CHAPTER XIX.
THE CERTIFICATE CONCERNING PITMAN'S HAIR--UNENDURABLE PERSECUTION--A WARNING TO MEN WITH BALDHEADED FRIENDS--AN EXPLANATION--THE SLANDERER DISCOVERED--BENJAMIN P. GUNN--A MODEL LIFE INSURANCE AGENT.
I have been the victim of a somewhat singular persecution for severalweeks past. When we came here to live, Judge Pitman was partially bald.Somebody induced him to apply to his head a hair restorative made by aChicago man named Pulsifer. After using this liquid for a few months,the judge was gratified to find that his hair had returned; and as henaturally regarded the remedy with admiration, he concluded that itwould be simply fair to give expression to his feelings in some form. AsI happened to be familiar with all the facts of the case, the judgeinduced me to draw up a certificate affirming them over my signature.This he mailed to Pulsifer. I have not yet ceased to regret the weaknesswhich permitted me to stand sponsor for Judge Pitman's hair. Of course,Pulsifer immediately inserted the certificate, with my name andresidence attached to it, in half the papers in the country, as adisplayed advertisement, beginning with the words, "HOPE FOR THEBALDHEADED; THE MOST REMARKABLE CURE ON RECORD," in the largest capitalletters.
I have had faith in advertising since that time. And Pulsifer hadconfidence in it too, for he wrote to me to know what I would take toget him up a series of similar certificates of cures performed by hisother patent medicines. He had a corn-salve which dragged a little inits sales, and he was prepared to offer me a commission if I would writehim a strong letter to the effect that six or eight frightful corns hadbeen eradicated from my feet with his admirable preparation. He was in aposition, also, to do something handsome if I could describe a fewmiraculous cures that had been effected by his Rheumatic Lotion, or if Iwould name certain ruined stomachs which had, as it were, been bornagain through the influence of Pulsifer's Herb Bitters; and from themanner in which he wrote, I think he would have taken me intopartnership if I had consented to write an assurance that his ReadyRelief had healed a bad leg of eighteen years' standing, and that Icould never feel that my duty was honorably performed until he sent me adozen bottles more for distribution among my friends whose legs were inthat defective and tiresome condition. I was obliged to declinePulsifer's generous offer.
I heard with singular promptness from other medical men. Fillemup &Killem forwarded some of their Hair Tonic, with a request for me to tryit on any bald heads I happened to encounter, and report. Doser & Co.sent on two packages of their Capillary Pills, with a suggestion to theeffect that if Pitman lost his hair again he would get it back finallyby following the enclosed directions. I also heard from Brown & Bromley,the agents for Johnson's Scalp Awakener. They sent me twelve bottles fordistribution among my bald friends; then Smith & Smithson wrote to saythat a cask of their Vesuvian Wash for the hair would be delivered in mycellar by the express company; and a man called on me from Jones, Butler& Co. with a proposition to pump out my vinegar barrel, and fill it withBalm of Peru for the gratuitous use of the afflicted in the vicinity.
