Please handle this volume with care. The University of Connecticut Libraries, Storrs » » »»» » » » »^ hbl, stx CT275P2A3 Bohemian life; Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2009 with funding from Boston Library Consortium IVIember Libraries http://www.archive.org/details/bohemianlifeorauOOpage / h^l^ o'^/^i^^" 6Z^ <# !# <# i# efe <# fOSTSCRIPl TliE custnui nf "writing prefacEs is a ser- vilE DUE that has cdhle dn^Tv^n tn us frnm thnsE gnnd old days ■^A^hEii authors had tn chnnsE tiEt^WEEii the altErnativES nf starv- ing in garPEts dp eIse prncnring patrnnagE by fa^Ti/ning likE spanisls nn such vaiuj nnblE pEPSDuagES as "^vepe ■willing tn pay fnp thE plEasuPE nf sEeing thsip grand namES and mythical viptuES ErabalraEd in fulsnniE ppint, "WhEUj in thE ppngPESs nf EVEUtS; it cEasEd tnliEnECESEapytn cpingc bEfnPE suchtiEn- EficEUCEj thE litEPapy cpaftspuanj at Inss by fnpcE nf habil^fnp snmEthing tn ppnpi- tiatE; liEthnught hiru nf thE ExpediEut nf GPinging tn thn PEadEPj gpntEsquEly ignnp- ing that a bnnk ^wnpth thE PEading UEEds no apnlngy; and that tn a vnlumE nf thn nthep snpt it is supEPflunus tn add an ex- tEunatinn Tvhichj in thE natuPB nf things^ is uECEssarily an EnlapgemEnt nf thE off EUSE . POSTSCKIPT. iln authnrity ATtz-liicli nn due nf intElli- gEncE "will hastily impugn has aifimiEd that thE annals nf any adnlt hnman tiE- ing^s lifE c nnsciEntinnsly "writtEnj "wnnld makE BntErtaining and instrnctivE litEra- tnPEj and in this apnthEgm Hes thE raisnn d'EtrE nf this vnlnmEj as "xtu^eII as fnll Exnn- Eratinn nf ths campilEr frnm all rEspnnsi- bility EXGEpt ths singlE due nf pEnning thE PEcnrd c nnsciEntiansly — a dnty that has bsEn dischargEd mast scrnpnlnnsly, ThE captinns critic may cavil at ths titlE adnptEd; allEging that HchEmianism is an EXDtic fnngns; and thE titlE; thErEfnrE; a misnnmEr. Hut tn all snch gnthic-mindEd gEnEralizatinn thE snfficlEnt pEtard isi AmEricaj a lar gE'c nntinEnt discnvEPEd by nnE ChristnphEr Cnlnmbnsj and sundry nther anciEnt marinErs; "which has mnrE than nncE astnnishEd EnrnpE; Asia and Africa hy imprnving nn thEir pEcnliar spEcialtiES; has latterly dEvntEd particu- lar attEntinn tn thE prnductinn nf an im- prnvEd, transatlantic q_uality nf BnhE- mianism; an averagE spEcimEn nf "which isj fnr thE first timE; affEPEd in thE fnlln^v- ■ in g p a g E s , THE AUTHOR, APOLOGY FOR THE SECOND EDITION. The only excuse that can be offered for thus quickly flooding the country with another large edition of these chronicles is the sordid one, of unexpected wealth left in bank hastily by the First Edition, which easily gotten gain has instigated the mercenary publishers to peremptorily command another edition to im- mediately come forth. Under such circumstances, all that a help- less author can do, besides repudiating all other responsibility, is what has been faithfully done, by diligently revising the text and mul- tiplying and improving the illustrations. THE AUTHOR. ST. LOUIS, MAY 7, 1884. SYNOPTICAL INDEX. CHAPTER I. 1. — The Bohemian is born in the usual way — Had a mother, but no father — His maiden Aunt — Returned, like a bad nickel — Farmed out — Engages in rural pastimes — Gives notice to quit — The Tiny Tramp — An astonished philanthropist — Swallowed by a city but difficult to digest — The pretty play- ground — A surprise — Who's afraid? — Plots — The trodden worm turns — The young assassin — Escape — His first por- trait — "Come on!" — The band begins to play 20 CHAPTER II. 21 — An ancient invention — Tlae cash value of patriotism — Too young for fame — The Will and the Way — Mustering in haste — The babe of the battalion — The band in the rear — A drumhead court-martial — What's that? — We meet the enemy, but never have much to say about it — A rebellious river — The geography of heroism — Behind the scenes — Military problems — The wreck of battle — The picket line — Crawling into a predicament — A cunning foe — Buck ague — A snap shot — Spoils 40 CHAPTER III. 41. — A friendship born to fade — Ered Grant and his stud — The water instinct — An anxious planter — A few specimen strag- ii INDEX. glers — My pile — An accomplished young female — The brood- ing bivouac — The chaff of war — On the right into line — ";S— s— s/" and " Whit! '^ — First blood — Sharpening a sharpshooter — Going in — Clinging to cover — The field at night — A cry from the cots — Here's your mule — Backing to the front — The circumstance of war — A missing regiment — Used up — Sapping and sharpshooting . 66 CHAPTER IV. 67. — Sunday in camp — The man with a cigar — Two heads better than one — An hour too late — Sarcastic suggestions — Only a little joke — The biggest " sell " of the nineteenth century — The naked truth — An ambitious scribe cannot afford to lie — Tumbling to the racket — Leg bail — In harness — Barmore the detective — The niche of fame — Habeas corpus — The pen is mightier than the bayonet — Fitting for college — Afloat and ashore — Tlie Liver Elixir — Music has charms — How to live long — Pleasure before business — Tit for tat — Fly time 86 CHAPTER V. 87. — Life on the wave — Reward of merit — A run ashore — Com- rades in arms — A forest of legs — An ambuscade — Shot through the heart — Beauty in a box — Stolen glances — A rose by any other name would smell as sweet — Left ashore — The Darling to the rescue — Pat to work — My friend the mud-clerk — Cheek on ice — A disconcerted damsel — The fool's paradise — The bubble bursts — Stage struck — Blighted hopes — A sudden success. 104 CHAPTER VI. 105. — My debut — Seeking another stage — Cruising on a romantic river — Life on the logs — River ruflBans — I put myself on a peace footing — A new trade — An errand of repairs — The clean-cut profile — A silly embarcation — A dude afloat — The INDEX. lii last supper — A startling cry — Into the smoke — A.t the last gasp — A look and a leap — The funeral pyre — Tempted by the devil — A combat under water — Every man for himself — Help ! — Safe ashore — A picturesque surtout — A perplexing situation — A rustic smile — Precipitate flight 134 CHAPTER VII. 135. — Delicate hospitality — A handsome apology — Reporting after an errand — News from below — An early walk — Under a hay- stack — The breakfast question — A noonday halt — Sljakiug ofE the dust of Salem — An unapproachable perspective — Charmingly astray — Sorrowful Sam — The "blue hen's chicken " — A safe bet — Cutting severity — Moving on — The supper crisis — Seed by the wayside — Rain on the roof — A tremendous tramp — The dampgreenhoru — Solid comfort — Are you tramps? — A close call — French leave 166 CHAPTEEi VIII. 167. — Melodious Morn — The early petitioner — Tame chickens — The parable of two wicked tramps — Hearty hospitality — Conscience inquires within — Fishing-Jake — Tapping beside the hole — The way to cook fish — Oft in the chilly night — Hastening to meet the dawn — Scratches on a rail — The ren- dezvous — Dolce far niente — A fine feeling — Watching the tree-tops fall — Drowsy land — A call for " S waller-tail " — The ethics of angling — Trumping a small poet — Tramps in council — Adjourn for a 'possum-hunt — Plans for the winter — The Picturesque Pilgrims — Queer conduct — A plan in re- serve — The parting pipe — A lonesome walk — The welcome guest — Last night on the road 196 CHAPTER IX. 197. — The Field of the Cloth of Gold — A narrow escape — Turning the Wheel of Fortune — A reticent manager — The man with a patent — A lad and his lamp — Alight but lucrative business — iv INDEX. Gallant aspirations cowed — A hint of the hereafter — Sitting in ashes — Once more on foot — Too independent by half — Charity that began at home — One touch of authority — Dis- counting disaster — "Waiting, for a fresh start — The toilet Hat-ironer — A dip into fashionable society — Painting for the picturesque — An appreciative public — Au revoir to art — From the stage to the steering-oar 218 CHAPTER X. 219. — Shunning the temptations of high-life — Fishing for patron- age — A plunge into politics — Naturalized "sovereigns" — The charge of the Night Brigade — A political club — The stone that the builder's rejected — Prowling for the Press — Almost an editor — Snatched from the potter's field — A Cy- clone at sea — Looking out for the ferocious reptile — A noonday resort — The innocency of youth — Mistaliing the symptoms — The pie-test of piety — A powerful prayer — A sudden change of temperature — Appeal to an unconverted siimer — The way of the transgressor — Sinful gratitude — The Captain profanely trumps my ace 240 CHAPTER XI. 241 . — On a lee shore — A despairing wretch catches at a bar of soap — Happy hours — Eating up the past, present and future — A feast between fasts — Eambling among rooms for rent — Only a man we failed to kill — In elegant state — My friend, the Inventor — The Flying Machine — The friction of two philo- sophic minds — Banquetting on bullock's blood — Holidays at home — A hardy resolve — The first step — A card in the Herald — No Sons of Temperance need apply — A hatful of letters — The first swirl of the screw — A dreary departure — Eolling on the bar 258 CHAPTER XII. 259. — An original feature of this volume — Tempestuous days — INDEX. V Late to luncheon — The mirror in the mast — A horrible shock — Mercenary solicitude — Preparing for the inevita- ble — Congenial spirits — A maiden, fair to see — Salt moon- shine — The ways of a pretty woman — Is she a flirt? — A wish in the dark — The startling disclosure; — An enlightened jester — At sea in a boat — Moments too bright not to be fleeting — In the sunset glory — The castled crags of Carnar- von — A message from the sea — An artful coquette — Lon- don — Forcing a settlement — Free at last 280 CHAPTER XIII. 281. — The Havre packet — A bona fide Bohemian — Learning how to travel in France — The pension in the Eue Vaugirard — Ee- served seats for two — The virgin of the phenomenal eye — The other young lady — High life in Paris — A funny thing — Leaving a card — Fairy footsteps — What to-morrow may bring forth — A solitary "first breakfast" — The national peculiarity — Wanted, a model — What was pinned to my door — Face to face — A faux pas horrifique — Icy urbanity — The wrong door — Is it potage de cheval'i — The model at home — An infatuation of authorship — Virtue is its own reward 302 CHAPTER XIV. 303. — Choosing a class — Encouraging the other hand — Fashion in Athens two thousand years ago — A tableau that was probably rehearsed — The first pose — A study of moment — A witch in a bottle — A hint in season — A love of a bonnet — The Day of the Bastile — Looking down on the fete — Fruits of folly — A night in June — Seeing the city — A reproach to American in- telligence — A flea in your ear — An investment that was better than gas stock — Never too late — The day's income — Bon jour! — Feminine curiosity — Offensive defensive — Beauty and the beast — The London postmark — Catching at a straw — An inference that was not founded on fact. . . 324 vi INDEX. CHAPTER XV. 325. — A lesson in art — Cold blooded criticism — Too Frenchy for style — Outings in the environs — An adventure in the Bois — Assuming command — The Colonel shows clean hands — A duty of dignity — Between two fires — A barren interview — The last pot-boiler — The Bal-masque — St. Martin's Sum- mer — Three days in Fontainebleau — A rival — A descendant of Eve — Comical clocks — Le Jour de 1' An — Palm Sunday — Le Premier Printemps — A contemptuous critic — There were giants in those days — One of the mistakes of Shakespeare — A la mort 356 CHAPTER XVI. 357. — Vanishing Paris — A bizarre and tawdry city — All in the people — The milk in the cocoanut — Born thirsty — A well known vintage — 111 at ease — Out in the moonlight — A luxury too cheap to be enjoyed by many — A lost inheritance — The terrible Fourth — Suppressed facts concerning "a turquoise sea and a sapphire sky" — A delightful illustration — The stumbling block of happiness — A novel incumbrance — A short lane that must turn soon — My first pupil — Grappling with fortune — Hard times — A needy inventor — Share and share — Treading the winepress 378 CHAPTER XVII. 379. — Sunday in the studio — The early intruder — A treacherous viand — Hasty preliminaries — The Marquis jerks back his hand — A few cursory remarks — An idea — Summoning the faithful — They were seven — Bushing to the fray — In with the latch-string — Tableau — Every man to his trade — A thank- ful "orator — As the sparks fly upward — A work of art — The tragic muse — A rye-o-tous spirit — The Chinese manuscript — A plateful of mystery — A rural landscape — The Eaving 400 INDEX. ^ vii CHAPTER XVIII. 401. — Intense longings — An almost forgotten habit — Enliglitened patriotism — Two brides — Fun that was very fine — A sunken continent — The piquant Alster — Alone in Munich — Joyful news — Take off your hat — A weU watered town — The fisher- man's tale — A dose of discipline — The dissipations of Ulm — Seeds of dissension — Walled towns — Unlimited candles — The blood-thirsty being — Slam-bang — Exhausting three languages — Grandfather's clock — A mixed allegory — The duke and his daughter — In the quaint streets of Strasburg. 422 CHAPTER XIX. 423. — A land of wine -bibbers — A hint to Prohibitionists — The true Apostle of Temperance is the Vine — Pleasant associations permanently defiled — On the Boulevards — Sneers at the Salon — A cut at art-critics — Art-criticism investigated — Its aspect as a two-ended joke — A large mail — Hiding in the Louvre — Mashed for a moment — A dainty dead-beat — Home again — Seed-time and harvest ^ . . 44G CHAPTER XX. 441. — An embarrassing question — Sitting by the sea — Bits of En- glish — A scent of violets — The Star in the East — The witchery of a faint perfume — Love unmasked — A mutual friend — Tidings from the past — The Sphinx of the Future — A rainbow at noon 451 INDEX TO ILLUSTRATIONS. Page. The Cover; by J. L. Spurgin .02 Caption of Title Page; by A. B. Green 01 Bird's Eye View of The Author; by Armand Welcker . . .01 Publisher's Imprint; by J. L. Spurgin Second Title Sheet; by J. L. Spurgin Faces x Initial L., The Retrospect; by Tlie Initial Club. ... 1 My Dangerous Friend ; by Will DeFord 5 The Tiny Tramp ; by W. D. Streetor Faces 7 My First Portrait; by J. Hawkins 18* Initial F., Fired by Patriotism; by The Initial Club. . . 21 Behind the Scenes; by J. H.Wilson Faces 30 Spoils; Anonymous 35 Initial A., The Pursuit op Happiness; by The Initial Club. . 41 First Blood; by Paul E. Harney Faces 50 A Political Controversy; by J. D. Patrick. . . . Faces 67 The Bivouac of the Dead; by J. Hawkins. . . . Faces 62 Initial T., The Last Ditch; by The Initial Club .... 67 Discharged; by W. D. Streetor Faces 71 The Niche of Fame; Anonymous 77 Initial H., Cupid's Battery; by The Initial Club. ... 87 Ada; by Will DeFord Faces 98 La Belle Eiviere; by S. P. Annan. 102 Initial W., Age Before Beauty; by The Initial Club. . . . 105 The Upper River; by F. W. Lippelt. 106 The Victor; by W. D. Streetor Faces 108 (viii) INDEX TO ILLUSTRATIONS. ix The Last Ckossing; by J. H. Wilson Faces 116 Every Man for Himself; by Carl Gutherz 125 Initial, W., Stern Reality; by The Initial Club. .... 135 'TwAS Ever Thus; by Ernest Albert 144 Do You Take Me FOR His Accomplice; by W. D. Streetor. Faces 148 Sorrowful Sam; by "W. D. Streetor. . . . Faces 152 A Showery Day; by Mat. Hastings 160 Initial S., A Washed Landscape; by The Initial Club. . . 167 The Early Petitioner; by J. Hawkins. ...... 169 Signs; by Ernest Albert 174 The Rendezvous; by J. H. Wilson Faces 184 The Musi gale; by Julian Pogue 194 Initial O., The Wheel of Fortune; by The Initial Club. . . 197 Let There Be Light; by W. D. Streetor. . . . Faces 201 And There Was Light; by Ernest Albert. . . . Faces 206 Initial T., A Political Tool; by The Initial Club. . . .219 The Night Watchman's Dream; byF. Welcker . . Faces 222 The Ferocious Reptile; by Armand Welcker. .... 228 Initial Q., Waste Makes Want; by The Initial Club. . . .24] No Such Luck Was There; by A. L. Henckc. . . F;ices 244 A Life for A Life; by J. Hawkins. 248 Here's TO Beelzebub; by W. D. Streetor 256 Initial O., Over The Ocean; by The Initial Club. . . . 259 Between Two Worlds; by J. Hawkins Faces 270 I Hope You Do Not Love Him; by W. D. Streetor. . . . 276 Initial N., Bohemian Bric-a-Brac; by The Initial Club . . 281 The Eye ; by Mat. Hastings 285 Jules ; by F. Welcker. Faces 294 Initial E., Encouraging the Other Hand; by The Initial Club . 303 The Class; by F. W. Lippelt Faces 306 Phyrne Victrix; by Carl Guther^ 313 Malnot; byWiUDeFord Faces 320 Initial C, The Queen of Sheba; by The Initial Club. . . 325 FONTAINEBLEAU ; by J. R. Meeker Faces 332 Le Premier Printemps ; by F. W. Lippelt. . . . Faces 341 X INDEX TO ILLUSTEATIONS. Franclne; byWillDeFord .345 Packing Up; by W. D. Streetor 352 Initial "W., Cheap Comfort ; by The Initial Club 357 An English Home; by F. W. Lippelt Faces 365 Homeward Bound; byWillDeFord Faces 370 Ebb Tide; by T. M. Chambers • . . .376 Initial E., Wall Fruit; by The Initial Club 379 The Bohemian Banquet; by J. Hawkins. . . . Faces 390 A Stir LN Old China; by Will Earns 396 Initial D., Off Soundings; by The Initial Club 401 The French Bride ; by Ernest Albert. 402 The Sunken Continent ; by Harry Chase 404 Die Alte Wahl, Hamburg ; byWillDeFord. . . . Faces 406 Sunset ON the IsAR ; by Thomas Noble Faces 410 The Maid of the Three Moors; by Jean Aubrey. . Faces 413 Initial v., Condensed Cheek; by The Initial Club . . . 423 The Salon ; by Armand Welcker Faces 430 The Last Bit of France ; by Joseph Jefferson 437 Initial B., The Thread of Life; by The Initial Club. . . . 441 Little Jules ; by Mary Fairchild Faces 446 Good Bye; byj. L. Spurgiu 451 CHAPTER I. ooKura BACK at a life chequered with experience, intent on recording its phenomena, and anxious to begin in a manner reassuring to the oft de- luded, hence wary and distrustful reader, I irrevocably jot down that I was born at an early age, in the usual way. This adventure was due wholly to the fact that I then had a mother. Many persons have had mothers, at some period of life. And in general everybody has had a father, too, — except Adam, who began life as an orphan under auspices so favorable that he had no use for one. It would have been more auspicious for me had I been more hke most other people — or else more like 2 A GENTLEMANLY EOBBEE. Adam ; for I never had a father — a bereavement to which I attribute all the principal evil fortune that has thus far befallen me. My father died before I was born. Had he been spared he would undoubtedly have chastised me with perseverance, and perhaps sufficiently to prevent hap- penmgs that must deform, however they may en- liven, these pages. But it was not so to be. He died, leaving me unborn to become the shuttle-cock of circumstance and the foot-ball of necessity. He had been an industrious man ; and the modest accumulation of his frugal life fell to the share of one of those gentlemanly robbers who know the legal chart so well that they steer skilfully between theft and the penitentiary, and so, under the aegis of that gigan- tic farce called Law, plunder the widow and orphan with impunity. I allude to this respected citizen, after all these years, neither in sorrow nor in anger, but merely to soften the unavoidable confession that my earliest recollections are not festooned with flowery associa- tions of a happy and luxurious home. I have read of such homes, and enjoyed the literary dissipation. I also, in a theoretical way, believe "home" to be a powerful name, capable of stirring profound emo- tions. But all such aestheticism of sentiment is poetry MY MAIDEN AUNT. 3 of the purely imaginative sort to me — I never had a home, worth mentioning. I did not even exactly have a mother until I was five years older than most babes are when they begin to enjoy that blessed pos- session ; but that was not the mother's fault. Following close upon the death- angel came the messenger of want, wdth the fiat for the dispersion of a family whose head was gone, whose heritage was stolen, and whose necessities were obdurate. There were four besides the mother and myself — of wliicJi there was not just then enough to count — two of whom God soon took to be with their father. My earliest recollections loiter around the habita- tion of a maternal aunt, where I vegetated for some seasons, like a small and tender goui'd upon a garden fence, seeing my mother's face only at long intervals. In her stead I had a substitute that memory com- mands me to describe in two words — nerves and l^ver. Having no offspring of her own, my mother's sister would no doubt have warmed her heart toward her orphan nephew had he been one of those cherubs that childless women dandle in their dreams and rev- eries. But the subject of these annals was not a cherub. He was, in fact, as incorrigible an urchin as ever nerves and liver exercised their efficacy upon. So it is not, as human nature stands, incredible that 4 YEARNING PERPLEXITY. he was put on a train one morning, in charge of the conductor, without a hne of " character," or even of explanation or regret, his httle hat ' ' chalked ' ' to his mother's address. How that mother's heart must have leaped and sunk when he trotted in that sunny afternoon. Leaped at the sight of her youngest-born, her own once more — sunk under the smiting of a sister's hand upon a heart already aching with the buffets of mis- fortmie. The thought that I was the unconscious vehicle of the blow softens my seasoned soul and wrings it with remorse that is, alas, but the piercing thorn of a flower whose fragrance I trampled out too often. Oh, my mother ! What Avould I not give to live once more the vainly regretted moments of that inexorable past ! At the time of my arrival my mother was tempora- rily employed in the house of old and excellent friends who often made easier her difiicult task of bread- win- ning. To keep me with her was out of the question. Returned hke a bad five- cent- piece by my indignant amit, I was not, even to a mother's myopic eye, a sort of treasure to be coveted by others who though more than kind were less than kin; so after much yearning perplexity, in which I know I did not prop- erly share, I was conveyed to a neighboring farm- RURAL PASTIMES. time house and there by impromptu arrangement deposited until further notice. In that shady seclusion I for a pretty evenly divided my abundant activity between the rustic pas- time of gathering nuts and the more social recreations of making larger as well as smaller rustics respect my phenomenal capacity for mischief, and of conciliating of an immense that prudent with. And when thus enliven dull, sparse lated neigh hood, I peti to be remov^ whither- writing, or verbally, but ningly devised that clamored for \) sence. "What next to me it Avould be, if not tiresome, at least unprepos- sessing to detail. I have no inclination to alienate \ ; I V' exactly /_ y by cun- conduct my ab- happened 6 A HASTY DEPARTURE. the esteem of the virtuous at the threshold of acquaint- ance, and have dwelt thus much in minutiae on my earliest experiences only to introduce myself with can- dor, and to do impartial justice to the memory of my maiden aunt. As years rolled on I acquired a rare proficiency in those innumerable exercises of strength and agility which contribute so largely to dissipate the ennui of boyhood and deter the young philoso- pher from prematurely contemplating life as a huge wave of hideous despair. I also, in a desultory way, cultivated an inherited fondness for manipulating stringed instruments, cherishing the conviction that when I became big enough I would begin a noble and illustrious career as ''end-man" upon the seductive stage. I also, on one occasion, while smartmg under a well merited but none the less offensive reprimand, left the maternal cot, in Wheeling, Ya., ostensibly for school, and having deposited my books and slate in the coal-shed, proceeded to the wdiarf and hid my- self on board a steamer plying between "Wlieeling and the, to me, remote and romantic port of Steubenville, Ohio. After wandering about the streets of the latter place for some hours I formed the acquaintance of a large and jovial philanthropist who was then the THE TINY TRAMP. keeper of the principal inn, and who, under the im- pression that I was a friendless waif from Pittsburg, took a benevolent interest in me. Having fed and comforted me, he propounded a series of questions, all oi which I answered with a seeming frankness that forestalled suspicion of guile. The next day my large hearted patron offered to send me to school ; but I demurred, assuring him that I had been to school enongh, and that I would rather earn my liv- ing honestly, by blacking boots in his hotel. He re- plied that the industry I mentioned was just then a monopoly vested beyond his immediate control, but he would set me up in business as a newsboy, if that would suit me. I gratefully accepted his offer ; and plied the latter vocation with energy and profit for two days, by which time my generous benefactor had so entirely won my confidence that in an impulsive moment I told him all. Wlien I had done so the astonished publican gave me some grave and excellent fatherly advice, and, m spite of my protests, took me on board the packet as soon as it next arrived and placed me under care of the captain. I was very indignant for a while ; but soon after the voyage began I became agreeably in- terested in the prospect of quickly reaching home. When I ran into the house, I saw my mother 8 THE PKODIGAL SON. slowly and with a weary air ascending the narrow front stairway. At my impulsive shout she turned, in the curve of the little landmg, threw np her arms, and almost fell npon me in her haste to hug the wicked boy whose undutifulness had graven some fresh, deep luies of grief, which joy could not dis- guise, on her sad, sweet countenance. For three days my slate and books had been the only traces of me in Wlieeling. "Within a few months after my return from this, my earhest vagrancy, I began to overhear remarks that presaged a migration of the family to Cincinnati ; a change of habitat for which my elder brother had pre- pared the way. At first I was not much interested in this household gossip ; but when active preparations for departure gave visible form to the exodus, I sud- denly became deeply absorbed in the details. And later, when we settled down in our new abode, as soon as I had outhved the propensity to stare agape at the kaleidoscopic novelty of the great city, I ascertained that I was, at last, in an environment adapted to my or- ganization, and speedily made others f amihar with the fact I had discovered. Indeed, withm a few months I gave my mother more anxiety than she knew what to do with. I did not suddenly overwhelm her with any particular enormit}^, but gradually, as she could THE PRETTY PLAYGEOUND. 