo hat kept going
around with a large camera taking pictures.

I am putting down exactly how I felt, because I believe others of
my class feel the same as I did. I believe it stands for an important
psychic change that must take place in all. I saw many artists,
writers, professionals, even business men and women standing

444

across the street, too, and I saw in their faces the same longings,
the same fears.

The truth is I was afraid. Not of the physical danger at all, but
in awful fright of mixing, of losing myself, of being unknown
md lost. I felt inferior. I felt no one would know me there, that
all I had been trained to excel in would go unnoticed. I can't
describe what I felt, but perhaps it will come near it to say that I
felt I excelled in competing with others and I knew instantly that
these people were NOT competing at all, that they were acting
in a strange, powerful trance of movement together. And I was
filled with longing to act with them and with fear that I could not. I
felt I was born out of every kind of life, thrown up alone, looking at
Dther lonely people, a condition I had been in the habit of defending
with various attitudes of cynicism, preciosity, defiance, and hatred.

Looking at that dark and lively building, massed with men, I
knew my feelings to be those belonging to disruption, chaos, and
disintegration and I felt their direct and awful movement, mute
and powerful, drawing them into a close and glowing cohesion
like a powerful conflagration in the midst of the city. And it filled
me with fear and awe and at the same time hope. I knew this
action to be prophetic and indicative of future actions and I wanted
to be part of it.

Our life seems to be marked with a curious and muffled violence
over America, but this action has always been in the dark, men
and women dying obscurely, poor and poverty marked lives. But
now from city to city runs this violence, into the open, and colossal
happenings stand bare before our eyes: the street churning sud-
denly upon the pivot of mad violence, whole men suddenly spout-
ing blood and running like living sieves, another holding a dangling
arm shot squarely off, a tall youngster, running, tripping over his
intestines, and one block away, in the burning sun, gay women
shopping and a window dresser trying to decide whether to put
green or red voile on a mannikin.

In these terrible happenings you cannot be neutral now. No one
can be neutral in the face of bullets.

The next day, with sweat breaking out on my body, I walked
past the three guards at the door. They said, "Let the women in.
We need women." And I knew it was no joke.

At first I could not see into the dark building. I felt many men
coming and going, cars driving through. I had an awful impulse

445

to go into the office which I passed, and offer to do some special
work. I saw a sign which said "Get your button." I saw they all
had buttons with the date and the number of the union local.
I didn't get a button. I wanted to be anonymous.

There seemed to be a current, running down the wooden stairs,
towards the front of the building, into the street, which was massed
with people, and back again. I followed the current up the old
stairs packed closely with hot men and women. As I was going up
I could look down and see the lower floor, the cars drawing up to
await picket call, the hospital roped ofi on one side.

Upstairs men sat bolt upright in chairs asleep, their bodies flung
in attitudes of peculiar violence of fatigue. A woman nursed her
baby. Two young girls slept together on a cot, dressed in overalls.
The voice of the loudspeaker filled the room. The immense heat
pressed down from the flat ceiling. I stood up against the wall for
an hour. No one paid any attention to me. The commissary was in
back and the women came out sometimes and sat down, fanning
themselves with their aprons and listening to the news over the
loudspeaker. A huge man seemed hung on a tiny folding chair.
Occasionally some one tiptoed over and brushed the flies ofi his
face. His great head fell over and the sweat poured regularly from
his forehead like a spring. I wondered why they took such care of
him. They all looked at him tenderly as he slept. I learned later he
was a leader on the picket line and had the scalps of more cops to
his name than any other.

Three windows flanked the front. I walked over to the windows.
A red-headed woman with a button saying, "Unemployed Council,"
was looking out. I looked out with her. A thick crowd stood
in the heat below listening to the strike bulletin. We could
look right into the windows of the smart club across the street.
We could see people peering out of the windows half hid-
den.

I kept feeling they would put me out. No one paid any attention.
The woman said without looking at me, nodding to the palatial
house, "It sure is good to see the enemy plain like that." "Yes,"
I said. I saw that the club was surrounded by a steel picket fence
higher than a man. "They know what they put that there fence
there for," she said. "Yes," I said. "Well," she said, "I've got to get
back to the kitchen. Is it ever hot?" The thermometer said ninety-
nine. The sweat ran ofi us, burning our skins. "The boys'll be
coming in," she said, "for their noon feed." She had a scarred face.
"Boy, will it be a mad house?" "Do you need any help?" I said

446

eagerly. "Boy," she said, "some of us have been pouring coffee
since two o'clock this morning, steady, without no let-up." She
started to go. She didn't pay any special attention to me as an
individual. She didn't seem to be thinking of me, she didn't seem
to see me. I watched her go. I felt rebuffed, hurt. Then I saw
instantly she didn't see ir^ kpranse she saw only what she was
doing. I ran after her.

I found the kitchen organized like a factory. Nobody asks my
name. I am given a large butcher's apron. I realize I have never
before worked anonymously. At first I feel strange and then I feel
good. The forewoman sets me to washing tin cups. There are not
enough cups. We have to wash fast and rinse them and set them
up quickly for buttermilk and coffee as the line thickens and the
men wait. A little shortish man who is a professional dishwasher is
supervising. I feel I won't be able to wash tin cups, but when no
one pays any attention except to see that there are enough cups I
feel better.

The line grows heavy. The men are coming in from the picket
line. Each woman has one thing to do. There is no confusion. I
soon learn I am not supposed to help pour the buttermilk. I am
not supposed to serve sandwiches. I am supposed to wash tin
cups. I suddenly look around and realize all these women are from
factories. I know they have learned this organization and specializa-
tion in the factory. I look at the round shoulders of the woman
cutting bread next to me and I feel I know her. The cups are
brought back, washed and put on the counter again. The sweat
pours down our faces, but we forget about it.

Then I am changed and put to pouring coffee. At first I look at
the men's faces and then I don't look any more. It seems I am
pouring coffee for the same tense, dirty sweating face, the same
body, the same blue shirt and overalls. Hours go by, the heat is
terrific. I am not tired. I am not hot. I am pouring coffee. I am
swung into the most intense and natural organization I have ever
felt. I know everything that is going on. These things become of
great matter to me.

Eyes looking, hands raising a thousand cups, throats burning,
eyes bloodshot from lack of sleep, the body dilated to catch every
sound over the whole city. Buttermilk? Coffee?

"Is your man here?" the woman cutting sandwiches asks me.

447

"No," I say, then I lie for some reason, peering around as if
ooking eagerly for someone, "I don't see him now."
But I was pouring coffee for living men.

For a long time, about one o'clock, it seemed like something was
ibout to happen. Women seemed to be pouring into headquarters
o be near their men. You could hear only lies over the radio.
\nd lies in the paper. Nobody knew precisely what was happening,
>ut everyone thought something would happen in a few hours,
fou could feel the men being poured out of the hall onto the
)icket line. Every few minutes cars left and more drew up and
vere filled. The voice at the loudspeaker was accelerated, calling for
nen, calling for picket cars.

I could hear the men talking about the arbitration board, the
ruce that was supposed to be maintained while the board sat with
he Governor. They listened to every word over the loudspeaker.
\ terrible communal excitement ran through the hall like a fire
hrough a forest. I could hardly breathe. I seemed to have no body
it all except the body of this excitement. I felt that what had
lappened before had not been a real movement, these false words
ind actions had taken place on the periphery. The real action was
ibout to show, the real intention.

We kept on pouring thousands of cups of coffee, feeding thou-
;ands of men.

The chef with a woman tattooed on his arm was just dishing the
ast of the stew. It was about two o'clock. The commissary was
ibout empty. We went into the front hall. It was drained of men.
The chairs were empty. The voice of the announcer was excited.
The men are massed at the market," he said. "Something is going
o happen." I sat down beSide a woman who was holding her
lands tightly together, leaning forward listening, her eyes bright
ind dilated. I had never seen her before. She took my hands. She
>ulled me towards her. She was crying. "It's awful," she said.
'Something awful is going to happen. They've taken both my
:hildren away from me and now something is going to happen to
ill those men." I held her hands. She had a green ribbon around
ler hair.

The action seemed reversed. The cars were coming back. The
mnouncer cried, "This is murder." Cars were coming in. I don't
:now how we got to the stairs. Everyone seemed to be converging

at a menaced point. I saw below the crowd stirring, uncoiling.
I saw them taking men out of cars and putting them on the
hospital cots, on the floor. At first I felt frightened, the close black
area of the barn, the blood, the heavy movement, the sense of
myself lost, gone. But I couldn't have turned away now. A woman
clung to my hand. I was pressed against the body of another. If
you are to understand anything you must understand it in the
muscular event, in actions we have not been trained for. Something
broke all my surfaces in something that was beyond horror, and I
was dabbing alcohol on the gaping wounds that buckshot makes,
hanging open like crying mouths. Buckshot wounds splay in the
body and then swell like a blow. Ness, who died, had thirty-eight
slugs in his body, in the chest and in the back.

The picket cars keep coming in. Some men have walked back
from the market, holding their own blood in. They move in a
great explosion, and the newness of the movement makes it seem
like something under ether, moving terrifically towards a culmina-
tion.

From all over the city workers are coming. They gather outside
in two great half circles, cut in two to let the ambulances in. A
traffic cop is still directing traffic at the corner, and the crowd
cannot stand to see him. "We'll give you just two seconds to beat
it," they tell him. He goes away quickly. A striker takes over the
street.

Men, women, and children are massing outside, a living circle
close packed for protection. From the tall office building business
men are looking down on that black swarm thickening, coagulating
into what action they cannot tell.

We have living blood on our skirts.

That night at eight o'clock a mass meeting was called of all labor.
It was to be in a parking lot two blocks from headquarters. All
the women gather at the front of the building with collection
cans, ready to march to the meeting. I have not been home. It
never occurs to me to leave. The twilight is eerie and the men are
saying that the chief of police is going to attack the meeting and
raid headquarters. The smell of blood hangs in the hot, still air.
Rumors strike at the taut nerves. The dusk looks ghastly with
what might be in the next half hour.

"If you have any children," a woman said to me, "you better

449

not go." I looked at the desperate women's faces, the broken feet,
the torn and hanging pelvis, the worn and lovely bodies of women
who persist under such desperate labors. I shivered, though it was
96 and the sun had been down a good hour.

The parking lot was already full of people when we got there,
and men swarmed the adjoining roofs. An elegant cafe stood across
the street with water sprinkling from its roof, and splendidly
dressed men and women stood on the steps as if looking at a
show.

The platform was the bullet-riddled truck of the afternoon's
fray. We had been told to stand close to this platform, and we
did, making the center of a wide massed circle that stretched as
far as we could see. We seemed buried like minerals in a mass,
packed body to body. I felt again that peculiar heavy silence in
which there is the real form of the happening.. My eyes burn. I
can hardly see. I seem to be standing like an animal in ambush.
I have the brightest, most physical feeling with every sense sharpened
peculiarly. The movements, the masses that I see and feel I have
never known before. I only partly know what I am seeing, feeling,
but I feel it is the real body and gesture of a future vitality. I see
that there is a bright clot of women drawn close to a bullet-riddled
truck. I am one of them, yet I don't feel myself at all. It is curious;
I feel most alive and yet for the first time in my life I do not feel
myself as separate. I realize then that all my previous feelings have
been based on feeling myself separate and distinct from others,
and now I sense sharply faces, bodies, closeness, and my own fear
is not my own alone nor my hope.

The strikers keep moving up cars. We keep moving back together
to let cars pass and form between us and a brick building that
flanks the parking lot. They are connecting the loudspeaker, testing
it. Yes, they are moving up lots of cars through the crowd, and
lining them closely side by side. There must be ten thousand people
now, heat rising from them. They are standing silent, watching
the platform, watching the cars being brought up. The silence
seems terrific, like a great form moving of itself. This is real
movement issuing from the close reality of mass feeling. This is
the first real rhythmic movement I have ever seen. My heart
hammers terrifically. My hands are swollen and hot. No one is
producing this movement. It is a movement upon which all are
moving softly, rhythmically, terribly.

No matter how many times I looked at what was happening I
hardly knew what I saw. I looked and I saw time and time again

45°

that there were men standing close to us, around us, and then
suddenly I knew that there was a living chain of men standing
shoulder to shoulder, forming a circle around the group of women.
They stood shoulder to shoulder, slightly moving like a thick vine
from the pressure behind, but standing tightly woven like a living
wall, moving gently.

I saw that the cars were now lined one close fitted to the other
with strikers sitting on the roofs and closely packed on the running
boards. They could see far over the crowd. "What are they doing
that for?" I said. No one answered. The wide dilated eyes of the
women were like my own. No one seemed to be answering questions
now. They simply spoke, cried out, moved together now.

The last car drove in slowly, the crowd letting them through
without command or instruction. "A little closer," someone said.
"Be sure they are close." Men sprang up to direct whatever action
was needed and then subsided again, and no one had noticed who
it was. They stepped forward to direct a needed action and then
fell anonymously back again.

We all watched carefully the placing of the cars. Sometimes we
looked at each other. I didn't understand that look. I felt uneasy.
It was as if something escaped me. And then suddenly, on my very
body, I knew what they were doing, as if it had been communicated
to me from a thousand eyes, a thousand silent throats, as if it had
been shouted in the loudest voice.

THEY WERE BUILDING A BARRICADE.

Two men died from that day's shooting. Men lined up to give
one of them a blood transfusion, but he died. Black Friday, men
called the murderous day. Night and day workers held their
children up to see the body of Ness who died. Tuesday, the day
of the funeral, one thousand more militia were massed downtown.

It was still over ninety in the shade. I went to the funeral parlors
and thousands of men and women were massed there waiting in
the terrific sun. One block of women and children were standing
two hours waiting. I went over and stood near them. I didn't know
whether I could march. I didn't like marching in parades. Besides,
I felt they might not want me.

I stood aside not knowing if I would march. I couldn't see how
they would ever organize it anyway. No one seemed to be doing
much.

451

At three-forty some command went down the ranks. I sale
foolishly at the last minute, "I don't belong to the auxiliary — coulc
I march?" Three women drew me in. "We want all to march,'
they said gently. "Come with us."

The giant mass uncoiled like a serpent and straightened out
ahead, and to my amazement on a lift of road I could see six block*
of massed men, four abreast, with bare heads, moving straight on
and as they moved, uncoiled the mass behind and pulled it after
them. I felt myself walking, accelerating my speed with the others
as the line stretched, pulled taut, then held its rhythm.

Not a cop was in sight. The cortege moved through the stop-
and-go signs; it seemed to lift of its own dramatic rhythm, coming
from the intention of every person there. We were moving spontane-
ously in a movement, natural, hardy, and miraculous.

We passed through six blocks of tenements,, through a sea of
grim faces, and there was not a sound. There was the curious
shuffle of thousands of feet, without drum or bugle, in ominous
silence, a march not heavy as the military, but very light, exactly
with the heartbeat.

I was marching with a million hands, movements, faces, and my
own movement was repeating again and again, making a new
movement from these many gestures, the walking, falling back,
the open mouth crying, the nostrils stretched apart, the raised
hand, the blow falling, and the outstretched hand drawing me in.

I felt my legs straighten. I felt my feet join in that strange
shuffle of thousands of bodies moving with direction, of thousands
of feet and my own breath with the gigantic breath. As if an
electric charge had passed through me, my hair stood on end. I
was marching.

The New Masses, September 18, 1934

452

TJtc Middle West

FREDERICK J. TURNER

American sectional nomenclature is still confused. Once "the
West" described the whole region beyond the Alleghanies; but
the term has hopelessly lost its defmiteness. The rapidity of the
spread of settlement has broken down old usage, and as yet no
substitute has been generally accepted. The "Middle West" is a
term variously used by the public, but for the purpose of the
present paper, it will be applied to that region of the United States
included in the census reports under the name of the North
Central division, comprising the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois,
Michigan, and Wisconsin (the old "Territory Northwest of the
River Ohio"), and their trans-Mississippi sisters of the Louisiana
Purchase, — Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota, Kansas, Nebraska, North
Dakota, and South Dakota. It is an imperial domain. If the greater
countries of Central Europe, — France, Germany, Italy, and Austro-
Hungary, — were laid down upon this area, the Middle West would
still show a margin of spare territory. Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and
Buffalo constitute its gateways to the Eastern States; Kansas City,
Omaha, St. Paul-Minneapolis, and Duluth-Superior dominate its
western areas; Cincinnati and St. Louis stand on its southern
borders; and Chicago reigns at the center. What Boston, New York,
Philadelphia, and Baltimore are to the Atlantic seaboard these
cities are to the Middle West. The Great Lakes and the Mississippi,
with the Ohio and the Missouri as laterals, constitute the vast
water system that binds the Middle West together. It is the economic
and political center of the Republic. At one edge is the Populism of
the prairies; at the other, the capitalism that is typified in Pittsburgh.
Great as are the local differences within the Middle West, it
possesses, ... in the history of its settlement, and in its economic
and social life, a unity and interdependence which warrant a
study of the area as an entity. . . .

It would be impossible within the limits of this paper to detail
the history of the occupation of the Middle West; but the larger as-
pects of the flow of population into the region may be sketched. . . .
By the opening of the nineteenth century, when Napoleon's cession
brought to the United States the vast spaces of the Louisiana
Purchase beyond the Mississippi, the pioneers had hardly more

453

than entered the outskirts of the forest along the Ohio and Lake
Erie. But by 1810 the government had extinguished the Indian
title to the unsecured portions of the Western Reserve, and to
great tracts of Indiana, along the Ohio and up the Wabash Valley;
thus protecting the Ohio highway from the Indians, and opening
new lands to settlement. The embargo had destroyed the trade of
New England, and had weighted down her citizens with debt and
taxation; caravans of Yankee emigrant wagons, precursors of the
"prairie schooner," had already begun to cross Pennsylvania on
their way to Ohio; and they now greatly increased in number.
North Carolina back countrymen flocked to the Indiana settlements,
giving the peculiar Hoosier flavor to the State, and other Southerners
followed, outnumbering the Northern immigrants, who sought
the eastern edge of Indiana.

Tecumthe, rendered desperate by the advance into his hunting
grounds, took up the hatchet, made wide-reaching alliances among
the Indians, and turned to England for protection. The Indian war
merged into the War of 1812, and the settlers strove in vain to
add Canadian lands to their empire. In the diplomatic negotiations
that followed the war, England made another attempt to erect the
Old Northwest beyond the Greenville line into a permanent Indian
barrier between Canada and the United States; but the demand
was refused, and by the treaties of 1818, the Indians were pressed
still farther north. In the meantime, Indian treaties had released
additional land in southern Illinois, and pioneers were widening
the bounds of the old French settlements. Avoiding the rich
savannas of the prairie regions, as devoid of wood, remote from
transportation facilities, and suited only to grazing, they entered
the hard woods — and in the early twenties they were advancing
in a wedge-shaped column up the Illinois Valley.

The Southern element constituted the main portion of this
phalanx of ax-bearers. Abraham Lincoln's father joined the throng
of Kentuckians that entered the Indiana woods in 1816, and the boy,
when he had learned to hew out a forest home, betook himself,
in 1830, to Sangamon county, Illinois. He represents the pioneer
of the period; but his ax sank deeper than other men's, and the
plaster cast of his great sinewy hand, at Washington, embodies
the training of these frontier railsplitters, in the days when Fort
Dearborn, on the site of Chicago, was but a military outpost in a
desolate country. While the hard woods of Illinois were being
entered, the pioneer movement passed also into the Missouri Valley.
The French lead miners had already opened the southeastern

454

section, and Southern mountaineers had pushed up the Missouri;
but now the planters from the Ohio Valley and the upper Tennessee
followed, seeking the alluvial soils for slave labor. Moving across
the southern border of free Illinois, they had awakened regrets in
that State at the loss of so large a body of settlers.

Looking at the Middle West, as a whole, in the decade from
1810 to 1820, we perceive that settlement extended from the shores
of Lake Erie in an arc, following the banks of the Ohio till it
joined the Mississippi, and thence along that river and up the
Missouri well into the center of the State. The next decade was
marked by the increased use of the steamboat; pioneers pressed
farther up the streams, etching out the hard wood forests well up
to the prairie lands, and forming additional tracts of settlement
in the region tributary to Detroit and in the southeastern part of
Michigan. In the area of the Galena lead mines of northwestern
Illinois, southwestern Wisconsin, and northeastern Iowa, South-
erners had already begun operations; and if we except Ohio and
Michigan, the dominant element in all this overflow of settlement
into the Middle West was Southern, particularly from Kentucky,
Virginia, and North Carolina. The settlements were still dependent
on the rivers for transportation, and the areas between the rivers
were but lightly occupied. The Mississippi constituted the principal
outlet for the products of the Middle West; Pittsburgh furnished
most of the supplies for the region, but New Orleans received its
crops. The Old National road was built piecemeal, and too late,
as a whole, to make a great artery of trade throughout the Middle
West, in this early period; but it marked the northern borders of
the Southern stream of population, running, as this did, through
Columbus, Indianapolis, and Vandalia.

The twenty years from 1830 to 1850 saw great changes in the
composition of the population of the Middle West. The opening
of the Erie Canal in 1825 was an epoch-making event. It furnished
a new outlet and inlet for northwestern traffic; Buffalo began to
grow, and New York City changed from a local market to a
great commercial center. But even more important was the place
which the canal occupied as the highway for a new migration.

In the march of the New England people from the coast, three
movements are of especial importance: the advance from the
seaboard up the Connecticut and Housatonic Valleys through
Massachusetts and into Vermont; the advance thence to central and
western New York; and the advance to the interior of the Old
Northwest. The second of these stages occupied the generation

455

from about 1790 to 1820; after that the second generation was
ready to seek new lands; and these the Erie Canal and lake
navigation opened to them, and to the Vermonters and other
adventurous spirits of New England. It was this combined New
York-New England stream that in the thirties poured in large
volume into the zone north of the settlements which have been
described. The newcomers filled in the southern counties of
Michigan and Wisconsin, the northern counties of Illinois, and
parts of the northern and central areas of Indiana. Pennsylvania
and Ohio sent a similar type of people to the area adjacent to those
States. In Iowa a stream combined of the Southern element and
of these settlers sought the wooded tributaries of the Mississippi
in the southeastern part of the State. In default of legal authority,
in this early period, they formed squatter governments and land
associations, comparable to the action of the Massachusetts men
who in the first third of the seventeenth century "squatted" in the
Connecticut Valley.

A great forward movement had occurred, which took possession
of oak openings and prairies, gave birth to the cities of Chicago,
Milwaukee, St. Paul, and Minneapolis, as well as to a multitude
of lesser cities, and replaced the dominance of the Southern element
by that of a modified Puritan stock. The railroad system of the
early fifties bound the Mississippi to the North Atlantic seaboard;
New Orleans gave way to New York as the outlet for the Middle
West, and the day of river settlement was succeeded by the era of
inter-river settlement and railway transportation. The change in
the political and social ideals was at least equal to the change in
economic connections, and together these forces made an intimate
organic union between New England, New York, and the newly
settled West. In estimating the New England influence in the Middle
West, it must not be forgotten that the New York settlers were
mainly New Englanders of a later generation.

Combined with the streams from the East came the German
migration into the Middle West. Over half a million, mainly from
the Palatinate, Wiirtemberg, and the adjacent regions, sought
America between 1830 and 1850, and nearly a million more Germans
came in the next decade. The larger portion of these went into the
Middle West; they became pioneers in the newer parts of Ohio,
especially along the central ridge, and in Cincinnati; they took up
the hardwood lands of the Wisconsin counties along Lake Michigan;
and they came in important numbers to Missouri, Illinois, Indiana,
and Michigan, and to the river towns of Iowa. The migration in

456

the thirties and forties contained an exceptionally large proportion
of educated and forceful leaders, men who had struggled in vain
for the ideal of a liberal German nation, and who contributed
important intellectual forces to the communities in which they
settled. The Germans, as a whole, furnished a conservative and
thrifty agricultural element to the Middle West. In some of their
social ideals they came into collision with the Puritan element
from New England, and the outcome of the steady contest has
been a compromise. Of all the States, Wisconsin has been most
deeply influenced by the Germans. . . .

[In the decade before the Civil War], not only did the density
of settlement increase in the older portions of the region, but new
waves of colonization passed into the remoter prairies. Iowa's
pioneers, after Indian cessions had been secured, spread well toward
her western limits. Minnesota, also, was recruited by a column of
pioneers. The treaty of Traverse de Sioux, in 1851, opened over
twenty million acres of arable land in that State, and Minnesota
increased her population 2730.7 per cent in the decade from 1850
to 1860.

Up to this decade the pine belt of the Middle West, in northern
Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota had been the field of opera-
tions of Indian traders. At first under English companies, and
afterward under Astor's American Fur Company, the traders with
their French and half-breed boatmen skirted the Great Lakes and
followed the rivers into the forests, where they stationed their posts
and spread goods and whiskey among the Indians. Their posts
were centers of disintegration among the savages. The new wants
and the demoralization which resulted from the Indian trade
facilitated the purchases of their lands by the federal government.
The trader was followed by the seeker for the best pine land
"forties"; and by the time of the Civil War the exploitation of the
pine belt had fairly begun. The Irish and Canadian choppers,
followed by the Scandinavians, joined the forest men, and log
drives succeeded the trading canoe. Men from the pine woods of
Maine and Vermont directed the industry, and became magnates
in the mill towns that grew up in the forests, — millionaires, and
afterwards political leaders. In the prairie country of the Middle
West, the Indian trade that centered at St. Louis had been im-
portant ever since 1820, with an influence upon the Indians of
the plains similar to the influence of the northern fur trade upon
the Indians of the forest. By 1840 the removal policy had effected
the transfer of most of the eastern tribes to lands across the

457

Mississippi. Tribal names that formerly belonged to Ohio and the
rest of the Old Northwest were found on the map of the Kansas
Valley. The Platte country belonged to the Pawnee and their
neighbors, and to the north along the Upper Missouri were the
Sioux, or Dakota, Crow, Cheyenne, and other horse Indians,
following the vast herds of buffalo that grazed on the Great Plains.
The discovery of California gold and the opening of the Oregon
country, in the middle of the century, made it necessary to secure
a road through the Indian lands for the procession of pioneers
that crossed the prairies to the Pacific. The organization of Kansas
and Nebraska, in 1854, was the first step in the withdrawal of
these territories from the Indians. A period of almost constant Indian
hostility followed, for the savage lords of the boundless prairies
instinctively felt the significance of the entrance of the farmer
into their empire. In Minnesota the Sioux took, advantage of the
Civil War to rise; but the outcome was the destruction of their
reservations in that State, and the opening of great tracts to the
pioneers. When the Pacific railways were begun, Red Cloud, the
astute Sioux chief, who, in some ways, stands as the successor of
Pontiac and of Tecumthe, rallied the principal tribes of the Great
Plains to resist the march of civilization. Their hostility resulted
in the peace measure of 1867 and 1868, which assigned to the
Sioux and their allies reservations embracing the major portion of
Dakota territory, west of the Missouri River. The systematic
slaughter of millions of buffalo, in the years between 1866 and
1873, for the sake of their hides, put an end to the vast herds of
the Great Plains, and destroyed the economic foundation of the
Indians. Henceforth they were dependent on the whites for their
food supply, and the Great Plains were open to the cattle ranchers.
In a preface written in 1872 for a new edition of "The Oregon
Trail," which had appeared in 1847, Francis Parkman said, "The
wild cavalcade that defiled with me down the gorges of the Black
Hills, with its paint and war plumes, fluttering trophies and savage
embroidery, bows, arrows, lances, and shields, will never be seen
again." The prairies were ready for the final rush of occupation.
The homestead law of 1862, passed in the midst of the war, did
not reveal its full importance as an element in the settlement of the
Middle West until after peace. It began to operate most actively,
contemporaneously with the development of the several railways
to the Pacific, in the two decades from 1870 to 1890, and in con-
nection with the marketing of the railroad land grants. The out-
come was an epoch-making extension of population.

458

Before 1870 the vast and fertile valley of the Red River, once
the level bed of an ancient lake, occupying the region where North
Dakota and Minnesota meet, was almost virgin soil. But in 1875
the great Dalrymple farm showed its advantages for wheat raising,
and a tide of farm seekers turned to the region. The "Jim River"
Valley of South Dakota attracted still other settlers. The Northern
Pacific and the Great Northern Railway thrust out laterals into
these Minnesota and Dakota wheat areas from which to draw
the nourishment for their daring passage to the Pacific. The Chi-
cago, Milwaukee and St. Paul, the Chicago and Northwestern Rail-
way, Burlington, and other roads, gridironed the region; and the
unoccupied lands of the Middle West were taken up by a migra-
tion that in its system and scale is unprecedented. The railroads
sent their agents and their literature everywhere, "booming" the
"Golden West"; the opportunity for economic and political for-
tunes in such rapidly growing communities attracted multitudes
of Americans whom the cheap land alone would not have tempted.
In 1870 the Dakotas had 14,000 settlers; in 1890 they had over 510,-
ooo. Nebraska's population was 28,000 in 1860; 123,000 in 1870;
452,000 in 1880; and 1,059,000 in 1890. Kansas had 107,000 in 1860;
364,000 in 1870; 996,000 in 1880; and 1,427,000 in 1890. Wisconsin
and New York gave the largest fractions of the native element to
Minnesota; Illinois and Ohio together sent perhaps one-third of
the native element of Kansas and Nebraska, but the Missouri and
Southern settlers were strongly represented in Kansas; Wisconsin,
New York, Minnesota and Iowa gave North Dakota the most of
her native settlers; and Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, and New York
did the same for South Dakota.

Railroads and steamships organized foreign immigration on scale
and system never before equaled; a high-water mark of American
immigration came in the early eighties. Germans and Scandina-
vians were rushed by emigrant trains out to the prairies, to fill the
remaining spaces in the older States of the Middle West. The
census of 1890 showed in Minnesota 373,000 persons of Scandina-
vian parentage, and out of the total million and one half persons
of Scandinavian parentage in the United States, the Middle West
received all but about three hundred thousand. The persons of
German parentage in the Middle West numbered over four mil-
lions out of a total of less than seven millions in the whole country.
The province had, in 1890, a smaller proportion of persons of
foreign parentage than had the North Atlantic division, but the
proportions varied greatly in the different States. Indiana had the

459

lowest percentage, 20.38; and, rising in the scale, Missouri had
24.94; Kansas 26.75; Ohio 33.93; Nebraska 42.45; Iowa 43.57; Il-
linois 49.01; Michigan 54.58; Wisconsin 73.65; Minnesota 75.37;
and North Dakota 78.87.

What these statistics of settlement mean when translated into
the pioneer life of the prairie, cannot be told here. There were
sharp contrasts with the pioneer life of the Old Northwest; for
the forest shade, there was substituted the boundless prairie; the
sod house for the log hut; the continental railway for the old Na-
tional Turnpike and the Erie Canal. Life moved faster, in larger
masses, and with greater momentum in this pioneer movement.
The horizon line was more remote. Things were done in the gross.
The transcontinental railroad, the bonanza farm, the steam plow,
harvester, and thresher, the "league-long furrow," and the vast cattle
ranches, all suggested spacious combination and systematization of
industry. The largest hopes were excited by these conquests of the
prairie. The occupation of western Kansas may illustrate the move-
ment which went on also in the west of Nebraska and the Dakotas.
The pioneer farmer tried to push into the region with the old
methods of settlement. Deceived by rainy seasons and the railroad
advertisements, and recklessly optimistic, hosts of settlers poured
out into the plains beyond the region of sufficient rainfall for suc-
cessful agriculture without irrigation. Dry seasons • starved them
back; but a repetition of good rainfalls again aroused the determi-
nation to occupy the western plains. Boom towns flourished like
prairie weeds; Eastern capital struggled for a chance to share in
the venture, and the Kansas farmers eagerly mortgaged their pos-
sessions to secure the capital so freely offered for their attack on
the arid lands. By 1887 the tide of the pioneer farmers had flowed
across the semi-arid plains to the western boundary of the State.
But it was a hopeless effort to conquer a new province by the forces
that had won the prairies. The wave of settlement dashed itself
in vain against the conditions of the Great Plains. The native
American farmer had received his first defeat; farm products at
the same period had depreciated, and he turned to the national
government for reinforcements.

The Populistic movement of the western half of the Middle West
is a complex of many forces. In some respects it is the latest mani-
festation of the same forces that brought on the crisis of 1837 in
the earlier region of pioneer exploitation. That era of over-confi-
dence, reckless internal improvements, and land purchases by bor-
rowed capital, brought a reaction when it became apparent that the

460

future had been overdiscounted. But, in that time, there were the
farther free lands to which the ruined pioneer could turn. The de-
mand for an expansion of the currency has marked each area of
Western advance. The greenback movement of Ohio and the east-
ern part of the Middle West grew into the fiat money, free silver,
and land bank propositions of the Populists across the Mississippi.
Efforts for cheaper transportation also appear in each stage of
Western advance. When the pioneer left the rivers and had to haul
his crops by wagon to a market, the transportation factor determined
both his profits and the extension of settlement. Demands for na-
tional aid to roads and canals had marked the pioneer advance of
the first third of the century. The "Granger" attacks upon the rail-
way rates, and in favor of governmental regulation, marked a
second advance of Western settlement. The Farmers' Alliance and
the Populist demand for government ownership of the railroad is
a phase of the same effort of the pioneer farmer, on his latest fron-
tier. The proposals have taken increasing proportions in each re-
gion of Western Advance. Taken as a whole, Populism is a
manifestation of the old pioneer ideals of the native American,
with the added element of increasing readiness to utilize the na-
tional government to effect its ends. This is not unnatural in a
section whose lands were originally purchased by the government
and given away to its settlers by the same authority, whose rail-
roads were built largely by federal land grants, and whose settle-
ments were protected by the United States army and governed by
the national authority until they were carved into rectangular States
and admitted into the Union. Its native settlers were drawn from
many States, many of them former soldiers of the Civil War, who
mingled in new lands with foreign immigrants accustomed to the
vigorous authority of European national governments.

But these old ideals of the American pioneer, phrased in the new
language of national power, did not meet with the assent of the
East. Even in the Middle West a change of deepest import had
been in progress during these years of prairie settlement. The agri-
cultural preponderance of the country has passed to the prairies, and
manufacturing has developed in the areas once devoted to pioneer
farming. In the decade prior to the Civil War, the area of greatest
wheat production passed from Ohio and the States to the east, into
Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin; after 1880, the center of wheat
growing moved across the Mississippi; and in 1890 the new settle-
ments produced half the crop of the United States. The corn area
shows a similar migration. In 1840 the Southern States produced

461

half the crop, and the Middle West one-fifth; by 1860 the situation
was reversed and in 1890 nearly one-half the corn of the Union
came from beyond the Mississippi. Thus the settlers of the Old
Northwest and their crops have moved together across the Missis-
sippi, and in the regions whence they migrated varied agriculture
and manufacture have sprung up.

As these movements in population and products have passed
across the Middle West, and as the economic life of the eastern
border has been intensified, a huge industrial organism has been
created in the province, — an organism of tremendous power, ac-
tivity, and unity. Fundamentally the Middle West is an agricultural
area unequaled for its combination of space, variety, productiveness,
and freedom from interruption by deserts or mountains. The huge
water system of the Great Lakes has become the highway of a
mighty commerce. The Sault Ste. Marie Canal,- although open but
two-thirds of the year, is the channel of a traffic of greater tonnage
than that which passes through the Suez Canal, and nearly all
this commerce moves almost the whole length of the Great Lakes
system; the chief ports being Duluth, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland,
and Buffalo. The transportation facilities of the Great Lakes were
revolutionized after 1886, to supply the needs of commerce between
the East and the newly developed lands of the Middle West; the
tonnage doubled; wooden ships gave way to steel; sailing vessels
yielded to steam; and huge docks, derricks, and elevators, triumphs
of mechanical skill, were constructed. A competent investigator has
lately declared that "there is probably in the world to-day no place
at tide water where ship plates can be laid down for a less price
than they can be manufactured or purchased at the lake ports."

This rapid rise of the merchant marine of our inland seas has
led to the demand for deep water canals to connect them with the
ocean road to Europe. When the fleets of the Great Lakes plow the
Atlantic, and when Duluth and Chicago become seaports, the water
transportation of the Middle West will have completed its evolu-
tion. The significance of the development of the railway systems is
not inferior to that of the great water way. Chicago has become the
greatest railroad center of the world, nor is there another area of
like size .which equals this in its railroad facilities; all the forces
of the nation intersect here. Improved terminals, steel rails, better
rolling stock, and consolidation of railway systems have accompa-
nied the advance of the people of the Middle West.

This unparalleled development of transportation facilities meas-
ures the magnitude of the material development of the province.

462

Its wheat and corn surplus supplies the deficit of the rest of the
United States and much of that of Europe. Such is the agricultural
condition of the province of which Monroe wrote to Jefferson, in
1786, in these words: "A great part of the territory is miserably
poor, especially that near Lakes Michigan and Erie, and that upon
the Mississippi and the Illinois consists of extensive plains which
have not had, from appearances, and will not have, a single bush
on them for ages. The districts, therefore, within which these fall
will never contain a sufficient number of inhabitants to entitle them
to membership in the confederacy."

Minneapolis and Duluth receive the spring wheat of the north-
ern prairies, and after manufacturing great portions of it into
flour, transmit it to Buffalo, the eastern cities, and to Europe.
Chicago is still the great city of the corn belt, but its power as a
milling and wheat center has been passing to the cities that receive
tribute from the northern prairies. It lies in the region of winter
wheat, corn, oats, and live stock. Kansas City, St. Louis, and Cin-
cinnati are the sister cities of this zone, which reaches into the graz-
ing country of the Great Plains. The meeting point of corn and
cattle has led to the development of the packing industries, — large
business systems that send the beef and pork of the region to supply
the East and parts of Europe. The "feeding system" adopted in
Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa, whereby the stock is fattened from
the surplus corn of the region, constitutes a species of varied farm-
ing that has saved these States from the disasters of the failure of
a single industry, and has been one solution of the economic life
of the transition belt between the prairies and the Great Plains.
Under a more complex agriculture, better adapted to the various
sections of the State, and with better crops, Kansas has become
more prosperous and less a center of political discontent.

While this development of the agricultural interests of the Mid-
dle West has been in progress, the exploitation of the pine woods
of the north has furnished another contribution to the commerce
of the province. The center of activity has migrated from Michi-
gan to Minnesota, and the lumber traffic furnishes one of the
principal contributions to the vessels that ply the Great Lakes and
supply the tributary mills. As the white pine vanishes before the
organized forces of exploitation, the remaining hard woods serve
to establish factories in the former mill towns. The more fertile
denuded lands of the north are now receiving settlers who repeat
the old pioneer life among the stumps.

But the most striking development in the industrial history of

463

the Middle West in recent years has been due to the opening up
of the iron mines of Lake Superior. Even in 1873 the Lake Superior
ores furnished a quarter of the total production of American blast
furnaces. The opening of the Gogebic mines in 1884, and the de-
velopment of the Vermillion and Mesabi mines adjacent to the
head of the lake, in the early nineties, completed the transfer of
iron ore production to the Lake Superior region. Michigan, Min-
nesota, and Wisconsin together now produce the ore for eighty per
cent of the pig iron of the United States. Four-fifths of this great
product moves to the ports on Lake Erie and the rest to the manu-
factories at Chicago and Milwaukee. The vast steel and iron in-
dustry that centers at Pittsburgh and Cleveland, with important
outposts like Chicago and Milwaukee, is the outcome of the meeting
of the coal of the eastern and southern borders of the province and
of Pennsylvania, with the iron ores of the north. The industry has
been systematized and consolidated by a few captains of industry.
Steam shovels dig the ore from many of the Mesabi mines; gravity
roads carry it to the docks and to the ships, and huge hoisting and
carrying devices, built especially for the traffic, unload it for the rail-
road and the furnace. Iron and coal mines, transportation fleets, rail-
road systems, and iron manufactories are concentrated in a few cor-
porations, principally the United States Steel Corporation. The world
has never seen such a consolidation of capital and so complete a
systematization of economic processes.

Such is the economic appearance of the Middle West a century
after the pioneers left the frontier village of Pittsburgh and crossed
the Ohio into the forests. De Tocqueville exclaimed, with reason,
in 1833: "This gradual and continuous progress of the European
race toward the Rocky Mountains has the solemnity of a providen-
tial event. It is like a deluge of men, rising unabatedly, and driven
daily onward by the hand of God."

The ideals of the Middle' West began in the log huts set in the
midst of the forest a century ago. While his horizon was still
bounded by the clearing that his ax had made, the pioneer dreamed
of continental conquests. The vastness of the wilderness kindled
his imagination. His vision saw beyond the dank swamp at the
edge of the great lake to the lofty buildings and the jostling multi-
tudes of a mighty city; beyond the rank, grass-clad prairie to the
seas of golden grain; beyond the harsh life of the log hut and the
sod house to the home of his children, where should dwell comfort
and the higher things of life, though they might not be for him.
The men and women who made the Middle West were idealists,

464

and they had the power of will to make their dreams come true.
Here, also, were the pioneer's traits, — individual activity, inventive-
ness, and competition for the prizes of the rich province that
awaited exploitation under freedom and equality of opportunity.
He honored the man whose eye was the quickest and whose grasp
was the strongest in this contest: it was "every one for himself."
The early society of the Middle West was not a complex, highly
differentiated and organized society. Almost every family was a
self-sufficing unit, and liberty and equality flourished in the frontier
periods of the Middle West as perhaps never before in history.
American democracy came from the forest, and its destiny drove
it to material conquests; but the materialism of the pioneer was
not the dull contented materialism of an old and fixed society. Both
native settler and European immigrant saw in this free and com-
petitive movement of the frontier the chance to break the bondage
of social rank, and to rise to a higher plane of existence. The pioneer
was passionately desirous to secure for himself and for his family
a favorable place in the midst of these large and free but vanishing
opportunities. It took a century for this society to fit itself into the
conditions of the whole province. Little by little, nature pressed
into her mold the plastic pioneer life. The Middle West, yesterday
a pioneer province, is to-day the field of industrial resources and
systematization so vast that Europe, alarmed for her industries in
competition with this new power, is discussing the policy of form-
ing protective alliances among the nations of the continent. Into
this region flowed the great forces of modern capitalism. Indeed,
the region itself furnished favorable conditions for the creation of
these forces, and trained many of the famous American industrial
leaders. The Prairies, the Great Plains, and the Great Lakes fur-
nished new standards of industrial measurement. From this society,
seated amidst a wealth of material advantages, and breeding in-
dividualism, energetic competition, inventiveness, and spaciousness
of design, came the triumph of the strongest. The captains of in-
dustry arose and seized on nature's gifts. Struggling with one
another, increasing the scope of their ambitions as the largeness of
the resources and the extent of the fields of activity revealed them-
selves, they were forced to accept the natural conditions of a prov-
ince vast in area but simple in structure. Competition grew into
consolidation. On the Pittsburgh border of the Middle West the
completion of the process is most clearly seen. On the prairies of
Kansas stands the Populist, a survival of the pioneer, striving to
adjust present conditions to his old ideals.

465

The ideals of equality, freedom of opportunity, faith in the com-
mon man are deep rooted in all the Middle West. The frontier
stage, through* which each portion passed, left abiding traces on
the older, as well as on the newer, areas of the province. Nor were
these ideals limited to the native American settlers: Germans and
Scandinavians who poured into the Middle West sought the coun-
try with like hopes and like faith. These facts must be remembered
in estimating the effects of the economic transformation of the
province upon its democracy. The peculiar democracy of the fron-
tier has passed away with the conditions that produced it; but the
democratic aspirations remain. They are held with passionate de-
termination.

The task of the Middle West is that of adapting democracy to
the vast economic organization of the present. This region which
has so often needed the reminder that bigness is not greatness, may
yet show that its training has produced the power to reconcile
popular government and culture with the huge industrial society of
the modern world. The democracies of the past have been small
communities, under simple and primitive economic conditions. At
bottom the problem is how to reconcile real greatness with bigness.

It is important that the Middle West should accomplish this;
the future of the Republic is with her. Politically she is dominant,
as is illustrated by the fact that six out of seven of the Presidents
elected since 1860 have come from her borders. Twenty-six million
people live in the Middle West as against twenty-one million in
New England and the Middle States together, and the Middle West
has indefinite capacity for growth. The educational forces are more
democratic than in the East, and the Middle West has twice as
many students (if we count together the common school, secondary,
and collegiate attendance), as have New England and the Middle
States combined. Nor is this educational system, as a whole, inferior
to that of the Eastern States. State universities crown the public
school system in every one of these States of the Middle West, and
rank with the universities of the seaboard, while private munificence
has furnished others on an unexampled scale. The public and
private art collections of Pittsburgh, Chicago, St. Paul, and other
cities vie with those of the seaboard. . . . There is throughout the
Middle West a vigor and a mental activity among the common
people that bode well for its future. If the task of reducing the
Province of the Lake and Prairie Plains to the uses of civilization
should for a time overweigh art and literature, and even high po-
litical and social ideals, it would not be surprising. But if the ideals

466

of the pioneers shall survive the inundation of material success,
we may expect to see in the Middle West the rise of a highly in-
telligent society where culture shall be reconciled with democracy
in the large.

The Frontier in American History, 1920

467

The Far West

Rockwell Kent Illustration for Moby Dick, courtesy of R. R. Donnelley & Sons Company

Scenes of the Far West

1. The Silence of the Plains

OLE E. ROLVAAG

The infinitude surrounding her on every hand might not have
been so oppressive, might even have brought her a measure of
peace, if it had not been for the deep silence, which lay heavier
here than in a church. Indeed, what was there to break it? She
had passed beyond the outposts of civilization; the nearest dwelling
places of men were far away. Here no warbling of birds rose on
the air, no buzzing of insects sounded; even the wind had died
away; the waving blades of grass that trembled to the faintest breath
now stood erect and quiet, as if listening, in the great hush of the
evening. . . . All along the way, coming out, she had noticed this
strange thing: the stillness had grown deeper, the silence more de-
pressing, the farther west they journeyed; it must have been over
two weeks now since she had heard a bird sing! Had they travelled
into some nameless, abandoned region? Could no living thing
exist out here, in the empty, desolate, endless wastes of green and
blue? . . . How could existence go on, she thought, desperately?
If life is to thrive and endure, it must at least have something to
hide behind! . . .

Giants In The Earth, 1927

2. Homesteaders in Caravan

OLE E. ROLVAAG

That summer many land seekers passed through the settlement
on their way west. The arrival of a caravan was always an event
of the greatest importance. How exciting they were, those little
ships of the Great Plain! The prairie schooners, rigged with canvas
tops which gleamed whitely in the shimmering light, first became
visible as tiny specks against the eastern sky; one might almost
imagine them to be sea gulls perched far, far away on an endless

471

green meadow; but as one continued to watch, the white dots grew;
they came drifting across the prairie like the day; after long wait-
ing, they grac(ually floated out of the haze, distinct and clear; then,
as they drew near, they proved to be veritable wagons, with horses
hitched ahead, with folk and all their possessions inside, and a
whole herd of cattle following behind.

The caravan would crawl slowly into the settlement and come
to anchor in front of one of the sod houses; the moment it halted,
people would swarm down and stretch themselves and begin to
look after the teams; cattle would bellow; sheep would bleat as
they ran about. Many queer races and costumes were to be seen
in these caravans, and a babble of strange tongues shattered the
air. Nut-brown youngsters, dressed only in a shirt and a pair of
pants, would fly around between the huts, looking for other young-
sters; an infant, its mother crooning softly to it, would sit securely
perched in the fold of her arm; white-haired old men and women,
who should have been living quietly at home, preparing for a
different journey, were also to be seen in the group, running about
like youngsters; the daily jogging from sky line to sky line had
brightened their eyes and quickened their tongues. All were busy;
each had a thousand questions to ask; then every last one of them
was in high spirits, though they knew no other home than the
wagon and the blue skies above . . . The Lord only could tell
whence all these people had come and whither they were going! . . .

Giants In The Earth, 1927

3. The Great American Desert

MARK TWAIN

On the nineteenth day we crossed the Great American Desert
— forty memorable miles of bottomless sand, into which the coach
wheels sunk from six inches to a foot. We worked our passage
most of the way across. That is to say, we got out and walked. It
was a dreary pull and a long and thirsty cne, for we had no water.
From one extremity of this desert to the other, the road was white
with the bones of oxen and horses. It would hardly be an exag-
geration to say that we could have walked the forty miles and
set our feet on a bone at every step! The desert was one prodigious
grave-yard. And the log-chains, wagon tires and rotting wrecks

472

of vehicles were almost as thick as the bones. I think we saw
log-chains enough rusting there in the desert to reach across any
state in the Union. Do not these relics suggest something of an
idea of the fearful suffering and privation the early emigrants to
California endured?

Roughing It, 1871

4. Fort Laramie

FRANCIS PARKMAN

We were met at the gate, but by no means cordially welcomed.
Indeed, we seemed objects of some distrust and suspicion, until
Henry Chatillon explained that we were not traders, and we, in
confirmation, handed to the bourgeois a letter of introduction from
his principals. He took it, turned it upside down, and tried hard
to read it; but his literary attainments not being adequate to the
task, he applied for relief to the clerk, a sleek, smiling Frenchman,
named Monthalon. The letter read, Bordeaux (the bourgeois)
seemed gradually to awaken to a sense of what was expected of
him. Though not deficient in hospitable intentions, he was wholly
unaccustomed to act as master of ceremonies. Discarding all for-
malities of reception, he did not honor us with a single word, but
walked swiftly across the area, while we followed in some admira-
tion to a railing and a flight of steps opposite the entrance. He
signed to us that we had better fasten our horses to the railing;
then he walked up the steps, tramped along a rude balcony, and,
kicking open a door, displayed a large room, rather more elabo-
rately furnished than a barn. For furniture it had a rough bed-
stead, but no bed; two chairs, a chest of drawers, a tin pail to hold
water, and a board to cut tobacco upon. A brass crucifix hung
on the wall, and close at hand a recent scalp, with hair full a yard
long, was suspended from a nail. I shall again have occasion to
mention this dismal trophy, its history being connected with that
of our subsequent proceedings.

This apartment, the best in Fort Laramie, was that usually oc-
cupied by the legitimate bourgeois, Papin, in whose absence the
command devolved upon Bordeaux. The latter, a stout, bluff little
fellow, much inflated by a sense of his new authority, began to
roar for buffalo-robes. These being brought and spread upon the

473

floor, formed our beds; much better ones than we had of late been
accustomed to. Our arrangements made, we stepped out to the
balcony to take a more leisurely survey of the long-looked-for haven
at which we had arrived at last. Beneath us was the square area
surrounded by little rooms, or rather cells, which opened upon it.
These were devoted to various purposes, but served chiefly for
the accommodation of the men employed at the fort, or of the
equally numerous squaws whom they were allowed to maintain
in it. Opposite to us rose the blockhouse above the gateway; it
was adorned with the figure of a horse at full speed, daubed upon
the boards with red paint, and exhibiting a degree of skill which
might rival that displayed by the Indians in executing similar de-
signs upon their robes and lodges. A busy scene was enacting in
the area. The wagons of Vaskiss, an old trader, were about to set
out for a remote post in the mountains, and the Canadians were
going through their preparations with all possible bustle, while
here and there an Indian stood looking on with imperturbable
gravity.

Fort Laramie is one of the posts established by the "American
Fur Company," which wellnigh monopolizes the Indian trade of
this region. Here its officials rule with an absolute sway; the arm
of the United States has little force; for when we were there, the
extreme outposts of her troops were about seven hundred miles
to the eastward. The little fort is built of bricks dried in the sun,
and externally is of an oblong form, with bastions of clay, in the
form of ordinary blockhouses, at two of the corners. The walls
are about fifteen feet high, and surmounted by a slender palisade.
The roofs of the apartments within, which are built close against
the walls, serve the purpose of a banquette. Within, the fort is di-
vided by a partition: on one side is the square area, surrounded by
the store-rooms, offices, and apartments of the inmates; on the
other is the corral, a narrow place, encompassed by the high clay
walls, where at night, or in presence of dangerous Indians, the
horses and mules of the fort are crowded for safe keeping. The
main entrance has two gates, with an arched passage intervening.
A little square window, high above the ground, opens laterally
from an adjoining chamber into this passage; so that when the
inner gate is closed and barred, a person without may still hold
communication with those within, through this narrow aperture.
This obviates the necessity of admitting suspicious Indians, for
purposes of trading, into the body of the fort; for when danger is
apprehended, the inner gate is shut fast, and all traffic is carried

474

on by means of the window. This precaution, though necessary
at some of the company's posts, is seldom resorted to at Fort
Laramie; where, though men are frequently killed in the neigh-
borhood, no apprehensions are felt of any general designs of hos-
tility from the Indians. . . .

As we were looking, at sunset, from the wall, upon the desolate
plains that surround the fort, we observed a cluster of strange ob-
jects, like scaffolds, rising in the distance against the red western
sky. They bore aloft some singular-looking burdens; and at their
foot glimmered something white, like bones. This was the place
of sepulture of some Dahcotah chiefs, whose remains their people
are fond of placing in the vicinity of the fort, in the hope that
they may thus be protected from violation at the hands of their
enemies. Yet it has happened more than once, and quite recently,
that war-parties of the Crow Indians, ranging through the country,
have thrown the bodies from the scaffolds, and broken them to
pieces, amid the yells of the Dahcotah, who remained pent up in
the fort, too few to defend the honored relics from insult. The
white objects upon the ground were buffalo skulls, arranged in
the mystic circle commonly seen at Indian places of sepulture upon
the prairie.

The California and Oregon Trail, 1849

5. The Crest of the Divide

WASHINGTON IRVING

In the green pastures bordering upon these lakes, the travellers
halted to repose, and to give their weary horses time to crop the
sweet and tender herbage. They had now ascended to a great
height above the level of the plains, yet they beheld huge crags of
granite piled one upon another, and beetling like battlements far
above them. While two of the men remained in the camp with
the horses, Captain Bonneville, accompanied by the other men,
set out to climb a neighbouring height, hoping to gain a command-
ing prospect, and discern some practicable route through this stu-
pendous labyrinth. After much toil, he reached the summit of a
lofty cliff, but it was only to behold gigantic peaks rising all
around, and towering far into the snowy regions of the atmosphere.
Selecting one which appeared to be the highest, he crossed a nar-

475

row intervening valley, and began to scale it. He soon found that
he had undertaken a tremendous task; but the pride of man is
never more obstinate than when climbing mountains. The ascent
was so steep and rugged that he and his companions were fre-
quently obliged to clamber on hands and knees, with their guns
slung upon their backs. Frequently, exhausted with fatigue, and
dripping with perspiration, they threw themselves upon the snow,
and took handfuls of it to allay their parching thirst. At one place
they even stripped off their coats and hung them upon the bushes,
and thus lightly clad, proceeded to scramble over these eternal
snows! As they ascended still higher, there were cool breezes that
refreshed and braced them, and springing with new ardor to their
task, they at length attained the summit.

Here a scene burst upon the view of Captain Bonneville, that
for a time astonished and overwhelmed him with its immensity.
He stood, in fact, upon that dividing ridge which Indians regard
as the crest of the world; and on each side of which the landscape
may be said to decline to the two cardinal oceans of the globe.
Whichever way he turned his eye, it was confounded by the
vastness and variety of objects. Beneath him, the Rocky Mountains
seemed to open all their secret recesses; deep, solemn valleys;
treasured lakes; dreary passes; rugged defiles and foaming tor-
rents; while beyond their savage precincts, the eye was lost in an
almost immeasurable landscape, stretching on every side into dim
and hazy distance, like the expanse of a summer's sea. Whichever
way he looked, he beheld vast plains glimmering with reflected
sunshine; mighty streams wandering on their shining course
toward either ocean, and snowy mountains, chain beyond chain,
and peak beyond peak, till they melted like clouds into the horizon.
For a time, the Indian fable seemed realized; he had attained that
height from which the Blackfoot warrior, after death, first catches
a view of the land of souls, and beholds the happy hunting grounds
spread out below him, brightening with the abodes of the free and
generous spirits. The captain stood for a long while gazing upon
this scene, lost in a crowd of vague and indefinite ideas and sen-
sations. A long-drawn inspiration at length relieved him from this
inthralment of the mind, and he began to analyze the parts of
this vast panorama. A simple enumeration of a few of its features
may give some idea of its collective grandeur and magnificence.

The peak on which the captain had taken his stand commanded
the whole Wind River chain; which, in fact, may rather be con-
sidered one immense mountain, broken into snowy peaks and

476

lateral spurs, and seamed with narrow valleys. Some of these Val-
leys glittered with silver lakes and gushing streams; the fountain-
heads, as it were, of the mighty tributaries to the Atlantic and
Pacific Oceans. Beyond the snowy peaks, to the south, and far, far
below the mountain range, the gentle river, called the Sweet Water,
was seen pursuing its tranquil way through the rugged regions of
the Black Hills. In the east, the head-waters of Wind River wan-
dered through a plain, until, mingling in one powerful current,
they forced their way through the range of Horn Mountains, and
were lost to view. To the north were caught glimpses of the upper
streams of the Yellowstone, that great tributary of the Missouri. In
another direction were to be seen some of the sources of the Oregon,
or Columbia, flowing to the northwest, past those towering land-
marks, the Three Tetons, and pouring down into the great lava
plain; while, almost at the captain's feet, the Green River, or Colo-
rado of the West, set forth on its wandering pilgrimage to the Gulf
of California; at first a mere mountain torrent, dashing northward
over crag and precipice, in a succession of cascades, and tumbling
into the plain, where, expanding into an ample river, it circled
away to the south, and after alternately shining out and disappear-
ing in the mazes of the vast landscape, was finally lost in a horizon
of mountains. The day was calm and cloudless, and the atmosphere
so pure that objects were discernible at an astonishing distance. The
whole of this immense area was enclosed by an outer range of
shadowy peaks, some of them faintly marked on the horizon,
which seemed to wall it in from the rest of the earth.

