The Other Nineteenth Century

by Avram Davidson

  THE WITNESS

  [H. Nickerson, accused]: Debts which I had first incurred in order to keep my family whilst I was at sea a-hunting parmacety whales. Which trade I wish to my Redeemer I had never left off, nor settled ashore into another.

  THE CORONER

  [Mr. Salathiel Adams]: Best leave off such vain wishings. Where be my notes. Now, in regard to an electrical or magnetical engine of sorts. You worked on it.

  NICKERSON:

  Yes. He called it a radiatoring engine or such.

  CORONER ADAMS:

  The deceased freeholder was the sole inventor?

  NICKERSON:

  He and one other. I don’t know the other.

  CORONER:

  You merely performed mechanical work upon it as directed by the Deceased?

  NICKERSON:

  Yes.

  MR. SALTONSTALL, THE FIRST SELECTMAN:

  Had it been told you by the Deceased that he believed the said invention or engine might be of considerable use to this Nation in the event of a pretended dissolution of our Federal Union—

  MR. QUINCY SLOCUMB, THE SECOND SELECTMAN:

  Which must and will be preserved.

  THE JURY AND SUNDRY OTHERS PRESENT:

  Hear, hear! Huzzah! et cetera.

  FIRST SELECTMAN:

  A secession. Had you?

  NICKERSON:

  Yes. He said something about sending intelligence. Communications, an audible semaphory. Whatever that be. I didn’t much reckon what he meant. A trumpery music-box sort of thing, I reckoned it. The Negro pumped it like a church organ. I sot the fire to hide my traces.

  SECOND SELECTMAN:

  Were you prompted by those in favor of dissolving the Union?

  NICKERSON:

  No, no. I have never sot my hands to commit sedition nor treason.

  CORONER

  [Mr. Adams]: Then how come you to set your hands to commit a crime as most would say be almost as bad?

  NICKERSON

  (after some silence): Not having the fear of God before my eyes, I was seduced and instigated by the Devil.

  from Records of the Township of Tusquokum,

  100th Folio, 2nd Series, 1861 (2nd Quarter)

  Samoset Erastus Hale stood at his window. The weather vane was still and so was the strip of muslin which served as gage for lesser and more trifling breezes. Hale made a very slight sound. In weaker men it might have been a grunt; in far weaker ones, an oath.

  “Esau,” he called. “Esau, Esau.” Gradually his voice rose. Stopped.

  “Why, what is the matter with you, Esau,” a female voice asked below. “Don’t you hear Professor Hale a-calling of you? Why bain’t you already in his cabinet, or ‘office’ as some will say it? Esau? What? What? Why no, it is not neither the hour for midday meal, it lacks a full quarter-hour thereof, and you may be certain, Esau Freeman, that I will give you no midday meal if you do not get body, boots, and breeches up the back stair directly. Go now!”

  Feet were heard, laggingly ascending. Esau stood at the stairhead by and by, with hands at sides and lower lip outthrust.

  “Time passes,” said Professor Hale. “Time passes. To work, Esau. Connect the wires to the lightning rod, as thee calls it. Good. Pump the engine, now. Pump the engine.”

  “Some people think that I am a mere beast of burden,” Esau said. “I say, some people thinks I be a mere beast of burden. Am I not also a man and a brother? I asks, am I not also a man and a brother? I asks—”

  Professor Hale’s features did not shift. “Thee is not a mere beast of burden,” he said. “Thee is also a man and a brother, Esau Freeman. And as a man and a brother, thee must work. Also. Does thee not see that there is no breath of air to turn the windmill? Does thee not see that I am twisted with age and infirmity? Does thee not know this, without seeing? Get thee to the pump, Esau Freeman.”

  “Directly.”

  Nothing in the back room where Professor Hale had his engine was in the least gaudy or worldly; everything was solidly wrought and of the best substance, though some of his natural history equipment was certainly most curious. Hale thrust out his stick and opened the double doors of the large polished maple-wood box which housed the mysterious engine; the engine itself, behind the doors, was concealed by a stretched-taut cloth on the face of which was embroidered, THERE IS NO SPEECH NOR LANGUAGE WHERE THEIR VOICE IS NOT HEARD. A creaking sound began, died away.

  “I doesn’t like this work,” Esau said. “I ben’t used to it. I doesn’t like them huge cylinders as drips acid sometimes. I doesn’t like them spook voices. I doesn’t like—”

  Hale’s gnarled hands moved on his walking stick. “Thee will become used to it if thee does thy duty as befits a man, Friend Freeman. And as for like, why, what has like to do with life? Has thee not heard Professor Longfellow say with his own lips that life is real, life is earnest? I swear no oath, as thee well knows, but I assure thee, Esau, that if thee does not directly commence to pump I shall directly commence to prod thee with my walking stick, even as my own father did me, for my own good, when I dallied, which was not often. Pump.”

  In the cabinet, or office, the bitter reek of chemical substances mingled with the smell of furniture polish, the scent of slightly damp wood and slightly damp plaster, the smoke from the Franklin stove, and a whiff of cinnamon and clove from the downstairs kitchen of Emma Coolidge, who was baking the pie for tomorrow’s breakfast.

  Esau’s mutters continued, but so did his pumping. By and by a crackling sound came from behind the taut embroidered cloth. Samoset Erastus Hale took out his pocket watch, looked at the grandfather clock in the corner. A small bell sounded, somewhere else.

  “I wun’t do it! I wun’t do it! I be afeard of this irradiator magnet ingine.”