But this persecution was simply unalloyed felicity when compared withthe suffering that came in other forms. I will not attempt to give thenumber of the letters I received. I cherish a conviction that the mailreceived at our post-office doubled the first week after Judge Pitman'scure was announced to a hairless world. I think every bald-headed man inthe Tropic of Cancer must have written to me at least twice upon thesubject of Pulsifer's Renovator and Pitman's hair. Persons dropped me aline to inquire if Pitman's baldness was hereditary; and if so, if itcame from his father's or his mother's side. One man, a phrenologist,sent on a plaster head mapped out into town-lots, with a suggestion thatI should ink over the bumps that had been barest and most fertile in thecase of Pitman. He said he had a little theory which he wanted todemonstrate. A man in San Francisco wrote to inquire if my Pitman wasthe same Pitman who came out to California in 1849 with a bald head; andif he was, would I try to collect two dollars Pitman had borrowed fromhim in that year? The superintendent of a Sunday-school in Vermontforwarded eight pages of foolscap covered with an argument supportingthe theory that it was impious to attempt to force hair to grow upon ahead which had been made bald, because, although Elisha was bald, wefind no record in the Bible that he used renovator of any kind. Hewarned Pitman to beware of Absalom's fate, and to avoid riding mules outin the woods. A woman in Snyder county, Penna., sent me a poem inspiredby the incident, and entitled "Lines on the Return of Pitman's Hair." Aparty in Kansas desired to know whether I thought Pulsifer's Renovatorcould be used beneficially by a man who had been scalped. Two men in NewJersey wrote, in a manner totally irrelevant to the subject, to inquireif I could get each of them a good hired girl. I received a confidentialletter from a man who was willing to let me into a "good thing" if I hadfive hundred dollars cash capital. Mrs. Singerly, of Frankford, relatedthat she had shaved her dog, and shaved him too close, and she would berelieved if I would inform her if the Renovator would make hair grow ona dog. A devoted mother in Rhode Island said her little boy hadaccidentally drank a bottle of the stuff, and she would go mad unless Icould assure her that there was no danger of her child having hisstomach choked up with hair. And over eleven hundred boys inquired whateffect the Renovator would have on the growth of whiskers which betrayedan inclination to stagnation.
But the visitors were a more horrible torment. Bald men came to see mein droves. They persecuted me at home and abroad. If I went to church,the sexton would call me out during the prayers to see a man in thevestibule who wished to ascertain if Pitman merely bathed his head orrubbed the medicine in with a brush. When I went to a party, somebald-headed miscreant would stop me in the midst of the dance to ask ifPitman's hair began to grow in the full of the moon or when it was new.While I was being shaved, some one would bolt into the shop and insist,as the barber held me by the nose, upon knowing whether Pitman woreventilators in his hat. If I attended a wedding, as likely as not abare-headed outlaw would stand by me at the altar and ask if Pitman everslept in nightcaps; and more than once I was called out of bed at nightby wretches who wished to learn, before they left the town, if I thoughtit hurt the hair to part it behind.
It became unendurable. I issued orders to the servants to admit to thehouse no man with a bald head. But that very day a stranger obtainedadmission to the parlor; and when I went down to see him, he steppedsoftly around, closed all the doors mysteriously, and asked me, in awhisper, if any one could hear us. Then he pulled off a wig; and handingme a microscope, he requested me to examine his scalp and tell him ifthere was any hope. I sent him over to see Pitman; and I gloat over thefact that he bored Pitman for two hours with his baldness.
I am sorry now that I ever wrote anything upon the subject of his hair.A bald Pitman, I know, is less fascinating than a Pitman with hair; butrather than have suffered this misery, I would prefer a Pitman withoutan eye-winker, or fuzz enough on him to make a camel's-hair pencil. ButI shall hardly give another certificate of cure in any event. If Ishould see a patent-medicine man take a mummy which died the year Josephwas sold into Egypt, and dose it until it kicked off its rags and dancedthe polka mazourka while it whistled the tune, I would die at the stakesooner than acknowledge the miracle on paper. Pitman's hair winds me upas far as medical certificates are concerned.
* * * * *
Bob has succeeded in obtaining from Mr. Magruder an explanation of theinterference of that stern parent with the progress of his love affair,and we hope now to secure a happy adjustment of the difficulty.
"When I entered the room," said Bob, "the old man looked gloomy andstiff, as if he regarded me as a totally depraved being, too far gone ininiquity to be worth an effort to effect a reform. I went right at him.I told him I had heard that some one had made certain charges against mewhich were likely to hurt my reputation, and that it was because ofthese that he had refused to permit me to marry his daughter.
"He said I had stated the case correctly. Then I asked him to give methe name of the pe
rson who had made these accusations. He hesitated fora few moments, and I then declared that the charges were false andslanderous, and asserted that I had a right to know who the author ofthem was.