The Adventures of Captain Eonneville, 1837

6. Snow in the High Sierras

BRET HARTE

Snow. Everywhere. As far as the eye could reach — fifty miles,
looking southward from the highest white peak. Filling ravines
and gulches and dropping from the walls of canons in white shroud-
like drifts, fashioning the dividing ridge into the likeness of a
monstrous grave, hiding the bases of giant pines and completely
covering young trees and larches, rimming with porcelain the
bowl-like edges of still, cold lakes, and undulating in motionless
white billows to the edge of the distant horizon. Snow lying every-

477

vhere over the California Sierras on the i5th day of March,
ind still falling.

It had been ^snowing for ten days; snowing in finely-granulated
x>wder, in damp, spongy flakes, in thin, feathery plumes; snow-
ng (from a leaden sky steadily, snowing fiercely, shaken out of
3urple-black clouds in white flocculent masses, or dropping in long
evel lines like white lances from the tumbled and broken heavens.
3ut always silently! The woods were so choked with it, the branches
vere so laden with it, it had so permeated, filled and possessed earth
ind sky; it had so cushioned and muffled the ringing rocks and
ichoing hills that all sound was deadened. The strongest gust, the
iercest blast awoke no sigh or complaint from the snow-packed
igid files of forest. There was no cracking of bough nor crackle
>f underbrush; the overladen branches of pine and fir yielded and
jave way without a sound. The silence was vast, measureless, com-
pete!

Nor could it be said that any outward sign of life or motion
:hanged the fixed outlines of this stricken landscape. Above, there
vas no play of light and shadow, only the occasional deepening of
torm of night. Below, no bird winged its flight across the white
ixpanse, no beast haunted the confines of the black woods; what-
;ver of brute nature might have once inhabited these solitudes had
ong since flown to the low lands. There was no track or imprint;
vhatever foot might have left its mark upon this waste, each suc-
eeding snow-fall obliterated all trace or record. Every morning
he solitude was virgin and unbroken; a million tiny feet had
tepped into the track and filled it up.

Gabriel Conroy, 1876

7. Acoma, the City of the Sky

CHARLES F. LUMMIS

If there is any sight in the world which will cling to one, un-
immed by later impressions, it is the first view of Acoma and its
alley from the mesa, as one comes in from the west. After the
Dng, slow slope among the sprawling cedars, one stands suddenly
ipon a smooth divide, looking out upon such a scene as is nowhere
Ise. A few rods ahead, the mesa breaks down in a swift cliff of six
iundred feet to a valley that seems surely enchanted. A grassy

478

trough, that ineffable hazy smoothness which is only of the South-
west, crowded upon by noble precipices, patched with exquisite
hues of rocks and clays and growing crops — it is such a vista as
would be impossible outside the arid lands. And in its midst lies
a shadowy world of crags so unearthly beautiful, so weird, so
unique, that it is hard for the onlooker to believe himself in
America, or upon this dull planet at all. As the evening shadows
play hide-and-seek among those towering sandstones it is as if an
army of Titans marched across the enchanted plain. To the left
beetles the vast cliff of Kat-zi-mo, or the Mesa Encantada, the
noblest single rock in America; to the right, the tall portals of two
fine canons, themselves treasure-houses of wonders; between, the
chaos of the buttes that flank the superb mesa of Acoma. That is
one rock — a dizzy air-island above the plain — three hundred and
fifty-seven feet high, seventy acres in area upon its irregular but prac-
tically level top — a stone table upheld by ineffable precipices which
are not merely perpendicular but in great part actually overhanging.
The contour of those cliffs is an endless enchantment. They are
broken by scores of marvellous bays, scores of terrific columns and
pinnacles, crags and towers. There are dozens of "natural bridges,"
from one of a fathom's span to one so sublime, so crushing in its
savage and enormous grandeur, that the heart fairly stops beating
at first sight of it. There are strange standing rocks and balanced
rocks, vast potreros and fairy minarets, wonderlands of recesses,
and mysterious caves. It is the noblest specimen of fantastic erosion
on the continent. Everywhere there is insistent suggestion of As-
syrian sculpture in its rocks. One might fancy it a giant Babylon,
water-worn to dimness. The peculiar cleavage of its beautiful sand-
stone has hemmed it with strange top-heavy statues that guard grim
chasms. The invariable approach of visitors is to the tamest side
of the mesa; and that surpasses what one shall find elsewhere. But
to outdo one's wildest dreams of the picturesque, one should explore
the whole circumference of the mesa, which not a half a dozen
Americans have ever done. No one has ever exhausted Acoma;
those who know it best are forever stumbling upon new glories.

Upon the bare table-top of this strange stone island of the
desert, seven thousand feet above the level of the sea, stands a town
of matchless interest — the home of half a thousand quaint lives,
and of half a thousand years' romance. How old is that mysterious
sky city no man may know. In the far gray past Acoma stood atop
the Mesa Encantada, three miles north; but a mighty throe of
nature toppled down the vast ladder-rock which gave sole adit to

479

that dizzy perch — twice as high as the now Acoma. The people
were left homeless in the plain, where they were tending their
crops; and three doomed women, left home, were shut aloft to
perish upon the accursed cliff. But when the Spanish world-finders
saw this magic valley the present Acoma was already an ancient
city, from whose eternal battlements the painted natives looked
down upon the mailed invaders by as many hundreds of feet as
centuries have since then faded. There stand, so far aloft, the quaint
homes of six hundred people — three giant blocks of stone and
adobe, running east and west near a thousand feet, and skyward
forty — and their huge church. When one has climbed the mesa to
the town and grasped its proportions, wonder grows to amaze. No
other town in the world is reached only by such vertiginous trails,
or rather by such ladders of the rock; and yet up these awful paths
the patient Queres have brought upon their hacks every timber,
every stone, every bit of adobe mud to build that strange city, and
its marvellous church. There are timbers fourteen inches square
and forty feet long, brought by human muscle alone from the
mountains twenty miles away. The church walls are sixty feet high
and ten feet through; and the building covers more ground than
any modern cathedral in the United States. The graveyard in
front, nearly two hundred feet square, took forty years in the
building; for first the gentle toilers had to frame a giant box with
stone walls, a box forty feet deep at the outer edge, and then to
fill it backful by backful with earth from the far plain. In the
weird stone "ladders" by which the top of the cliff is reached, the
patient moccasined feet of forgotten centuries have sunk their
imprint six inches deep in the rock. Antiquity and mystery haunt
every nook. The very air is hazy with romance. How have they
lived and loved and suffered here in their skyward home, these
quiet Hano Oshatch — the Children of the Sun.

The Land of Poco T tempo, 1893

8. The Harbor of Santa Barbara

RICHARD HENRY DANA

The large bay lay about us, nearly smooth, as there was hardly
a breath of wind stirring, though the boat's crew who went ashore
told us that the long ground-swell broke into heavy surf on the

480

beach. There was only one vessel in the port — a long, sharp brig
of about three hundred tons, with raking masts, and very square
yards, and English colours at her peak. We afterwards learned
that she was built at Guayaquil, and named the Ayacucho, after
the place where the battle was fought that gave Peru her independ-
ence, and was now owned by a Scotchman named Wilson, who
commanded her, and was engaged in the trade between Callao and
other parts of South America and California. She was a fast sailer,
as we frequently afterwards saw, and had a crew of Sandwich
Islanders on board. Beside this vessel, there was no object to break
the surface of the bay. Two points ran out as the horns of the
crescent, one of which — the one to the westward — was low and
sandy, and is that to which vessels are obliged to give a wide berth
when running out for a southeaster; the other is high, bold, and
well wooded, and has a mission upon it, called Santa Buenaventura,
from which the point is named. In the middle of this crescent,
directly opposite the anchoring ground, lie the Mission and town
of Santa Barbara, on a low plain, but little above the level of the
sea, covered with grass, though entirely without trees, and sur-
rounded on three sides by an amphitheatre of mountains, which
slant off to the distance of fifteen or twenty miles. The Mission
stands a little back of the town, and is a large building, or rather
collection of buildings, in the centre of which is a high tower, with
a belfry of five bells. The whole, being plastered, makes quite a
show at a distance, and is the mark by which vessels come to
anchor. The town lies a little nearer to the beach, — about half a
mile from it, — and is composed of one-story houses built of sun-
baked clay, or adobe, some of them whitewashed, with red tiles on
the roofs. I should judge that there were about a hundred of them;
and in the midst of them stands the Presidio, or fort, built of the
same materials, and apparently but little stronger. The town is
finely situated, with a bay in front, and an amphitheatre of hills
behind. The only thing which diminishes its beauty is, that the
hills have no large trees upon them, they having been all burnt by
a great fire which swept them off about a dozen years ago, and
they had not yet grown again. The fire was described to me by an
inhabitant, as having been a very terrible and magnificent sight,
The air of the whole valley was so heated that the people were
obliged to leave the town and take up their quarters for several days
upon the beach.

Two Years Before The Mast, i

9. By the Sun-Down Seas

JOAQUIN MILLER

Like fragments of an uncompleted world,

From bleak Alaska, bound in ice and spray,

To where the peaks of Darien lie curl'd

In clouds, the broken lands loom bold and gray.

The seamen nearing San Francisco Bay

Forget the compass here; with sturdy hand

They seize the wheel, look up, then bravely lay

The ship to shore by rugged peaks that stand

The stern and proud patrician fathers of the land.

They stand white stairs of heaven, — stand a line

Of lifting, endless, and eternal white.

They look upon the far and flashing brine,

Upon the boundless plains, the broken height

Of Kamiakin's battlements. The flight

Of time is underneath their untopp'd towers.

They seem to push aside the moon at night,

To jostle and to loose the stars. The flowers

Of heaven fall about their brows in shining showers.

They stand a line of lifted snowy isles
High held above a toss'd and tumbled sea, —
A sea of wood in wild unmeasured miles:
White pyramids of Faith where man is free;
White monuments of hope that yet shall be
The mounts of matchless and immortal song. . . .

They look as cold as kings upon a throne:

The mantling winds of night are crush 'd and curl'd

As feathers curl. The elements are hurl'd

From off their bosoms, and are bidden go,

Like evil spirits, to an under-world.

They stretch from Cariboo to Mexico.

A line of battle-tents in everlasting snow.

Songs of Sun-Lands, 1873
482

10. Polk Street

FRANK NORRIS

On week days the street was very lively. It woke to its work about
seven o'clock, at the time when the newsboys made their appear-
ance together with the day laborers. The laborers went trudging
past in a straggling file — plumbers' apprentices, their pockets stuffed
with sections of lead pipe, tweezers, and pliers; carpenters, carry-
ing nothing but their little pasteboard lunch baskets painted to
imitate leather; gangs of street workers, their overalls soiled with
yellow clay, their picks and long-handled shovels over their shoul-
ders; plasterers, spotted with lime from head to foot. This little
army of workers, tramping steadily in one direction, met and
mingled with other toilers of a different description — conductors
and "swing men" of the cable company going on duty; heavy-eyed
night clerks from the drug stores on their way home to sleep;
roundsmen returning to the precinct police station to make their
night report, and Chinese market gardeners teetering past under
their heavy baskets. The cable cars began to fill up; all along the
street could be seen the shopkeepers taking down their shutters.

Between seven and eight the street breakfasted. Now and then a
waiter from one of the cheap restaurants crossed from one side-
walk to the other, balancing on one palm a tray covered with a
napkin. Everywhere was the smell of coffee and of frying steaks.
A little later, following in the path of the day laborers, came the
clerks and shop girls, dressed with a certain cheap smartness, al-
ways in a hurry, glancing apprehensively at the power-house clock.
Their employers followed an hour or so later — on the cable cars for
the most part — whiskered gentlemen with huge stomachs, reading
the morning papers with great gravity; bank cashiers and insurance
clerks with flowers in their buttonholes.

At the same time the school children invaded the street, filling
the air with a clamor of shrill voices, stopping at the stationers'
shops, or idling a moment in the doorways of the candy stores. For
over half an hour they held possession of the sidewalks, then sud-
denly disappeared, leaving behind one or two stragglers who hur-
ried along with great strides of their little thin legs, very anxious
and preoccupied.

Towards eleven o'clock the ladies from the great avenue a block
above Polk Street made their appearance, promenading the side-
walks leisurely, deliberately. They were at their morning's market-

483

ing. They were handsome women, beautifully dressed. They knew
by name their butchers and grocers and vegetable men. From his
window McTeague saw them in front of the stalls, gloved and
veiled and daintily shod, the subservient provision-men at their
elbows, scribbling hastily in the order books. They all seemed to
know one another, these grand ladies from the fashionable avenue.
Meetings took place here and there; a conversation was begun;
others arrived; groups were formed; little impromptu receptions
were held before the chopping blocks of butchers' stalls, or on the
sidewalk, around boxes of berries and fruit.

From noon to evening the population of the street was of a mixed
character. The street was busiest at that time; a vast and prolonged
murmur arose — the mingled shuffling of feet, the rattle of wheels,
the heavy trundling of cable cars. At four o'clock the school chil-
dren once more swarmed the sidewalks, again disappearing with
surprising suddenness. At six the great homeward march com-
menced; the cars were crowded, the laborers thronged the side-
walks, the newsboys chanted the evening papers. Then all at once
the street fell quiet; hardly a soul was in sight; the sidewalks were
deserted. It was supper hour. Evening began; and one by one a
multitude of lights, from the demoniac glare of the druggists' win-
dows to the dazzling blue whiteness of the electric globes, grew
thick from street corner to street corner. Once more the street was
crowded. Now there was no thought but for amusement. The
cable cars were loaded with theatre-goers — men in high hats and
young girls in furred opera cloaks. On the sidewalks were groups
and couples — the plumbers' apprentices, the girls of the ribbon
counters, the little families that lived on the second stories over
their shops, the dressmakers, the small doctors, the harness makers
— all the various inhabitants of the street were abroad, strolling
idly from shop window tp shop window, taking the air after the
day's work. Groups of girls collected on the corners, talking and
laughing very loud, making remarks upon the young men that
passed them. The tamale men appeared. A band of Salvationists
began to sing before a saloon.

Then, little by little, Polk Street dropped back to solitude. Eleven
o'clock struck from the power-house clock. Lights were extin-
guished. At one o'clock the cable stopped, leaving an abrupt silence
in the air. All at once it seemed very still. The only noises were"
the occasional footfalls of a policeman and the persistent calling of
ducks and geese in the closed market. The street was asleep.

McTeague, 1899

484

11. Point Joe

ROBINSON JEFFERS

Point Joe has teeth and has torn ships; it has fierce and solitary

beauty;
Walk there all day you shall see nothing that will not make part

of a poem.

I saw the spars and planks of shipwreck on the rocks, and beyond
the desolate

Sea-meadows rose the warped wind-bitten van of the pines, a fog-
bank vaulted

Forest and all, the flat sea-meadows at that time of year were

plated
Golden with the low flower called footsteps of the spring, millions

of flowerets,

Whose light suffused upward into the fog flooded its vault, we

wandered
Through a weird country where the light beat up from earthward,

and was golden.

One other moved there, an old Chinaman gathering seaweed from

the sea-rocks,
He brought it in his basket and spread it flat to dry on the edge of

the meadow.

Permanent things are what is needful in a poem, things tem-
porally

Of great dimension, things continually renewed or always
present.

Grass that is made each year equals the mountains in her past and

future;
Fashionable and momentary things we need not see nor speak

of.

Man gleaning food between the solemn presences of land and

ocean,
On shores where better men have shipwrecked, under fog and

among flowers,

485

Equals the mountains in his past and future; that glow from the

earth was only
A trick of nature's, one must forgive nature a thousand graceful

subtleties.

Roan Stallion, 1925

486

Men and Dads in the Far West

1. Rendezvous of Mountain Men

WASHINGTON IRVING

The Green River valley was at this time the scene of one of
those general gatherings of traders, trappers, and Indians, that
we have already mentioned. The three rival companies, which,
for a year past had been endeavoring to out-trade, out-trap, and
outwit each other, were here encamped in close proximity, await-
ing their annual supplies. About four miles from the rendezvous
of Captain Bonneville was that of the American Fur Company,
hard by which, was that also of the Rocky Mountain Fur Com-
pany.

After the eager rivalry and almost hostility displayed by these
companies in their late campaigns, it might be expected that, when
thus brought in juxtaposition, they would hold themselves warily
and sternly aloof from each other, and, should they happen to
come in contact, brawl and bloodshed would ensue.

No such thing! Never did rival lawyers after a wrangle at the
bar meet with more social good-humor at a circuit dinner. The
hunting season over, all past tricks and manoeuvres are forgotten,
all feuds and bickerings buried in oblivion. From the middle of
June to the middle of September, all trapping is suspended; for
the beavers are then shedding their furs and their skins are of
little value. This, then, is the trapper's holiday, when he is all for
fun and frolic, and ready for a saturnalia among the mountains.

At the present season, too, all parties were in good humor. The
year had been productive. Competition, by threatening to lessen
their profits, had quickened their wits, roused their energies, and
made them turn every favorable chance to the best advantage; so
that, on assembling at their respective places of rendezvous, each
company found itself in possession of a rich stock of peltries.

The leaders of the different companies, therefore, mingled on
terms of perfect good-fellowship; interchanging visits, and regal-
ing each other in the best style their respective camps afforded.
But the rich treat for the worthy captain was to see the "chivalry"
of the various encampments engaged in contests of skill at running,
jumping, wrestling, shooting with the rifle, and running horses.

487

And then their rough hunters' feastings and carousals. They drank
together, they sang, they laughed, they whooped; they tried to
out-brag and out-lie each other in stories of their adventures and
achievements. Here the free trappers were in all their glory; they
considered themselves the "cocks of the walk," and always carried
the highest crests. Now and then familiarity was pushed too far,
and would effervesce into a brawl, and a "rough and tumble"
fight; but it all ended in cordial reconciliation and maudlin en-
dearment.

The presence of the Shoshonie tribe contributed occasionally
to cause temporary jealousies and feuds. The Shoshonie beauties
became objects of rivalry among some of the amorous mountain-
eers. Happy was the trapper who could muster up a red blanket,
a string of gay beads, or a paper of precious vermilion, with which
to win the smiles of a Shoshonie fair one.

The caravans of supplies arrived at the valley just at this period
of gallantry and good-fellowship. Now commenced a scene of eager
competition and wild prodigality at the different encampments.
Bales were hastily ripped open, and their motley contents poured
forth. A mania for purchasing spread itself throughout the several
bands — munitions for war, for hunting, for gallantry, were seized
upon with equal avidity — rifles, hunting knives, traps, scarlet cloth,
red blankets, garish beads, and glittering trinkets, were bought
at any price, and scores run up without any thought how they were
ever to be rubbed off. The free trappers especially were extravagant
in their purchases. For a free mountaineer to pause at a paltry
consideration of dollars and cents, in the attainment of any object
that might strike his fancy, would stamp him with the mark of
the beast in the estimation of his comrades. For a trader to refuse
one of these free and flourishing blades a credit, whatever unpaid
scores might stare him in the face, would be a flagrant affront,
scarcely to be forgiven. •

Now succeeded another outbreak of revelry and extravagance.
The trappers were newly fitted out and arrayed, and dashed about
with their horses caparisoned in Indian style. The Shoshonie
beauties also flaunted about in all the colors of the rainbow. Every
freak of prodigality was indulged to ks fullest extent, and in a
little while most of the trappers, having squandered away all
their wages, and perhaps run knee-deep in debt, were ready for.
another hard campaign in the wilderness.

The Adventures of Captain Bonneville, 1837

2. Buffalo Hunting

FRANCIS PARKMAN

The country before us was now thronged with buffalo, and a
sketch of the manner of hunting them will not be out of place.
There are two methods commonly practised, "running" and "ap-
proaching." The chase on horseback, which goes by the name of
"running," is the more violent and dashing mode of the two,
that is to say, when the buffalo are in one of their wild moods;
for otherwise it is tame enough. A practised and skilful hunter,
well mounted, will sometimes kill five or six cows in a single
chase, loading his gun again and again as his horse rushes through
the tumult. In attacking a small band of buffalo, or in separating
a single animal from the herd and assailing it apart from the
rest, there is less excitement and less danger. In fact, the animals
are at times so stupid and lethargic that there is little sport in
killing them. With a bold and a well-trained horse the hunter may
ride so close to the buffalo that as they gallop side by side he may
touch him with his hand; nor is there much danger in this as
long as the buffalo's strength and breath continue unabated; but
when he becomes tired and can no longer run with ease, when
his tongue lolls out and the foam flies from his jaws, then the
hunter had better keep a more respectful distance; the distressed
brute may turn upon him at any instant; and especially the mo-
ment when he fires his gun. The horse then leaps aside, and the
hunter has need of a tenacious seat in the saddle, for if he is thrown
to the ground there is no hope for him. When he sees his attack
defeated, the buffalo resumes his flight, but if the shot is well
directed he soon stops; for a few moments he stands still, then
totters and falls heavily upon the prairie.

The chief difficulty in running buffalo, as it seems to me, is
that of loading the gun or pistol at full gallop. Many hunters for
convenience' sake carry three or four bullets in the mouth; the
powder is poured down the muzzle of the piece, the bullet dropped
in after it, the stock struck hard upon the pommel of the saddle,
and the work is done. The danger of this is obvious. Should the
blow on the pommel fail to send the bullet home, or should the
bullet, in the act of aiming, start from its place and roll towards
the muzzle, the gun would probably burst in discharging. Many
a shattered hand and worse casualties besides have been the result
of such an accident. To obviate it, some hunters make use of a

489

ramrod, usually hung by a string from the neck, but this ma-
terially increases the difficulty of loading. The bows and arrows
which the Indians use in running buffalo have many advantages
over firearms, and even white men occasionally employ them.

The danger of the chase arises not so much from the onset of
the wounded animal as from the nature of the ground which
the hunter must ride over. The prairie does not always present
a smooth, level, and uniform surface; very often it is broken with
hills and hollows, intersected by ravines, and in the remoter parts
studded by the stiff wild-sage bushes. The most formidable ob-
structions, however, are the burrows of wild animals, wolves,
badgers, and particularly prairie-dogs, with whose holes the ground
for a very great extent is frequently honeycombed. In the blindness
of the chase the hunter rushes over it unconscious of danger; his
horse, at full career, thrusts his leg deep into one of the burrows;
the bone snaps, the rider is hurled forward to the ground and
probably killed. Yet accidents in buffalo running happen less fre-
quently than one would suppose; in the recklessness of the chase,
the hunter enjoys all the impunity of a drunken man, and may
ride in safety over gullies and declivities, where, should he attempt
to pass in his sober senses, he would infallibly break his neck.

The method of "approaching," being practised on foot, has many
advantages over that of "running;" in the former, one neither
breaks down his horse nor endangers his own life; he must be
cool, collected, and watchful; must understand the buffalo, observe
the features of the country and the course of the wind, and be
well skilled in using the rifle. The buffalo are strange animals;
sometimes they are so stupid and infatuated that a man may walk
up to them in full sight on the open prairie, and even shoot several
of their number before the rest will think it necessary to retreat.
At another moment they will be so shy and wary that in order
to approach them the utmost skill, experience, and judgment are
necessary. Kit Carson, I believe, stands pre-eminent in running
buffalo; in approaching, no man living can bear away the palm
from Henry Chatillon.

The California and Oregon Trail, 1849

49°

3. The Pony Express

MARK TWAIN

In a little while all interest was taken up in stretching our necks
and watching for the "pony-rider" — the fleet messenger who sped
across the continent from St. Joe to Sacramento, carrying letters
nineteen hundred miles in eight days! Think of that for perish-
able horse and human flesh and blood to do! The pony-rider was
usually a little bit of a man, brimful of spirit and endurance. No
matter what time of the day or night his watch came on, and no
matter whether it was winter or summer, raining, snowing, hail-
ing, or sleeting, or whether his "beat" was a level straight road
or a crazy trail over mountain crags and precipices, or whether
it led through peaceful regions or regions that swarmed with hostile
Indians, he must be always ready to leap into the saddle and be off
like the wind! There was no idling-time for a pony-rider on duty.
He rode fifty miles without stopping, by daylight, moonlight,
starlight, or through the blackness of darkness — just as it happened.
He rode a splendid horse that was born for a racer and fed and
lodged like a gentleman; kept him at his utmost speed for ten
miles, and then, as he came crashing up to the station where
stood two men holding fast a fresh, impatient steed, the transfer
of rider and mail-bag was made in the twinkling of an eye, and
away flew the eager pair and were out of sight before the spectator
could get hardly the ghost of a look. Both rider and horse went
"flying light." The rider's dress was thin, and fitted close; he wore
a "roundabout," and a skull-cap, and tucked his pantaloons into
his boot-tops like a race-rider. He carried no arms — he carried
nothing that was not absolutely necessary, for even the postage
on his literary freight was worth five dollars a letter. He got but
little frivolous correspondence to carry — his bag had business letters
in it mostly. His horse was stripped of all unnecessary weight,
too. He wore light shoes, or none at all. The little flat mail-pockets
strapped under the rider's thighs would each hold about the bulk
of a child's primer. They held many and many an important
business chapter and newspaper letter, but these were written on
paper as airy and thin as goldleaf, nearly, and thus bulk and
weight were economized. The stage-coach traveled about a hundred
to a hundred and twenty-five miles a day (twenty-four hours), the
pony-rider about two hundred and fifty. There were about eighty
pony-riders in the saddle all the time, night and day, stretching in

491

a long, scattering procession from Missouri to California, forty
flying eastward, and forty toward the west, and among them
making four hundred gallant horses earn a stirring livelihood and
see a deal of scenery every single day in the year.

We had had a consuming desire, from the beginning, to see a
pony-rider, but somehow or other all that passed us and all that
met us managed to streak by in the night, and so we heard only
a whiz and a hail, and the swift phantom of the desert was gone
before we could get our heads out of the windows. But now we
were expecting one along every moment, and would see him in
broad daylight. Presently the driver exclaims:

"HERE HE COMES!"

Every neck is stretched further, and every eye strained wider.
Away across the endless dead level of the prairie a black speck
appears against the sky, and it is plain thai it moves. Well, I
should think so! In a second or two it becomes a horse and rider,
rising and falling, rising and falling — sweeping toward us nearer
and nearer — growing more and more distinct, more and more
sharply defined — nearer and still nearer, and the flutter of the
hoofs comes faintly to the ear — another instant a whoop and a
hurrah from our upper deck, a wave of the rider's hand, but no
reply, and man and horse burst past our excited faces, and go
swinging away like a belated fragment of a storm!

So sudden is it all, and so like a flash of unreal fancy, that but
for the flake of white foam left quivering and perishing on a
mail-sack after the vision had flashed by and disappeared, we
might have doubted whether we had seen any actual horse and
man at all, maybe.

Roughing It, 1872

4. Little Breeches

JOHN HAY

I don't go much on religion,

I never ain't had no show;
But I've got a middlin' tight grip, sir,

On the handful o' things I know.
I don't pan out on the prophets

And free-will and that sort of thing, —
But I b'lieve in God and the angels,

Ever sence one night last spring.

492

I come into town with some turnips,

And my little Gabe come along, —
No four-year-old in the county

Could beat him for pretty and strong, —
Peart and chipper and sassy,

Always ready to swear and fight, —
And I'd larnt him to chaw terbacker

Jest to keep his milk-teeth white.

The snow come down like a blanket

As I passed by Taggart's store;
I went in for a jug of molasses

And left the team at the door.
They scared at something and started, —

I heard one little squall,
And hell-to-split over the prairie

Went team, Little Breeches, and all.

Hell-to-split over the prairie!

I was almost froze with skeer;
But we rousted up some torches,

And sarched for 'em far and near.
As last we struck hosses and wagon,

Snowed under a soft white mound,
Upsot, dead beat, — but of little Gabe

No hide nor hair was found.

And here all hope soured on me

Of my fellow-critter's aid; —
I jest flopped down on my marrow-bones,

Crotch-deep in the snow, and prayed.

• • • • •

By this, the torches was played out,

And me and Isrul Parr
Went off for some wood to a sheepfold

That he said was somewhar thar.

We found it at last, and a little shed
Where they shut up the lambs at night.

We looked in and seen them huddled thar,
So warm and sleepy and white;

493

And thar sot Little Breeches and chirped,

As peart as ever you see,
"I want a chaw of terbacker,

And that's what's the matter of me."

How did he git thar? Angels.

He could never have walked in that storm:
They jest scooped down and toted him

To whar it was safe and warm.
And I think that saving a little child,

And fetching him to his own,
Is a derned sight better business

Than loafing around the Throne.

Pi\e County Ballads, 1871

5. When You Call Me That, Smile

OWEN WISTER

I left that company growing confidential t>ver their leering
stories, and I sought the saloon. It was very quiet and orderly.
Beer in quart bottles at a dollar I had never met before; but saving
its price, I found no complaint to make of it. Through folding
doors I passed from the bar proper with its bottles and elk head
back to the hall with its various tables. I saw a man sliding cards
from a case, and across the table from him another man laying
counters down. Near by was a second dealer pulling cards from
the bottom of a pack, and opposite him a solemn old rustic piling
and changing coins upon the cards which law already exposed.

But now I heard a voice that drew my eyes to the far corner
of the room.

"Why didn't you stay in Arizona?"

Harmless looking words as I write them down here. Yet at
the sound of them I noticed the eyes of the others directed to that
corner. What answer was given to them 1 did not hear, nor did I
see who spoke. Then came another remark.

"Well, Arizona's no place for amatures."

This time the two card dealers that I stood near began to give
a part of their attention to the group that sat in the corner. There
was in me a desire to leave this room. So far my hours at Medicine

494

Bow had seemed to glide beneath a sunshine of merriment, of
easy-going jocularity. This was suddenly gone, like the wind
changing to north in the middle of a warm day. But I stayed,
being ashamed to go.

Five or six players sat over in the corner at a round table where
counters were piled. Their eyes were close upon their cards, and one
seemed to be dealing a card at a time to each, with pauses and
betting between. Steve was there and the Virginian; the others were
new faces.

"No place for amatures," repeated the voice; and now I saw
that it was the dealer's. There was in his countenance the same
ugliness that his words conveyed.

"Who's that talkin'?" said one of the men near me, in a low
voice.

"Trampas."

"What's he?"

"Cow-puncher, bronco-buster, tin-horn, most anything."

"Who's he talkin' at?"

"Think it's the black-headed guy he's talking at."

"That ain't supposed to be safe, is it?"
. "Guess we're all goin' to find out in a few minutes."

"Been trouble between 'em?"

"They've not met before. Trampas don't enjoy losin' to a
stranger."

"Fello's from Arizona, yu' say?"

"No. Virginia. He's recently back from havin' a look at Arizona.
Went down there last year for a change. Works for the Sunk
Creek outfit." And then the dealer lowered his voice still further
and said something in the other man's ear, causing him to grin.
After which both of them looked at me.

There had been silence over in the corner; but now the man
Trampas spoke again.

"And ten," said he, sliding out some chips from before him.
Very strange it was to hear him, how he contrived to make those
words a personal taunt. The Virginian was looking at his cards.
He might have been deaf.

"And twenty," said the next player, easily.

The next threw his cards down.

It was now the Virginian's turn to bet, or leave the game, and
he did not speak at once.

Therefore Trampas spoke. "Your bet, you son-of-a — "

The Virginian's pistol came out, and his hand lay on the table,

495

holding it unaimed. And with a voice as gentle as ever, the voice
that sounded almost like a caress, but drawling a very little more
than usual, so, that there was almost a space between each word,
he issued his orders to the man Trampas: —

"When you call me that, smile." And he looked at Trampas
across the table.

• Yes, the voice was gentle. But in my ears it seemed as if some-
where the bell of death was ringing; and silence, like a stroke, fell
on the large room. All men present, as if by some magnetic cur-
rent, had become aware of this crisis. In my ignorance, and the
total stoppage of my thoughts, I stood stock-still, and noticed
various people crouching, or shifting their positions.

"Sit quiet," said the dealer, scornfully to the man near me.
"Can't you see he don't want to push trouble? He has handed
Trampas the choice to back down or draw his steel."

Then, with equal suddenness and ease, the room came out of
its strangeness. Voices and cards, the click of chips, the puff of
tobacco, glasses lifted to drink, — this level of smooth relaxation
hinted no more plainly of what lay beneath than does the surface
tell of the depth of the sea.

The Virginian, 1902

6. Appanoose Jim and His Friends

IAMES STEVENS

Isis Dowell was just seventeen. She was an orphan and lived
with her second cousin, a brakeman's wife, a sanctified Methodist,
but a mighty mean woman. There were five children in the family,
and Isis had washed dishes" in the boarding house since she was
fourteen. Going to her work, she had to come down the alley
behind Honest John's shack. Usually she'd run back and forth
three or four times a day. I had come back to the shack after I
got out of the hospital, for the rent was paid on it until March,
and there was quite a bit of grub stored in the kitchen. It was
lonesome and mournful there for me now; but still I stayed
around it more than I did the Silver Leaf; and this was on ac-
count of Isis Dowell.

I got acquainted with her soon after I went to live with Honest
John. I liked her looks from the start. She was a slim girl, but

496

not at all gangling. She had a healthy swing when she walked
along that was fine to watch, for she was strong and work hadn't
seemed to have hurt her a particle. She was usually wearing an
old coat of her second cousin's, and her shape didn't show in it
very good; but when she wasn't wearing a hat her face looked
very pretty. She had the biggest brown eyes, all silky-lashed, and
how they would sparkle on winter mornings I But even when it
was cold her cheeks only shone a soft, delicate pink, for they were
nothing like the usual plump, apple-red kinds on the ranch girls
I used to know. Her nose was slender-shaped, kind of intelligent-
looking, like a schoolma'am's; and her mouth was soft and pretty,
though her lips were rather thin sometimes. But she would get
the most curious expressions around her mouth, whenever she
had that far-away, angelic gaze; her lips would curve into the
faintest smiles then, scarcely showing her white teeth, and her
brown eyes would melt into the softest, dreamiest look, which
would seem to pull my heart right up into my throat, making me
feel like I did when I was seven years old in Iowa and got con-
verted at a Methodist revival.

Hard Foot Rax, the plow-shaker, was a good singer, too; but
he had a busy job and did most of his singing at night. Texas
was his native State, and Rax was great on the cowboy ballads
he had learned down in the Panhandle when he was a boy. Some-
times he would stretch out on his bunk and roar them by the
hour. Most of them had twenty or more verses. A cow hand
would never even hum a short song.

Hard Foot Rax was a mountain of a man and was about fifty
years old. He looked much younger; for his lean belly, barrel
chest, and shoulders that jutted out like big knots from his thick,
red neck, didn't have much appearance of age. His hair was a
tangle of stiff yellow bristles. His heavy eyebrows were a dirty-
white color and reached almost up to his hair, for Hard Foot had
about the poorest excuse for a forehead I had ever seen. He had
little, pale-blue eyes. The skin over his heavy jaws and short,
pudgy nose and clublike arms and hands was never tanned brown;
it looked like he had a continual case of sunburn. When he was
lying in his bunk the pale hair on his red arms had a frosty glim-
mer in the lantern light as he waved his paws, beating time to his
songs. I was somehow afraid of him, though he seemed to be
good-natured. And sometimes his cow hand songs made me

497

homesick for Idaho. But I did like to see Hard Foot jig. He was
surprisingly light on his feet. He said he had been called "Cotton"
down in the Texas country; but when he was taken into the team-
hand tribe he was monikered "Hard Foot," on account of his
wonderful jigging. Some nights he would tell stories about driving
big bands of cattle over the old Wyoming trail. I knew they were
mostly lies, but he made them sound interesting. He was so big
I could never imagine him on a cow pony.

Hard Foot was a first-rate plow-shaker, having the eye and
the muscle for this job. Behind the high seat of the big machine
a platform lay across the steel frame; and there Hard Foot Rax
stood all day, watching the depth of the plowing and the run of
dirt up the elevator belt, twisting the wheels that controlled the
plow beam and the elevator, bellowing "Hi!" when a wagon was
filled, and changing plowshares when one was dull. There were
times when both bar and share had to be changed. The outfit
weighed three hundred pounds, but Hard Foot never looked for
help when it was to be thrown into a wagon and hauled to a
blacksmith shop. Once he heaved the mass of steel into a dump
wagon, and the chains that held the red bottom snapped like
threads. It was then that Hard Foot Rax swelled his chest and
stared straight for the first time into the eyes of the high-seat team-
ster, the king of the camp, the boss of the team hand tribe wher-
ever he roved — Paddy, the great, dark devil, as Gager called him.

I had simply been a fool about women. That was the idea I
had during the year that followed, as I batted about from pillar
to post, without any ambition or purpose in life. I blamed my
restlessness and general cussedness on Isis and Tiva. But I can't
hold to that idea now. I can see young laborers nowadays coming
and going in the same kind of torment and turmoil of soul; and
they blame women as a rule, for the foolish and reckless things
they do, just as I did. They are wrong, though it's a waste of time
to tell them so; the fact is that they are having the battle with
life which every man has when he is young — the battle he has
when he gets to the point where he has to settle down to a job
and get himself comfortably in it, or else cut loose and be a rov-
ing boomer, without a family and without a home.

It's frolic and fun with a kid, even when he is toiling away
his ten hours a day at a regular man's job. It's still frolic and
fun with the young fellow, even when he gets to the age where

498

he is proud of his muscles and the fresh whiskers on his face and
the way he knocks the girls dead when he ogles them on the
street. He still looks for fun in his job, the girls are just to play
with, and life in general is just today and to-night and no more.
But the time comes when he is bound to take women and work
seriously; the time when he must see every little thing in his job
and his private life as serious and important and worth thinking
mighty soberly about. He must learn that women and work are
the two realest propositions in all his years to come. If he doesn't
he will get to continually cussing everything in life up one side
and down the other simply because it isn't funny any more, and
he becomes a crank. Or else he will go booming from one job to
another all his days, looking everywhere for the frolicsome ad-
venture he had as a kid. But you have to own a talent for this;
you have to be able to keep on dreaming things, something like
that girl, Isis, did. Life will just drab out on the average working
man if he doesn't get to taking his little part of it as serious and
important, and he will become mean and miserable and fit for
nothing but the name of a crank.

Usually the young laborer comes out all right. He settles down
to learning a trade that suits him, marries a girl of his own kind,
and becomes a steady, sober, serious worker who takes a pride
in his job and loves his home and family. If he has women folks
like Indiana Beaut got among, he may sober down long before
he is twenty-five. If he is wild and burly and bullheaded and proud
of himself, like I was, it usually takes several hard-hitting years
to tame him down. If he gets into the habit of booming over the
country in those years and doesn't happen to meet up with a
woman who suits him, and fails to get started in the trade he has
a knack for, he is apt to never settle down to taking life seriously.
That was the way of it with the old-time hobo laborers, in the
days of the big jobs. On them a man could easily get into the way
of being an adventurer or a crank. Nowadays you can trust the
wild-acting young buck who tears around from one job to another
to stay settled finally. The temptations to hobo and boom are
about all gone.

Brawnyman, 1926

499

The Feudal Lords of Spanish Days

HARVEY FERGUSSON

The [Rio Grande country] is a land of fallen walls, littered
with ruins of all ages and in all stages of decay. Tribes, cultures,
classes have lived and died here, leaving their shells to crumble
slowly in the dry preservative air. From the first rude buildings
of the pre-pueblo people, lasting for centuries, to the ghostly min-
ing camps of the seventies and eighties, where two or three old
men live in towns built for thousands and spiders spin their webs
over bars and pool tables in ornate deserted saloons, the whole
procession of human life down the Rio Grande has left its record
in adobe, stone and wood. Usually it has left some human vestige
too, for the descendants of the men who built the first walls still
are building new ones and almost every deserted gold town shel-
ters some old timer who remembers the booms and battles of fifty
years ago.

Of all the walls men built in this valley none has more nearly
disappeared than those of the great adobe houses that belonged
to the aristocracy in the years of Spanish empire. Adobe houses
are many and there are still a few large ones built around court-
yards but usually the spot where one of the famous families lived
is marked, if at all, by a pile of sand.

Gente de razon these people called themselves, and the phrase,
ringing with pride, means literally "the right people." They were
called also ricos or rich ones and gente fina, the fine people. Their
descendants still live here and many of them are valued citizens
but these are triumphs of adaptation to a way of life wholly alien
to their traditions. As a "class the right people are gone.

In old Mexico the same aristocracy is now falling to pieces under
a proletarian revolution, just as it fell after the invasion of the
gringos in New Mexico three generations ago. To visit Mexico
City now and meet the wistful remnant of the people who ruled
under Diaz is to go back into the past. There one may still en-
counter the pride, the perfect courtesy and the absolute self-assur-
ance which are born of the conviction that the right people should
rule because they are the right people — that human life is a
hierarchy based upon land and blood and privilege. And there
one feels the same fragrance of charm that one discovers in the

500

records of old days on the Rio Grande. These men were proud and
lazy and often they were cruel but the society they created had
charm because it was imbued with respect for the past. Charm in
human society is a cumulative thing and it does not survive rapid
change. It depends upon the faithful observance of customs and
traditions, slowly perfected. It requires that men shall live for
generations in the same houses, tilling the same lands, having
the same relations of class to class and man to man. Perhaps this
aristocratic ideal was never more completely realized, on a small
scale and in a rude way, than it was along the Rio Grande when
the wars with the pueblos were over and the great valley was
settled.

For a while after the conquest of De Vargas many settlers came
to this new colony of the North. Soon fifteen thousand Spaniards
lived along the river. New towns were built, campaigns were
launched against the Navajos and Apaches, new missions were
established to convert the Pueblos. Armed expeditions set out to
conquer new lands. Daring priests mounted their mules and
departed to risk their lives preaching Christ to the Moquis. The
barren New Mexico hills were searched for gold and silver.

This burst of colonizing energy soon subsided. Neither gold
nor silver was found in paying quantities. Even precious metals
to make ornaments for the churches had to be imported. The
Spaniards were always treasure-hunters and when it was learned
that New Mexico contained little gold interest in it waned. It
was found too that the country was a lean one and its arable
lands soon were all taken up. But there was another reason why
this colony became an isolated and neglected place. The Spanish
Empire was dying. Power had passed to England. The splendid
discipline which conquered South America and Mexico was falling
to pieces. This colony was the last expansive thrust of religious
empire in America. Faith in God and King had been its spiritual
nourishment and both were on the wane. The rest of its story is a
study in decay — the inevitable decay of pride and privilege sitting
in isolation.

The lands of the Rio Grande region were granted in great
tracts by the King of Spain, some of them to communities but most
of them to individuals, so that a few aristocrats literally owned the
earth. This land-owning class was probably never more than one-
fiftieth of the whole population. The pueblo Indians were granted
the lands about their villages and they maintained a precarious
economic independence, tilling their own fields. The priests still

501

tried to make good Christians of them, but the effort became more
and more perfunctory as its futility became apparent. The Pueblos
tolerated the churches and went to mass on Sunday while still keep-
ing their own heretical faith intact. In the early eighteenth century
a junta was held to discuss whether they should be allowed to
paint their faces. They are still painting their faces.

Some small landowners took up homesteads, mostly in the less
desirable sections north of Santa Fe, where the valley is narrow
and rugged. But in the South, where it is wide and fertile, nearly
all of it was owned by a few rich men who claimed to be of pure
Spanish blood. This southern region came to be known as Rio
Abajo or lower river, the northern region as Rio Arriba or upper
river, and the geographical division became more and more a
social one. It was in the rugged upper valley that the fraternity
of the Penitent Brothers, wholly a plebian organization, had its
headquarters and its greatest strength. There, too, the Pueblos
were strongest and most independent.

In this northern region the Pueblos still are strong and the Peni-
tent Brothers still lash their bare backs every holy week. The
Matachines still is danced, witches fly, scrapes are woven on hand-
looms, and magical cures are worked at the shrine in Chimayo.
The life of the humble still goes on much as it did a hundred
years ago but their first lords and masters have disappeared. Here
once more the mighty have fallen and if the meek have not in-
herited the earth they have at least clung to some of it with an
astonishing tenacity. And here the collapse of pride and power
has the beauty of completeness because this little aristocracy was
so long cut off from the rest of the civilized world to work out
its destiny alone.

It was about eight hundred miles from the Rio Grande to the
nearest American settlement on the Missouri and more than a
hundred years elapsed after the conquest before men found their
way across that thirsty plain. Chihuahua was almost as far to
the south. North and west lay wilderness, unexplored and im-
passible. But on the Rio Grande life became safe and easy for
the right people. Apaches and Navajos raided outlying settle-
ments and stole cattle and sheep but ttay seldom if ever struck the
great houses of the rich.

These houses had been built as forts. With walls three or fouf
feet thick they enclosed each a courtyard, called a placita, and
behind this was always another square enclosed by a high adobe
wall with quarters for slaves and peons built inside it. Here the

502

carts and wagons were kept and the horses could be driven in
when danger threatened. Windows were barred and a trusted
servant asked every comer his name and business before doors
were opened. Storerooms were filled with grains and dried buffalo
meat and a well in the courtyard supplied water. Life here was
secure. It was shut in and well nourished. Each great house re-
produced the isolation which beset the colony as a whole.

The men who owned these houses lived pleasant lazy lives. In
the valley they raised grain, vegetables and grapes and on the mesas
they pastured great herds of scrubby sheep, yielding little wool
but abundant meat. All the work was done by peons who in effect
were serfs. They were paid in goods and were never out of debt.
Sons inherited the debts of their fathers and generations lived in
bondage.

Law held the peon but not the patron. It provided that officers
in the army and priests of the church could be tried only by
their own peers. The army in New Mexico was at best a few
hundred ragged peons but it provided berths and immunities for
young men of the right people as did also the church, and the
powerful landowner was just as immune as these by reason of
his property. Always less than a thousand soldiers, priests, and
gentlemen ruled the country.

This lower valley in the early eighteenth century, then, although
surrounded by unmapped wilderness, was itself a well-settled and
well-cultivated place where men had lived for generations. Frorti
Bernalillo to Socorro the great houses were only a few miles apart
— long, low, recumbent structures with porches, supported by
round wooden pillars, extending the full length of their gleaming
whitewashed fronts. They looked as solid as the mountains but
they existed only by the incessant toil of slaves who plastered the
earthen walls and mended the flat dirt roofs after every heavy
rain. They were all sheltered by old cotton wood trees with their
generous spread of thick whispering foliage which seemed de-
signed to create havens of shade in a land of burning sun. Some-
times the houses were surrounded by adobe walls and often in the
old days the bushy vineyards and the fields of grain were enclosed
by lower ones for labor was cheap and there were no other fences.

Along the roads passed many riders. Rich men rode fine horses
with heavy silver-mounted saddles housed in bearskin. Poor men
bestrode burros, sitting well back on a humble rump, dispensing
both guidance and encouragement with a club, which is all the

5°3

equipment necessary for burro-riding. Women rode rarely, some-
times in chair-like side-saddles, sometimes on postillions. The peon
commonly held his woman before him on his steed as he did a
sack of corn for the mill. The only common vehicles were one-
horse carts, made without iron, the huge wooden wheels sawn
from the trunks of cottonwoods. The terrific screech of their un-
greased wooden axles was a familiar voice of the valley. Quite
early a few great coaches were imported by the richest men, and
these, rolling on important social errands, were impressive symbols
of an unquestionable power.

Within, the homes of the rich were Moorish. An oriental influ-
ence had been brought from Spain and it was strengthened by the
scarcity of furniture. Bedsteads there were none but only mattresses,
folded against the walls in daytime and covered with Navajo
blankets, black, red and white. The wealth of a man showed in
the quality of these coverings rather than in the amount or kind
of his furniture for it was all home-made and included only a
dining table, a few wooden chairs with rawhide seats and heavy
carven chests for clothes and jewels. Most preferred to sit on the
floors which were earthen but often covered with woolen carpets
of native weave in black and white checker patterns. The walls
were washed bonewhite with gypsum and covered with colored
cloths to a height of four or five feet, so that the whitewash would
not rub off. Pictures were few but mirrors in gold frames were
much esteemed and these multiplied after the wagons began to
come from Missouri until some of the salas offered the guest
his own image from every angle. Nearly all the houses had
sacred images in little corner shrines.

The principal room of every house was a long reception hall.
Scant daylight shone in through translucent windows, wooden-
barred. Cool, dim, and quiet were these great rooms — carefully
guarded sanctuaries of faith, power and family life, where idle,
soft-voiced women chatted away their long days, waiting for men
who were truly both lords and masters.

For this society belonged to the vanished world in which man
was supreme and woman only his pleasure and possession. Here
the father was an absolute ruler by divine right and treated as a
sacred being. His children, no matter how old, uncovered when
he approached and they dared not smoke in his presence. He-
could chastise a grown son or give his daughter in marriage as
easily as he could sell a horse or kill a slave. His power sprang from
his loins and multiplied with his family. One man had thirty-six

504

legitimate children by three wives and almost all had large families
of a darker shade by Indian concubines.

When men rule and women are subject the differentiating qual-
ities of the sexes are always exaggerated, just as they are minimized
when men and women meet on equal terms. So these men were
belligerently, aggressively masculine. They were arrogant, lazy,
truculent, cruel and brave. They ruled, fought, wandered, and
made love. Cock fights and gambling were their sports. Com-
merce, except in slaves, horses and the products of their own
lands, was beneath them, as were the professions. In 1831 the
province contained only one doctor and no lawyers. There were
almost no books except bibles.

Feuds were many and generally sprang from love affairs, for
this was a time and place of romantic passion, furious and blind.
There were few formal duels but many fights, especially at dances.
A beauty promised the same dance to two young men of the
proudest blood. The lie was passed and they met at dawn in the
plaza. Their pistols cracked and both fell dead. They were men
of honor, as were all of these ricos, and in a country where every
man carried pistols on his saddle and a Spanish dagger at his
belt, honor cost blood.

Life was not dull for these men. There were three long and
adventurous journeys to be made every year. In August or Sep-
tember a fair was held at Taos where tribes of the plains and
mountains came to trade with the Mexicans, offering captives as
slaves and also furs and skins for knives and beads. Horses were
sold and swapped and much property changed hands over races,
cock pits and monte games. There were dances and fights and a
great flow of red wine.

Those must have been strange and dangerous gatherings. Nava-
jos, Apaches, Comanches, Arapahoes, perhaps a few Cheyennes
all came to Taos and they were not peaceful Indians but warriors
fresh from their raids with scalps at their belts and captive girls
to sell, observing a precarious truce. The Taos Pueblos held a
fiesta with ceremonial dances and footraces. Mexicans came, of
every degree from ricos looking for bargains in human flesh to
the poorest peon that could get there on a burro. Early in the
eighteen hundreds tall blonde mountain men began to appear with
their long rifles and packs of beaver — deadly men, forerunners
of change and destruction.

Later in the fall the New Mexicans went east by way of Pecos
across the mountains to the buffalo ranges in organized communal

hunts. The buffalo furnished the province with most of its beef
for there were never many cattle on the Rio Grande. In the late
eighteenth century these hunters from the valley killed as many
as twelve thousand buffalo a year and rich and poor had meat.
Almost every family had one horse that was kept for buffalo-
hunting and nothing else — a swift horse trained to stick to his
prey like a dog. The rider carried a lance with a twelve-inch blade,
sharp as a razor, and he drove it through the crook of his left
arm into the buffalo's heart and out again. If his weapon stuck
between the ribs he was in for a fall.

Rich young men hunted luxuriously with peons coming behind
to skin and butcher the kill and hang the meat in strips a yard
long to dry in the sun. Dried buffalo meat cooked with chile and
beans was the staple of the poor and a dish to be found on every
table.

Sometimes they hunted wild mustangs on these expeditions,
wearing them down by a relentless relay pursuit or driving them
into some corner of the country where a trap-corral had been
built. Often the wild horse, when he had been roped and thrown,
was tied neck and neck to a burro half his size and the burro
would always master him and bring him to camp.

In January there was another trip, called a conducta, to the
southern fair at Chihuahua — a perilous journey of six hundred
miles with danger from Apaches and from death by thirst in the
desert. This, like the Taos fair, took a large part of the male
population away. It was apparently led and organized by the
ricos while many poor men went along to trade their woolen
weaves for chocolate, silver and silks. The conducta that Lieutenant
Pike saw drove also a herd of fifteen thousand sheep and was
guarded by a small detachment of Mexican troops. It was the
custom among the gente de razon for an affianced youth to make
one of these expeditions for his prospective father-in-law and he
was expected to bring back an Indian slave girl as a present for
his beloved. This trip to Chihuahua was the only contact the New
Mexicans had with the outside world. There they saw men and
goods that had come across the sea and got some faint inkling of
what lay beyond the Rio Grande.

In all this life of adventure and movement the women had no
part. Their lives, before marriage, were a guarded and cloistered
virginity and afterward one long series of pregnancies. It was
necessary that many babies be born because so many died. The
death of an infant was accepted as a matter of course. "One angel

506

more" was the usual spoken obituary, and the first gringos who
came to New Mexico were shocked to see children's funerals
moving through the streets at a brisk trot and to cheerful music
with the tiny corpse often uncoffined.

These women tended, by reaction, to be everything the men
were not. As the men were cruel the women were notably tender
and compassionate. Kendall records how they saved the lives of
the Texan captives, bringing food to them, secretly if need be,
and he broadly hints that they brought love as well. For these
women, after marriage, were not celebrated for fidelity to their
proud masters. All early observers testify to this. Gregg remarks
that "marriage changes the legal status of the parties but it scarcely
afTects their moral obligations," and Abert said that "nowhere is
chastity less valued or expected."

This last is not exact. The male expected chastity of his bride and
considered himself cheated if he did not get it. He would resent
any invasion of his family with knife and gun. Yet infidelity was
all but universal for this was almost the only possible form of
feminine revolt against a complete and brutal masculine domination.
To the blond invaders the women gave themselves especially, as
though there had been some instinct in the blood to breed to the
coming conqueror. Both of the Taos conspiracies against the
American occupation were betrayed to the Americans by Mexican
women. When Doniphan evacuated Chihuahua his army was
followed by a crowd of Mexican girls in men's clothing who trailed
his soldiers and camped with them in the desert until he drove
them all back home.

These women in all essentials were slaves and they had the
deep duplicity and the spirit of revolt, unresting even when only
half conscious, which tyranny always breeds. From this same
source doubtless sprang their quick warm sympathy for everything
helpless and oppressed — for children, captives and motherless
lambs. "Pobrecito!" (poor little thing) was an exclamation often
on their lips. It comforted the ears of the Texan captives all through
their march. The word is still often heard all through Mexico,
old and new, and almost always from a woman. It articulates a
feminine protest against the cruelty of man, which perhaps never
achieved a more complete and bloody expression than it did in the
empire and colonies of Spain.

In their Moorish houses these women lived like inmates of a
harem. Slaves did all the work — ground the corn on metates,
baked the bread in hive-like outdoor ovens, tended the cauldrons

507

that hung before the wide cooking-hearths, beat cmck chocolate to
a froth *in wooden bowls. There were five meals a day and three
of them were heavy ones. It is no wonder these women, married
at fourteen and fifteen, were fat and middle-aged before they were
thirty.

All smoked corn-husk cigarettes and all drank native wine,
copiously, with meals and between them. Grape brandy was made
but used sparingly and chiefly as a medicine. One old man, who
had been a youth of the aristocracy in its decline, assured me that
American whisky had done much to ruin the ricos. Accustomed
only to wine they could not stand the deadly corn juice of the
invaders.

For marriage the girls could only wait and take what their
masters willed. Some were promised before they could walk.
Usually a suitor called with his parents on the parents of the chosen
girl, and if they agreed she might be called in, as a special in-
dulgence. If no refusal was sent in eight days, the man was accepted.
Betrothals were often long as they still are in Mexico City where
the girl dare not even dance with any but her affianced though he
keep her waiting for years while he had the run of the town.
One wealthy New Mexican, becoming engaged to a girl of thirteen
and humanely judging her too young for marriage, sent her to a
convent for four years to keep her safe and she became celebrated
as the best-educated woman of her time. A few of the girls went
to Durango to school but many never learned to read. Small private
schools were kept in New Mexico but only for boys.

There was much visiting among the houses of the rich, especially
late in the afternoon when chocolate was served, and then this
society exhibited all its graces. It moved with grace, as Spanish
society always does, and it had an eye for appearances. You must
picture the men of that early day dressed in buckskin dyed black,
well cut by native tailors and ornamented with silver buttons.
Their hair was long and hung in queues on their necks. They wore
full beards and moustaches and wide flat black hats imported from
Mexico. Each had over his shoulder a blanket called a scrape, of
bright colors and striking pattern, and it might be worth as much
as two hundred dollars. The women woie short skirts, often of red
wool, and low cut bodices, and each always carried a shawl. The
quality of this reboso marked her wealth and station as did the
scrape that of the man.

Manners were elaborate, ceremonial and truly charming, as they
still are wherever Spanish influence lingers. Bows were profound

508

and a man took off his hat even to offer a light for a cigarette.
Salutation was an art, with room for originality. "May you live
to be a thousand, sir!" "And may you, sir, live to see the last of
my years!" Where men go armed they speak with exaggerated
deference.

These people were not afraid to touch each other. When old
friends and relatives met, all embraced and kissed — a custom still
sometimes to be seen. Girls publicly embraced and kissed male
friends whom they would never see alone unless in marriage or by
stealth. Men embraced each other, kissed on the cheek and expressed
the degree of their affection by the heartiness with which they
hammered each other on the back.

All sat usually on the floor and drank their chocolate from
hammered silver mugs. All service was silver — even the bowls and
ewers used for washing.

These people were without a formal art but not without a culture.
Where there is no written literature poetry escapes the danger of
becoming the possession of a class. Here almost everyone was a
poet of a sort. Almost every youth could strum some kind of
stringed instrument, serenade his lady and sing verses of his own
making. They varied in kind from the innumerable couplets and
quatrains that embodied the folk wisdom to long narrative poems
celebrating important events. The latter were sometimes written
down but they seem never to have been associated with the names
of authors. All poems and stories were common property as were
also the dramas and charades they enacted. Some of these came from
Spain but there was a great deal of indigenous work, most of it
now forever lost. It was the kind of rich compost of folk tale and
folk fancy, of rhythm and tradition from which a literature may
spring but here it was doomed never to bear its fruit.