9 bear it, I surrounded her in a comparatively short time with a positively alarming quantity of tribulation. What, of her own volition, she would have done in consequence, I know not. My elder brother had suddenly become an element in the forces that were shaping my destiny; and after a private interview with him she one day asked me to take a ride with her — an invitation which I with joy and alacrity accepted. When the smoke and noise of the city had been left several miles behind, the omnibus stopped, at a signal from my mother, before a high, iron gateway in a massive stone wall, while we alighted. After some delay an attendant opened a side w^icket for us, and we entered upon a scene the beauty of which profoundly stirred an impulse which, unsuspected by myself or any other person, was germinating in my young bosom. Before us lay beds of artistic forms and beautifully contrasting colors, broadly dispersed among dark blue belts of lawn and in the embrace of spacious walks of pleasing sinuosity. In places, on the velvety sward, the warm evening sunlight played in evanescent gleams of green around the long spots of darker color cast by the breezy foliage of hand- some shade trees ; and in the midst of the agree- able landscape, at the end of a wider walk on which 10 A SELECT SCHOOL. we were approaching it, rose a stately edifice sub- stantially but handsomely built of rough-hewn lime- stone. My mother, perceiving my admiring gaze, asked me how I would like to live in that big house and have the pretty garden for my playground; and when I in my own way assured her that such good fortune would leave me little if anything to desire, she informed me it was a large school for boys, at which she intended to leave me, to learn how to be good, for a season. I was a good deal surprised but not much discon- certed by this announcement, the novelty of the sen- sation it aroused being more agreeable than the aston- ishing element contained in it was discomposing. I was, indeed, a little piqued, at first, by the implied onus of punishment ; but by the time we reached the open portal of the building I became reconciled to this burden on reflecting that, according to my some- what diversified experience, I might go much farther without finding a more pleasant sort of punishment. I amused myself staring about the reception room and vestibule wliile my mother held conversation with a man almost as large but not so prepossessing as mine host of Steuben ville, for perhaps fifteen or twenty minutes; when the former called me in, THE FESTAL BOARD. 11 hugged me a good deal, begged me between sobs to mind Mr. Jones and become a good boy, and finally departed, leaving me wet with her tears. I had mingled my tears with hers, but I was by no means an apron-string sniveler ; so when the gentle- man I had been counseled to obey said, not unkindly, that I had better come along to supper, I remem- bered I had been feeling hungry and followed him without further formality of sorrow. He led me by devious passages to a large room in the rear portion of the building, where several hun- dred boys sat eating in silence and with striking de- corum around a number of long, narrow tables. The repast, which consisted of bread, molasses and as fine water as the drift-gravel of that region affords, was well advanced at the moment of my entrance ; and before I had disposed of the allowance set before me the large assembly began to move and pass out like a procession in single file, thereby accelerating my motions and causing me to hastily scrape up the vis- cid fluid so seductive to childhood and spread it on my bread. Then I mingled with the dissolving throng, and falling in behind the line followed it up stairs and into a large apartment which I, by its fur- nishing, at once recognized as a school room. Going to school after supper was an experience 12 WHO'S AFRAID? entirely new to me, and sufficiently awe-inspiring to impair the zest with which I finished my bread and molasses. And the feeling, which was an oppressive uncertainty as to impending possibilities, gained strength as often as I glanced about me and noted the remarkable order and absence of juvenile frivolity that everywhere prevailed. In Wheeling, and more recently in Cincinnati, I had seen well regulated school rooms, but never one to be compared with that. After a while I rallied my presence of mind and in self communion meditated : ' ' Who' s afraid ' ' ? I heroically pushed my right hand into my pants pocket and deliberately counted my marbles one by one. But I was not bold enough to proceed any further in my reckless inclination to pretend to ' ' play hole ' ' at the orifice of the inkstand imbedded in the level top of the sloping desk before me. The spirit was willmg, but something before which I had never until then quailed deterred me. After an irksome sitting, really several hours shorter than it seemed, I was shut up in a small dor- mitory on one side of a long, narrow corridor ; wdiere, when we were left to darkness and our own quiet de- vices, my room-mate first perplexed me by asking what I was put in for, then aroused my sluggish in- terest by repeating the odd question in various forms, NUMBEE 1259. 13 and finally overwhelmed me with the information that I was beyond doubt duly enrolled as ^o. 1259 of the House of Refuge. !N^ot to linger on this unlovely episode, I remamed under the baleful discipline of that institution for nine months ; during which time, to prepare me to encounter stoically the buffets of an unfeeling world, I was beaten with many stripes and thoroughly in- structed in the simplest methods by wliich brute force may make itself respected. Fortunately I was en- dowed by nature with a sturdy independence that prevented me from becoming in a time so limited either cowed by paltry tyranny or contaminated by vicious associations. And as a single compensation for all the evils, realized and possible, of my situa- tion, I acquired a handiness with tools that has since proved often convenient and sometimes of considera- ble practical value. After a novitiate in several other departments I was permanently apprenticed in a workshop devoted to extensive manufacture of large brushes ; where, as soon as I became sufficiently adept in the manipula- tion of wire with tools, I began to experiment in a surreptitious fabrication of skeleton keys. Undis- mayed by a series of failures, which, owing to the stealth indispensable to the nndertaldng, occupied my 14 WAITING ON THE MOON. available moments for several months, I steadfastly persisted until I had a set of picks with which I could move all bolts on the premises, as far as I had safe opportunity to try, and which I was confident would not fail me at the outer gates. Having, as I fancied, good reason to put trust in my implements and pa- tiently acquired skill in using them, I began to exult in the prospect of escape ; and was deferring my pro- ject only until the moon should rise some hours after midnight, when an event occurred that prevented its execution. As has been hinted, the discipline of the institution was rigid and severe. The boys were worked by day and instructed in the rudiments of scholarship at night. Between the exercises of workshop and school- room they slept, paired off in cell-like dormitories ; ate three frugal meals each day, consisting of bread and water and a miniature dole of meat, or molasses or butter ; and were drilled to form in line and face and file, with all the pomp and ceremony of troops in garrison. An hour and a half each day was allotted to recreation ; and the only other luxury of life al- lowed the future citizens was a variety in fare, by which soup was sometimes substituted for meat at dinner, or mush for bread at supper, except on rare, holiday occasions of festivity, when the excellent CHASTENED APPETITES. 15 water was compounded in a mild beverage that we with uncritical enthusiasm hailed as coffee. The dining hall was Mr. Jones' throne-room and temple of despotic justice, where he always sat in state during meal hours, on a low dais in the remote end of the refectory. Thither, at the end of each morning repast, it was his custom, wliich never lapsed for lack of several candidates, to summon to him, by their numbers, such boys as were marked on his pri- vate notes for discipline, and, without other notice, to castigate them, then and there. For this reason breakfast was a meal the enjoyment of which de- pended less upon the fare than on the eater's con- science. One morning, while I was impatiently waiting on the deliberate movement of the moon, a well grown youth, often numbered among those who ate expect- antly, was summoned by number to come forward. He obeyed promptly, shouting : ' ' IS'ow, boys ! Come on ! ' ' Mr. Jones had unwittingly given the preconcerted signal of a conspiracy newly organized with the des- perate purpose of opposing violence to brutality ; and without flinching the ringleader unhesitatingly raised the standard of revolt. The confusion that almost immediately ensued ob- 16 THE YOUNG ASSASSIN. scured my view in a moment ; but during that mo- ment the scene was stirring, and is indelibly impressed on my memory. With the shout, the hoodlum rushed past me. Several of the largest boys folloAved, but hesitat- mgly. The last movement drew my attention from the cliief conspirator ; and in one quick look around, before I was engulfed in commotion, I noted the hes- itation of the confederates and saw all around me familiar faces full of expression that was mifamiliar. In some it was startled amazement, in others intense alarm, and in a few, unadulterated but eager expect- ancy. The next instant I glanced quickly toward the dais. The young ruffian was then rushing upon Mr. Jones, whose face was a study of astonishment mnd disconcertion, wliich I saw only for a moment, above the heads already rising around the tables in front of me. I got upon my chaii', but others did the same and I could see only that a serious struggle was m progress. Wliat the upstarting prevented me from seeing was this, — Mr. Jones recovered possession of his facul- ties, closed with his assailant, and a scuffle ensued, in which the young assassin, being feebly supported and hard pressed, buried a shoemaker's knife to the hilt ALMOST A TRAGEDY. 17 in Mr. Jones' neck. I saw the blade gleam, and a thin stream of blood spirt up ; just as an assistant keeper ran past my table, into the crowd. He felled the boy with a weapon which some said was a ' ' billy," and which others beheved was a slung shot. Mr. Jones eventually recovered ; but the issue was for some days doubtful, and durmg the excitement, which was fed and sustained by suspense, my mother came out to the mstitution. I then saw my oppor- tunity in her agitation, and so harrowed her feelings with details of the cruelty that had goaded despera- tion to such resistance and covered my body with marks which I exhibited to her, that she hurried to the city, procured my discharge and sent my brother out in haste with a new suit of clothes and the order for my immediate dismissal. I next passed rapidly from school to school, build- ing up a cumulative reputation which eventually led to my being placed under the tutelage of a school- mistress of uncertain age whose fame for rigorous discipline had survived such renown for charms of person and amiability of spirit as she might once have enjoyed. Tliis estimable young lady in the routine of duty soon incurred my displeasure, and with a knack to which I was eventually to owe my bread I made a free-hand portrait of her face and figure more 2 18 MY FIRST PORTRAIT. striking in its general, suggestive likeness than faith- ful or flattering in detail. The ''study," which I executed in chalk on the black-board durmg recess, was the occasion of much juvenile mirth, and drew down upon the artist a special surveillance the con- sequences of which could not be doubtful. Before many days I was detected in some transgression of an enormity that pleaded for exemplary correc- tion. The extraordinary sentence passed upon me was, to He prone across the top of a desk and in that favor- able position receive condign chastisement. I said I would take the thrashing standing, if that would be satisfactory to her ; otherwise, I would not take it at all. Finding me prepared to adhere to this resolution my indignant preceptress sent for the principal, who arrived at the scene of action in a few minutes, or shortly after I had indomitably determined not to lie down on that occasion while I had life enousrh in me ^bI^11\AJT A MASTERLY RETREAT. 19 to stand up. I expected to be severely punished, and was resigned to the affliction ; but I was not quite prepared for what soon happened. The pedagogue gave heed briefly to the report of my teacher — which, for some reason, included no mention of the portrait — and then approached me with an air so indignant and suggestive of pugilistic combat that I recoiled in dismay and promptly re- treated by jumping over the row of desks immedi- ately behind me. Then, finding the pursuit active ,♦, and pressing, I led it through narrow defiles to some extent blocked by excited urchms, harrassing it as much as possible by an irregular fire of slates and rulers, discharged point-blank with a rapid skill well known and much respected among my schoolmates. My pursuer dodged most of the missiles, which de- layed him somewhat, but in the upper reaches of the vestibule and stairway he pressed me so closely that when half way down I took a flying hand-leap over the banister, and alighted in a scramble that ended only after it had shot me through the door- way and almost across the pavement. I thus gained so much distance in the race that by the time the irate pro- fessor reached the academic portal I stood in the middle of the street, with a rock in each hand, and caressed his rage by viciously howling : ' ' Come on ! " 20 A THRILLING PANTOMIME. As I rarely missed the mark when it was a dog at twenty paces or a cat at ten, it was, perhaps, fortu- nate for both of us that the man of learning seemed to consider that he discharged his whole duty nobly by dancing grotesquely in the door-way and shaking his fist at me. To strengthen him. in this apparent conviction I took both stones in my left hand, and placing the thumb thus disengaged before my nose, performed a pantomime which, for some psychologi- cal reason that eludes the philosopher, profoundly penetrates and thrills the human bosom. Thus ended my career as a school-boy. The Civil war had already begun, and thenceforward I was to turn my back on boyish things and cast in my lot with men. CHAPTER II. 'lEED by that classic impulse which poets, historians, school- boys and some other unsophis- ticated or interested persons call patriotism, but which, ac- curately speaking, is an epi- demic infatuation first intro- duced among" men by those shrewd, ancient statesmen who originally invented " The rich man's war and the poor man's fight," I, at the first roll of the spirit stirring drum, became as eager as any man to perish on the holy altar of $300 for a substitute ! But when I proudly offered my services to my country I was intensely disgusted to find out that maternal opposition and my tender age put obstacles between me and my longing to rush to glory or the grave. 22 THE WILL AND THE WAY. After much cogitation I thought I saw a way of passing around the obstructions ; and then I concen- trated all my energy into one diligent endeavor to learn to beat a drum. I soon acquired a crude skill that was useful to a class of ambitious gentlemen who were in those days active in the recruiting service ; and in assisting them I often marched with heroes in the van, passing from corps to corps as mevitably and even more rapidly than I had passed so recently from school to school. In this way I became identi- fied as a warrior, and laid wide the foundations of ac- quaintance with numerous officers in sets of the company and battalion, many of whom I afterwards met in less gallant but more warlike costume and ar- ray, as distinguished colonels and generals, but not a whit the less my ancient comrades, unspoiled by pomp or pride. Meanwhile, I was unremitting in my efforts to merge my martial identity in that of a marching reg- iment ; but it was not possible to disguise my youth, and hope deferred had almost discouraged me when, in the autumn of 1862, the Confederates advanced into Kentucky, and a column of the invaders under General Kirby Smith pushed forward to Covington, and disporting in plain view of that transpontine suburb, threw all that region, including the city of THE BAND IN THE REAR. 23 Cincinnati, into a panic. Then there was mustering- in hot haste, without fastidiousness as to age or inches, and in the crisis of the rally I easily enlisted as junior drummer of the Eighty-Third Regiment of Ohio Volunteer Infantry. As the babe of that sanguinary battahon I soon enjoyed a notoriety that was very gratifying to my self esteem ; and my first exploit in the field on the whole tended to increase my renown, while it taught me that war is a grim reality. One day when the regiment, as was then its wont, was exploring the Commonwealth of Kentucky a few miles out from IS^ewport, the band in the rear, it dawned on me that there was much concentrated idiocy in that fatigmng sort of military evolution. Imparting this conviction to a comrade who was trudging along in the rear file beside me, I found that he participated in it. After a few deprecatory re- marks upon the conduct of the war we came to a mu- tual understanding, wliich we soon carried into effect by marchmg left oblique to a large tree and permit- tmg it to stand between ourselves and the departing column, until the latter disappeared beyond a neigh- boring hill. Then we looked at each other for a few moments, hilariously, ere we started on a bee line, through the woods, for ^N^ewport. 24 A COURT MARTIAL. We passed the night in town, without particularly enjoying ourselves, owing to certain misgivings as to the upshot of the adventure ; and early on the follow- ing day concluded that the best thing we could do was to return quietly to camp. We did so; and were immediately placed under arrest in the " guard house," a primitive place of con- finement constructed of fence-rails in the cow-pen style of architecture. My fellow-culprit was soon released, for no visible reason, unless it was the fact that he was an older, and hence more valuable soldier than I was. After a tedious confinement of many hours I was summoned to a tent, before a drum-head court-mar- tial ; and as I had improved an abundant leisure to reflect that I had never heard of but one penalty for desertion in the face of the enemy, I shall never for- get the feelings with which I looked around upon the stern, familiar faces of that court. Colonel Frederic Moore called the court to order and proceeded to unfold a paper and read the charges and specifications, in which was darkly depicted the heinous crime I had committed by deserting the flag of my country in the hour of need. After this formality Major I'Hommidieu rose and remarking that the prisoner was very young to act as THE AGONY OF DEATH. 25 his own advocate, begged to be permitted to plead in his behalf. The services of this eloquent officer hav- ing been accepted he announced that his client pleaded guilty to all the charges and specifications and threw himself upon the clemency of the court. The Major then laid off his military great-coat and exercised his fine forensic powers in a brilliant oration that was of- ten interrupted by murmurs of restramed applause, and in which he hung a thrilling appeal to mercy on my conspicuous youth and inexperience, and the fact that it was my first offence. Wlien the Major sat down the Judge-Advocate gravely rephed that, painful as it was to turn a deaf ear to pleading so skillful and affecting, a great and vital principle was involved in the issue. That war knew no distinction in its ranks between men and boys. The same rations, the same bullets — in short the same rewards and punishments — were measured out with an impartial hand to all, who in the eye of war were neither men nor boys, but simply soldiers. The cold blooded consistency of this ferocious logic appalled and horrified me. For the first time in my fife I knew what it was to shake in abject fear. Gaz- ing about like an animal in the extremity of terror, I saw something passed into the tent. 26 AN INVALUABLE YELL. " What is that? " demanded the Major, excitedly. " The rope," replied the Colonel. " Let the pris- oner stand forward and receive the sentence.'' At this juncture I became frantic and shrieked wildly for mercy ; whereat the Court seemed suddenly and strangely moved, and the Colonel, checking my clamor by a commanding gesture, remarked that a yell like mme was too invaluable to a regiment in the attack to be strangled precipitately — that if I would promise to cultivate it in solitude and then exercise it on proper occasions, when it would do the most good, — on those conditions, I was spared ! I would probably have swooned under the shock of revulsion thus administered to my strained feelings, but for the pang of shame that penetrated me with the swift realization that I had been made the victim of a farcical trial. N^erved by this rude puncture of my vanity, into the vhidictive courage roused by ex- cessive outrage, I hoarsely laughed : ^' If you all are satisfied, I am — I reckon I did my part as well as any of you did yours." I then sat down on a mess-chest, simply because I was sick, dizzy and incapable of standing a moment longer. But I kept my own counsel as to my ex- tremity, and for that reason my reputation gained A WEATHFUL EIVEE. 27 more than it lost on that occasion, I, as often hap- pens to many others, receiving a large amount of credit to which I was not a whit entitled. Shortly after this experience our regiment was de- spatched down the Mississippi Hiver to participate in the movement then impending against Yicksburg ; a campaign that ended in the bloody repulse of Chic- asaw Bayou, where the elements and a resolute foe so buffeted us that I have as little inclination to multi- ply words about it as is manifested by our patriotic historians. Recoiling from the impregnable hills north of the fortress our army and navy sought solace for the chagrin of defeat in swooping down upon a prey less formidable, and until then despised, namely, the mud fort of Arkansas Post ; and after duly surrounding it by flood and field and capturing the garrison of four or five thousand men, we returned to resume the aquatic and less simple contest before the Gibraltar of the Confederacy. The Father of Kivers, as if to admonish us that we must not hope to ride rough-shod, by the mere Democratic virtue of a majority, over the State named in his honor, rose in his might against us and sur- rounded us with a host of waters, until we were fain to flee from his wrath and seek refuge from it on the 28 THE POETRY OF PATRIOTISM. "levees," or embankments raised to protect the re- gion around us from inundation. On these artificial ridges we camped and lived and died and buried our dead, more like the mistaken multitude that scoffed at ^oah and failed to engage passage in the Ark, than like a proud and conquering army. This discom- fiture, most serious while it prevailed, was mainly due to the wickedness of certain lords of the soil encum- bered by our presence, who, with a disregard of their own peril and property that would have been grandly heroic under like circumstances in Indiana or Ohio, but which (such is the poetry of patriotism) was dia- bolical treason in Louisiana, cut the levees and let the destroying flood in upon us and their own earthly possessions. When the deluge subsided it left a debris of sandy slime, in which the army waded from Young's Point, above Yicksburg, by a devious, inland route, through a labyrinth of lakes and bayous, to Bruinsburg, a hamlet of Mississippi on the river shore some reaches below the beleagured city. In this movement our brigade first maneuvered on the right, or exposed flank, and then brought up the rear, affording me an excellent opportunity to study war from a standpoint much: neglected by the histo- rian. Owing to some military necessity wliich seems BEHIND THE SCENES. 29 to have been since forgotten, the handsomest home- steads we passed were m flames or smokmg rums, presentmg a landscape more agreeable to me m the excitement of the moment than it has ever been to the calm, critical eye of retrospection. My humble opinion may not be worth much, opposed to that of giant minds, on so profound a subject ; but such as it is I will record it for the consideration of posterity. I am persuaded that it is a mistaken military policy that permits rums of homesteads to appear in the vicinity of the rear-guard of an advancmg army. Judging by experience, I do not believe it increased the courage of our own troops ; and, as a matter of human probabihty, it may have augmented, or at least tempered, somewhat, the stubborn valor of our enemies. After shaking hands across the ' ' bloody chasm ' ' for a score of years it is time to be calm and serious about matters that have ceased to be personal by be- coming historic. When facts are such that nothing desirable can possibly be accomplished by any other course, it is well to recognize them and make a virtue of the candor that remains in doing so. How- ever any one else who tested the temper of our hon- est, if misguided. Southern fellow-citizens may feel about it after all these years, I must confess that as 30 FIRE AND SWORD. I look forward into tlie inexorable hereafter, reflecting that our late fraternal unpleasantness is destined to take high rank among the human controversies that will be slowly forgotten by mankind, I envy the men who fought against us what is certain to be remem- bered of two things, namely: first, the formidable efficiency with which they fought ; and second, the exemplary forbearance, worthy to become an exam- ple unto all ages, with which they moved over de- fenceless hostile territory in quest of armies on which to exercise the terrors of their enmity. And this feel- ing of envy is accentuated by my recollections of the rear of the great flank movement on Vicksburg. We had been gallantly repulsed at Cliicasaw Bayou, and heroically inundated at Young' s Point ; and in our wrath we turned an Eden spot of earth into a smoking desolation. It was my fortune, while wandermg among many fresh ruins, to witness the firing of only two of the devoted dwellings. The first was a Southern home- stead abandoned by its occupants and just bursting mto flames as we marched by. An incendiary troop of cavalry was in the act of leaving it, while a straggler was bayoneting a luckless shoat in one corner of the handsome grounds, and nearer the house another straggler was pursuhig a large and i-apidly retreatmg A DANGEEOUS DEFILE. 