"After thinking over the matter for a while, he said,
"'Well, Mr. Parker, I believe you have that right. I have thought latelythat I did not perhaps treat you very fairly in not bringing you face toface in the first place with the man who accused you. But I almostpledged myself to regard his statements as confidential; and as theevidence seemed to be overwhelming against you, I concluded not to offeryou the opportunity. Mrs. Magruder takes a different view of the matter.She thinks you should not be condemned without a hearing, and shedistrusts your accuser. His name is Smiley--Lieutenant Smiley.'
"Then the old man went on," said Bob, "and told me that Smiley hadsought a private interview with him, at which Smiley had declared that Iwas not only a debauchee, but an atheist. He made this statement, hetold Mr. Magruder, with reluctance and regret, but he felt that as afriend of the family he had a duty to perform which was imperative.Smiley declared that he had frequently seen me under the influence ofliquor, and that I had often attacked him for professing to believe inthe Christian religion. A splendid old professor of religion he is!"exclaimed Mr. Parker. "And then," continued Bob, "Mr. Magruder saidSmiley produced two letters, one from a man named Dewey who pretended tobe the pastor of a church in Philadelphia, from which he said I wasdismissed for expressing atheistical opinions, and the other from acertain Samuel Stonebury, wherein Samuel gave me a dreadful characterfor honesty and sobriety.
"Thereupon I informed Mr. Magruder that I knew of no clergyman namedDewey, and that I didn't believe such a man existed in Philadelphia;that I never belonged to any church, and certainly was never kicked outof one because of my atheistical opinions, for I never entertained suchviews. I informed him also that Mr. Stonebury was a youth who was onceemployed in our store, and who was discharged because I discovered thathe had been stealing. How Smiley found him I can't imagine. They musthave had a natural tendency to gravitate toward each other as childrenof the same old father of lies.
"Then Mr. Magruder said that if I could prove these facts he would notonly hand Bessie over to me again, but he would also make me a veryhumble apology. I promised to accomplish these results, and to-morrow Iwill set about the work. I have no doubt at all that Stonebury wrote theletter signed 'Dewey,' and that Smiley suggested that playful littledodge to him. I will move on Smiley's works when I meet him. He is thewickedest kind of a scoundrel."
And so the case of Parker _versus_ Smiley stands at present. I shouldhave a higher respect for Magruder if he had acted more justly with Bobin the first place. If Mrs. Magruder's instinct and common sense had notinduced her to regard Smiley with suspicion, I am afraid that Bob'swrongs would never have been righted. The doctor is evidently the wiserand better person of the two, and I am not surprised now that she keepsher husband a little in the background.
* * * * *
Some relatives of the Magruders named Kemper came to the village to livea few weeks ago, and they rented a house not far from mine. We have alife insurance agent in the town named Benjamin P. Gunn, and he isdecidedly the most enterprising and indefatigable of the fraternity ofwhich he is a member. He has already bored everybody in the countynearly to death, and it is easy to imagine the delight he feels when anew victim comes within his reach. The Kempers were hardly fixed intheir new home when Gunn, who had been awaiting with impatience a chanceto attack them, one morning called for the purpose of ascertaining if hecould induce Mr. Kemper to take out a policy of insurance upon his life.In response to his summons Mrs. Kemper came into the parlor to see him.The following conversation then ensued:
"I suppose," said Gunn, "Mr. Kemper has no insurance on his life?"
"No," said Mrs. Kemper.
"Well, I'd like to get him to take a policy in our company. It's thesafest in the world--the largest capital, smallest rates and biggestdividends."
"Mr. Kemper don't take much interest in such things now," said Mrs. K.
"Well, madam, but he ought to, in common justice to you. No man knowswhen he will die; and by paying a ridiculously small sum now, Mr. Kempercan leave his family in affluence. I'd like to hand you, for him, a fewpamphlets containing statistics upon the subject; may I?"
"Of course, if you wish to."
"Don't you think he can be induced to insure?" asked Gunn.
"I hardly think so," replied Mrs. Kemper.