There were many dances and everyone danced, rich and poor,
layman and priest. Formal dances were held in all the houses of
the rich and these were called bailes or balls while the dances of
the common people were called fandangos. At the bailes they per-
formed all the old square dances with intricate figures, requiring
both knowledge and command on the part of the leader. The
musicians were commonly peons and often blind. They played
fiddles and a stringed instrument like a guitar which was often
home-made. Sometimes a woman with a special gift for verse sat
on the platform beside the players and as each couple passed she
improvised a rhyme about them, to the hilarious merriment of all.
They danced also waltzes both fast and slow and their most dis-

509

tinctive dance was called Cuna or cradle waltz. The whirling
dancers embraced each other loosely about the shoulders, making a
cradle, "which was never bottomless" as one shocked observer from
Missouri remarked.

About Christmas time all New Mexico danced. There were
dances of every kind, both sacred and profane, for in winter the
Pueblos held their most elaborate dances and in the holidays there
was dancing in every great house and blind men rode fiddling
through every village to gather the slaves and peons for fandangos.
To violins from across the sea and to savage drums, to courtly
minuets and to the rolling chant of the Katchinas, all up and down
the valley feet went dancing.

Such was the life within walls of the right people — a life of
feasting, dancing, fighting and amorous intrigue.

Rio Grande, 1933

510

The Golden Army Takes the California
Trail

ARCHER BUTLER HULBERT

Independence, Mo.
April 30, 1849

Dear Dad:

Millions of stars are looking down on these rolling plains of
Western Missouri where the many tracks of the California Trail
curve out from this town of Independence across "the Line" into
the Indian Territory beyond [over the present site of Kansas City,
Missouri.]. On every side, as far as you can see to-night, earthly
"stars" — the camp-fires of all this multitude of eager, restless Forty-
Niners — twinkle on the ground, being fed by members of the
most excited army that was ever assembled in the New World,
every one impatient for mud to dry and spring grass to grow so
that these shaggy regiments can get on their way.

Had I fifty hands I could not jot down a tenth part of what I
hear, or sketch a fraction of the memorable things I see which
deserve attention. Never did Life and Death hustle each other on
a narrower pathway. Look at one proof of this: a hundred feet
from me, to the right, under a canvas thrown across a broken
wagon wheel a man from Pennsylvania is dying of cholera; noth-
ing anyone can do will help him. A hundred feet in the opposite
direction a dynamic derelict whom we've nicknamed "Old Pick-
pan" because his total baggage consists of a pickaxe and a dish pan
is celebrating to-morrow's departure for the land of gold by one
last determined assault on Demon Rum, and nothing anyone can
do will help him, either. Just now, between his cups and hiccoughs
he is — I had almost said "singing" — emitting the newly arrived
ballad from London entitled "Oh, the Good Time Is Come at Last."
Holding in each hand (as he fondly supposes) a nugget of gold,
he chants amid antics: —

The Miser looks with wistful eye,
The Spendthrift hails with glee, Sir,

This Golden Scheme now set afloat
By many a Company, Sir.

511

In breathless haste they all set off,

And like the Gilpin chase, Sir,
See Nations for the Ingots rare,

To California race, Sir.

Across this vast, rolling bivouac ground you see the "Nations"
celebrating, like Pickpan, or lying in windrows under blankets in
every posture of repose; or you hear the wail of fiddles, the strum-
ming of banjos, or the snap of cards laid down vindictively on
improvised, lantern-lighted "tables." Our unquenchable songster
continues his lyrical prophecy of finding gold in a land which
would flow with something better, to his way of thinking, than
milk and honey: —

Instead of drinking pump water

Or even half-and-half, Sir,
We all will live like jolly souls,

And Port and Sherry quaff, Sir.
In 'spirits' we will keep ourselves, —

The Mettle's coming in, Sir.
And not a man will now be found

Who'll say he wants for 'tin,' Sir.

In the light of a dying fire to the left we see a sturdy family at
their even-prayer, with a fine old patriarch face uplifted to the
starlight, describing an equal faith in future happiness, but in
terms at variance with Pickpan's; the stately cadences roll across
to us above the derelict's jargon: —

Whither shall I go from thy spirit?

Or whither shall I flee from thy presence?

If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there:

If I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.

If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost

parts of the sea;

Even there shall thy hand lead me,
And thy right hand shall hold me. . . .
Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee;
But the night shineth as the day:
The darkness and the light are both alike to thee.

In a strange way the two voices — like those of different "Na-
tions"—blend in the evening breeze, expressive of different, but
unconquerable, philosophies: —

512

(From the right}

Oh, the Good time has come at last,

We need no more complain, Sir.
The rich can live in luxury

And the poor can do the same, Sir.
For the Good time has come at last,

And as we all are told, Sir,
We shall be rich at once now,

With California Gold, Sir.

(From the left)

. . . Thou hast possessed my reins. . . .
When I awake, I am still with thee.

No earlier Cause ever called together in the New World such a
strange medley of men, so curious a mass as this Golden Army.
There they lie amid their fading fires of prairie grass, of tepee
poles, of cottonwood stumps, of chokecherry wood, of sagebrush,
of greasewood — rich men, poor men, beggar men, thieves; farmers,
lawyers, doctors, merchants, preachers, workmen; Republicans,
Whigs, Federalists, Abolitionists; Baptists, Methodists, Transcen-
dentalists, Campbellites, Millerites, Presbyterians, Mormons; white
men, black men, yellow men, Germans, Russians, Poles, Chileans,
Swiss, Spaniards; sailors, steamboat men, lumber men, gamblers;
the lame, squint-eyed, pockmarked, one-armed; the bearded, the
beardless, the mustachioed, side-whiskered, and goateed; singing,
cursing, weeping, and laughing, in their sleep; squaws in royal
blankets, prostitutes in silk, brave women in knickerbockers that
reach to the shoe-tops, covered by knee-length skirts of similar ma-
terial; the witty, nitwits, and witless; pet cats, kittens, canaries,
dogs, coons; cherished accordions, melodeons, flutes, fiddles, banjos;
fortune-tellers, phrenologists, mesmerists, harlots, card sharks, ven-
triloquists, and evangelists from almost every state, nation, county,
duchy, bishopric, island, peninsula, bay, and isthmus in all the
world — dreaming of gold where those California trails zigzag away
over a hundred rough knolls where the Kansas and Missouri rivers
have quarreled for centuries for right of way.

To the left of our wagon train a tragedy of proportions is being
enacted by candlelight in an open tent. An emigrant has been cele-
brating so seriously this epoch-making departure from civilization
that he is now unable to take advantage of his last chance to write
home because his hand has forgotten the gentle art of penmanship.

5*3

He is sober enough to know he must write; his grief at thinking
that it will be his last letter vies with his dismay at not being able
to write it. The two procure him another drink which, automati-
cally, forwards the matter, for nothing except dictation is now
possible. But this proves slow work, because each draft either con-
tains something objectionable to the dictator or else reminds him
too forcefully of the long separation, with the result that he kisses
the paper, befouling it with tears and his nose with ink. Finally a
last determined effort results in success. One partner doing the
writing and the other holding the old man off, although, when
the fatal moment of sealing and addressing comes, the latter has
to call in outside help. The letter read: —

Mrs. Robert S

Bellefontaine, Iowa

Dear Wife: Kiss the baby. Border line, all well. Kiss the baby.
Independence, Missouri River. Kiss the baby. Had a good time. Last
letter. Cross the river. Tell the baby California. Dear wife all well.
Tell Johnnie papa plenty of money California. Kiss the baby.

Robert

The fiddles, songs, and prayers, if not the click of cards, cease as
I write, and our army stretches itself this May Day Eve for its last
night or two by the Missouri to dream of home — of Otter Creek
in Vermont, of "Cobossy" Lake in Maine, of Chartier's Creek in
Old Washington in Pennsylvania, of Quinebaug in Massachusetts,
of the Barren in Kentucky, the Patoka in Indiana, the Mullica in
old Jersey, the Sacandaga in New York. Why are they here? Gold.
Adventure. And one of these they are sure to get! As for me, well,
I'm here to "see the world," throw off this malaria and play the
greenhorn soldier of fortune along with this generous, so-called
"Uncle Bob" of ours. One thing: he could not be kinder to me if
he really was your brother, Dad, but I must say he circulates a
spirif-ual cheer wherever he goes as no brother of yours could!

There in the moonlight stand fourteen very solid reasons why
this Uncle Bob is going to California — that many substantial
wagons, not counting Uncle's library-bedroom-on-wheels, which we
call the "Ark," and the four-wheeled chuck wagon. The freighters
are loaded with two thousand pounds of cargo, the profitable part
being powder, shot, and percussion caps for the Californians — the
powder being worth out there almost an ounce of gold ($18.00)
per pound. There is Uncle's lure, combined with the adventure

514

across a world none of us ever saw and a grand voyage around the
Horn for a homecoming.

A great many have joined the army of gold-seekers this year be-
cause of the reports of continued successes in the "Diggings" last
autumn.

Foreigners have eagerly flocked across the seas, partly because of
the hope to acquire wealth in the mines and partly because the
recent unsettled conditions in Europe would have led to migration
even if Mr. Marshall had not picked up those grains of gold in
his mill-race a year ago.

The newspapers have given gold news the right of way and, by
reprinting the reports of government agents on the spot, have cre-
ated a popular confidence in the reality of Marshall's discovery.
Steamboat companies have flooded the landscape with alluring in-
vitations to go to California in ease in their commodious floating
palaces. No one cause explains it all — everything is calling to Cali-
fornia!

Peering through my tent-flaps, I observe the commander-in-chief
of our little company in this great army, Captain Meek, of the
famous pioneer Meek family, and his two swarthy adjutant-gen-
erals, known familiarly as Wagonhound and Ox Bow, accompany
Uncle Bob to his great Ark, and linger over a night-cap drawn from
one of several casks of private stock which repose in the innermost
recesses of that chariot.

There in the dark the last words are spoken, the last reckonings
made, the last recountings summarized. "We" consist, as I said, of
sixteen masterpieces of wagon building, including the Ark and a
chuck-wagon; four mules to a wagon and three to spare for each;
one driver to a wagon; four muleteers-at-large; upward of thirty
men and over a hundred animals. "Snug outfit," says Uncle, look-
ing down our line of wagons, hopeful, sanguine. "We'd better be,"
said Meek, taking his nose out of his tin cup. "Right fit," said
Uncle, a little later. "Can't be too fit," said Meek. I am reminded of
the endless attention to detail of these last days on the part of this
triumvirate of ours, Meek, Wagonhound, and Ox Bow, to make us
approach Uncle Bob's dictum, "the best outfit on wheels." "No,
we're not so bad oft," was Meek's comment in the end.

Those words meant a dozen things I knew and probably a
hundred I didn't know. It meant that very few irritable, petulant
men had been included among those hired to mule-whack us
across the plains. It meant that the wagons were built of seasoned
lumber. It meant that the tires were put on with a bolt in each

515

felloe and a nut and screw on the bolt — so that when the spokes
began to work in the hub they could be tightened by putting
leather or something under the tire and drawing it up with the
nut. It meant that hub and axles were large in proportion to the
wheels, with at least three-inch arms. That the stakes were high so
that, if lightened, the wagon-beds could be raised a foot or more
from the bolsters when fording streams. That the beds themselves
were caulked as tight as the best of boats. That the stakes holding
the bed had iron braces forward and backward, to prevent their
giving way on the steep pitches. That the half springs were strong
and heavy, but not fastened to the bolster. That the forward wheels
were just about as high as the back wheels. That the bows of the
wagon-top were fitted to staples on the main box. That a cord
passing through rings on the outer covering of the wagon-tops and
under the carriage knobs on the main box allowed the tops to be
tightened at will, much as you would tighten the head of a drum.
It meant that the mules' sweat collars were fastened to the main
collars. That every animal had a half-inch manila lariat forty feet
long, with a picket. That every saddle was a Spanish tree and skirt
only, with crupper, breast strap, and blankets to put under instead
of a finished padded saddle. That for every man we carried a
hundred twenty-five pounds of flour, fifty pounds of cured ham,
fifty pounds of smoked side bacon; thirty pounds of sugar, six
pounds of ground coffee, one pound of tea, a pound and a half of
cream of tartar, two pounds of soda or good saleratus, three pounds
of salt, a bushel of dried fruit, one sixth of a bushel of beans,
twenty-five pounds of rice, sixteen and a half pounds of hard or
"pilot" bread, and pepper, ginger, citric acid, and tartaric acid

"to suit."

The Forty-Niners, 1931

516

Tennessee s Partner

BRET HARTE

I do not think that we ever knew his real name. Our ignorance
of it certainly never gave us any social inconvenience, for at Sandy
Bar in 1854 most men were christened anew. Sometimes these
appellatives were derived from some distinctiveness of dress, as in
the case of "Dungaree Jack"; or from some peculiarity of habit, as
shown in "Saleratus Bill," so called from an undue proportion of
that chemical in his daily bread; or from some unlucky slip, as
exhibited in "The Iron Pirate," a mild, inoffensive man, who earned
that baleful title by his unfortunate mispronunciation of the term
"iron pyrites." Perhaps this may have been the beginning of a
rude heraldry; but I am constrained to think that it was because a
man's real name in that day rested solely upon his own unsupported
statement. "Call yourself Clifford, do you?" said Boston, addressing
a timid newcomer with infinite scorn; "hell is full of such Cliffords!"
He then introduced the unfortunate man, whose name happened
to be really Clifford, as "Jay-bird Charley," — an unhallowed in-
spiration of the moment, that clung to him ever after.

But to return to Tennessee's Partner, whom we never knew by
any other than this relative title; that he had ever existed as a
separate and distinct individuality we only learned later. It seems
that in 1853 he left Poker Flat to go to San Francisco, ostensibly to
procure a wife. He never got any farther than Stockton. At that
place he was attracted by a young person who waited upon the
table at the hotel where he took his meals. One morning he said
something to her which caused her to smile not unkindly, to
somewhat coquettishly break a plate of toast over his upturned,
serious, simple face, and to retreat to the kitchen. He followed her,
and emerged a few moments later, covered with more toast and
victory. That day week they were married by a Justice of the Peace,
and returned to Poker Flat. I am aware that something more
might be made of this episode, but I prefer to tell it as it was
current at Sandy Bar, — in the gulches and barrooms, — where all
sentiment was modified by a strong sense of humor.

Of their married felicity but little is known, perhaps for the
reason that Tennessee, then living with his partner, one day took
occasion to say something to the bride on his own account, at which,

51?

it is said, she smiled not unkindly and chastely retreated, — this
time as far as Marysville, where Tennessee followed her, and where
they went to housekeeping without the aid of a Justice of the Peace.
Tennessee's Partner took the loss of his wife simply and seriously,
as was his fashion. But to everybody's surprise, when Tennessee
one day returned from Marysville, without his partner's wife, — she
having smiled and retreated with somebody else, — Tennessee's
Partner was the first man to shake his hand and greet him with
affection. The boys who had gathered in the canon to see the
shooting were naturally indignant. Their indignation might have
found vent in sarcasm but for a certain look in Tennessee's Partner's
eye that indicated a lack of humorous appreciation. In fact, he was a
grave man, with a steady application to practical detail which was
unpleasant in a difficulty.

Meanwhile a popular feeling against Tennessee had grown up
on the Bar. He was known to be a gambler; he was suspected to
be a thief. In these suspicions Tennessee's Partner was equally
compromised; his continued intimacy with Tennessee after the
affair above quoted could only be accounted for on the hypothesis
of a co-partnership of crime. At last Tennessee's guilt became
flagrant. One day he overtook a stranger on his way to Red Dog.
The stranger afterward related that Tennessee beguiled the time
with interesting anecdote and reminiscence, but illogically concluded
the interview in the following words: "And now, young man.
Til trouble you for your knife, your pistols, and your money. You
see your weppings might get you into trouble at Red Dog, and your
money's a temptation to the evilly disposed. I think you said your
address was San Francisco. I shall endeavor to call." It may be
stated here that Tennessee had a fine flow of humor, which no
business preoccupation could wholly subdue.

This exploit was his last. Red Dog and Sandy Bar made common
cause against the highwayman. Tennessee was hunted in very
much the same fashion as his prototype, the grizzly. As the toils
closed around him, he made a desperate dash through the Bar,
emptying his revolver at the crowd before the Arcade Saloon, and
so on up Grizzly Canon; but at its farther extremity he was
stopped by a small man on a gray horse. The men looked at each
other a moment in silence. Both were fearless, both self-possessed
and independent; and both types of a civilization that in the
seventeenth century would have been called heroic, but, in the
nineteenth, simply "reckless." "What have you got there? — I call,"
said Tennessee, quietly. "Two bowers and an ace," said the stranger,

as quietly, showing two revolvers and a bowie knife. "That takes
me," returned Tennessee; and with this gamblers' epigram, he
threw away his useless pistol, and rode back with his captor.

It was a warm night. The cool breeze which usually sprang up
with the going down of the sun behind the chaparral-crested
mountain was that evening withheld from Sandy Bar. The little
canon was stifling with heated resinous odors, and the decaying
driftwood on the Bar sent forth faint, sickening exhalations. The
feverishness of day, and its fierce passions, still filled the camp.
Lights moved restlessly along the bank of the river, striking no
answering reflection from its tawny current. Against the blackness
of the pines the windows of the old loft above the express office
stood out staringly bright; and through their curtainless panes the
loungers below could see the forms of those who were even then
deciding the fate of Tennessee. And above all this, etched on the
dark firmament, rose the Sierra, remote and passionless, crowned
with remoter passionless stars.

The trial of Tennessee was conducted as fairly as was consistent
with a judge and jury who felt themselves to some extent obliged
to justify, in their verdict, the previous irregularities of arrest and
indictment. The law of Sandy Bar was implacable, but not vengeful.
The excitement and personal feeling of the chase were over; with
Tennessee safe in their hands they were ready to listen patiently to
any defense, which they were already satisfied was insufficient.
There being no doubt in their own minds, they were willing to
give the prisoner the benefit of any that might exist. Secure in
the hypothesis that he ought to be hanged, on general principles,
they indulged him with more latitude of defense than his reckless
hardihood seemed to ask. The Judge appeared to be more anxious
than the prisoner, who, otherwise unconcerned, evidently took a
grim pleasure in the responsibility he had created. "I don't take
any hand in this yer game," had been his invariable, but good-
humored reply to all questions. The Judge — who was also his
captor — for a moment vaguely regretted that he had not shot him
"on sight," that morning, but presently dismissed this human
weakness as unworthy of the judicial mind. Nevertheless, when
there was a tap at the door, and it was said that Tennessee's
Partner was there on behalf of the prisoner, he was admitted at
once without question. Perhaps the younger members of the jury,
to whom the proceedings were becoming irksomely thoughtful,
hailed him as a relief.

For he was not, certainly, an imposing figure. Short and stout,

519

with a square face, sunburned into a preternatural redness, clad in
a loose duck "jumper," and trousers streaked and splashed with
red soil, his aspect under any circumstances would have been quaint,
and was now even ridiculous. As he stooped to deposit at his feet a
heavy carpetbag he was carrying, it became obvious, from partially
developed legends and inscriptions, that the material with which
his trousers had been patched had been originally intended for a
less ambitious covering. Yet he advanced with great gravity, and
after having shaken the hand of each person in the room with
labored cordiality, he wiped his serious, perplexed face on a red
bandanna handkerchief, a shade lighter than his complexion, laid
his powerful hand upon the table to steady himself, and thus
addressed the Judge: —

"I was passin' by," he began, by way of apology, "and I thought
I'd just step in and see how things was gittin' on with Tennessee
thar, — my pardner. It's a hot night. I disremember any sich weather
before on the Bar."

He paused a moment, but nobody volunteering any other
meteorological recollection, he again had recourse to his pocket
handkerchief, and for some moments mopped his face diligently.

"Have you anything to say in behalf of the prisoner?" said the
Judge, finally.

"Thet's it," said Tennessee's Partner, in a tone of relief. "I
come yar as Tennessee's pardner, — knowing him nigh on four
year, off and on, wet and dry, in luck and out o' luck. His ways
ain't allers my ways, but thar ain't any p'ints in that young man,
thar ain't any liveliness as he's been up to, as I don't know. And
you sez to me, sez you, — confidential-like, and between man and
man, — sez you, 'Do you know anything in his behalf?' and I sez
to you, sez I, — confidential-like, as between man and man, —
'What should a man know of his pardner?'"

"Is this all you have to say?" asked the Judge, impatiently, feeling,
perhaps, that a dangerous sympathy of humor was beginning to
humanize the Court.

"Thet's so," continued Tennessee's Partner. "It ain't for me to
say anything agin' him. And now, what's the case ? Here's Tennessee
wants money, wants it bad, and doesn't like to ask it of his old
pardner. Well, what does Tennessee do? He lays for a stranger,
and he fetches that stranger. And you lays for him, and you fetches
him; and the honors is easy. And I put it to you, bein' a fa'r-minded
man, and to you, gentlemen, all, as fa'r-minded men, ef this isn't
so?"

520

"Prisoner," said the Judge, interrupting, "have you any questions
to ask this man?"

"No! no!" continued Tennessee's Partner, hastily. "I play this
yer hand alone. To come down to the bed rock, it's just this:
Tennessee, thar, has played it pretty rough and expensive-like on a
stranger, and on this yer camp. And now, what's the fair thing?
Some would say more; some would say less. Here's seventeen
hundred dollars in coarse gold and a watch, it's about all my pile, —
and call it square!" And before a hand could be raised to prevent
him, he had emptied the contents of the carpetbag upon the table.

For a moment his life was in jeopardy. One or two men sprang to
their feet, several hands groped for hidden weapons, and a sug-
gestion to "throw him from the window" was only overridden by
a gesture from the Judge. Tennessee laughed. And apparently
oblivious of the excitement, Tennessee's Partner improved the
opportunity to mop his face again with his handkerchief.

When order was restored, and the man was made to understand,
by the use of forcible figures and rhetoric, that Tennessee's offense
could not be condoned by money, his face took a more serious and
sanguinary hue, and those who were nearest to him noticed that
his rough hand trembled slightly on the table. He hesitated a
moment as he slowly returned the gold to the carpet-bag, as if he
had not yet entirely caught the elevated sense of justice which
swayed the tribunal, and was perplexed with the belief that he
had not offered enough. Then he turned to the Judge, and saying,
"This yer is a lone hand, played alone, and without my pardner,"
he bowed to the jury and was about to withdraw, when the Judge
called him back. "If you have anything to say to Tennessee, you
had better say it now." For the first time that evening the eyes of
the prisoner and his strange advocate met. Tennessee smiled, showed
his white teeth, and, saying, "Euchred, old man!" held out his hand.
Tennessee's Partner took it in his own, and saying, "I just dropped
in as I was passin' to see how things was gettin' on," let the hand
passively fall, and adding that "it was a warm night," again
mopped his face with his handkerchief, and without another word
withdrew.

The two men never again met each other alive. For the un-
paralleled insult of a bribe offered to Judge Lynch — who, whether
bigoted, weak, or narrow, was at least incorruptible — firmly fixed
in the mind of that mythical personage any wavering determination
of Tennessee's fate; and at the break of day he was marched,
closely guarded, to meet it at the top of Marley's Hill.

521

How he met it, how cool he was, how he refused to say anything,
how perfect were the arrangements of the committee, were all duly
reported, with the addition of a warning moral and example to all
future evil doers, in the Red Dog Clarion, by its editor, who was
present, and to whose vigorous English I cheerfully refer the
reader. But the beauty of that midsummer morning, the blessed
amity of earth and air and sky, the awakened life of the free woods
and hills, the joyous renewal and promise of Nature, and above all,
the infinite serenity that thrilled through each, was not reported, as
not being a part of the social lesson. And yet, when the weak and
foolish deed was done, and a life, with its possibilities and re-
sponsibilities, had passed out of the misshapen thing that dangled
between earth and sky, the birds sang, the flowers bloomed, the
sun shone, as cheerily as before; and possibly the Red Dog Clarion
was right.

Tennessee's Partner was not in the group that surrounded the
ominous tree. But as they turned to disperse, attention was drawn
to the singular appearance of a motionless donkey cart halted at
the side of the road. As they approached, they at once recognized
the venerable "Jenny" and the two-wheeled cart as the property of
Tennessee's Partner, — used by him in carrying dirt from his claim;
and a few paces distant the owner of the equipage himself, sitting
under a buckeye tree, wiping the perspiration from his glowing
face. In answer to an inquiry, he said he had come for the body of
the "diseased," "if it was all the same to the committee." He
didn't wish to "hurry anything"; he could "wait." He was not
working that day; and when the gentlemen were done with the
"diseased," he would take him. "Ef thar is any present," he added,
in his simple, serious way, "as would care to jine in the fun'l, they
kin come." Perhaps it was from a sense of humor, which I have
already intimated was a feature of Sandy Bar, — perhaps it was
from something even better than that; but two thirds of the
loungers accepted the invitation at once.

It was noon when the body of Tennessee was delivered into the
hands of his partner. As the cart drew up to the fatal tree, we
noticed that it contained a rough, oblong box, — apparently made
from a section of sluicing, — and half filled with bark and the
tassels of pine. The cart was further decorated with slips of willow,
and made fragrant with buckeye blossoms. When the body was
deposited in the box, Tennessee's Partner drew over it a piece of
tarred canvas, and gravely mounting the narrow seat in front, with
his feet upon the shafts, urged the little donkey forward. The

522

equipage moved slowly on, at that decorous pace which was habitual
with "Jenny" even under less solemn circumstances. The men —
half curiously, half jestingly, but all good-humoredly — strolled along
beside the cart; some in advance, some a little in the rear of the
homely catafalque. But, whether from the narrowing of the road
or some present sense of decorum, as the cart passed on, the company
fell to the rear in couples, keeping step, and otherwise assuming
the external show of a formal procession. Jack Folinsbee, who had
at the outset played a funeral march in dumb show upon an
imaginary trombone, desisted, from a lack of sympathy and appre-
ciation,— not having, perhaps, your true humorist's capacity to be
content with the enjoyment of his own fun.

The way led through Grizzly Canon, — by this time clothed in
funereal drapery and shadows. The redwoods, burying their moc-
casined feet in the red soil, stood in Indian file along the track,
trailing an uncouth benediction from their bending boughs upon
the passing bier. A hare, surprised into helpless inactivity, sat
upright and pulsating in the ferns by the roadside, as the cortege
went by. Squirrels hastened to gain a secure outlook from higher
boughs; and the blue jays, spreading their wings, fluttered before
them like outriders, until the outskirts of Sandy Bar were reached,
and the solitary cabin of Tennessee's Partner.

Viewed under more favorable circumstances, it would not have
been a cheerful place. The unpicturesque site, the rude and unlovely
outlines, the unsavory details, which distinguish the nest-building of
the California miner, were all here, with the dreariness of decay
superadded. A few paces from the cabin there was a rough in-
closure, which, in the brief days of Tennessee's Partner's matri-
monial felicity, had been used as a garden, but was now overgrown
with fern. As we approached it we were surprised to find that what
we had taken for a recent attempt at cultivation was the broken soil
about an open grave.

The cart was halted before the inclosure; and rejecting the offers
of assistance with the same air of simple self-reliance he had dis-
played throughout, Tennessee's Partner lifted the rough coffin on
his back, and deposited it, unaided, within the shallow grave. He
then nailed down the board which served as a lid; and mounting
the little mound of earth beside it, took off his hat, and slowly
mopped his face with his handkerchief. This the crowd felt was a
preliminary to speech; and they disposed themselves variously on
stumps and bowlders, and sat expectant.

"When a man," began Tennessee's Partner, slowly, "has been

523

running free all day, what's the natural thing for him to do?
Why, to come home. And if he ain't in a condition to go home,
what can his best friend do? Why, bring him home! And here's
Tennessee has been running free, and we brings him home from
his wandering." He paused, and picked up a fragment of quartz,
rubbed it thoughtfully on his sleeve, and went on: "It ain't the
first time that I've packed him on my back, as you see'd me now.
It ain't the first time that I brought him to this yer cabin when he
couldn't help himself; it ain't the first time that I and 'Jinny' have
waited for him on yon hill, and picked him up and so fetched
him home, when he couldn't speak, and didn't know me. And now
that it's the last time, why, — " he paused, and rubbed the quartz
gently on his sleeve, — "you see it's sort of rough on his pardner.
And now, gentlemen," he added, abruptly, picking up his long-
handled shovel, "the fun'l's over; and my thanks, and Tennessee's
thanks, to you for your trouble."

Resisting any proffers of assistance, he began to fill in the grave,
turning his back upon the crowd, that after a few moments'
hesitation gradually withdrew. As they crossed the little ridge that
hid Sandy Bar from view, some, looking back, thought they could
see Tennessee's Partner, his work done, sitting upon the grave, his
shovel between his knees, and his face buried in his red bandanna
handkerchief. But it was argued by others that you couldn't tell
his face from his handkerchief at that distance; and this point re-
mained undecided.

In the reaction that followed the feverish excitement of that day,
Tennessee's Partner was not forgotten. A secret investigation had
cleared him of any complicity in Tennessee's guilt, and left only a
suspicion of his general sanity. Sandy Bar made a point of calling
on him and proffering various uncouth, but well-meant kindnesses.
But from that day his rudfc health and great strength seemed visibly
to decline; and when the rainy season fairly set in, and the tiny
grass-blades were beginning to peep from the rocky mound above
Tennessee's grave, he took to his bed.

One night, when the pines beside the cabin were swaying in the
storm, and trailing their slender fingers over the roof, and the roar
and rush of the swollen river were heard below, Tennessee's Partner
lifted his head from the pillow, saying, "It is time to go for-
Tennessee; I must put 'Jmny' in the cart"; and would have risen
from his bed but for the restraint of his attendant. Struggling,
he still pursued his singular fancy: 'There, now, steady, 'Jmny>' —

524

steady, old girl. How dark it is! Look out for the ruts, — and look
out for him, too, old gal. Sometimes, you know, when he's blind
drunk, he drops down right in the trail. Keep on straight up to
the pine on the top of the hill. Thar — I told you so! — thar he is, —
coming this way, too, — all by himself, sober, and his face a-shining.
Tennessee! Pardner!"
And so they met.

The Lucl^ of Roaring Camp and Other Sketches, 1870

Backers Island

JOHN G. NEIHARDT

Summer turned.

Where blackbirds chattered and the scub oaks burned

In meadows of the Milk and Musselshell,

The fatted bison sniffed the winter-smell

Beneath the whetted stars, and drifted south.

Across the Yellowstone, lean-ribbed with drouth,

The living rivers bellowed, morn to morn.

The Powder and the Rosebud and the Horn

Flowed backward freshets, roaring to jheir heads.

Now up across the Cheyenne watersheds

The manless cattle wrangled day and night.

Along the Niobrara and the White

Uncounted thirsts were slaked. The peace that broods

Aloof among the sandhill solitudes

Fled from the bawling bulls and lowing cows.

Along the triple Loup they paused to browse

And left the lush sloughs bare. Along the Platte

The troubled myriads pawed the sandy flat

And snorted at the evil men had done.

For there, from morning sun to evening sun,

A strange trail cleft the ancient bison world.

And many-footed monsters whirred and whirled

Upon it; many-eyed they blinked, and screamed;

Tempestuous with speed, the long mane streamed

Behind them; and the breath of them was loud —

A rainless cloud with lightning in the cloud

And alien thunder.

Thus the driving breed,

The bold earth-takers, toiled to make the deed
Audacious as the dream. One season saw
The steel trail crawl away from Omaha
As far as ox-rigs waddled in a day —
An inch worm bound for San Francisco Bay!
The next beheld a brawling, sweating host
Of men and mules build on to Kearney Post

526

While spring greens mellowed into winter browns,
And prairie dogs were giving up their towns
To roaring cities. Where the Platte divides,
The metal serpent sped, with league-long strides,
Between two winters. North Platte City sprang
From sage brush where the prairie sirens sang
Of magic bargains in the marts of lust;
A younger Julesburg sprouted from the dust
To howl a season at the panting trains;
Cheyenne, begotten of the ravished plains,
All-hailed the planet as the steel clanged by.
And now in frosty vacancies of sky
The rail-head waited spring on Sherman Hill,
And, brooding further prodigies of will,
Blinked off at China.

So the man-stream flowed

Full flood beyond the Powder River road —
A cow path, hardly worth the fighting for.
Then let grass grow upon the trails of war,
Bad hearts be good and all suspicion cease!
Beside the Laramie the pipe of peace
Awaited; let the chieftains come and smoke!

'Twas summer when the Great White Father spoke.

A thousand miles of dying summer heard;

And nights were frosty when the crane-winged word

Found Red Cloud on the Powder loath to yield.

The crop from that rich seeding of the field

Along the Piney flourished greenly still.

The wail of many women on a hill

Was louder than the word. And once again

He saw that blizzard of his fighting men

Avail as snow against the August heat.

"Go tell them I am making winter meat;

No time for talk," he said; and that was all.

The Northwind snuffed the torches of the fall,
And drearily the frozen moons dragged past.
Then when the pasque-flower dared to bloom at last
And resurrected waters hailed the geese,
It happened that the flying word of peace

527

Came north again. The music that it made
Was sweet to Spotted Tail, and Man Afraid
Gave ear, bewitched. One Horn and Little Chief
Believed; and Two Bears ventured on belief.
And others who were powers in the land.
For here was something plain to understand:
As long as grass should grow and water flow,
Between Missouri River and the snow
That never melts upon the Big Horn heights,
The country would be closed to all the Whites.
So ran the song that lured the mighty south.
It left a bitter taste in Red Cloud's mouth,
No music in his ears. "Go back and say
That they can take their soldier-towns away
From Piney Fork and Crazy Woman's Creek
And Greasy Grass. Then maybe I will speak.
Great Spirit gave me all this country here.
They have no land to give."

The hills went sere

Along the Powder; and the summer grew.
June knew not what the white men meant to do;
Nor did July. The end of August came.
Bullberries quickened into jets of flame
Where smoky bushes smouldered by the creeks.
The nights were like a watching mother, yet
A chill as of incipient regret
Foretold the winter when the twilight fell.
'Twas then a story wonderful to tell
Went forth at last. In every wind it blew
Till all the far-flung bison hunters knew;
And Red Cloud's* name and glory filled the tale.
The soldier-towns along the hated trail
Were smoke, and all the wagons and the men
Were dust blown south! Old times had come again.
Unscared, the fatted elk and deer would roam
Their pastures now, the bison know their home
And flourish there forever unafraid.
So when the victor's winter-meat was made
And all his lodges ready for the cold,
He listened to the word, now twelve moons old,
Rode south and made his sign and had his will.

528

Meanwhile the road along the Smoky Hill

Was troubled. Hunters, drifting with the herd

The fall before, had scattered wide the word

Of Red Cloud's victory. "Look north," they said;

"The white men made a road there. It is red

With their own blood, and now they whine for peace!"

The brave tale travelled southward with the geese,

Nor dwindled on the way, nor lacked applause.

Comanches, South Cheyennes and Kiowas,

Apaches and the South Arapahoes

Were glad to hear. Satanta, Roman Nose,

Black Kettle, Little Raven heard — and thought.

Around their winter fires the warriors fought

Those far-famed battles of the North again.

Their hearts grew strong. "We, too," they said, "are men;

And what men did up yonder, we can do.

Make red the road along the Smoky too,

And grass shall cover it!"

So when the spring

Was fetlock-deep, wild news ran shuddering
Through Kansas: women captured, homes ablaze,
Men slaughtered in the country north of Hays
And Harker! Terror stalking Denver way!
Trains burned along the road to Santa Fe,
The drivers scalped and given to the flames!
All summer, Panic babbled demon names.
No gloom but harbored Roman Nose, the Bat.
Satanta, like an omnipresent cat,
Moused every heart. Out yonder, over there,
Black Kettle, Turkey Leg were everywhere.
And Little Raven was the night owl's croon,
The watch-dogs's bark. The setting of the moon
Was Little Rock; the dew before the dawn
A sweat of horror!

All that summer, drawn
By vague reports and captive women's wails,
The cavalry pursued dissolving trails —
And found the hotwind. Loath to risk a fight,
Fleas in the day and tigers in the night,

529

The wild bands struck and fled to strike anew
And drop the curtain of the empty blue
Behind them, passing like the wrath of God.

The failing year had lit the golden-rod
Against the tingling nights, now well begun;
The sunflowers strove to hoard the paling sun
For winter cheer; and leagues of prairie glowed
With summer's dying flare, when fifty rode
From Wallace northward, trailing Roman Nose,
The mad Cheyenne. A motley band were those —
Scouts, hunters, captains, colonels, brigadiers;
Wild lads who found adventure in arrears,
And men of beard whom Danger's lure made young-
The drift and wreckage of the great wgr, flung
Along the brawling border. Two and two,
The victor and the vanquished, gray and blue,
Rode out across the Kansas plains together,
Hearts, singing to the croon of saddle leather
And jingling spurs. The buffalo, at graze
Like dairy cattle, hardly deigned to raise
Their shaggy heads and watch the horsemen pass.
Like bursting case-shot, clumps of blue-joint grass
Exploded round them, hurtling grouse and quail
And plover. Wild hens drummed along the trail
At twilight; and the antelope and deer,
Moved more by curiosity than fear,
Went trotting off to pause and gaze their fill.
Past Short Nose and the Beaver, jogging still,
They followed hot upon a trail that shrank
At every tangent draw. Their horses drank
The autumn-lean Republican and crossed;
And there at last the swindled trail was lost
Where sandhills smoked against a windy sky.

Perplexed and grumbling, disinclined to try
The upper reaches of the stream, they pressed
Behind Forsyth, their leader, pricking west
With Beecher there beside him in the van.
They might have disobeyed a lesser man;
For what availed another wild goose chase,
Foredoomed to end some God-forsaken place

530

With twilight dying on the prairie rim?
But Fame had blown a trumpet over him;
And men recalled that Shenandoah ride
With Sheridan, the stemming of the tide
Of rabble armies wrecked at Cedar Creek,
When thirty thousand hearts, no longer weak,
Were made one victor's heart.

And so the band

Pushed westward up the lonely river land
Four saddle days from Wallace. Then at last
They came to where another band had passed
With shoeless ponies, following the sun.
Some miles the new trail ran as lean creeks run
In droughty weather; then began to grow.
Here other hoofs had swelled it, there, travaux;
And more and more the circumjacent plains
Had fed the trail, as when torrential rains
Make prodigal the gullies and the sloughs,
And prairie streams, late shrunken to an ooze,
Appal stout swimmers. Scarcity of game
(But yesterday both plentiful and tame)
And recent pony-droppings told a tale
Of close pursuit. All day they kept the trail
And slept on it in their boots that night
And saddled when the first gray wash of light
Was on the hill tops. Past the North Fork's mouth
It led, and, crossing over to the south,
Struck up the valley of the Rickaree —
So broad by now that twenty, knee to knee,
Might ride thereon, nor would a single calk
Bite living sod.

Proceeding at a walk,

The troopers followed, awed by what they dared.
It seemed the low hills stood aloof, nor cared,
Disowning them; that all the gullies mocked
The jingling gear of Folly where it walked
The road to Folly's end. The low day changed
To evening. Did the prairie stare estranged,
The knowing sun make haste to be away?
They saw the fingers of the failing day

531

Grow longer, groping for the homeward trail.
They saw the sun put on a bloody veil
And disappear. A flock of crows hurrahed.

Dismounting in the eerie valley, awed
With purple twilight and the evening star,
They camped beside the stream. A gravel bar
Here split the shank-deep Rickaree in two
And made a little island. Tall grass grew
Among its scattered alders, and there stood
A solitary sapling cottonwood
Within the lower angle of the sand.

No jesting cheered the saddle-weary band
That night; no fires were kindled to invoke
Tales grim with cannon flare and battle smoke
Remembered, and the glint of slant steel rolled
Up roaring steeps. They ate short rations cold
And thought about tomorrow and were dumb.

A hint of morning had begun to come;
So faint as yet that half the stars at least
Discredited the gossip of the east.
The grazing horses, blowing at the frost,
Were shadows, and the ghostly sentries tossed
Their arms about them, drowsy in the chill.

Was something moving yonder on the hill
To westward? It was there — it wasn't there.
Perhaps some wolfish reveller, aware
Of dawn, was making home. 'Twas there again!
And now the bubble world of snoring men
Was shattered, and a dizzy wind, that hurled
Among the swooning ruins of the world
Disintegrating dreams, became a shout:
"Turn out! Turn out! The Indians! Turn out!"
Hearts pounding with the momentary funk
Of cold blood spurred to frenzy, reeling drunk
With sleep, men stumbled up and saw the hill
Where shadows of a dream were blowing still —
No — mounted men were howling down the slopes!
The horses, straining at their picket ropes,

532

Reared snorting. Barking carbines flashed and gloomed,

Smearing the giddy picture. War drums boomed

And shaken rawhide crackled through the din.

A horse that trailed a bounding picket pin

Made off in terror. Others broke and fled.

Then suddenly the silence o£ the dead

Had fallen, and the slope in front was bare

And morning had become a startled stare

Across the empty prairie, white with frost.

Five horses and a pair of pack mules lost!
That left five donkeys for the packs. Men poked
Sly banter at the mountless ones, invoked
The "infantry" to back them, while they threw
The saddles on and, boot to belly, drew
Groan-fetching cinches tight.

A scarlet streak

Was growing in the east. Amid the reek
Of cowchip fires that sizzled with the damp
The smell of coffee spread about the camp
A mood of peace. But 'twas a lying mood;
For suddenly the morning solitude
Was solitude no longer. "Look!" one cried.
The resurrection dawn, as prophesied,
Lacked nothing but the trump to be fulfilled!
They wriggled from the valley grass! They spilled
Across the sky rim! North and south and west
Increasing hundreds, men and ponies, pressed
Against the few.

'Twas certain death to flee.
The way left open down the Rickaree
To where the valley narrowed to a gap
Was plainly but the baiting of a trap.
Who rode that way would not be riding far.
"Keep cool now, men! Cross over to the bar!"
The colonel shouted. Down they went pell-mell,
Churning the creek. A heaven-filling yell
Assailed them. Was it triumph ? Was it rage ?
Some few wild minutes lengthened to an age
While fumbling fingers stripped the horses' backs
And tied the horses. Crouched behind the packs

533

And saddles now, they fell with clawing hands

To digging out and heaping up the sands

Around their bodies. Shots began to fall —

The first few spatters of a thunder squall —

And still the Colonel strolled about the field,

Encouraging the men. A pack mule squealed

And floundered. "Down!" men shouted. "Take it cool,"

The Colonel answered; "we can eat a mule

When this day's work is over. Wait the word,

Then see that every cartridge wings a bird.

Don't shoot too fast."

The dizzy prairie spun
With painted ponies, weaving on the run
A many colored noose. So dances Death,
Bedizened like a harlot, when the breath"
Of Autumn flutes among the shedding boughs
And scarlets caper and the golds carouse
And bronzes trip it and the late green leaps.
And then, as when the howling winter heaps
The strippings of the hickory and oak
And hurls them in a haze of blizzard smoke
Along an open draw, the warriors formed
To eastward down the Rickaree, and stormed
Against the isle, their solid front astride
The shallow water.

"Wait!" the Colonel cried;

"Keep cool now!" — Would he never say the word?
They heard the falling horses shriek; they heard
The smack of smitten flesh, the whispering rush
Of arrows, bullets whipping through the brush
And flicked sand phutting; saw the rolling eyes
Of war-mad ponies, crooked battle cries
Lost in the uproar, faces in a blast
Of color, color, and the whirlwind last
Of all dear things forever.

"Nowl"

The fear,

The fleet, sick dream of friendly things and dear
Dissolved in thunder; and between two breaths
Men sensed the sudden splendor that is Death's,

534

The wild clairvoyant wonder. Shadows screamed

Before the kicking Spencers, split and streamed

About the island in a flame-rent shroud.

And momently, with hoofs that beat the cloud,

Winged with the mad momentum of the charge,

A war horse loomed unnaturally large

Above the burning ring of rifles there,

Lit, sprawling, in the midst and took the air

And vanished. And the storming hoofs roared by.

And suddenly the sun, a handbreadth high,

Was peering through the clinging battle-blur.

Along the stream, wherever bushes were
Or clumps of bluejoint, lurking rifles played
Upon the isle — a point-blank enfilade,
Horse-slaughtering and terrible to stand;
And southward there along the rising land
And northward where the valley was a plain,
The horsemen galloped, and a pelting rain
Of arrows fell.

Now someone, lying near
Forsyth, was yelling in his neighbor's ear
"They've finished Sandy!" For a giant whip,
It seemed, laid hot along the Colonel's hip
A lash of torture, and his face went gray
And pinched. And voices boomed above the fray,
"Is Sandy dead?" So, rising on a knee
That anyone who feared for him might see,
He shouted: "Never mind — it's nothing bad!"
And noting how the wild face of a lad
Yearned up at him — the youngest face of all,
With cheeks like Rambeau apples in the fall,
Eyes old as terror — "Son, you're doing well!"
He cried and smiled; and that one lived to tell
The glory of it in the after days.

Now presently the Colonel strove to raise

The tortured hip to ease it, when a stroke

As of a dull ax bit a shin that broke

Beneath his weight. Dragged backward in a pit,

He sat awhile against the wall of it

And strove to check the whirling of the land.

535

Then, noticing how some of the command

Pumped lead too fast and threw their shells away,

He set them to crawl to where they lay

And tell them. Something whisked away his hat,

And for a green-sick minute after that

The sky rained stars. Then vast ear-hollows rang

With brazen noises, and a sullen pang

Was like a fire that smouldered in his skull.

He gazed about him groggily. A lull

Had fallen on the battle, and he saw

How pairs of horsemen galloped down the draw,

Recovering the wounded and the dead.

The snipers on the river banks had fled

To safer berths; but mounted hundreds still

Swarmed yonder on the flat and on the hill,

And long range arrows fell among the men.

The island had become a slaughter pen.

Of all the mules and horses, one alone

Still stood. He wobbled with a gurgling moan,

Legs wide, his drooping muzzle dripping blood;

And some still wallowed in a scarlet mud

And strove to rise, with threshing feet aloft.

But most lay still, as when the spring is soft

And work-teams share the idleness of cows

On Sunday, and a glutted horse may drowse,

Loose-necked, forgetting how the plowshare drags.

Bill Wilson yonder lay like bundled rags,

And so did Chalmers. Farley over there,

With one arm limp, was taking special care

To make the other do; it did, no doubt.

And Morton yonder with an eye shot out

Was firing slowly, but his gun barrel shook.

And Mooers, the surgeon, with a sightless look

Of mingled expectation and surprise,

Had got a bullet just above the eyes;

But Death was busy and neglected him.

Now all the while, beneath the low hill rim
To southward, where a sunning slope arose
To look upon the slaughter, Roman Nose
Was sitting, naked of his battle-gear.
In vain his chestnut stallion, tethered near,

536

Had sniffed the battle, whinnying to go

Where horses cried to horses there below,

And men to men. By now a puzzled word

Ran round the field, and baffled warriors heard,

And out of bloody mouths the dying spat

The question: "Where is Roman Nose, the Bat?

While other men are dying, where is he?"

So certain of the mighty rode to see,

And found him yonder sitting in the sun.

They squatted round him silently. And one

Got courage for a voice at length, and said:

"Your people there are dying, and the dead

Are many." But the Harrier of Men

Kept silence. And the bold one, speaking then

To those about him, said: "You see today

The one whom all the warriors would obey,

Whatever he might wish. His heart is faint.

He has not even found the strength to paint

His face, you see!" The Flame of Many Roofs

Still smouldered there. The Midnight Wind of Hoofs

Kept mute. "Our brothers, the Arapahoes,"

Another said, "will tell of Roman Nose;

Their squaws will scorn him; and the Sioux will say

'He was not like the men we were that day

When all the soldiers died by Peno ford/ "

They saw him wince, as though the words had gored

His vitals. Then he spoke. His voice was low.

"My medicine is broken. Long ago

One made a bonnet for a mighty man,

My father's father; and the good gift ran

From sire to son, and we were men of might.

For he who wore the bonnet in a fight

Could look on Death, and Death would fear him much,

So long as he should let no metal touch

The food he ate. But I have been a fool.

A woman lifted with an iron tool

The bread I ate this morning. What you say

Is good to hear."

He cast his robe away,
Got up and took the bonnet from its case
And donned it; put the death-paint on his face

537

And mounted, saying "Now I go to die!"
Thereat he lifted up a bull-lunged cry
That clamored far among the hills around;
And dying men took courage at the sound
And muttered "He is coming."

Now it fell

That those upon the island heard a yell
And looked about to see from whence it grew.
They saw a war-horse hurtled from the blue,
A big-boned chestnut, clean and long of limb,
That did not dwarf the warrior striding him,
So big the man was. Naked as the day
The neighbors sought his mother's lodge to say
'This child shall be a trouble to his foes*'
(Save for a gorgeous bonnet), Roman Nose
Came singing on the run. And as he came
Mad hundreds hailed him, booming like a flame
That rages over slough grass, pony tall.
They formed behind him in a solid wall
And halted at a lifting of his hand.
The troopers heard him bellow some command.
They saw him wheel and wave his rifle high;
And distant hills were peopled with the cry
He flung at Death, that mighty men of old
Long dead, might hear the coming of the bold
And know the land still nursed the ancient breed
Then, followed by a thundering stampede,
He charged the island where the rifles brawled.
And some who galloped nearest him recalled
In after days, what spme may choose to doubt,
How suddenly the hubbuboo went out
In silence, and a wild white brilliance broke
About him, and the cloud of battle smoke
Was thronged with faces not of living men.
Then terribly the- battle roared again.
And those who tell it saw him reel and sag
Against the stallion, like an empty bag,
Then slip beneath the mill of pony hoofs.

So Roman Nose, the Flame of Many Roofs,
Flared out. And round the island swept the foe—

538

Wrath-howling breakers with an undertow
Of pain that wailed and murmuring dismay.

Now Beecher, with the limp he got that day

At Gettysburg, rose feebly from his place,

Unearthly moon-dawn breaking on his face,

And staggered over to the Colonel's pit.

Half crawling and half falling into it,

"I think I have a fatal wound," he said:

And from his mouth the hard words bubbled red

In witness of the sort of hurt he had.

"No, Beecher, no! It cannot be so bad!"

The other begged, though certain of the end;

For even then the features of the friend

Were getting queer. "Yes, Sandy, yes — goodnight,"

The stricken muttered. Whereupon the fight

No longer roared for him; but one who grieved

And fought thereby could hear the rent chest heaved

With struggling breath that couldn't leave the man.

And by and by the whirling host began

To scatter, most withdrawing out of range.

Astonished at the suddenness of change

From dawn to noon, the troopers saw the sun.

To eastward yonder women had begun
To glean the fallen, wailing as they piled
The broken loves of mother, maid and child
On pony-drags; remembering their wont
Of heaping thus the harvest of the hunt
To fill the kettles these had sat around.

Forsyth now strove to view the battleground,
But could not for the tortured hip and limb;
And so they passed a blanket under him
And four men heaved the corners; then he saw.
"Well, Grover, have they other cards to draw,
Or have they played the pack?" he asked a scout.
And that one took a plug of chewing out
And gnawed awhile, then spat and said: "Dunno;
I've fit with Injuns thirty year or so
And never see the like of this till now.
We made a lot of good ones anyhow,
Whatever else — ."

539

Just then it came to pass
Some rifles, hidden yonder in the grass,
Took up the sentence with a snarling rip
That made men duck. One let his corner slip.
The Colonel tumbled, and the splintered shin
Went crooked, and the bone broke through the skin;
But what he said his angel didn't write.

'Twas plain the foe had wearied of the fight,
Though scores of wary warriors kept the field
And circled, watching for a head revealed
Above the slaughtered horses. Afternoon
Waned slowly, and a wind began to croon —
Like memory. The sapling cottonwood
Responded with a voice of widowhood..
The melancholy heavens wove a pall.
Night hid the valley. Rain began to fall.

How good is rain when from a sunlit scarp

Of heaven falls a silver titan's harp

For winds to play on, and the new green swirls

Beneath the dancing feet of April girls,

And thunder-claps applaud the meadow lark!

How dear to be remembered — rainy dark

When Youth and Wonder snuggle safe abed

And hear creation bustling overhead

With fitful hushes when the eave drip-drops

And everything about the whole house stops

To hear what now the buds and grass may think!

Night swept the island with a brush of ink.
They heard the endless drizzle sigh and pass
And whisper to the bushes and the grass,
Sh — sh — for men were dying in the rain;
And there was that low singing that is pain,
And curses muttered lest a stout heart break.

As one who lies with fever half awake
And sets the vague real shepherding a drove
Of errant dreams, the broken Colonel strove
For order in the nightmare. Willing hands
With knife and plate fell digging in the sands
And throwing out a deep surrounding trench.

54°

Graves, yawning briefly in the inky drench,
Were satisfied with something no one saw.
Carved horse meat passed around for wolfing raw
And much was cached to save it from the sun.
Now when the work about the camp was done
And all the wounds had got rude handed care,
The Colonel called the men about him there
And spoke of Wallace eighty miles away.
Who started yonder might not see the day;
Yet two must dare that peril with the tale
Of urgent need; and if the two should fail,
God help the rest!

It seemed that everyone
Who had an arm left fit to raise a gun
And legs for swinging leather begged to go.
But all agreed with old Pierre Trudeau,
The grizzled trapper, when he ' 'lowed he knowed
The prairie like a farmer did a road,
And many was the Injun he had fooled.'
And StillwelPs youth and daring overruled
The others. Big he was and fleet of limb
And for his laughing pluck men honored him,
Despite that weedy age when boys begin
To get a little conscious of the chin
And jokers dub them "Whiskers" for the lack.
These two were swallowed in the soppy black
And wearily the sodden night dragged by.

At last the chill rain ceased. A dirty sky

Leaked morning. Culver, Farley, Day and Smith

Had found a comrade to adventure with

And come upon the country that is kind.

But Mooers was slow in making up his mind

To venture, though with any breath he might.

Stark to the drab indecency of light,

The tumbled heaps, that once were horses, lay

With naked ribs and haunches lopped away —

Good friends at need with all their fleetness gone.

Like wolves that smell a feast the foe came on,

A skulking pack. They met a gust of lead

That flung them with their wounded and their dead

541

Back to the spying summits of the hills,
Content to let the enemy that kills
Without a wound complete the task begun.

Dawn cleared the sky, and all day long the sun
Shone hotly through a lens of amethyst —
Like some incorrigible optimist
Who overworks the sympathetic role.
All day the troopers sweltered in the bowl
Of soppy sand, and wondered if the two
Were dead by now; or had they gotten through?
And if they hadn't— What about the meat?
Another day or two of steaming heat
Would fix it for the buzzards and the crows;
And there'd be choicer banqueting for those
If no one came.

So when a western hill

Burned red and blackened, and the stars came chill,
Two others started crawling down the flat
For Wallace; and for long hours after that
Men listened, listened, listened for a cry,
But heard no sound. And just before the sky
Began to pale, the two stole back unhurt.
The dark was full of shadow men, alert
To block the way wherever one might go.

Alas, what chance for Stillwell and Trudeau?
That day the dozen wounded bore their plight
Less cheerfully than when the rainy night
Had held so great a promise. All day long,
As one who hums a half forgotten song
By poignant bits, the dying surgeon moaned;
But when the west was getting sober-toned,
He choked a little and forgot the tune.
And men were silent, wondering how soon
They'd be like that.

Now when the tipping Wain,
Above the Star, poured slumber on the plain,
Jack Donovan and Pliley disappeared
Down river where the starry haze made weird

542

The narrow gulch. They seemed as good as dead;
And all next day the parting words they said,
"We won't be coming back," were taken wrong.
The fourth sun since the battle lingered long.
Putrescent horseflesh now befouled the air.
Some tried to think they liked the prickly pear.
Some tightened up their belts a hole or so.
And certain of the wounded babbled low
Of places other than the noisome pits,
Because the fever sped their straying wits
Like homing bumblebees that know the hive.
That day the Colonel found his leg alive
With life that wasn't his.

The fifth sun crept;

The evening dawdled; morning overslept.
It seemed the dark would never go away;
The kiotes filled it with a roundelay
Of toothsome horses smelling to the sky.

But somehow morning happened by and by.
All day the Colonel scanned the prairie rims
And found it hard to keep away the whims
That dogged him; often, wide awake, he dreamed.
The more he thought of it, the more it seemed
That all should die of hunger wasn't fair;
And so he called the sound men round him there
And spoke of Wallace and the chance they stood
To make their way to safety, if they would.
As for himself and other cripples — well,
They'd take a chance, and if the worst befell,
Were soldiers.

There was silence for a space
While each man slyly sought his neighbor's face
To see what better thing a hope might kill.
Then there was one who growled: "The hell we will!
We've fought together and we'll die so too!"
One might have thought relief had come in view
To hear the shout that rose.

The slow sun sank.

The empty prairie gloomed. The horses stank.
The kiotes sang. The starry dark was cold.

543

That night the prowling wolves grew over bold
And one was cooking when the sun came up.
It gave the sick a little broth to sup;
And for the rest, they joked and made it do.
And all day long the cruising buzzards flew
Above the island, eager to descend;
While, raucously prophetic of the end,
The crows wheeled round it hungrily to pry;
And mounted warriors loomed against the sky
To peer and vanish. Darkness fell at last;
But when the daylight came and when it passed
The Colonel scarcely knew, for things got mixed;
The moment was forever, strangely fixed,
And never in a moment. Still he kept
One certain purpose, even when he slept,
To cheer the men by seeming undismayed.
But when the eighth dawn came, he grew afraid
Of his own weakness. Stubbornly he sat,
His tortured face half hidden by his hat,
And feigned to read a novel one had found
Among the baggage. But the print went round
And wouldn't talk however it was turned.

At last the morning of the ninth day burned.
Again he strove to regiment the herds
Of dancing letters into marching words,
When suddenly the whole command went mad.
They yelled; they danced the way the letters had;
They tossed their hats.

Then suddenly he knew
'Twas cavalry that made the hillside blue —
The cavalry from Wallace!

The Song of the Indian Wars, 1925

544

Song5 of the Broad Prairie

L As I Walked Out In the Streets of Laredo

As I walked out in the streets of Laredo,

As I walked out in Laredo one day,

I spied a poor cowboy wrapped up in white linen,

Wrapped up in white linen and cold as the clay.