31 duck. Our passing impressions of the other were, a stately, embowered mansion, a mob of cavalry — the same troopers — , a flash of sabers, puffs of smoke, a grouped family and the voice of a woman rising above the small wail of an infant, in shrill tones of that quality which in every age and land has been man's signal of feminine distress. "When I crossed the Mississippi River at Bruins- burg, with our wagon- train, we came upon the wreck of a severe battle just fought by our advance a few miles out from the landing, towards Port Gibson. The only road to the interior ran between an abrupt hill and a deep, sluggish stream Iniown as Bayou Pierre, along a narrow terrace that was, in fact, an awkward defile ; and artless as I was in the ways of war, knowing something of the nature of deploy- ment, I wondered what our folks would have done if the enemy had done some of their ordinary hard fighting thereabouts. It was plain to me that the head of our column would have had an arduous time, hastening forward into line out of that defile, in the face of any opposing army possessing the usual skill and stomach of our enemies for battle. It was not until years later that I learned how largely we were indebted in that campaign to divided counsel and un- wonted inefficiency among the leaders opposing us ; 32 MILITARY PEOBLEMS. a windfall of luck that enabled us to cross the wide river in our own imprudent way, debark without mo- lestation and engage the divided forces of the enemy in detail in four stubborn combats. Of course, as a matter of fact, it is idle to speculate on contingen- cies that were not present and events which, however much probable, did not happen ; but, as a military problem, it is, nevertheless, interesting to consider how that campaign might possibly have opened under other opposing generalship. Chancellorsville and The Wilderness seem unmis- takably to answer that on the first development of the Federal purpose to pass to the rear of Yicksburg, the united forces of the enemy would have been hurled straight upon the head of the column tlirottled in that defile ; and the battle for the Mississippi River fought in a mighty struggle for position on that riv- er's shore. At the critical moment of crossing the river our army was divided, a portion under General Sherman having been left behind to make a feint upon the hills we had found to be impregnable three months before ; and this suppositious struggle, there- fore, would have been between two armies of about equal numbers, or forty thousand Federal soldiers fighting for a footing, against forty thousand rebels in position — the same men who fought so imflinch- PROVIDENCE IN A TOW SHIRT. 33 ingly against superior numbers at Port Gibson and Vicksburg. I am sure that the veterans now living who have personal recollections of the first named battle, with General Bowen's detachment of five or six thousand men, will join me in rejoicing that it was not reinforced at the supreme moment by thirty-five thousand other bayonets as dangerous to face and difficult to turn. And there are other facts which render the foregoing speculations as practically rele- vant as they are theoretically interesting. It is his- torically true that after being foiled by the batteries of Grand Gulf in our first attempt to cross the river, our General experimentally headed the columns for Rodney, whither we were marcliing in quest of our old, unpropitious luck, when Providence, in the person of a wayside negro, gave information of a road lead- ing out from Bruinsburg to Port Gibson. And when our corps, namely, the Thirteenth, commanded by General McClernand, had placed the great river be- tween itself and succors, it was unable to leave the shore and seize some important heights a few miles inland, until after five hours delay, because it had been thrown across the river unprepared for vigorous hostilities. Under some Confederate chieftains with forty thousand men at their disposal great military results have been achieved in fewer hours. 34 THE PICIvET LINE. At Raymond our corps again came into collision with the enemy; and one of the brigades, wliichgot a near view of the interesting question, laughingly informed the rest of us that the ' ' Johnnies ' ' were still game. It was on this line, a few hours later, that I made my first capture of materials of war. Our regiment was put on picket ; and equipped with gun and cart- ridge-box, my drum being with the wagon-train, far in the rear of the forced march, I stood behind a tree, not more than half pleased with the word passed to us by the regiment we had just relieved, that picket firing for the pure fun to be extracted from that amusement was by tacit, mutual understanding discountenanced in those woods. The pickets of the enemy were visible, about five hundred yards away ; and occasionally an adventurous man in grey would stalk from tree to tree much nearer to our line and sociably open conversation with our men. After a good deal of this, the superior officer on our front objected to it so strenuously that our sentinels on post thought it best to notify our friends over the way of the fact, and caution them to be more wary and not think hardly of us if persistence in such te- merity drew fire. Immediately after this warning was passed numerous warriors of disloyal procli\dties TKEASON MADE ODIOUS. 35 were seen dodging hastily into the sylvan obscurity that lay peacefully before us ; but one Alabamian, who happened to be exceptionally near us and almost directly in front of where I stood, rose up, and as if in defiance of our warning, deliberately hung his canteen and haversack on a high, swinging limb of the tree before him, with a pains that announced un- mistakably his intention to protract his sojourn in ^fiif(^ A SAFE BET. 149 to relieve my embarrassment or because his own time was valuable, exclaimed : ^^ Oh, hell! Come on — let's chop some wood, and not stand here all day, like three damn fools, talk- ing about it." *' Young- sir!" said I, perceiving that the situa- tion, already embarrassing, was a solid one, ''the middle of the afternoon is earlier than I usually dine ; but if there is a square meal in the job, I am perfectly willing to chop wood for you." ''All right!" answered the plucky lad. "^ow mind you move off side and side and keep together." It was my earliest introduction to the professional tramp and the traditional wood-pile, — two institu- tions then in the first grapple of that arduous strug- gle for the survival of the fittest, the outcome of which no man could confidently predict. Some shrewd men openly avowed their willingness to bet on the tramp ; but it was several years later before the san- guine public entirely abandoned a large faith in the wood-pile. After the first excitement had worn off I was well enough satisfied, as I relieved my fellow-toiler at the ax, with my share of the adventure ; for I was quite willing to earn my dinner, and it was evident that in my coadjutor I contemplated a rare specimen of the 150 CHIPS! new and interesting species with which destiny had identified me at the muzzle of a double-barreled shot- gun. Although as boy, soldier, and tourist I had often trespassed on the prancing ground of a pro- fession then just be^-inning its gigantic growth from a robust infancy, it is from that day I date my initia- tion into the fraternity. When we had covered a considerable area of the back-yard with chips and back-logs, or after about an hour and an half of that kind of exercise, the young hero who had superintended the job, explain- ing to me that my companion had already been well fed, dismissed us, pointing to a parcel on a gate-post, said to contain refreshments, and which I took in passing with a polite lift of my hat, to the farewell flourish of the 10-bore muzzle-loader. At the first turn of the way, when fairly past its elbow, my companion, who had been walking beside me in a solemn revery, abruptly halted and grasping my right hand, said : "I go by the name of Sorrowful Sam — what's yours? " " "Willie Wagtail," I answered, unhesitatingly. "Well, Willie," resumed Sorrowful Sam in a voice eloquently suggestive of unutterable sadness, look- ing me solemnly over, " I am not a curious man, or FIRST CONFIDENCES. 151 given to prying into the past history of a pardner ; but ever since you jumped that fence, while you were performing on the wood-pile, and even while that blue hen's chicken was poking his gun at me, I have been pining to ask you one question." " What do you want to know? " I softly asked, a good deal affected by his disconsolate tone and man- ner. ^'I would like to inquire," he continued, fixing his serious eyes pleadingly on mine, — " if it will not be offensive to your feelings — whether you were born in those clothes, or only inherited them." ^' And if," I rejoined, "I should tell you that I got them recently? " ''In that case," he answered, stepping out again, '' I should have to receive the communication with distrust, or believe that you lodged lately near some puny and weak-minded aristocrat." Impressed by the cast of thought and manner of speech of my companion, to bespeak his confidence and encourage him to commune with me without re- serve, I explained how I happened to be clad in that shrunk attire; which, as a moment's retrospection v^ll discover, gave him a fair insight to my life and adventures for quite a while. And when, at length, it transpired that I was lost, on my way to Cmcin- 152 HOSPITALITIES OF THE WABASH. nati, he sadly remarked that he was journeying that way for a couple of hundred miles or so, himself, and would show me the route most desirable to trav- elers like ourselves. He said we could easily reach before early bed-time a comfortable corn- crib not far from the Wabash River, said to contain plenty of dry fodder ; and that he had points on a farm-house in the same neighborhood that was not yet infected with the wood-pile epidemic, and where by a seasonable ar- rival we would probably find fragments of a warm sup- per awaiting us. He was much in favor, as I learned in desultory conversation, of pushing on next day, into a region between Petersburg and Jasper, as it was favorably reported ; besides being closer to and more in sympathy with the perils of navigation, and, therefore, a better pasturage than that further inland, for me to wander in. He repeatedly expressed a hope that I would not object to diligent progress, needful because he was anxious not to disappoint some friends whom he had promised to meet before the pleasant weather became seriously frost-bitten, at what he ob- scurely alluded to as " the convention." In a pause I placed the inquiry whether he often got into a discussion with the natives, over the wood- pile. WORDS BY THE WAYSIDE. 153 He sisrlied and looked heart-broken for a moment o ere he replied : "Too often!" " The fact is," he soon added, " this evil was so rampant in the last convention that I spoke twice, for nearly an hour each time, against a popular motion that wise pilgrims would pass on at the first allusion to the wood-pile. I expect the question will be ag- itated again, tliis year, so I return to the forum armed with statistics. For a solid year I have sought not, neither shunned the awful fuel-supply, but have al- ways faced it, on occasion, miflinchingly — until I got outside the grub, when, of course, I have always tried to leave the wood-pile where I found it, and where it should be, that is, where the famous girl was left by the tmieful soldier. You saw me try- ing that, back yonder ; but that was the exception. For the year it has worked seventeen and failed three times." " I infer," I interrupted, "that a convention of some sort is to be held somewhere on ahead." "Yes; my present destination is a meeting held about this time for two years, at spots conveniently central between the cities of the Lakes and the Ohio Yalley, for the promotion of good-fellowship and 154 THE SUPPER-CRISIS. such advantages as experienced travelers in our line can realize in conference and cooperation." ' 'And in this assembly you intend to advocate the rule that just now failed to work like a ramrod? " ' ' Yes ; I shall oppose it to the theory that "v\'ise pil- grims should roam over the prairie, where the coal- smoke pleasantly curls ; while foolish tramps linger in the wooden country, where the grim ax lurketh behind the kitchen door. For my part, I love the whispering woods, and cross-timbers will be almighty scarce when Sam is found dead on a prairie — where even the pigs and poultry wink at the hungry way- farer and nod towards the plow." Toward nightfall Sorrowful Sam turned into a lane, saying that the supper-crisis was at hand. I suggested that as the Wabash Kiver, almost in sight, was sometimes navigated, I might as well be spokesman, and discourse about the wreck. To this Sam cheerfully assented, stipulating only that we should first halt in a fence-corner and reconnoiter the kitchen chimney : he added that mine was a sly dodge, so meritorious, if only for its novelty, of much success, that he regretted it was not sufficiently dura- ble to be of permanent professional value. This remark indicated that my new friend had re- WASTED ELOQUENCE. 155 ceived at least some of my confidences by the wayside with conservative distrust; and piqued at the dis- covery, resolving to put him to shame by an example of true human confidence in fellow-man, as soon as he gave the word I led the way up to a dingy, old- fashioned wooden mansion and elaborately unfolded my tale to a bluff, elderly farmer who welcomed us at the threshold over the first whiff s^ of his evening pipe. After listening to me attentively, while gazing with evident interest alternately at the speaker and into the melancholy face of my skeptical companion, he with his horny palm patted down the fiery upheaval caused by over-filling and earnest, reflective puffing, and said : '''Young man, I don't beheve a word you say, on- til it comes to the supper part. Howsumever, I don't doubt you are hongry enough, and when I set out to practice saying no to a hongry creetur, it will be a bad croppin' year, and I wont begin at dark. So step back and tell my old woman I say you are to eat and travel." Followed closely by Sorrowful Sam, I obeyed my instructions literally, too much affected by the old man's simple understanding of the Golden Rule to take any liberties with his method of conforming to it. 156 ^N ANXIOUS MOMENT. "We ate and traveled in silence, until we reached the fence-corner from which we had observed the kitchen smoke, when Sam leaned over the top rail and gently shook with powerful emotion, whether born of joy or grief I could not at first determine. " What is the matter? " I asked in accents bristly with solicitude. " I was just»wondering," he murmured, lifting his handsome face and regarding me as if I were the corpse of his grandmother, ' ' what that old trump would have chirped if you had given him the rest of it — about lavishing your last wealth on clothes for the shipwrecked lady." I requested him, with cold asperity, to cease acting like an idiot struck by lightning, and, if he desired my further company, to conduct me, without any more frivolity, to the corn-crib he had spoken of. He meekly replied that it must be about a mile away, and too near the owner's house to be prudently ap- proached for an hour or so ; besides which, it would be best to enjoy our after-supper smoke outside, and that secluded lane was as good a loitering place as we would find. The sad sweetness of his voice and manner disarmed my pique, leaving me no alternative other than to sit down by his side on a bunch of wire- grass and hand him my tobacco, which was better SOEEOWFUL SAM SHINES OUT. 157 than that he then chanced to have in the left-hand pocket of his seedy coat. For some moments he puffed away slowly, criti- cally, in silence ; and then the narcotic spell began to stir the recesses of his engaging individuality. I had been eyeing him. in furtive wonder all the after- noon, but seen in the twilight glamour of his glowing pipe after a substantial supper, the breadth and con- trasts of his versatility astonished me. He handled thoughts and words with an easy dexterity as elab- orate as it seemed simple and spontaneous. His mimicry of the young man who entertained us with the shot-gun, and the old one who welcomed us to a traveler's supper, was in its way as perfect as the Addisonian balance of his didactic periods. Appre- ciative attention readily launched him into the upper air of dissertation, but at the slightest symptom of de- clining interest he would instantly drop into a sea of homely phraseology, making it foam and sparkle with mimetic drollery or the crisp idiom of a fluent vagabond's vocabulary. Long before he thought it was late enough for us to creep into the crib and bury ourselves in its abundance of ambrosial fodder I for- got my habitual fondness of listening to my own voice, in my willingness to hearken unto his ; and I 158 A TREMENDOUS TRAMP. went to sleep wondering what he had been before trampmg became a fine art in America. We were awakened the next morning by a soft patter of steady rain on the roof. I suggested that we had better lie by until the weather improved ; but Sam, Unseen in the chaos of darkness and tumbled fodder, said it was only a shower, and that if it was a deluge he must push on far that day, toward the convention. "Condemn the convention," I growled, nestling down into the dry warmth of the maize-leaves. But when Sam said something about the neighbor- ing farm-house, and I heard him rustling the paper of our sole parcel, which contained the refreshments I had earned on the previous day, I hastily joined him in assiduous preparation for a tremendous march. "We were too early at the river for the ferryman ; but as Sam had intended to be so, we were not depressed by the solitude that brooded over scow and shore. On the contrary, we launched out the oars with glee and made the old box bubble across the rain swept billow. Then my companion was for instantly making fast tracks into the gray, wet Orient; but to his intense disgust I discovered a dug-out tied to a stake, and insisted on leaving the crossing just as we found it. DISSENSION AT THE FERRY. 159 " Going back in the ferry-flat," said Sam, " is all well enough — or would be, if there was a grain of sense to the ounce in it; but the agile dug-out, Mr. Wagtail, is like a playful mule, or a pretty woman — reliable, to a certain point, but beyond that margin, uncertain. You are shipwi^eck-proof, and besides that, you can swim ; but I once had a mother who always peeled and seasoned a fresh hickory early in each returning swimming- time." Fmally, with great difficulty, I prevailed on him to re-embark ; and by the time it was broad daylight, with applauding consciences, we were rapidly puttmg wet and dismal distance behind us. We passed through dripping Patoka before noon ; and towards nightfall Sam assured me that we were then mashmg the mud full forty miles from the ferry. On reflection I saw no reason to doubt it, for my legs were clamoring for repose, and we had been diligent, at a topping pace, for almost eleven hours ; my shoes, for my own comfort and their bet- ter preservation, reposing elegantly in their favorite pockets. In despite of my philosophy and my com- panion's beguiling eccentricities it had been a dis- piriting tramp, over a dreary iteration of the same drenched, dirty, despondent type of landscape, full 160 A STARTLING REVELATION. of fields, forests, hills^ and houses differing so little from others similar to them, in the uniform coloring of the dim, misty atmos-^ phere, that the slight^ local variation only ac-^m cented the overpowering^;^ monotony — a monotony that harmonized oppres- sively with our sloshing footsteps and the inhos- pitality which had per- sistently repulsed us in our several efforts to ap- pease a hunger that prolonged exercise was stirring into ferocity. "Wet, fagged out, and famishing, I told Sam that I wanted food and a fire so sincerely that I intended to stop at the next house and propose to pay for shelter and entertainment. " That game is played out," said my experienced chum, dogmatically. ^'Then I'll play it in again," I retorted, confi- dently. '^ But they'll ask you to let them see the contour of your currency." SAM SMILES, WITHOUT EESEEVE. 161 Silently I drew from my fob a two-dollar certificate of the fact that I was a creditor of the Government, and unfurling it to the drizzle displayed it to the lugubrious gaze of my startled comrade. *' Je-7"i«salem ! " he yelled, his sculpturesque coun- tenance beaming for one moment with unmistakable, intense, unmitigated joy. " Helen Damascus ! Mis- ter Wagtail ! Why didn't you tell me you was so well heeled, before? " ** Because I didn't attach much importance to the circumstance." ^' Youdampgreenhorn ! " he sneered, in a caress- ing tone, " I could travel to New York, via Alaska, on that piece of national insolvency." ^' Why don't you carry one like it in your pants, then?" ^'Because I haven't got it — and nobody is con- centrated fool enough to present me with a testimo- nial of that texture." ^' Couldn't you work a day or so, and earn one? " "That," said he, with sudden dignity, "is an ir- relevant and idiotic observation, entirely beside the question." "Work," he continued sadly, in a softer tone, "has wasted more human life and happiness, and cemented the foundations of more inhuman wrong, 162 SOLID COMFORT. oppression and misery than ever did the combined energies of war, physic, and bad whisky — and yet you, a reading man, and a thinker, ask me why I do not work ! ' ' I speedily discovered that I had, indeed, committed a grave indiscretion in not reporting to my comrade the condition of my exchequer. For at the close of the foregoing colloquy he stepped off with renewed alacrity and led me, owing to some moments lost in putting on my shoes, by several brisk paces into the next house, in the family room of which I found him bowing and blooming into his most inconsolable as- pect before a cozy, storm- concentrated family circle, which curved around a wide and glowing fire-place in a manner most comfortable to see in such proximity. Having fixed upon himself the inquiring glances of a dozen open eyes, while three of the family rose he said : '' Good evening ! " — and, after a small pause, hatched over with numerous "Good evenings," — "Yes, a better, far better one in here than it is out- side. I am sorry to disturb you so ; but we are wet, hungry, and weary, having come far through this storm, and we seek shelter, food, and lodging." Then there was silence in that room for a moment. It was a trying moment of inspection ; but Sor- rowful Sam stood the ordeal like a rock — a carven SAM PLAYS A LONE HAND. 163 stone in which whole groups of IS^iobes, and Laocoons were chiseled down to a residuum of concrete, inutter- able unhappiness. Just as the stillness was congealing into an icy environment of intolerable suspense, the head of the household, after wrenching his inquisitive eyes from Sam — to scan me' over — asked : * 'Are — are you tramps f ' ' '' We are poor men, sir," replied Samuel, meekly; ' ' too poor to pay a dollar apiece to ride twenty miles that we can walk in five hours ; but we are not pau- pers. We have money enough to travel on, in our humble way, and pay for such bit and blanket as we can afford to accept. William, my son," he added, turning to me, " show the gentleman that we are not mendicants." With a violent effort to re tarn my presence of mind, I pulled out the two-dollar treasury-note and handed it to my senior ; who drew it seriously through his left hand with his right, looking, meanwhile, with sad and noble dignity, slightly tinged with humility, into the genial fire. The master of the house, evidently a wide-awake and extremely cautious man, looked at the bill in a magnetic way that left no room for doubt of his in- tention to presently draw it to liimself and become its 164 A CLOSE CALL. safe custodian. It seemed so clear that Sam was in the crisis of a losing game, that I would have relin- quished all claims on the stake except the right of reversion, to some paltry change, for a very nominal consideration. But just as the wary granger's hand began to move, in the very nick of time to fail to fol- low the nascent motion, Sam turned to me with an air of sudden resignation and handing me the money, said: ' ^ Put it away safely : let us go ; for I see the gen- tleman wishes we were away and is too courteous to say so." " Hold on ! " exclaimed the farmer ; " I didn't say you couldn't stay." "!N^o, sir," appended Sam, to the tail of his cour- teous bow and pleasant ' ' good evening ; " ^' but mis- fortune has not blunted our self-respect enough to make us willing to accept hospitality extended with reluctance. Our poverty we can not hide, but we can keep it where it will not cause ourselves or others unpleasant feeling." ' ' Sit down ! sit down ! ' ' said the prudent farmer warmly, placmg chairs for us on the comfortable hearth. Prompted by a delicate sense of politeness, and pungent odors of bacon and coffee that were simply A BRILLIANT CONVERSATIONALIST. 165 irresistible, we accepted the urgent invitation. And both before and after supper Sam talked so well on subjects ranging from the policy of Louis [N^apoleon to the Colorado beetle, that by our early bed-time I emulated that interesting family in a mysterious awe of him. " Will," he whispered when we cuddled down in a soft bed of ease under large logs of rafters rustic in their native bark, " he gave us a close call that fetched me for my last card. I tliuik we could bluff through the breakfast deal, but we wont risk it — he plays his hand so devilish fine. So sleep fast, for we leave this ranch before the chickens begin their business crow." We were astir softly, betimes ; and Sam, the while lighting me with sundry matches as I brushed my coat and hat, penciled conspicuously the following farewell : Hoard not thy bounteous store for moth and rust; Nor modest, humble poverty distrust : He who oft with the passing Pilgrim shares May entertain stray Angels, unawares. 'Tis blesseder to give than to receive; And not to leave you that way blest would grieve Two wanderers whose greatest happiness Is (by receiving) generous souls to bless. Yours, with the biggest pair, SORROWFUL SAM. CHAPTER YIII. AM," I SAID, as we splashed along in the rosy glim- mer of a cool, clear, stimulating dawn, " I am sorry it has cleared off in the night — and I don't see where breakfast comes in, on yom* two-dollar programme of perpetual motion." *' That weather wisdom," he answered, in his sonorous, didactic delivery, "is an old woman's sign — of unscientific habits of observation ; and breakfast is but a name loosely applied to the first meal of the day. Like dinner and supper it has such a wide range on the clock that expe- rienced travelers often prefer to corral the three meals in one corner of the day where they may be disposed of simultaneously, as convenience and opportunity happen to dictate. However, 168 MELODIOUS MORN. of the three I have always found breakfast the least unmanageable ; for, considered strictly as a matuti- nal refreshment, there are circumstances that favor it. " Sleep, as the poet happily defines it, is tired na- ture's sweet restorer; and when recently restored from all the carking cares that infest the day, the average American citizen is a philanthropic being, as rehable six or eight times out of ten to comfort the contrite spirit as he is to crush it later in the day. And there are other, less variable circumstances, which favor of the early petitioner." Just then as the sun was rising gloriously over the washed and sparkling earth, my discursive companion accosted a small, dark-favored man in the meridian of life and neat, nappy homespun attire of a dun, brindled hue, who in a fence-corner near a rudely constructed stable that faced a comfortable double log-house, was making a loud, monotonous, but not unmelodious noise, surrounded by numerous attentive and mercurial swine. ''Fine pigs, sir," quoth Sam, disconsolately, in a thin, tremulous voice, that almost made me jvimp out of my coat. " Yes, pretty fair," responded the little man, with just the surface ripple of a proud, proprietary, in- ward smile. TAME CHICKENS. 