"He is in good health, I suppose? Has he complained lately of beingsick?"
"Not lately."
"May I ask if he has any considerable wealth?"
"Not a cent."
"Then, of course, he must insure. No poor man can afford to neglectsuch an opportunity. I suppose he travels sometimes--goes about inrailroad cars and other dangerous places?"
"No, he keeps very quiet."
"Man of steady habits, I s'pose?"
"Very steady."
"He is the very man I want," said Gunn. "I know I can sell him apolicy."
"I don't think you can," replied Mrs. Kemper.
"Why? When will he be home? I'll call on him. I don't know of any reasonwhy I shouldn't insure him."
"I know," replied Mrs. K.
"Why?"
"He _has been dead twenty-seven years_!" said the widow.
Then Mr. Gunn said "good-morning," and returned to his office. The widowmust have told the story to some one, probably to Magruder, for it wassoon known all over town, and those who had suffered from an excess ofGunn gloried in his discomfiture. As this was the first time in hiscareer that he had ever been down, it is not surprising that several ofhis enemies should improve the opportunity by giving him a few vigorouskicks. The most venomous attack upon him, however, appeared in the_Argus_. It came, I think, from that remarkable medical man Dr. TobiasJones, who dislikes Gunn because he employs a rival physician, Dr.Brindley, to examine persons who apply for policies. He called thearticle
A LIFE INSURANCE AGENT.
His name was Benjamin P. Gunn, and he was the agent for a life insurancecompany. He came around to my office fourteen times in one morning tosee if he could not persuade me to take out a policy. He used to waylayme on the street, at church, in my own house, and bore me about thatpolicy. If I went to the opera, Gunn would buy the seat next to me, andsit there the whole evening talking about sudden death and theadvantages of the ten-year plan. If I got into a railway car, Gunn wouldcome rushing in and sit by my side, and drag out a lot of mortalitytables and begin to explain how I could gouge a fortune out of hiscompany. If I sat down to dinner in a restaurant, up would come Gunn;and seizing the chair next to me, he would tell a cheering anecdoteabout a man who insured in his company for $50,000 only last week, andwas buried yesterday. If I attended the funeral of a departed friend,and wept as they threw the earth upon his coffin, I would hear awhisper; and turning around, there would be the indomitable Benjamin P.Gunn, bursting to say, "Poor Smith! Knew him well. Insured for tenthousand in our company. Widow left in comfortable circumstances. Let metake your name. Shall I?"
He followed me everywhere, until at last I got so sick of Gunn'spersecutions that I left town suddenly one evening and hid myself in adistant city, hoping to get rid of him. At the end of two weeks Ireturned, reaching home at one o'clock in the morning. I had hardly gotinto bed before there was a ring at the door-bell. I looked out, andthere was Gunn with another person. Mr. Gunn observed that he expectedmy return, and thought he would call around about that insurance policy.He said he had the doctor with him, and if I would come down he wouldtake my name and have me examined immediately. I was too indignant toreply. I shut the window with a slam and went to bed again. Afterbreakfast in the morning I opened the front door, and there was Gunnsitting on the steps with his doctor, waiting for me. He had been thereall night. As I came out they seized me and tried to undress me there onthe pavement in order to examine me. I retreated and lock
ed myself up inthe garret, with orders to admit nobody to the house until I came downstairs.
But Gunn wouldn't be baffled. He actually rented the house next door andstationed himself in the garret adjoining mine. When he got fixed, hespent his time pounding on the partition and crying, "Hallo! I say! howabout that policy? Want to take it out now?" And then he would tell mesome more anecdotes about men who were cut off immediately after payingthe first premium. But I paid no attention to him and made no noise.Then he was silent for a while.