"I see by your outfit that you are a cowboy,"
These words he did say as I boldly stepped by.
"Come sit down beside me and hear my sad story;
I was shot in the breast and I know I must die.

"Let sixteen gamblers come handle my coffin,
Let sixteen cowboys come sing me a song,
Take me to the graveyard and lay the sod o'er me,
For I'm a poor cowboy and I know I've done wrong.

"It was once in the saddle I used to go dashing,
It was once in the saddle I used to go gay.
'Twas first to drinking and then to card playing,
Got shot in the breast, I am dying today.

"Get six jolly cowboys to carry my coffin,
Get six pretty girls to carry my pall;
Put bunches of roses all over my coffin,
Put roses to deaden the clods as they fall.

"O beat the drum slowly and play the fife lowly
And play the dead march as you carry me along,
Take me to the green valley and lay the sod o'er me,
For I'm a young cowboy and I know I've done wrong."

We beat the drum slowly and played the fife lowly,

And bitterly wept as we bore him along;

For we all loved our comrade, so brave, young, and

handsome,
We all loved our comrade although he'd done wrong.

The American Songbag, 1927

545

2. When The Work's All Done This Fall

A group of jolly cowboys, discussing plans at ease,

Says one, "I'll tell you something, boys, if you will listen, please.

I am an old cow-puncher and hyer I'm dressed in rags,

I used to be a tough one and go on great big jags.

But I have got a home, boys, a good one, you all know,

Although I have not seen it since long, long ago.

I'm going back to Dixie once more to see them all,

Yes, I'm going to see my mother when the work's all done this fall.

"After the round-up's over and after the shipping's done,

I am going right straight home, boys, ere all my money is gone.

I have changed my ways, boys, no more will I fall;

And I am going home, boys, when the work's all done this fall.

When I left home, boys, my mother for me cried,

Begged me not to go, boys, for me she would have died;

My mother's heart is breaking, breaking for me, that's all,

And with God's help I'll see her when the work's all done this fall."

That very night this cowboy went out to stand his guard;

The night was dark and cloudy and storming very hard;

The cattle they got frightened and rushed in wild stampede,

The cowboy tried to head them, riding at full speed.

While riding in the darkness so loudly did he shout,

Trying his best to head them and turn the herd about,

His saddle horse did stumble and on him did fall,

The poor boy won't see his mother when the work's all done this fall.

His body was so mangled the boys all thought him dead,

They picked, him up so gently and laid him on a bed;

He opened wide his blue eyes and looking all around

He motioned to his comrades to sit near him on the ground.

"Boys, send my mother my wages, the wages I have earned,

For I am afraid, boys, my last steer I have turned.

I'm going to a new range, I hyear my Master's call,

And I'll not see my mother when the work's all done this fall."

"Bill, you may have my saddle; George, you may take my bed;

Jack may have my pistol, after I am dead.

Boys, think of me kindly when you look upon them all,

The boy won't see his mother when the work's all done this fall."

546

Poor Charlie was buried at sunrise, no tombstone at his head,

Nothing but a little board and this is what it said,

"Charlie died at daybreak, he died from a fall,

The boy won't see his mother, when the work's all done this fall."

The American Songbag, 1927

3. Whoopee Ti Yi Yo, Git Along,
Little Dogies

As I was a-walking one morning for pleasure,

I saw a cowpuncher come riding alone.

His hat was thro wed back and his spurs was a-jingling,

And as he approached he was singing this song:

Refrain :

Whoopee, ti yi yo, git along, little dogies!
It's your misfortune and none of my own.
Whoopee, ti yi yo, git along, little dogies,
For you know Wyoming will be your new home!

Early in the spring we round up the dogies,
Mark and brand and bob off their tails,
Round up our horses, load up the chuck wagon,
Then throw the dogies up on the trail:
Whoopee, ti yi yo, git along, little dogies, etc.

It's whooping and yelling and driving the dogies;
O how I wish they would go on!
It's whooping and punching and go on little dogies,
For you know Wyoming will be your new home:
Whoopee, ti yi yo, git along, little dogies, etc.

When the night comes on we herd them on the bedground,

These little dogies that roll on so slow;

Roll up the herd and cut out the strays,

And roll the little dogies that never rolled before :

Whoopee, ti yi yo, git along, litde dogies, etc.

547

Your mother she was raised way down in Texas,
Where the jimson weed and sand burrs grow.
Now we'll fill you up on prickly pear and cholla
Till you are ready for the trail to Idaho:
Whoopee, ti yi yo, git along, little dogies, etc.

Oh, you'll be soup for Uncle Sam's Injuns;
It's "beef, heap beef," I hear them cry.
Git along, git along, little dogies,
You're going to be beef steers by and by.
Whoopee, ti yi yo, git along, little dogies, etc.

The American Songbag, 1927

548

The Cattleman s Frontier. 1 845-1 867

ERNEST STAPLES OSGOOD

In 1830* more than two hundred years after the first white man
had made a clearing in the forest about him and in so doing had
created that most significant of boundaries, the American frontier,
the westernmost point in the area of continuous settlement was still
less than halfway across the continent. According to the census of
that year, the area containing more than two inhabitants to the
square mile extended almost as far west as the western border of
the young state of Missouri. Here, where the Missouri River com-
ing down from the north bends sharply eastward on its way to
the Mississippi, the frontier had paused, and twenty-five years were
to elapse before the line of compact settlement advanced much be-
yond that point. To the rear, north and south, the wings of the
frontier line bent far back toward the east and, as the center halted
at the bend of the Missouri, the flanks, pivoting on that point,
swung slowly westward during the succeeding decades, and new
states were formed in the upper Mississippi Valley and in the lower
South.

Although the western advance had paused in Missouri, the visitor
to the town of Independence, established in 1831 at the apex of this
salient, would have found nothing but movement and activity about
him. Through its streets and on the river close by, there passed the
whole pageantry of the frontier. Here, at the gateway to half a con-
tinent, an observer could, as the years went by, mark the emergence
of the "Far West," as hunter and trail maker, trapper and trader,
home seeker and gold seeker moved out along the western trails
into those regions of which the average American was but dimly
conscious and about which he knew next to nothing.

The river was a roadway of exploration. Up its lonely reaches had
moved the keel boats of Lewis and Clark, a quarter of a century
before the founding of the town. Seven years later, the Astorians,
whose experiences were to be made familiar to the reading public
by the pen of Washington Irving, passed by on their way to the
mouth of the Columbia. Then on a day in the spring of 1819, the
roving Indian gazed in wonder at a strange monster of smoke and
noise moving upstream without any apparent effort on the part of
those directing its course. Major Stephen Long and his party on

549

the steamboat Western Engineer were on their way to the mouth
of the Platte River. From there, in the following spring, they began
their journey overland to the heads of the Platte, the Arkansas, and
the Red. On his return, Long confirmed the opinions of other
travelers that the country beyond the Missouri could never be uti-
lized by white men, but must ever remain the home of the wild
tribes who roamed over those frightful and terrifying wastes. For
a half-century thereafter the Great American Desert was a fixed idea
in the minds of most Americans.

Beyond these "steppes of Tartary," far up in the mountains, the
"brigades" of the fur companies and the lonely trapper were busy
expanding the great fur trade, which reached its height during the
thirties. From the remote north country, where the Missouri and
its tributaries head deep in the heart of the Rocky Mountains, they
came, their keel boats laden with great bales of peltry for the St.
Louis market. Each spring, when the water was high, the in-
habitants of Independence turned out to see the steamboat of the
American Fur Company, bound for Fort Union, the company's post
located at the mouth of the Yellowstone, a thousand miles up-
stream. As the stories of the "mountain men" circulated around the
border settlements and as the journals of explorer and traveler
found their way into print, the topography and general character
of the mountain regions, hundreds of miles to the west, were
known long before the intervening country that began at the
outskirts of the Missouri towns was anything more than a name.

This region between the settlements and the mountains, the last
area of continental United States to become familiar to the average
American, went under the general name of the Indian country.
Here was a country, stretching all the way from the Red River
to the Canadian boundary, which seemed destined by a kind
Providence to provide a permanent home for the Indian. Here he
might live undisturbed, freed from the pressure of the westward-
moving pioneer, who would never, it was believed at the time,
settle in that semi-arid, treeless country where all efforts at agri-
culture must surely fail. In the western section, on the High
Plains and in the mountains, the wild tribes might roam as of old,
following the great herds of buffalo upon which their whole tribal
existence was based. In the eastern section, close to the Missouri
River, room could be provided for the more civilized or the
weaker tribes of the eastern United States, who were impeding the
advance of the north and south wings of the frontier.

All through the thirties the Federal Government was busy

55°

negotiating treaties with these eastern tribes, treaties by which they
surrendered their old tribal homes for reservations beyond the
western border. When persuasion and solemn promises of un-
disturbed and perpetual possession failed, force was used, for the
western Jacksonian democracy, then in the saddle in Washington,
had little patience with humanitarians who demanded that the
Indian problem be solved on the basis of abstract justice. Up the
Missouri River on steamboats chartered by the government, or
along the rough frontier roads of the southwest, the remnants of
once powerful tribes moved under military guard to their new
homes. Across the border, the new reservations formed an un-
broken front from the Mexican boundary at the Red River to the
northwestern corner of Missouri. North of Missouri, the tribes of
the upper Mississippi were pushed back during the same period,
thus clearing the way for the settlement of southern Wisconsin and
eastern Iowa.

However permanent and satisfactory this solution of the Indian
question might appear to the pioneer farmer and the eastern states-
man, the visitor to Independence would soon discover that Indian
isolation was the most temporary of expedients. While the treaties
were still being negotiated, the wagons of the Santa Fe traders were
cutting deeper and deeper the tracks that led out of the streets of
Independence, over the sun-baked plains of the Cimarron and the
Arkansas, across the Mexican border to the ancient Spanish city
where Yankee trade goods could be sold at immense profit. This
trade, which flourished during the thirties, quickened the life of
the Missouri towns, increased the interest that the border was
taking in the Southwest and, incidentally, contributed much to the
knowledge of the country over which the trail ran.

Before the close of the thirties there were signs of a new move-
ment among the crowds that thronged the streets of the Missouri
settlements. In the remote Northwest, beyond the barrier of the
Rockies, the American trapper was making contact with the
Canadian fur trader in the valleys of the Columbia and its tributaries.
Mountain men talked of Oregon, the richest fur country of all, of
likely routes thither, and of the necessity for American effort in
that region unless it were to become the exclusive domain of the
Canadians. In 1832, several parties of fur traders and explorers
were outfitting at Independence for the Columbia River. The trail
that they took led across the trackless Indian country of the Platte
at Grand Island, up that river and its tributary, the Sweetwater,
until at last it topped the low divide that separates the waters of the

551

Missouri system from those of the Columbia and the Colorado.
Here was South Pass, discovered ten years before by the fur trader,
Ashley, a low,- grassy divide over which wagons might be drawn
with little difficulty. There were no wagon tracks in the year 1832
when Bonneville and Sublette and Wyeth went through, but be-
hind them there was to follow a multitude beneath whose feet rose
the dust of the greatest of all frontier roads, the Oregon Trail.

In the history of the westward movement, the missionary has
seldom been far behind the explorer and the fur trader, sometimes,
indeed, he has led them. In 1834 two Methodist missionaries had
established themselves in the valley of the Willamette, a tributary
of the Columbia, near Fort Vancouver, where Dr. John McLoughlin
ruled benignly over his vassals, white and red, in the interests of
the great Hudson's Bay Company. Two years later Dr. Marcus
Whitman, sent out by the American Board of Commissioners for
Foreign Missions, began his work further up the Columbia in
central Oregon. Eastward, over the mountains, in the valley of the
Bitter Root, the Jesuits had established themselves by 1840 under
the leadership of Father De Smet.

The fertility of the soil was of slight importance to the fur
trader. The missionary, however, had a good eye for land, for
those Indian converts who could be induced to settle down to
farming in the neighborhood of the mission were likely to stay
Christianized. In their reports the missionaries were as enthusiastic
over the rich land of the Willamette as they were over the prospect
of saving souls. Here was land that equaled, if it did not surpass,
the best that the prairie region of Illinois could offer. As this news
spread, farmers began to think and talk of Oregon and the way
thither. By 1843 the movement of the homeseeker out over the
Oregon Trail had begun, a movement that in a few years increased
to thousands and built up a new American commonwealth on the
shores of the Pacific. Long' lines of wagons passed through the
dusty streets of Independence, and in the crowd that swarmed
around them, the talk was no longer of fur and Indian trade but of
land, of crops, of climate, and of the fortunes in the fertile soil of
Oregon awaiting those who would brave the long march and all
its attendant dangers.

Two hundred miles upstream, where the Missouri is joined by
the Platte, another group was gathering in the fall of 1846. In
their winter quarters on the western edge of the new state of
Iowa, the Mormons were laying their plans for the coming spring.
They had despaired of finding a home in the States, for wherever

552

they had settled, their neighbors had coveted their land, envied their
prosperity, and disapproved of their way of life. Somewhere be-
yond the plains and mountains lay the Promised Land. Before the
close of the next year, they had found it in the valley of the Great
Salt Lake.

Then in the next year came the news that was to set the whole
frontier in motion. Eastward along the trail to the border settle-
ments, across the country to the crowded cities of the seaboard and
on beyond the seas sped the magic word that was to bring a
whole world flocking westward — gold! The discovery of a few
nuggets in a California millrace was destined to fill the harbor of
the Golden Gate with a forest of masts, to make the Isthmus of
Panama a highway for the nations, and to crowd the Oregon Trail
with an army of adventurers, who would find no rest until the
weary miles had been traversed and they stood at last in that
fabulous land of gold by the blue waters of the Pacific.

When the emigrant bound for Oregon or California turned his
back on the Missouri settlements and struck out along the west-
ward trail, his condition was not unlike that of the traveler sailing
out of an eastern seaport on a trans-atlantic journey. Beyond the
narrow wagon track a vast waste stretched away on every side to
the far horizon, its swells and hollows as lacking in identity as the
crests and troughs of the Atlantic rollers. Herds of buffalo and
great bands of antelope, seemingly as multitudinous as the fish of
the sea, moved over the face of these great solitudes. It seemed
unlikely that man would ever be more than a wayfarer in these
wastes. Only the roving Indian, the occasional trapper, and the
little garrisons at the trading posts strung out along the trail served
to dispel such illusions. The myth of the American Desert, so long
a part of the American's stock of ideas about his country, had its
origin as much in the impression resulting from such solitary vast-
ness as in any evidence of the sterility of the soil or the rigors of
the climate. Men accustomed to the companionship of woods and
streams, of green meadows and uplands, of familiar hills and
limited horizons, found nothing hospitable in the leagues of brown
grass, nothing familiar in the monotony of rolling plain or wind-
scarred butte.

Into this great solitude rode the cattleman. From the ranches of
Texas and New Mexico he pushed his way northward across the
lands of the Indian nations to the railroad that had begun to bridge
this waste. The desire for new pastures and markets sent him
further and further north, until his herds met and mingled with

553

other herds drifting down out of the northern valleys. It was the
range cattleman who broke the spell; who made these great areas
his own; who, In his search for grass, crossed every divide, rode into
every coulee, and swam every stream. The solitude of the desert
passed, and men began to realize that this, our last frontier, was
not a barrier between the river settlements and the mining com-
munities in the mountains but an area valuable in itself, where men
might live and prosper.

The cattle business of the High Plains began as a result of the
necessities of the emigrants along the Oregon Trail, and the
earliest herds were brought together to meet that demand. The
westward trek of thousands to Oregon and California in the two
decades before the Civil War stirred into new activity the far-
western trading posts, which had languished following the boom
period of the fur trade. The rather scattered, nebulous population
of the fur country began to drift down into the trail when it be-
came apparent that money could be made out of the western-
bound pioneer, who was a ready customer up to the limits of his
resources. In these unfamiliar wastes, where nature appeared so
strange and formidable to his unaccustomed eyes, he was eager to
accept assistance from any one more experienced than he. By the time
he began his journey up the North Platte, his animals were footsore
and weak and his stock of food was running low. It was a strong
and well-equipped outfit indeed that was not anxious to bargain for
such aid and comfort as those along the trail were able to furnish.

Nor were the traders who were finding favorable locations along
the trail loath to gain all they could from these necessitous travelers.
Flour, coffee, bacon, powder, and shot were always in demand.
Sometimes the emigrant lacked these essentials because of ill-advised
provisioning at the outset, sometimes he was the victim of wander-
ing bands of Indians who held up trains and exacted tribute. Flour,
brought down by packhorse from the Oregon settlements, sold for
one hundred dollars a hundredweight on the trail.1 As early as
1845 Fort Bridger had become one of the chief entrepots of this
trade. Hither the mountaineers had resorted for years to trade their
season's supply of hides and Indian articles for flour, pork, spirits,
powder, lead, blankets, butcherknives, hats, ready-made clothes,
coffee, and sugar.2 Such posts merely had to enlarge their stocks in
these articles to meet the emigrant's demands.

1 Joel Palmer, "Journal of Travels over the Rocky Mountains, 1845-46," Early
Western Travels (Cleveland, 1906), edited by R. G. Thwaites, XXX, 86 et seq.

2 Ibid., 74-75.

554

But the traders soon found ways of making money other than
by selling these standard supplies of the posts. Three new economic
activities sprang up along the trail, each of them the result of
utilizing the local natural advantages and resources and each of
them a part of the business of transportation rather than supply.
These were the operation of bridges and ferries, the furnishing of
forage, and the exchanging of fresh for worn-down work cattle.

It was not long after the western migration had begun before
bridges or ferries were established at the more difficult stream
crossings. At strategically located points on the North Platte, the
Sweetwater, and the Green rivers, ferrymen were prepared to take
the emigrant and his team across for a toll.1 These ferries became
natural trading points, and here road ranches, often the property of
the ferryman, sprang up.

With every year of travel over the emigrant road, it became more
and more difficult to find sufficient grazing ground for the animals.
As a result, there developed a market for hay. Temporary posts,
consisting of a tent and a corral set up along the trail to catch the
season's trade, were soon converted into more substantial ranches.
Their owners began to put up the wild hay that grew along the
streams and were prepared to supply forage to the motive power of
the emigrant trains at thirty-five cents to a dollar and a half a
hundredweight. A small garden patch on the side might prove
profitable, when potatoes brought five cents apiece during the
emigrant season. Such establishments usually consisted of an adobe
house, often a dwelling and store combined, a few stock corrals made
out of the cottonwoods that bordered every stream, and a haystack.2
These road ranches, the product of the emigrant trade, were the
first ranches of the northern ranges.

The need of the travelers for fresh work stock and the profits to
be made out of such a trade induced many of the traders to go into
the cattle business. One fat and well-conditioned work steer might

1 The toll bridge over the North Platte, twenty miles west of Fort Laramic, which
cost $5,000 to build, took in $40,000 in tolls during the single season of 1853.
A five-gallon keg of whiskey was sufficient to pay a toll charge of $125.00 on a
train of nineteen wagons crossing the Platte at this point. "Autobiography of
William K. Sloan," Annals of Wyoming (Cheyenne) IV, 246, July, 1926.

2 Diary kept by Silas L. Hopper, "Nebraska City to California, April-August, 1863,"
Annals of Wyoming, III, 117, Oct., 1925. Gen. Sherman on his trip west in 1866
wrote back to Rawlins that "these ranches consist usually of a store, a house, a
corral, and a big pile of hay for sale . . . you are never out of sight of train or
ranch." Sherman to Rawlins, Aug. 21, 1866, House Ex. Doc. No. 23, 39 Cong.,
Sess. 2, p. 5.

555

be exchanged for two worn down and foot-sore ones. Dairy cattle,
driven along with the trains, appeared less valuable on the Sweet-
water than they did in Missouri, and many a family cow, unused to
the hardship that such a journey imposed, was destined never to
reach the green valleys of the Willamette but was traded off for
ten dollars or a little flour.1

The early herds of the northern ranges were the product of such
trade. Captain Richard Grant, trading along the road from Fort
Hall, had a herd of six hundred in i856.2 Horace Greeley, on his way
to Salt Lake three years later, found this business thriving along
Black's Fork and Ham's Fork of the Green River. Here he found
"several old mountaineers, who have large herds of cattle which
they are rapidly increasing by a lucrative traffic with the emigrants,
who are compelled to exchange their tired, gaunt oxen and steers
for fresh ones on almost any terms. R. D., whose tent we passed
last evening, is said to have six or eight hundred head; and, know-
ing the country perfectly, finds no difficulty in keeping them through
summer and winter by frequently shifting them from place to place
over a circuit of thirty or forty miles. J. R., who has been here
some twenty odd years, began with little or nothing and had quietly
accumulated some fifty horses, three or four hundred head of neat
cattle, three squaws, and any number of half-breed children. He is
said to be worth $75,000." These were Wyoming's first cattle-
men.

As the forage along the trail became scarce from constant cropping,
the more enterprising herdsmen drove their cattle north into the
sheltered valleys of the upper Missouri in what later became western
Montana, their wintering places being the Beaverhead, the Stinking
Water (later the Ruby), and the Deer Lodge valleys. The value
of this region as a stock-raising country had been demonstrated by
the Jesuit fathers at the St. Ignatius Mission, located on the Clark's
Fork of the Columbia. Here under their tutelage, the Flatheads had
settled down to a more or less civilized existence and by 1858 had
developed so far in the arts of farming and animal husbandry that
they were sowing three hundred acres to wheat and were herding

1 Sometimes this loose stock amounted to a considerable band. The good price
for beef at the California mines induced some herdsmen to essay the long drive with
a beef herd. Greeley notes such a herd from southwestern Missouri. Horace Greeley,
Overland Journey (New York, 1860), 72.

2Granville Stuart, Forty Years on the Frontier (Cleveland, 1925) II, 97.

8 Greeley, 195. This entry was made while Greeley was at Fort Bridger. The J. R.
referred to may have been J. B. — Jim Bridger.

556

on the adjacent hillsides and in the neighboring valleys over a
thousand head of fine stock.1

Had it not been for the Mormon war of 1857-1858, the Jesuits and
their Indian converts might have remained undisturbed for another
decade. When, however, the elders of the Mormon church issued an
edict in February, 1857, ordering the Gentiles within the Mormon
territory to leave forthwith, the isolation of the mountain regions
north of the trail was destroyed. During the years previous to 1857,
many enterprising merchants from the Missouri river towns had
brought out loads of goods and had set up in business in the Mormon
settlements. This trade had proved enormously profitable and con-
siderable sums had been invested in the business. The order to
evacuate Mormon territory left these merchants with no alternative
than that of immediately disposing of their stocks as best they
could. Many of them traded off their remaining merchandise for
the cattle of the Mormons at ruinous figures and hurried out of the
territory before their enterprising customers could recover the
purchase price by stampeding the herd. Some headed for California
where the mining communities offered a safe market. Others drove
northward to the posts along the trail.2 Here traffic had stopped
when the rumors of burned freight trains and massacred emigrants
sped eastward. The traders, seeing their custom diminish and fear-
ing the ravages of the Saints and their Indian allies, sought refuge
in the mountains until the storm blew over. Into the valleys of
western Montana straggled the herds of the traders and of those who
had been expelled from Utah.

Neither the protection afforded by the army of General Albert
Sidney Johnson sent out to quell the rebellion, nor the market for
beef, which the presence of this force created, was sufficient to tempt
the traders to come down out of the northern valleys. In December,
1857, a small detail from Johnson's forces was sent north to contract

1 Report of Lieutenant B. F. Ficklin to Major F. J. Porter, April 15, 1858, in
Annual Report of the Secretary of War, 1859, House Ex. Doc. No. 2, 35 Cong., Sess.
2, Vol. II, pt. 2, p. 70. Major John Owen had in 1850 purchased the buildings of
St. Mary's Mission on the Bitter Root River from the Jesuits. This mission had been
established nine years before by Father de Smet. Owen established a trading post here
that he called Fort Owen. When the early cattlemen entered the valley from the
south, they found Owen cultivating a considerable plot of ground and pasturing
stock that he had bought of the Catholic fathers. Paul C. Phillips, The Journals and
Letters of John Owen (New York, 1927).

2 Sloan, "Autobiography," op. cit., 260-263. Sloan was engaged in this trade with
the Mormons. He had a store at Proro and was driven out along with the other Gen-
tiles in the Territory in 1857. He estimated the total Gentile population at about
three hundred in Salt Lake and not more than fifty in the rest of the Territory.

557

for beef with these fugitive cattlemen. The report of the commander
of this beef-buying expedition gives a good picture of the situation
in the upper Missouri country, the cradle of the stock-growing
industry of Montana.

After experiencing great difficulty in crossing the snow-choked
divide that separated the headwaters of the Missouri from those of
the Snake, the party got down into the upper Missouri country.

After getting on the head waters of the Missouri, the snow entirely
disappeared. On the fourth, our rations were exhausted, but I was
not uneasy, as I expected to arrive soon at the Beaver Head, a point
on the Jefferson Fork of the Missouri, fifty miles above the Three
Forks of the Missouri, and one hundred east of the Mormon settlement
on Salmon River, a popular wintering ground of the mountaineers,
on account of their stock.

To my surprise, on arriving at Beaver Head, I found all the evidences
of the mountaineers having left recently, and hastily, and taken the
trail in the direction of Flathead Valley. . . .

On the loth, overtook the camp of Mr. Herriford, where I obtained
a supply of beef, and learned from him that about December first
they had heard of the burning of the supply trains by the Mormons,
and of threats uttered by the Mormons at Salmon river fork, against
the mountaineers at Beaver Head. Fearing for the safety of their
stock, they had started for the Flathead valley, as a more distant and
secure point.

At the Deer's Lodge, overtook another party of mountaineers, with
whom I made a contract for the delivery of three hundred head of
beef-cattle, by April i6th, at ten dollars per hundred [weight], also
to bring down about one hundred head of horses. Afterwards pro-
ceeded down the Flathead valley, where I could have a contract for
two hundred head of cattle, but their fear of the Mormons was so
great that no price would induce them to undertake to deliver them
here. Several were making preparations to move their stock to Fort
Walla- Walla this spring, . in order to be beyond the reach of the
Mormons. . . .

I spent several days at St. Ignatius mission (situated on one of the
branches of Clark's Fork of the Columbia, on forty-seventh parallel)
established by the Catholics, for the benefit of the Flatheads, Pend
d'Oreilles, and Hootenais [sic].

. . . Under the direction of the priests they are improving rapidly
in agriculture. This year they will sow about three hundred bushels
of wheat; they raise large quantities of vegetables, especially potatoe§,
cabbage, and beets.

Their horses are superior to all other Indian horses, in size and
power of endurance. The tribe, about sixty lodges, owns about one
thousand head of cattle.

558

As it was impossible to buy stock in Flathead valley, on conditions
contemplated in my instructions, on March 3rd I started for Deer
Lodge, expecting to start immediately on my arrival with what stock
I had contracted for at that place.

The contractors refused to deliver their beef at this place [Fort
Scott, Utah] but offered to deliver it there [Deer Lodge Valley] as
they were afraid of being robbed by the Mormons on the road.

Buying a few animals, to replace those lost, started on March i2th
to return, . . .

The new grass was beginning to grow finely before I started on
Jefferson fork; contrary to my expectation and information I had
received from the oldest mountaineers, found snow in the mountains,
between Missouri and Snake rivers, from three to six feet deep for a
distance of twelve miles. . . ." 1

The Mormon danger was, however, only temporary, and in the
following year the trade along the trail was as brisk as ever. The
sojourn of the traders in the mountain valleys had given them much
information of the grazing resources of the upper Missouri country
and had established a practical route from the trail to that region.
Later, when gold was discovered in western Montana, the trail
over which the traders fled with their herds became the chief con-
nection between the mining towns of Montana and the great
central route of transcontinental travel.

In addition to these herds of the traders, which had had their
origin in the trade along the emigrant trail, there were the train-
cattle or "bull-teams" of the freighting companies, which supplied
the army on the plains, brought out the Indian annuity goods, and
furnished the mining camps in the mountains with the necessities
of life and equipment for the mines.2 These trains of thirty or more
wagons to a unit, each wagon with its six yoke of oxen, creaked
their way across the plains in an endless procession. Thousands of
head of these work animals were wintered by their owners in
favorable spots along the trail. In the winter of 1857-1858, the firm
of Russell, Majors, and Wadell wintered fifteen thousand head on a
range that extended southward from the trail for a distance of over
two hundred miles.3 This range was far enough east so that the
Mormon danger was not felt.

1 Ficklin Report, op. tit., 69-70. See M. L. Wilson, "Early Montana Agriculture,"
Proceedings of the Mississippi Valley Historical Association, 1918, IX, 429-440; also
Conrad Kohrs, "A Veteran's Experience in the Western Cattle Trade," Breeder's
Gazette (Chicago), Dec. 18, 1912, pp. 1328-29.

2 Frederic L. Paxson, History of the American Frontier, 462.

3 Annual Report of the Commissioner of Agriculture, 1870, pp, 303-309.

559

The experience of the early cattlemen along the trail and in the
mountains of western Montana had demonstrated the practicability
of wintering stock on the northern ranges a full decade before the
Texas longhorn put in his appearance. Any further expansion in
this pioneer industry beyond the point already described had to
wait on the development of new local markets.

The discovery of gold in the Rocky Mountains, coincident with
the Mormon outbreak and the scattering of the herds into the
mountain valleys, created just such a market. In the autumn of
1858 gold was discovered some two hundred miles south of the
Oregon Trail on the upper waters of the South Platte. By the next
spring, the plains were alive with the Pike's Peak gold rush. The
old trail was crowded, and to the south other thousands of gold
seekers were making new trails across the unfamiliar brown wastes
to where rise the eastern escarpments of the Rockies. The oxen used
for this new trek were turned out to graze on the plains at the foot
of the mountains, while their owners hurried on up the canyons to
the diggings. For the more thrifty, ranches were established where
cattle could be boarded for a dollar and a half a month.1

Here was a local market, which must be supplied, and which, in
the fever of the gold rush, was not inclined to haggle over the price.
The winter of 1858-1859 saw twenty-five thousand people at the
Colorado mines or on the road, and beef of any kind or quality was
at a premium. "From that time to the present," commented the
Roc^jy Mountain News in retrospect twelve years later, "the Denver
market has been supplied exclusively the year around with beef
from the neighboring plains."2 Train cattle and the stock of the
gold seekers were used to start the ranches that began to grow up
along the South Platte. In 1861 Ilif?, destined to become the first
"cattle king" of the northern ranges, was supplying the Colorado
mining towns with beef from a herd that ranged up and down
the South Platte for a distance of seventy-five miles or more.3

In another region the stimulus of this new and insistent market
was being felt. Close to the southern borders of Colorado Territory,
small communities of Mexicans had settled along the upper Rio
Grande and its tributaries. Here they developed a system of stock
growing perfectly adapted to their physical environment, a system

1Greeley, op. cit., 115.

2 The Roc^y Mountain News (Denver), quoted in the National Live Stock. Journal
(Chicago), I, 71, Nov., 1870.

3 Dr. Henry Latham, Trans-Missouri Stock, Raising; the Pasture Lands of North
America (Omaha, 1871), 41.

560

that the cattle growers of the High Plains were never able to
duplicate because of the inadaptability of eastern-made land laws.
"They hold their lands," wrote one observer, "without title and in
accordance with their own customs. The land along the streams,
being the only land that can be cultivated, each man holds so many
varas or yards front on the stream and extending back at right
angles with the stream to the bluff or as far as water can be
carried by ditches for irrigation. The rest of the land is open to all
as pasture and worthless for any other purpose. By this system of
survey, each man has an equal use of water and bottom land,
whether he cultivates three varas or one hundred, and all would be
willing to pay for the land cultivated if they could take it in the
shape they now hold it. The survey and sale of this land in
regular sections would probably drive out the present population,
while it might fail to bring in an equally industrious one." l

Cattle from these ranches found a ready sale in the Colorado
towns, and thus the first connection between the southern stock-
growing areas and the northern ranges was established, a connection
that was to grow in magnitude until it constituted one of the most
distinctive features of the "cow country."

The "busted" gold seekers of the Pike's Peak rush had scattered
by 1862. Some had limped back to the border settlements to form
an outer crust of plains-wise folk along the Kansas and Nebraska
frontier; some drifted into the freighting business on the trails or
took to ranching along the Platte or on the upper reaches of the
Arkansas; some followed the rumor of gold to the north and be-
came denizens of the roaring mining camps of the Clearwater and
Salmon rivers. To the east, across the Bitter Root Range, some of
the herdsmen who had fled from the Mormon danger were finding
pay dirt in the Deer Lodge Valley.2 News of these strikes filtered
into the camps^to the west and south. In 1862 a wave of prospectors
rolled through the western passes, and by 1865 Bannock, Virginia
City, and Helena were all on the map.

The solitary prospector might live off the country. As he worked
from one mountain gulch to another, the bands of elk, blacktail,
and mountain sheep furnished him with his chief food staple.
Groups of miners, for whom the season had not been successful,
often wintered in some likely hunting country and not uncommonly
got through the winter on a bill of fare of "meat straight."

1 Report of the Surveyor-General of Colorado, Utah, Nevada, and Idaho in the
Annual Report of the Commissioner of the General Land Office, 1864, p. 80.

2 Stuart, I, 132-156.

561

Gathered in the mining camps by the thousand, however, they must
be fed, and all the necessities of life, save what the country could
supply, must be freighted in.

Here was a market for the Montana stock grower, who soon
found that taking gold dust from the miners in exchange for beef
was almost as profitable and far more certain than getting it from
the placers. Even a poor worn-down ox might bring one hundred
dollars in gold when its owner auctioned it off to the Sunday
crowd of miners in the street of Virginia City where beef sold on the
butcher's block at twenty-five cents a pound.1

Such prices as these and the free pastures in the mountain
valleys induced many of the new arrivals to engage in stock raising.
A demand was thus created for stock cattle, which was felt in
Oregon, California, on the Platte, in the border settlements of
Kansas and Missouri, and even in Texas. As Dearly as 1866, Nelson
Story came up over the Bozeman Trail to the Gallatin Valley with
a herd of six hundred Texas longhorns that he had picked up in
Dallas.2

The number of cattle in the vicinity of the mines increased
rapidly. By 1868, five years after the settlement of Virginia City,
the assessors of the nine counties of Montana listed 10,714 oxen and
1 8,80 1 cows and calves. Four years later, although the number of
oxen had fallen off, because of the practice of using mules and
horses for freighting, the number of stock cattle had risen to over
75,ooo.3 In Deer Lodge County, the center of the new industry,
cattle had become so numerous that the need for regulating the
winter range was felt. The fact that the Federal Government
possessed the sole power to legislate for the public domain did not
prevent the Montana territorial legislature in 1866 from passing a
law giving the county commissioners of Deer Lodge County power
to define what should be summer grass land in the county and
prohibiting stock owners from pasturing their stock on winter
grass land, unless they owned the same.4 Although this law was
repealed the next year, it is significant, for it illustrates how soon
after the establishment of the stock-growing industry in a given area,
the problem arose of conserving the free grazing of the public

1 Kohrs, 1328.

2 A. L. Stone, Following the Old Trails (Missoula, 1913), 212.

8 Annual reports of the auditor and treasurer of Montana Territory, Helena, 1 860-*
1872.

4 Laws of Montana Territory, 1866, Sess. 2, p. 35. This law, which was an in-
vasion of the power of the Federal Government over the public domain, was re-
pealed at the next session. Laws of Montana Territory, 1866, Sess. 3, p. 83.

562

domain. As we shall see, neither the stockman nor the government
was able to solve the problem.

The settlement of a large mining population in the mountains,
the resulting increase in traffic across the plains, and the building of
the Union Pacific, all occurring between 1860 and 1870, rudely
disturbed the Indian isolation of the preceding decade. The Indian
hostilities that ensued forced the Government to give more atten-
tion to the military problem of the plains, and resulted in the estab-
lishment of forts to protect the new communities and the various
lines of overland communication. These new army posts created
additional local markets where good prices were paid for beef.
In 1871, the newly established post at Cheyenne, Fort D. A. Russell,
was paying a contract price of eight dollars and thirty-five cents a
hundredweight to the cattlemen along the Platte.1 Much of the
trade for the early ranchers of Wyoming centered around these
forts, where quantities of hay for the cavalry mounts and beef for
the men, two commodities that the locality was prepared to supply,
were needed.

In 1867 the rails of the Union Pacific penetrated Wyoming. The
work gangs who laid the rails and the horde of hangers-on who
constituted those ephemeral towns at the rail head must be fed.
Buffalo, brought down by such hired men of the railroad as
Buffalo Bill, helped to meet this demand, but the cattle of the
Wyoming ranchman found as ready a market along this first
transcontinental railroad as they had found along the old emigrant
trail.

Thus, by the close of the sixties, there existed in the northern
section of the High Plains and in the adjacent mountain valleys,
herds of considerable size, recruited from the stock of the emigrant
and gold seeker, from the work animals of the freighting companies,
from the Mormon herds, and from the herds of Oregon and
California. Their owners were making good profits in supplying the
local market of mining camp, section crew, and military post. The
possibility of expanding their herds so as to utilize to the full the
enormous pastoral resources on every hand depended upon a supply
of cheap cattle that could be used for stocking the empty ranges and
upon a connection with the eastern market.

The inhabitants of the brash little towns on the Union Pacific were
conscious that they were living along one of the great highways of
the world's commerce. They speculated on the wealth of the rich

1 Letter of T. H. Durbin in letters from Old Friends and Members of the Wyoming
Stock. Growers Association (Cheyenne, 1923), 45.

563

cargoes from the Orient, borne eastward by long lines of freight
cars. Local newspapers noted in their columns the passing of
especially valuable trainloads of tea and silk from China or ore
from the mines, and commented upon the fact that fortunes were
rolling by their very doors every day. Out on the Laramie Plains and
along the tributaries of the Platte a less romantic way freight was
developing, far more essential to the well-being of these com-
munities and of the railroad that served them. The passing of the
first stock train bound for the Chicago market meant that the
utilization of these northern ranges had begun in earnest.

The Day of the Cattleman, 1929

564

Midas on a Goatskin

J. FRANK DOBIE

High on a throne of royal state, which far
Outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind.

— Paradise Lost.

"He's the second sorriest white man in Sabinal," my host said.
"The sorriest white man keeps a Mexican woman without marry-
ing her, but Dee Davis lawfully wedded his pdada. He's town
scavenger, works at night, and sleeps most of the day. He'll probably
be awake 'long about four o'clock this evening and more than
ready to tell you the kind of yarns you want to hear."

We found Dee Davis just awaking from his siesta. He occupied
a one-roomed shack and sat on a goatskin in the door, on the shady
side of the house.

"I'm a great hand for goatskins," he said. "They make good
settin' and they make good pallets."

I sat in a board-bottomed chair out on the hard, swept ground,
shaded by an umbrella-China tree as well as by the wall. The shack
was set back in a yard fenced with barbed wire. Within the same
enclosure but farther towards the front was a little frame house
occupied by Dee Davis's Mexican wife and their three or four
half-breed children. The yard, or patio, was gay with red and orange
zinnias and blue morning-glories. Out in a ramshackle picket corral
to the rear a boy was playing with a burro.

"No, mister," went on Dee Davis, who had got strung out in no
time, "I don't reckon anything ever would have come of my dad's
picking up those silver bars if it hadn't of been for a surveyor over in
Del Rio.

"You see, Dad and Uncle Ben were frontiersmen of the old
style and while they'd had a lot of experiences — yes, mister, a lot of
experiences — they didn't know a thing about minerals. Well, along
back in the eighties they took up some state land on Mud Creek
and begun trying to farm a little. Mud Creek's east of Del Rio.
The old Spanish crossing on Mud was worn deep and always
washed, but it was still used a little. Well, one day not long after an
awful rain, a reg'lar gully-washer and fence-lifter, Dad and Uncle
Ben started to town. They were going down into the creek when,

565

by heifers, what should show up right square in the old trail but
the corner of some sort of metal bar. They got down out of their
buggy and pried the bar out and then three other bars. The stuff was
so heavy that after they put it in the buggy they had to walk and
lead the horse. Instead of going on into town with it, they went
back home. Well, they turned it over to Ma and then more or less
forgot all about it, I guess — just went on struggling for a living.

"At that time I was still a kid and was away from home working
for the San Antonio Land and Cattle Company, but I happened to
ride in just a few days after the find. The Old Man and Uncle Ben
never mentioned it, but Ma was so proud she was nearly busting,
and as soon as I got inside the house she said she wanted to show me
something. In one of the rooms was a bed with an old-timey cover-
ing on it that came down to the floor. She carried me to this bed,
pulled up part of the cover that draped over to the floor, and told
me to look. I looked, and, by heifers, there w'as bars as big as hogs.
Yes, mister, as big as hogs.

"Nothing was done, however. We were a long ways from any
kind of buying center and never saw anybody. As I said in the
beginning, I don't know how long those bars might have stayed
right there under that bed if it hadn't been for the surveyor. I
won't call his name, because he's still alive and enjoying the fruits
of his visit. My dad was a mighty interesting talker, and this
surveyor used to come to see him just to hear him talk. Well, on
one of these visits he stayed all night and slept on the bed that hid
the bars. One of his shoes got under the bed, and next morning in
stooping down to get it he saw the bars. At least that's the ex-
planation he gave. Then, of course, he got the whole story as to
how the bars came to be there and where they were dug up.

"'What you going to do with 'em?' he asked Dad.

" 'Oh, I don't know,' Dad says to him. 'Nothing much, I guess.
Ma here figgers the stuff might be silver, but I don't know what
it is. More'n likely it's not anything worth having.'

" 'Well,' says the surveyor, 'you'd better let me get it assayed.
I'm going down to Piedras Negras in my waggin next week and
can take it along as well as not.'

"The upshot was that he took all the bars. Two or three months
later when Dad saw him and asked him how the assay turned out,
he kinder laughed and says, 'Ah pshaw, 'twan't nothing but
babbitting.' Then he went on to explain how he'd left the whole
caboodle down there to Piedras Negras because it wasn't worth
hauling back.

566

"Well, it wasn't but a short time before we noticed this surveyor,
who had been dog poor, was building a good house and buying
land. He always seemed to have money and went right up. Also,
he quit coming round to visit his old friend. Yes, mister, quit coming
round.

"Some years went by and Dad died. The country had been
consider'bly fenced up, though it's nothing but a ranch country
yet, and the roads were changed. I was still follering cows, over in
Old Mexico a good part of the time. Nobody was left out on Mud
Creek. Uncle Ben had moved to Del Rio. One day when I was in
there I asked him if he could go back to the old trail crossing on
Mud. The idea of them bars and of there being more where they
come from seemed to stick in my head.

" 'Sure, I can go to the crossing,' says Uncle Ben. 'It's right on
the old Spanish Trail. Furthermore, it's plainly marked by the ruins
of an old house on the east bank.'

" 'Well,' says I, 'we'll go over there sometime when we have a
day to spare.'

"Finally, two or three years later, we got off. First we went up
to the ruins of the house. About all left of it was a tumble-down
stick-and-mud chimney.

"Uncle Ben and Dad, you understand, found the bars right down
the bank from this place. Just across the creek, on the side next to
Del Rio, was a motte of palo bianco [hackberry] trees. The day
was awfully hot and we crossed back over there to eat our dinner
under the shade and rest up a little before we dug any. About the
time we got our horses staked, I noticed a little cloud in the north-
west. In less than an hour it was raining pitchforks and bob-tailed
heifer yearlings, and Mud Creek was tearing down with enough
water to swim a steamboat. There was nothing for us to do but go
back to Del Rio.

"I've never been back to hunt those bars since. That was close to
forty years ago. A good part of that time I've been raising a family,
but my youngest boy — the one out there fooling with the burro —
is nine years old now. As soon as he's twelve and able to shift for
himself a little, I'm going back into that country and make several
investigations."

Old Dee shifted his position on the goatskin.

"My eyes won't stand much light," he explained. "I have worked
so long at night that I can see better in the darkness than in the
daylight."

I noticed that his eyes were weak, but they had a strange light

567

in them. It was very pleasant as we sat there in the shade, by the
bright zinnias and the soft morning-glories. Pretty soon Dee Davis
would have>to milk his cow and then in the dark do his work as
scavenger for the town. Still there was no hurry. Dee Davis's mind
was far away from scavenger filth. He went on.

"You see, the old Spanish trail crossed over into Texas from
Mexico at the mouth of the Pecos River, came on east, circling
Seminole Hill just west of Devil's River, on across Mud Creek,
and then finally to San Antonio. From there it went to New
Orleans. It was the route used by the antiguas for carrying their
gold and silver out of Mexico to New Orleans. The country was
full of Indians; it's still full of dead Spaniards and of bullion and
bags of money that the Indians captured and buried or caused the
original owners to bury.

"Seminole Hill hides a lot of that treasure. /They say that a big
jag of QuantriU's loot is located about Seminole too, but I never
took much stock in this guerrilla treasure. But listen, mister, and
I'll tell you about something that I do take consider'ble stock
in.

"Last winter an old Mexican pastor named Santiago was staying
here in Sabinal with some of his parientes. He's a little bit kin to
my wife. Now, about nine-tenths of the time a sheepherder don't
have a thing to do but explore every cave and examine every rock
his sheep get close to. Santiago had a dog that did most of the
actual herding. Well, two years ago this fall he was herding sheep
about Seminole Hill.

"According to his story — and I don't doubt his word — he went
pirooting into a cave one day and stepped right on top of more
money than he'd ever seen before all put together. It was just laying
there on the floor, some of it stacked up and some of it scattered
around every which way. He begun to gather some of it up and
had put three pieces in his jato — a kind of wallet, you know, that
pastores carry their provisions in — when he heard the terriblest
noise behind him he had ever heard in all his born days. He said
it was like the sounds of trace-chains rattling, and dried cowhides
being drug at the end of a rope, and panther yells, and the groans
of a dying man all mixed up. He was scared half out of his skin.
He got out of the cave as fast as his legs would carry him.

"An hour or so later, when he'd kinder collected his wits, he
discovered three of the coins still in his jato. They were old square
'dobe dollars like the Spanish used to make. As soon as he got a
chance, he took them to Villa Acuna across the river from Del Rio,

568

and there a barkeeper traded him three bottles of beer and three
silver dollars, American, for them.

"Well, you know how superstitious Mexicans are. Wild horses
couldn't drag old Santiago back inside that cave, but he promised
to take me out there and show me the mouth of it. We were just
waiting for milder weather when somebody sent in here and got
him to herd sheep. Maybe he'll be back this winter. If he is, we'll
go out to the cave. It won't take but a day."

Dee Davis rolled another cigarette from his supply of Black
Horse leaf tobacco and corn shucks. His Mexican wife, plump and
easy-going, came out into the yard and began watering the flowers
from a tin can. He hardly noticed her, though as he glanced in her
direction he seemed to inhale his smoke with a trifle more of
deliberation. He was a spare man, and gray moustaches that drooped
in Western sheriff style hid only partly a certain nervousness of the
facial muscles; yet his few gestures and low voice were as deliberate
— and as natural — as the flop of a burro's ears.

"What I'd rather get at than Santiago's cave," he resumed, "is
that old smelter across the Rio Grande in Mexico just below the
mouth of the Pecos. That smelter wasn't put there to grind corn
on, or to boil frijoles in, or to roast goat ribs over, or anything like
that. No, mister, not for anything like that.

"It's kinder under a bluff that fronts the river. I know one
ranchman who had an expert mining engineer with him, and they
spent a whole week exploring up and down the bluff and back in
the mountains. I could of told them in a minute that the mine was
not above the mouth of the Pecos. If it had of been above, the trails
made by miners carrying parihudas could still be seen. I've peered
over every foot of that ground and not a parihuela trace is there.
You don't know what a parihuela is? Well, it's a kind of hod, shaped
like a stretcher, with a pair of handles in front and a pair behind
so two men can carry it. That's what the slave Indians carried
ore on.

"No, sir, the mine that supplied that smelter — and it was a big
mine — was below the mouth of the Pecos. It's covered up now by
a bed of gravel that has probably washed in there during the last
eighty or ninety years. All a man has to do to uncover the shaft is to
take a few teams and scrapers and clear out the gravel. The mouth
of the shaft will then be as plain as daylight. That will take a little
capital. You ought to do this. I wish you would. All I want is a
third for my information.

"Now, there is an old lost mine away back in the Santa Rosa

569

Mountains that the Mexicans called El Lipano. The story goes
that the Lipan Indians used to work it. It was gold and as rich
as twenty-dollar gold pieces. El Lipano didn't have no smelter. The
Lipans didn't need one.

"And I want to tell you that those Lipan Indians could smell
gold as far as a hungry coyote can smell fresh liver. Yes, mister,
they could smell it. One time out there in the Big Bend an old-timey
Lipan came to D. C. Bourland's ranch and says to him, 'Show me
the tinaja I'm looking for and I'll show you the gold.' He got down
on his hands and knees and showed how his people used to pound
out gold ornaments in the rock tinajas across the Rio Grande from
Reagan Canyon.

"Now that long bluff overlooking the lost mine in the gravel I
was just speaking about hides something worth while. I guess maybe
you never met old Uncle Dick Sanders. I met him the first time
while I was driving through the Indian Territory up the trail to
Dodge. He was government interpreter for the Comanche Indians
at Fort Sill and was a great hombre among them.

"Well, several years ago an old, old Comanche who was dying
sent for Uncle Dick.

" 'I'm dying,' the Comanche says. 'I want nothing more on
this earth. You can do nothing for me. But you have been a
true friend to me and my people. Before I leave, I want to do you a
favor.'

"Then the old Indian, as Uncle Dick Sanders reported the facts
to me, went on to tell how when he was a young buck he was
with a party raiding horses below the Rio Grande. He said that
while they were on a long bluff just south of the river they saw a
Spanish cart train winding among the mountains. The soldiers to
guard it were riding ahead, and while they were going down into
a canyon out of sight, the Comanches made a dash, cut off three
carretas, and killed the drivers.

"There wasn't a thing in the carretas but rawhide bags full of
gold and silver coins. Well, this disgusted the Comanches mightily.
Yes, mister, disgusted them. They might make an ornament out
of a coin now and then, but they didn't know how to trade with
money. They traded with buffalo robes and horses.

"So what they did now with the rawhide sacks was to cut them
open and pour the gold and silver into some deep cracks they
happened to notice in the long bluff. Two or three of the sacks,
though, they brought over to this side of the Rio Grande and hid
in a hole. Then they piled rocks over the hole. This place was

570

between two forks, the old Comanche said, one a running river
walled with rock and the other a deep, dry canyon. Not far below
where the canyon emptied into the river, the river itself emptied
into the Rio Grande.

"After the Comanche got through explaining all this to Uncle
Dick Sanders, he asked for a lump of charcoal and a dressed deer-
skin. Then he drew on the skin a sketch of the Rio Grande, the
bluffs to the south, a stream with a west prong coming in from the
north, and the place of the buried coins. Of course he didn't put
names on the map. The only name he knew was Rio Grande del
Norte. When Sanders came down here looking for the Comanche
stuff, of course he brought the map with him and he showed it
to me. The charcoal lines had splotched until you could hardly
trace them, but Sanders had got an Indian to trace them over with
a kind of greenish paint.

"Uncle Dick had some sort of theory that the Comanche had
mistook the Frio River for the Rio Grande. Naturally he hadn't
got very far in locating the ground, much less the money. He was
disgusted with the whole business. Told me I could use his in-
formation and have whatever I found. I'm satisfied that Devil's
River and Painted Cave Canyon are the forks that the Indians
hid the maletas of money between, and the long bluff on the south
side of the Rio Grande where they poured coins into the chinks is
the same bluff I've been talking about."

Dee Davis got up, reached for a stick, squatted on the ground,
and outlined the deerskin map that Uncle Dick Sanders had shown
him. Then he sat down again on the goatskin and contemplated
the map in silence.

It was wonderfully pleasant sitting there in the shade, the shadows
growing longer and the evening growing cooler, listening — whether
to Dee Davis or to a hummingbird in the morning-glories. I did
not want the tales to stop. I remarked that I had just been out in
the Big Bend country and had camped on Reagan Canyon, famed
for its relation to the Lost Nigger Mine. I expected that Dee Davis
would know something about this. He did.

"Now listen," he interposed in his soft voice, "I don't expect
you to tell me all you know about the Lost Nigger Mine, and I
know some things I can't tell you. You'll understand that. You see
I was vaciero for a string of pastores in that very country and got
a good deal farther into the mountains, I guess, than any of the
Reagans ever got. You may not believe me, but I'll swear on a
stack of Bibles as high as your head that I can lead you straight to

571

the nigger who found the mine. Of course I can't tell you where
he is. You'll understand that. It was this away.

"One morn,ing the Reagans sent Bill Kelley — that's the nigger's
name — to hunt a horse that had got away with the saddle on. A few
hours later Jim Reagan rode up on the nigger and asked him if
he had found the horse.

" 'No, sah,' the nigger says, 'but jes' looky here, Mister Jim, I'se
foun' a gold mine.'

" 'Damn your soul,' says Jim Reagan, 'we're not paying you to
hunt gold mines. Pull your freight and bring in that horse.'

"Yes, mister, that's the way Jim Reagan took the news of the
greatest gold mine that's ever been found in the Southwest — but
he repented a million times afterwards.

"Well, as you've no doubt heard, the nigger got wind of how
he was going to be pitched into the Rio Grande and so that night
he lit a shuck on one of the Reagan horses. Then a good while
afterwards when the Reagans found out how they'd played the
wilds in running off, you might say, the goose that laid the golden
egg, they started in to trail him down. No telling how many
thousands of dollars they did spend trying to locate Nigger Bill —
the only man who could put his hand on the gold.

"I've knowed a lot of the men who looked for the Lost Nigger
Mine. Not one of them has gone to the right place. One other
thing I'll tell you. Go to that round mountain down in the vegas
on the Mexican side just opposite the old Reagan camp. They call
this mountain El Diablo, also Niggerhead; some calls it El Capitan.
Well, about half way up it is a kind of shelf, or mesa, maybe two
acres wide. On this shelf close back against the mountain wall is a
chapote bush. Look under that chapote and you'll see a hole about
the size of an old-timey dug well. Look down this hole and you'll
see an old ladder — the kind made without nails, rungs being tied
on the poles with rawhide 'and the fibre of Spanish dagger. Well,
right by that hole, back a little and sorter hid behind the chapote,
I once upon a time found a mecapal. I guess you want me to tell
you what that is. It's a kind of basket in which Mexican miners
used to carry up their ore. It's fastened on the head and shoulders.

"Now, I never heard of a mecapal being used to haul water
up in. And I didn't see any water in that hole. No, mister, I didn't
see any water.

"As I said, as soon as my boy gets to be twelve years old — he's
nine now — I'm going out in that country and use some of the
knowledge I've been accumulating."

572

Dee Davis leaned over and began lacing the brogan shoes on his
stockingless feet. It was about time for him to begin work. But I was
loath to leave. How pleasant it was there! Maybe Dee Davis is
"the second sorriest white man in Sabinal." I don't know, but it
seemed to me then, and it seems to me still, that there are many
ways of living worse than the way of this village scavenger with a
soft goatskin to sit on, and aromatic Black Horse tobacco to inhale
leisurely through a clean white shuck, and bright zinnias and blue
morning-glories in the dooryard, and long siestas while the shadows
of evening lengthen to soften the light of day, and an easy-going
Mexican wife, and playing around a patient burro out in the corral

an urchin that will be twelve manana, as it were, and then .

Then silver bars out of Mud Creek as big as hogs — and heaps of
old square 'dobe dollars in Santiago's cave on Seminole Hill —
and Uncle Dick Sanders' gold in the chinks of the long bluff across
the Rio Grande — and somewhere in the gravel down under the
bluff a rich mine that a few mules and scrapers might uncover in
a day — and, maybe so, the golden Lipano out in the Santa Rosas
beyond — and, certainly and above all, the great Lost Nigger Mine
of free gold far up the Rio Bravo in the solitude of the Big Bend.

Dee Davis is just one of Coronado's children.

Coronado's Children, 1930

573

Dubious Battle in California

JOHN STEINBECK

In sixty years a complete revolution has taken place in California
agriculture. Once its principal products were hay and cattle. Toda>
fruits and vegetables are its most profitable crops. With the change
in the nature of farming there has come a parallel change in the
nature and amount of the labor necessary to carry it on. Truck
gardens, while they give a heavy yield per acre, require much more
labor and equipment than the raising of hay and livestock. At the
same time these crops are seasonal, which means that they are
largely handled by migratory workers. Along with the intensifica-
tion of farming made necessary by truck gardening has come
another important development. The number of large-scale farms,
involving the investment of thousands of dollars, has increased; so
has the number of very small farms of from five to ten acres. But
the middle farm, of from 100 to 300 acres, is in process of elimina-
tion.

There are in California, therefore, two distinct classes of farmers
widely separated in standard of living, desires, needs, and sym-
pathies: the very small farmer who more often than not takes
the side of the workers in disputes, and the speculative farmer,
like A. J. Chandler, publisher of the Los Angeles Times, or like
Herbert Hoover and William Randolph Hearst, absentee owners
who possess huge sections of land. Allied with these large indi-
vidual growers have been the big incorporated farms, owned by
their stockholders and farmed by instructed managers, and a
large number of bank farms, acquired by foreclosure and operated
by superintendents whose labor policy is dictated by the bank,
For example, the Bank of America is very nearly the largest farm
owner and operator in the State of California.

These two classes have little or no common ground; while the
small farmer is likely to belong to the grange, the speculative
farmer belongs to some such organization as the Associated
Farmers of California, which is closely tied to the state Chamber
of Commerce. This group has as its major activity resistance to
any attempt of farm labor to organize. Its avowed purpose has
been the distribution of news reports and leaflets tending to show
that every attempt to organize agricultural workers was the work

574

of red agitators and that every organization was Communist
inspired.

The completion of the transcontinental railroads left in the
country many thousands of Chinese and some Hindus who had
been imported for the work. At about the same time the increase
of fruit crops, with their heavy seasonal need for pickers, created
a demand for this mass of cheap labor. These people, however,
did not long remain on the land. They migrated to the cities,
rented small plots of land there, and, worst of all, organized in
the so-called "tongs," which were able to direct their efforts as a
group. Soon the whites were inflamed to race hatred, riots broke
out against the Chinese, and repressive activities were undertaken
all over the state, until these people, who had been a tractable and
cheap source of labor, were driven from the fields.