169 " Tame chickens, too, I see," resumed the voice, languidly. ''I love domestic animals and always like to meet a man who is kind to his stock." *' It pays," suggested the other, smiUng at Sam or the felicity of his own thought. ^' Yes," coughed Sam leisurely, "if it does not make the small stock too tame : do any of the little fellows ever get run over, or lost in the woods? " "I guess not; but the tram — snakes, you know, get some." " Yes; snakes and tramps are both pretty bad this year. Two bad ones burnt a whole crop of corn, fence and all, up by Patoka the t^^f^ other night." "Did they ketch 'em? " "Oh, much ! ' ' no not THE BARLY PETITIONER. " Who counted 'em, then? " " They guessed at it, because the owner of the corn had some words with two that day. I wish they loould ketch 'em, for such villainy makes it hard on a 170 SERIOUS MISGIVINGS. poor man when he gets in a pinch. We walked in that storm all day yesterday and lay under some logs last night, rather than push ourselves where we might be taken for bad men. We are weak with hunger, and would be very thankful for food of any sort, to brace us up, so we can get on." *' Come along," said the small man, cordially; ^^ my breakfast is just ready, and I'll give you a bully belly-full." When we wended our way, after the repast, I, for the first and last time, fell into a reverie while osten- sibly listening to the diversified sayings of Sorrowful Sam. I clearly perceived that he was an accomplished liar, whose mendacity was never burdened with un- necessary detail, merely for effect. He seemed, in- deed, to love truth in the abstract, his deviations from it, as may be seen by careful study of his men- tion of logs to the swine-herder, being of the most simple and effective sort. But I was rapidly discov- ering that he was a monumental fraud, twined all around with gleeful, vine-like virtues that amounted in the aggregate to one immense, insidious snare ; and my reverie was a self-interrogation whether I ought to wander further in his engaging company, or shake him at the next fork of the road. I finally SHOULDEEING THE EESPONSIBILITY. 171 concluded that as two days more would bring us to the place appointed for the rendezvous, I would bur- den my soul with complicity in his immoral, if not eminently nefarious impostures, for that length of time. In this conclusion I was to some extent forti- fied, if not swayed, by his confidence in the sojourn- ing virtues of the two-dollar bill. I let him carry it dm'ing the remainder of our journeying together, and he never let the sun go down upon our supperless, shelterless souls. l!^or did we again encounter a host whose cunning of fence seemed to Sam meritorious of notice by his impromptu muse. Our third night to- gether we passed at the residence of a physician near Jasper, where Sam developed unsuspected erudition in the empiric sciences. And from first to last a con- tinuous revelation of breadth and depth in his collo- quial capacity astonished me, and obliged me to infer that he had been an omnivorous reader throughout some protracted portion of his life. !N"ear Paoli, the day we took French leave of the slumbering physician, we overtook a swarthy, some- what undersized adventurer of middle age, in blue cottonade pants and hickory shirt-sleeves, with quick eyes and movements and a slightly modernized Egyp- tian piquancy of feature, whom Sam introduced as his friend Fishing- Jake. 172 FISHING-JAKE. The latter was faring-, also, to the rendezvous ; and carried a slick, greasy canvas wallet containing, on top of sundry miscellany, a fine pone of light-bread which he said he had acquired by barter, in exchange for a finer mess of fishes. He was just from Craw- ford County, where he had been having grand sport on the streams in the vicinity of Wyandot Cave ; and had a good deal to say about the cavern, which Sam pronounced a baby grotto, compared with the Ken- tucky phenomenon. This slur led to a controversy, that might have l.asted all the afternoon had we not come upon a stream in which Jake thought there should be fishes. He proposed to try its pools, for our supper ; and this being agreed to, he wandered about in the ' ' bottom ' ' until he found some little heaps of bluish, earthy pellets near some small holes, when he told Sam and me to tap the ground thereabouts with two bits of drift-wood, while he cut a pole. And from the way he soon dug out worms, where we had been tapping, and began to toss us fish to string, as we followed him up that creek, I concluded that Provi- dence had created him expressly to catch fishes. At length he said we had plenty for two meals, and with a match from his wallet started a fire near a drift-heap; after which he crossed a neighboring fence, into a cornfield, whence he returned, while I HOW TO COOK EISH. 173 was filling my second pipe, with an armful of shucks. I kept an eye on the shucks, and another one on Jake. The latter sat down for a bit. Then he chunked the fire. After that he wrapped a number of the un- dressed fishes in some of the shucks and then buried them in red ashes. He next produced from the pro- lific bag the pone of bread and a dusky rag contain- ing salt. Finally, about sundown, he raked out sev- eral charred lumps which peeled and fiaked into broad- sides of the most deliciously cooked fish I had ever tasted. We passed the night between our fire and a great log, in just enough chill restlessness to cheerfully broil our breakfast before dawn and set out briskly, in quest of comfortable sunshine, towards Little York. For miles Sam delicately flattered me by a radical change in his conversation, which suddenly degen- erated to vulgar gossip addressed largely to our com- panion, who seemed to be shrewd rather than intel- lectual. Sam sounded him as to the secret of his marvelous success in angling, and he answered that fisherman's luck was a thing past finding out — unless fish have their favorite men, just as men have their favorite fish. Soon after meridian Sam and Jake began to look. 174 HINTS TO THE WISE. along the road, for "signs," which 1^ , . jf^ they eventually professed to find /m/ , and comprehend. They were wonders to me, being mere , „„,,,, scratches on a rail. But the WM Yf Yft initiated pair soon left the r/S^''road without hesitation, and ^^ pushed on confidently for sev- ^eral miles through a hilly forest -which seemed to grow wilder and ^l"" more lovely in its solitude ', un- ^I '"'^til we heard a yell and saw in ) . Ja little valley below us sometliing very like a guerrilla bivouac. About a score of as- ted y^ ^^ SIGNS. THE RENDEZVOUS. 175 ragamuffins were lounging before a smoldering fire built against the middle of a prostrate hickory tree, the trunk of which extended across the miniature val- ley, from the base of the hill we stood on, to a limpid creek, thus isolating a snug bit of the creek-bottom on the shore nearest to us. The area thus enclosed on three sides, by hill and trunk and. creek, was open to easy access only on the west, through a gap be- tween a huge drift-heap piled up about a hundred yards below the fallen hickory, and a jutting shoulder of the hill, where the creek began to wash the rocky feet of the ridge. The triangular arena thus seques- tered was sheltered on the north by the wooded hill, and covered by the dropping foliage of about a score of stately forest trees ; and as I glanced from the in- dolent groups of smokers and card-players to the winding stream and inexhaustible wood-pile, all within a stone's throw of the famous back-log, I in- voluntarily exulted in the recognition of a charming, admirably chosen camp. '^Just in time ! " cried the first man we came to ; *' we're goin' to organize d'rec'ly." ^^ How many are here? " asked Sam. '^ Twenty odd, an still comin' in — there'll be thirty, I reckon, by to-morrer night." Sam and Jake introduced me to a number of their 176 DOLCE FAR NIENTE, personal friends, and in two minutes I began to feel thoroughly at home. Reclining luxuriously on the brown and yellow leaves, in the glow of the ash- white, smoldering log, surrounded by a unique assort- ment of utensils which doubtless had been ' ' lifted ' ' from farms not many miles away, I listened to the hum of voices and looked through the towering limbs at the san-paled ghost of the gibbous moon, while a feeling of unmixed, exquisite joy expanded within me. I could easily understand how such a rendezvous scattered in its dispersion the seeds of re- production. Food, Sam told me, was the responsi- bility of foragers sent out each afternoon, to solicit audjind. Fresh pork hanging on several limbs indi- cated that for a day or two the ' ' finding ' ' had been fair. As soon as I was well rested I asked Sam to help me start a fire some distance down the creek, Jake having mysteriously disappeared . When Sam learned what I would be at, he got me a piece of strong- smelling soap, which proved very useful. Wliile drying my skin and underclothing, ghmpses of Jake, returning through the woods with an im- mense bunch of fishes, gave me, in connection with my bath, a fine feeling ; which increased, presently, UNDEE THE GKEENWOOD TREE. 177 when through the sun-gilded grove I drew near the noble elm under wliich mj messmates, before a leap- ing blaze, were preparing to broil and fry. Jake had lumped his huge catch with the general stock and drawn back half a day's rations for three ; and he was trying the fat out of some small ribs, in an iron pot- lid, while Sam mixed batter for pan-cakes, in some bereft housewife's gourd. Dinner — or supper — over, I stretched myself again in the smishine on a soft couch of leaves, and watched the cloud-fleeces drift across the blue sky, over the great elm which seemed ever falling, falling — until my pipe slipped through my fingers and I was lost in drowsy-land. After a wliile the sonorous voice of Sorrowful Sam shot like a thread of scarlet through the golden tissue of my daydream. ^ ' Yes, ' ' it said ' ' there is no doubt that the first poet was a fisherman. I think I see him now, sitting on a stray chunk of glacial drift, con- templatmg the ancient scenery, and burning wdth im- patience to try his new line and astonish prehistoric natives with the imaginative detail that a truly gifted artist — a man of invention, expert in fish-stories, — can throw into versification." Here a voice that changed Sam to Jake tangled the 178 A POPULAR EREOR EXPLODED. thread of my vision. It said the speaker would ven- ture to hint that he was considered no slouch of a fisherman. To come down to statistics, he was will- ing to back his judgment and throw bait or match lies with anybody ; but as for building poetry, or taldng any stock in lie highfalutin poppycock about the solid comfort and scenery- eating fun of fishing, he had been there with a wet gable and lost hook too often to bite any of that donkey-fodder. If a man wanted to catch fish, he'd better get right down to the industry. Any idiot who would sit behind liis bait to take a rest, or look at scenery, might, mebbe, in time, pan out as a fair, average perverycater ; but that was the only way such an. ass would ever favor a regular built fisherman. Many voices here took sides, and, in a visionary way, the debate was becoming exhilaratmg, when Sam suggested that they should refer it to the way- farer in the tall hat and claw-hammer coat, who was a gentleman and a scholar — if he was slumbering through the opening ceremonies in an out-of-the-way corner. Thoroughly aroused, I sat up hastily, amid yells of — ^^Swaller-tail!" ''Plug hat I" ''Let's hear from Claw-hammer I " Sorrowful Sam stepped over and hurriedly ex- A VEXED QUESTION 179 plained to me that it was customary to enliven the serious business of the sessions with tongue-lore, ora- tory, and poetry of miscellaneous nature ; and that the Convention, then just organized, was desirous of ascertaining my caliber. " Give 'em a ten minute speech, with poetical trimmings," whispered Sam, with a doleful wink. Thus put upon my mettle, I mounted the cool end of the big log and fired away substantially as fol- lows : — Gentlemen, Dead-beats and Eishekmen — This is tlie proudest moment of my life. Not because I stand here in the act of deciding a controversy that has divided and estranged philoso- phers for ages. No, sirs! About a century ago George Washington, who, you may remember, was a very economical man, went out one day and saved his country : and ever since he did it his economical country has been building him a monument. Now, when I become known to fame as the arbiter of this celebrated controversy, they will not build me any monument. And that is why I am so proud. When George and I, angels together, tramp around in Paradise, he will envy me my escape from the monumental ordeal. Here applause inundated my efforts for the mo- ment. Then I resumed : — The reason why philosophers have never been able to agree upon the ethics of angling is a simple one. They happen to be divided into two classes — those who angle, and those who do not. Under these circum- stances it naturally follows that most of the world's reliable information of a philosophical nature about angling is locked up in the intellects of the former class of controversialists. This ought to give them a pro- 180 THE ETHICS OF ANGLING. digious advantage in the dispute : and probably it would do so were it not that the opinion has, unfortunately, gotten abroad that the one and only thing an angler would rather do than angle, is to deform and devas- tate the truth concerning the details of that engaging pastime. And thus it happens that in the crisis of debate, whenever the former party makes a powerful statement and the latter cruelly answers, "you're a fisher- man! " the reply is, to say the least, embarrassing. But, as a reformed fisherman, I feel confident of my ability to impar- tially deliver an opinion that time will not impair. That poetic glamour which from time immemorial has been cast about the act of angling is too thin. It is true — There is a pleasure in the pathless wood, By pebbly brook, and solace on its shore, but the stress the champions of angling lay upon this fact is misplaced and irrelevant, since that pleasure and solace would be quite the same by the brook, barren, as by the one alive with fishes. It is, alas! too lucid, that all that sort of luxury would be quite as present and pleasing to an ordinary man putting fishes into the brook, as it can be to a fisherman pulling them out. So we must look behind the fraudulent appeals to na- ture and scenery for the bottom facts, which are simply these : Of all animals, civilized man is the most cruel. When the blood-thirsty tiger lies in wait for his prey, or the carnal minded crocodile goes on the war-path, or the fierce anaconda measures an ox for his funeral, the consequences are commonly such as man shud- deringly classifies for future reference as ferocious; but, sanguinary as they doubtless are, there is always this much to be said in their extenua- tion, namely, the tiger, or crocodile, or boa constrictor is hungry, and has no other earthly way of making a living. And even so, when man, as the sole alternative of hunger, slays to eat, the same apology is equally ample over him, also. On those festive occasions he occupies a common level with all other predacious animals, being neither more nor less savagg than other carnirova. But when he, the intellectual and moral apex of evolution, goes forth, with a full stomach, and lunch basket in hand! A STRING WITH TWO ENDS. 181 to torture and slay, avowedly for sport — the pure fun of the thing ! he shows himself to be possessed of a ferocity for which the biography of brutes affords no parallel. The fact that eloquence and poetry often have been and are prosti- tuted in eulogy of the atrocious act, proves nothing, except that men of eloquence and poets are sometimes, also, fishermen. As a fact it does, however, vividly illustrate man's innate barbarity — a barbarity capable of trying to gild a diabolical ferocity with sestheticism. Hold up the argument in defense of angling, and look at it. What is it? Stripped of sophistry in the form of "buncombe " about brooks and scenery, which have no more to do with angling than they do with look- ing for the bell-cow, what does the gauzy rhodomontade amount to? Simply, my heroes, to the atrocious, bald-headed proposition that it is de- lectable sport — rare fun, to torture, terrify and do to death pretty inof- fensive fishes that never did any human being any harm. It is fun for the fisherman; but what is it at the other end of the string^ And how would he enjoy the "sport" if a great, hulking creature as big and un- feeling as an obelisk should drop a sugar-plum into his mouth and yank him off his base, as high as a shot-tower? Of course, such iron-clad truth as this will be unpopular with some — the angling fraternity, who will not relish being shown in the clear, close mirror of logic just how they look to the unobstructed eye; but that is a small matter to the philosopher — as long as the world is so crowded with people who never cursed a hook. Eoman society would have felt precisely the same way toward any large-minded person who might have ventured to point out with similar perspicuity that the gladiatorial "sport" of the Coliseum was a barbar- ous blemish on Roman civilization. Perhaps they would have launched him to the lions, or crucified him, in high glee. But that was two thous- and years ago ;. and the world moves on in that much time. How long is it since bear-baiting was a genteel and popular " sport? " Now, if you bait a bear, you will find out that the biggest crowd backs the P. C. to A. Society. And the time will come when baiting bears or bulls and baiting fishes, for the pure fun of the thing, will be seen to be, by all men, as they are and always have been, namely, " all the same." 182 INITIATED. We will close witli a doxology — and all who are pulling out their Isaac Waltons will get left. If first-class poetry proves anything, here are some lines by a man of the name of Byron, who was once a pretty fair poet : "And angling, too, that solitary vice, Whatever Isaac Walton sings or says; The quaint old cruel coxcomb in his gullet Should have a hook and a smaU trout to pull it," Sorrowful Sam led the assembly in a terrific out- burst of applause ; and amid such encomiums as — ' ' There' s stuffin' in that two-storey hat " — " He don't wear slick shoes or sharpen his coat-tails for nothin' ," I was lifted from the log and nominated by acclama- tion for immediate admission within the highest chap- ter of that errant Order — known to others as ^ ' The Grand Lay Out," and to itself as " The Picturesque Pilgrims." The Convention was then called to order by the chairman elect, for business. The first action was on a motion, made and ably advocated by Sorrowful Sam, that the crude and meagre system of wayside signs for the initiated should be amplified. The mover eloquently pointed out how invaluable certain hieroglyphics would be, at the mouth of a lane, or on a gate-post, signify- ing — " Soft snap inside " — " Bad dog ahead " — " The man is too sharp," or '' Too stingy " — " Be- ware of the ax " — " Kasty grub," and so on. TRAMPS IN COUNCIL. 183 After a brief, one-sided debate the measure was unanimously carried, and a committee appointed by the chairman to devise a system of signs and ways and means of making the same useful to the pedes- trian fraternity at large. The next matter agitated was the desirability of a Bureau of geograpMcal and economic statistics, based on reports to be kept in memorandum by the pilgrims and filed in each Convention. A hot debate ensued, in the crisis of which I was loudly called on for mj views. I briefly excused myself, explaining that I would tax their time enough in supporting a meas- ure soon to be debated. Fishing- Jake then rose, to inform the chair that he could not write, and that " whole families " included in the scope of the proposed Bureau were in the same fix. These few remarks suddenly killed that motion. A compass-legged, square-bodied ranger next got the nod, and pressed the anti- wood-pile, hie-to-the- prairie measure, with a few feeling allusions to the toughness of chips. This brought Sam into the arena, with his superb eloquence and statistics on the fuel supply in its tendency to oppression of the poor. ^Raising my hat on Jake's fisliing-pole, and thus 184 THE 'POSSUM WOULD WAIT. securing the chair's recognition, I followed, hurling invective on all cranks who would leave such a Tem- ple of Nature as that camp, to be found, dead or alive, on a heart-breaking prairie. Ending with an airy account of my meeting with Sam, and pausing (after a thrilling reminder that it was to the wood- pile I owed the pleasure and honor, etc.) to wipe one eye, I sat down in an uproar of vehement approba- tion. The amendment, that cr antes might see a rainbow of promise in coal smoke on a prairie, was overwhelm- ingly adopted. A motion to adjourn for a 'possum hunt was then made and numerously seconded. Before putting it, the chairman announced that an original poem had been offered, as a closing exercise, by an author who modestly desired to remam unknown. The motion to adjourn was promptly withdrawn, its mover remarking that the poetry might evaporate, but the opossum knew how to wait. It was a powerfully built mosaic in ten sparkling quatrains, but unfortunately I made no copy and re- member only the refrain, which seemed to grow and culminate, like rolhng thunder, until its reverberation was sublime. It ran : " Who ever thought, or dreamed, of worlc in heaven!" THE RENDEZVOUS. THE HOUSE THAT JAKE BUILT. 185 When it had been twice encored the session ad- journed. From the general sentiment of the hnes and their similarity to the ones I had seen written on the wary granger's wall, I inferred that I might put my finger on the artist. On turning toward our tree I found that during my last oration and the poetical exercise, Sorrowful Sam and Fishing-Jake had busied themselves by the early moonlight in erecting an abode for three. It was what tramps, sportsmen and military experts denomi- nate a ^'lean-to,'' because it leans toward the fire. It was a brush thatch, laid on poles that were sup- ported by two forks ; and was needful, owing to the coohiess of the N^ovember evenings and the total ab- sence of blankets from that encampment. Under this shelter, in a snuggery of crumpling leaves that curled toward the heat reflected on them by the lean- to, we slept warm and well. The next morning, at breakfast, I broached my purpose of moving on, that day. Sam and Jake strenuously opposed it ; but I was firm, feeling that the life had insidious charms for me from which I ought to flee. But I was finally per- suaded to tarry until after dinner. Sam entreated me to remain longer, telling me that the meet would hold a week, unless sooner disturbed ; and then break up 186 THE WINTER QUESTION. into smaller, drifting encampments, which would gradually scatter to the four winds. After an intermittent breakfast, which occupied the several messes for two hours, a new detail of fora- gers was told off for duty that p. m. ; and then the other business of the day was taken in hand. The latter, which consumed the entire morning, proved to be discussion as to the best winter range. Several spoke earnestly in favor of the Sunny South. Others as earnestly contended that the foot- steps of the negro made God's grass too rank for the white roamer to thrive on it. Fishing- Jake said that if it would suit the united Order to hibernate in Wyandot Cave, he knew a pri- vate way into it, and thought he could furnish fish enough from the Ohio River to keep them all ahve, if they slept most of the time and did not exercise too much in the wakeful moments. When this motion had failed for lack of one other supporter, a weather-beaten rambler got the grass, by the formality of a war-whoop, and announced that the advantages nobly offered by Utah were unsur- passed. It was only a pleasant walk over two or three States, to where the noble red man and his squaw rode free, by contract, on the Pacific Kailway • UTAH CALLS IN VAIN. 187 and feathers, brick-dust and a blanket — were they not a simple and circumv^table disguise? In Utah, he added, the towns were all permanently placarded with the following : NOTICE TO ALL. If there are any persons in this city who are destitute of food, let them be who they may, if they will let their wants be known to the Presiding Bishop he will see that they are furnished with food and lodging until they can provide for themselves. The Bishops of every ward are to see that there are no persons going hungry. This information, which happened to be perfectly authentic, was received as a bit of humor. And the more the speaker shouted he was not joking, the more he was laughed down. A pilgrim of unprepossessing appearance followed, saying that the best way he had ever tried of worry- ing through the evil days of winter, was to go to some first-class city that had self-respect enough to pro- vide decent sleeping accommodations for its tran- sient poor, and pick up a wholesome livelihood by following the early milk- wagon, until he knew where the milk of the families who keep late hours is left. It was true that city milk might seem rather a mild diet ; but he was a living testimony that a sedentary man could manage to squeeze through on it, with 188 THE PICTURESQUE PILGRIMS. what could be picked up otherwise, for two or three months ; and he had learfled by experience that fam- ilies addicted to late rising, and, therefore, lazy ser- vants, of which there was always plenty for his pur- pose, would stand a requisition every ten days, on an average, without changing their habits enough to in- terfere with his system. Several spoke in favor of this expedient, consum- ing a good deal of time, before it was finally brought to an issue and disposed of with an amendment, nu- merously seconded, that it was approved and recom- mended only as a dernier ressort. It was then time to adjourn, to give opportunity for those exercises which, under the circumstances, were necessary preliminaries of dinner. Around our fire I found several members of the errant order, whom Sam had invited to dine with me. It was, I learned, the entire chapter, as far as pres- ent in that encampment, to which I had been admit- ted — an imposing conclave on which Fishing- Jake seemed proud to lavish humble homage as cook and general utihty man. For the next hour considerable pressure was brought to bear, to shake my purpose of resuming my journey immediately. The Chairman of the Con- TAKEN BY SUEPEISE. 