Suddenly the trap-door of my garret was wrenched off; and upon lookingup, I saw Gunn, with the doctor and a crowbar and a lot of death-rates,coming down the ladder at me. I fled from the house to the Presbyterianchurch close by, and paid the sexton twenty dollars to let me climb upto the point of the steeple and sit astride of the ball. I promised himtwenty more if he would exclude everybody from that steeple for a week.Once safely on the ball, three hundred feet from the earth, I mademyself comfortable with the thought that I had Gunn at a disadvantage,and I determined to beat him finally if I had to stay there for a month.About an hour afterward, while I was looking at the superb view to thewest, I heard a rustling sound upon the other side of the steeple. Ilooked around, and there was Benjamin P. Gunn creeping up the side ofthe spire in a balloon, in which was the doctor and the tabularestimates of the losses of his company from the Tontine system. As soonas Gunn reached the ball he threw his grappling-iron into the shinglesof the steeple, and asked me at what age my father died, and if any ofmy aunts ever had consumption or liver complaint.
Without waiting to reply, I slid down the steeple to the ground and tookthe first train for the Mississippi Valley. In two weeks I was inMexico. I determined to go to the interior and seek some wild spot insome elevated region where no Gunn would ever dare to come. I mounted amule, and paid a guide to lead me to the summit of Popocatapetl. Wearrived at the foot of the mountain at noon. We toiled upward for aboutfour hours. Just before reaching the top I heard the sound of voices;and upon rounding a point of rocks, whom should I see but Benjamin P.Gunn, seated on the very edge of the crater, explaining the endowmentplan to his guide and stupefying him with a mortality table, while thedoctor had the other guide a few yards off, examining him to see if hewas healthy! Mr. Gunn arose and said he was glad to see me, because nowwe could talk over that business about the policy without fear ofinterruption. In a paroxysm of rage I pushed him backward into thecrater, and he fell a thousand feet below with a heavy thud. As hestruck the bottom I heard a voice screaming out something about"non-forfeiture;" but there was a sudden convulsion of the mountain, acloud of smoke, and I heard no more.
But on the following Thursday an eruption began, and the first thingthat was thrown out was Benjamin P. Gunn, scorched, with his hair singedoff and in a profuse perspiration, but still active and ready forbusiness. If I should be killed, I verily believe Gunn would commitsuicide in order that he might follow me into the next world.
* * * * *
Of course this is mere burlesque and it is hardly fair treatment ofGunn. But I am gratified to learn that such ridicule does not hurt hisfeelings. On the day the article appeared he called to see ColonelBangs. The colonel apprehended an assault; and rallying his clerks andreporters around him, he seized a club and gave orders that Gunn shouldbe admitted. But Benjamin did not intend war. He grasped the colonel'shand; and after thanking him for such a handsome gratuitousadvertisement, he pulled a schedule out of his pocket and argued withBangs until the latter in despair agreed to take out another policy forten thousand dollars in Gunn's company.
* * * * *
We do not regard Lieutenant Smiley as a very entertaining person atpresent, and of course he is not quoted with enthusiasm. But during theprevalence of the excitement created by the victory over Pitman'sbaldness, Smiley related an anecdote bearing upon the subject of hairwhich combined instruction with amusement in a remarkable degree, and itmay be profitable to reproduce it here as an illustration of thedemoralizing tendencies of the red man.
During the recent visit of a party of Indians to the East, one of thenumber, Squatting Bear, was observed to behave himself in a veryremarkable and mysterious manner. He separated himself from hiscompanions on one occasion for several hours, and was then seenreturning dragging a huge Saratoga trunk behind him through the streetswith a string. When he reached his lodgings with the trunk, the otherIndians were puzzled. Some of them believed the trunk to be a model fora new kind of wigwam with a Mansard roof, while others conceived theidea that it was a patent bath-tub of some peculiar sort, and thatSquatting Bear, in a moment of mental aberration, had been seized withan inexplicable and unprecedented desire to wash himself. The souls ofthe savages burned with fiery indignation as they contemplated thepossibility of the adoption of this revolutionary, enervating anddemoralizing practice of the pale faces by the noble red man. But whenthey questioned Squatting Bear and remonstrated with him, thatincomprehensible brave merely placed his copper-colored finger upon hisburnt-umber nose and winked solemnly with his right eye.