To take the place of the Chinese, the Japanese were encouraged
to come into California; and they, even more than the Chinese,
showed an ability not only to obtain land for their subsistence but
to organize. The "Yellow Peril" agitation was the result. Then,
soon after the turn of the century Mexicans were imported in
great numbers. For a while they were industrious workers, until
the process of importing twice as many as were needed in order
to depress wages made their earnings drop below any conceiv-
able living standard. In such conditions they did what the others
had done; they began to organize. The large growers immedi-
ately opened fire on them. The newspapers were full of the radi-
calism of the Mexican unions. Riots became common in the Impe-
rial Valley and in the grape country in and adjacent to Kern County.
Another wave of importations was arranged, from the Philip-
pine Islands, and the cycle was repeated — wage depression due to
abundant labor, organization, and the inevitable race hatred and riots.

This brings us almost to the present. The drought in the Middle
West has very recently made available an enormous amount of
cheap labor. Workers have been coming to California in nonde-
script cars from Oklahoma, Nebraska, Texas, and other states,
parts of which have been rendered uninhabitable by drought.
Poverty-stricken after the destruction of their farms, their last re-
serves used up in making the trip, they have arrived so beaten
and destitute that they have been willing at first to work under
any conditions and for any wages offered. This migration started
on a considerable scale about two years ago and is increasing all
the time.

575

For a time it looked as though the present cycle would be iden-
tical with the earlier ones, but there are several factors in this
influx which> differentiate it from the others. In the first place,
the migrants are undeniably American and not deportable. In the
second place, they were not lured to California by a promise of
good wages, but are refugees as surely as though they had fled
from destruction by an invader. In the third place, they are not
drawn from a peon class, but have either owned small farms or
been farm hands in the early American sense, in which the "hand"
is a member of the employing family. They have one fixed idea,
and that is to acquire land and settle on it. Probably the most
important difference is that they are not easily intimidated. They
are courageous, intelligent, and resourceful. Having gone through
the horrors of the drought and with immense effort having escaped
from it, they cannot be herded, attacked, starved, or frightened as
all the others were.

Let us see what the emigrants from the dust bowl find when
they arrive in California. The ranks of permanent and settled
labor are filled. In most cases all resources have been spent in mak-
ing the trip from the dust bowl. Unlike the Chinese and the
Filipinos, the men rarely come alone. They bring wives and chil-
dren, now and then a few chickens and their pitiful household
goods, though in most cases these have been sold to buy gasoline
for the trip. It is quite usual for a man, his wife, and from three
to eight children to arrive in California with no possessions but
the rattletrap car they travel in and the ragged clothes on their
bodies. They often lack bedding and cooking utensils.

During the spring, summer, and part of the fall the man may
find some kind of agricultural work. The top pay for a successful
year will not be over $400, and if he has any trouble or is not
agile, strong, and quick it* may well be only $150. It will be seen
that rent is out of the question. Clothes cannot be bought. Every
available cent must go for food and a reserve to move the car from
harvest to harvest. The migrant will stop in one of two federal
camps, in a state camp, in houses put up by the large or small
farmers, or in the notorious squatters' camps. In the state and
federal camps he will find sanitary arrangements and a place to
pitch his tent. The camps maintained by the large farmers are
of two classes — houses which are rented to the workers at what are
called nominal prices, $4 to $8 a month, and camp grounds which
are little if any better than the squatters' camps. Since rent is such

576

a problem, let us see how the houses are fitted. Ordinarily there is
one room, no running water; one toilet and one bathroom are
provided for two or three hundred persons. . . . Some of the
large ranches maintain what are called model workers' houses.
One such ranch, run by a very prominent man, has neat single-
room houses built of whitewashed adobe. They are said to have
cost $500 apiece. They are rented for $5 a month. This ranch pays
twenty cents an hour as opposed to the thirty cents paid at other
ranches and indorsed by the grange in the community. Since this
rugged individual is saving 33% per cent of his labor cost and still
charging $5 a month rent for his houses, it will be readily seen
that he is getting a very fair return on his money besides being
generally praised as a philanthropist. The reputation of this ranch,
however, is that the migrants stay only long enough to get money
to buy gasoline with, and then move on.

The small farmers are not able to maintain camps of any com-
fort or with any sanitary facilities except one or two holes dug
for toilets. The final resource is the squatters' camp, usually lo-
cated on the bank of some water-course. The people pack into
them. They use the water-course for drinking, bathing, washing
their clothes, and to receive their refuse, with the result that epi-
demics start easily and are difficult to check. Stanislaus County,
for example, has a nice culture of hookworm in the mud by its
squatters' camp. The people in these camps, because of long-
continued privation, are in no shape to fight illness. . . .

In these squatters' camps the migrant will find squalor beyond
anything he has yet had to experience and intimidation almost
unchecked. At one camp it is the custom of deputy sheriffs, who
are also employees of a great ranch nearby, to drive by the camp
for hours at a time, staring into the tents as though trying to
memorize faces. The communities in which these camps exist
want migratory workers to come for the month required to pick
the harvest, and to move on when it is over. If they do not move
on, they are urged to with guns.

These are some of the conditions California offers the refugees
from the dust bowl. But the refugees are even less content with
the starvation wages and the rural slums than were the Chinese,
the Filipinos, and the Mexicans. Having their families with them,
they are not so mobile as the earlier immigrants were. If starva-
tion sets in, the whole family starves, instead of just one man.
Therefore they have been quick to see that they must organize for
their own safety.

577

Attempts to organize have been met with a savagery from the
large growers beyond anything yet attempted. In Kern County
a short time ago a group met to organize under the A. F. of L.
They made out their form and petition for a charter and put it
in the mail for Washington. That night a representative of Asso-
ciated Farmers wired Washington for information concerning a
charter granted to these workers. The Washington office naturally
replied that it had no knowledge of such a charter. In the Bakers-
field papers the next day appeared a story that the A. F. of L.
denied the affiliation; consequently the proposed union must be
of Communist origin.

But the use of the term communism as a bugbear has nearly
lost its sting. An official of a speculative-farmer group, when asked
what he meant by a Communist, replied: "Why, he's the guy
that wants twenty-five cents an hour when we're paying twenty."
'This realistic and cynical definition has finally been understood
by the workers, so that the term is no longer the frightening thing
it was. And when a county judge said, "California agriculture
demands that we create and maintain a peonage," the future of
unorganized agricultural labor was made clear to every man in
the field.

The usual repressive measures have been used against these
migrants: shooting by deputy sheriffs in "self-defense," jailing
without charge, refusal of trial by jury, torture and beating by
night riders. But even in the short time that these American mi-
grants have been out here there has been a change. It is under-
stood that they are being attacked not because they want higher
wages, not because they are Communists, but simply because they
want to organize. And to the men, since this defines the thing
not to be allowed, it also defines the thing that is completely
necessary to the safety of the workers. . . .

It is fervently to be hoped that the great group of migrant
workers so necessary to the harvesting of California's crops may
be given the right to live decently, that they may not be so
badgered, tormented, and hurt that in the end they become avengers
of the hundreds of thousands who have been tortured and starved
before them.

The Nation, September 12, 1936

578

Tk Spirit of the West

WILLIAM T. FOSTER

Nehemiah appears to have been the first man in recorded
history with the true spirit of the West. The fourth chapter of
Nehemiah sums up his achievements in laying out a new city:
"Now the city was large and great; but the people were few,
and the houses were not builded."

Eloquent and adequate is this description, as applied to many a
Pacific Coast city of today. Its builders are not greatly concerned
over people and houses; they will come rapidly enough. The main
point is that the city is large and great. And so the builders cannot
be persuaded to stop their work in order to hear wise men of the
East explain why it is impossible in such a place to construct a
great city. Anyone crossing the deserts of Southern California a
generation ago could see that few people would ever live where
Los Angeles has since been doubling its population in every decade.

The Bible does not tell us that Nehemiah erected on the walls
of his city-to-be a huge electric sign with the words, "Watch Tacoma
Grow." He did well, however, with the advertising means at his
disposal. When Sanballat urged him to stop building and come
down from the city wall to the plain of Ono, he replied in words
that may still be read, thanks to the Gideons, in any hotel room.
"I am doing a great work," said he, "so that I cannot come down.
Why should the work cease, whilst I leave it and come down to
you?" And when the people threatened him with dire consequences
if he went on with the work, he answered, "Should such a man as
I flee? I will not go."

Thus have the builders of Pacific Coast cities answered the
calamity-howlers, while they sustained their courage with the vision
of the future. And to the scoffing world they have declared: "The
city is large and great, though the people are, indeed, few therein,
and the houses are not builded."

If you go to Vancouver, British Columbia, over the Canadian
Rockies, and thence by boat, via Victoria, to Seattle, you will find
yourself caught by the spirit of the West — or ridiculing and resisting
it — before you reach the dock. For there will be at least one

579

returning citizen of Seattle on board who remembers the last sign
he read before leaving his city: "Do not forget to boost Seattle
while you are away."

Seattle people do not forget. They have heard what is said of
them in the Bible: "Ye are the light of the world. A city that is
set on a hill cannot be hid." And so they do not light a candle and
put it under a bushel. They feel it their duty to set it up where
it giveth light unto all those who are still in the darkness of the
East. Besides, their bushels are all busy carrying food to the Orient.

Once you are actually in this city you feel the spirit of the
West, whether you will or no. Possibly there is no place where
the Western spirit of cooperation is more contagious. The whole
sprightly, smiling, hand-clasping population seems engaged in one
vast "Paul Jones" — all hands round and swing together to the
right, with no one sitting aloof in the corner,. refusing to join the
dance, and remarking how much better he could manage the affair
if he wanted to. The "knocker" finds the life of Seattle uncongenial.
Somebody is sure to tell him that an automobile knocks going uphill,
and a man knocks going down. And a man going downhill in
Seattle is headed straight for the chilling waters of Puget Sound.

Seattle literally has the faith that moves mountains. When a
mountain stood in the way of a business street, the mountain
hadn't a chance. It was washed into the ocean; and on its site was
erected the chief hotel of Seattle. Another opportunity for the city
to quote Scripture to its purpose. A Seattle man of the true faith
would not be surprised to find a mountain moved overnight.

Such a citizen of Seattle is said to have met some old friends one
evening in that little city to the south that has such difficulty in
pronouncing the name "Rainier."

"You should see how Seattle is growing," he cried.

"Yes; I was there only yesterday," replied one of his Tacoma
friends.

"Ah," said he, "you should have seen Seattle this morning!"

This is youth — the overweening self-confidence of youth, if you
like; or, if you prefer, youth with the courage of its emotions.
The West still has the buoyant faith of the uncouth college freshman
from the farm. Sometime it may enter the sophomoric stage, show
signs of tired feelings, and convey the mature impression of having
experienced all the joy of life and found there is nothing in it.

But is this faith, after all, different from the faith of many
Eastern communities? Men who have lived on the Pacific Coast
do not ask that question. They know what they mean by the spirit

580

of the West. Elsewhere, they admit, that same spirit is a driving
force in individuals. It is rarely found in entire groups. In the
West, the man of boundless faith is typical: he feels at home;
he enjoys a consciousness of kind. In the East, he may be lonesome:
the crowd is not with him. He must overcome, not only his own
inertia, but that of the community as well. Yes, he is sure there is
a difference. An inveterate Westerner is a man from the East who
has returned once to his old home to see whether that difference is
really what it seems to be.

Once in a New England community I felt the spirit of the
West; and that was in a section that New England would hardly
recognize as itself — Aroostook County, New England's "farthest
East." Years ago I found everybody in Houlton and Caribou
talking Aroostook potato land as if it were the best in the world,
and investing their money as if they believed what they said. Theirs
was the eloquence of a Hood River man talking apples, a Fresno
man talking raisins, a Redlands man talking oranges.

But when I think of the spirit of rural New England, I do not
think of Aroostook: I think rather of the Maine farmer in another
county, to whom I applied for a job at the confident age of eleven.

"No," said he, "I reckon I won't hire no help. I can't tell how
the crops are gonter turn out, and I guess I'd better jest putter
along by myself."

I explained to him that his crops would have much better chances
with my help; but he was obdurate. He would not risk the "ten
dollars a month and found" for which I offered myself. Twenty
years later, I found him still puttering along by himself, his apple
orchards still overgrown with weeds and caterpillars. And there
were fewer people in the whole county than on that fatal day when
the putterer rejected my services.

"The glories of the past!" exclaims the man of the East.

"The wonders of the future!" cries the man of the West.

A college student, returning this year to the Pacific Coast, after
having spent a year in Boston, summed up his impressions in this
way:

" 'Visit our forty-two story L. C. Smith Building and look down
on our growing city,' urges Seattle, in a frenzy of enthusiasm.

" 'Visit our three-story Faneuil Hall and look up its history,'
replies Boston, with a deprecating smile."

In the seventeenth century, a committee of the Massachusetts
Bay Colony, appointed to investigate the agricultural possibilities
of the country, reported that there was little cultivable land west of

Newton, Massachusetts. In a later century, Senator Benton, in an
eloquent speech in Congress, proved conclusively that there could
never be any .successful settlements beyond the Rocky Mountains.
Even our universities have failed to see their future large enough.
They have planned and located each building as if they thought it
would be the last one. In 1820, the regents of the University of
Indiana, having spent $2400 on a building to house the entire
university, apologized for their extravagance. "We are aware," they
admitted, "that the plan proposed may be opposed on account of
its magnitude." A generation ago, the regents of the University of
Illinois, in dedicating one of those monstrosities of the "Late General
Grant" period of architecture, declared that it would meet all the
needs of the University for a century to come.

Even west of Boston, it seems, men sometimes lack faith in the
possibilities of their country. A Kansas farmer, they say, having
ordered and received two windmills, sent one back, fearing that
there might not be wind enough for two. And that was in Kansas,
where — if Dr. Lindley can be trusted — a man does not run after his
hat when the wind takes it away: he merely thrusts his hand into
the air and takes another hat.

"O ye of little faith," we cry, when we consider the failure of
our forefathers to see the future "large and great." Little do we
realize that our own vision may seem to our children's children
like the $2400 extravagance of the University of Indiana.

Though faith, in the west as elsewhere, is the substance of things
hoped for, it is built in the West on the substance of things already
lavishly bestowed by nature. A permanent impression of this
abundance remains with anyone who has really seen the Far West.
That impression was mine the first time I crossed the Sandy River,
a stream that flows into the Columbia River where the Colum-
bia Highway begins. There I saw a man, equipped only with
the inverted top of a birdcage fastened to the end of a long
pole, pull out about all the fish he could carry home in his
"flivver."

If I cannot expect you to believe this story which, being Western,
a fish story, and a Ford story, is thrice suspect — or to believe that I
looked down, from the same bridge, upon a man in a large dory who
had piled up such a heap of glistening fish that the craft sank with
the weight, how can I expect you to believe what is still less
credible, that the sight did not seem to me extraordinary, but

582

merely to typify Western abundance! It made me think of similar
sights all the way from Vancouver to San Diego.

Faith in the boundless future greeted me, on my first Thanks-
giving Day in the West, in a city-to-be of Southern California.
Fate, aided and abetted by the Southern Pacific Railroad, deposited
me, a descendant of Pilgrim fathers, in a community that seemed
never, outside of a poultry-show, to have heard of Plymouth Rock.

Through the only open door on the only business street, I found
my way to Carlos — cook, waiter, and proprietor of the only eating-
house. And Carlos, strong in Mexican accent and Western hospi-
tality, served me local color and sour bread. I could have forgiven
him the sour bread; but then came a concoction rolled in corn
husks upon which I was sure he had lavished, with Western
abandon, an entire bottle of tabasco sauce.

While I was wondering how to dispose of this fire-brand without
the risk of starting another Mexican War, a cowboy, bursting
through the door as if rehearsing for a motion-picture, came to my
rescue with a dramatic cut-in. No sooner had he whooped upon
the scene — arrayed in red bandanna, pistols, and all the other stage
properties — than he noted the absence of Thanksgiving from my
face. He took in the whole sad situation at a glance. Whisky had
loosened the strings of his imagination — and of his purse.

"Give the young feller a genu-ine, I say genu-ine, Thanksgivin'
dinner," he cried, as he threw a roll of bank notes around the room.
"Give the young feller the genu-ine thing. Ye get me? Turkey and
stuffin' and cranb'ry sauce and all the fixin's. I'll pay the bills."

After we had twice collected his scattered bank notes and stuffed
them into his pockets, we convinced him that the Carlos shack was
no place in which to celebrate a New England holiday. He then
proposed a personally-conducted tour of the city.

At the next street corner, he began to point out the objects of
local interest. "This," he said, "is Thirty-Second Street."

"Then where," I asked, "can First Street be?"

"Oh, that," he replied, with a sweep of his arm and a faraway look
in his eyes, "that is way out yonder on the prairie. That ain't been
laid out yet."

Equally amusing is every pioneer settlement where the people
are few and the houses not yet builded — the little box of a rail-
road station, with its plot of "self-conscious geraniums"; behind it,
stretched out on Main Street, the General Emporium with its false
front and its Post-Office attachment, the two-story hotel, the three
empty saloons, the four real estate offices; and, beyond these

583

monuments of failure and of hope, regiments of house-lots staked
out as far as One Hundred and Thirty-Ninth Street.

"The great. West," exclaimed the incredulous traveler, "where
every hill is a mountain, every cat is a mountain lion, every crick
is a river, and every man is a liar!" Some liars have come from the
East, no doubt; but while we laugh at the city that is large and
great only in imagination, we do well to recall that Portland was
such a city only half a century ago. And the surviving pioneers have
found that the "boosters" of those days who told the biggest lies
about its future told the most truth. Westerners do not exaggerate
their future possibilities. Perhaps, in spite of their modesty, they
would lie about the future if they could: they lack sufficient
imagination.

On a street corner in the heart of Portland is the Church of Our
Father, Unitarian. On the other three corners of that intersection
are one of the chief office buildings, one of the chief theaters, and
one of the chief hotels. When the church was located there, the
people had to go through the woods to reach it. And there were
scoffers even in those days. They laughed at the unpractical young
minister, fresh from the Harvard Divinity School, who builded his
first meeting-house in the wilderness. But Thomas Lamb Eliot, a
worthy descendant of the pioneer apostle to the Indians, and
Henrietta Eliot, his wife, with a babe in her arms, had managed to
cross the Isthmus of Panama, had found their way, in various
ships, from port to port, up to the Columbia River, and had
shown at once that truly Western faith in the city that was not yet
builded.

Dr. Eliot sometimes tells of a pioneer experience in driving from
Olympia to Tenino, in western Washington, to visit an Indian
reservation. His guide was Hazard Stevens. Before they got into
the buggy, he asked Mr. Stevens about the road.

"Oh, it's a good road," answered Mr. Stevens.

On their journey they frequently had to lift the wagon out of
holes and cut away logs that had fallen across the road. The way was
so narrow that, when they met a wagon at one place, they could
pass it only by taking their buggy apart, lifting it piece by piece
over the wagon, and then putting it together again. When, after
various other struggles, they actually reached Tenino, Dr. Eliot
said —

"There is one question I would like to ask, Mr. Stevens. What is
your definition of a good road?"

"Oh," came the quick reply, "any road you can get through."

584

There you have the spirit of the West. Had men insisted on any
other definition of a good road, they would not have crossed the
Rockies.

Men who have known the pioneers need not be told that Hazard
Stevens enjoyed the humor of his remark. Indeed, the characteristic
ability of the Westerner to go down in defeat and bob up with his
cheerful confidence unshaken is due in part to this sense of humor.
It prompts him to publish the following advertisement in his local
paper: "For exchange, two lots in University Park for anything on
earth except more lots in University Park." His neighbors do not
resent this reference to a blighted land boom. They laugh with
him, even though they, too, have lots in University Park that yield
nothing but weeds, taxes, and reproaches.

It was the city of Salem, in the state of Oregon, that proposed
to a venerable city in the East that, since it is confusing to have two
cities of the same name, it might be well for Salem, Massachusetts,
to change its name. Shades of all the witches! This bumptious young
upstart proposes that the dignified home of Nathaniel Hawthorne
should give up its tradition-hallowed name. How preposterous!
How like the West! And at once come protests from the affronted
East. Whereupon, the City Fathers of Salem, Oregon, chuckle and
look again at the motto on the council chamber walls: "Never
mind what people say, as long as they talk about you."

Having thus attracted attention to their own little spot in the
Willamette Valley, the people of Salem proceed to cash in their
free publicity and their loganberries and the prohibition movement
by selling several million dollars worth of "Loju" to the affronted
cities of the East.

Mistake not the spirit of the West. It is revealed in much more
than ridiculous bragging: it is revealed to the initiated in a sense of
humor all its own. The comic supplements of its daily papers do
cast a lurid glow, as Dr. Crothers says, upon our boasted sense of
humor. They are often as barren as the sage-brush prairies of Ne-
vada. But they are only one of the many mistakes the frontiersmen
have taken from the East, when their own genius would have
served them far better.

To one who misses the humor, it seems that our Californians talk
about their scenery as if they had made it all. In the high Sierras, an
Oxford graduate and his Californian guide gazed on the snow-
capped peaks at sunset. "A beautiful view," exclaimed the Califor-

585

nian, "if I do say it myself." Both men are still chuckling over the
remark, each because he thinks the other missed the humor.

To most of us, these are mere incidents, more or less amusing.
To the sociologist, they are the stuff the history of human progress
is made of. For the Pacific West, to the sociologist, is the last fron-
tier. To him human progress is one long story of the more virile
and adventurous members of an older civilization establishing them-
selves in a new land — the frontier. Thus, driven by drought and
famine, the hardiest and most hopeful remnants of Asiatic tribes,
centuries before Christ, found their way westward — ever westward
— to the Mediterranean, and there built wonderful cities. They were
the "boosters" of their day. Later, in the declining days of Egypt
and Babylon, Crete became the new frontier.. The eloquent evi-
dence of its flourishing leadership we are now digging up, after
it has been buried for thousands of years. "Watch Crete Grow"
— or its classical equivalent — was no doubt the slogan of the time.

To the ancient cities that bordered the Eastern Mediterranean,
Greece became the Far West in the days when the islands of the
Aegean were flowering into a higher type of civilization than the
wise men of the East had ever conceived. Westward — ever west-
ward— the course of empire took its way: across the continent to
the coast of Europe, across the Channel to the British Isles, across
the Atlantic to the New World, across the border states to the
Valley of the Mississippi, and finally — by means of "good roads'*
— across the Rockies to the Pacific Coast. It is the last frontier. The
march of progress has circled the globe!

By the roadside, most of the marchers have stopped to rest and
have never taken the road again. Others, like Kipling's "Explorer,"
have stopped only

Till a voice, as bad as Conscience, rang interminable changes
On one everlasting whisper, day and night repeated — so:
"Something hidden. Go and find it. Go and look behind the

Ranges —
Something lost behind the Ranges. Lost and waiting for you.

Go!"

Men who heard that voice, men of energy and courage, ready to
take a chance, left old towns that seemed socially stagnant and
sought the freer spirit of border communities.

In Texas they say the best steers are found on the outside of the

586

herd. Natural selection has everywhere done its work. It has sorted
out and sent westward some of the most enterprising youths of
communities that were growing old, and has left behind most of
those averse to change. The left-behinds have frowned upon the
new because it is new. They have fallen down and worshiped the
god-of-things-as-they-are, and inscribed upon the altar a slogan
which the pioneers of all ages have repudiated: "Whatever has
been should continue to be."

That slogan renounces originality, adaptability, and variability.
But change is the immutable law of progress. Whatever resists
change is dying; whatever does not change is dead.

From the study of this westward march of civilization, the soci-
ologist believes that he has discovered a law of progress. He be-
lieves, with the philosopher Comte, that the preponderating influence
of youth in any community is a true cause of progress. He believes
that he can arrange communities in the order of their possibilities
of progress, if he but knows what proportion of the people of each
group is old and rigid, and what proportion is new and flexible.
Thus he can determine the degree of success of a city in adjusting
itself to the new conditions with which the War has confronted
the world.

This is the chief significance of the growth in population of the
large cities on the Pacific Coast. Ten years ago more than half the
people in these cities had arrived within the previous decade. More
than half the people in these cities today were not there ten years
ago. The great vitality of these cities — shown by the coincidence
of a high birth rate and a low death rate, by the large numbers of
comparatively young people coming from the East, and by the
heterogeneity of the population — is a mark of identity of the last
frontier with those which, throughout the ages, have led the west-
ward march of civilization.

Yes, it is the younger people as a rule who respond to the call of
the West. But that is not all. No sooner are they actually living in
the West than they feel younger still. For natural selection not
only operates to send the younger people westward, but it also has
the effect of stimulating newcomers to larger capacities for living
and loving — and this is youth!

Have you heard from your middle-aged acquaintance who lately
left your Eastern city? He has already become one of the older
residents of a city beyond the Rockies. Yet he is a boy again. He
has taken again to dancing and to camping and to out-of-door
games. He is eager to climb every snow-capped peak in sight. He

587

has found out what Dr. Hall meant when he said we do not stop
playing because we grow old, but grow old because we stop play-
ing. The rosy visions of boyhood are his again. Romance beckons
to him. Nothing seems impossible. He is like the boy who, when
asked whether he could play a violin, said he did not know: he had
never tried it. The Westerner today, like the miner of '49, is ever
on the brink of great success. He is thrilled with the adventure, and
he looks upon his new discoveries with the big-eyed wonder of a
boy at his first circus.

Do not laugh at him — imitate him. He is the Ponce de Leon of an
age of Science. He seeks no magical fountain. He knows that youth
is the spirit of youth. And he has found it in the West.

Must you laugh at him still? Very well, he will laugh, too. You
cannot discourage him. Nehemiah will not come down from his
high wall. He has caught the spirit of the West. Flood and fire,
earthquake and panic, war and anarchists, the high cost of living
and the scoffer from the East — each is sure to find him smiling,
resourceful, confident. He sees his future large and great, though
the people who share his visions are few, and the castles of his
dreams are not yet builded.

The Atlantic Monthly, July, 1920

588

These States

Rockwell Kent Illustration for Leaves of Crass, courtesy of The Heritage Press

American Attitudes

1. Representative Government

JAMES FENIMORE COOPER

[In America,] all political power is strictly a trust, granted by
the constituent to the representative. These representatives possess
different duties; and as the greatest check that is imposed on them,
while in the exercise of their offices, exists in the manner in which
the functions are balanced by each other, it is of the last importance
that neither class trespass on the trusts that are not especially com-
mitted to its kee'ping.

The machinery of the state being the same in appearance in this
country and in that from which we are derived, inconsiderate com-
mentators are apt to confound their principles. In England, the in-
stitutions have been the result of those circumstances to which time
has accidentally given birth. The power of the king was derived
from violence, the monarch before the act of succession, in the
reign of Queen Anne, claiming the throne in virtue of the conquest
by William, in 1066. In America, the institutions are the result of
deliberate consultation, mutual concessions, and design. In England,
the people may have gained by diminishing the power of the king,
who first obtained it by force; but in America to assail the rightful
authority of the executive, is attacking a system framed by the con-
stituencies of the states, who are virtually the people, for their own
benefit. No assault can be made on any branch of this government
while in the exercise of its constitutional duties, without assaulting
the right of the body of the nation, which is the foundation of the
whole polity.

In countries in which executive power is hereditary and clothed
with high prerogatives, it may be struggling for liberty to strive to
diminish its influence; but in this republic, in which the executive
is elective, has no absolute authority in framing the laws, serves for
a short period, is responsible, and has been created by the people,
through the states, for their own purposes, it is assailing the rights
of that people to attempt in any manner to impede its legal and
just action.

The American Democrat, 1838

591

2. Aristocrat vs. Democrat

JAMES FENIMORE COOPER

We live in an age when the words aristocrat and democrat are
much used, without regard to the real significations. An aristocrat
is one of a few, who possess the political power of a country; a
democrat, one of the many. The words are also properly applied
to those who entertain notions favorable to aristocratical or demo-
cratical forms of government. Such persons are not, necessarily,
either aristocrats or democrats in fact, but merely so in opinion.
Thus a member of a democratical government may have an aristo-
cratical bias and vice versa.

To call a man who has the habits and opinions of a gentleman
an aristocrat, from that fact alone, is an abuse of terms and betrays
ignorance of the true principles of government, as well as of the
world. It must be an equivocal freedom under which every one is
not the master of his own innocent acts and associations, and he is
a sneaking democrat, indeed, who will submit to be dictated to in
those habits over which neither law nor morality assumes a right
of control.

Some men fancy that a democrat can only be one who seeks the
level, social, mental and moral, of the majority, a rule that would
at once exclude all men of refinement, education, and taste from
the class. These persons are enemies of democracy, as they at once
render it impracticable. They are usually great sticklers for their
own associations and habits, too, though unable to comprehend any
of a nature that are superior. They are, in truth, aristocrats in prin-
ciple, though assuming a contrary pretension; the ground work of
all their feelings and arguments being self. Such is not the intention
of liberty, whose aim is to leave every man to be the master of his
own acts, denying hereditary honors, it is true, as unjust and unneces-
sary, but not denying the inevitable consequences of civilization. . . .

The democratic gentleman must differ in many essential particu-
lars from the aristocratical gentleman, though in their ordinary
habits and tastes they are virtually identical. Their principles vary,
and, to a slight degree, their deportment accordingly. The democrat,
recognizing the right of all to participate in power, will be more
liberal in his general sentiments, a quality of superiority in itself;
but, in conceding this much to his fellow man, he will proudly
maintain his own independence of vulgar domination, as indispen-

592

sable to his personal habits. The same principles and manliness
that would induce him to depose a royal despot would induce him
to resist a vulgar tyrant.

There is no ... more common error than to suppose him an
aristocrat who maintains his independence of habits; for democracy
asserts the control of the majority only in matters of law, and not
in matters of custom. The very object of the institution is the ut-
most practicable personal liberty, and to affirm the contrary would
be sacrificing the end to the means.

An aristocrat, therefore, is merely one who fortifies his exclusive
privileges by positive institutions; and a democrat, one who is will-
ing to admit of a free competition in all things. To say, however,
that the last supposes this competition will lead to nothing, is an
assumption that means are employed without any reference to an
end. He is the purest democrat who best maintains his rights, and
no rights can be dearer to a man of cultivation than exemptions
from unseasonable invasions on his time by the coarse-minded and
ignorant.

The American Democrat, 1838

3. Self-Reliance

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the
place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your
contemporaries, the connection of events. Great men have always
done so, and confided themselves childlike to the genius of their
age, betraying their perception that the absolutely trustworthy was
seated at their heart, working through their hands, predominating
in all their being. And we are now men, and must accept in the
highest mind the same transcendent destiny; and not minors and
invalids in a protected corner, not cowards fleeing before a revolu-
tion, but guides, redeemers and benefactors, obeying the Almighty
effort and advancing on Chaos and the Dark.

What pretty oracles nature yields us on this text in the face and
behavior of children, babes, and even brutes! That divided and
rebel mind, that distrust of a sentiment because our arithmetic has
computed the strength and means opposed to our purpose, these
have not. Their mind being whole, their eye is as yet unconquered,

593

and when we look in their faces we are disconcerted. Infancy con-
forms to nobody; all conform to it; so that one babe commonly
makes four or five out of the adults who prattle and play to it. So
God has armed youth and puberty and manhood no less with its
own piquancy and charm, and made it enviable and gracious and
its claims not to be put by, if it will stand by itself. Do not think
the youth has no force, because he cannot speak to you and me.
Hark! in the next room his voice is sufficiently clear and emphatic.
It seems he knows how to speak to his contemporaries. Bashful or
bold then, he will know how to make us seniors very unnecessary.

The nonchalance of boys who are sure of a dinner, and would
disdain as much as a lord to do or say aught to conciliate one, is
the healthy attitude of human nature. A boy is in the parlor what
the pit is in the playhouse; independent, irresponsible, looking out
from his corner on such people and facts as pass by, he tries and
sentences them on their merits, in the swift, summary way of boys,
as good, bad, interesting, silly, eloquent, troublesome. He cumbers
himself never about consequences, about interests; he gives an in-
dependent, genuine verdict. You must court him; he does not court
you. But the man is as it were clapped into jail by his consciousness.
As soon as he has once acted or spoken with eclat he is a committed
person, watched by the sympathy or the hatred of hundreds, whose
affections must now enter into his account. There is no Lethe for
this. Ah, that he could pass again into his neutrality! Who can thus
avoid all pledges and, having observed, observe again from the same
unaffected, unbiased, unbribable, unaffrighted innocence, — must al-
ways be formidable. He would utter opinions on all passing affairs,
which being seen to be not private but necessary, would sink like
darts into the ear of men and put them in fear.

These are the voices which we hear in solitude, but they grow
faint and inaudible as we enter into the world. Society everywhere
is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members.
Society is a joint-stock company, in which the members agree, for
the better securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the
liberty and culture of the eater. The virtue in most request is con-
formity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators,
but names and customs.

Whoso would be a man, must be a non-conformist. He who
would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of
goodness, but must explore if it be goodness. Nothing is at last
sacred but the integrity of your own mind.

Essays, 1841

594

4. American Government

HENRY THOREAU

This American government,— what is it but a tradition, though
a recent one, endeavoring to transmit itself unimpaired to posterity,
but each instant losing some of its integrity ? It has not the vitality
and force of a single living man; for a single man can bend it to
his will. It is a sort of wooden gun to the people themselves. But
it is not the less necessary for this; for the people must have some
complicated machinery or other, and hear its din, to satisfy that
idea of government which they have. Governments show thus how
successfully men can be imposed on, even impose on themselves,
for their own advantage. It is excellent, we must all allow. Yet
this government never of itself furthered any enterprise, but by the
alacrity with which it got out of its way. It does not keep the coun-
try free. It does not settle the West. It does not educate. The char-
acter inherent in the American people has done all that has been
accomplished; and it would have done somewhat more, if the
government had not sometimes got in its way. For government is
an expedient by which men would fain succeed in letting one
another alone; and, as has been said, when it is most expedient, the
governed are most let alone by it. Trade and commerce, if they
were not made of India-rubber, would never manage to bounce
over the obstacles which legislators are continually putting in their
way; and, if one were to judge these men wholly by the effects of
their actions and not partly by their intentions, they would deserve
to be classed and punished with those mischievous persons who put
obstructions on the railroads.

Civil Disobedience, 1849

5. Panacea for the Republic

HORACE MANN

The distinctive and substantial difference between a Republic
and a Despotism, consists in the sovereignty or the subjection of
the people composing them. There may be the form and theory
of an arbitrary government, while the nominal possessors of power

595

feel constrained to yield continual deference to the popular voice.
On the other hand, there may be a written constitution, and all the
administrative ,forms of a free government, while a portion of the
people are incapable of understanding a single one of all the mo-
mentous questions which are submitted to their decision; and who,
therefore, are as much governed by others, in all the votes they
give, in all the dogmas they take up, and in all the party watch-
words they shout, as the subjects of the sternest despotism are gov-
erned by their hereditary masters. The means of government may
be different, but the abjectness and servility of the governed are as
real in the one case, as in the other; and the factionist or demagogue
who inflames or wheedles, is as irresponsible as the lord who com-
mands. Now, in a republic, the number, or proportion, of this class,
who never think for themselves, and who therefore always act at
the dictation of others; and who, as a necessary consequence, fall,
by force of their own gravitation, into the hands of selfish and
profligate men, — this number may go on increasing from year to
year, until they become a majority of the whole; or, at least, until
in all cases of emergency, they hold the balance of power, while
the forms of the republic may remain unchanged, — nay, these very
forms may be converted into a more efficient engine than ever be-
fore existed for wielding the selfish and irresponsible power which
is the most execrable element in despotism itself. One after another,
intelligent and conscientious men may drop out of the ranks, and
their places be supplied by those whom ignorance and imbecility
have prepared to become slaves, until, by a transition so gradual
and stealthy, as to excite no alarm, the nominal republic may be-
come an actual oligarchy, — a government of a select few, — not how-
ever, the selected best, but the selected worst.

There is no antidote or preventive against such a national ca-
tastrophe, but in the education of the whole people. But if the
people do not improve the opportunities that exist, the fact of their
existence will not avert the catastrophe. Viewed from this point, we
catch a glimpse of the incalculable wrong committed by those
parents and guardians who cause, or who tolerate, the absence of
their children from school. Their conduct, indeed, seems inexplica-
ble, on any hypothesis of human nature which does not deny to it
the possession, both of reason and conscience. The schoolhouse has
been erected and furnished, the books and apparatus have been
provided, the teacher has been employed, the money for meeting
all the expenses has been appropriated; and yet, at the very place
and time where all these means have been brought together, and

596

where they are to be transmuted into knowledge, and morality,
and happiness, and to be bestowed upon the children, those chil-
dren turn away, as if disdaining to accept the boon.

Ninth Annual Report of the Board of Education, 1845

6. Letter to Horace Greeley

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Executive Mansion, Washington,
August 22, 1862.
HON. HORACE GREELEY.

Dear Sir: I have just read yours of the i9th, addressed to myself
through the New York Tribune. If there be in it any statements or
assumptions of fact which I may know to be erroneous, I do not,
now and here, controvert them. If there be in it any inferences
which I may believe to be falsely drawn, I do not, now and here,
argue against them. If there be perceptible in it an impatient and
dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to an old friend whose heart
I have always supposed to be right.

As to the policy I "seem to be pursuing," as you say, I have not
meant to leave any one in doubt.

I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under
the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored,
the nearer the Union will be "the Union it was." If there be those
who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time
save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would
not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy
slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this
struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy
slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I
would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would
do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others
alone, I would also do that. What I do about slavery and the col-
oured race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and
what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to
save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am
doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe

597

doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when
shown to be errors, and I shall adopt new views so fast as they
shall appear to be true views.

I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official
duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal
wish that all men everywhere could be free.

Yours,

A. LINCOLN

7. The Coach of Society

EDWARD BELLAMY

By way of attempting to give the reader some general impression
of the way people lived together in those days, and especially of
the relations of the rich and poor to one another, perhaps I cannot
do better than to compare society as it then was to a prodigious
coach which the masses of humanity were harnessed to and dragged
toilsomely along a very hilly and sandy road. The driver was hunger,
and permitted no lagging, though the pace was necessarily slow.
Despite the difficulty of drawing the coach at all along so hard a
road, the top was covered with passengers who never got down, even
at the steepest ascents. These seats on top were very breezy and
comfortable. Well up out of the dust, their occupants could enjoy
the scenery at their leisure, or critically discuss the merits of the
straining team. Naturally such places were in great demand and
the competition for them was keen, every one seeking as the first
end in life to secure a seat on the coach for himself and to leave it
to his child after him. By the rule of the coach a man could leave
his seat to whom he wished, but on the other hand there were
many accidents by which it might at any time be wholly lost. For
all that they were so easy, the seats were very insecure, and at every
sudden jolt of the coach persons were slipping out of them and
falling to the ground, where they were instantly compelled to take
hold of the rope and help to drag the coach on which they had
before ridden so pleasantly. It was naturally regarded as a terrible
misfortune to lose one's seat, and the apprehension that this might
happen to them or their friends was a constant cloud upon the
happiness of those who rode.

But did they think only of themselves? you ask. Was not their

598

very luxury rendered intolerable to them by comparison with the
lot of their brothers and sisters in the harness, and the knowledge
that their own weight added to their toil? Had they no compassion
for fellow beings from whom fortune only distinguished them?
Oh, yes; commiseration was frequently expressed by those who
rode for those who had to pull the coach, especially when the ve-
hicle came to a bad place in the road, as it was constantly doing,
or to a particularly steep hill. At such times, the desperate straining
of the team, their agonized leaping and plunging under the pitiless
lashing of hunger, the many who fainted at the rope and were
trampled in the mire, made a very distressing spectacle, which often
called forth highly creditable displays of feeling on the top of the
coach. At such times the passengers would call down encouragingly
to the toilers of the rope, exhorting them to patience, and holding
out hopes of possible compensation in another world for the hard-
ness of their lot, while others contributed to buy salves and lini-
ments fdr the crippled and injured. It was agreed that it was a great
pity that the coach should be so hard to pull, and there was a sense
of general relief when the specially bad piece of road was gotten
over. This relief was not, indeed, wholly on account of the team,
for there was always some danger at these bad places of a general
overturn in which all would lose their seats.

Looking Backward, 1887

8. The Class Struggle

JACK LONDON

Unfortunately or otherwise, people are prone to believe in the
reality of the things they think ought to be so. This comes of the
cheery optimism which is innate with life itself; and, while it may
sometimes be deplored, it must never be censured, for, as a rule, it
is productive of more good than harm, and of about all the achieve-
ment there is in the world. There are cases where this optimism has
been disastrous, as with the people who lived in Pompeii during its
last quivering days; or with the aristocrats of the time of Louis XVI,
who confidently expected the Deluge to overwhelm their children,
or their children's children, but never themselves. But there is small
likelihood that the case of perverse optimism here to be considered
will end in such disaster, while there is every reason to believe that

599

the great change will be as peaceful and orderly in its culmination
as it is in its present development.

Out of their « constitutional optimism, and because a class struggle
is an abhorred and dangerous thing, the great American people are
unanimous in asserting that there is no class struggle. And by
"American people" is meant the recognized and authoritative mouth-
pieces of the American people, which are the press, the pulpit, and
the university. The journalists, the preachers, and the professors
are practically of one voice in declaring that there is no such thing
as a class struggle now going on, much less that a class struggle will
ever go on, in the United States. And this declaration they contin-
ually make in the face of a multitude of facts which impeach, not
so much their sincerity, as affirm, rather, their optimism.

There are two ways of approaching the subject of the class strug-
gle. The existence of this struggle can be shown theoretically, and
it can be shown actually. For a class struggle to exist in society
there must be a superior class and an inferior class (as measured by
power); and, second, the outlets must be closed whereby the
strength and ferment of the inferior class have been permitted to
escape.

That there are even classes in the United States is vigorously de-
nied by many; but it is incontrovertible, when a group of indi-
viduals is formed, wherein the members are bound together by
common interests which are peculiarly their interests and not the
interests of individuals outside the group, that such a group is a
class. The owners of capital, with their dependents, form a class of
this nature in the United States; the working people form a similar
class. The interest of the capitalist class, say, in the matter of in-
come tax, is quite contrary to the interest of the laboring class; and,
vice versa, in the matter of poll-tax.

If between these two classes there be a clear and vital conflict of
interest, all the factors are present which make a class struggle; but
this struggle will lie dormant if the strong and capable members
of the inferior class be permitted to leave that class and join the
ranks of the superior class. The capitalist class and the working
class have existed side by side and for a long time in the United
States; but hitherto all the strong, energetic members of the work-
ing class have been able to rise out of their class and become owners
of capital. They were enabled to do this because an undeveloped
country with an expanding frontier gave equality of opportunity to
all. In the almost lottery-like scramble for the ownership of vast
unowned natural resources, and in the exploitation of which there

6OO

was little or no competition of capital, (the capital itself rising out
of the exploitation), the capable, intelligent member of the working
class found a field in which to use his brains to his own advance-
ment. Instead of being discontented in direct ratio with his in-
telligence and ambitions, and of radiating amongst his fellows a
spirit of revolt as capable as he is capable, he left them to their
fate and carved his own way to a place in the superior class.

But the day of an expanding frontier, of a lottery-like scramble
for the ownership of natural resources, and of the upbuilding of
new industries, is past. Farthest West has been reached, and an
immense volume of surplus capital roams for investment and nips
in the bud the patient efforts of the embryo capitalist to rise through
slow increment from small beginnings. The gateway of opportunity
after opportunity has been closed, and closed for all time. Rocke-
feller has shut the door on oil, the American Tobacco Company on
tobacco, and Carnegie on steel. After Carnegie came Morgan, who
triple-locked the door. These doors will not open again, and before
them pause thousands of ambitious young men to read the placard:

NO THOROUGHFARE.

And day by day more doors are shut, while the ambitious young
men continue to be born. It is they, denied the opportunity to rise
from the working class, who preach revolt to the working class.
Had he been born fifty years later, Andrew Carnegie, the poor
Scotch boy, might have risen to be president of his union, or of a
federation of unions; but that he would never have become the
builder of Homestead, and the founder of multitudinous libraries,
is as certain as it is certain that some other man would have de-
veloped the steel industry had Andrew Carnegie never been born.

Theoretically, then, there exist in the United States all the factors
which go to make a class struggle. There are the capitalists and
working classes, the interests of which conflict, while the working
class is no longer being emasculated to the extent it was in the past
by having drawn off from it its best blood and brains. Its more
capable members are no longer able to rise out of it and leave the
great mass leaderless and helpless. They remain to be its leaders.

The War of the Classes, 1905

60 1

9. Le Contrat Social

H. L. MENCKEN

All government, in its essence, is a conspiracy against the su-
perior man: its one permanent object is to police him and cripple
him. If it be aristocratic in organization, then it seeks to protect the
man who is superior only in law against the man who is superior
in fact; if it be democratic, then it seeks to protect the man who is
inferior in every way against both. Thus one of its primary func-
tions is to regiment men by force, to make them as much alike as
possible and as dependent upon one another as possible, to search
out and combat originality among them. All it can see in an original
idea is potential change, and hence an invasion of its prerogatives.
The most dangerous man, to any government, is the man who is
able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevail-
ing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the
conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane
and intolerable, and so, if he is romantic, he tries to change it. And
even if he is not romantic personally he is very apt to spread dis-
content among those who are. Ludwig van Beethoven was cer-
tainly no politician. Nor was he a patriot. Nor had he any democratic
illusions in him : he held the Viennese in even more contempt than
he held the Hapsburgs. Nevertheless, I am convinced that the sharp
criticism of the Hapsburg government that he used to loose in the
cafes of Vienna had its effects — that some of his ideas of 1818, after
a century of germination, got themselves translated into acts in
1918. Beethoven, like all other first-rate men, greatly disliked the
government he lived under. I add the names of Goethe, Heine,
Wagner and Nietzsche, to keep among Germans. That of Bismarck
might follow: he admired the Hohenzollern idea, as Carlyle did,
not the German people or the German administration. In his "Er-
rinerungen," whenever he discusses the government that he was a
part of, he has difficulty keeping his contempt within the bounds
of decorum.

Nine times out of ten, it seems to me, the man who proposes a
change in the government he lives under, no matter how defective
it may be, is romantic to the verge of sentimentality. There is seldom,
if ever, any evidence that the kind of government he is unlawfully
inclined to would be any better than the government he proposes to
supplant. Political revolutions, in truth, do not often accomplish

6O2

anything of genuine value; their one undoubted effect is simply
to throw out one gang of thieves and put in another. After a revo-
lution, of course, the successful revolutionists always try to convince
doubters that they have achieved great things, and usually they
hang any man who denies it. But that surely doesn't prove their
case. In Russia, for many years, the plain people were taught that
getting rid of the Czar would make them all rich and happy, but
now that they have got rid of him they are poorer and unhappier
than ever before. The Germans, with the Kaiser in exile, have dis-
covered that a shoemaker turned statesman is ten times as bad as a
Hohenzollern. The Alsatians, having become Frenchmen again
after 48 years anxious wait, have responded to the boon by becom-
ing extravagant Germano-maniacs. The Tyrolese, though they
hated the Austrians, now hate the Italians enormously more. The
Irish, having rid themselves of the English after 700 years of strug-
gle, instantly discovered that government by Englishmen, compared
to government by Irishmen, was almost paradisiacal. Even the
American colonies gained little by their revolt in 1776. For twenty-
five years after the Revolution they were in far worse conditions as
free states than they would have been as colonies. Their government
was more expensive, more inefficient, more dishonest, and more
tyrannical. It was only the gradual material progress of the country
that saved them from starvation and collapse, and that material
progress was due, not to the virtues of their new government, but
to the lavishness of nature. Under the British hoof they would have
got on just as well, and probably a great deal better.

The ideal government of all reflective men, from Aristotle to
Herbert Spencer, is one which lets the individual alone — one which
barely escapes being no government at all. This ideal, I believe,
will be realized in the world twenty or thirty centuries after I have
passed from these scenes and taken up my home in Hell.

Prejudices: Third Series, 1922

10. America for Humanity

WOODROW WILSON

I like to image in my thought this ideal. These quiet ships lying
in the river have no suggestion of bluster about them — no intima-
tion of aggression. They are commanded by men thoughtful of

603

the duty of citizens as well as the duty of officers — men acquainted
with the traditions of the great service to which they belong — men
who know by, touch with the people of the United States what sort
of purposes they ought to entertain and what sort of discretion they
ought to exercise, in order to use those engines of force as engines
to promote the interests of humanity.

The mission of America is the only thing that a sailor or soldier
should think about: he has nothing to do with the formulation of
her policy; he is to support her policy, whatever it is — but he is to
support her policy in the spirit of herself, and the strength of our
policy is that we, who for the time being administer the affairs of
this nation, do not originate her spirit; we attempt to embody it;
we attempt to realize it in action; we are dominated by it, we do
not dictate it.

And so with every man in arms who serves the nation — he stands
and waits to do the thing which the nation desires. America some-
times seems perhaps to forget her programs, or, rather, I would
say that sometimes those who represent her seem to forget her
programs, but the people never forget them. It is as startling as it
is touching to see how whenever you touch a principle you touch
the hearts of the people of the United States. They listen to your
debates of policy, they determine which party they will prefer to
power, they choose and prefer as ordinary men; but their real af-
fection, their real force, their real irresistible momentum, is for the
ideas, which men embody.

The Forum of Democracy, 1917

11. Private Leslie Yawfitz

WILLIAM MARCH

After supper I clear the table and wash the dishes, while my
sister sits in a chair and tells me about her work at the office, or
reads the morning paper out loud. One night she came on an item
about the French Academy honoring the German scientist, Einstein,
and conferring some sort of an honorary degree upon him. There
were a lot of speeches made about the healing of old wounds, hands
across the border, mutual trust and confidence, misunderstanding,
etc. There was a picture of the ceremony, and my sister described
that also.

604

"If it was a mistake and a misunderstanding all the way round,
what was the sense of fighting at all?" I asked. I put down the dish
cloth and felt my way to the table.

My sister sighed, as if she were very tired, but she did not answer
me.

"Since they're all apologizing and being so God-damned polite
to each other," I continued, "I think somebody should write me
a note on pink stationery as follows: 'Dear Mr. Yawfitz: Please
pardon us for having shot out your eyes. It was all a mistake. Do
you mind awfully?'"

"Don't get bitter again, Leslie," said my sister.

"I know," I said. "I know."

"Don't get bitter again, Leslie. Please don't get bitter."

Then I went back to the sink and finished wiping the dishes.

Company K, 1933

12. Unemployed: 2 A.M.

S. FUNAROFF

The park lamp in reverie.

The nervous leaves rustle in palegreen light.

Here on a bench an old woman is sleeping.
Her head droops limp against her breast
rising and falling like the bow of the fountain
all night long whisperweeping:
sleep sleep.

And the men with bared feet in the grass: —
their tired, heavy bodies hug the earth;
they mutter strange words in far away voices.
The cool soft grass is soothing:
hush ah hush.

The waterfront nearby smells like a black restless wind.
A horn uneasy calling moans far off —
outcries of unrest in a dream.

The Spider and the Cloc\, 1938

605

13. I Am the People, the Mob

CARL SANDBURG

I AM the people — the mob — the crowd — the mass.

Do you know that all the great work of the world is done through
me?

I am the workingman, the inventor, the maker of the world's food
and clothes.

I am the audience that witnesses history. The Napoleons come
from me and the Lincolns. They die. And then I send forth
more Napoleons and Lincolns.

I am the seed ground. I am a prairie that will stand for much plow-
ing. Terrible storms pass over me. I forget. The best of me is
sucked out and wasted. I forget. Everything but Death comes
to me and makes me work and give up what I have. And I
forget.

Sometimes I growl, shake myself and spatter a few red drops for
history to remember. Then — I forget.

When I, the People, learn to remember, when I, the People, use
the lessons of yesterday and no longer forget who robbed me
last year, who played me for a fool — then there will be no
speaker in all the world say the name: "The People," with
any fleck of a sneer in his voice or any far-off smile of derision.

The mob — the crowd — the mass — will arrive then.

Chicago Poems, 1916

14. A Tall Man

CARL SANDBURG

The mouth of this man is a gaunt strong mouth.
The head of this man is a gaunt strong head.

The jaws of this man are bone of the Rocky Mountains, the Ap-
palachians.

The eyes of this man are chlorine of two sobbing oceans,

Foam, salt, green, wind, the changing unknown.

The neck of this man is pith of buffalo prairie, old longing and
new beckoning of corn belt or cotton belt,

606

Either a proud Sequoia trunk of the wilderness

Or huddling lumber of a sawmill waiting to be a roof.

Brother mystery to man and mob mystery,

Brother cryptic to lifted cryptic hands,

He is night and abyss, he is white sky of sun, he is the head of the

people.

The heart of him the red drops of the people,
The wish of him the steady gray-eagle crag-hunting flights of the

people.

Humble dust of a wheel-worn road,

Slashed sod under the iron-shining plow,

These of service in him, these and many cities, many borders, many
wrangles between Alaska and the Isthmus, between the Isthmus
and the Horn, and east and west of Omaha, and east and west
of Paris, Berlin, Petrograd.

The blood in his right wrist and the blood in his left wrist run
with the right wrist wisdom of the many and the left wrist
wisdom of the many.

It is the many he knows, the gaunt strong hunger of the many.

CornhusJ(ers, 1918

607

The Fortune of the Rcpublu

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

It is a rule that holds in economy as well as in hydraulics that
you must have a source higher than your tap. The mills, the shops,
the theatre and the caucus, the college and the church, have all
found out this secret. The sailors sail by chronometers that do not
lose two or three seconds in a year, ever since Newton explained
to Parliament that the way to improve navigation was to get good
watches, and to offer public premiums for. a better time-keeper
than any then in use. The manufacturers rely on turbines of hy-
draulic perfection; the carpet-mill, on mordants and dyes which
exhaust the skill of the chemist; the calico print, on designers of
genius who draw the wages of artists, not of artisans. Wedgwood,
the eminent potter, bravely took the sculptor Flaxman to counsel,
who said, "Send to Italy, search the museums for the forms of old
Etruscan vases, urns, waterpots, domestic and sacrificial vessels of
all kinds." They built great works and called their manufacturing
village Etruria. Flaxman, with his Greek taste, selected and com-
bined the loveliest forms, which were executed in English clay;
sent boxes of these gifts to every court of Europe, and formed the
taste of the world. It was a renaissance of the breakfast-table and
china-closet. The brave manufacturers made their fortune. The
jewellers imitated the revived models in silver and gold.

The theatre avails itself of the best talent of poet, of painter, and
of amateur of taste, to make the ensemble of dramatic effect. The
marine insurance office has its mathematical counsellor to settle
averages; the life-assurance, its table of annuities. The wine-mer-
chant has his analyst and taster, the more exquisite the better. He
has also, I fear, his debts to the chemist as well as to the vineyard.

Our modern wealth stands on a few staples, and the interest na-
tions took in our war was exasperated by the importance of the
cotton trade. And what is cotton? One plant out of some two hun-
dred thousand known to the botanist, vastly the larger part of which
are reckoned weeds. What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have
not yet been discovered, — every one of the two hundred thousand
probably yet to be of utility in the arts. As Bacchus of the vine,

608

Ceres of the wheat, as Arkwright and Whitney were the demi-gods
of cotton, so prolific Time will yet bring an inventor to every plant.
There is not a property in Nature but a mind is born to seek and
find it. For it is not the plants or the animals, innumerable as they
are, nor the whole magazine of material nature that can give the
sum of power, but the infinite applicability of these things in the
hands of thinking man, every new application being equivalent to
a new material. . . .

Now, if this is true in all the useful and in the fine arts, that
the direction must be drawn from a superior source or there will
be no good work, does it hold less in our social and civil life?

In our popular politics you may note that each aspirant who
rises above the crowd, however at first making his obedient ap-
prenticeship in party tactics, if he have sagacity, soon learns that
it is by no means by obeying the vulgar weathercock of his party,
the resentments, the fears and whims of it, that real power is gained,
but that he must often face and resist the party, and abide by his
resistance, and put them in fear; that the only title to their perma-
nent respect, and to a larger following, is to see for himself what
is the real public interest, and to stand for that; — that is a principle,
and all the cheering and hissing of the crowd must by and by ac-
commodate itself to it. Our times easily afford you very good ex-
amples. . . .

At every moment some one country more than any other repre-
sents the sentiment and the future of mankind. None will doubt
that America occupies this place in the opinion of nations, as is
proved by the fact of the vast immigration into this country from
all the nations of Western and Central Europe. And when the
adventurers have planted themselves and looked about, they send
back all the money they can spare to bring their friends.

Meantime they find this country just passing through a great
crisis in its history, as necessary as lactation or dentition or puberty
to the human individual. We are in these days settling for our-
selves and our descendants questions which, as they shall be de-
termined in one way or the other, will make the peace and pros-
perity or the calamity of the next ages. The questions of Education,
of Society, of Labor, the direction of talent, of character, the nature
and habits of the American, may well occupy us, and more the
question of Religion.

The new conditions of mankind in America are really favorable
to progress, the removal of absurd restrictions and antique inequali-
ties. The mind is always better the more it is used, and here it is

609

kept in practice. The humblest is daily challenged to give his opin-
ion on practical questions, and while civil and social freedom
exists, nonsense even has a favorable effect. Cant is good to pro-
voke common sense. . . . The trance-mediums, the rebel paradoxes,
exasperate the common sense. The wilder the paradox, the more
sure is Punch to put it in the pillory.

The lodging the power in the people, as in republican forms, has
the effect of holding things closer to common sense; for a court or
an aristocracy, which must always be a small minority, can more
easily run into follies than a republic, which has too many observers
— each with a vote in his hand — to allow its head to be turned by
any kind of nonsense: since hunger, thirst, cold, the cries of chil-
dren and debt are always holding the masses hard to the essential
duties.