189 vention, a patriarchal Pilgrim iii a paiiama hat and embroidered dressing gown — both, like the wearer, somewhat the worse for age and accumulated terra- queous discoloration — in a low voice assured me that many halcyon days like that we were then enjoying would follow each other in almost uninterrupted suc- cession before winter began its reign in earnest ; and that he had mtimations of several excellent plans, not publicly mooted, by wliich the rigorous aspect of the approaching season might be much softened. As I presented an unyielding front to this and other cautiously unfolded allurements of insinuation, the head of the chapter, a portly pedestrian of middle age, with a bald forehead and a benevolent face that made me yearn to present him with a clean shirt and more respectable clothing than the dissipated morn- ing suit he wore, took me aside and tapping his florid nose, in a confidential murmur askqd me whether I had been vaccinated. Taken off my guard, I imprudently shpped up my left sleeve and showed him the only scar I had re- ceived in war. The indiscretion cost me another half hour of argument on a foregone conclusion ', for the amiable scare-crow led me back to the seat of revelry and gravely nodded to the others, whereupon a sue- 190 A VERY DEMOCRATIC ORDER. cession of pleased, knowing looks were exchanged, for some moments, aromid the circle. At length Sam asked Fishing-Jake to go some distance up the creek and fetch a pan of irreproachable fresh water, for dessert ; and during this errand I was hurriedly enlightened as to the meaning of the mysterious by- play. "Ours," explained the venerable Chairman, "is essentially a very democratic Order ; but, possessing grades of rank and dignity, it must, of necessity, possess corresponding degrees of privilege, since without rewards there can be no incentive or stability to individual merit. Hence in ours, as in all human social organizations, there are certain arcana devoted to such knowledge and advantages as are reserved for those whose ability elevates them above the com- mon herd. And so, at present, there is a plan of passing the crisis of the coming winter which it would not be proper, politic, or wise to mention out- side of our own particular chapter. It is to separate into parties of two or three and sojourn during the inclement season in the hospitals of those neighbor- ing cities which are provided with comfortable quar- antine improvements. "It is a curious fact, well known but commonly AN AFFECTING FAREWELL 191 disregarded in the medical profession, that tartar- emetic ointment will speedily produce an eruption al- most indistinguishable, to an expert physician on his guard, from that of variola. And, owing to the prejudice against small-pox that always prevails in all populous places, we have only (provided we have been well vaccinated) to select our city, annoint oiu"- selves and at the proper time appear at the dispen- sary, to secure free quarters of a most desirable kind, for an indefinite period, with the further alluring cer- tainty of receiving new apparel in which to encounter the vicissitudes of the ensuing season." As the old man concluded. Sorrowful Sam sol- emnly winked at me ; and each of my fellow digni- taries gave me some swift sign expressive of eloquence that was restrained by the approaching whistle of Fishing- Jake. Similar manifestations of repressed fraternity en- livened the conversation throughout dinner, at the close of wliich I arbitrarily announced that engage- ments which I could not possibly postpone would compel me to resume my journey in fifteen minutes, or as soon as the parting pipe began to snivel. The leave-taking was really affecting. Our guests first wished me good speed, and then one by one the 192 A LONESOME WALK. whole encampment, with the exception of a few strangers who had come in that morning, shook my hand, as, accompanied by Sam and Jake, I moved towards the drift-heap — several of them detaining me a moment to drop valuable hints relative to my route and its wayside facilities. Sam and Jake to the last proclaimed their sorrow at my obduracy, and wrung my hand only when at a ford a mile from camp they put me on a road that I could easily follow. As I reached the first turning I looked back. Sorrowful Sam was gazing sadly at my receding coat-tails; while Fisiiing-Jake was dexterously gy- ratino; his hook and line as he unwound the latter from the pole. One wave of my still comparatively glossy hat; one swing of two shapeless handf uls of felt in the hazy sunshine, and distance dropped its screen forever be- tween my way and that of Sorrowful Sam. And how it has since fared with Fishing- Jake, I know not — but this I know — The hills are blushing into their autumn glory as I write ; and if he is still alive, he is sitting on the margin of some stream, be- side a greasy bag, and, in his own, inimitable way, fulfilling his destiny. I felt strangely lonesome as I pushed on alone ; but THE LAST NIGHT ON THE ROAD. 193 I was fresh and in fine condition for the road, which I heeled and toed with a diligence that brought me, just before sunset, to a cross-road hamlet that I re- membered and knew to be sixty miles from Cincinnati. There I found a good natured drover who offered me share and share with him at the inn, if I would help him drive hogs to the railway on the following morning. We started at daybreak, and by noon had driven ten miles and penned the last refractory porker. Then, after dinner and declining another overture from my employer, I took the road to Lawrenceburg, with a note from the drover to a farmer living eighteen miles out, and six hours to do that distance in. It was almost dark, owing to fresh trouble with my neatly fitting shoes, when I delivered the billet, to find it carte hlanche for handsome entertainment. The letter must have been a strong one, for I was treated as a welcome guest by the farmer and his blooming daughter. And I sustained the burden of recommendation to the best of my ability, giving careful attention to my toilet, and performing in full evening dress upon a piano in which neglected age had spared the noise and spoiled the tune. As a tableau, however, I have no doubt that the musicale 194 FOETUNE SMILES AGAIN. was, on the whole, har- monious. I certamly played with verve, for fickle for- tune was turninc: her smil- THE MUSIOAUB. EREING INSTINCT. 195 ing face to me — and it was my last night on the road! I reached Newport the next evening about dark ; and my own mother ahuost shut the door on me. CHAPTEE IX. ^^r N investigatio:n" I found that Cin- cinnati was gone wild over the small, circuitous velocipede ; no visionary then dreaming of the straightforward, altitudinous bicycle. And the Worrell Sisters were crowding Wood's Theater with a spectacular hit known to fame as " The Field of the Cloth of Gold. " I at once renewed my theatrical associations, and between rehearsals gave most of my time and attention to the mysterious, two- wheeled mechanism that was just then making a circus of the fast Re- public. And I soon acquired a skill on wheels which quickly got me an engagement, to display it nightly in the Grand Tournament of the burlesque above mentioned. 198 A NAREOW ESCAPE. But the closing night too speedily left me wonder- ing in what walk I was next to tread ; not for long, however, as I was soon engaged by a bold operator who had converted most of his capital into six veloci- pedes and believed he saw a fortune in traveling afar and teaching Young America to gyrate at the rate of half-a-dollar a lesson. I entered into his employ the more readily because of cautious but searching in- quiry that had been made for me just before my re- turn, both by a mysterious stranger and in the personal columns of several Cincinnati papers — an inquisition that was thwarted by the prudence of ma- ternal instinct and foiled by the fact that no human being in Cincinnati knew ought of my whereabouts. For a while the sanguine expectations of my man- ager were finely nourished by receipts ; but toward the middle of summer a sudden and unaccountable collapse of popular interest in that sort of locomotion caused my employer, after we had visited most of the cities and large towns of Indiana and Illinois south of the fortieth parallel, to decamp with his rolling stock just after dark on the fourth day of our engage- ment in St. Louis, without the formality of noti- fying me. He owed — and still owes — me a little more than four weeks' wages ; but he was thoughtful enoui^h to settle both of our hotel-bills, and I avail THE DISMAL DINNER QUESTION. 199 myself of this opportunity to publicly thank him for that. I was thus left in a city which, in despite of the hard lines that so often fell to my lot in it, I always, somehow, liked well enough to return to it ; with a plentiful supply of fashionable apparel and a store of cash so small that the dismal dinner question was peeping over it in a broad grin, preparatory to star- ing me in the face. It is true, my friend the Inven- tor and a remunerative trade were both in town ; but as a school-boy I had contracted a deep-rooted aversion to history that made me very reluctant to repeat myself. My case was fast nearing a crisis, when Wardwood one day sent to me a man who possessed a patent, and who had also been so strangely fortunate as to find capital having enough confidence m men of that ilk to undertake to fill cash orders : who, in his great joy over luck so phenomenal, was willing to sell me a dozen of his ' ' Indestructible Lamp-Chim- neys," together with the sole canvassing right of the city, for the nominal consideration of ten lawful dollars. I then controlled a capital of seventeen cents ; but as the summer was advanced, and promised to be lasting, I at once pawned my overcoat and a few 200 A BOLD VENTURE. other superfluities of my wardrobe, and closed with the reckless patentee, after amending his proposition in a stipulation that left the option of a State-right open to me at a fixed price for three months. The next morning I went abroad with my sample, and actually booked orders for two dozen before fif- teen o'clock, modern time. And before the week was out I created an activity in a new traffic that gave me much happiness and courage, and some credit with the manufacturer, who was a Chicago man, and therefore not averse to coquetting with im- moral risks. Elated, I redoubled my exertions, and in three months had results in hand of wliich the State-right of Illinois was but an earnest. I chose that State, as the one most needing enlightenment, and just before Christmas transferred my business to Chicago, in or- der to be near my manufacturer ; persuaded that I had, at last, stumbled on a stepping-stone to sub- stantial mercantile prosperity. And in contempt of the dangers of transplanting, the business took root and began to grow and flourish in a manner almost miraculous. This result, which I attributed to a cer- tain ability and diligence, was no doubt partly due to a restiveness which then prevailed in many populous communities, under the shameless extortion of Gas I'USHING TUK LAMP, LUCK AT LAST. 201 Monopolies. Not only small consumers, but greatly to my profit, large proprietors, groaning under the exaction of three and a half and four dollars the thousand, and stirred to frenzy by the fulminations of an unpropitiated and therefore indignant press, were only too eager to rush into any avenue or alley of escape from an insolent oppression that was mak- ing life burdensome — too eager, that is, for my re- pose, inasmuch as large orders dropped like ripened fruit into my astonished hands, with a rapidity which in a few months overwhelmed me with the sweetly torturing embarrassment of too much business. In an avaracious moment I had contracted on favorable terms to push a patented " N^on-Explosive Lamp," in connection with my ' ' Indestructible Chimney ; ' ' and when the men of many burners began to send in their orders I soon saw that I must have help, or per- ish miserably. So I hired a cheap boy and a roomy of&ce, and labored to impress it upon the young and frivolous system of the former that Chicago expected every boy to do his duty. In this and other arduous occupations spring quickly melted into summer and summer faded, flashing, into a dry and dusty autumn. Before frost kissed the first blushes mto the face of October there was no longer a margin for doubt that I was in high 202 A LAD AND HIS LAMP. career upon a royal road to fortune ; and, naturally, my youthful reveries, in hours set apart for their in- dulgence, assumed an arabesque and . roseate finish. I had always heard old rich men say that the first $1,000 was the hardest half to hive, of all their ac- cumulations; and for weeks I had held that most arduous accretion well in hand. So I began to dress elaborately, and acquire luxurious tastes and habits, and muse often and romantically over a crude but rather beautiful crayon portrait, on the back of which I had mounted an advertisement which, over three thrilling" initials, entreated the young gentleman who rescued a young lady from the Stonewall to make his Avhereabouts known. The young gentleman! What comfort may be concentrated in a common word. A ' ' young gen- tleman" with f5,000, to the good, gleaned from a safe and growing business, may, in this great and glorious country sacred to the idolatry of Mammon, aspire to much; and who will dare to hazard the opinion that I was a fool, to often cipher out the time when my bank-book would balance in four units be- ginning with a 5, caressing the resolve tliat I would answer that advertisement then? , In these beguiling calculations I always reached the certainty that before the expiration of one year IT WAS THE COW. 203 from that October, 1871, I would realize my cher- ished dream. And thus meditating, one dusty autumn afternoon, I drew two needful cheques ; one in pay- ment for a large purchase of Lamps and Chimneys lately put in stock ; and the other, a much smaller one, for the residuary balance of my bank account, which happened to be about a sum I wanted, to replenish my pockets and liquidate a number of bills over-due since the first of October, or for a week. ^'If the bank breaks before Monday," I solilo- quized, later, as I put away my receipts, "let it smash." The bank did not break ; but the following night a melancholy cow, disgusted with her diet, kicked over one of my non- explosive lamps and shot it, after the indestructible chimney, into a pile of hay. It was Mistress O'Leary's cow; and by the following night Chicago was a mass of incandescent ruins. There was something mysteriously swift and hot about that combustion. It burst out with a super- natural suddenness and omnipresence, and cleaned up its own debris, removing stone and fusing metal, all as if the very air of heaven had suddenly been con- verted into the incendiary breath of hell. I doubt that mortals ever saw fire operate similarly before or since, and cannot believe that results I cer- 204 GONE. tainlj witnessed and wonderingly investigated are sat- isfactorily accounted for by the strong gale and the drought that had prevailed for three months. When the house in which I boarded became sud- denly almost hot enough to melt, I hastened from it ; carrying most of my daily apparel in my arms, and finished dressing in the street. And in my haste my pocket-book probably slipped from the pocket whence I speedily missed it. Then I hurried through fiery vistas choked and in places jammed with a chaotic multitude of people and vehicles, through La Salle street towards my office ; but before I could get to it it was gone. After looking at the place in which I had left it, until a rush of the crowd from some un- seen peril pressed me almost on a bridge, where one of the railings broke, precipitating at least a dozen men, women, and children into what fate I never as- certained, I escaped as rapidly as possible from that vicinity ; and, with many headings off by the heat and turnings back from streets so full of people and all sorts of mercantile and personal property as to be im- passable, wandered about localities I was wont to frequent, seeking familiar objects and persons ; but they were all gone. While so exerting myself, as the night of terror wore away to morning, I saw sights in the light which seemed everywhere as bright as noon- THE DEMON DANCE. 205 day that I will never forget. In many streets the shops and saloons were thrown open by the owners, and the multitude invited to step in and help them- selves. The rabble thus got a first taste of plunder and a plentiful supply of intoxicating liquors ; which last was widely disseminated, being borne about in buckets, pitchers, and such other vessels as were readily obtainable and could be conveniently carried in the hand ; a feature wliich soon added atrocious elements to the calamity. In one street, before a burning music-store, I saw a drunken miscreant dancing on a piano, around a base di'um which he beat furiously at intervals, shout- ing between every three terrific blows : ^* Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah for the rich man's fire and the poor man's fmi ! " A few minutes later, in another street during a stampede from a shower of sparks, I saw a girl of nine or ten years run by, her face distorted by a cry I could see but could not hear, and her yellow hair streaming behind her, in a blaze. Just as she was disappearing in the crowd some one near her, no doubt a drunken rioter and possibly with the best of inebriate intentions, threw a quantity of spirits on the flame, which instantly flashed into a pillar that seemed to envelop the child. 206 ONCE MORE AFOOT. All that night and all the next day I wandered, where the heat permitted, among the remnants of the city, seeking some place in which I might stay my hunger ; but all such places were gone. The second night I tried to find some spot in the vicinity of the desolation where I could sleep a little ; but by that time the desirable resting places, not already ' ' taken," were gone. And as I was fast becoming too hungry and sleepy to enjoy life in a city whose hospitalities had so utterly departed it seemed that the one wise al- ternative left to me was likewise to be go:n'e. For I viewed my case thus : I had not lost the bulk of my recent earnmgs, be- cause I had paid my debts with them. iN'or could I suffer by the predicted universal insurance bank- ruptcy, because I was not one of the unfortunates m- sured. It was clear that, saving two or three dollars in my vest pocket, and notwithstanding some consid- erable accounts against men in my own evil case, I was a total, appetite-encumbered, irremediable finan- cial wreck. So, having no premonition of Relief- Committees, I got me on the railway lying along the Lake Shore and faced my destiny once more on foot. In this prompt rally upon my own resources I com- mitted a tactical mistake; for after I had slept off my drowsmess under a sand-bank, before I had (^■/i-t:i€ ^(^^ /hyyict'O-i/^ iit^io!- t'yi^ €Ae- d-tt^e-e^l^ -u-u^ t^yA -fie- li&'Ccl A-t^jCt^tii- €ei/m/id^ €e-r ■n^ We completed our repairs in season for the reopen- ing to evolve on time that night. And it was a success. It is true, the performance was a failure ; but that did not diminish the attention which the house be- stowed upon the scenery. Troy was not then as large a city as it has since become; and in small places, especially in the duller intervals of summer, a little sensation often goes a prodigious way. And perhaps the audience had brought a quantity of ap- plause with them which they scorned to lavish on the performance and did not care to take away. What- ever was the reason, at the last drop of the curtain the house sat still, and gazed at it, and clamored for the artist ; and would not be dismissed until I climbed over the bass viohn and made a speech. Next morning I longed, like Alexander, for more scenery to make conquest of ; but, alas ! like another hero's, my occupation was gone. So I wandered listlessly to Whitehall, and there espying a fleet of watercraft, selected a large, rakish canal-boat and went impulsively on board. The captain said he had no job for me, but he po- htely invited me into the cabm, which was also the kitchen. I told him that although my dress was a little nobby I was a regular water-rat, in my element 218 UNFORTUNATE SUCCESS. anywhere on any craft ; and I begged Mm to let me, just for the fun of it, show the Irish lady who reigned over his cuisine how to compound the chowder she was about to convert into a nauseous mess. To oblige me he assented; and I took off my coat and made that Celtic female my implacable, eternal foe. But, owing to its author's variegated past, the stew was so superb that the skipper promptly engaged me as steersman, on the reflection, I suppose, that he himself was a skilful pilot, whereas good cooks are mostly in Abraham's bosom. As it happened, having often stirred the Missis- sippi from the forecastle of a raft, I was equally au fait over spoon or oar. But my captam never knew the whole value of his green hand, for the cook, with unfailing care, made life so unendurable that to avoid jumping overboard to escape from her feminine malignity I deserted the vessel at the end of the first voyage ; wiser in the knowledge that hell hath no fury like a woman — " scooped " with her own spoon. ~^ '^^^^'J^i;^ y^w^ CHAPTEE X. WAS MIDSUMMER ; and I was once more on foot, with a light pocket, in the great city of 'New York. I^ot wishing to re-enter society imme- 'diately, and hoping to escape possible importunity of friends whom T esteemed too highly to willingly disoblige, I confined my movements to a remote, up-town quarter, where I shortly began to know a local politician whose acquaintance I took pains to cultivate. My trip to Troy had afforded enough experience of tramping in York-State for one season, and I was well aware that earnest, unbe- friended effort will not always, everywhere, win bread. So I made it a point to be friendly with Marshal Conkling ; and, at last, when the pinch came, I, in the dust under the bottom spoke of fortune's wheel, petitioned him to assist me with his influence, to become a common laborer on the public works. 220 A PLUNGE INTO POLITICS. At first he treated the application as a jest ; but when I convinced him that there was no humor in my mood, he procured a ticket assigning me to a gang composed, of course, of poHtical constituents who sometimes worked a httle and voted a good deal ; drawing each week more wages than they earned in six. This system of industry was as favorable to me as it was to others ; and I was not sorry to be ex- empt from arduous competition with the brawny crew — though as an American of Anglo-Saxon lineage, in full blood, and a fair specimen, I never doubted my abihty to hold my own with any of them. Wliile I was thus patiently investigating the lower strata of Gotham's society Marshal Conkling did not lose sight of me. He often cheered me with a friendly word and other dehcate proofs of his con- tinuing kindness; and he one day showed me a sealed letter addressed to the Chief Engineer of the Department of Public Koads, which he said was from the Deputy Commissioner of public works and would affect my fortunes before the expiration of the month. The effect was my prompt appointment to the po- sition of night-watchman on the road. In this I had to please two superiors ; one, a man of character and conduct much above the qual- ity usually absorbed l)y such occupations ; and an- UNNATUKAL INSECTS. 221 other, a wonderful man, one Mr. Dooley, combining in a single body the intelligent firmness of the mule, the voluble self-esteem of the turkey-gobbler and the conspicuous breeding of the hog. This I found out during a brief but memorable experience as a boarder in the Dooley homestead, at Carmansville, two miles and a half from the scene of my nocturnal vigilance — a daily walk I did not ob- ject to so much as I might have done had it not con- tributed, every pay-day, to the satisfaction of a man who held the hammer over a frail link of my des- tiny. In the bosom of his interesting family I did not fare so sumptuously as did certam pests of poverty and indolence which made sumptuous daily fare of me ; in unscrupulous contempt of that law of nature which is supposed to divide the twenty-four hours fairly between God's creatures, into alternate seasons of activity and rest. But fearing the consequences of too much independence, I bore my sorrows in pa- tient secresy as long as flesh and blood could endure the ordeal ; and then I recklessly decamped, leaving no sign — except the following lines, enough of which, no doubt, was intelligible to the Dooleys, posted con- spicuously on my bedstead : 222 THE NIGHT-WATCHMAN S DREAAI. I. In slumbers of daylight the night-watchman lay, His raiment slung loose over chairs and the floor ; All watch-worn and weary his cares fled away And visions £esthetical waltzed in the door. II. He dreamed of the style he last season put on — Of the people he met in a " tonier " ward — Of society belles, and receptions hon ton — And of treasures artistic that hailed from abroad. III. Then fancy her magical lantern slid wide, And bade the gay dreamer in ecstacy smile ; Now far, far behind him the Dooley walls glide. With their snares of "turned" hash, and delusions of guile. IV. He bends o'er moist Ada with looks of delight, Slips off his dress-coat and covers her o'er; And a prayer, cold but thrilling, goes up through the night : " Great God! give me warmth, for just ten minutes more! " V. The heart of the dreamer expands in his vest; Through the arm 'round the maiden warm torrents fast flow; With a rapturous squeeze that will not be repressed. He shortens it, shortens it, swimming, whiles, slow. VI. But what is that horror that shatters the charm? And whence the hot pang that convulses his frame? 'Tis the prance of a squadron — the night bug's alarm! And the stab of their bayonets, fiercer than flame. AN AWFUL AWAKENING. 223 VII. He writhes on his mattress; he kicks off the spread; He slaps himself wildly ; he reaches for gore ; Shoves his heel through his night-garment; stands on his head; Turns a double back-handspring, and lands on the floor. VIII. Like devils the mashed anthropophagists smell : In vain the mad vrretch gropes around for a club ; They " come on " in battalions, giving him — well, He rolls down the stairway, and lands in a tub. IX. Oh night-watchman, woe to thy dreams of delight! In soap-suds their joys are dissolving in smart — Where now is the style of last summer so bright? Or that grip on the maiden so dear to thy heart? X. Oh night-watchman, night-watchman, never again Will the Dooley bugs gallop o'er thee to the fray — Not while there are boarding cribs, private but plain. Where the eating is done, less free-lunch — more for pay. This inspired poem, or my change of boarding- house, moved Mr. Dooley very much. He first bore down on me with my dismissal, for gross neglect of duty — of which I was as innocent as his bugs — ; and finally, after a brief but spirited conversation, came at me brandishing a piece of timber that Hur- cules might have called a walMng cane. For a moment it seemed to the interested specta- tors that I was about to be pounded to a blood-pud- 224 A POLITICAL CLUB. ding; but that was a biased view of the situation natural to rude minds habituated to awe of a man hke Mr. Dooley. As the careful critic may remem- ber, m early youth I had acquired a habit of quick precision in the use of primitive weapons of range ; and before the ferocious giant could make a gory example of me he reeled, like Goliath, with a small stone pushing against his forehead . And , like David , I picked up the weapon of the fallen adversary; not, however, to pound off his head, but merely to preserve it as a partial restraint on the perjury I expected to pursue me into the police-court. And it was fortunate that I did so ; for I was, of course, ar- rested and incarcerated for trial ; and, even with that bludgeon in evidence, I barely escaped the ^' Black Maria," — so clearly was it proved that I was an un- trustworthy, quarrelsome, and dangerous citizen. As winter was coming on apace, to secure winter- quarters that I saw no better way of engagmg, I contracted to drive a milk- wagon very cheaply until the vernal equinox. The occupation supplied me with much knowledge relative to the lower temper- atures of Gotham's air and water; and at first per- plexed me no little, to secure a ** route " whereon I would not meet in front of aristocratic mansions at early morn vivacious damsels who a short year pre- PEOWLING FOE THE PKESS. 