The trunk was carried through to the wigwam of Squatting Bear unopened,and within the precincts of his home it was hidden finally from view,and was soon entirely forgotten.
In the tribe the brave who killed the largest number of enemies in anygiven year and secured the usual trophies of victory was entitled tooccupy the position as chief. Squatting Bear was known to have ardentaspirations for the office, and he worked hard to win it. For a whileafter his return he was always foremost in every fight; and when thescalps were counted around the camp-fire, he invariably had secured thegreatest number. Gradually, however, certain of the braves wereimpressed with the notion that Squatting's trophies sometimes did notbear a very correct proportion to the ferocity of the contest or to thenumber of the slain. Several times, after a brief skirmish in which tenor fifteen men were killed, Squatting would come sidling home with asmany scalps as there were dead men; and at the same time the otherwarriors would together have nearly as many more.
The braves thought it was queer, but they did not give the subject veryserious attention until after the massacre of a certain band ofemigrants which had passed close by the camp of the tribe. There werejust twenty persons in the company, and after the butchery severalIndians took the trouble to count the bodies and to keep tally with abutcher-knife upon the side of a chip. That night, when the scalps werenumbered, each brave had one or two apiece, but Squatting Bear handedout exactly forty-seven of the most beautiful bunches of human hair thathad ever been seen west of the Mississippi. The braves looked cross-eyedat each other and cleared their throats. Two of their number stole outto the battlefield for the purpose of counting the bodies again, and ofascertaining if this had been a menagerie with a few double-headedpersons in the party.
Yes, there lay exactly twenty corpses, and, to make matters worse, oneof them was a bald-headed man who, for additional security to his scalp,had run a skate-strap over his head and buckled it under his chin.
When they returned, the entire camp devoted itself to meditation andcalculation.
Twenty men killed and forty-seven scalps in the possession of a singleIndian, without counting those secured by other participants in thecontest! The more the warriors pondered over this fact, the moreperplexing it became. A brave, while eating his supper and reflectingupon the problem, would suddenly imagine he saw his way clear, and hewould stop, with his mouth full of baked dog, and fix his eyes upon thewall and think desperately hard. But the solution invariably eluded him.Then all of them would glide behind their wigwams and perform abstrusemathematical calculations upon their fingers, and they would get sticksand jam the points into the sand and do hard sums out of theiraboriginal arithmetic. And they would tear around through the Indianrule of three, and struggle through their own kind of vulgar fractions,and wrestle with something that they believed to be a multiplicationtable. But in vain. Forty-seven scalps off twenty heads! It seemedincredib
le and impossible.
They tried it with algebra, and let the number of heads equal _x_ andthe number of scalps equal _y_, and they multiplied _x_ into _y_ andsubtracted every letter in the alphabet in succession from the resultuntil their brains reeled; but still the mystery remained unsolved.
At last a secret council was held, and it was determined that SquattingBear must have some powerful and wonderful charm which enabled him toperform such miracles, and all hands agreed to investigate the matterupon the first opportunity. So the next week there was another fight, inwhich four persons were killed, and that night Squatting actually hadthe audacity to rush out one hundred and eighty-seven scalps, and to askthose benighted savages, sitting around their fire, to believe that hehad snatched all that hair from those four heads.
It was too much--much too much; they seized him and drove a white oakstake through his bosom to hold him still, and then they proceeded tohis wigwam to ascertain how that scalp business was conducted by theBear family. They burst open the Saratoga trunk the first thing, andthere they found fifteen hundred wigs and a keg of red paint, purchasedby the disgraceful aboriginal while in Philadelphia.
That concluded his career. They buried him at once in the Saratogatrunk, and the wigs with him; and ever since that time they have electedannually a committee on scalps, whose business it is to examine everyhirsute trophy with a double-barreled microscope of nine hundreddiameters.
Out of the Hurly-Burly; Or, Life in an Odd Corner Page 22