One hundred years ago the American people attempted to carry
out the bill of political rights to an almost ideal perfection. They
have made great strides in that direction since. They are now pro-
ceeding, instructed by their success and by their many failures, to
carry out, not the bill of rights, but the bill of human duties.

And look what revolution that attempt involves. Hitherto gov-
ernment has been that of the single person or of the aristocracy.
In this country the attempt to resist these elements, it is asserted,
must throw us into the government not quite of mobs, but in prac-
tice of an inferior class of professional politicians, who by means
of newspapers and caucuses really thrust their unworthy minority
into the place of the old aristocracy on the one side, and of the
good, industrious, well-taught but unambitious population on the
other, win the posts of power and give their direction to affairs.
Hence liberal congresses and legislature ordain, to the surprise of
the people, equivocal, interested and vicious measures. The men
themselves are suspected and charged with lobbying and being
lobbied. No measure is attempted for itself, but the opinion of the
people is courted in the first place, and the measures are perfunc-
torily carried through as secondary. We do not choose our own
candidate, no, nor any other man's first choice, — but only the avail-
able candidate, whom, perhaps, no man loves. We do not speak
what we think, but grope after the practicable and available. Instead
of character, there is a studious exclusion of character. The people
are feared and flattered. They are not reprimanded. The country is
governed in bar-rooms. The low can best win the low, and each

610

aspirant for power vies with his rival which can stoop lowest, and
depart widest from himself. . . .

The spirit of our political economy is low and degrading. The
precious metals are not so precious as they are esteemed. Man exists
for his own sake, and not to add a laborer to the state. The spirit
of our political action, for the most part, considers nothing less than
the sacredness of man. Party sacrifices man to the measure.

We have seen the great party of property and education in the
country drivelling and huckstering away, for views of party fear or
advantage, every principle of humanity and the dearest hopes of
mankind; the trustees of power only energetic when mischief could
be done, imbecile as corpses when evil was to be prevented.

Our great men succumb so far to the forms of the day as to
peril their integrity for the sake of adding to the weight of their
personal character the authority of office, or making a real govern-
ment titular. Our politics are full of adventurers, who having by
education and social innocence a good repute in the state, break away
from the law of honesty and think they can afford to join the devil's
party. Tis odious, these offenders in high life. You rally to the
support of old charities and the cause of literature, and there, to be
sure, are these brazen faces. In this innocence you are puzzled how
to meet them; must shake hands with them, under protest. We feel
toward them as the minister about the Cape Cod farm, — in the old
time when the minister was still invited, in the spring, to make a
prayer for the blessing of a piece of land, — the good pastor being
brought to the spot, stopped short: "No, this land does not want a
prayer, this land wants manure."

'Tis virtue which they want, and wanting it,
Honor no garment to their backs can fit.

Parties keep the old names, but exhibit a surprising fugacity in
creeping out of one snake-skin into another of equal ignominy and
lubricity, and the grasshopper on the turret of Faneuil Hall gives a
proper hint of the men below.

Everything yields. The very glaciers are viscous, or relegate into
conformity, and the stiff est patriots falter and compromise; so that
will cannot be depended on to save us.

How rare are acts of will! We are all living according to custom;
we do as other people do, and shrink from an act of our own.
Every such act makes a man famous, and we can all count the few
cases — half a dozen in our time — when a public man ventured to

611

act as he thought without waiting for orders or for public opinion.
John Quincy Adams was a man of an audacious independence that
always kept the public curiosity alive in regard to what he might do.
None could predict his word, and a whole congress could not gain-
say it when it was spoken. General Jackson was a man of will, and
his phrase on one memorable occasion, "I will take the responsi-
bility," is a proverb ever since.

The American marches with a careless swagger to the height of
power, very heedless of his own liberty or of other peoples', in his
reckless confidence that he can have all he wants, risking all the
prized charters of the human race, bought with battles and revolu-
tions and religion, gambling them all away for a paltry selfish gain.

He sits secure in the possession of his vast domain, rich beyond all
experience in resources, sees its inevitable force unlocking itself in
elemental order day by day, year by year; look* from his coal-fields,
his wheat-bearing prairie, his gold-mines, to his two oceans on
either side, and feels the security that there can be no famine in a
country reaching through so many latitudes, no want that cannot be
supplied, no danger from any excess of importation of art or learn-
ing into a country of such native strength, such immense digestive
power.

In proportion to the personal ability of each man, he feels the in-
vitation and career which the country opens to him. He is easily fed
with wheat and game, with Ohio wine, but his brain is also
pampered by finer draughts, by political power and by the power
in the railroad board, in the mills, or the banks. This elevates his
spirits, and gives, of course, an easy self-reliance that makes him
self-willed and unscrupulous.

I think this levity is a reaction on the people from the extraor-
dinary advantages and invitations of their condition. When we
are most disturbed by their rash and immoral voting, it is not
malignity, but recklessness. They are careless of politics, because they
do not entertain the possibility of being seriously caught in meshes
of legislation. They feel strong and irresistible. They believe that
what they have enacted they can repeal if they do not like it. But
one may run a risk once too often. They stay away from the polls,
saying that one vote can do no good! Or they take another step, and
say "One vote can do no harm!" and vote for something which they
do not approve, because their party or set votes for it. Of course this*
puts them in the power of any party having a steady interest to
promote which does not conflict manifestly with the pecuniary
interest of the voters. But if they should come to be interested in

6l2

themselves and in their career, they would no more stay away from
the election than from their own counting-room or the house of
their friend.

The people are right-minded enough on ethical questions, but
they must pay their debts, and must have the means of living well,
and not pinching. So it is useless to rely on them to go to a meeting,
or to give a vote, if any check from this must-have-the-money side
arises. If a customer looks grave at their newspaper, or damns their
member of Congress, they take another newspaper, and vote for
another man. They must have money, for a certain style of living
fast becomes necessary; they must take wine at the hotel, first, for the
look of it, and second, for the purpose of sending the bottle to
two or three gentlemen at the table; and presently because they
have got the taste, and do not feel that they have dined without
it.

The record of the election now and then alarms people by the all
but unanimous choice of a rogue and a brawler. But how was it
done? What lawless mob burst into the polls and threw in these
hundreds of ballots in defiance of the magistrates? This was done
by the very men you know, — the mildest, most sensible, best-
natured people. The only account of this is, that they have been
scared or warped into some association in their mind of the candidate
with the interest of their trade or of their property.

Whilst each cabal urges its candidate, and at last brings, with
cheers and street demonstrations, men whose names are a knell to all
hope of progress, the good and wise are hidden in their active retire-
ments, and are quite out of question.

These we must join to wake, for these are of the strain
That justice dare defend, and will the age maintain.

Yet we know, all over this country, men of integrity, capable of
action and of affairs, with the deepest sympathy in all that con-
cerns the public, mortified by the national disgrace, and quite
capable of any sacrifice except of their honor.

Faults in the working appear in our system, as in all, but they
suggest their own remedies. After every practical mistake out of
which any disaster grows, the people wake and correct it with
energy. And any disturbances in politics, in civil or foreign wars,
sober them, and instantly show more virtue and conviction in the

613

popular vote. In each new threat of faction the ballot has been, be-
yond expectation, right decisive.

It is ever an inspiration, God only knows whence; a sudden, un-
dated perception of eternal right coming into and correcting things
that were wrong; a perception that passes through thousands as
readily as through one.

The gracious lesson taught by science to this country is that the
history of Nature from first to last is incessant advance from less to
more, from rude to finer organization, the globe of matter thus
conspiring with the principle of undying hope in man. Nature
works in immense time, and spends individuals and races prodigally
to prepare new individuals and races. The lower kinds are one
after one extinguished; the higher forms come in. The history of
civilization, or the refining of certain races to wonderful power of
performance, is analogous; but the best civilization yet is only
valuable as a ground of hope.

Ours is the country of poor men. Here is practical democracy;
here is the human race poured out over the continent to do itself
justice; all mankind in its shirtsleeves; not grimacing like poor
rich men in cities, pretending to be rich, but unmistakably taking
off its coat to hard work, when labor is sure to pay. This through
all the country. For really, though you see wealth in the capitals, it is
only a sprinkling of rich men in the cities and at sparse points; the
bulk of the population is poor. In Maine, nearly every man is a
lumberer. In Massachusetts, every twelfth man is a shoemaker, and
the rest, millers, farmers, sailors, fishermen.

Well, the result is, instead of the doleful experience of the
European economist, who tells us, "In almost all countries the
condition of the great body of the people is poor and miserable,"
here that same great body has arrived at a sloven plenty, — ham and
corn-cakes, tight roof and coals enough have been attained; an
unbuttoned comfort, not clean, not thoughtful, far from polished,
without dignity in his repose; the man awkward and restless if he
have not something to do, but honest and kind for the most part,
understanding his own rights and stiff to maintain them, and
disposed to give his children a better education than he received.

The steady improvement of the public schools in the cities and the
country enables the farmer or laborer to secure a precious primary
education. It is rare to find a born American who cannot read and"
write. The facility with which clubs are formed by young men for
discussion of social, political and intellectual topics secures the
notoriety of the questions.

614

Our institutions, of which the town is the unit, are all educational,
for responsibility educates fast. The town-meeting is, after the high-
school, a higher school. The legislature, to which every good farmer
goes once on trial, is a superior academy.

The result appears in the power of invention, the freedom of
thinking, in the readiness for reforms, eagerness for novelty, even
for all the follies of false science; in the antipathy to secret societies,
in the predominance of the democratic party in the politics of the
Union, and in the voice of the public even when irregular and
vicious, — the voice of mobs, the voice of lynch law, — because it is
thought to be, on the whole, the verdict, though badly spoken, of
the greatest number.

All this forwardness and self-reliance, cover self-government;
proceed on the belief that as the people have made a government
they can make another; that their union and law are not in
their memory, but in their blood and condition. If they un-
make a law, they can easily make a new one. In Mr. Webster's
imagination the American Union was a huge Prince Rupert's
drop, which will snap into atoms if so much as the smallest
end be shivered off. Now the fact is quite different from this.

• • •

We began with freedom, and are defended from shocks now for
a century by the facility with which through popular assemblies
every necessary measure of reform can instantly be carried. A
congress is a standing insurrection, and escapes the violence of
accumulated grievance. As the globe keeps its identity by perpetual
change, so our civil system, by perpetual appeal to the people and
acceptance of its reforms. . . .

The men, the women, all over this land shrill their exclamations of
impatience and indignation at what is short-coming or is unbecom-
ing in the government, — at the want of humanity, of morality, —
ever on broad grounds of general justice, and not on the class-
feeling which narrows the perception of English, French, German
people at home.

In this fact, that we are a nation of individuals, that we have a
highly intellectual organization, that we can see and feel moral
distinctions, and that on such an organization sooner or later the
moral laws must tell, to such ears must speak, — in this is our hope.
For if the prosperity of this country has been merely the obedience
of man to the guiding of Nature, — of great rivers and prairies, —
yet is there fate above fate, if we choose to spread this language;
or if there is fate in corn and cotton, so is there fate in thought, —

615

this, namely, that the largest thought and the widest love are
born to victory, and must prevail. •

The revolution is the work of no man, but the eternal effervescence
of Nature. It never did not work. And we say that revolutions beat
all the insurgents, be they never so determined and politic; that the
great interests of mankind, being at every moment through ages
in favor of justice and the largest liberty, will always, from time to
time, gain on the adversary and at last win the day. Never country
had such a fortune, as men call fortune, as this, in its geography, its
history, and in its majestic possibilities.

We have much to learn, much to correct, — a great deal of lying
vanity. The spread eagle must fold his foolish wings and be less
of a peacock; must keep his wings to carry the thunderbolt when
he is commanded. We must realize our rhetoric and our rituals.
Our national flag is not affecting, as it should be, because it does
not represent the population of the United States, but some
Baltimore or Chicago or Cincinnati or Philadelphia caucus; not
union or justice, but selfishness and cunning. If we never put on the
liberty-cap until we were freemen by love and self-denial, the
liberty-cap would mean something. I wish to see America not like
the old powers of the earth, grasping, exclusive and narrow, but a
benefactor such as no country ever was, hospitable to all nations,
legislating for all nationalities. Nations were made to help each
other as much as families were; and all advancement is by ideas,
and not by brute force or mechanic force.

In this country, with our practical understanding, there is, at
present, a great sensualism, a headlong devotion to trade and to the
conquest of the continent, — to each man as large a share of the same
as he can carve for himself, — an extravagant confidence in our
talent and activity, which becomes, whilst successful, a scornful
materialism, — but with the fault, of course, that it has no depth, no
reserved force whereon to fall back when a reverse comes.

That repose which is the ornament and ripeness of man is not
American. That repose which indicates a faith in the laws of the
universe, — a faith that they will fulfil themselves, and are not to be
impeded, transgressed or accelerated. Our people are too slight and
vain. They are easily elated and easily depressed. See how fast they
extend the fleeting fabric of their trade, — not at all considering the
remote reaction and bankruptcy, but with the same abandonment
to the moment and the facts of the hour as the Esquimau who sells
his bed in the morning. Our people act on the moment, and from
external impulse. They all lean on some other, and this super-

616

stitiously, and not from insight of his merit. They follow a fact;
they follow success, and not skill. Therefore, as soon as the suc-
cess stops and admirable man blunders, they quit him; already they
remember that they long ago suspected his judgment, and they
transfer the repute of judgment to the next prosperous person who
has not yet blundered. Of course this levity makes them as easily
despond. It seems as if history gave no account of any society in
which despondency came so readily to heart as we see it and feel
it in ours. Young men at thirty and even earlier lose all spring and
vivacity, and if they fail in their first enterprise throw up the game.
The source of mischief is the extreme difficulty with which men
are roused from the torpor of every day. Blessed is all that agitates
the mass, breaks up this torpor, and begins motion. Corpora non
agunt nisi soluta; the chemical rule is true in mind. Contrast,
change, interruption, are necessary to new activity and new com-
binations.

If a temperate wise man should look over our American society,
I think the first danger that would excite his alarm would be the
European influences on this country. We buy much of Europe
which does not make us better men, and mainly the expensiveness
which is ruining the country. We import trifles, dances, singers,
laces, books of patterns, modes, gloves and cologne, manuals of
Gothic architecture, steam-made ornaments. America is provincial.
It is an immense Halifax. See the secondariness and aping of
foreign . . . life that runs through this country in building, in
dress, in eating, in books. Every village, every city has its archi-
tecture, its costume, its hotel, its private house, its church from
England.

Let the passion for America cast out the passion for Europe.
Here let there be what the earth waits for, — exalted manhood.
What this country longs for is personalities, grand persons, to
counteract its materialities. For it is the rule of the universe that
corn shall serve man, and not man corn.

They who find America insipid, — they for whom London and
Paris have spoiled their own homes, can be spared to return to
^hose cities. I not only see a career at home for more genius than
ve have, but for more than there is in the world. . . .

Our young men lack idealism. A man for success must not be pure
.dealist, then he will practically fail; but he must have ideas, must
obey ideas, or he might as well be the horse he rides on. A man

617

does not want to be sun-dazzled, sun-blind; but every man must
have glimmer enough to keep him from knocking his head against
the walls. And it is in the interest of civilization and good society
and friendship, that I dread to hear of well-born, gifted and amiable
men, that they have this indifference, disposing them to this
despair.

Of no use are the men who study to do exactly as was done
before, who can never understand that to-day is a new day. There
never was such a combination as this of ours, and the rules to meet
it are not set down in any history. We want men of original
perception and original action, who can open their eyes wider
than to a nationality, — namely, to considerations of benefit to the
human race, — can act in the interest of civilization; men of elastic,
men of moral mind, who can live in the moment and take a step
forward. Columbus was no backward-creeping crab, nor was
Martin Luther, nor John Adams, nor Patrick Henry, nor Thomas
Jefferson; and the Genius or Destiny of America is no log or
sluggard, but a man incessantly advancing, as the shadow on the
dial's face, or the heavenly body by whose light it is marked.

The flowering of civilization is the finished man, the man of
sense, of grace, of accomplishment, of social power, — the gentleman.
What hinders that he be born here? The new times need a new
man, the complemental man, whom plainly this country must
furnish. Freer swing his arms; farther pierce his eyes; more forward
and forthright his whole build and rig than an Englishman's, who,
we see, is much imprisoned in his backbone.

'Tis certain that our civilization is yet incomplete; it has not
ended or given sign of sending in a hero. 'Tis a wild democracy;
the riot of mediocrities and dishonesties and fudges. Ours is the age
of the omnibus, of the third person plural, of Tammany Hall. Is it
that Nature has only so much vital force and must dilute it if it is to
be multiplied into millions? The beautiful is never plentiful. Then
Illinois and Indiana, with their spawning loins, must needs be
ordinary.

It is not a question whether we shall be a multitude of people. No,
that has been conspicuously decided already; but whether we shall
be the new nation, the guide and lawgiver of all nations, as having
clearly chosen and firmly held the simplest and best rule of political
society. . . .

It is not possible to extricate yourself from the questions in which

618

your age is involved. Let the good citizen perform the duties put
on him here and now. It is not by heads reverted to the dying
Demosthenes, or to Luther, or to Wallace, or to George Fox, or to
George Washington, that you can combat the dangers and dragons
that beset the United States at this time. I believe this cannot be
accomplished by dunces or idlers, but requires docility, sympathy,
and religious receiving from higher principles; for liberty, like
religion, is a short and hasty fruit, and like all power subsists only
by new rallyings on the source of inspiration.

Power can be generous. The very grandeur of the means which of-
fer themselves to us should suggest grandeur in the direction of our
expenditure. If our mechanic arts are unsurpassed in usefulness, if
we have taught the river to make shoes and nails and carpets, and
the bolt of heaven to write our letters like a Gillot pen, let these
wonders work for honest humanity, for the poor, for justice, genius
and the public good. Let us realize that this country, the last found,
is the great charity of God to the human race.

America should affirm and establish that in no instance shall the
guns go in advance of the present right. We shall not make coups
d'etat and afterwards explain and pay, but shall proceed like
William Penn, or whatever other Christian or humane person who
treats with the Indian or the foreigner, on principles of honest trade
and mutual advantage. We can see that the Constitution and the
law in America must be written on ethical principles, so that the
entire power of the spiritual world shall hold the citizen loyal, and
repel the enemy as by force of nature. It should be mankind's bill of
rights, or Royal Proclamation of the Intellect ascending the throne,
announcing its good pleasure that now, once for all, the world shall
be governed by common sense and law of morals.

The end of all political struggle is to establish morality as the
basis of all legislation. 'Tis not free institutions, 'tis not a democracy
that is the end, — no, but only the means. Morality is the object of
government. We want a state of things in which crime will not
pay; a state of things which allows every man the largest liberty
compatible with the liberty of every other man.

Humanity asks that government shall not be ashamed to be
tender and paternal, imt that democratic institutions shall be more
thoughtful for the interests of women, for the training of children,
and for the welfare of sick and unable persons, and serious care of
criminals, than was ever any the best government of the Old
World.

The genius of the country has marked out our true policy, —

619

opportunity. Opportunity of civil rights, of education, of personal
power, and not less of wealth; doors wide open. If I could have it,
— free trade with all the world without toll or custom-houses,
invitation as we now make to every nation, to every race and skin,
white men, red men, yellow men, black men; hospitality of fair
field and equal laws to all. Let them compete, and success to the
strongest, the wisest and the best. The land is wide enough, the soil
has bread for all.

I hope America will come to have its pride in being a nation of
servants, and not of the served. How can men have any other
ambition where the reason has not suffered a disastrous eclipse?
Whilst every man can say I serve, — to the whole extent of my being
I apply my faculty to the service of mankind in my especial place, —
he therein sees and shows a reason for his being in the world, and
is not a moth or incumbrance in it.

The distinction and end of a soundly constituted man is his labor.
Use is inscribed on all his faculties. Use is the end to which he
exists. As the tree exists for its fruit, so a man for his work. A fruit-
less plant, an idle animal, does not stand in the universe. They are
all toiling, however secretly or slowly, in the province assigned them,
and to a use in the economy of the world; the higher and more
complex organizations to higher and more catholic service. And man
seems to play, by his instincts and activity, a certain part that even
tells on the general face of the planet, drains swamps, leads rivers
into dry countries for their irrigation, perforates forests and stony
mountain chains with roads, hinders the inroads of the sea on the
continent, as if dressing the globe for happier races. . . .

Our helm is given up to a better guidance than our own; the
course of events is quite too strong for any helmsman, and our
little wherry is taken in tow by the ship of the great Admiral
which knows the way, and has the force to draw men and states
and planets to their good.

Such and so potent is this high method by which the Divine
Providence sends the chiefest benefits under the mas\ of calamities,
that I do not think we shall by any perverse ingenuity prevent the
blessing.

In seeing this guidance of events, in seeing this felicity without
example that has rested on the Union thus far, I find new confidence
for the future.

I could heartily wish that our will and endeavor were more
active parties to the work. But I see in all directions the light
breaking. Trade and government will not alone be the favored

62O

aims of mankind, but every useful, every elegant art, every exercise
of the imagination, the height of reason, the noblest affection, the
purest religion will find their home in our institutions, and write
our laws for the benefit of men.

The Fortune of the Republic, 1879

621

American Vistas

WALT WHITMAN

I. AMERICAN FEUILLAGE

America always!

Always our own feuillage!

Always Florida's green peninsula! Always the priceless delta of

Louisiana! Always the cotton-fields of Alabama and Texas!
Always California's golden hills and hollows — and the silver

mountains of New Mexico! Always soft-breath'd Cuba!
Always the vast slope drain'd by the Southern ~Sea — inseparable with

the slopes drain'd by the Eastern and Western Seas;
The area the eighty-third year of These States — the three and a half

millions of square miles;
The eighteen thousand miles of sea-coast and bay-coast on the main

— the thirty thousand miles of river navigation,
The seven millions of distinct families, and the same number of

dwellings — Always these, and more, branching forth into

numberless branches;
Always the free range and diversity; always the continent of

Democracy!
Always the prairies, pastures, forests, vast cities, travelers, Kanada,

the snows;
Always these compact lands — lands tied at the hips with the belt

stringing the huge oval lakes;
Always the West, with strong native persons — the increasing density

there — the habitans, friendly, threatening, ironical, scorning

invaders;
All sights, South, North, East — all deeds, promiscuously done at all

times,

All characters, movements, growths — a few noticed, myriads un-
noticed,

Through Mannahatta's streets I walking, these things gathering;
On interior rivers, by night, in the glare of pine knots, steamboats

wooding up;
Sunlight by day on the valley of the Susquehanna, and on the

valleys of the Potomac and Rappahannock, and the valleys of

the Roanoke and Delaware;

622

In their northerly wilds, beasts of prey haunting the Adirondacks,

the hills — or lapping the Saginaw waters to drink;
In a lonesome inlet, a sheldrake, lost from the flock, sitting on the

water, rocking silently;
In farmers' barns, oxen in the stable, their harvest labor done — they

rest standing — they are too tired;
Afar on arctic ice, the she-walrus lying drowsily, while her cubs play

around;
The hawk sailing where men have not yet sail'd — the farthest polar

sea, ripply, crystalline, open, beyond the floes;
White drift spooning ahead, where the ship in the tempest dashes;
On solid land, what is done in cities, as the bells all strike midnight

together;
In primitive woods, the sounds there also sounding — the howl of the

wolf, the scream of the panther, and the hoarse bellow of the

elk;
In winter beneath the hard blue ice of Moosehead Lake — in summer

visible through the clear waters, the great trout swimming;
In lower latitudes, in warmer air, in the Carolinas, the large black

buzzard floating slowly, high beyond the tree tops,
Below, the red cedar, festoon'd with tylandria — the pines and

cypresses, growing out of the white sand that spreads far and

flat;
Rude boats descending the big Pedee — climbing plants, parasites,

with color 'd flowers and berries, enveloping huge trees,
The waving drapery on the live oak, trailing long and low, noise-
lessly waved by the wind;
The camp of Georgia wagoners, just after dark — the supper-fires,

and the cooking and eating by whites and negroes,
Thirty or forty great wagons — the mules, cattle, horses, feeding from

troughs,
The shadows, gleams up under the leaves of the old sycamore-trees

— the flames — with the black smoke from the pitch-pine, curl-
ing and rising;
Southern fishermen fishing — the sounds and inlets of North

Carolina's coast — the shad-fishery and the herring-fishery — the

large sweep-seines — the windlasses on shore work'd by horses —

the clearing, curing, and packing houses;
Deep in the forest, in piney woods, turpentine dropping from the

incisions in the trees — There are the turpentine works,
There are the negroes at work, in good health, — the ground in all

directions is cover 'd with pine straw;

623

— In Tennessee and Kentucky slaves busy in the coalings, at the
forge, by the furnace-blaze, or at the corn-shucking;

In Virginia; the planter's son returning after a long absence, joyfully
welcom'd and kissed by the aged mulatto nurse;

On rivers, boatmen safely moor'd at night-fall, in their boats, under
shelter of high banks,

Some of the younger men dance to the sound of the banjo or fiddle
— others sit on the gun whale, smoking and talking;

Late in the afternoon, the mocking-bird, the American mimic, sing-
ing in the Great Dismal Swamp — there are the greenish waters,
the resinous odor, the plenteous moss, the cypress tree, and the
juniper tree;

— Northward, young men of Mannahatta — the target company from
an excursion returning home at evening — the musket-muzzles
all bear bunches of flowers presented by women;

Children at play — or on his father's lap a young boy fallen asleep,
(how his lips move! how he smiles in his sleep!)

The scout riding on horseback over the plains west of the Mississippi
— he ascends a knoll and sweeps his eye around;

California life — the miner, bearded, dress'd in his rude costume —
the stanch California friendship — the sweet air — the graves one,
in passing, meets, solitary, just aside the horse path;

Down in Texas, the cotton-field, the negro-cabins — drivers driving
mules or oxen before rude carts — cotton bales piled on banks
and wharves;

Encircling all, vast-darting, up and wide, the American Soul, with
equal hemispheres — one Love, one Dilation or Pride;

—In arriere, the peace-talk with the Iroquois, the aborigines — the
calumet, the pipe of good-will, arbitration, and indorsement,

The sachem blowing the smoke first toward the sun and then to-
ward the earth,

The drama of the scalp-dance enacted with painted faces and gut-
tural exclamations,

The setting out of the war-party — the long and stealthy march,

The single-file — the swinging hatchets — the surprise and slaughter
of enemies;

— All the acts, scenes, ways, persons, attitudes of These States —
reminiscences, all institutions,

All These States, compact — Every square mile of These States, with-
out excepting a particle — you also — me also,

Me pleas'd, rambling in lanes and country fields, Paumanok's fields,

624

Me, observing the spiral flight of two little yellow butterflies,
shuffling between each other, ascending high in the air;

The darting swallow, the destroyer of insects— the fall traveler south-
ward, but returning northward early in the spring;

The country boy at the close of the day, driving the herd of cows,
and shouting to them as they loiter to browse by the road-side;

The city wharf— Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Charleston, New
Orleans, San Francisco,

The departing ships, when the sailors heave at the capstan;

— Evening — me in my room — the setting sun,

The setting summer sun shining in my open window, showing the
swarm of flies, suspended, balancing in the air in the centre of
the room, darting athwart, up and down, casting swift shadows
in specks on the opposite wall, where the shine is;

The athletic American matron speaking in public to crowds of
listeners;

Males, females, immigrants, combinations — the copiousness — the in-
dividuality of The States, each for itself — the money makers;

Factories, machinery, the mechanical forces — the windlass, lever,
pulley — All certainties,

The certainty of space, increase, freedom, futurity,

In space, the sporades, the scatter'd islands, the stars — on the firm
earth, the lands, my lands;

O lands! all so dear to me — what you are, (whatever it is) I become
a part of that, whatever it is;

Southward there, I screaming, with wings slowly flapping, with the
myriads of gulls wintering along the coasts of Florida — or in
Louisiana, with pelicans breeding;

Otherways, there, atwixt the banks of the Arkansaw, the Rio
Grande, the Nueces, the Brazos, the Tombigbee, the Red
River, the Saskatchewan, or the Osage, I with the spring waters
laughing and skipping and running;

Northward, on the sands, on some shallow bay of Paumanok, I,
with parties of snowy herons wading in the wet to seek worms
and aquatic plants;

Retreating, triumphantly twittering, the king-bird, from piercing
the crow with its bill, for amusement — And I triumphantly
twittering;

The migrating flock of wild geese alighting in autumn to refresh
themselves — the body of the flock feed — the sentinels outside
move around with erect heads watching, and are from time to

625

time relieved by other sentinels — And I feeding and taking
turns with the rest;

In Kanadian forests, the moose, large as an ox, corner'd by hunters,
rising, desperately on his hind-feet, and plunging with his fore-
feet, the hoofs as sharp and knives — And I, plunging at the
hunters, corner'd and desperate;

In the Mannahatta, streets, piers, shipping, store-houses, and the
countless workmen working in the shops,

And I too of the Mannahatta, singing thereof — and no less in my-
self than the whole of the Mannahatta in itself,

Singing the song of These, my ever-united lands — my body no more
inevitably united, part to part, and made one identity, any more
than my lands are inevitably united, and made ONE IDENTITY;

Nativities, climates, the grass of the great Pastoral Plains;

Cities, labors, death, animals, products, war, good and evil, — these me,

These affording, in all their particulars, endless feuillage to me and
to America, how can I do less than pass the clew of the union
of them, to afford the like to you?

Whoever you are! how can I but offer you divine leaves, that you
also be eligible as I am?

How can I but, as here, chanting, invite you for yourself to col-
lect bouquets of the incomparable feuillage of These States?

Leaves of Grass, 1860
II. THOU MOTHER WITH THY EQUAL BROOD

Thou Mother with thy equal brood,

Thou varied chain of different States, yet one identity only,

A special song before I go I'd sing o'er all the rest,

For thee, the future.

I'd sow a seed for thee of endless Nationality,
I'd fashion thy ensemble including body and soul,
I'd show away ahead thy real Union, and how it may be ac-
complish'd.

The paths to the house I seek to make,
But leave to those to come the house itself.

Belief I sing, and preparation;

As Life and Nature are not great with reference to the present only,

626

But greater still from what is yet to come,
Out of that formula for thee I sing.

As a strong bird on pinions free,
Joyous, the amplest spaces heavenward cleaving,
Such be the thought I'd think of thee America,
Such be the recitative I'd bring for thee.

The conceits of the poets of other lands I'd bring thee not,
Nor the compliments that have served their turn so long,
Nor rhyme, nor the classics, nor perfume of foreign court or indoor
library;

But an odor I'd bring as from forests of pine in Maine, or breath of

an Illinois prairie,
With open airs of Virginia or Georgia or Tennessee, or from

Texas uplands, or Florida's glades,

Or the Saguenay's black stream, or the wide blue spread of Huron,
With presentment of Yellowstone's scenes, or Yosemite,
And murmuring under, pervading all, I'd bring the rustling sea-sound,
That endlessly sounds from the two Great Seas of the world.

And for thy subtler sense subtler refrains dread Mother,

Preludes of intellect tallying these and thee, mind-formulas fitted for
thee, real and sane and large as these and thee,

Thou! mounting higher, diving deeper than we knew, thou tran-
scendental Union!

By thee fact to be justified, blended with thought,

Thought of man justified, blended with God,

Through thy idea, lo, the immortal reality!

Through thy reality, lo, the immortal idea!

Brain of the New World, what a task is thine,
To formulate the Modern — out of the peerless grandeur of the

modern,

Out of thyself, comprising science, to recast poems, churches, art,
(Recast, may-be discard them, end them — may-be their work is

done, who knows?)
By vision, hand, conception, on the background of the mighty past,

the dead,

627

To limn with absolute faith the mighty living present.

And yet thou living present brain, heir of the dead, the Old World

brain,

Thou that lay folded like an unborn babe within its folds so long,
Thou carefully prepared by it so long — haply thou but unfoldest it,

only maturest it,
It to eventuate in thee — the essence of the by-gone time contain'd in

thee,
Its poems, churches, arts, unwitting to themselves, destined with

reference to thee;

Thou but the apples, long, long a-growing,
The fruit of all the Old ripening to-day in thee.

Sail, sail thy best, ship of Democracy,
Of value is thy freight, 'tis not the Present only,
The Past is also stored in thee,
Thou boldest not the venture of thyself alone, not of the Western

Continent alone,
Earth's resume entire floats on thy keel O ship, is steadied by the

spars,
With thee Time Voyages in trust, the antecedent nations sink or

swim with thee,
With all their ancient struggles, martyrs, heroes, epics, wars, thou

bear'st the other continents,

Theirs, theirs as much as thine, the destination-port triumphant;
Steer then with good strong hand and wary eye O helmsman, thou

carriest great companions,
Venerable priestly Asia sails this day with thee,
And royal feudal Europe sails with thee.

Beautiful world of new superber birth that rises to my eyes,
Like a limitless golden cloud filling the western sky,
Emblem of general maternity lifted above all,
Sacred shape of the bearer of daughters and sons,
Out of thy teeming womb thy giant babes in ceaseless procession

issuing,
Acceding from such gestation, taking and giving continual strength

and life,
World of the real — world of the twain in one,

608

World of the soul, born by the world of the real alone, led to

identity, body, by it alone,
Yet in beginning only, incalculable masses of composite precious

materials,

By history's cycles forwarded, by every nation, language, hither sent,
Ready, collected here, a freer, vast electric world, to be constructed

here,
(The true New World the world of orbic science, morals, literatures

to come,)
Thou wonder world yet undefined, unform'd, neither do I define

thee,

How can I pierce the impenetrable blank of the future?
I feel thy ominous greatness evil as well as good,
I watch thee advancing, absorbing the present, transcending the

past,
I see thy light lighting, and thy shadow shadowing, as if the entire

globe,

But I do not undertake to define thee, hardly to comprehend thee,
I but thee name, thee prophesy, as now,
I merely thee ejaculate!
Thee in thy future,
Thee in thy only permanent lifej career, thy own unloosen'd mind,

thy soaring spirit,
Thee as another equally needed sun, radiant, ablaze, swift-moving,

fructifying all,

Thee risen in potent cheerfulness and joy, in endless great hilarity,
Scattering for good the cloud that hung so long, that weigh'd so

long upon the mind of man, .

The doubt, suspicion, dread, of gradual, certain decadence of man;
Thee in thy larger, saner brood of female, male— thee in thy

athletes, moral, spiritual, South, North, West, East,
(To thy immortal breasts, Mother of All, thy every daughter, son,

endear'd alike, forever equal,)

Thee in thy own musicians, singers, artists, unborn yet, but certain,
Thee in thy moral wealth and civilization, (until which thy proudest

material civilization must remain in vain,)
Thee in thy all-supplying, all-enclosing worship — thee in no single

bible, saviour, merely,
Thy saviours countless, latent within thyself, thy bibles incessant

within thyself, equal to any, divine as any,
(Thy soaring course thee formulating, not in thy two great wars,

nor in thy century's visible growth,

629

But far more in these leaves and chants; thy chants, great Mother!)
Thee in an education grown of thee, in teachers, studies, students,

born of thee,
Thee in thy democratic fetes-en-masse, thy high original festivals,

operas, lecturers, preachers,
Thee in thy ultimata, (the preparations only now completed, the

edifice on sure foundations tied,)
Thee in thy pinnacles, intellect, thought, thy topmost rational joys,

thy love and godlike aspiration,
In thy resplendent coming literati, thy full-lung'd orators, thy

sacerdotal bards, kosmic savans,
These! these in thee, (certain to come,) to-day I prophesy.

Land tolerating all, accepting all, not for the good alone, all good

for thee,

Land in the realms of God to be a realm unto thyself,
Under the rule of God to be a rule unto thyself.

(Lo, where arise three peerless stars,

To be thy natal stars my country, Ensemble, Evolution, Freedom,

Set in the sky of Law.)

Land of unprecedented faith, God's faith,

Thy soul, thy very subsoil, all upheav'd,

The general inner earth so long so sedulously draped over, now hence

for what it is boldly laid bare,
Open'd by thee to heaven's light for benefit or bale.

Not for success alone,

Nor to fair-sail unintermitted always,

The storm shall dash thy face, the murk of war and worse than war

shall cover thee all over,

(Wert capable of war, its tug and trials? be capable of peace, its trials,
For the tug and mortal strain of nations come at last in prosperous

peace, not war;)
In many a smiling mask death shall approach beguiling thee, thou

in disease shalt swelter,
The livid cancer spread its hideous claws, clinging upon thy"

breasts, seeking to strike thee deep within,
Consumption of the worst, moral consumption, shall rouge thy

face with hectic,

630

But thou shalt face thy fortunes, thy diseases, and surmount them all,
Whatever they are to-day and whatever through time they may be,
They each and all shall lift and pass away and cease from thee,
While thou, Time's spirals rounding, out of thyself, thyself still

extricating fusing,
Equable, natural, mystical Union thou, (the mortal with immortal

blent,)
Shalt soar toward the fulfilment of the future, the spirit of the body

and the mind,
The soul, its destinies.

The soul, its destinies, the real real,

(Purport of all these apparitions of the real;)

In thee America, the soul, its destinies,

Thou globe of globes! thou wonder nebulous!

By many a throe of heat and cold convuls'd, (by these thyself

solidifying,)

Thou mental, moral orb — thou New, indeed new, Spiritual World!
The Present holds thee not — for such vast growth as thine,
For such unparalled'd flight as thine, such brood as thine,
The FUTURE only holds thee and can hold thee.

Leaves of Grass, 1881

631

What 5 Wrong witk the United States?

THOMAS JEFFERSON WERTENBAKER

Recently I received a bundle of books for review. They all dealt
with conditions in the United States, and most of them were
extremely pessimistic. One author believes that the horde of im-
migrants who poured into the country in the years just preceding
the World War have brought us to the verge of ruin. Unrestricted
immigration, he says, has filled our cities with morons, criminals,
and the physically unfit, has lowered wages, imperilled our institu-
tions, and impaired the racial stock. We have now closed the doors,
it is true, and we are trying to keep them closed, but it will be
centuries before we can assimilate the conglomerate mass of hu-
manity which we have admitted. It is a permanent disaster, perhaps
an irretrievable disaster.

With a troubled mind, I turn to the next volume. But it, too,
sounds the alarm-bell. This time it is our tendency toward un-
directed reproduction which appears as the great peril. The best
classes, leaders in every walk of life, we are told, are restricting the
size of their families, while the unfit — the lowest classes of workers,
the ignorant, criminals, defectives — are reproducing with great
rapidity. It is the survival of the unfittest. The race ascends the
ladder by centuries of laborious striving, only in the end to cut off
its own head. Seeing in this volume only the blackest future for the
United States, I lay it aside more troubled than ever.

The next is a volume by a foreign observer — a diplomat who had
dwelt long in this country. Perhaps he can see something good in
us. Alas! He is of the opinion that we have bartered off our souls to
Mammon. "Big profits overshadow liberty in all its forms," he says,
"and the exercise of intelligence is encouraged only if it fits in
with the common aim. Any one who turns aside to dabble in
research or dilettantism is regarded as almost mentally per-
verted. ... In the universities the majority of the students are
satisfied if they memorize an array of ready-made facts, and they
seek from their professors not culture but the fundamentals of a
successful career. . . . The material advance is immeasurable in"
comparison with the Old World, but from the point of view of in-
dividual refinement and art the sacrifice is real indeed. Even the
humblest European sees in art an aristocratic symbol of his own

632

personality, and modern America has no national art and does not
even feel the need of one."

In disgust I leave my study and wander to the university library.
There, by chance, I happen upon a well-known novel, the work of an
American. In it the average, middle-class American is pilloried. Self-
assertive, crude, ignorant, provincial, blind to the better things of life,
satisfied with his over-decorated house or his drugstore, with its soda-
fountain and marble-topped counter, he brings a blush to the face.

I lay the volume down, and take up a newspaper. It informs me
that the United States is the most unpopular nation in the world.
In one column there are strictures upon Uncle Shylock, in another
complaints from Japan at the abrogation of the Gentlemen's Agree-
ment, in a third accusations from Latin America of international
hypocrisy. A fourth column is devoted to the crime wave in
Chicago. It states that in the six years ending last spring there
were 1,795 murders in Cook County; that in four years 45 police-
men have been killed; that crime is open, and criminal gangs in
control. Rum-trucks are plying merrily, the city is wide open, boot-
leggers and bookmakers are prospering, while the mayor is valiantly
defending his flock from the British lion, and ordering the Missis-
sippi back to its proper bounds.

What of all this? Is it true? Are we on the road to perdition?
Are we incapable of self-government? Are we of low-grade racial
stock, criminally inclined, sordid, without national art, vainglorious,
aggressive, unjust to our neighbors? I take my hat and leave the
library for a walk on the campus. A walk through our beautiful
campus is often very helpful. The dignified old trees and the lovely
buildings calm the nerves and clarify the thoughts. What is the
meaning of America? I ask myself. What part has it played in
world history? What lies before it?

I picture the first settlers at Jamestown and at Plymouth. Simple,
sturdy folk, face to face with unlimited opportunities, and almost
unlimited difficulties. Theirs were the riches of a continent, but
only on condition that they wrest it from stubborn Mother Nature.
It required courage, physical endurance, and an iron will to desert a
safe and comfortable home, to risk starvation, disease, and the
tomahawk, to hew out a clearing, build a cabin, and face the task
of rearing a family under wilderness conditions. The Virginians
and New Englanders of three centuries ago may have contributed
little to science, art, and literature, but they did their part in a
work no less important. They added a great continent to the civilized
world.

633

In no sense inferior to their fellow Europeans whom they left
behind, their talents were of necessity turned into different channels.
This man might have been another Milton had he remained in
England; in Massachusetts he had to become a soldier in the
unending war against the wilderness; this man might have been an
artist, this one a statesman, this a scientist. The colonial period of
American history produced few great names. Benjamin Franklin
alone stands out above the general level of mediocrity. But if
Europe, in the years from 1607 to 1775, boasted of its Harvey, Boyle,
Milton, Newton, Kepler, Galileo, Moliere, and a host of others, the
Americans could rightfully claim that they had done their full
duty toward civilization by advancing its borders into a New World.
To fell trees or to open a cornfield seems an ignoble task when
compared with investigation into the mysteries of nature or the
writing of epic poems, but the effect upon human welfare may be
as great in one case as in the other.

When, with the dawn of the national period, settlers began to
push along the narrow valleys of the Appalachian ranges, out into
the Mississippi basin, a new and rich world opened before America.
There were great plains waiting for the plough and the sickle,
prairies ready for the ranchman's herd, hidden treasures of coal,
iron, and oil, a network of rivers spreading out like a system of
natural canals. Was it not the duty of the nation to pour out its
energy and its talents in the development of this land, endowed so
lavishly by Nature's hand? Wonderfully well was the task per-
formed. In a century the frontier advanced 3,000 miles to the
Pacific. In another half-century the frontier disappeared. Where
formerly were only prairies, deserts, mountains, and interminable
forests, are now millions of industrious people, great cities, fields of
wheat and corn, smoke-covered industrial centres, concrete roads,
railway lines, hospitals, colleges, schools.

This great work, accomplished in so remarkably short a period,
cannot be explained entirely by the abundance of natural resources.
Mexico is a land of untold natural wealth, but it has experienced
no such development as that of the United States because the
Mexicans lack the resourcefulness, energy, and industry of our
people. Says J. Ellis Barker, the noted English economist, in
America's Secret: "The country was settled by men possessing
the conquering spirit and the spirit of leadership. These men
fought among themselves, fought the Indians, and conquered the
wilderness around them. . . . They created a new race, possessed
of daring enterprise, of boundless energy, and of the passionate

634

desire for achievement and success. . . . American economic suc-
cess is less due to the vastness of its natural wealth and to the
excellence of its machinery than to the ambition, good sense,
ingenuity, and industry of the people and the wisdom and energy
of the leaders."

But American energy could not have accomplished so much
had it not been aided by labor-saving machinery, which in turn
was the product of American inventive genius. In this country
there has always been an urgent demand for labor. With natural
resources so abundant and cheap, all that has been needed to make
them yield rich returns was workers and ever more workers. It
was this, as Captain John Smith explained to the London Company,
which made it difficult for the infant colony of Virginia to compete
with the potash, iron, and glass manufactures of Europe. It was this,
also, which brought on the country the curse of slavery. But it
brought one great benefit — the urge to create machinery which
would economize in human labor.

It became the object of every American inventor to devise
machines which could do the work of twenty men. Eli Whitney
led the way with the cotton-gin. This device made it possible to
multiply many times over the output of raw cotton, with the
result that cotton cloth came within the means of many millions
who formerly had to do without. It was Thomas Jefferson who
worked out the proper curves for the plough, and his fellow
Virginian — Cyrus McCormick — who was chiefly responsible for the
reaper. To-day our great agricultural areas are cultivated largely
by means of machinery — the tractor, the gang-plough, the reaper,
the thresher, the wheat-drill, potato-planters, hay-stackers. In 1850
the value of our agricultural machinery was $151,000,000; in 1920
it had mounted to $3,600,000,000. Under present conditions the
average farm-worker in the United States produces far more than
his fellow laborer in any other country in the world.

At first America was content with exploiting her agricultural
resources. But with the opening of the nineteenth century there
came an all-important change — the American industrial revolution.
To-day not only is the bulk of our wealth created by manufactures,
but we produce a larger quantity of manufactured goods than all
the other nations of the world combined. Six per cent of the world's
people produce approximately 50 per cent of the world's manu-
factured goods.

Here, too, the explanation is found in the use of labor-saving
machinery. Eli Whitney is known chiefly as the inventor of the

635

cotton-gin, yet he is responsible for another achievement quite as
important. It was Whitney who worked out the principle of
standardization, or interchangeability, in manufacture, the very
foundation of large-scale production. Turning his attention to fire-
arms, he announced that he intended to make the same parts of
different guns "as much like each other as the successive impressions
of a copperplate engraving." He was ridiculed by the ordnance
officials of France and England. Yet he succeeded so well that
standardization began to make its way into the manufacture of
other articles, lowering production costs, increasing the output, and
emancipating workmen from killing toil.

In the footsteps of Whitney followed other inventors of tool-
machines. American copying-lathes and American gun machinery
became the best in the world. It was a long cry from the day when
the youthful Slater stole away from England to set up the first
spinning machinery in the United States, to the time when the
British Government purchased in America a full set of machines
for the Royal Small Arms factory at Enfield and imported American
workmen to run them. In the years which followed, American
inventive genius carried the use of machinery in industry to
undreamed-of lengths. There came new machinery in printing,
in shoemaking, in the manufacture of automobiles, of furniture, of
clothing, clocks, firearms.

With what result? That one American worker produces to-day
about as much as four British workers. That the wealth per in-
habitant in the United States increased from $308 in 1850 to $2,731
in 1922. That the annual income of the American people mounted
from $62,000,000,000 in 1921 to $90,000,000,000 in 1926. That the
annual income of the United States to-day is as great as the entire
wealth of Great Britain, and is five times as great as the annual
income of England, nine times as great as Germany's and twenty-
two times as great as that of Italy. It is ten times as great as that
of China, despite the fact that there are four times as many workers
in China as in the United States. In other words, one worker
produces forty times as much in the United States as one worker
in China. In short, the result has been that in this country to-day
human beings have reached a higher state of material welfare
than in any other era of world history or in any other nation of
the world.

I know that some one will say: "It is for these very things that
we are criticised. We have been accused of worshipping material
gain to the neglect of literature, art, music, and science." But,

636

after all, is not the material more fundamental? What boots it if
we produce a Shakespeare or a Michelangelo, if there are millions
living in misery and degradation? There once lived in England a
devotee of beauty. He had the painter's sensibility to color, the
sculptor's grasp of form, the poet's gift of language. Regarding
beauty as the visible revelation of God, he devoted himself with
the apostle's fervor to the task of arousing the British public to a
more genuine love of beautiful things. But in the midst of his
career he turned aside to become a social reformer. We find him
trying to reclaim the slums, organizing a gang of street-sweepers,
investing in co-operative enterprises. To many this seemed an un-
accountable shift. What connection was there between painting and
architecture, on the one hand, and the earning of bread in the mills
of Sheffield, on the other? To Ruskin's mind the two were intimately
associated. He had learned that a people cannot lift their souls to
the clouds while their feet are stuck in the mire of hunger and
overwork. "I am tormented," he wrote, "between the longing for
rest and lovely life, and the sense of the terrific call of human crime
for resistance, and of human misery for help."

After all, as an English writer tells us, "The most precious
possession of a nation consists in the productive power of the
people." In a country where the masses labor early and late for a
bare living, where they have insufficient food and clothing, where
there is little time for things of the mind and spirit, the scale of
civilization must of necessity be low. The great contrast between
China and the United States is that China depends for production
upon man-power, the United States upon machinery. Under any
form of distribution there will be in the United States hundreds
who can be placed in what has been called the builder class —
leaders in science, architecture, business, invention, art — to one in
China.

If Ruskin found England sterile soil for his seeds of beauty, how
much more hopeless would his task have been in India or China?
India and China developed a promising civilization centuries ago,
but these civilizations stagnated. They stagnated because, while
the methods of economic production remained fixed, the population
doubled and quadrupled. The margin over the barest necessities
gradually dwindled, until life became one long, bitter struggle to
keep hunger from the door.

Why, then, ask our critics, has not the United States outstripped
all rivals in the cultural fields? Why has it not produced a Shake-
speare, a Beethoven, a Raphael? The answer is found in our history.

637

We have barely emerged from the stage of preparation. The
passing of the frontier is still fresh in the memory of us all. We
are even now^ forging our giant industrial system and widening
each year the margin between the worker and the bare means of
subsistence. The future — we claim the future as our own. I know
that Sidney Smith said of us a century ago: "Others claim honor
because of things done by a long line of ancestors; an American
glories in the achievements of a distant posterity. . . . Others
appeal to history; an American appeals to prophecy." But in the
years which have passed since Smith made this mocking statement,
the prophecies of the Americans of his day have been fully justified.
"Who in the four quarters of the globe reads an American book?"
he asked, "or looks at an American painting or statue? . . .
What new substances have their chemists discovered? Who eats
from American plates? ... or sleeps on American blankets?" To-
day this brings a smile. Yet, I venture to say, the gibes of our
present critics may seem equally amusing before the passing of
many decades.

Already, while yet in the stage of preparation, American civiliza-
tion has done its full share for human welfare. In invention our
record stands without a parallel. Says J. Ellis Barker: "Americans
invented the steamboat, the cotton-gin, the sewing-machine, the
telephone, the typewriter, the talking-machine, the incandescent
lamp, the linotype, and the single-type composing machine, the
motion-picture machine, the airplane, vulcanization of rubber,
modern agricultural machinery, modern boot-making machinery.
These American inventions have revolutionized transport and
industry, agriculture and commerce, and have vastly increased man's
power over nature." In the fields of invention Edison alone is enough
to place the United States among the foremost.

In medical research this country has done noble work. An
American, William T. G. Morton, gave suffering humanity the
boon of anarsthesia. His priority in this great discovery has been
disputed, it is true, but all the other claimants were also natives
of the United States. Theobald Smith is the founder of one of the
most important branches of bacteriology — for it was he who first
discovered the part played by insects in conveying infectious
diseases. It was Doctor Smith, also, who conquered that scourge
of childhood — diphtheria — by his discovery of toxin-antitoxin.
Equally important was the work of the American Federal Com-
mission, under Doctor Walter Reed, in demonstrating that a
certain species of mosquito is the agent for spreading yellow fever.

638

But it is only within the past few decades that the United States
has taken its place as the undisputed leader in medical research.
The founding of the Rockefeller Institute has not only brought to
this country some of the world's greatest investigators but it has
organized and financed preventive work in almost every part of
the world. The headquarters of the scientific army which is warring
against disease is now in the United States.

It was two Americans, the Wright brothers, who gave the world
the airplane. True, during the World War the leadership in
aeronautics seemed to have slipped from our grasp, and many an
American soldier in the Argonne or on the Meuse, as he gazed
above at the German planes hovering over his head, wondered why
his own government could not furnish as many planes and as
good as the enemy. But to-day the wonderful exploits of Lindbergh,
Chamberlain, and Byrd in conquering the Atlantic have aroused
universal enthusiasm. On all sides it is acknowledged that American
engines are the best in the world, and that American aviators are
inferior to none in daring and skill.

In exploration, Americans have done their full share. The names
of Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, and Zebulon Pike loom
large in history, while Peary has the distinction of being the first
to reach the North Pole. In recent days the exploits of Byrd and the
dirigible Norge in flying over the Pole have added new lustre to
American exploration.

In the strictly cultural aspects of her life, America already is
entering the stage of accomplishment. In no field is there greater
hope than in painting. Charles L. Buchanan, the distinguished
critic, says : "There are persons who believe that American painting
— our landscape-painting in particular — is, in a way, the finest
development that this phase of art has so far shown. . . . We
find that the average person is talking about the possibility of a
problematic future for American painting, without the slightest
notion of the fact that a superb American painting is in our very
midst." That Mr. Buchanan is not alone in this view is shown by
the recent statement of the great French painter Henri Matisse:
"You have made enormous progress during this generation. Before,
you had almost nothing. Now you are a nation of painters to be
considered alongside the European nations, with their long artistic
histories and traditions."

If in literature the fulfilment has not been so prompt as in
painting, the promise is equally great. Says the English writer John
Boynton Priestley: "I believe that [America] has a greater mass

639

of what we might call the raw material of literary genius than any
other contemporary national literature." Another critic gives it
as his opinion that within a reasonable time the United States "will
produce as glistening a galaxy of geniuses as any other country can
boast." Certain it is that in fiction this country leads the world,
and that New York has become the theatrical producing centre of
the world — the place to go, above all others, to study the modern
drama.

And what of architecture? Has America produced anything
worth while in that important field? Perhaps we have our best
answer in an incident which occurred a few years ago in London.
An American was visiting some of the architectural gems of the
old city — St. Mary-le-Bow, St. Brides, and others. With him was
a distinguished Englishman, a Fellow of the Royal Society
of British Architects. As they stood gazing, up at the noble
dome of St. Paul's, the American remarked: "I suppose Sir
Christopher Wren's work has a profound influence on modern
British architecture." The Englishman turned to him: "Listen.
Do you really want to know the greatest influence in British
architecture to-day? Well, it's the United States of America."
The measured judgment of Thomas E. Tallmage, the distin-
guished American architect, is as follows: "Previous to 1893 there
was not a single class of building in which we excelled or
equalled contemporary work of the mother countries. . . . To-day
there is hardly a single class of structure in which an excel-
lent claim cannot be advanced for either our supremacy or our
equality."

In the field of political science America has accomplished much.
No assemblage in world history can surpass the Constitutional
Convention, at Philadelphia, in its combined knowledge of the
history and science of government; and many have thought the
Constitution the greatest political document ever struck off by the
hand of man. And throughout their history the American people,
despite an occasional tendency to be led astray by bosses and
demagogues, have displayed a capacity for self-government, a sane-
ness in public affairs, which has aroused the admiration of foreign
observers.

Nor need Americans blush at their record in the field of pure
science. A conservative summary of the situation seems to be that of
J. McKeen Cattell, the psychologist: "It is my general impression
. . . that the United States is in advance of Great Britain and
Germany in the biological and geological sciences, and in astronomy;

640

behind them in physics, chemistry, and physiology; about on even
terms with them in mathematics."

Professor Joseph Mayer, of Tufts College, in the January Scientific
Monthly, states that in the last hundred years the United States,
France, Great Britain, and Germany each has produced more than
thirty outstanding scientists, while no other country has produced
more than six.

In the eighteenth century, when the forests and the Indians were
still unconquered, America produced two eminent scientists —
Benjamin Franklin and Benjamin Thompson. They were fore-
runners of a numerous and distinguished band which followed in
the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. One of the greatest was
Josiah Willard Gibbs, who has been called the "Newton of
chemistry." Among the noteworthy accomplishments of recent
years must be included the interferometer experiments of two
American physicists, Michelson and Morley; Millikan's measure-
ments of the electron; the work of Rutherford, Pickering, Abbe,
Newcomb, and Russell in astronomy; of Newbury, Powell, Gilbert,
Dalton, Chamberlain, and Daly in geology; of Morgan, Wilson,
Jennings, Wheeler, Osborn, and Loeb in biology. America produced
"the world's greatest psychologist" in William James, and since the
publication of his Principles of Psychology, in 1890, has been the
centre of activity in this field.

Professor Mayer's estimate of America's future is indeed opti-
mistic. "The star of her scholarly accomplishment rose comparatively
late, but it is quite apparently of first magnitude, and every sign
points to its becoming the most brilliant spectacle in the firmament
before the second quarter of the new century has passed."

As for our educational system, our organized charity, our public
health system, there is every reason for pride. Certainly the American
surgeons and dentists are the best in the world, American hospitals
the most complete and efficient.

It is not the purpose of this article to answer all the criticisms
aimed at the United States. Some of these criticisms are inspired by
ignorance or jealousy, others are matters of controversy, still others
are trivial. Some, beyond question, are sound in character, and
point to real defects in our system, real dangers for the future.
But let us not lose our proper perspective because of the present
volley of abuse. We may agree that unrestricted immigration has
produced a very real problem; that undirected reproduction has
its dangers; that there is need for curbing crime in our large cities;
that there are too many boxlike little cottages spread out over the

641

country; that our fellow citizens are sometimes aggressive and a
bit trying when they visit foreign countries.

But let us pity those critics who see nothing beyond these
blemishes, when the most amazing spectacle in all history stretches
out before their eyes — the chaining of the forces of nature, the
freeing of man from the bondage of killing labor, the creation of
a huge surplus above the needs of the hour and its diversion to
the higher and better things of life, not only to greater comforts
and opportunities for the individual, but to education, to research, to
literature, to art. After all, we have a right to view with pride a
past of splendid accomplishment; to look forward with confidence
to a future of unprecedented promise and hope.

Scribner's Magazine, October, 1928

642

These " United" States

WILLIAM B. MUNRO

The French statesman, Jules Ferry, once suggested that in order
to stay united a great nation should try to keep disunited. His
paradox points to a truth which is too often overlooked by the
prophets of nationalism, namely, that any volatile mass, when it
grows large enough, will get out of hand unless there are forces
operating from different directions to keep it stabilized. This law of
counterpoise does not restrict itself to the universe of nature alone.
It holds for the social structure as well.