225 viouslj had been wont to smilingly admit me in the dewy eve. In March I resigned the ribbons and purchased a strong, comfortable pair of shoes. Before it became necessary to pawn that investment I was so fortunate, or unfortunate, as to talk myself into the Press-gang, as the Paul Pry of the ' ' Har- lem Reporter." And of all the disreputable tramp- ing I have ever done, that of my dreary rounds as a reporter is silhouetted on memory, the least diver- sified with joyous or even satisfactory experiences. But I was diligent, and turned my local and political insight to such account that the reading public did not protest ; and this success, albeit negative, led duly to my promotion to the staff, as local- editor ; a posi- tion the dignity and emolument of which might have chained me to the mud-sills of the literary profession for life had not that pride which runneth before a fall tempted me to begin the new year as co-editor and joint-proprietor of a weekly organ of much vivacity, known for a season as the " Saturday ]^few- Yorker." Limited experience on my part, and unlimited intem- perance on the part of an experienced journalist, my partner in the enterprise, proved an equipment too embarrassing to be borne far among the dragons that have devoured such hetacombs of hopes. 226 ALMOST AN EDITOR. Debt soon raised its baleful head and began to wind its crushing coil around its struggling quarry ; and, before I learned how to " run a newspaper," alone, haying swallowed bodily a young but lively specimen, was bellowing lustily for more. Shuddering with dis- gust over the prostrate carcass of my drunken part- ner I told the compositors to drop their sticks and call for their wages in two or three days. And then I sat down alone to painful figures. Anxiety to protect the weakest and the shame of owing debts I could not pay, or some other, unknown cause, brought on a serious illness in which it would have fared evil with me if Providence, by the hand of Dr. Robert Taylor, had not succored me in my hour of sore and helpless need. That open-hearted gen- tleman treated me skilfully and like a father, provid- ing for me until I was up and able to provide for myself. May his age be old and green ! In the hours of convalesence I balanced my incli- nations at leisure, and found they oscillated persist- ently toward the wide and hospitable West. To get there was the problem. But as soon as I was able, and before I was really fit for work, I solved its first equation by shipping as pantryman on the steamship Cortez^ then loading for ISTew Orleans. A CYCLONE AT SEA. 227 The voyage, a novelty to me, was relieved of op- pressive tedium by a cyclone that caught us off the keys of Florida when we had been six days at sea. For about an hour, that lasted like a century, the hiss- ing hurricane, and whistling cordage, and cracking timbers made our case seem so serious that ancient mariners silently knotted loose-end lashings around spare spars. Intent on living my time out, I mustered my little store of slowly returning strength and dressed care- fully for a protracted swim. I put on my lightest underclotliing and a life preserver, which, under the circumstances, were sufficient clothing for that latitude in September. I then filled a stout canvas bag with a dozen cans containing oysters and concentrated soup • then, having wound two fathoms of lead- line around my loins and in this as a belt thrust a small sharp hatchet, I took my stand in the grisly night on the laboring deck. The groaning ship lay shud- dering, upon a sea that writhed and impotently strug- gled to rise under the spurning feet of the tempest, like a prone, quaking insect waiting to be trodden under : and I stood beside the mizzen-mast, embrac- ing the boom with my left arm. My plan was to cut away the fastenings of the boom, lash the bag to it with the lead- line, and then 228 CHANGEABLE WEATHER. stay with that spar as long as my half -strength and the solid and fluid sustenance in the bag, by the grace of heaven, permitted. But just as I was debating whether the moment was 'not at hand to chop, a terrific burst of thunder split the can- opy of night, and closely following volleys of the ar- tillery of heaven quickly broke the back of the tornado. And then, as if by mao-ic, a ^''^^W^Akx^^^ mighty change came suddenly i'iP "^^^-^ '-"S ^^y^ over the aspect of the deck. iii^msL ->\ y^-^:>^ Where all had so lately '" *^ " .^ , ,. ness, and terror si- lenced by an awful voicing of the e le- mental contest, s e amen and pas- sen efcrs THE FEROCIOUS REPTILE. AN ILLUSION OF YOUTH. 229 stood about on the level deck in groups, under the glit- terhig stars, admiring the short, seething swell and smilingly interrogating one another, to identify the excitable man who was afraid ! On the trip up the Mississippi I began betimes to look out with the eye of faith for the ferocious rep- tile I had learned in early life, from entertaining books of travel and instruction, to associate with southern waters and inverted Africans. At first I could not see him. But after we passed from the marshy region to the " lower coast ' ' and I had learned to recognize his unobtrusive profile, I was indignantly amazed to see along the shores groups of Africans of all shades and sizes, observing our progress with a sort of indolent, mirthful interest, while almost under their feet lay rapacious saurians of the largest and most dangerous description. Thus in a day was dissipated another of the illusions of unsuspicious youth. If there is a hot- house in Hades, I trust his fervent Majesty is reserving a warm corner of it for those unscrupulous authors and artists who perfidiously be- tray the innocent trust of childhood. And from this category I can not consistently exclude the whitened sepulchres who libel nature and paint her sublime face falsely in mendacious Sunday-school literature. 230 A NOONDAY EESOET. Arrived at the Crescent City, I committed the florid indiscretion of not departing- from it by the shortest, quickest route. And after consummating that blooming imbecihty I fell into the radiant, apoplectic idiocy of wearing the bottoms of my shoes off in a haughty quest of genteel tliird or fourth class employment — instead of husbanding my pride and returning vigor m a gentle wrestle with the first light job I could lay my hands on. A few months earlier it could not so have hap- pened ; but my debility, or recent editorial experience, had temporarily impaired my intellect. Hunger ought to have refreshed my reason ; but it didn't: for when it came, after it had engulfed my last picayune, instead of hieing to the wharf and there feebly tackling a cotton-bale, I went (I blush to re- member it) to a noonday prayer-meeting. And now it is proper, and also polite, to notify all interested that the small remainder of this short chap- ter is dedicated to the greatest good of the largest number, without regard to sect or prejudice ; and will not, therefore, offend any one who politely heeds the courteous warning and does not read it. I had often heard of " The Young Men's Chris- tian Association," and seen, sometimes in my urban rambles, chaste signs of that eminently virtuous col- THE INNOCENCY OF YOUTH. 231 lection of alleged immature specimens of the mascu- line gender. And in a cloudy way the inference had floated in my mind that it was composed of youthful men who employed a large fund in the special duty of contmuing the work of a Master whose most pow- erful preaching and practice reiterate, to enjoin : "Do good to them that do evil unto you — If any man take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak, also — Peed the hungry — Clothe the naked — Give to him that asketh ; and from him that would borrow of thee, turn not thou away." And an abundance more of positive precept and example full of the same cathohc spirit, and overflowing with similar manda- tory and unmistakable import, that God does not make men in his own image too base or vile to be legiti- mate objects of zealous anxiety to all who love and honor Jesus. In apology for a simplicity so ref resiling I can only urge that I was not at that time as well posted in the intricacies of practical theology as I have since be- come. Hence I strayed into that prayer-meeting, lured by a neatly printed and pressing invitation to all men, and especially to strangers in the city, to walk right up ; because, in the innocency of youth, or the credulity of my temporary mental abberration, I supposed that the young disciples congregated up 232 AGED JUVENILITY. stairs, who could not fail to see that I was sick and needy, distressed by hunger and sufficiently naked, might, at least, delight their Kedeemer by giving my famished stomach one good fill and shake- down. As I entered, the spirit I anticipated seemed to move those excellent yoiuig men ; for one, whose bald spot mdexed mature juvenility, grasped my hand and drew me into a seat ; and another old headed nursling rushed over and asked me whether I loved the Saviour ; followed by a ripe young man of uncer- tain age, who inquired particularly after my stony heart ; wliile a fourth, who greatly to my reassurance seemed rather under middle age, presented me with a pamphlet entitled, "Milk For Babes;" just as an unquestionably young, slim saintlet, in kid gloves and golden spectacles, volunteered to pray for me. They were all so Idnd, and anxiously sympathetic with my obvious unhealthiness and visible distress, that when the near-sighted young man implored the Lord not to let me die in my sins and added a few personal remarks associating me with the tliief on the cross, I weakened, and laying my two hands on the pit of my stomach, groaned aloud. At this outburst of inward agony the petitioner re- doubled his earnest eloquence ; and as he prayed hot tears, or drops of some sort, rolled down his cheeks ; A PIOUS MiSTAio: 233 while two of his youthful brethren hastened to my assistance and comforted and strengthened me, by telhng" me that if I died in my existing condition I would certainly be damned, and warning me to flee in terror from the wrath to come. And there is where they made a mistake — resorting to language that sounded profane and threatening ; for if I was hungry, and for the time being a little ' ' off ' ' in intellect, I was familiar with profanity ; and had demonstrated, when but a tender stripling, at the cannon's mouth, that I was game. The very idea of any one but women and children being frightened into heaven made me feel quite in- dignant and worldly minded ; so much so that wliile the young man with the obstructed vision saw his whole duty as a Christian dude in appealmg feelingly to Jesus to bmd up the broken hearted, and temper the wind to the shorn lamb, I wickedly took a men- tal inventory of all that exuberant piety, and thought, like a flash, of a wayside confidence of Sorrowful Sam. Sam, so he then confided to me, had once been an exemplary ornament to the Methodist con- gregation ; but since he took to tramping, he inimit- ably admitted, he had not industriously attended to the interests of his immortal soul. His mortal stom- ach, he solemnly explained, presented such pressing 234 A TRAMP'S VIEW OF IT. claims on all his leisure that there was no alternative but to let his immortal soul stand back and wait. Yet, he earnestly protested, he had not back-shded, or ceased to think often and yearningly of the life and example of the wise founder of Christianity, who, like the lily, did not toil or spin, or follow the car- penter's trade any great length of time; but just rambled about with his itinerant disciples, without any regular where to lay his head — making the wayside pleasant with delightful conversation, and the halts pleasanter with miracles of wine and loaves and fishes. '' By Jucks ! Mr. Wagtail," he concluded, '' if he had only waited a couple of thousand years, nary con- stable's posse would ever have got within ten miles of him ; for every dog-gone tramp out of jail would have forsaken all and followed him, till Gehenna froze over." While wickedly digressing in the wake of this rem- iniscence I did not decline any of the well meant at- tentions the devout young males were lavishing on me. On the contrary, as prayer alternated with ex- hortation some of the phraseology employed, such as casual allusions to the bread of life and elegant rai- ment and regular supper and expensive side-walks of the New Jerusalem, made my mouth water. For the first time I duly realized how profoundly the men A POWEKFUL PKAYEE. 235 who compiled the common vocabulary of worship were versed in the. sublime cravings of the human heart. At length it seemed time to one of them to ask me how I felt, then; and when I said, '' Pretty bad," he inquired whether I thought I would feel any better if I was to pray. I said I thought I would. Then they all knelt together, for the first time, to augment the weight of my petition, I supposed ; and I stood up and poured out my inward agony in prayer. I regret my inabiHty to report that prayer in detail. It went up from the bottom of my heart, or some deep organ in the same vicinity ; but the only notes preserved of it are those of the recording angel. I still, however, retain a vivid recollection of its gen- eral plan. It began in earnest by informing the Lord that I was a miserable, starving sinner, adrift in a strange city, without a cent to my name, or a hole, or a nest, or even a corn-row, in which to lay my head. And, in view of these pressing circumstances I begged him, for Christ's sake, to send a fast and rehable angel with a whole pan full of the livest sort of coals, unto some sinful Dives or excellent Samar- itan, to melt his granite imitation of a heart — until 236 FEOZEN PIETY. he saw the pomt and hastened to feed one of God's stray black lambs. In another inspired moment I dwelt thrillingly upon the sacred passage beginning, ' ' Inasmuch as ye did it not unto one of the least of these," and wliich ends in graphic allusion to outer darkness. I also enlarged impressively on the final destiny of the sorrowfully departing good young man, who, unfortunately for the poor, had great possessions. In short, I had been a sprightly Sabbath-scholar at a period of life when impressions are deep and lastmg, and I followed a retentive memory, praying as I went, exhaustively. When I opened my eyes to sit down I at once saw that I had powerfully impressed that prayer-meeting. It was a warm September day ; and when I began, the atmosphere of the hall was sultry ; but when I said amen, it was pervaded with a crisp and bracing coolness. Perceiving that no young man present seemed in a frame of mind to point out that the prac- tical prayer of the needy tramp left that meeting no alternative save to crucify their Lord afresh, or else take up an immediate collection, in a flattering si- lence I silently withdrew. And as I descended to the street I reflected that although I had tramped over a good bit of American territory I had never, in the country, either got so close to starvation as I then AE AETIFICIAL ELOWEE. 237 was, or seen anytliing resembling a *' Y. M. C A." And then I marveled, wondering if the well known fact that God, Avho made the country, never made a city in his life, had anything to do with it. Although seemingly seed cast upon stony ground, my prayer was not wasted ; for it softened my stub- born heart, melting all its pride into humility, and opened my eyes so that I once more saw things quite clearly. As the scales dropped off I hastened to a ship that was receiving cargo, and manipulated bales, boxes and barrels to such effect that within two hours I had earned enough to satisfy my hunger. By III p. M. on the ensuing day I was entitled to the substantial sum of two dollars and seventy-five cents ; and as a prudent man can subsist, in a pinch, on that amount, for three or four weeks, in September, I called for a settlement and repaired on board the steamer Bismarh ; where I sought the chief mate and told him that I was a river man, used to cabin work, but, as my clothes were rather _passe' for that, I would like to work my passage to St. Louis in any capacity. He said the first bell had rung and he was very busy stowing the late freight, but if I would wait a while he would listen to me. 238 AN UNCONVERTED SINNER. While waiting I got out my portfolio and made a fast sketch of a bit of the shore, including more care- fully worked portraits of the mate and master. . Pres- ently that pair, passing me in coming on board, noticed my occupation and looked over my shoulder. '' What boats have you run on? " asked the mate. I named half a dozen. Then the subordinate officer explained my applica- tion to his senior. " Pass him, free, on deck," said that unconverted sinner authoritatively, without betraying any curiosity as to the solidity or softness of my heart, or the chances I was taking on my own salvation. After the boat backed out I gave my study to the mate ; and at once began a half -life vignette of the commander. At dark I laid it by reluctantly, and at sunrise resumed my labor on it. I threw my whole soul into the effort, as fervently as I had done in that of the prayer-meeting, taking no note of any tiling afloat or on shore except my« task and the original it represented. And as the work grew under my grateful hand I was astonished at the hkeness, for although I had not attempted a ffiiished portrait with- in two years, and was somewhat out of practice, I never had succeeded half so well before. TEUMPING THE ACE. 239 By noon of the first meridian under weigh it was complete ; and the mate, who had attentively followed its development, hastened with it np stairs. In a few minutes he came down empty handed, saying- the '^ old man " wanted me, at the office. Ascending, I found my work in the hands of a group of not over exacting critics. ^'I want this for my desk," said the chief clerk, addressing me as I paused near ; ' ' what will you take for it?" I proudly answered that it was not for sale, for the reason that I had executed it, as well as I knew how, to present it to the captain as the only acknowledg- ment in my power to make, of his kindness to me on the previous day. ^^ Give him a key," said the smiling sinner to his clerk; then, turning to me, " Young man, you have trumped my lead, hut I'll be damned if it isn't my turn now ! Bring up your traps, and eat at the first table." CHAPTER XL uiTE aware h ow to make mj single pair o f dollars do me most good in St. Louis, I walked from the BismarJc to the vicinity of Sixth and Olive Streets, and there fully explained myself to the host of an inexpensive host- lery kept on the European plan, with such address that I secured a room upon the noble basis of sym- pathy and confidence between man and man. I then went forth in quest of experience ; and was soon challenged by the legend, ''Agents for a News- paper Wanted, Upstairs." Being, to some extent, an experienced journalist, I walked up, and learned that the want was fejt by a 242 DEOPPING IN "TO SEE A MAN," modest, weekly organ, so weakly that I without much effort enrolled myself, at my own risk, as its forlorn hope. I then, according to confirmed habit, entered upon a new calling with hopeful energy. But by the time I had changed the last fragment of my 'New Orleans earnings I found the canvass so heavy that I began to despair of carrying it forward to any great extent. Just then, however, it led to one result worth recording. One day, while eagerly waiting on the success or failure of an eloquent effort to secure an advertise- ment of a second-class saloon, and wishing I could get $10 ahead of my enormous appetite, so that I might without shame call on my friend, the Inventor, I pensively took up a bit of chalk that lay invitingly near my hand on the round table before me, and sketched upon the smooth walnut a rude portrait of the man whose ultimatum I was insiduously coaxing*. The likeness soon excited the admiration of the compounder of cheap beverages ; and when it began to come out strong he anxiously inquired whether I could do that well on glass, in soap. I did not know whether I could or not ; but aware that one of the wisest uses of language is conceal- ment of human ignorance, I discoursed fluently upon the saponaceous evolution of art on glass, — which A SUCCESS IN SOAP. 243 I suddenly remembered was just then agitating the society in which my eager hstener moved — ; and by way of peroration insinuated that I might astonish him if he would bring me a small bar of soap. While he was procuring the dainty pencil I hur- riedly chose a subject ; and in a space of time wliich he pronounced wonderful for brevity I affixed the final flom'ishes to a facetious Bacchus who tickled with one of two julep-straws a somnolent Silenus, beside the legendary wine- skin, which I modernized into a portly cask. My pleased patron at once paid for a displayed '' ad ;" and within a few days, after a transient cus- tomer unveiled to him the classic spirit of the decora- tion, the delighted dram-seller bestowed a friendship on me which soon blessed me with an order for four portraits, from a friend of his, known as Smith the pawn-broker — a matter of great moment to me ; not only because it enabled me to eat a few hearty meals, once more; and again enjoy communion with my droll philospher and friend, the Inventor; but also because it was the first adventure wherein I, in the regular, professional manner, yoked art and emolu- ment to the triumphal chariot of existence. After booking this unprecedented commission I forthwith, once more, abandoned the bohemian alley 2M HAPPY HOURS. of journalism, to ramble iii a more agreeable thor- oughfare of that catholic order. And for a few weeks I managed to live like a poor prince, on the small margin between cheap art and its necessities. Happy hours — how I envy myself their possession ! But one October morning I woke with the present- iment that I was approaching another crisis in my life. I was without dues to collect, or labor to per- form ; and the emptiness of my purse was fast yield- ing the palm of vacuity to the void in my stomach. After vainly tramping over the busiest portion of the city, sohciting patronage, I moped down to the levee, on the chance of seeing some river acquaint- ance who might invite me to a steamboat dinner. But no such luck was there for me ; and after visiting every boat I returned sadly to Fourth Street, and was deploring the alternative of getting again in debt to Wardwood, when I saw a gentleman I knew, who was then the keeper of the Everett House. He was a man of feeling, kind enough to manifest friendly concern and hospitality when I frankly confessed my strait and invited myself to diue with him. ^o doubt he quickly forgot the little amenity ; but memory will be feeble and recreant to a grateful heart when I for- get how that feast made the whole world seem sud- denly improved and beautified. It seemed too good STEANGER THAN FICTION. 245 a world, as I stepped forth, caressing- with sated lips my friend's hospitable cigar, to be made by me the theater of imposition on mine host of the other House ; so I began to commune with all sorts of oblong trips announcing furnished rooms for rent. Late that afternoon I came down out of a large public building, three steps at a time, immensely elated. There was reason ; for I had just engaged an ele- gant, luxuriously furnished apartment for two months, and (I almost fear the amazing truth will savor of fiction) paid the rent in a contract to execute my first fifty dollar portrait. That the veracity of these chronicles may be as the reputation of Mrs. Julius Caesar ought to have been, I will explain a fact too natural to deserve sus- picion. The author of my elation, a quiet young man of ready action, had recently abandoned a large and profitable business, upon the novel theory that money- getting, for the sordid sake of accumulation, is vexa- tion and vanity, inasmuch as the only good dollars mortals handle are those got honestly and rationally spent. Firmly persuaded that they are but gaudy monomaniacs who grub for more lucre after they have got enough, this phenomenal man relinquished 246 A MAN WE FAILED TO KILL. PROFITS, in order to act wisely, and especially to com- mand more time for the indulgence of literary and philosophic habits. And, of com^se, it was common- place in such a man, to install a needy votary of art in voluptuous state, and find full compensation in giving the needy one his first royal commission. I need not labor to unveil an air of truth in the statement that I wrought out that portrait for poster- ity, with all the crude sldll then at my command. Wlien I had ascertained that he was one of the too few survivors of that little company of renowned, albeit, perhaps, misguided heroes whom I had enjoyed the privilege of trying to slay in war, I often, won- dering, asked myself, how many, in that lamentable slaughter, slew the men who would else have proved their friends in need. I had not been long settled in my elegant studio when that son of Genius, the Inventor, came in contact with my one regular sitter. The inevitable collision was made effective by two fortuitous circumstances. The latter had just published a magazine essay on aerostatics, entitled '^ Man Volant.^'' The former had spent five years of his ingenious life in experi- menting with flying- machinery ; and expressed amazement at the facility with wliich the essayist, by TWO PHILOSOPHIC MINDS. 