Hence the diversity of interests and opinion which one finds
within the four corners of the United States is not a source of
national weakness, but of strength. It prefigures the principle
of checks and balances pushed down into the minds of the people
— which is the place where its operations give the maximum security.
Division of power at the top is not nearly so effective, from the
standpoint of public stability, as diversity of popular opinion at
the bottom.

A hundred and twenty million Americans call themselves "one
nation indivisible," but as a matter of fact they encompass more
internal divisions than can be found in any other nation the world
over. Most happily, however, these divisions cut across one another
from different directions. They parcel the country into a bewildering
network which defies the genius of anyone to untangle. An "opinion
map" of the United States, if it were a possibility, would be an
amazing affair, with all the colors of a spectrum constantly shifting
like bits of glass in a kaleidoscope. Some of the cleavages run
broad and deep. They are the manifestations of diversity in race, in
religion, in regional environment, and in economic interest. Others
are merely related to some public issue which will presently pass
off the stage and be replaced by others which give rise to new
alignments.

Thus we have, in addition to the juxtaposition of native born
and foreign born, Catholic and Protestant, Jew and Gentile, white
and black, North and South, East and West, employers and em-
ployed, industrialists and agriculturalists, rural and urban — in

643

addition to these we have the more superficial but not less intense
rivalry of wets and drys pro-Leaguers and anti-Leaguers, militarists
and pacifists, progressives and standpatters, fundamentalists and
modernists, socialists and individualists, high tariff and low tariff
partisans, debt-cancellers and seekers for their full pound of flesh,
with a hundred other conflicts of attitude on questions such as public
ownership, the recognition of Soviet Russia, adhesion to the World
Court, the disposition of Muscle Shoals, old age pensions, higher
surtaxes, and all the rest. Assuredly the United States is a house
divided against itself, but so badly divided that it can hardly fall in
any one direction.

The first and most fundamental basis of internal division is
geographic. The architects of the universe made sectionalism
inevitable in the United States by differentiating the land
into great regions which are wholly unlike in their national re-
sources and hence in their economic capacity. The Atlantic sea-
board, even in the earliest days of the Union, developed interests
and aspirations which were different from those of the hinter-
land, and it has retained these ever since. The Southeast does
not think as the Northwest does and there is no reason why it
should.

Points of view are closely related to economic interest. Insurgency
comes out of the West when the price of wheat skids low. Wall
Street always roots for the administration when the stock market
is buoyant. Corn is called a "Republican crop" while cotton is
designated, with very good reason, as a "Democratic crop." Most
legislators have home-district reservations hitched to all their
fundamental principles. Senator Hiram Johnson believes in tariff
revision downward — but not on citrus fruits. Senator Walsh of
Massachusetts feels just the same way about shoes and textiles.
Hancock was hardly right when he called the tariff "a local issue."
It is a national issue built out of sectional ambitions. In other words
the Congress of the United States, although its members are
assumed to represent the states and the people, is in reality an
assemblage of sectional ambassadors. It is a great economic council
whose primary solicitude is to see that no part of the country gets
any business advantage over any other part. The student of Ameri-
can politics should keep one eye on the map. He should remember
that not people alone, but land and people, constitute these United
States.

One need only follow the course of a tariff bill on its hectic
journey through the Capitol to realize that the principle of a

644

fair sectional split is the first law of Congressional economics.
Even the stanchest party allegiance gives way when sectional
interests are at stake. The crossing of party lines in the Senate and
the House is more often related to such home-district demands
than to any divergence in political philosophy. Europeans often
fail to understand the sinuosities of American politics because they
overlook this fact. They think of New York and Kansas in the
same terms because both are under the same flag, obey (more or
less) the same Constitution, and speak (more or less) the same
language. But these are about the only things that they have in
common, while a hundred deep-reaching features of social and
economic differentiation hold them apart.

Then there are the racial and religious divisions. One need
only look at the schedule of national origins, on which the immigra-
tion quotas are now based, to realize what an amazing ethnic
polyglot goes under the caption of the American people. Within
the great category of foreign born, however, there are innumerable
subdivisions, and most fortunately so, for it would be a serious
menace to the stability of the American nation if all or nearly all
persons of foreign extraction were enrolled in a single political
party or professed a single religious affiliation. Political controversies
always develop intense bitterness when party lines coincide with
racial and religious divisions. It has been the good fortune of the
United States to have avoided this identity of alignment although
there are now a few signs that we are moving closer to it. In some
of the larger cities the existing party divisions represent racial
cleavage and little else.

Men and women often go to the polls as they go to church.
In thousands of American communities they are primed from
the pulpit on the Sunday before the election. Some racial strains
are inclining more and more to political solidity; nevertheless a
good deal of cross-division remains. Voters of Irish birth or descent
in the cities of New England and in New York are almost
unanimously affiliated with the Democratic party. But in Penn-
sylvania, on the other hand, and in the cities of the Middle West,
there is a large Irish-Republican element. Among voters of German
descent the tendency is to Republicanism, although it is not strongly
so. Citizens of Polish ancestry drift mostly into the Democratic
ranks, while Scandinavians incline heavily to the other side and
often to the insurgent branch of it. The Italians, as a race, have not

645

gone into either of the major political parties, but are well distrib-
uted, and the same is true of the Jews.

The desirability of maintaining this dispersion is self-evident.
If anyone has doubts on this score, let him go to the countries
of Central Europe and note what the identification of racial with
political lines has accomplished there. The politician who strives
to bring all his co-religionists into one political party is merely
doing what he can to break down one of the chief props to
American national security by substituting historic hatred for
rational disagreement as the basis of party organization.

The political history of the South during the past half century
should provide us with a lesson in this field. The measurably close
identity of color and politics has bedeviled public life in the great
region south of Mason and Dixon's line during the whole of this
period. If there had been some way whereby the newly enfranchised
Negroes could have been steered into both the major parties, in-
stead of being concentrated into one of them, it would have
changed the whole temper of southern politics and would have made
this galaxy of states a far more constructive force in the public life
of the nation than it has been during the past half century. The
South will be more influential in American national politics when
it ceases to be solid, if it ever does. The two issues which have
caused the most bitterness in our political life during the past
hundred years are neither the tariff, nor free silver, nor farm
relief, but slavery and the freedom of Ireland. Both had a racial
basis.

Then there is the division between capital and labor, employer
and employed, classes and masses. Many attempts have been made
in the United States to gather all the industrial workers into a
single political group and set them up against "the interests"; but
so far without much success. The labor vote has never been
captured in its entirety by either of the major party organizations;
on the contrary it is fairly well divided between them, if one
surveys the country as a whole. The same is true of the men who
till the soil. In the years immediately following the close of the
World War it was hoped in some quarters that a powerful Farmer-
Labor party could be created and that by drawing into its fold
the two largest occupational elements in the American electorate this
new party could make itself dominant at the polls. But the move-"
ment proved to be a flop. Neither group was willing to cast its old
allegiance aside.

It is quite true, no doubt, that if the farmers and industrial

646

workers o£ the United States could be welded into a single
organization there would not be much chance for the rest of us;
but such a permanent combination is virtually inconceivable, be-
cause the immediate interests of the two groups are diametrically
opposed at almost every point. The farmer's ambition is to "keep
the price of food stuffs up and the price of manufactured products
down. The industrial worker wants this program turned end for
end. The farmer wants transportation rates lowered, with a cor-
responding reduction in the wages of railroad labor. The four big
brotherhoods are not likely to be thrilled by that program. Thus
the two numerically strongest pressure groups in the United States,
farmers and workers, are set in straight juxtaposition by their diverg-
ing economic interests and this precludes any lasting political
alliance between them.

People often speak of capitalism as a unified factor in American
life. The business interests are assumed to be thoroughly solid by
those who seek to hold them up as a political ogre. But the split in
their ranks is as great as anywhere else. There are the independent
banks, for example, and the chain banks — with no love lost between
the two. They have carried their battle to the floor of Congress.
The chain stores, as everyone knows, have split the mercantile
interest in twain and by reason of the antagonism which they have
created are now facing an attempt to curb them through the
process of discriminatory taxation. Big and little oil companies,
shoe factories, power plants, and all the rest are in the strongest
kind of rivalry. Far from being integrated, the so-called "in-
terests" are perhaps the most hopelessly divided grouping that
we have. Their apparent inability to get together on any kind
of constructive program in the present emergency is proof of
it.

Then we have the set-off of the rural areas against the large
urban centers, a vis-h-vis which is born of mutual suspicion and
distrust. It crops out at every legislative session with the arraying of
upstate against downstate, or the big cities against the rest of the
commonwealth. The rural voter mistrusts the city, its motives, its
methods, and its mayor. It is not a mere accident that the political
complexion of the larger cities is so often different from that of the
states in which they are located. It is because the rural voter and
the small town voter believe their interests to be different from
those of the electorate in the leviathan communities. So trammels

647

demanded by the dme rigide, the bucolic conscience, are written
into the city charters.

Slouch-hatted Solons from the cow counties insist on putting the
metropolitan communities under bonds for good behavior. Even
when the cities have grown to equal or outrank the rest of the
state in point of population they often manage to do this because
of discriminatory provisions which are anchored in the State
Constitution. Baltimore, for example, has half the population of
Maryland, but elects only one-fifth of the Senators in that state.
Rhode Island allows Providence only one Senator; on a population
basis it would be entitled to sixteen. In New York State the
provision that each county, irrespective of population, shall have at
least one assemblyman is the device used for preserving the lower
house from the clutches of the metropolis. No one can understand
our state politics unless he keeps constantly in mind this conflict
of urban and rural which often overshadows the party rivalry.

On a larger scale, and hardly less intense, is the mistrust with
which New York City is regarded by the rest of the country.
Americans of the hinterland look upon this throbbing wen of
humanity as a place apart. Thousands of them go to it, from time
to time, as to foreign soil, with the thrill of getting something new,
bizarre, different, and indeed un-American. In the imagination of
the country at large, New York is a place with a boundless ambition
to rule and to dominate the whole country's politics, finance,
opinion, and morals. The rest of the land is not minded to let it do
anything of the sort.

A candidate for the Presidency, if he comes from New York
City, has something to live down. In the great domain of Yokeldom
it is the fashion to hold Wall Street responsible for most of the
nation's grief — especially in these days when book values are
sometimes written off at the rate of a billion a day. The regionalized
structure of the Federal Reserve bank system, as Congress has
devised it, is a monument to the distrust with which the rest of
the country regards a place which in any other nation would be
assigned its financial hegemony without question.

Macaulay once said that all men are divided by temperament
into two classes, and only two, that is, conservatives and liberals.
Every country has these two elements, no matter by what names
they may be disguised. In the United States the congenital con-
servatives and liberals are probably not widely apart in their
numerical strength; but they are rather unevenly distributed in
the existing political organizations and in the territorial regions.

Liberalism in virtually all its phases has its least strength in the
South and its greatest in the Far West. This seems to be true in
politics, religion, education, and social relations. If we were to have
a reorganization of our major political parties on lines which
Professor John Dewey and others have proposed it is by no means
certain that the Liberals would do otherwise than replace the
Democrats as the party which is habitually out of power.

Overlapping all these fundamental divisions, which are more or
less permanent, we have an even longer number which come into
being when issues arise and then fade out when the controversies
are closed. The free silver question, back in the nineties, inspired
groupings which have now disappeared. Prohibition has taken its
place to-day as the chief destroyer of well-built political fences.
But the present division of the American people into wet and dry
camps is very different from anything that we have ever had before.
It does not strictly follow regional lines, or vocational, or racial,
much less is it a matter of social status. There are dissensions on
this issue even in the same family. No other question of public policy
since slavery days has made such strange bed-fellows as this one —
with society leaders and even clergymen sometimes pleading the
cause of publicans and sinners, while bootlegging interests are
contributing funds for the protection of the Eighteenth Amend-
ment. Whatever may be said of prohibition as a moral issue, its
enforcement has at any rate drawn more brains and money into
the business of violating the law than any other piece of legislation
has ever done in the history of mankind.

So we have a union without unity of ideals, interests, attitude, or
opinion. On scarcely anything is there a consensus among our
people. This is because of our relatively brief history as a nation,
our sectional differentiation, and our racial admixture. We have
no common background in which the whole people can take pride.
All this makes leadership difficult and fosters the acceptance of
national policies which are largely the product of compromise. No
movement can proceed very far in the United States without en-
countering an adverse current which slackens its progress or stalls
it altogether. Not alone the Constitution, but the country is full of
checks and balances.

Yet as a nation we hold together amazingly. In their spirit of
nationalism the people of the United States are not outmatched
by any other. This is in part because of our physical isolation,

649

on a huge island between the world's two largest oceans, far re-
moved from all the other powerful nations of the earth. This
isolation has developed nationalism at the expense of internation-
alism in America. For most of our people the horizon stops at the
water's edge.

Something may also be attributed to the fact that we are, in an
economic sense, virtually self-sufficient and independent. There are
no necessities of life, and few luxuries, which the United States
cannot produce within her own borders. Raw materials are found,
manufactured, marketed, and consumed — all within one jurisdiction.
This brings home to us a certain larger sense of unity in economic
interest, despite the lesser internal divisions, and we protect it by a
towering tariff wall. As a corollary all parts of the nation are
commercially interdependent. The free flow of trade within con-
tinental United States, from Atlantic to Pacific and from the
Canadian border to the Gulf, is the most powerful unifying force
we have. A larger volume of trade passes back and forth through
this area than in all the countries of Europe put together. In that
sense we are the primate among free-trade nations, although
commonly regarded as the world's foremost exponent of pro-
tectionist policy.

E pluribus unum. The accent is on the pluribus. Let us hope
that it will stay there. Nothing could be more detrimental to the
national stability than that every American should become a
"hundred per cent American," as some of our super-patriots would
have it. For this would mean that people have ceased to differ,
and when they have ceased to differ they have ceased to think.
A continued vigorous development of group-distinctiveness is our
most dependable safeguard against mass action dictated by mob
psychology. To stay united, let us endeavor to keep disunited.

The Forum, September, 1931

650

Sentimental America

HENRY SEIDEL CANBY

The Oriental may be inscrutable, but he is no more puzzling
than the average American. We admit that we are hard, keen,
practical, — the adjectives that every casual European applies to us,
— and yet any bookstore window or railway news-stand will show
that we prefer sentimental magazines and books. Why should a
hard race — if we are hard — read soft books?

By soft books, by sentimental books, I do not mean only the
kind of literature best described by the word "squashy." I doubt
whether we write or read more novels and short stories of the
tear-dripped or hyperemotional variety than other nations. Germany
is — or was — full of such soft stuff. It is highly popular in France,
although the excellent taste of French criticism keeps it in check.
Italian popular literature exudes sentiment; and the sale of "squashy"
fiction in England is said to be threatened only by an occasional
importation of an American "best-seller." We have no bad eminence
here. Sentimentalists with enlarged hearts are international in
habitat, although, it must be admitted, especially popular in Amer-
ica.

When a critic, after a course in American novels and magazines,
declares that life, as it appears on the printed page here, is funda-
mentally sentimentalized, he goes much deeper than "mushiness"
with his charge. He means, I think, that there is an alarming
tendency in American fiction to dodge the facts of life — or to
pervert them. He means that in most popular books only red-
blooded, optimistic people are welcome. He means that material
success, physical soundness, and the gratification of the emotions
have the right of way. He means that men and women (except
the comic figures) shall be presented, not as they are, but as we
should like to have them, according to a judgment tempered by
nothing more searching than our experience with an unusually
comfortable, safe, and prosperous mode of living. Every one succeeds
in American plays and stories — if not by good thinking, why then
by good looks or good luck. A curious society the research student
of a later date might make of it — an upper world of the colorless
successful, illustrated by chance-saved collar advertisements and
magazine covers; an underworld of grotesque scamps, clowns, and

65i

hyphenates drawn from the comic supplement; and all — red-blooded
hero and modern gargoyle alike — always in good humor.

I am not touching in this picture merely to attack it. It has been
abundantly attacked; what it needs is definition. For there is much
in this bourgeois, good-humored American literature of ours which
rings true, which is as honest an expression of our individuality as
was the more austere product of antebellum New England. If
American sentimentality does invite criticism, American sentiment
deserves defense.

Sentiment — the response of the emotions to the appeal of human
nature — is cheap, but so are many other good things. The best of
the ancients were rich in it. Homer's chieftains wept easily. So
did Shakespeare's heroes. Adam and Eve shed "some natural
tears" when they left the Paradise which Milton imagined for
them. A heart accessible to pathos, to natural beauty, to religion,
was a chief requisite for the protagonist of Victorian literature.
Even Becky Sharp was touched — once — by Amelia's moving dis-
tress.

Americans, to be sure, do not weep easily; but if they make
equivalent responses to sentiment, that should not be held against
them. If we like "sweet" stories, or "strong" — which means emo-
tional— stories, our taste is not thereby proved to be hopeless, or our
national character bad. It is better to be creatures of even senti-
mental sentiment with the author of "The Rosary," than to see
the world only as it is portrayed by the pens of Bernard Shaw and
Anatole France. The first is deplorable; the second is dangerous.
I should deeply regret the day when a simple story of honest Ameri-
can manhood winning a million and a sparkling, piquant sweet-
heart lost all power to lull my critical faculty and warm my heart.
I doubt whether any literature has ever had too much of honest
sentiment.

Good Heavens! Because some among us insist that the mystic
rose of the emotions shall be painted a brighter pink than nature
allows, are the rest to forego glamour? Or because, to view the
matter differently, psychology has shown what happens in the
brain when a man falls in love, and anthropology has traced mar-
riage to a care for property rights, are we to suspect the idyllic in
literature wherever we find it? Life is full of the idyllic; and no
anthropologist will ever persuade the reasonably romantic youth
that the sweet and chivalrous passion which leads him to mingle
reverence with desire for the object of his affections, is nothing but
an idealized property sense. Origins explain very little, after all.

652

The bilious critics of sentiment in literature have not even honest
science behind them.

I have no quarrel with traffickers in simple emotion — with such
writers as James Lane Allen and James Whitcomb Riley, for ex-
ample. But the average American is not content with such senti-
ment as theirs. He wishes a more intoxicating brew, he desires to
be persuaded that, once you step beyond your own experience,
feeling rules the world. He wishes — I judge by what he reads — to
make sentiment at least ninety per cent efficient, even if a dream-
America, superficially resemblant to the real, but far different in
tone, must be created by the obedient writer in order to satisfy him.
His sentiment has frequently to be sentimentalized before he will
pay for it. And to this fault, which he shares with other modern
races, he adds the other heinous sin of sentimentalism, the refusal
to face the facts.

This sentimentalizing of reality is far more dangerous than the
romantic sentimentalizing of the "squashy" variety. It is to be found
in sex-stories which carefully observe decency of word and deed,
where the conclusion is always in accord with conventional mo-
rality, yet whose characters are clearly immoral, indecent, and
would so display themselves if the tale were truly told. It is to be
found in stories of "big business" where trickery and rascality are
made virtuous at the end by sentimental baptism. If I choose for
the hero of my novel a director in an American trust; if I make
him an accomplice in certain acts of ruthless economic tyranny;
if I make it clear that at first he is merely subservient to a stronger
will; and that the acts he approves are in complete disaccord with
his private moral code — why then, if the facts should be dragged to
the light, if he is made to realize the exact nature of his career, how
can I end my story? It is evident that my hero possesses little in-
sight and less firmness of character. He is not a hero; he is merely a
tool. In, let us say, eight cases out of ten, his curve is already plotted.
It leads downward — not necessarily along the villain's path, but
toward moral insignificance.

And yet, I cannot end my story that way for Americans. There
must be a grand moral revolt. There must be resistance, triumph,
and not only spiritual, but also financial recovery. And this, like-
wise, is sentimentality. Even Booth Tarkington, in his excellent
"Turmoil," had to dodge the logical issue of his story; had to make
his hero exchange a practical literary idealism for a very impracti-
cal, even though a commercial, utopianism, in order to emerge ap-
parently successful at the end of the book. A story such as the

653

Danish Nexo's "Pelle the Conqueror," where pathos and the idyllic,
each intense, each beautiful, are made convincing by an undeviating
truth to experience, would seem to be almost impossible of produc-
tion just now in America.

It is not enough to rail at this false fiction. The chief duty of
criticism is to explain. The best corrective of bad writing is a
knowledge of why it is bad. We get the fiction we deserve, precisely
as we get the government we deserve — or perhaps, in each case, a
little better. Why are we sentimental? When that question is an-
swered, it is easier to understand the defects and the virtues of
American fiction. And the answer lies in the traditional American
philosophy of life.

To say that the American is an idealist is to commit a thorough-
going platitude. Like most platitudes, the statement is annoying
because from one point of view it is indisputably just, while from
another it does not seem to fit the facts. With regard to our tradi-
tion, it is indisputable. Of the immigrants who since the seven-
teenth century have been pouring into this continent a proportion
large in number, larger still in influence, has been possessed of
motives which in part at least were idealistic. If it was not the
desire for religious freedom that urged them, it was the desire for
personal freedom; if not political liberty, why then economic lib-
erty (for this too is idealism), and the opportunity to raise the
standard of life. And of course all these motives were strongest in
that earlier immigration which has done most to fix the state of
mind and body which we call being American. I need not labor
the argument. Our political and social history support it; our best
literature demonstrates it, for no men have been more idealistic
than the American writers whom we have consented to call great.
Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Whitman — was idealism ever more
thoroughly incarnate than in them?

And this idealism — to risk again a platitude — has been in the air
of America. It has permeated our religious sects, and created several
of them. It has given tone to our thinking, and even more to our
feeling. I do not say that it has always, or even usually, determined
our actions, although the Civil War is proof of its power. Again
and again it has gone aground roughly when the ideal met a con-
dition of living — a fact that will provide the explanation for which
I seek. But optimism, "boosting," muck-raking (pot all of its mani-
festations are pretty), social service, religious, municipal, democratic
reform, indeed the "uplift" generally, is evidence of the vigor, the

654

bumptiousness of the inherited American tendency to pursue the
ideal. No one can doubt that in 1918 we believed, at least, in idealism.

Nevertheless, so far as the average individual is concerned, with
just his share and no more of the race-tendency, this idealism has
been suppressed, and in some measure perverted. It is this which
explains, I think, American sentimentalism.

Consider, for example, the ethics of conventional American so-
ciety. The American ethical tradition is perfectly definite and tre-
mendously powerful. It belongs, furthermore, to a population far
larger than the "old American" stock, for it has been laboriously
inculcated in our schools and churches, and impressively driven
home by newspaper, magazine, and book. I shall not presume to
analyze it save where it touches literature. There it maintains a
definite attitude toward all sex-problems: the Victorian, which is
not necessarily, or even probably, a bad one. Man should be chaste,
and proud of his chastity. Woman must be so. It is the ethical duty
of the American to hate, or at least to despise, all deviations, and to
pretend — for the greater prestige of the law — that such sinning is
exceptional, at least in America. And this is the public morality
he believes in, whatever may be his private experience in actual
living. In business, it is the ethical tradition of the American, in-
herited from a rigorous Protestant morality, to be square, to play
the game without trickery, to fight hard but never meanly. Over-
reaching is justifiable when the other fellow has equal opportuni-
ties to be "smart"; lying, tyranny — never. And though the opposites
of all these laudable practices come to pass, he must frown on them
in public, deny their Tightness even to the last cock-crow — espe-
cially in the public press.

American political history is a long record of idealistic tendencies
toward democracy working painfully through a net of graft, petti-
ness, sectionalism, and bravado, with constant disappointment for
the idealist who believes, traditionally, in the intelligence of the
crowd. American social history is a glaring instance of how the
theory of equal dignity for all men can entangle itself with caste
distinctions, snobbery, and the power of wealth. American eco-
nomic history betrays the pioneer helping to kick down the ladder
which he himself had raised toward equal opportunity for all.
American literary history — especially contemporary literary history
— reflects the result of all this for the American mind. The senti-
mental in our literature is a direct consequence.

The disease is easily acquired. Mr. Smith, a broker, finds him-
self in an environment of "schemes" and "deals" in which the qual-

655

ity of mercy is strained, and the wind is decidedly not tempered to
the shorn lamb. After all, business is business. He shrugs his shoul-
ders and takes his part. But his unexpended fund of native idealism
— if, as is most probable, he has his share — seeks its due satisfaction.
He cannot use it in business; so he takes it out in a novel or a play
where, quite contrary to his observed experience, ordinary people
like himself act nobly, with a success that is all the more agreeable
for being unexpected. His wife, a woman with strange stirrings
about her heart, with motions toward beauty, and desires for a
significant life and rich, satisfying experience, exists in day-long
pettiness, gossips, frivols, scolds, with money enough to do what
she pleases, and nothing vital to do. She also relieves her pent-up
idealism in plays or books — in high-wrought, "strong" novels, not
in adventures in society such as the kitchen admires, but in stories
with violent moral and emotional crises, whose characters, no matter
how unlifelike, have "strong" thoughts, and make vital decisions;
succeed or fail significantly. Her brother, the head of a wholesale dry-
goods firm, listens to the stories the drummers bring home of night
life on the road, laughs, says to himself regretfully that the world has
to be like that; and then, in logical reaction, demands purity and
nothing but aggressive purity in the books of the public library.

The hard man goes in for philanthropy (never before so fre-
quently as in America); the one-time "boss" takes to picture-col-
lecting; the railroad wrecker gathers rare editions of the Bible; and
tens of thousands of humbler Americans carry their inherited ideal-
ism into the necessarily sordid experiences of life in an imperfectly
organized country, suppress it for fear of being thought "cranky"
or "soft," and then, in their imagination and all that feeds their
imagination, give it vent. You may watch the process any evening
at the "movies" or the melodrama, on the trolley-car or in the easy
chair at home.

This philosophy of living which I have called American idealism
is in its own nature sound, as is proved in a hundred directions
where it has had full play. Suppressed idealism, like any other sup-
pressed desire, becomes unsound. And here lies the ultimate cause
of the taste for sentimentalism in the American bourgeoisie. An
undue insistence upon happy endings, regardless of the premises
of the story, and a craving for optimism everywhere, anyhow, are
sure signs of a "morbid complex," and to be compared with some
justice to the craving for drugs in an alcoholic deprived of liquor.
No one can doubt the effect of the suppression by the Puritan disci-

656

pline of that instinctive love of pleasure and liberal experience com-
mon to us all. Its unhealthy reaction is visible in every old American
community. No one who faces the facts can deny the result of the
suppression by commercial, bourgeois, prosperous America of our
native idealism. The student of society may find its dire effects in
politics, in religion, and in social intercourse. The critic cannot over-
look them in literature; for it is in the realm of the imagination
that idealism, direct or perverted, does its best or its worst.

Sentiment is not perverted idealism. Sentiment is idealism, of a
mild and not too masculine variety. If it has sins, they are sins of
omission, not commission. Our fondness for sentiment proves that
our idealism, if a little loose in the waist-band and puffy in the
cheeks, is still hearty, still capable of active mobilization, like those
comfortable French husbands whose plump and smiling faces, care-
less of glory, careless of everything but thrift and good living, one
used to see figured on a page whose superscription read, "Dead on
the field of honor."

The novels, the plays, the short stories, of sentiment may prefer
sweetness, perhaps, to truth, the feminine to the masculine virtues,
but we waste ammunition in attacking them. There never was, I
suppose, a great literature of sentiment, for not even "The Senti-
mental Journey" is truly great. But no one can make a diet exclu-
sively of "noble" literature; the charming has its own cozy corner
across from the tragic (and a much bigger corner at that). Our un-
counted amorists of tail-piece song and illustrated story provide the
readiest means of escape from the somewhat uninspiring life that
most men and women are living just now in America.

The sentimental, however, — whether because of an excess of sen-
timent softening into "slush," or of a morbid optimism, or of a
weak-eyed distortion of the facts of life, — is perverted. It needs to
be cured, and its cure is more truth. But this cure, I very much
fear, is not entirely, or even chiefly, in the power of the "regular
practitioner," the honest writer. He can be honest; but if he is much
more honest than his readers, they will not read him. As Professor
Lounsbury once said, a language grows corrupt only when its
speakers grow corrupt, and mends, strengthens, and becomes pure
with them. So with literature. We shall have less sentimentality
in American literature when our accumulated store of idealism
disappears in a laxer generation; or when it finds due vent in a
more responsible, less narrow, less monotonously prosperous life
than is lived by the average reader of fiction in America. I would
rather see our literary taste damned forever than have the first

657

alternative become — as it has not yet — a fact. The second, in these
years rests upon the knees of the gods.

All this must not be taken in too absolute a sense. There are
medicines, and good ones, in the hands of writers and of critics, to
abate, if not to heal, this plague of sentimentalism. I have stated
ultimate causes only. They are enough to keep the mass of Ameri-
cans reading sentimentalized fiction until some fundamental change
has come, not strong enough to hold back the van of American
writing, which is steadily moving toward restraint, sanity, and
truth. Every honest composition is a step forward in the cause; and
every clear-minded criticism.

But one must doubt the efficacy, and one must doubt the healthi-
ness, of reaction into cynicism and sophisticated cleverness. There
are curious signs, especially in what we may call the literature of
New York, of a growing sophistication that sneers at sentiment and
the sentimental alike. "Magazines of cleverness" have this for their
keynote, although as yet the satire is not always well aimed. There
are abundant signs that the generation just coming forward will
rejoice in such a pose. It is observable now in the colleges, where
the young literati turn up their noses at everything American, —
magazines, best-sellers, or one-hundred-night plays, — and resort for
inspiration to the English school of anti- Victorians : to Remy de
Gourmont, to Anatole France. Their pose is not altogether to be
blamed, and the men to whom they resort are models of much
that is admirable; but there is little promise for American literature
in exotic imitation. To see ourselves prevailingly as others see us
may be good for modesty, but does not lead to a self-confident
native art. And it is a dangerous way for Americans to travel. We
cannot afford such sophistication yet. The English wits experimented
with cynicism in the court of Charles II, laughed at blundering
Puritan morality, laughed at country manners, and were whirled
away because the ideals they laughed at were better than their own.
Idealism is not funny, however censurable its excesses. As a race
we have too much sentiment to be frightened out of the sentimental
by a blase cynicism.

At first glance the flood of moral literature now upon us — social-
conscience stories, scientific plays, platitudinous "moralities" that
tell us how to live — may seem to be another protest against senti-
mentalism. And that the French and English examples have been
so warmly welcomed here may seem another indication of a reac-
tion on our part. I refer especially to "hard" stories, full of vengeful
wrath, full of warnings for the race that dodges the facts of life.

658

H. G. Wells is the great exemplar, with his sociological studies
wrapped in description and tied with a plot. In a sense, such stories
are certainly to be regarded as a protest against truth-dodging,
against cheap optimism, against "slacking," whether in literature or
in life. But it would be equally just to call them another result of
suppressed idealism, and to regard their popularity in America as
proof of the argument which I have advanced in this essay. Ex-
cessively didactic literature is often a little unhealthy. In fresh
periods, when life runs strong and both ideals and passions find
ready issue into life, literature has no burdensome moral to carry.
It digests its moral. Homer digested his morals. They transfuse his
epics. So did Shakespeare.

Not so with the writers of the social-conscience school. They are
in a rage over wicked, wasteful man. Their novels are bursted note-
books— sometimes neat and orderly notebooks, like Mr. Gals-
worthy's or our own Ernest Poole's, sometimes haphazard ones,
like those of Mr. Wells, but always explosive with reform. These
gentlemen know very well what they are about, especially Mr. Wells,
the lesser artist, perhaps, as compared with Galsworthy, but the
shrewder and possibly the greater man. The very sentimentalists, who
go to novels to exercise the idealism which they cannot use in life,
will read these unsentimental stories, although their lazy impulses
would never spur them on toward any truth not sweetened by a tale.

And yet, one feels that the social attack might have been more
convincing if free from its compulsory service to fiction; that these
novels and plays might have been better literature if the authors
did not study life in order that they might be better able to preach.
Wells and Galsworthy also have suffered from suppressed idealism,
although it would be unfair to say that perversion was the result.
So have our muck-rakers, who, very characteristically, exhibit the
disorder in a more complex and a much more serious form, since
to a distortion of facts they have often enough added hypocrisy and
commercialism. It is part of the price we pay for being sentimental.

If I am correct in my analysis, we are suffering here in America,
not from a plague of bad taste merely, nor only from a lack of real
education among our myriads of readers, nor from decadence —
least of all, this last. It is a disease of our own particular virtue
which has infected us — idealism, suppressed and perverted. A less
commercial, more responsible America, perhaps a less prosperous
and more spiritual America, will hold fast to its sentiment, but be
weaned from its sentimentality.

Definitions, 1922

659

The Myth of Rugged American

Indiwdua

ism

CHARLES A. BEARD

"The house of bishops would be as much at sea in Minneapolis
as at Atlantic City." This bit of delicious humor, all too rare in
America's solemn assemblies, sparkled at a tense moment in the
late conference of the Episcopalian magnates at Denver when the
respective merits of the two cities as future meeting places were
under debate. But the real cause of the caustic comment seems to
have been a heated discussion, led by the Honorable George W.
Wickersham, over a dangerous proposal to modify, not the Volstead
Act, but the sacred creed of rugged American individualism.

That contest had been precipitated by the report >f a special
commission in which occurred these highly inflammatory words:
"It is becoming increasingly evident that the conception of society
as made up of autonomous, independent individuals is as faulty
from the point of view of economic realism as it is from the stand-
point of Christian idealism. Our fundamental philosophy of rugged
individualism must be modified to meet the needs of a co-operative
age." This frightful conclusion flowed from a fact statement which
the commission summarized in the following language: "Side by
side with such misery and idleness, there are warehouses bursting
with goods which cannot be bought; elevators full of wheat while
bread lines haunt our cities; carefully protected machinery lying
idle, while jobless men throng our streets; money in the banks
available at low rates."

These shocking passages Mr. Wickersham read to the assembled
delegates with considerable indignation, and denied their truth.
Then he added an illuminating exposition all his own: "I think
this is an expression of a social philosophy that is expressed by the
Soviet Government of Russia. It is a negation of the whole concept
of American civilization. I think it would be a sad day when the
American people abandon the principles on which they have grown
to greatness." Coming to specifications, he particularly attacked a
point in the report, that "compulsory unemployment insurance is

660

feasible." Realizing that Mr. Wickersham was a specialist in indi-
vidualism, since he was the chief author of a collective report from
which each individual signer apparently dissented, the congregated
deputies at Denver voted down the proposal that the commission's
statement should be taken as "representing the mind of the Church,"
and substituted a mere pious recommendation that it should be
given "careful consideration" by members of the Church. Such, at
least, is the story reported in the press.

This is only one of many straws in the wind indicating a move-
ment to exalt rugged individualism into a national taboo beyond
the reach of inquiring minds. From day to day it becomes increas-
ingly evident that some of our economic leaders (by no means all
of them) are using the phrase as an excuse for avoiding responsi-
bility, for laying the present depression on "Government inter-
ference," and for seeking to escape from certain forms of taxation
and regulation which they do not find to their interest. If a smoke
screen big enough can be laid on the land, our commercial presti-
digitators may work wonders — for themselves.

Still more direct evidence confirms this view. For example, in
the autumn of 1930, a New York bank published, as a kind of
revelation from on high, a slashing attack on "Government inter-
ference with business," written by that stanch English Whig,
Macaulay, a hundred years ago; and a few weeks later one of the
leading advertising firms took a whole page in the New Yorf( Times
to blazon forth the creed anew under the captivating head: "Cheer
Up! Our Best Times Are Still Ahead of Us!" And the whole gospel
was summed up in these words from Macaulay: "Our rulers will
best promote the improvement of the people by strictly confining
themselves to their own legitimate duties — by leaving capital to find
its most lucrative course, commodities their fair price, industry and
intelligence their natural reward, idleness and folly their natural
punishment — by maintaining peace, by defending property, by di-
minishing the price of law, and by observing strict economy in
every department of the State. Let the Government do this — the
people will assuredly do the rest." In other words, here was put
forth in the name of American business, with all the pontifical as-
surance that characterized Macaulay's shallowest sophistry, the pure
creed of historic individualism, and here was served on the Govern-
ment and people of the United States a warning revelation of con-
fident expectations.

A year later, in a release to the press, Mr. Otto Kahn discussed
the subject of planning and intimated that the fortunate position of

66 1

France today is to be ascribed to the fact that the French Govern-
ment interferes less with business than does the Government of
Germany or <rreat Britain, with the implication that the United
States might profit from this experience. About the same time the
Honorable Newton D. Baker made a long address at Williamstown
which was evidently designed to show that nothing important could
be done in the present crisis by the Federal Government, except
perhaps in the way of tariff reduction by international agreement.
And now comes from Chicago the announcement that a number
of rugged business men are forming a national association to com-
bat Government in business, to break up this unholy alliance. There
is not a professional lunching-and-dining fellowship in America that
is not now applauding to the echo such ringing cries as "Let Us
Alone," "Take Government Out of Business," "Hands Off," "Un-
burden Capital." With an eye on such straws in the wind, President
Hoover publicly states that all notions about planned economy
come out of Russia, thus placing such distinguished men as Gerard
Swope and Owen D. Young under the horrible Red ban.. As one
of the high-powered utility propagandists recently explained, the
best way to discredit an opponent is to pin a Red tag on him — with-
out reference to his deserts, of course.

Hence it is important to ask, calmly and without reference to
election heats, just what all this means. In what way is the Govern-
ment "in business" and how did it get there? Here we climb down
out of the muggy atmosphere of controversy and face a few stub-
born facts. They are entered in the indubitable records of the Gov-
ernment of the United States and are as evident as the hills to them
that have eyes to see. Let us catalogue a few of them seriatim for
the first time in the history of this adventure in logomachy.

i. Government Regulation of Railways, from 1887 to the last Act
of Congress. How did the Government get into this business? The
general cause was the conduct of railway corporations under the
rule of rugged individualism — rebates, pools, stock watering, bank-
ruptcy-juggling, all the traffic will bear, savage rate slashing, merci-
less competition, and the rest of it. If anyone wants to know the
facts,, let him read the history of railroading in the sixties, seventies,
and early eighties, or, if time is limited, the charming illustrations
presented in Charles Francis Adams' "A Chapter of Erie." And
what was the immediate cause of the Government's intervention?
The insistence of business men, that is, shippers, who were harassed

662

and sometimes ruined by railway tactics, and of farmers, the most
rugged of all the rugged individualists the broad land of America
has produced. And the result? Let the gentle reader compare the
disastrous railway bankruptcies that flowed from the panic of 1873,
including bloodshed and arson, with the plight of railways now,
bad as it is. Government regulation is not a Utopian success, but it
is doubtful whether any of our great business men would like to
get the Government entirely out of this business and return to the
magnificent anarchy of Jay Gould's age. President Hoover has not
even suggested it.

2. Waterways. Since its foundation the Government has poured
hundreds of millions into rivers, harbors, canals, and other internal
improvements. It is still pouring in millions. Some of our best
economists have denounced it as wasteful and have demonstrated
that most of it does not pay in any sense of the word. But President
Hoover, instead of leaving this work to private enterprise, insists
on projecting and executing the most elaborate undertakings, in
spite of the fact that some of them are unfair if not ruinous to rail-
ways. Who is back of all this ? Business men and farmers who want
lower freight rates. There is not a chamber of commerce on any
Buck Creek in America that will not cheer until tonsils are cracked
any proposal to make the said creek navigable. Dredging companies
want the good work to go on, and so do the concerns that make
dredging machinery. Farmers are for it also and they are, as already
said, the ruggedest of rugged individuals — so rugged in fact that
the vigorous efforts of the Farm Board to instill co-operative reason
into them have been almost as water on a duck's back.

3. The United States Barge Corporation. Who got the Govern-
ment into the job of running barges on some of its improved water-
ways ? Certainly not the socialists, but good Republicans and Demo-
crats speaking for the gentlemen listed under 2 above.

4. The Shipping Business. The World War was the occasion, but
not the cause of this departure. For more than half a century the
politicians of America fought ship subsidies against business men
engaged in the shipbuilding and allied industries. At last, under the
cover of war necessities, the Government went into the shipping
business, with cheers from business. Who is back of the huge ex-
penditures for the merchant marine? Business men. Who supports
huge subsidies under the guise of "lucrative mail contracts," making
a deficit in postal finances to be used as proof that the Government
cannot run any business? Business men clamor for these mail sub-
sidies and receive them. Who put the Government into the business

663

of providing cheap money for shipbuilding? Business men did it.
Those who are curious to know how these things were done may
profitably read the sworn testimony presented during the investi-
gation of W. B. Shearer's patriotic labors on behalf of the ship-
building interests, especially the exhibits showing how money was
.spent like water "educating" politicians. Who wants navy officers
on half pay to serve on privately owned ships? Business men. Who
wants the Government to keep on operating ships on "pioneer"
lines that do not pay? Business men. And when the United States
Senate gets around to investigating this branch of business, it will
find more entertainment than the Trade Commission has found
in the utility inquest.

5. Aviation. The Government is "in" this business. It provides
costly airway services free of charge and subsidizes air mail. Who
is behind this form of Government enterprise? Gentlemen engaged
in aviation and the manufacture of planes and dirigibles. Then
the Government helps by buying planes for national defense.
Who is opposed to air mail subsidies? A few despised "politi-
cians."

6. Canals. Who zealously supported the construction of the Pan-
ama Canal? Shippers on the Pacific Coast who did not like the
railway rates. Also certain important shipping interests on both
coasts — all controlled by business men. Who insisted that the Gov-
ernment should buy the Cape Cod Canal? The business men who
put their money into the enterprise and found that it did not pay.
Then they rejoiced to see the burden placed on the broad back of
our dear Uncle Sam.

7. Highway Building. Who has supported Federal highway aid —
the expenditure of hundreds of millions on roads, involving the
taxation of railways to pay for ruinous competition? Everybody
apparently, but specifically business men engaged in the manufac-
ture and sale of automobiles and trucks. Who proposes to cut ofl
every cent of that outlay? Echoes do not answer.

8. The Department of Commerce, its magnificent mansion near
the Treasury Department, and its army of hustlers scouting for
business at the uttermost ends of the earth. Who is responsible for
loading on the Government the job of big drummer at large for
business? Why shouldn't these rugged individualists do their own
drumming instead of asking the taxpayers to do it for them ? Busi-
ness men have been behind this enormous expansion, and Mr.
Hoover, as Secretary of Commerce, outdid every predecessor in the
range of his activities and the expenditure of public money. Who

664

proposes to take the Government out of the business of hunting
business for men who ought to know their own business?

9. The Big Pork Barrel — appropriations for public buildings, navy
yards, and army posts. An interesting enterprise for the United
States Chamber of Commerce would be to discover a single piece
of pork in a hundred years that has not been approved by local
business men as beneficiaries. When Ben Tillman shouted in the
Senate that he intended to steal a hog every time a Yankee got a
ham, he knew for whom the speaking was done.

10. The Bureau of Standards. Besides its general services, it ren-
ders valuable aid to business undertakings. Why shouldn't they do
their own investigating at their own expense, instead of turning to
the Government?

11. The Federal Trade Commission. Who runs there for rulings
on "fair practices"? Weary consumers? Not often. Principally, busi-
ness men who do not like to be outwitted or cheated by their com-
petitors. If we are rugged individualists, why not let every
individualist do as he pleases, without invoking Government inter-
vention at public expense?

12. The Anti-Trust Acts. Business men are complaining against
these laws on the ground that they cannot do any large-scale plan-
ning without incurring the risk of prosecution. The contention is
sound, but who put these laws on the books and on what theory
were they based ? They were the product of a clamor on the part of
farmers and business men against the practices of great corporations.
Farmers wanted lower prices. Business men of the smaller variety
objected to being undersold, beaten by clever tricks, or crushed to
the wall by competitors with immense capital. And what was the
philosophy behind the Sherman Act and the Clayton Act? Indi-
vidualism, pure and undefiled. "The New Freedom" as President
Wilson phrased it in literary language. "Break up the trusts and
let each tub stand on its own bottom." That was the cry among little
business men. As lawyers put it in their somber way, "the natural
person's liberty should not be destroyed by artificial persons known
as corporations created under the auspices of the State." Whether
any particular business man is for or against the anti-trust laws
depends upon his particular business and the state of its earnings.

13. The Tariff. On this tender subject it is scarcely possible to
speak soberly. It seems safe to say, however, that if all the business
men who demand this kind of "interference" — with the right of
capital to find its most lucrative course, industry and intelligence
their natural reward, commodities their fair price, and idleness and

665

folly their natural punishment — were to withdraw their support
for protection, cease their insistence on it, then the politicians would
probably reduce the levy or go over to free trade; with what effect
on business no one can correctly predict. At all events there are
thousands of business men who want to keep the Government in
the business of protecting their business against foreign competi-
tion. If competition is good, why not stand up and take it?

14. The Federal Farm Board. This collectivist institution is the
product of agrarian agitation, on the part of our most stalwart in-
dividualists, the free and independent farmers; but President Hoover
sponsored it and signed the bill that created it. Now what is its
avowed purpose as demonstrated by the language of the statute,
the publications of the Farm Board, and the activities carried out
under its auspices? It is primarily and fundamentally intended to
stabilize prices and production through co-operative methods. And
what has the Board done? It has encouraged the development of
co-operation as distinguished from individualism among farmers;
it has financed co-operative associations; it has denounced indi-
vidualistic farmers who insist on growing as much as they please,
and has tried to get them to increase their earnings by a common
limitation of production. If the Agricultural Marketing Act means
anything, if the procedure of the Farm Board is not a delusion, then
co-operation is to be substituted for individualism in agricultural
production and marketing. If there is ever to be a rational adjust-
ment of supply to demand in this field, the spirit and letter of Presi-
dent Hoover's measure must be realized through organized action
by millions of farmers under Federal auspices. The other alternative
is simon-pure individualism : let each farmer produce what he likes,
as much of it as he likes, and sell it at any price he can get. But
under the happy title "Grow Less — Get More," the Farm Board
has given instructions to farmers: "One thing the successful manu-
facturers learned long ago was that they could not make money
when they produced more than they could sell at a profit." The
obvious moral is for farmers to get together under Government
leadership or hang separately.

15. The Moratorium and Frozen Assets. The latest form of
Government interference with "the natural course" of economy is
the suspension of payments due the United States from foreign
powers on account of lawful debts and the proposal to give public
support to "frozen assets." What was the source of inspiration here ?
American investment bankers having got themselves into a jam
in their efforts to make easy money now demand government as-

666

sistance. In 1927 one of the most distinguished German economists
told the writer of this article that the great game in his country,
as in other parts of Europe, was to borrow billions from private
bankers in the United States, so that it would ultimately be im-
possible to pay reparations, the debts due the Federal Government,
and then the debts owed to private parties. The expected result?
American bankers would then force their Government to forego
its claims for the benefit of private operators who wanted to make
bankers' commissions and eight or ten per cent on their money.
Well, the game worked. American taxpayers are to be soaked and
American bankers are to collect — perhaps.

And what is a "frozen asset"? It is a gaudy name for a piece of
paper representing a transaction in which the holder expected to
get a larger return than was possible on a prudent, rock-bottom
investment. A Hartford, Connecticut, municipal four is not frozen;
a holder can get better than par in the present dark hour of Wall
Street's sorrows. A seven per cent Western farm mortgage is frozen
tight — and ought to be, and the holder frozen with it. So is a Bo-
livian seven. Why should there be Federal interference to save in-
vestors from reaping the fruits of their folly and greed? No reason,
except that the latter want the Government to bring home their
cake so that they can eat it. The trouble is that American capital,
in finding "its most lucrative course," has fallen into a slough, and
if it gets out with its gains intact the Government must bring a
derrick to hoist it.

In this survey of a few leading economic activities of the Federal
Government the emphasis is not critical; so far as the present argu-
ment is concerned, any or all of these functions may be justified
with respect to national interest. Indeed it is difficult to find any
undertaking of the Government which is not supported by some
business men on the ground of national defense. In the early days
of our history even those statesmen who generally espoused free
trade or low tariffs were willing to concede the importance of mak-
ing the nation independent in the manufacture of munitions of
war. And in the latest hour, subsidies to the merchant marine, to
aviation, and to waterways development are stoutly defended in
the name of preparedness. Transforming a creek into a river naviga-
ble by outboard motor boats can be supported by military engineers
on the theory that it gives them practice in their art. No; the empha-
sis here is not critical. The point is that the Federal Government

667

does not operate in a vacuum, but under impulsion from without;
and all of the measures which put the Government into business
have been supported by rugged individualists — business men or
farmers or both. The current tendency to describe the Government
as a meddling busybody, prying around and regulating for the
mere pleasure of taking the joy out of somebody's life, betrays an
ignorance of the facts in the case. The Government of the United
States operates continually in the midst of the most powerful as-
sembly of lobbyists the world has ever seen — the representatives of
every business interest that has risen above the level of a corner
grocery; and there is not a single form of Government interference
with business that does not have the approval of one or more of
these interests — except perhaps the taxation of income for the pur-
pose, among other things, of paying the expenses of subsidizing
and regulating business.

For forty years or more there has not been a President, Republi-
can or Democratic, who has not talked against Government inter-
ference and then supported measures adding more interference to
the huge collection already accumulated. Take, for instance, Presi-
dent Wilson. He made his campaign in 1912 on the classical doc-
trine of individualism; he blew mighty blasts in the name of his
new freedom against the control of the Government by corporate
wealth and promised to separate business and Government, thus
setting little fellows free to make money out of little business. The
heir of the Jeffersonian tradition, he decried paternalism of every
kind. Yet look at the statutes enacted under his benign administra-
tion: the trainmen's law virtually fixing wages on interstate rail-
ways for certain classes of employees; the shipping board law; the
Farm Loan Act; federal aid for highway construction; the Alaskan
railway; the Federal Reserve Act; the Water Power Act; and all
the rest of the bills passed during his regime. Only the Clayton
anti-trust law can be called individualistic. No wonder Mr. E. L.
Doheny exclaimed to Mr. C. W. Barren that President Wilson was
a college professor gone Bolshevist! And why did Democrats who
had been saying "the less government the better" operate on the
theory that the more government the better? Simply because their
mouths were worked by ancient memories and their actions were
shaped by inexorable realities.

Then the Republicans came along in 1921 and informed the coun-
try that they were going back to normalcy, were determined to take
the Government out of business. Well, did they repeal a single one
of the important measures enacted during the eight years of Presi-

668

dent Wilson's rule? It would be entertaining to see the sanhedrim
of the United States Chamber of Commerce trying to make out a
list of laws repealed in the name of normalcy and still more enter-
taining to watch that august body compiling a list of additional
laws interfering with "the natural course of business" enacted since
1921. Heirs of the Hamiltonian tradition, the Republicans were not
entitled to talk about separating the Government from business.
Their great spiritual teacher, Daniel Webster, a pupil of Hamilton,
had spoken truly when he said that one of the great reasons for
framing the Constitution was the creation of a government that
could regulate commerce. They came honestly by subsidies, boun-
ties, internal improvements, tariffs, and other aids to business. What
was the trouble with them in the age of normalcy? Nothing; they
just wanted their kind of government intervention in the "natural
cause of industry." Evidently, then, there is some confusion on
this subject of individualism, and it ought to be examined dispas-
sionately in the light of its history with a view to discovering its
significance and its limitations; for there is moral danger in saying
one thing and doing another — at all events too long.

Historically speaking, there are two schools of individualism:
one American, associated with the name of Jefferson, and the other
English, associated with the name of Cobden. The former was
agrarian in interest, the latter capitalistic. Jefferson wanted America
to be a land of free, upstanding farmers with just enough govern-
ment to keep order among them; his creed was an agrarian creed
nicely fitted to a civilization of sailing ships, ox carts, stagecoaches,
wooden plows, tallow dips, and home-made bacon and sausages;
and since most of the people in the United States, during the first
century of their independence, were engaged in agriculture, they
thought highly of Jefferson's praise of agriculture and his doctrine
of anarchy plus the police constable. Cobden's individualism was
adapted to capitalist England at the middle of the nineteenth cen-
tury— early industrial England. At that moment his country was
the workshop of the world, was mistress of the world market in
manufactured commodities, and feared no competition from any
foreign country. English capitalists thus needed no protective tariffs
and subsidies and, therefore, wanted none. Hence they exalted free
trade to the level of a Mosaic law, fixed and eternal. They wanted
to employ labor on their own terms and turn working people out
to starve when no profitable business was at hand; so they quite

669

naturally believed that any government interference with their
right to do as they pleased was "bad." Their literary apologist,
Macaulay, clothed their articles of faith in such magnificent rhetoric
that even the tiredest business man could keep awake reading it at
night.

. Closely examined, what is this creed of individualism? Macaulay
defines it beautifully in the passage which the New York bank and
our happy advertising agency quoted so joyously. Let the Govern-
ment maintain peace, defend property, reduce the cost of litigation,
and observe economy in expenditure — that is all. Do American
business men want peace all the time, in Nicaragua, for instance,
when their undertakings are disturbed? Or in Haiti or Santo Do-
mingo? Property must be defended, of course. But whose property?
And what about the cost of litigation and economy in expenditures ?
If they would tell their hired men in law offices to cut the costs of
law, something might happen. As for expenditures, do they really
mean to abolish subsidies, bounties, and appropriations-in-aid from
which they benefit? Speaking brutally, they do not. That is not the
kind of economy in expenditures which they demand; they prefer
to cut off a few dollars from the Children's Bureau.

Then comes Macaulay 's system of private economy: let capital
find its most lucrative course alone, unaided : no Government tariffs,
subsidies, bounties, and special privileges. That is the first item. Do
American business men who shout for individualism believe in that ?
Certainly not. So that much is blown out of the water. Macaulay's
next item is: let commodities find their fair price. Do the gentlemen
who consolidate, merge, and make price understandings want to
allow prices to take their "natural course"? By no means; they are
trying to effect combinations that will hold prices up to the point
of the largest possible profit. Macaulay's third item is: let industry
and intelligence receive their natural reward. Whose industry and
intelligence and what industry and intelligence? When these ques-
tions are asked all that was clear and simple dissolves in mist.

Then there is Macaulay's last item: let idleness and folly reap
their natural punishment. That was a fundamental specification in
the hill of Manchesterism. Malthus made it a law for the economists:
the poor are poor because they have so many babies and are im-
provident; nothing can be done about it, at least by any Govern-
ment, even though it enforces drastic measures against the spread
of information on birth control. Darwin made a natural science of
it: biology sanctified the tooth and claw struggle of business by
proclaiming the eternal tooth and claw struggle of the jungle. If

670

the Government will do nothing whatever, all people will rise or
sink to the level which their industry or idleness, their intelligence
or folly commands. No distinction was made between those who
were idle because they could find no work and those who just loved
idleness for its own sake — either in slums or mansions. Those who
hit bottom and starved simply deserved it. That is the good, sound,
logical creed of simon-pure individualism which Herbert Spencer
embedded in fifty pounds of printed matter. To him and all his
devotees, even public schools and public libraries were anathema:
let the poor educate themselves at their own expense; to educate
them at public expense is robbery of the taxpayer — that industrious,
intelligent, provident person who is entitled to keep his "natural
reward."

Do any stalwart individualists believe that simple creed now? Not
in England, where Liberals, professing to carry on the Cobden-
Bright tradition, vote doles for unemployed working people. Why
not let idleness and folly get their natural punishment? Why not,
indeed? There must be a reason. Either the individualists betray
their own faith, or, as some wag has suggested, they are afraid that
they might find themselves hanging to a lantern if they let the
idle and the foolish starve, that is, reap the natural punishment pre-
scribed by Macaulay. Nor do American individualists propose to let
nature take her course in this country. There is no danger of revo-
lution here; as Mr. Coolidge has said, "we have had our revolution";
yet business men agree with the politicians on feeding the hungry.
It is true that they seem to be trying to obscure the issues and the
facts by talking about the beneficence of private charity while get-
ting most of the dole from public treasuries; but that is a detail.
Although our rugged individualists advertise Macaulay 's creed,
their faith in it appears to be shaky or their courage is not equal to
their hopes. Then why should they try to delude themselves and
the public?

There is another side to this stalwart individualism that also de-
serves consideration. Great things have been done in its name, no
doubt, and it will always have its place in any reasoned scheme of
thinking. Individual initiative and energy are absolutely indispen-
sable to the successful conduct of any enterprise, and there is ample
ground for fearing the tyranny and ineptitude of Governments.
In the days of pioneering industry in England, in our pioneering
days when forests were to be cut and mountain fastnesses explored,
individualism was the great dynamic which drove enterprise for-
ward. But on other pages of the doom book other entries must be

671

made. In the minds of most people who shout for individualism
vociferously, the creed, stripped of all flashy rhetoric, means getting
money, simply that and nothing more. And to this creed may be
laid most of the shame that has cursed our cities and most of the
scandals that have smirched our Federal Government.
. That prince of bosses, Croker, put the individualist creed in its
bare logical form when he said that he was working for his own
pocket all the time, just as "every man in New York is working
for his pocket." Fall, Doheny, and Sinclair were all splendid indi-
vidualists; they explained that they hoped to make money out of
their transactions, even while they covered their operations with the
mantle of patriotism — national defense. Tammany judges, Connolly
and his iron pipe, Doyle with his split fees, and policemen growing
rich on vice are all individualists of the purest brand. W. B. Shearer
collecting money from ship-building concerns to make a naval
scare so that they might increase their profits belongs to the same
school. Britten, bringing a fleet to Montauk Point to boom real
estate in which he is interested, does nothing reprehensible under
the Manchester creed; his capital is finding "its most lucrative
course." Wilder and Bardo, representing shipping interests, when
they spend money in Washington "educating" members of Con-
gress, are following the law of the game. They are perfect indi-
vidualists. The ruinous chaos in coal and oil is to be attributed to
the same Darwinian morality. Finally, Al Capone, with his private
enterprise in racketeering, is a supreme individualist: he wants no
Government interference with his business, not even the collection
of income taxes; if he is "let alone" he will take care of himself
and give some money to soup kitchens besides.

The cold truth is that the individualist creed of everybody for
himself and the devil take the hindmost is principally responsible
for the distress in which Western civilization finds itself — with in-
vestment racketeering at one end and labor racketeering at the
other. Whatever merits the creed may have had in days of primitive
agriculture and industry, it is not applicable in an age of technology,
science, and rationalized economy. Once useful, it has become a
danger to society. Every thoughtful business man who is engaged in
management as distinguished from stock speculation knows that
stabilization, planning, orderly procedure, prudence, and the ad-
justment of production to demand are necessary to keep the eco-
nomic machine running steadily and efficiently. Some of our most
distinguished citizens—Owen D. Young, Gerard Swope, Nicholas
Murray Butler, and Otto Kahn, for example — have, in effect,

672

warned the country that only by planning can industry avoid the
kind of disaster from which we are now suffering; on all sides are
signs of its coming— perhaps soon, perhaps late, but inevitably.

And all of them know that this means severe restraints on the
anarchy celebrated in the name of individualism. The task before us,
then, is not to furbish up an old slogan, but to get rid of it, to
discover how much planning is necessary, by whom it can best be
done, and what limitations must be imposed on the historic doc-
trine of Manchesterism. And to paraphrase Milton, methinks puis-
sant America, mewing her mighty youth, will yet kindle her un-
dazzled eyes at the full midday beam, purge and unscale her long
abused sight, while timorous and flocking birds, with those that love
the twilight, flutter about, amazed at what she means, and in their
envious gabble would prognosticate a year of sects and schisms.

Harper's Magazine, December, 1931

673

Culture versus Colonialism in America

HERBERT AGAR

Having been told many times that the future must be a strife
between communism and fascism, a number of Americans are be-
ginning to believe it. But their hearts are not given to either side;
so the belief leads to pessimism, to the conviction that America is
sold out and that there is nothing left to do but complain cleverly.

Such an attitude has the merit of completeness. It satisfies the part
of the human mind that cries for an answer at any cost, even at
the cost of suicide. But there is no excuse, as yet, for Americans to
seek this shoddy comfort. We have a harder task and a more
exciting. It is our job to save a corner of the world from the twin
despotisms that encroach on Europe. If we do this we shall take a
proud place in history. If we fail to do it we shall take no place at
all; we shall just be a colony: a huge but awkward copy of the
parent civilization.

If we are to seize our chance for greatness we must fight both the
defeatism of the pessimists and the greedy optimism of those whose
picture of a pretty future is a return to 1928. Our hope lies in the
fact that we once had a political tradition which could give an
answer in terms of freedom to this false fascist-or-communist
dilemma. We have weakened that tradition shamefully, by taking
its name in vain. We have betrayed it item by item while assuring
each other that we were merely adapting it to the modern progress.
It will not be easily revived today. Yet there is our job. All over the
United States men are waking to that knowledge at last.

The first step toward reviving native America is to define it.
And before it can be defined it has to be isolated. The "real"
America, from which a native Culture can grow, has to be dis-
tinguished from colonial America which seeks only to copy Europe.
The present essay tries to make this distinction even at the risk of
overstating the differences.

During six years of living in England I learned one basic fact
about my own country. I learned that the best traits in American ,
life are not the traits we have copied faithfully from Europe but the
traits we have freely adapted, or else originated — the traits which
are our own. I learned that in so far as America is an imitation
of Europe, she is not so good as the original. This merely means that

674

in so far as we are a colonial race we share the usual shortcomings
of colonialism. "Society" life in the big cities of America is an
example. "Society" has of course become ridiculous all over
the Western world. The bourgeois revolution of the nineteenth
century, the rise of stock-market wealth to a power and prestige over-
shadowing landed wealth, doomed urban "society" to a comic-
section end. But granting that it is absurd everywhere, "society" in
New York or Chicago is more absurd than in London. In London,
something that once had dignity and purpose has grown sick and
silly; in Chicago something sick and silly has been carefully im-
provised. A colonial status is a poor one at best; it becomes abject
in a period when the model is not worth copying.

Modern American art offers a similar example. In so far as our
art is a copy of French Modernism, it is colonial and inferior. As
Mr. Thomas Craven writes:

Those who regard art as modish decoration, as inarticulate embellish-
ment, have every reason to favor French Modernism, and every in-
centive to buy it. And it is more sensible to buy the original manu-
factures than the American imitations. Truly, they order these
material things better in France. In the exhibition at the Chicago Fair,
the French painters of the modern School of Paris made the American
painters attached to that school look seedy and second-rate.

But there is another American art, such as that of Mr. Thomas
Hart Benton, which has nothing to do with French Modernism,
with Bohemia's abstract aloofness from Europe's passion and despair.
This other art deals with American life; for side by side with our
colonialism there is an America which makes an original contribu-
tion to the culture of Christendom.

The Colonial mind at its silliest is shown in our veneration for
French cooking. Even in the South, where our native cooking will
bear comparison with the cooking of any land, it is almost impos-
sible in a first-class hotel to get anything but base imitations of the
French. In a city of Tennessee, a hotel has carried this tendency one
step further than is usual: over the door of its grillroom is a large
sign reading Le Grille. But even in this somberly named room, with
its suggestion of a roasted heretic, the French cooking is vile and
the American cooking does not exist. Presumably, the hotel manag-
ers know their business. Presumably, the traveling American public
wants Parisian dishes even if they are always limp and tasteless,
rather than American dishes to which the local cooks could do
justice. But if this is true, the traveling public is colonial minded.

675

The town of Sheridan,1 in the Middle West, illustrates the two
Americas, and also the half-conscious fight taking place between
them — a fignt that will determine our future.

Sheridan is a suburb of one of our giant cities. Its population
increased from thirty-seven thousand in 1920 to sixty-three thousand
in 1930. But Sheridan is not yet "suburban." Having a strong local
pride it has thus far kept its own identity. It has not become merely
another dormitory to the giant city. It still has the character of a
Middle Western small town. But it will not have this character for
long, if recent tendencies continue unchecked into the future. For
Sheridan is living on its spiritual capital. It is using the virtues that
are left over from the past rather than tending the soil from which
these virtues grew. Native America will not win its fight unless it
grows more conscious of the danger, more vigilant in defence.

The most striking feature of life in Sheridan is that a feeling of
equality is still almost universal, at least among the whites. It is an
unforced equality, which is so widely accepted that it does not need
to call attention to itself. A delivery-boy will meet the wife of a
college professor on the street, and will wave his hand at her and
call out, "Hello there, Mrs. Holt, you're looking just fine today."
The clerk at the grocery store will say, "Good morning, Mrs. Holt.
Why, you've washed your hair." And the ice-man will find Mrs.
Holt digging in her garden, and will stop to tell her, "Don't plant
your tulips there — it's too shady. Plant them over by that wall, where
they'll have a chance to grow."

Social democracy of this sort is of course widespread in rural
America. But there are few towns, and fewer suburbs to great cities,
where it still is dominant. And in the big cities themselves it is
giving way more and more to a nasty caricature of equality: a
defensive smartness that has none of the virtues of equality and
none of the virtues of a class-system.

Relations between people of different incomes, backgrounds, and
education can be made smooth either by the institution of equality
or by the institution of social classes. Either will work agreeably;
either will promote human dignity. The one thing that will not
work agreeably is a mixture of the two, which often occurs in
American big cities. When you get into a New York taxicab wear-
ing a top hat your driver may be a friendly soul who assumes that
in spite of your clothes you are human. In that case he will give

1This is a real town, which I am calling by a made-up name because I am
using the town for what is typical in it, not for what is individual.

676

you a trial, and at the next red light will start on murder, politics,
or the strange habits of the taxi-riding public. On the other hand,
your driver is quite likely to be a man who not only believes in
classes but who believes, reasonably enough, that his own class is
unenviable. The sight of your top hat will not soothe him. He will
make it clear that he thinks you neither useful nor pretty. For with
the exception of the small group of trained domestic servants, the
American who is class conscious has become so in order to vent a
grievance, commonly a just grievance, against society. He there-
fore gets no comfort from the American system of equality, and no
comfort from the foreign system of classes.

The Englishman, on the other hand, who believes he has a
"place," who can define that "place" exactly, and who respects it,
does not feel hampered by the class-system; he feels protected. He
has been given a form, or fiction, with the help of which he can
deal comfortably with people who are very different from himself.
Go into a "pub" in an English village and the crowd in the bar-
parlor will fall silent. You may think they are silent out of respect
for your exalted position. That was what a friend of mine thought
(he is professor of history at an American university), and he was
indignant at such servility. He should have saved his anger. The
English countryman is unimpressed by shiny shoes or city clothes.
The silence is curiosity. And so far from finding the stranger an
object of awe, the company is judging him. First they want to
classify him; then they want to know whether they like him. If
they do, and he has enough information to join in their talk, he
will find how class distinctions can smooth out social intercourse.
And if they don't like him he will find what a clear and splendid
difference there is between being granted "superior" social position
and being looked up to, or even tolerated.

The English system is just as good a way of securing ease and
stability in social relations as is the American system. Each system
is a fundamental social institution, affecting the whole life of the
community. Each system is a factor in the culture of the country
where it has been established. Each system, while working healthily,
ensures against class consciousness in the Marxian sense. But neither
system, today, is working healthily. The American system, like the
English, is living on momentum from the past, and may die with
the present generation unless the conditions that bred the system
are kept alive.

It is heartening to find Sheridan preserving its social democracy
on the doorstep of a giant city where "equality" has no meaning at

677

all, where a landless, toolless Marxian proletariat faces a Marxian
bourgeoisie. There are several reasons why Sheridan has been able
to do this. In the first place, it has kept a high standard in its public
schools. Practically all the children of the town, therefore, are sent
to these schools, so that the boy who grows up to be an ice-man
and the girl who grows up to be the wife of a college professor
may have sat side by side in class. This is often said to be customary
in America; but it has long been quite uncustomary among people
who, like many citizens of Sheridan, could afford to send their
children to private school.

In the second place, there is no class of very rich people in
Sheridan, and hardly any very poor. Though there is a wide range
of income, there is no fantastic gulf of the sort that makes "equality"
a joke. In the third place, the sense of civic pride among the citizens
has been so strong that the town provides a number of amenities for
all — not only cultural amenities, but abundant tennis courts, swim-
ming beaches, and the like. These are well kept, with the result that
the rich feel no need of having their own tennis courts, their own
bathhouses and strips of beach. And not being over-rich they feel
no need of advertising their pride. So they all use the communal
facilities. In the fourth place there is a university in Sheridan, and
the university has a large group of students from Middle Western
farms where social democracy is as natural as breathing.

This equality which still lingers in Sheridan, making the half-
hour drive from the huge neighboring city seem a bridge between
two worlds, is a vital part of American culture. But what of the city,
the antithesis to Sheridan? If the giant city grows and flourishes,
Sheridan will die. And the city, with its skyscrapers, millionaires,
gangsters, and polyglot proletariat — is it not the city typical of
America, too? Yes: but it is not typical of American culture. It
is my thesis that the city stands for the other America — big, loud,
and un-self confident as a new boy at school, but not half so native
as Sheridan, not half so well rooted, and in the end not half so
strong.

Since Sheridan survived 1929, it may never be engulfed. It is still
threatened, but its old character is not yet gone. Perhaps Sheridan
will turn back and save the institutions which gave it that character,
instead of accepting its metropolitan doom. If it does, the moment
when the tide turns, the moment when the city stops encroaching
on its tiny neighbor, will be an important moment in the story of
American culture, and an important moment in world history. In
order to show how I can hope for such an event, I must explain

678

what I mean by the phrase, "American culture." In common speech
the phrase has little meaning, or else a meaning that is clear but
trivial.

In the advertising columns of the American Magazine for Novem-
ber, 1934, there is a sample of the popular use of the word, culture.
"At Palm Beach and Nassau, California and Cannes," reads the
caption under a picture, "every year they flock by scores — those smart
cultured women with enough money to indulge the slightest whim.
And the number of them who use Listerine Tooth Paste is amaz-
ing."

And in the Saturday Evening Post for December i, 1934, in an
article called "An Industrial Design for Living," the following
sentences occur: "Our nation has been on the receiving end of a
cultural movement the like of which would be hard to imagine.
All the colleges, all the magazines, the newspapers and the movies,
have been indoctrinating people with the idea of beauty in person,
in clothing and in background, until they have developed an ap-
petite for such things beyond ordinary comprehension."

Here we have two of the commonest uses of the word: culture as
female wealth and smartness, and culture as a consumer's demand
for beauty, a demand that has been whipped up by "all the colleges,
all the magazines, the newspapers and the movies." The first use
of the word is silly enough to be harmless. People are in no danger
of believing that a cultured nation is a nation composed chiefly of
beautiful bare young women "with enough money to indulge the
slightest whim." But the second use is evil, for it leads to misunder-
standing. It is a form of the heresy that culture is a thing which can
be stored in libraries and museums. Culture, in this sense, is not a
way of life but something you learn at school, like plane geometry,
or something you catch, like measles. If you have learned it or
caught it, if you have "been on the receiving end of a cultural move-
ment," then you will know about beauty and will want some of it.
And if you want beauty you will go to the shops where it is for
sale and buy as much as you can afford, or as much as you have
room for at home.

This is the industrial-commercial view of culture, as is made clear
in the Saturday Evening Post article, which continues as follows:
"The old-time pioneers who pushed beyond the Alleghanies felt
that they had a continent to explore, and, if your mind runs that
way, to exploit. But we who come after them, or rather, out of them,
have lived into a time when the pioneering has come into something
richer than a green continent. It is a fertile region that lies some-

679

where between the human intelligence and the human soul. De-
veloping it will provide plenty of work for all the machines that
can be contrived and all the labor that exists."

The last sentence is perfect. The "pioneers" are done with explor-
ing North America, and they find themselves with quite a lot of
•edundant machinery on their hands. So they decide to "develop"
he "fertile region that lies somewhere between the human intel-
igence and human soul." By "developing" it they mean making it
'beauty-conscious"; they mean teaching it to want goods and
gadgets that have "eye-appeal." If you are in the market for goods
with "eye-appeal," you have culture. Your "fertile region" has been
developed. Of course, as the inventors turn out more and more
machines, we shall have to get more and more cultured. In time,
even our tooth paste and our telephones will have "eye-appeal."
Everything we buy will be beautiful, and we'll buy an astonishing lot
(for yesterday's eye-appeal can always be made into today's eye-
sore). In this way America should become the most cultured nation
in the world's history.

This industrial-commercial view of culture, which sees it as the
next field for industry "to explore, and, if your mind runs that way,
to exploit," flourished during the years when Big Business was
glorified. During the 1920*5 there were people who thought that as
soon as Mr. Hoover finished solving the problem of poverty,
Americans would apply sound business principles to the Higher
Life and would shortly be delivering large packages of beauty and
truth to every taxpayer. Today such people, though less hopeful
about Mr. Hoover, still think that culture can be "laid on" like gas
or water. They believe that if only a group of technocrats, or
bureaucrats, or commissars, would organize things so that the
whole working population would have mechanical jobs for four
hours a day and freedom for twenty, the national demand for
Higher Life would be too surprising for words. They may be right,
for what they mean by higher life is reading "good books," going
to concerts and picture galleries, and listening to lectures. None
of these pastimes has any necessary connection with culture. The
American public, for example, might spend its time reading Greek
and Roman literature, looking at Italian and Dutch paintings, hear-
ing German and Russian music, and attending lectures by visiting
playwrights from Vienna and Budapest. The result would probably
be a nation of prigs. I see no reason to think it would be a nation
with culture. "If I read as many books as that man," said Hobbes,
"I'd be as big a fool as he." "Beware of the man who would rather

680

read than write," warns Bernard Shaw. Beware of the nation whose
culture means admiring the creativeness of other people.

The Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph for February 25, 1935, ran the fol-
lowing editorial:

Andrew W. Mellon, former Secretary of the Treasury, spent more
than $4,000,000 to buy six famous paintings, five of them from Soviet
Russia. He planned to build a great art museum in Washington to
house his famous collection of pictures, worth about $19,000,000.
One by one he bought at huge prices great works of art from Euro-
pean collections in order to realize his dream of making Washington
the art capital of the world.

Mr. Mellon is proof of the utter falsity of the conception, once so
widespread abroad, of American millionaires as ruthless money-
grubbing materialists.

In no other nation on earth, at no other time in history, have great
individual fortunes so generously served the permanent scientific and
artistic interests of mankind as here.

This is the perfect expression of false, colonial, imitative culture.
The thought that Washington could become "the art capital of the
world" by becoming the storehouse for a lot of Italian and Flemish
and Byzantine paintings is a thought that does no honor to the
human mind. Just as a city is a place where people live, not a place
where they are buried, so an art capital is a place where art is
produced, not a place where it is put away. . . .

The Law of the Free, 1937

68 1

The American Plan

JOHN DOS PASSOS

Frederick Winslow Taylor (they called him Speedy Taylor in
the shop) was born in Germantown, Pennsylvania, the year of
Buchanan's election. His father was a lawyer, his mother the
daughter of a New Bedford whaling captain; she was a great
reader of Emerson, belonged to the Unitarian Church and the
Browning Society. She was a fervent abolitionist and believed in
democratic manners; in her housekeeping she was a martinet and
drove the servantgirls from dawn till dark. She laid down the rules
of conduct:

selfrespect, selfreliance, selfcontrol

and a cold long head for figures.

But she wanted her children to appreciate the finer things so she
took them abroad for three years on the Continent, showed them
cathedrals, grand opera, Roman pediments, the old masters under
their brown varnish in their great frames of tarnished gilt.

Later Fred Taylor was impatient of these wasted years, stamped
out of the room when people talked about the finer things; he was
a testy youngster, fond of practical jokes and a great hand at rigging
up contraptions and devices.

At Exeter he was head of his class and captain of the ballteam,
the first man to pitch overhand. (When umpires complained that
overhand pitching wasn't in the rules of the game, he answered that
it got results.)

As a boy he had nightmares, going to bed was horrible for him;
he thought they came from sleeping on his back. He made himself
a leather harness with wooden pegs that stuck into his flesh when
he turned over. When he was grown he slept in a chair or in bed
in a sitting position propped up with pillows. All his life he suffered
from sleeplessness.

He was a crackerjack tennisplayer. In 1881, with his friend Clark,
he won the National Doubles Championship. (He used a spoon-
shaped racket of his own design.)

At school he broke down from overwork, his eyes went back on
him. The doctor suggested manual labor. So instead of going to
Harvard he went into the machineshop of a small pumpmanufactur-

682

ing concern, owned by a friend of the family's, to learn the trade of
patternmaker and machinist. He learned to handle a lathe and to
dress and cuss like a workingman.

Fred Taylor never smoked tobacco or drank liquor or used tea
or coffee; he couldn't understand why his fellowmechanics wanted
to go on sprees and get drunk and raise Cain Saturday nights. He
lived at home, when he wasn't reading technical books he'd play
parts in amateur theatricals or step up to the piano in the evening
and sing a good tenor in A Warrior Bold or A Spanish Cavalier.

He served his first year's apprenticeship in the machineshop with-
out pay; the next two years he made a dollar and a half a week, the
last year two dollars.

Pennsylvania was getting rich off iron and coal. When he was
twentytwo, Fred Taylor went to work at the Midvale Iron Works.
At first he had to take a clerical job, but he hated that and went to
work with a shovel. At last he got them to put him on a lathe. He
was a good machinist, he worked ten hours a day and in the
evenings followed an engineering course at Stevens. In six years
he rose from machinist's helper to keeper of toolcribs to gangboss
to foreman to mastermechanic in charge of repairs to chief drafts-
man and director of research to chief engineer of the Midvale Plant.

The early years he was a machinist with the other machinists in
the shop, cussed and joked and worked with the rest of them,
soldiered on the job when they did. Mustn't give the boss more
than his money's worth. But when he got to be foreman he was on
the management's side of the fence, gathering in on the part of those
on the management's side all the great mass of traditional ^nowl-
edge which in the past has been in the heads of the workmen and
in the physical styll and 1{nacJ^ of the workman. He couldn't stand
to see an idle lathe or an idle man.

Production went to his head and thrilled his sleepless nerves like
liquor or women on a Saturday night. He never loafed and he'd be
damned if anybody else would. Production was an itch under his
skin.

He lost his friends in the shop; they called him niggerdriver. He
was a small man with a short temper and a nasty tongue.

/ was a young man in years but I give you my word I was a great
deal older than I am now, what with the worry, meanness and
contemptibleness of the whole damn thing. It's horrid life for any
man to live not being able to lool^ any workman in the face without

683

seeing hostility there, and a feeling that every man around you is
your virtual enemy.

That was the beginning of the Taylor System of Scientific
Management.

' He was impatient of explanations, he didn't care whose hide he
took off in enforcing the laws he believed inherent in the industrial
process.

When starting an experiment in any field question everything,
question the very foundations upon which the art rests, question the
simplest, the most self-evident, the most universally accepted facts;
prove everything,

except the dominant Quaker Yankee (the New Bedford skippers
were the greatest niggerdrivers on the whaling seas) rules of con-
duct. He boasted he'd never ask a workman to do anything he
couldn't do.

He devised an improved steamhammer; he standardized tools
and equipment, he filled the shop with college students with stop-
watches and diagrams, tabulating, standardizing. There's the right
way of doing a thing and the wrong way of doing it; the right way
means increased production, lower costs, higher wages, bigger
profits: the American Plan.

He broke up the foreman's job into separate functions, speedbosses,
gangbosses, timestudy men, orderofwork men.

The skilled mechanics were too stubborn for him, what he wanted
was a plain handyman who'd do what he was told. If he was a
firstclass man and did firstclass work Taylor was willing to let him
have firstclass pay; that's where he began to get into trouble with
the owners.

At thirtyfour he married and left Midvale and took a flyer for the
big money in connection with a pulpmill started in Maine by some
admirals and political friends of Grover Cleveland's;

the panic of '93 made hash of that enterprise,

so Taylor invented for himself the job of Consulting Engineer in
Management and began to build up a fortune by careful invest-
ments.

The first paper he read before the American Society of Mechanical
Engineers was anything but a success, they said he was crazy. /
have found, he wrote in 1909, that any improvement is not only
opposed but aggressively and bitterly opposed by the majority of
men.

684

He was called in by Bethlehem Steel. It was in Bethlehem he
made his famous experiments with handling pigiron; he taught a
Dutchman named Schmidt to handle fortyseven tons instead of
twelve and a half tons of pigiron a day and got Schmidt to admit
he was as good as ever at the end of the day.

He was a crank about shovels, every job had to have a shovel of
the right weight and size for that job alone; every job had to have
a man of the right weight and size for that job alone; but when he
began to pay his men in proportion to the increased efficiency of
their work,

the owners who were a lot of greedy smalleyed Dutchmen began
to raise Hail Columbia; when Schwab bought Bethlehem Steel in
1901

Fred Taylor

inventor of efficiency

who had doubled the production of the stamping-mill by speeding
up the main lines of shafting from ninetysix to twohundred and
twentyfive revolutions a minute

was unceremoniously fired.

After that Fred Taylor always said he couldn't afford to work for
money.

He took to playing golf (using golfclubs of his own design),
doping out methods for transplanting huge boxtrees into the garden
of his home.

At Boxly in Germantown he kept open house for engineers,
factory managers, industrialists;

he wrote papers,

lectured in colleges,

appeared before a congressional committee,

everywhere preached the virtues of scientific management and
the Barth slide rule, the cutting down of waste and idleness, the
substitution for skilled mechanics of the plain handyman (like
Schmidt the pigiron handler) who'd move as he was told

and work by the piece :

production;

more steel rails more bicycles more spools of thread more armor-
plate for battleships more bedpans more barbedwire more needles
more lightningrods more ballbearings more dollarbills;

(the old Quaker families of Germantown were growing rich, the
Pennsylvania millionaires were breeding billionaires out of iron
and coal)

production would make every firstclass American rich who was

685

willing to work at piecework and not drink or raise Cain or think
or stand mooning at his lathe.

Thrifty Schmidt the pigiron handler can invest his money and
get to be an owner like Schwab and the rest of the greedy smalleyed
Dutchmen and cultivate a taste for Bach and have hundredyearold
rSoxtrees in his garden at Bethlehem or Germantown or Chestnut
Hill,

and lay down the rules of conduct;

the American plan.

But Fred Taylor never saw the working of the American plan;

in 1915 he went to the hospital in Philadelphia suffering from a
breakdown.

All his life he'd had the habit of winding his watch every after-
noon at fourthirty;

on the afternoon of his fiftyninth birthday, when the nurse went
into his room to look at him at fourthirty,

he was dead with his watch in his hand.

The Big Money, 1936

686

TKe American Dnam

JAMES TRUSLOW ADAMS

Beginning with a guard scarce sufficient to defend the stockade at
Jamestown against a few naked Indians, we grew until we were
able to select from nearly 25,000,000 men of military age such
millions as we would to hurl back at our enemies across the sea,
only nine generations later. A continent which scarce sufficed to
maintain a half million savages now supports nearly two hundred
and fifty times that number of as active and industrious people as
there are in the world. The huge and empty land has been filled
with homes, roads, railways, schools, colleges, hospitals, and all the
comforts of the most advanced material civilization. The mere
physical tasks have been stupendous and unparalleled. Supplied at
each important stage of advance with new implements of science
which hastened our pace, lured by such rewards for haste and
industry as were never offered to man before, keyed to activity by a
climate that makes expenditure of nervous energy almost a bodily
necessity, we threw ourselves into the task of physical domination
of our environment with an abandonment that perforce led us to
discard much that we had started to build up in our earliest days.

Even so, the frontier was always retreating before, us, and send-
ing its influence back among us in refluent waves. ... In the
eighteenth century we had an established civilization, with stability
of material and spiritual values. Then we began our scramble for
the untold wealth which lay at the foot of the rainbow. As we have
gone ever westward, stability gave place to the constant flux in
which we have since lived. Recently a distinguished English man
of letters complained to me at dinner that we made too much of
the frontier as an excuse for everything. It is not an excuse, but it is
assuredly an explanation. We let ourselves be too much deflected by
it from the building of the civilization of which our forefathers laid
the foundations, and the frontier has stretched from our doors until
almost yesterday. When my great-grandmother, an old lady with
whom I frequently talked as a young man, was born, the United
States extended only to the Mississippi, without including even
Florida and the Gulf Coast. Both my grandfathers were children
when Thomas Jefferson, who carried our bounds to the Rockies,
died. When my father was a baby, the entire country south of

687

Oklahoma and from the Rockies westward was still Spanish ter-
ritory. When I was born, the Sioux and the Nez Perces were still
on the warpath. I was five when the Southwest was first spanned by
the Southern Pacific, and twelve when the frontier was officially
declared closed.

While thus occupied with material conquest and upbuilding, we
did not wholly lose the vision of something nobler. If we hastened
after the pot of gold, we also saw the rainbow itself, and felt that it
promised, as of old, a hope for mankind. In the realm of thought
we have been practical and adaptive rather than original and
theoretical, although it may be noted that to-day we stand pre-
eminent in astronomy. In medicine we have conferred discoveries
of inestimable value on the world, which we have also led along the
road of many humanitarian reforms. . . . Until the reaction after
the World War, we had struggled for a juster law of nations and
for the extension of arbitration as a substitute for war in inter-
national disputes. If in arts and letters we have produced no men
who may be claimed to rank with the masters of all time, we have
produced a body of work without which the world would be poorer
and which ranks high by contemporary world standards. In
literature and the drama, to-day, there is no work being done
better anywhere than in the United States. In the intangible realm
of character, there is no other country that can show in the past
century or more two men of greater nobility than Washington and
Lincoln.

But, after all, many of these things are not new, and if they
were all the contribution which America has had to make, she
would have meant only a place for more people, a spawning
ground for more millions of the human species. In many respects,
as I have not hesitated to say elsewhere, there are other lands in
which life is easier, more stimulating, more charming than in raw
America, for America is still raw, and unnecessarily so. The bar-
barian carelessness of the motoring millions, the littered roadsides,
the use of our most beautiful scenery for the advertising of
products which should be boycotted for that very reason, are but
symptoms of our slipping down from civilized standards of life, as
are also our lawlessness and corruption. . . . Some are also European
problems as well as American. Some are urban, without regard to
international boundaries. The mob mentality of the city crowd
everywhere is coming to be one of the menaces to modern civiliza-
tion. The ideal of democracy and the reality of the crowd are the
two sides of the shield of modern government. "I think our govern-

688

ments will remain virtuous ... as long as they are chiefly agri-
cultural; and this will be as long as there shall be vacant lands in
any part of America. When they get piled upon one another in
large cities, as in Europe, they will become corrupt as in Europe,"
wrote Jefferson in the days of the Bourbons.

If, as I have said, the things already listed were all we have had to
contribute, America would have made no distinctive and unique
gift to mankind. But there has been also the American dream, that
dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and
fuller for every man, with opportunity for each according to his
ability or achievement. It is a difficult dream for the European upper
classes to interpret adequately, and too many of us ourselves have
grown weary and mistrustful of it. It is not a dream of motor cars
and high wages merely, but a dream of a social order in which
each man and each woman shall be able to attain the fullest stature
of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others
for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth
or position. I once had an intelligent young Frenchman as guest in
New York, and after a few days I asked him what struck him most
among his new impressions. Without hesitation he replied, "The
way that everyone of every sort looks you right in the eye, without
a thought of inequality." Some time ago a foreigner who used
to do some work for me, and who had picked up a very fair
education, used occasionally to sit and chat with me in my study
after he had finished his work. One day he said that such a
relationship was the great difference between America and his
homeland. There, he said, "I would do my work and might get a
pleasant word, but I could never sit and talk like this. There is
a difference there between social grades which cannot be got
over. I would not talk to you there as man to man, but as my
employer."

No, the American dream that has lured tens of millions of all
nations to our shores in the past century has not been a dream of
merely material plenty, though that has doubtless counted heavily.
It has been much more than that. It has been a dream of being
able to grow to fullest development as man and woman, un-
hampered by the barriers which had slowly been erected in older
civilizations, unrepressed by social orders which had developed for
the benefit of classes rather than for the simple human being of
any and every class. And that dream has been realized more fully
in actual life here than anywhere else, though very imperfectly even
among ourselves.

689

It has been a great epic and a great dream. What, now, of the
future? ...

I am not here concerned with the longer economic problems
raised by the relations of world distribution and consumption under
mass production. The problems, fundamental and of extreme seri-
ousness, have been amply discussed elsewhere and by those more
competent. But whether, in the next decade, we shall have again to
face a furious economic pace or whether we shall be confronted by
a marked slowing down of our economic machine, the chief factor
in how we shall meet either situation is that of the American mind.
One of the interesting questions with regard to that is whether our
long subjection to the frontier and other American influences has
produced a new type or merely a transient change. Can we hold
to the good and escape from the bad? Are the -dream and the
idealism of the frontier and the New Land inextricably involved
with the ugly scars which have also been left on us by our three
centuries of exploitation and conquest of the continent?

We [know] how some of the scars were obtained; how it was that
we came to insist upon business and money-making and material
improvement as good in themselves; how they took on the aspects
of moral virtues; how we came to consider an unthinking optimism
essential; how we refused to look on the seamy and sordid realities
of any situation in which we found ourselves; how we regarded
criticism as obstructive and dangerous for our new communities;
how we came to think manners undemocratic and a cultivated mind
a hindrance to success, a sign of inefficient effeminacy; how size and
statistics of material development came to be more important in
our eyes than quality and spiritual values; how in the ever-shifting
advance of the frontier we came to lose sight of the past in hopes
for the future; how we forgot to live, in the struggle to make a
living; how our education tended to become utilitarian or aimless;
and how other unfortunate traits only too notable to-day were
developed.

While we have been absorbed in our tasks, the world has also been
changing. We Americans are not alone in having to search for a
new scale and basis for values, but for several reasons the task is
more essential for us. On the one hand, our transplanatation to the
New World and our constant advance over its empty expanse un-
settled the old values for us to a far greater extent than in Europe;
and, on the other, the mere fact that there were no old things to be
swept away here made us feel the full impact of the Industrial
Revolution and the effect of machinery, when we turned to in-

690

dustrial life, to a far greater extent than in Europe, where the
revolution originated.

It would seem as though the time had come when this question
of values was of prime and pressing importance for us. For long we
have been tempted and able to ignore it. Engaged in the work of
building cities and developing the continent, values for many tended
to be materialized and simplified. When a man staked out a clearing,
and saw his wife and children without shelter, there was no need
to discuss what were the real values in a humane and satisfying life.
The trees had to be chopped, the log hut built, the stumps burned,
and the corn planted. Simplification became a habit of mind and
was carried into our lives long after the clearing had become a
prosperous city. But such a habit of mind does not ignore values.
It merely accepts certain ones implicitly, as does our most charac-
teristic philosophy, the Pragmatism of William James. It will not do
to say that we shall have no a priori standards and that the proof of
the value of a thing or idea shall be whether it will "work." What
do we mean by its "working"? Must we not mean that it will
produce or conduce to some result that strikes us as desirable — that
is, something that we have already set up in our minds as something
worth while? In other words, a standard or value?

We no longer have the frontier to divert us or to absorb our
energies. We shall steadily become a more densely populated country
in which our social ideals will have to be such as to give us
civilized contentment. To clear the muddle in which our education
is at present, we shall obviously have to define our values. Unless
we can agree on what the values in life are, we clearly can have no
goal in education, and if we have no goal, the discussion of
methods is merely futile. Once the frontier stage is passed, — the
acquisition of a bare living, and the setting up of a fair economic
base, — the American dream itself opens all sorts of questions as to
values. It is easy to say a better and richer life for all men, but
what is better and what is richer ?

In this respect, as in many others, the great business leaders are
likely to lead us astray rather than to guide us. For example, as
promulgated by them, there is danger in the present popular theory
of the high-wage scale. The danger lies in the fact that the theory
is advanced not for the purpose of creating a better type of man
by increasing his leisure and the opportunity for making a wise use
of it, but for the sole and avowed purpose of increasing his powers
as a "consumer." He is, therefore, goaded by every possible method
of pressure or cajolery to spend his wages in consuming goods. He

691

is warned that if he does not consume to the limit, instead of in-
dulging in pleasures which do not cost money, he may be deprived
not only of his high wages but of any at all. He, like the rest of us,
thus appears to be getting into a treadmill in which he earns, not
that he may enjoy, but that he may spend, in order that the owners
of the factories may grow richer.

For example, Ford's fortune is often referred to as one of the
"honestly" obtained ones. He pretends to despise money, and boasts
of the high wages he pays and the cheapness of his cars, yet, either
because his wages are still too low or the cars too high, he has
accumulated $1,000,000,000 for himself from his plant. This would
seem to be a high price for society to pay even him for his services
to it, while the economic lives of some hundreds of thousands of
men and women are made dependent on his whirn and word.

Just as in education we have got to have some aims based on
values before we can reform our system intelligently or learn in
what direction to go, so with business and the American dream.
Our democracy cannot attempt to curb, guide, or control the great
business interests and powers unless we have clear notions as to the
purpose in mind when we try to do so. If we are to regard man
merely as a producer and consumer, then the more ruthlessly
efficient big business is, the better. Many of the goods consumed
doubtless make man healthier, happier, and better even on the basis
of a high scale of human values. But if we think of him as a human
being primarily, and only incidentally as a consumer, then we have
to consider what values are best or most satisfying for him as a
human being. We can attempt to regulate business for him not as a
consumer but as a man, with many needs and desires with which
he has nothing to do as a consumer. Our point of view will shift
from efficiency and statistics to human nature. We shall not create a
high-wage scale in order that the receiver will consume more, but
that he may, in one way or another, live more abundantly, whether
by enjoying those things which are factory-produced or those which
are not. The points of view are entirely different, socially and
economically.

In one important respect America has changed fundamentally
from the time of the frontier. The old life was lonely and hard, but
it bred a strong individualism. The farmer of Jefferson's day was
independent and could hold opinions equally so. Steadily we are
tending toward becoming a nation of employees — whether a man
gets five dollars a day or a hundred thousand a year. The "yes-men"
are as new to our national life as to our vocabulary, but they are

692

real. It is no longer merely the laborer or factory hand who is
dependent on the whim of his employer, but men all the way up the
economic and social scales. In the ante-bellum South the black slave
knew better than to express his views as to the rights of man. To-
day the appalling growth of uniformity and timorousness of views
as to the perfection of the present economic system held by most
men "comfortably off' as corporation clerks or officials is not un-
related to the possible loss of a job.

Another problem is acute for us in the present extreme maladjust-
ment of the intellectual worker to the present economic order. Just
as the wage earner is told he must adjust his leisure pursuits to the
advantage of business in his role of consumer, so there is almost ir-
resistible economic pressure brought to bear on the intellectual
worker to adjust his work to the needs of business or mass con-
sumption. If wages are to go indefinitely higher, owing to mass-
production possibilities for raising them, then the intellectual worker
or artist will have to pay the price in the higher wages he himself
pays for all services and in all the items of his expenses, such as rent,
in which wages form a substantial element. His own costs thus
rising, owing to the rising wage scale, he finds that a limited
market for his intellectual wares no longer allows him to exist in
a world otherwise founded on mass-production profits. He cannot
forever pay rising mass-production costs without deriving for him-
self some form of mass-production profit. This would not be so bad
if mass consumption did not mean for the most part a distinct
lowering in the quality of his thought and expression. If the artist
or intellectual worker could count on a wide audience instead of a
class or group, the effect on his own work would be vastly stimulat-
ing, but for that the wide audience must be capable of appreciating
work at its highest. The theory of mass production breaks down
as yet when applied to the things of the spirit. Merging of companies
in huge corporations, and the production of low-priced products for
markets of tens of millions of consumers for one standard brand of
beans or cars, may be possible in the sphere of our material needs.
It cannot be possible, however, in the realm of the mind, yet the
whole tendency at present is in that direction. Newspapers are
merging as if they were factories, and daily, weekly, and monthly
journals are all becoming as dependent on mass sales as a tooth-
paste.

The result is to lower the quality of thought as represented in them
to that of the least common denominator of the minds of the mil-
lions of consumers.

693

If the American dream is to come true and to abide with us, it
will, at bottom, depend on the people themselves. If we are to
achieve a richer and fuller life for all, they have got to know what
such an achievement implies. In a modern industrial State, an
economic base is essential for all. We point with pride to our
"national income", but the nation is only an aggregate of individual
men and women, and when we turn from the single figure of total
income to the incomes of individuals, we find a very marked in-
justice in its distribution. There is no reason why wealth, which is
a social product, should not be more equitably controlled and dis-
tributed in the interests of society. But, unless we settle on the values
of life, we are likely to attack in a wrong direction and burn the
barn to find our penny in the hay.

Above and beyond the mere economic base, the need for a scale
of values becomes yet greater. If we are entering on a period in
which, not only in industry but in other departments of life, the
mass is going to count for more and the individual less, and if
each and all are to enjoy a richer and fuller life, the level of the
mass has got to rise appreciably above what it is at present. It must
either rise to a higher level of communal life or drag that life
down to its own, in political leadership, and in the arts and letters.
There is no use in accusing America of being a "Babbit Warren."
The top and bottom are spiritually and intellectually nearer together
in America than in most countries, but there are plenty of Babbitts
everywhere. "Main Street" is the longest in the world, for it encircles
the globe. It is an American name, but not an American thorough-
fare. One can suffocate in an English cathedral town or a French
provincial city as well as in Zenith. That is not the point.

The point is that if we are to have a rich and full life in which
all are to share and play their parts, if the American dream is to
be a reality, our communal spiritual and intellectual life must be
distinctly higher than elsewhere, where classes and groups have
their separate interests, habits, market, arts, and lives. If the dream
is not to prove possible of fulfillment, we might as well become
stark realists, become once more class-conscious, and struggle as
individuals or classes against one another. If it is to come true,
those on top, financially, intellectually, or otherwise, have got to
devote themselves to the "Great Society," and those who are below
in the scale have got to strive to rise, not merely economically, but
culturally. We cannot become a great democracy by giving our-
selves up as individuals to selfishness, physical comfort, and cheap
amusements. The very foundation of the American dream of a

694

better and richer life for all is that all, in varying degrees, shall be
capable of wanting to share in it. It can never be wrought into a
reality by cheap people or by "keeping up with the Joneses." There
is nothing whatever in a fortune merely in itself or in a man
merely in himself. It all depends on what is made of each. Lincoln
was not great because he was born in a log cabin, but because he
got out of it — that is, because he rose above the poverty, ignorance,
lack of ambition, shiftlessness of character, contentment with mean
things and low aims which kept so many thousands in the huts
where they were born.

If we are to make the dream come true we must all work to-
gether, no longer to build bigger, but to build better. There is a
time for quantity and a time for quality. There is a time when
quantity may become a menace and the law of diminishing re-
turns begins to operate, but not so with quality. By working
together I do not mean another organization, of which the land
is as full as was Kansas of grasshoppers. I mean a genuine individual
search and striving for the abiding values* of life. In a country as
big as America it is as impossible to prophesy as it«is to generalize,
without being tripped up, but it seems to me that there is room
for hope as well as mistrust. The epic loses all its glory without
the dream. The statistics of size, population, and wealth would
mean nothing to me unless I could still believe in the dream.

America is yet "The Land of Contrasts," as it was called in one
of the best books written about us, years ago. One day a man
from Oklahoma depresses us by yawping about it in such a way
as to give the impression that there is nothing in that; young State
but oil wells and millionaires, and the next day one gets from the
University there its excellent quarterly critical list of all the most
recent books published in France, Spain, Germany, and Italy, with
every indication of the beginning of an active intellectual life and
an intelligent play of thought over the ideas of the other side of
the world.

There is no better omen of hope than the sane and sober criticism
of those tendencies in our civilization which call for rigorous ex-
amination. In that respect we are distinctly passing out of the
frontier phase. Our life calls for such examination, as does that of
every nation to-day, but because we are concerned with the evil
symptoms it would be absurd to forget the good. It would be as
uncritical to write the history of our past in terms of Morton of
Merrymount, Benedict Arnold, "Billy the Kid," Thaddeus Stevens,
Jay Gould, P. T. Barnum, Brigham Young, Tom Lawson, and

695

others who could be gathered together to make an extraordinary
jumble of an -incomprehensible national story, as it would be to
write the past wholly in terms of John Winthrop, Washington,
John Quincy Adams, Jefferson, Lincoln, Emerson, Edison, General
Gorgas, and others to afford an equally untrue picture.

The nation to-day is no more all made up of Babbitts (though
there are enough, of them) than it is of young poets. There is a
healthy stirring of the deeps, particularly among the younger men
and women, who are growing determined that they are not to
function solely as consumers for the benefit of business, but intend
to lead sane and civilized lives. When one thinks of the prostitution
of the moving-picture industry, which might have developed a
great art, one can turn from that to the movements everywhere
through the country for the small theatre and the creation of folk
drama, the collecting of our folk poetry, which was almost unknown
to exist a generation ago, and other hopeful signs of an awakening
culture deriving straight and naturally from our own soil and past.
How far the conflicting good can win against the evil is our problem.
It is not a cheering thought to figure the number of people who are
thrilled nightly by a close-up kiss on ten thousand screens compared
with the number who see a play of O'Neill's. But, on the other
hand, we need not forget that a country that produced last year
1,500,000 Fords, which after their short day will in considerable
numbers add to the litter along our country lanes as abandoned
chassis, could also produce perhaps the finest example of sculpture
in the last half century. We can contrast the spirit manifested in
the accumulation of the Rockefeller fortune with the spirit now
displayed in its distribution.

Like the country roads, our whole national life is yet cluttered
up with the disorderly remnants of our frontier experience, and all
help should be given to those who are honestly trying to clean up
either the one or the other. But the frontier also left us our American
dream, which is being wrought out in many hearts and many
institutions.

Among the latter I often think that the one which best exemplifies
the dream is the greatest library in this land of libraries, the Library
of Congress. I take, for the most part, but little interest in the
great gifts and Foundations of men who have incomes they cannot
possibly spend, and investments that roll like avalanches. They
merely return, not seldom unwisely, a part of their wealth to that
society without which they could not have made it, and which too
often they have plundered in the making. That is chiefly evidence

696

of maladjustment in our economic system. A system that steadily
increases the gulf between the ordinary man and the super-rich, that
permits the resources of society to be gathered into personal
fortunes that afford their owners millions of income a year, with
only the chance that here and there a few may be moved to confer
some of their surplus upon the public in ways chosen wholly by
themselves, is assuredly a wasteful and unjust system. It it, perhaps,
as inimical as anything could be to the American dream. I do not
belittle the generosity or public spirit of certain men. It is the
system that as yet is at fault. Nor is it likely to be voluntarily
altered by those who benefit most by it. No ruling class has ever
willingly abdicated. Democracy can never be saved, and would not
be worth saving, unless it can save itself.

The Library of Congress, however, has come straight from the
heart of democracy, as it has been taken to it, and I here use it as
a symbol of what democracy can accomplish on its own behalf.
Many have made gifts to it, but it was created by ourselves through
Congress, which has steadily and increasingly shown itself generous
and understanding toward it. Founded and built by the people, it
is for the people. Anyone who has used the great collections of
Europe, with their restrictions and red tape and difficulty of access,
praises God for American democracy when he enters the stacks of
the Library of Congress.

But there is more to the Library of Congress for the American
dream than merely the wise appropriation of public money. There
is the public itself, in two of its aspects. The Library of Congress
could not have become what it is to-day, with all the generous aid
of Congress, without such a citizen as Dr. Herbert Putnam at the
directing head of it. He and his staff have devoted their lives to
making the four million and more of books and pamphlets serve
the public to a degree that cannot be approached by any similar
great institution in the Old World. Then there is the public that uses
these facilities. As one looks down on the general reading room,
which alone contains ten thousand volumes which may be read
without even the asking, one sees the seats filled with silent readers,
old and young, rich and poor, black and white, the executive and the
laborer, the general and the private, the noted scholar and the
schoolboy, all reading at their own library provided by their own
democracy. It has always seemed to me to be a perfect working out
in a concrete example of the American dream — the means provided
by the accumulated resources of the people themselves, a public
intelligent enough to use them, and men of high distinction, them-

697

selves a part of the great democracy, devoting themselves to the
good of the whole, uncloistered.

It seems to me that it can be only in some such way, carried out
in all departments of our national life, that the American dream
,can be wrought into an abiding reality. I have little trust in the
wise paternalism of politicians or the infinite wisdom of business
leaders. We can look neither to the government nor to the heads of
the great corporations to guide us into the paths of a satisfying
and humane existence as a great nation unless we, as multitudinous
individuals, develop some greatness in our own individual souls.
Until countless men and women have decided in their own
hearts, through experience and perhaps disillusion, what is a
genuinely satisfying life, a "good life" in the old Greek sense, we
need look to neither political nor business leaders. Under our
political system it is useless, save by the rarest of happy accidents,
to expect a politician to rise higher than the source of his power.
So long also as we are ourselves content with a mere extension of
the material basis of existence, with the multiplying of our material
possessions, it is absurd to think that the men who can utilize that
public attitude for the gaining of infinite wealth and power for
themselves will abandon both to become spiritual leaders of a
democracy that despises spiritual things. Just so long as wealth and
power are our sole badges of success, so long will ambitious men
strive to attain them.

The prospect is discouraging to-day, but not hopeless. As we
compare America in 1931 with the America of 1912 it seems as
though we had slipped a long way backwards. But that period is
short, after all, and the whole world has been going through the
fires of Hell. There are not a few signs of promise now in the sky,
signs that the peoples themselves are beginning once again to crave
something more than is vouchsafed to them in the toils and toys of
the mass-production age. They are beginning to realize that, because
a man is born with a particular knack for gathering in vast aggre-
gates of money and power for himself, he may not on that account
be the wisest leader to follow nor the best fitted to propound a
sane philosophy of life. We have a long and arduous road to travel
if we are to realize our American dream in the life of our nation,
but if we fail, there is nothing left but the old eternal round. The
alternative is the failure of self-government, the failure of the
common man to rise to full stature, the failure of all that the
American dream has held of hope and promise for mankind.

That dream was not the product of a solitary thinker. It evolved

698

from the hearts and burdened souls of many millions, who have
come to us from all nations. If some of them appear to us to have
too great faith, we know not yet to what faith may attain, and
may hearken to the words on one of them, Mary Antin, a young
immigrant girl who came to us from Russia, a child out of "the
Middle Ages," as she says, into our twentieth century. Sitting on
the steps of the Boston Public Library, where the treasures of the
whole of human thought had been opened to her, she wrote, "This
is my latest home, and it invites me to a glad new life. The endless
ages have indeed throbbed through my blood, but a new rhythm
dances in my veins. My spirit is not tied to the monumental past,
any more than my feet were bound to my grandfather's house
below the hill. The past was only my cradle, and now it cannot
hold me, because I am grown too big; just as the little house in
Polotzk, once my home, has now become a toy in memory, as I
move about at will in the wide spaces of this splendid palace,
whose shadow covers acres. NO! It is not I that belong to the past,
but the past that belongs to me. America is the youngest of the
nations, and inherits all that went before in history. And I am the
youngest of America's children, and into my hands is given all her
priceless heritage, to the last white star espied through the telescope,
to the last great thought of the philosopher. Mine is the whole
majestic past, and mine is the shining future."

The Epic of America, 1931

699

TABLE OF CONTENTS BY TYPES

I. EXPOSITION

A. DEFINITION AND ANALYSIS

Representative Government, JAMES FENIMORE COOPER, 591

Aristocrat vs Democrat, JAMES FENIMORE COOPER, 592

Self Reliance, RALPH WALDO EMERSON, 593

American Government, HENRY THOREAU, 595

Panacea for the Republic, HORACE MANN, 595

Letter to Horace Greeley, ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 597

The Coach of Society, EDWARD BELLAMY, 598

The Class Struggle, JACK LONDON, 599

Le Contrat Social, H. L. MENCKEN, 602

America for Humanity, WOODROW WILSON, 603

I Am the People, the Mob, CARL SANDBURG, 606

A Tall Man, CARL SANDBURG, 606

B. PROCESS

Leviathan in Casks, HERMAN MELVILLE, 28
The Raising, BAYARD TAYLOR, 169
Riveters in Manhattan, THE STAFF OF Fortune, 222
Learning the River, MARK TWAIN, 287

Cotton Mill, SHERWOOD ANDERSON, 325

Kentucky Shooting, JOHN JAMES AUDUBON, 258
Threshing Day, HAMLIN GARLAND, 414
Packingtown, UPTON SINCLAIR, 430
Buffalo Hunting, FRANCIS PARKMAN, 489

C. CHARACTER SKETCH

Mary Moody Emerson, RALPH WALDO EMERSON, 49
Mrs. Bonny, SARAH ORNE JEWETT, 54
Andrew Jackson, GERALD w. JOHNSON, 269

D. RESEARCH PAPER

The Middle West, FREDERICK j. TURNER, 453
The Cattleman's Frontier, ERNEST s. OSGOOD, 549

7OI

E. ESSAY

•x

Why Is a Bostonian ? HARRISON RHODES, .86
New England, There She Stands, BERNARD DEVOTO, 108
Recollections of Sleepy Hollow, WASHINGTON IRVING, 139
The Future of the Great City, STUART CHASE, 227

^OttOn Mill, SHERWOOD ANDERSON, 325

Reconstructed But Unregenerate, JOHN CROWE RANSOM, 339

A Boyhood in the Bush, THOMAS j. LEBLANC, 421

I Was Marching, MERIDEL LE SUEUR, 444

Dubious Battle in California, JOHN STEINBECK, 574

The Spirit of the West, WILLIAM T. FOSTER, 579

The Fortune of the Republic, RALPH WALDO EMERSON, 608

What's Wrong with the United States, THOMAS JEFFERSON

WERTENBAKER, 632

These "United" States, WILLIAM B. MUNRO, 643
Sentimental America, HENRY SEIDEL CANBY, 651
The Myth of Rugged American Individualism, CHARLES BEARD,

660

Culture versus Colonialism in America, HERBERT AGAR, 674
The American Plan, JOHN DOS PASSOS, 682
The American Dream, JAMES TRUSLOW ADAMS, 687

II. DESCRIPTION
A. PEOPLE

The Landlady's Daughter, OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, 3

The Woodchuck Cap, HENRY THOREAU, 3

Yankee Canaler, HENRY THOREAU, 4

A Cape Cod Wrecker, HENRY THOREAU, 5

Captain Ahab, HERMAN MELVILLE, 6

Thaddeus Stevens, PHOEBE GARY, 7

Wendell Phillips, BRONSON ALCOTT, 8

Miss Asphyxia Smith, HARRIET BEECHER STOWE, 8

Miss Mehitabel Rossiter, HARRIET BEECHER STOWE, 9

Thoreau, RALPH WALDO EMERSON, 10

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, WILLIAM WETMORE STORY, 10

702

James Russell Lowell, VAN WYCK BROOKS, n

The Camp Cook, WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS, 12

James Cardmaker, JAMES GOULD COZZENS, 13

Mrs. Talbot, JAMES GOULD COZZENS, 14

A Dakota, FRANCIS PARKMAN, 353

Ishmael Bush, JAMES FENIMORE COOPER, 353

The Indian Hater, JAMES HALL, 354

The Doubledays, CAROLINE KIRKLAND, 355

Paul Bunyan, JAMES STEVENS, 357

Dick Garland, Lumberman, HAMLIN GARLAND, 357

The. Meek, E. w. HOWE, 359

The Proud Farmer, VACHEL LINDSAY, 360

Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight, VACHEL LINDSAY, 361

Ignatius Donnelly, JOHN D. HICKS, 362

Curtis Jadwin, FRANK NORRIS, 363

The Village Radical, SINCLAIR LEWIS, 364

Don Carlos Taft, HAMLIN GARLAND, 364

Mrs. Harling, WILLA GATHER, 365

Essie, RUTH SUCKOW, 366

Rendezvous of Mountain Men, WASHINGTON IRVING, 487

Appanoose Jim and His Friends, JAMES STEVENS, 496

B. PLACES

The Kaatskill Mountains, WASHINGTON IRVING, 125

Niagara, NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE, 125

Saratoga, HENRY JAMES, 127

Dutch Barns, JOHN BURROUGHS, 128

Crossing Brooklyn Ferry, WALT WHITMAN, 129

Mannahatta, WALT WHITMAN, 130

The Night Hath a Thousand Eyes, JAMES HUNEKER, 131

Rockefeller Center, HULBERT FOOTNER, 132

The Bowery, HULBERT FOOTNER, 133

Port of New York, PAUL ROSENFELD, 133

Coney Island, JAMES HUNEKER, 134

Atlantic City at Night, JAMES HUNEKER, 135

Wilmington, HENRY CANBY, 136

703

Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, CHRISTOPHER MORLEY, 137

The Cotton Boll, HENRY TIMROD, 243

The Edge of the Swamp, WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS, 244

Charleston in the Seventies, EDWARD KING, 246

The Old Monteano Plantation, CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON,

249

Belles Demoiselles, GEORGE WASHINGTON CABLE, 250
Contemplation in New Orleans, JOSEPH HERGESHEIMER, 252
Voudou Stronghold, FRANCIS and EDWARD LAROCQUE TINKER,

253
Virginia Farms, ELLEN GLASGOW, 253

The Silence of the Plains, OLE E. ROLVAAG, 471
Homesteaders in Caravan, OLE E. ROLVAAG, 471
The Great American Desert, MARK TWAIN, 472
Fort Laramie, FRANCIS PARKMAN, 472
The Crest of the Divide, WASHINGTON IRVING, 475
Snow in the High Sierras, BRET HARTE, 477
Acoma, the City of the Sky, CHARLES F. LUMMIS, 478
The Harbor of Santa Barbara, RICHARD HENRY DANA,
By the Sun-Down Seas, JOAQUIN MILLER, 482
Polk Street, FRANK NORRIS, 483
Point Joe, ROBINSON JEFFERS, 485

III. NARRATION
A. INCIDENTS

The Dutchman and the Dog, NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE, 18

Captain Nutter's Pipe, THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH, 19

Sunday, THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH, 20

Teaching Latin to the Cows, CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER, 21

Mr. Flood's Party, EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON, 22

Hallowe'en, SHERWOOD ANDERSON, 376

A Change in the Judiciary, DAVID CROCKETT, 256

Jim Bludso of the Prairie Belle, JOHN HAY, 263

Little Breeches, JOHN HAY, 492

Private Leslie Yawfitz, WILLIAM MARCH, 604

704

B. EPISODES

The Courtin*, JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL, 15

Massachusetts Execution, UPTON SINCLAIR, 24

The Death of the Hired Man, ROBERT FROST, 81

The Shakers of New York, ARTEMUS WARD, 149

The Raising, BAYARD TAYLOR, 169

Old Kennett Meeting, BAYARD TAYLOR, 172

Hans Breitmann in Maryland, CHARLES G. LELAND, 177

The Confederate Line, SIDNEY LANIER, 260

Caleb Catlum Meets John Henry, VINCENT MCHUGH, 265

The Big Bear of Arkansas, T. B. THORPE, 274

The Wonderful Tar-Baby Story, JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS, 298

How Mr. Rabbit Was Too Sharp for Mr. Fox, JOEL CHANDLER

HARRIS, 299

Girl Hunting, CAROLINE KIRKLAND, 367
A Theater on the Ohio, SOL. SMITH, 369
Corner Lots, EDWARD EGGLESTON, 371
Among the Free Lovers, ARTEMUS WARD, 374
First Blood, ROBERT HERRICK, 378
The Pony Express, MARK TWAIN, 491
When You Call Me That, Smile, OWEN WISTER, 494

C. SIMPLE NARRATIVE

The Rise of Lapham Paint, WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS, 74

Spelling Down the Master, EDWARD EGGLESTON, 389

The Meanest Man in Spring County, JOSEPH KIRKLAND, 396

The Quare Women, LUCY FURMAN, 307

Colonel Sellers at Home, MARK TWAIN, 404

Packingtown, UPTON SINCLAIR (I, B), 430

Beecher's Island, JOHN G. NEIHARDT, 526

Midas on a Goat Skin, j. FRANK DOBIE, 565

D. BIOGRAPHY

Mary Moody Emerson, RALPH WALDO EMERSON (I, C), 49
Mister Morgan, A Portrait, THE STAFF OF Fortune, 209
The American Plan, JOHN DOS PASSOS (I, E), 682

705

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