247 purely logical processes, reached results identically those arrived at m patient and unremunerative experi- ment. Their first interview my guests devoted to the task of becoming acquainted with each other, after the manner of prudent men whose thoughts are given to deviation from beaten paths. On subsequent occasions they contributed largely to my education by dissecting in my presence such subjects as naturally invite the attention of philo- sophic minds. And although often lost, I was never weary of following them in their intellectual excur- sions, for there was always a pleasing absence of con- ventional formula and a sparkling play and friction of originality in their discourse, that was ever fresh and edifying to me. And toward the close of each sitting, by way of contrast, as ye olden farce whilom relieved ye antient tragedy, or as the greatest Mas- ters were wont to balance with a splash of paint the chromatic anomaly of their great compositions, my visitors invariably sei-ved up reminiscences of personal experience that would have spread a smile all over a graven image of my saturnine friend. Sorrowful Sam. Both being men of fecund imagination, this tourna- ment of invention in the masquerade of biography progressed competitively, night after night, along a 248 THIRSTING FOR BLOOD. verge of startling absurdity that regularly fascinated me ; the more engagingly as it was obvious that each accepted the sayings of the other as gospel truths or else both were too well bred to betray by any outward manifestations the existence of a con- trary suspicion. Many a night, after they had left me to my own reflections, did I collapse and pass the midnight hour in quiet fits of laughter. But by day I was not just then excessively liilari- ous ; for on completion of my fifty-dollar con- tract I found twenty-five and even fifteen-dollar ones so difiicult to ob- gtain that I soon began to feel out of harmony with m y elegant surroundings. In- deed, such were the dis- courage- ments un- der which I began my earnest co- quetry with art, that for many weeks I A LIFE FOK A LIFE. J NIGHTLY DREAMS. 249 fought and barely foiled starvation by going daily to the shambles and drinking blood Avarm from the slaughtered bullock ; and many a night the opportune arrival of the Inventor, who was a great lover of extempore junketing, spared me the unpleasant al- ternative of retiring to my luxurious French bed sup- perless. At the expiration of two months my landlord, perceiving something of my strait, requested me to re- main in charge for another month without considera- tion : and thus by the kindness of two large-minded men I was saved from being driven by want far from the easel, until the approach of Christmas filled me with home longings, and luck threw me up against an old acquaintance who had been a railroad man and kindly got a pass for me. During the remainder of that winter X plied my unstudied art in Cincinnati to such purpose that in addition to wiping out all debts I laid up some money. But with every stroke of the pencil I felt more and more the need of technical training ; and tliis feeling took the form of daily thoughts and nightly dreams of Paris. Having duly, and for me most deliberately, reflected on it, in the early spring I began preparations to re- turn, as the first stage toward Europe, to New York ; 250 A CARD IN THE HEEALD. determined to get over the water in some way, at all hazard, and disport upon the other side that summer, if I had to tramp it. I reached the Empire City early in April ; and there secured without much difficulty work enough to more than recoup the past expenses of my hazard- ous undertaMng. Tliis, as far as it went, was very encouraging; but it was difficult to decide what was the best step to be next taken. I had almost made up my mind to ship in any capacity on some foreign-bound vessel, when I saw, early one mornmg, an advertisement in the Herald, for an active, intelligent young man, of re- spectable antecedents, who could give satisfactory references as to character and fitness for the duty, to take care of an elderly, invalid Englishman, about to sail for Liverpool. I at once wrote an application, stating that I was a young artist in straightened circumstances, anxious to visit Paris in the interests of my profession ; and inviting the advertiser's attention to the standing of the several gentlemen I named as references, and also to the photograph of myself which I enclosed. Earn- estly sohciting a thorough investigation of my quali- fications for the place, I clenched the overture by adding in a postscript that rather than miss an oppor- WAITING IN SUSPENSE. 251 tmiity so favorable to economy, I would take the place at any wages, or even at none, if necessary. This missive I immediately dehvered In person to the desk clerk, at the Herald office. Then, making up my mind to abide the issue forty-eight hours with- out impatience, I called on two of my influential acquamtances and pointing out the advertisement begged them to do me the great kindness to drop a line in season to the address given. At noon the following day the postman brought me a letter, which proved to be from the invalid, and in three lines requested me to call at his lodgings at III p. M. that day. I could make notliing more of the precise, long stemmed English calligraphy, which might have been that of a clerk or a member of Parliament, excepting that it was just a trifle too crabbed for the first and in about the same degree too legible for the last : so I restrained my curiosity un- til the appomted time. I found Mr. Wintercross in an elegant suite of apartments near Madison Square, reclining on a low lounge, propped up with cushions, and looking more like an epicurean gymnast undergoing arduous train- ing, than a confirmed invalid. I discreetly obeyed his command to sit down ; and meekly listened to his remarks, confinmg myself to 252 AN EPICUEEAN INVALID. straightforward answers. I thus gleaned tliat he was the invahded 'New York representative of a Liverpool exporting house, about to return home and unwilling to make the voyage unattended, o^ving to certain mys- terious spells to which he was liable. After listening to him half an hour I experienced doubts, which time has not entirely dissipated, whether the spells he alluded to spelled a dislike of hob-nobbing with his shadow, or a haunting dread lest he might suddenly find himself alone with snakes or other unpopular in- gredients of natural history. He certainly, as I have reason to beheve, loved a sociable glass, and hated to handle it alone. Otherwise he bore the appearance of a jolly old buck, as hearty as a gray headed sybarite of sixty could reasonably expect to be. He said it was evident in his morning mail that I had influential friends on whose good will I might safely rely, but I seemed unused to severe physical exercise and he had his doubts whether I could hft him, should there be occasion. " I will show you," I quickly answered, kneeling beside him on my right knee and sliding the lounge over the other, and then closely embracing the whole burden, at least two hundred weight, as I rose to a half erect position. " That will do ! That will do ! " he cried energeti- NO SONS OE TEMPERANCE NEED APPLY. 253 cally, as I stiffened my spine and tenderly began a supplementary elevation. "IS'owthen," he resumed, after I had gently re- stored the couch to its foundations, "What church do you belong to? " '' I have not joined any — as yet," I answered, sur- prised into untimely hesitation. "Are you a member, in good standing, of any tem- perance society? " "I^o sir," I replied, striving hard to hold the presence of mind I had partially recovered. " Well, if we can agree on pay I think you'll do. If five pounds for the passage, and three pounds a week for the time, not over a week or two, I may re- quire your services after we get over, clear of first class expenses, will suit you, you may report here day after to-morrow at nine A. m., and help me pack up." I at once closed the negotiation and deferentially retired. Then I treated myself to a royal supper; and passed the evening blowing smoke-wreaths aloft, be- tween lines, while writing a hat-full of farewell letters. The next day I spent, principally, in looking in upon my acquaintances to let them laiow that they were about to miss me for a season, and in making a few purchases for my valise and portfoho. When 254 A TRIFLE THE WORSE FOR IT. I had paid the last bill I mentally calculated that, allowing, say, a week in England, I would land in Paris with something over one hundred dollars ; which would keep me alive three or four months, anyhow. At nine o'clock, precisely, on the following morn- ing I shook a spray of raw mist from my hat and sent up my card to Mr. "Wintercross. He received me in bed, a trifle the worse, he said, for having been out with the "boys" since I saw him. He told me to empty the larger of two trunks that I would find in the next room, and pack into it the ar- ticles lying folded on the table, chairs, and lounge. Before I had carried out these directions he joined me, in dressing robe and slippers, and continued the stowage. When I had handed him the last article and drawn the last strap, he bade me order his breakfast sent up from a neighboring restaurant, and return with a carriage in one hour — all which instructions I obeyed faithfully, before noon, in an unpleasant drizzle. " To the Brevoort House," said my master to the hackman, as the latter pitched up the last little box and reached for the reins. After a detention of ten or fifteen minutes at the Brevoort, we proceeded to an importing house in SOLVING A MYSTERY. 255 Broad street, where an outlandish looking wicker hamper was added to the top-load of the coach. Then we were driven rapidly to Pier 45, I^orth River; arriving just as the crew of the City of Chester were coiling down, preparatory to casting off. While stowing the light luggage in our stateroom I asked my employer to enumerate my duties, so that I might discharge them with intelligence and punctuality. He said he expected me to attend him constantly, especially at night, when I was to remain faithfully in the top berth and wake him, should it at any time seem proper. During the day, he would inform me whenever he wished any particular services. He then opened a cubical leathern convenience, which I had supposed might contain his armament, offensive and defensive, and producing therefrom a dark, square bottle and two plain, heavy silver tankards, proposed that we should drink to a quick voyage and a jolly one. Having ascertained that I had not deceived him in regard to possible temperance affiliation, he again filled, saying : ^' We will now pledge one more sentiment, if you approve it — " 256 ^N ORTHODOX TOAST " Here's to Beelzebub — damn him ! " " The same to his angels ! " I echoed, fervently. A DISGUSTED PASSENGEE 257 As the swirl of the screw at that moment began to agitate the timbers around us, I asked whether he was going up to have a last look at the Bay. He answered that he preferred to remember it as he had often seen it in sunshme, rather than as it would appear thi^ough such a beastly rain as that then pattering overhead ; but that as I was an artist and might learn something worth knowing by iin- dergomg the infliction, he would not consider me a maniac, provided I did not stay above board longer than fifteen minutes. Thanldng him for the latitude of the quahfication I went forward, through the smoking cabin, lighted a havana and ascended. It was a dreary afternoon, dark, saturating, gusty, and with every presage of what the sea dogs aptly call a dirty night. Castle Garden was already a blur, astern; and Long Island and Jersey land loomed dismally. Little was to be seen, over the bulwarks, and that little was not like anything that persons afflicted with the disease of morbid curiosity travel or suffer twice to see. About a dozen de- jected passengers were dripping in isolated groups of two and three among the covered boats and cunning cock-lofts of the after deck; and half as many others were scurrying in shivers toward the companion-way. Ugh! I meditated, as the noxious effluvium of 258 ROLLING ON THE BAR. damp tobacco began to pollute my tongue ; man is the only warm-blooded animal on earth that would choose this in preference to a dry cushion in the cabin. And with this reflection I followed the wise minor- ity, and finished my cigar while leisurely and com- fortably studying the physiognomy of the silent voyagers for some inscrutable reason congregated in the smoking-room. Of the half score none were smoking, until my entrance caused a tall, light- haired, handsome and remarkably well dressed man of perhaps five and thirty years to produce a large cigar and, after vainly tapping an inverted silver pocket match-box, politely ask me for a light. It looked like a good cigar ; but before its first, long ash fell he threw down the sweetest end of it and disappeared suddenly. He was followed at intervals by all the others, except a raw-boned, sallow gentleman in ill fitting black broadcloth, whom I set down as a Methodist clergyman traveling to renew his appetite for poul- try ; and a short, beefy, flashily dressed younger man, who, I decided, must be a hotel clerk on leave, or a commercial rover. The vessel, rusliing rapidly through the troubled waters of the lower bay, was beginning to moan and roll uneasily. CHAPTER XII. WING TO a rash vow made |when this pen began to chronicle events that would inevitably be diversified by sea- faring episodes, it will be necessary to drop the curtain over the first three days at sea, which were 'tempestuous ones. Hav- ing never fallen in with a descriptive narrative of amateur ocean travel that did not fondly yearn over one deep, stiiTuig emotion that usually stands out prominently among first impressions of the bounding billow, I swore by my beard, and the bare spot that is making h^oc of the scenery on the summit of my head, that this book should, at least, possess so much striking originality as could be compressed into a total absence of animadversion on the conventional topic. 260 THE MIEROR IN THE MAST. At an early hour of the third day of the voyage, according- to the astronomical fiction wliich, on ships and in observatories, requires the docile day to begin itself at noon, arrivmg late to luncheon I found the tables, for the first time, sociably full ; and I was un- folding my napkin, preparatory to requiting tardi- ness in dispatch, when turning my eyes to a bright something, which proved to be a mirror paneled in the mast around which the table before me was con- structed, I beheld in that luring reflector, looldng earnestly into my own in the oafish manner peculiar to glances so intercepted, the luminous, dark eyes of Ada. In a horrible shock my heart stood still ; and I sat dizzy, with a buzzing in my head, staring at the pale, startled, and therefore preternaturally carved image ; not doubting that I was exchanging astonished glances with an apparition. Even when the electrifying eyes suddenly dropped, and the exquisite mouth daintily opened to bewitch a fork, I stared at the spectacle, inert, — until another reflection, that ghosts do not often ^at in pubfic, jerked my heart into a rapid trot that miseated my appetite and threw me into a pitiable condition. Fortunately it was not an occasion of hearty or prolonged festivity j so no one but the obsequious PREPAEING FOR THE INEVITABLE. 261 waiter whom Mr. Wintercross had prodigally tipped, paid much embarrassing attention to my abrupt with- drawal from the table ; but the distress of that mer- cenary young man seemed almost equal to his amazement. Overcome by loss of appetite and an intense desire for solitude I hurried to my berth, to commune with myself, and prepare for the inevitable. After an miknown time my reflections were dis- persed by a knock at my door ; and opening I stood face to face with the well dressed gentleman who had lighted his cigar with mine three days before. He handed me a card hthographed " Y. C. Staefield ;" and then two others, one of them Ada's. " Those ladies," he said, " my wife and her sister, have recognized you and commissioned me to say that they will be pleased to see you any time after the siesta. And permit me, for myself, to say that I have heard of you often, and am very glad to meet you." I heartily grasped the frankly extended hand, and drew my visitor in, to a seat. A few minutes later Mr. Wmtercross walked in, and, on introduction, proposed that we should cele- brate the social commencement of the voyage by ex- orcising the spirit of the cubical bottle. 262 A MAIDEN, FAIR TO SEE. My master seemed impressed with the first glean- ings of the ensuing conversation, to which he con- tributed mainly by listening, apparently pleased to learn that his man was on good terms with a party represented by our guest. I gradually grew restless ; and was glad when the pair, the one having been a Colonel of Confederate cavalry, and the other being still an unblushing British sympathizer, became quite friendly. As soon as civility permitted I left them deep in discussion of the armed peace of Europe, and after a mouthful of inspiriting air on deck and repeated consultation of my Chicago watch, recently freed from a burden of debt in Cincinnati, I stepped below and sauntered toward Sandy Hook. I found her sitting on a soft-bosomed locker, in a tender, down-sprinkled light, with the latest Scribner in her lap. She met me quietly, with a firm clasp of the hand, and a high-bred self-possession that was forbidden to seem formal, by certain out-peeps of that frank friendliness which I remembered as her om- nipotent girlish charm. I thought she was a least bit handsomer than she had seemed in the morning sun- shine of October ', although pale, with a nebulous blur of delicately warm, fresh color playing around each fu- gitive ghost of a dimple that, since the days oi the Dar- ling, had stealthily haunted my heart and her cheeks. SWEET EEPEOOF. 263 For a few moments I was at loss how to speak or act. But when, after tellmg me that her sister, who was still sleeping, had charged her to detain me, she began to inquire why and whither I was expatriating myself, and to gravely reprove me for my elusive conduct since our last parting, her allusions to the past were so simply direct and ingenuous that I soon felt less like an outcast trembling in the presence of an angel, and more like a man basking in the beauty of a woman who had once pulled his hair, and almost smothered him in the wave-tangled meshes of her own. She imparted a little history of the emissary and paragraph inquisition I had so wonderfully escaped ; and I told her, in an ostensibly humorous way, how I had clambered and stumbled along, on the rugged foot-hills that surround the airy eminence of Art, di- vine. She seemed pleased with the trifling yet appreciable elevation in the world to which I had persistently attained, but censured me for turning my back on friends whose duty and pleasure it should be to make some of the roughest places smooth. On which I spake, and proclaimed my inflexible deter- mination never to permit mistaken theories of duty or pleasure to diminish in the least the lien chance had as- signed me, on her permanent good will and gratitude. 264: A POSTPONED DISCUSSION. At this she smilingly inquired whether it was chiv- alrous, or even proper, to treat her, as I had done at Yancil's Ferry, like a pauper ; and then heap outrage on the indignity by refusmg to let her treat me as an almoner and friend. Fortunately the opening of a door and appearance of her sister relieved me of the task of answering this straightforward question otherwise than by a hurried suggestion that we should postpone discussion of matters private and personal between us, until a more favorable moment. Mrs. Starfield renewed her acquaintance with me in a manner very soothing to feelings that had long been sensitively sore. And I enjoyed the ministra- tion so much that I unmtentionally reveled in it to excess ; or until I was reminded of proprieties by the tinkle of the preparatory dinner-bell. Hastily apolo- gizing for my unceremonious sociability I withdrew, to put myself in order for stealthy contemplation of the mirror in the mast. That evening, the weather being perfect, most of the passengers assembled in groups on the upper deck ; the merriest of which was that of five persons seated between the cabin sky-lights, under the stayed spanker-boom. And the life of that little party was a young person who appeared more lovely than ever THE WAYS OF A PEETTY WOMAN. 265 in the mellow moonlight, and whose vivacity seemed much stimulated by the drolleries of an elderly invahd who anon affirmed that a little more mirth distilled from that salt moonshine would surely either kill or cure him. From the moment that Colonel Starfield brought Mr. Wintercross aft and introduced him, Ada left me to the compassion of her sister and the former gen- tleman, addressing all her consummate art to the en- thrallment of the elderly Lothario ; entangling him in a barefaced flirtation which she audaciously elab- orated in a promenade of much circuitous length, around the mizzen-mast and sky-lights. And later, during some sleepless hours, I puzzled over that vol- atile conduct, until I dropped asleep, while vainly trying to dismiss the matter from my mind and trace forward the new thread the Fates were spinning into my destiny. The days that swiftly followed were so like, in their delicious monotony, that I will not hazard enlarging on the only variety I f omid in them ; a variety by which the engaging damsel at one time would qualify me to swear that she was the one entirely amiable and modest maid among a thousand • and at another time would instigate me to profane reflection that she 266 A STARTLING ANNOUNCEMENT. was a more heartless, unblushing jilt than Albion's royal Virgin. Under influence of one of the latter moods I retired a little early to my berth, one evening ; disgusted with a promenade then at full swing, in mid-ocean, about a foot away from me, immediately above my head ; and wishing I might live one windy, eventful night over again, for the sole purpose of having a few mo- ments' cool conversation with the young gentle- woman. As I thought how ironically I would ask her what amount of mortal risk the life of a flirt was worth, anyway, I chuckled so grimly and audibly that Mr. Wintercross, who just then unexpectedly stepped in, exclaimed : ^^ Hello, runaway ! I thought you were asleep by this time. What in the dickens are you lying up there, laughing at? " " I am laughing," I like a hair-trigger responded, " at that touching remark of Miss F , about her veneration of everything ancient and English." " Heard that, did you, you young villain? "Well, why didn't you wait a little longer, and hear the witch cozen me into promising to exchange pictures with her?" "Exchange pictures ! " I gasped, starting up, and bumping my head excruciatingly. AN ENLIGHTENED JESTER. 267 *^Fact, by Jove!" caroled the old beau; "and then she coolly informed me that, having used up her supply of cabinets before sailing, she intended to sit for her portrait to the artist on board, and expected me to do hkewise." "And what did you say to that? " * ' I said that she should not outdo me in the ex- travagance of a present, though I had no doubt she would distance me in the little matter of sitting to the artist." "Mr. Wintercross," I said abruptly, "you are a big-hearted man, and I will tell you somethmg : I am, as you know, a poor devil ; and that young lady belongs to a high-headed family. I once offended her, past forgiveness, by wounding her pride of caste ; and the next time I met her there was a burning wreck, from which I got her to the shore, through three miles of chilly water. This will explain the kindness with which I am treated by the party." " ]S^ever mind, my lad," whispered the enlightened jester, gently ; " she is a sound-tempered, clear- witted girl, and I will make the beastly blunder all right to- morrow." On the port quarter, just off the rail and aft of the arc of the spanker-boom, a boat hung at its davits, securely griped to the rail, and open, to dry its can- 268 AT SEA IN A BOAT. vas housing after the gale. Bemg something of a knotter and splicer I, with one fall of the boat-tackle and some tarred rope-yarn, to the astonishment of the captain, rigged a short shroud of four ratlines, from the rail to the stern-sheets. On this firm, miniature ladder Ada, with my help- ing hand, easily ascended into the boat ; and there, by sufferance of the gallant skipper who was as wax in the hands of his fair passenger, I passed a goodly portion of the last half of the voyage, studying the sunsets and sea scenery and falling more hopelessly in love than ever with the sweetheart of my boyhood. And here let me record the fact that the immense majority, who look back on " Love's young dream" self-pityingly, as they do upon the whooping-cough and ear-ache, never having renewed the youth of that first love in maturer years, may well pity them- selves — for having lived, as far as any knowledge of love's sweetest ecstacy is concerned, in vain. Those were golden hours, passed between two worlds, amid the smiling elements, with the being who as girl and woman would equally have made the barest bit of space an elysium to me — hours too bright not to be fleeting, and too precious not to be hoarded, and told over with miserly exactitude, when swept by time into the treasure-house of memory. LAND HO! 269 One delicious June afternoon the captain, with his wonted impressiveness, informed the passengers at the dinner tahle that the ship had, at meridian, completed a day's run of 368 geographical miles ; at which rate, according to his splendid observation, we ought to weather Lands' End and sight the Irish coast before dark. I was so incensed at Erin, and all terra fir ma ^ that I felt persuaded I would not lift a finger to save them from another deluge. And to add to my disquietude, Ada, who had been so like her old, girlish self since I began my two sea-background portraits, seemed suddenly less frank and companionable than she had ever been before upon the ship. As soon as politeness permitted after dinner, I sent a note to her, asking if it would be agreeable to her to pass the hour of sunset once more aloft. I awaited the result with anxiety, for during the last three meals my eyes had vainly lingered for hers in the mirror, a trysting place another, doubtless, had, at last, discovered. But to my great relief she quickly answered, assenting ; and I took her out of the noisy cabin, to the after deck • away from the popular lounging places, into the eyrie in which I had studied her fine face and womanly completeness of figure for so many unstinted hours. 270 IN THE SUNSET GLORY. Having placed her comfortably, where the cloud- sifted sunset glory illumined her to my satisfaction, and so that she could recline in perfect safety against the taut tackle of the forward davit, I said : ' ' It will be too late to-morrow ; so I wish you would tell me, now, why you have changed so since yester- day." She sat, holding her left hand in her right, silent and still ; looking over the blue, heaving sea ; through the low, level sunshine ; across the glowing bars of the horizon. One minute ; two ; three ; went slowly between us, over into the insatiable past; and yet she did not speak or stir. Then I stood up, and griping a rope until the hemp complained, slowly continued : ^' It is, as you know, possible for me to hold life cheap in your service. Tell me what I can do to serve you ; and, then, if I falter, heap glaciers of re- serve on me." She moved her lips for a moment, uttering no sound ; then she turned her face away and buried it in the running ropes that rose rigid from the ring- bolt. And the rough cordage sparkled with rolling tear drops. " Miss Ada ! " I groaned, sitting down on a cross- BETWEEN TWO WORLDS. TESTIMONY OF TEAES. 271 guy, close beside her; ^'will you not speak to me? " The tackle shivered slightly for some seconds, and then she sobbed : ' ' Yes — But — I — I am unhappy and you can not help me — I — I can not tell you." "Listen," I said, instinctively clutching a fold of her dress and firmly holding it, as if to prevent her from escaping from me into the lambent sunset ; '^ there is just one day left, and if chaos is beyond it, for God's sake, let us be for that day as we were yes- terday." I waited patiently while she sobbed in silence, half- consciously following with my eyes the movements of a solitary sea gull that was glistening in the last sun- Hght, as it rose and stooped far away in the direction of the French coast. When she finally moved I looked around, and she met the look with a feeble smile and in an uneven voice asked : " When will you be in London? " I answered that I did not know, as it depended on how long Mr. Wintercross detained me, on an indefi- nite engagement for a week or two after our arrival at Liverpool. 272 BITTER-SWEET. ' ' Will you please let me send pa your Paris ad- dress? " " Hush ! " I exclaimed, peremptorily ; " that mat- ter has been settled often enough." *'But," she persisted, "he says there is a whole lot of money in his hands that belongs to you — the money I used at Van oil's Ferry, and interest on it." "That was thirty dollars," I answered; "and when I need it I will draw for it." " But pa says it's more — ever so much more." " I am not acquainted with your pa," I rejoined, attempting to smile incredulously, " but when you see him tell him I say he is a benevolent prevaricator." And thus we drifted into a ghastly imitation of the old light-heartedness, exchanging ghostly smiles over the melancholy fraud we were perpetrating, until it was time to descend to sujDper. That evening Ada chose to remain in the cabin ; and seeing that she was pressing a diversion against constraint, by occasional salhes from the piano, and that Mrs. Starfield intended to exhaustively enjoy the excellent instrumental and vocal music, I withdrew to my stateroom at an early hour. The last half-day of a trans- ocean voyage is never pleasant. In the bustle of preparation to separate, THE CASTLED CKAGS OF CARNARVON. 273 the friends so sympathetic a few hours ago are ab- sorbed in cares which odiously ignore the recent community of feehng and emphasize its ephemeral illusiveness ; and the little remnants of a peculiar so- ciability are rudely intruded on by mysterious appar- itions of those voyagers who enter their berth-rooms on one side of the ocean and, apparently, emerge from them only at the other. After I had attended to the baggage under my charge my friends were so engaged by similar re- sponsibilities, that I saw little of any of them until luncheon. A little later Mr. Wintercross and I once more escorted the ladies to the deck ; for telescopic views of the Welsh coast past which the ship was rapidly edging. Under the starboard bow the surf was bre'aldng on Holyhead, splashing up around the light-house; while abeam, a group of towers and a distant peak, which Mr. Wintercross pointed out as Carnarvon Castle and the tip of Snowdon, were dis- appearing behind the isle of Anglesey ; and astern, a fine prospect of mountains, towns, and castles was fast blending with a promontory which our cicerone said was the north headland of Cardigan Bay. I tried to revel in the sunlit aad novel panorama, but failed so utterly, that, after fleet hours of rapid scene- shifting, it was a relief when approach to the first 274 A CUSTOM OF THE COUNTRY. mooring in the Mersey brought the end — a few rap- idly spoken farewells and hasty shaking of hands. The home of Mr. Wintercross, whither we at once proceeded, was a fine old mansion in the suburbs, surrounded by a high stone wall that concealed all excepting a turreted roof and several acres of hand- some tree-tops. Perceiving that similar walls were much in vogue I asked, as we rolled through the mas- sive gate-way, whether their purpose was utility or ornament. My master laughed and replied that, as well as he could remember, it was only a custom of the country. He then handed me a sealed envelope bearing my address ; which he said a lady had handed to him for me, and which would reconcile me to the solitude of my chamber while waiting for dinner time. As soon as I was alone I tore open the enclosure and found within it the following communication : At Sea, June 13tli, 1875. Mr. , Dear Sir : — I have anxiously considered whether I might leave this letter nnv^ritten, wishing my judgment would assent to that ; but have been unable to view this task otherwise than as an unpleasant duty which should not be evaded because of my reluctance to perform it. It is distressing to me to approach the subject, and especially so, to communicate with you in what you may deem an ungracious spirit; but I will try to acquit myself so that you will, on reflection, understand that it was as painful to me to write these lines as it may be to you to read them. A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 275 I am sure that you are f oud of Ada ; and I fear she is not insensible to influences that your past and present conduct place around her. This gives me much concern, because she is now under my care ; and the same considerations which, I know, powerfully influence her, compel me to com- bine the utmost frankness with the kindest flrmness in saying that I can not countenance the imprudence beyond this ship. In my responsible position I must view the matter wholly from her standpoint, leaving your feelings out of the question, except as they are necessarily involved in possible consequences to her. Granting that your affections are involved, and that you may involve hers, to what consequences, if you abandon yourself to the temptation of such an unfortunate passion, does the im- prudence point? The alternatives to her must be, either the blight of a hopeless attach- ment, or the remorse of having sacrificed to it, in addition to much else, the happiness of those she has always loved. And I ask you, as a man whom I know to be chivalrous, is either of these alternatives the one you would deliberately select as your heart-offering to the woman you love? Hoping you wUl entertain these questions as loyally to her as I ask them ; and that you will never doubt that I, in common with my sister and parents, am and ever will be anxious to act towards you as earnest friendship, to say nothing of common gratitude, dictates, I remain, Very Sincerely, Your Friend, Lucy Starfeeld. When I finished the first perusal of this missive, I gave way to a hot desire to resent it in a few indig- nant lines — lines eloquent of the self-abnegation in which I had wrestled with my hopeless love for years ; and bristling with the fortuity of the ordeal in which I had, at last, struggled so vainly ; and barbed with the assurance that though born to poverty, I came of an humble, sturdy stock from which I inherited just 276 SECOND THOUGHT. SO much pride as would prevent me from ever marry- ing any woman in opposition to the wishes of her parents. But in a second perusal, while searching in vain for some unfounded aspersion on which to hinge other resentful phrases, I perceived the simple, ap- V(3S^2-^ojlj. v^\^- elo-t70|j- /©Vf' b)/A'ir^ MASTER AND MAN. 277 pealing candor and kindness of the letter. And when I reflected that Mrs. Starfield probably knew, as I had confessed it to Ada, how I happened to be on the Stonewall; and by I'eason of that precedent feared I might act rashly during the stay of her party abroad, I felt that she had ground for anxiety, and had only discharged a difficult and unpleasant duty as delicately and Mndly as the nature of the case per- mitted. Having convinced myself that it was a de- velopment of destiny with which I had no reason to quarrel, I carefully burned the two letters ; and after a few hasty preparations followed a footman down the broad stairway, and joined Mr. Wintercross in the dining-room, where we ate in lonely state. While I was unpacking, after the protracted meal, my master-host came in and told me he had just re- ceived a telegram that would take us to London on the following day; and under his direction I re- packed such articles as he wished to take with him. In this occupation, while turning over the contents of the larger trunk, I saw, to my surprise, the portrait I had rather hastily executed of him on ship -board. I natm^ally asked how it happened to be there ; and after laughing softly and quizzing me a little, he told me it was owing to a league and covenant. He explained that in the first fervor of the maritime 278 AN ARTFUL COQUETTE. flirtation Miss F had coquettishly unfolded a scheme of art-patronage, wherein he was to order two portraits, and she to pay for them ; and although he at once assured her of his entire willingness to co- operate on his own account, she, in order that I might have no reasonable grounds for dealing with the commissions otherwise than in a professional man- ner, insisted on carrying out her program of ostensi- ble exchange. The successful execution of this artful plot left her in possession of the other portrait, over which I had loitered and worked so faithfully. On our arrival in London, when I had seen Mr. Wintercross comfo-rtably fixed at Morley's, I went out to look at the town. Wishing to inspect it leis- urely, in my own way, I walked to Holborn Hill and thence, through Cheapside by way of the Temple and Somerset House, back to Charing Cross. That tramp satisfied me that I could not leisurely inspect all the strange places that seemed so familiar to me ; so to make the most of limited opportunity I com23iled a long list of the names that most readily put in vibration certain chords of sensibility within me, and then arranged with a cabby, by the hour, for those days when Mr. Wintercross, occupied with his own affairs, gave me half- holiday. HALF-HOLIDAYS. 279 After more than a week of this exploration my master began to speak of our return to Liverpool. Then I reminded him that my engagement was quite fulfilled, and urged my anxiety to get on, to my des- tination. With some demur, after two days' procrastination, he dismissed me ; and having put him safely, bag and bottle, on the train, I, in the same cab, trans- ferred myself and my valise to the Havre packet. CHAPTER Xin. OTWITHSTAKDrN"G a stif- fish breeze the trip was pleasant, especially after I had broken the ice of acqnaintance with one Jules Guenadon, a fat, jovial Frenchman in a conical, broad brimmed hat that seemed to slouch it- self diligently after a sly fashion over one or the other of his rollicking eyes, to lend a covert to the shrewd smile that was ever lurking in one of the four corners by nature set in order about the base of his promi- nent but extremely handsome nose. He was fat, al- most to oiliness, and yet there was no suggestion of grossness, corporeal or mental, in the mould of either his portly person or his intelligent, droll, attractive face. It was a comely, honest face, marked, without blemish, across the cheek by a scar which I at once recognized as the seam of a saber-cut, and which, I 282 A BONA FIDE BOHEMIAN. subsequently learned, was the souvenir of a Uhlan who perished at Sedan. When I ascertained that this magnetic man was a Parisian journalist — a hona Jide l^ohemism, whose lair lay in the Latin Quarter, I began to rise to the alluring baits of his manner and the absurd medley of French and English that issued fluently from be- tween his artistically clipped mustache and beard. It is probable that I did this half recklessly because I was anxious to escape from a reflection that had been disturbing me for several days; there being little doubt, as my Southern friends were due in London, that there had been recent personal communication between them and Mr. Wintercross. At any rate the intimacy progressed so rapidly that long before port was sighted it was arranged that I would follow the ex-cuirassier to a pension opposite the Garden of the Luxembourg ; and before the ropes were tightened he picked up his luggage, like my own planned with a war-got wisdom, and led me to the Station, there to begin to teach me how to journey with comfort and economy in France. It was late one July afternoon when we stepped down and out, into Paris — Paris ! the Mecca of modern art and neplus ultra of my hopes. My com- rade chose di, fiacre, and soon we were rolling through PAEIS! 283 the imposing boulevards, and past the Grand Opera, and the ruins of the Tuileries, and across Pont !N^euf , into alabjrinth of narrow, crooked streets, to emerge, at length, upon a busy thoroughfare and alight before a stately park and massive pile 3 when I again fol- lowed, down a shallow descent, into a small, cheerful cafe that burrowed under four stories and a mansard. I placed my vahse on the floor and myself in a chair, wliile my leader said something confidential and evidently flattering about me to a man shorter and fatter than himself, whom he soon formally in- troduced as M. Martin, the landlord; who at once insisted on sitting down with us at a small table, around a flagon of absinthe, opposite a partly open door through which I viewed portions of several snowy table-cloths and, near the remote wall, the whole of a starchy gargon who was flourisliing an astonishing loaf of bread about three inches thick and a full clothyard long, over an oval and tastily garnished table. Desiring to lave before the impending repast, I asked my friend Jules to conduct me to the inexpen- sive but comfortable chamber he had spoken of as lying on the first floor next his own. When we had ascended three or four flights of stairs I inquired how he computed the elevation. 284 VOILA! ' ' En descendant, mon ami, ze firs yon vrom ze sky, voila! " Throwing open a door he ushered me into what proved to be his own den, remarking : ' ' Mebbe ze savon an' wattare not een your cham- bre, aujourdui." And what a room it was. Gray-green walls, spotted in the curtained obscu- rity with dimly seen paintings, etchings and busts ; in the centre a long black-baise-inlaid tabe, rounded at the corners and strewn with pipes, pamphlets, books, writing implements, manuscripts, and such trifles as a mask with green goggles on it, a wicker-covered bottle, a bouquet, a flute, a cockscrew,. a box of bon- bons and a small lace-edged handkerchief. Three easy chairs, each of a different antique and seductive fashioning, stood about, on the pattern of a large, soft, faded rug ; and in a deep window-recess, behind a smaller, brighter rug, an infirm sofa reposed on three short, slender legs and a squat pillar built of sundry books. The bed was in a corner so dim that I first noticed it after I had almost fallen across the footboard, on my way to a ridiculous washstand that reminded me in the obscurity of a basin set on stilts. After a hasty toilet we descended half a mile or so, it seemed, to dinner, and took chairs that had AN EYE FOE BEAUTY. 285 been turned up for us at the oval table. There were about a score of eaters present, seven of whom were seated at our table. Why my friend preferred those particular seats I did not know. But remembering his omnipresent propensity for fun, I had my suspicion when, while stirring the pottage, I noticed directly opposite me a piquant fair one of uncertain age who, in addition to a mouth like a catfish, possessed a nose that curved and tapered to a climax gracefully, like the extremity of a handsome powder-horn, and also an eye that Ai^^^SfllW flashed about the table inces ^^^^p^m. santly, while the organ theo wMKi^^^ retically corre- sponding to it l^^^^fe/ ^^^ attentively fixed on me. .^^^H^^^^, Unable, owing to the persistent ^^B^^^^^^^fc composure of that steadfast ^^^B^^^^^^^mi ©ye, to swal- low the hot ^^^^^^^^^^^L soup, I coughed spasmodically, ^^^^^^^^^w ^^^^ requested M. Guenadonto the etb. P^-ss the wine. He was looking out of the slyest corner of his own most convenient eye at me, and slowly drawing his napkin across his mouth in a way that concealed what was occurring in the other expressive corners of his face. I filled a fair sized glass with vin ordinaire and 286 THE PICTURESQUE BOARDER. dispatched it at a blow ; after which mj courage rose and tempted me to attack Si fricassee and gaze further afield. To my left, beyond Jules, sat a small, dark-faced, slightly hump-backed, oldish man; beyond him was a younger man with sandy hair and a simian, freckled face, whose toilet was pitched an octave too high to harmonize with the background I saw at the other tables, which seemed to be composed of students and clerks of tradesmen. To the right of the Eye, as I next observed, sat a young man of rather picturesque appearance, ob- viously fond of salad, who was violently afflicted with reminiscences of Vandyck; for around a Yandyck face brown, Yandyck hair was carefully arranged, with Yandyck negligence, over a Yandyck collar, the corners of which disappeared in the sleeves of a Yan- dyck coat. Beyond this esthetic vegetarian, past two vacant chairs, my roving eyes were finally arrested by a vis- ion that it was equally impossible for them to pass or shun. Excepting only one, I thought I had never seen such a cleanly carved, harmoniously composed, bewildering face. It was of a type entirely yet rarely French. Black, luminous eyes ; a low forehead ; dainty but sti*aight and exquisitely moulded nose ; a A BEAUTIFUL CREATUKE. 287 softly rounded, oval, dimpled chm j black, rippling hair ; and a smooth, delicately bleached chamois skin without speck or blemish, warmed in the ear and cheek to a rich, fruity bloom. I ambushed my eyes behind a large bouquet that stood on the table near me, and from that covert bushwhacked this face, which belonged to a mature and shapely woman of about eighteen or twenty years — until the beautiful creature rose and floated out of the room ; after which I lost interest in the repast, and slid about in my seat until Jules tossed his napkin on the table and pushed his own chair back. As soon as we were comfortably alone in the upper regions I asked my entertainer who and what the charming young woman was. He exercised his stalwart shoulders, waved his hands in a gesture expressive of much scope, either of mind or else of matter, and luminously replied ; ^' Cela depend. She eez vat you call zhack of plentee trade — danseuse ; prima donna in ze opera bouffe ; sho f eegare in ze shop for deesplay ze belle costume ; amanuensis ; needle voman artistique ; and, sometime, modele. She eez one bonne, honnete femme, and haf ze name Estelle Lamont." " Does she live in this house? " " Yraiment ] you haf room ze door vis a vis." 288 A SIMPLE ATFAIK. " And you say she poses as model? " ' ' Sometime — for von belle f emme antique een drape — ze Eve, Helene, Cleopatre, et tout cela." "Do you know her well enough to — to introduce a friend? " "Ah, ha ! you vish alreddy to be acquaint ! Vel, eet eez one affair trez seemple. You are artiste ; she eez sometime modele — you take your carte and on- dare ze nom rite, Artiste Americain, and peen eet on ze door left to mine. She say, zis artiste mebbe he sometime vant modele — I shall like to no heem ; and she vil zen make you ze nod en passant." " Without any introduction? " "Oh, zat eez nosseeng. She eez bonne Bohe- mienne. Eef she like you, or vant beeznees viz you, she speek verra queek." Profoundly interested I plied Jules with questions as to the status granted by the Parisian code to a beautiful young woman combining in one person so many, to me, diversified vocations ; and after giving me a httle badinage he gravely informed me that there were in that great and gay metropolis all sorts of women in every sphere of life, but if any of them were entitled to cast stones at Estelle Lament, those who best knew the latter had not found it out. Said he : A FUNNY THING. 289 '^ Ze shame, vat you call ze modeestee, eet eez von fonnej sing. Some haf eet outside, vare eet git rub, and rub, til eet rub off ; but some haf eet, like ze yong duck haf penchant for ze puddle, eenside, een ze blood — zat sort of femme eez Estelle." I^ot to lose any time in forming the acquaintance of so interesting a young person I drew my chair up to Jules' table and cutting a piece of card-board wrote my name and title according to directions. I then went out and impaled it on the door opposite the room next to Jules. In two hours and ten minutes, by the small clock on Jules' mantel, fairy footsteps, heralded by a noisy clatter of diminutive heels, passed down the corridor and finally entered the door I had recently orna- mented. ^'All rite!" quoth Jules, chucklmg. " I^ow she haf eet, raon brave; and you shall see to-morrow." And to-morrow I did see. As it was already an hour past midnight I retired to my own chamber ; which I found was smaller than Jules', and more simply furnished, but on the whole neat, comfortable and sufficiently commodious. The west wall was manifestly a partition which if removed would convert Jules' room and mine into a long salle. It was neatly painted in some grayish neutral tint, 19 290 A NATIONAL TRAIT. uncertain in the candle-light, and banded at the top and bottom with a handsome gilt- an d-crimson car- touche border. The bare floor was smoothly waxed, and the sheets were snowy, and the bed elastically soft. The next morning I arose early and went forth for a stroll in the inviting grounds of the Luxembourg ; where I became so much interested in several things I saw that I returned to the pension very late to the first breakfast: when, with that genuine French po- liteness the arcliitecture of which perpetually fills the foreign mind with awe, M. Martin apologized for the deficiencies of the table, due wholly to my excessive dalliance with certain stone ladies of the Luxembourg ; and seemed overwhelmed with joyful gratitude when I magnaminously forgave him. He served me en gargon, himself ; and as he skipped about in earnest efforts to make life endurable to me, I eyed him critically between bites, concluding finally that his contrition was spontaneous if not altogether guileless. Having settled this matter to my satisfaction I went aloft prepared to make unlimited engagements for Eves, or Cleopatras, or anything that would as- sist me to forget the coy beauty of one woman in the full dazzle of less sequestered charms. Li this hu- mor I approached my apartment humming an aria from the latest London operetta — and ceased sud- A HOEEIFYING SURPEISE. 291 denly to be musical when in the subdued light of the corridor I saw and scented a small, fragrant billet, transfixed on my door with a black pin. I quickly wrecked the envelope and unfolded a dainty sheet, from which, after mnch perplexity over preposterous verbs and adjectives, I gleaned from the first three lines that the writer had received my card, and would call on me at eleven o'clock. My watch informed me that it then lacked just nine minutes to that hour ; and spurred by the thought, without wrestling further with French idioms, I shpped the note in my pocket and hastily began to jerk my room into some sort of order. As it was not so profusely encumbered with personal prop- erty as Jule's I, while debating whether it should be an Eve, Helen, or Lady Godiva, arranged almost everything to my mind before a gentle tap at my slightly open door summoned me thither in a grace- ful ghde I had acquired during my brief connection with the stage. Laying my hand upon the knob I drew it calmly past my diaphragm, and then recoiled like a long neglected, overloaded musket — for bow- ing and smiling in the door frame, and flashing her fascinating glances on me, stood the piquant virgin of the remarkable eye and nose a la powder-horn. I receded ; but the sprightly damsel followed me 292 THE WRONG DOOR. up, drew forth my card and in elegant French as- sured me that she was havmg the much grand pleasure to make of one brave American artist the acquaintance. I tried to participate in her urbanity, but the ef- fort was a transparent failure. In a cold sweat I clawed at my most available French and stammered that there must be some faux pas horrifique and sacre bleu malhereuse, as that card had been intended for the other young lady. The Eye flickered for a perceptible fragment of one moment ; then, true to the national trait, it politely smiled, backed out around my table, laid the unlucky piece of pasteboard thereon and then sailed away be- yond my vision. But after the door, with a vigorous click, closed on it I fancied I could feel the organ boring into the mathematical center of the middle panel, while its fellow described around it a scintillating circle. I also fancied I heard spasmodic gasping through the partition ; and rushing to see, I found Jules in a fit on the infirm sofa. When I had with some diffi- culty partially revived him I learned that, according to his opinion, I had impaled my card on the wrong door. " You disportive devil ! " I howled, throttling him *■ A FRIENDLY CONFERENCE. 293 until there was genuine gasjjing ; ' ' promise to in- troduce me before the moon rises, or VWpin you to the right spot, and show you a Yankee improvement on French practical jocosity ! " ''^ Mon Dieuf'' he gurgled, "Vat a greep you haf ! I vil ! I vil ! I shvare heem — !N^ow laissez moi breethe a leetel ! " "When we had both smoothed some of the mirth off our faces I laid my necessities and hopes before my companion, and asked him to help me ; as I knew he could and would, for Paris was a soft nut to Mm, and in the affinity of the Order we were already close friends, addressing each other on the shortest plan, except that, owing to the absence of W from his vernacular, he wasted some breath m calling me Yeal. He soon satisfied me that it would be hard to beat that pension, for comfort seasoned with economy; and as for schools, the Latin Quarter abounded with them, where such instruction as that of M. Fleury, or Cabanel, or Julien, or Jerome, and all else need- ful, were to be had for a monthly assessment of 20 to 25 francs. He said that M. Adolphe Tesson, the Yandyck day-boarder, was a pupil of M. Julien, in a class connected with the Ecole des Beaux Arts ; and we could question him. He bid me rest easy, 294 "VY FOR?" * as Paris was the Paradise of poor artists and mem- bers of the Brotherhood. '' Ze Eengleesh! " he exclaimed, " patron ze art viz von grand leebaralitee ; mais ze artiste Francais no go to London. An' vy for? Becoz he no zare eez not von sho for heem. 'No sare ! Een London he shall queek perish of faim; mais een Paris, eef he haf von beet art een heem, he eezy sell zee work of fue days for feefty, honderd, couple hondcrd francs." In his enthusiasm he exhumed an ancient easel from a closet, and showed me an unplastered but well lighted attic, just beyond my room, at the end of the corridor, saying he would answer for M. Martin, that I might use it as a private studio, whenever I pre- ferred it to my chamber, as a workroom. At dinner I perceived that the Eye had taught it- self to shun me ; but scarcely had I felicitated my- self on the discovery, ere I was thrown into a slow fever by the other one, that M'lle. Lamont was quietly and skilfully taking an inventory of my personal ap- pearance. No doubt, I thought, this fat rogue at my elbow has been telling her, God knows what, about me. It then occurred to me that the Societe Hippo- jpTiagigue had made horse flesh a staple Parisian viand, and that I had heard the Yicksburg "John- i V V \ "^ rK,^^99?:S^'^fm^'9-'tiSfii(^