  Hale’s time-carved face moved slightly from side to side. “Thee speaks as one of the foolish people, not as one to whom I have given my word that he shall have my second-best broadcloth coat this coming First Day if he continue to work well. Continue pumping. Thee is working well. I am proud of thee.”

  Suddenly a burst of melody, as though from a Swiss music box, was heard behind the cloth covering of the great maple-wood chest-front on its sturdy legs. Esau gave a squeak of fear, thrust his head out from the other side of the strange engine. His eyes stared imploringly. But Professor Hale was looking at his watch. All at once a pair of voices were heard singing. As though automatically, Esau’s lips began to move. Slowly his head withdrew. His voice was now blended with those of the others, as they hailed Columbia, Happy Land.

  A moment after the song ceased a voice began to speak. “The President had audience this morning with the retiring Minister of the Two Sicilies,” it said. (“Popery,” said Hale. “Tyranny.”) “The President had audience this morning with Chief Red Fox of the Pashimauk Nation and with Captains Bobcat, Several Spots, and Medicine Wolf of the Up-River Tacsabac Nation. The President presented the Indian Allies with the customary silver medallions, and assured them—”

  “Stuff,” said Hale. “Graven images. Shining baubles. Gewgaws. What of their souls, Friend President? What of them, I say?”

  “I says so, too, but another thing I doesn’t like is that them voices is never respectable, they never gives you a civil answer no matter what you may ask, Friend Professor Hale, does—”

  “ … first-chop hyson is down one cent,” the voice declared. “First-chop first gunpowder stays stable at four and one-half cents. At the haymarket, well-cured hay is down one quarter of one cent, with sufficient supplies coming in from the country districts. Sassafras continues strong, as does summer-strained whale oil at one dollar, with winter-strained oil asked for at one dollar and a quarter of a dollar but not available. Sea-island cottons including nankeen or slave-cotton—”

  Samoset Erastus Hale’s hands again shifted on his cane. “‘ … no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name,’” he murmured.

  Esau implore
d, “Oh, Friend Samoset Erastus, please don’t talk mention of the number of the beast, for it—”

  Implacably the other voice continued, “In Richmond, prime men field hands fetch $1100 as per report of the magnetic telegraph, while the same fetch $1300 in Montgomery. In New Orleans—”

  Esau said nothing whatsoever, but Professor Hale said “‘My heart shall cry out for Moab; his fugitives shall flee unto Zoar.’”

  By and by the voice stopped speaking. A throat was cleared. Then the voice, in a different tone, said, “That’s all on the paper.”

  Another and an older, a much older and much weaker, voice said, “Then that is all for today.”

  “Then I’ll have my dollar.”

  “I am getting it, Mr. Booth. Be patient.”

  “Patient? I think I am patient. I come here three times a week and sometimes there is a brief dramatic recitation and sometimes we accompany the music box in a song and whatever you have written I always read into the pipe, very patiently, but I’m blamed if I understand.”

  Was there a sigh from … somewhere? “The time will come, sir, when I trust you will understand. In the meanwhile, you are not being paid because you understand but because you have a strong, clear voice, as befits an actor. And here is the dollar. Thank you. I will see you on Monday.”

  “Monday.”

  A door was closed, but not in Professor Hale’s back room. The very old voice said, and it was difficult to hear it against the background of crackling sound, “Professor Hale, if you are listening, kindly note the time and quality of the speaking.”

  Professor Hale was already noting it in a small, leather-bound book. After a moment or so the very old voice resumed speaking. Hale leaned close and cupped his ear. “In two weeks I hope to take the train of cars and meet you in Philadelphia, as planned. We have much to discuss. I am not feeling well these days, not at all, but I trust that a merciful Providence will spare us both to complete the work on the irradiodiffusion machine, as I am increasingly confident it may be of much service to our nation in the dark times ahead which I foresee. Though you may not agree.”

  Hale said (to whom? perhaps to Esau) that he did agree, indeed. But still hoped the machine would be used “Mainly for spreading the Gospel of the Peaceable Kingdom, as well as for mercantile intelligence, especially for such as dwell where there is no telegraph office.”

  The old voice spoke for about a half-minute more, but it was no longer possible to make out more than a word here and there through the continuous crackling sound. “Needs more work,” Hale said. “Needs more work. Must speak to Mechanic Nickerson when he comes with my money.” As he finished saying this, a sound came clearly over and through the crackle, as though a small signal-bell had been struck.

  “Can I stop pumping now, Friend Sir?”

  “Thee may stop now, Friend Esau.” A sigh of more than mere relief came from behind the big box on legs, and Esau stepped forward. “Thee has done well, Friend Freeman, and may go to get thy midday meal, not forgetting that tonight is a school night.” Samoset Erastus Hale had stipulated that his hired boy must continue in learning as a condition of employment; one third of the expense he bore himself, one third came from Esau’s wage, and the Whipple school discounted one third more. Esau declared later that Hale had said nothing more on that occasion. More concerning this entire conversation, later.

  (The entire conversation has been principally reconstructed, though with difficulty, from the evidence—some of it hearsay—subsequently provided by Schoolmaster Dwight Whipple and his two sons, as well as from Esau’s own testimony, though, of course, Emma Coolidge was not silent.)

  Esau declared later that Hale had said nothing more on that occasion. Hale, to be sure—Someone came and visited Hale that night and quarreled about a debt and when someone left Hale did not leave with him. No eye saw for a while what else was left behind as it crept here and there, silently and uncertainly at first, then leaping forward with a great roar. The papers, purposely scattered, went first, then the well-polished furniture and the philosophical equipment and then the walls and floors. No one saw vanish into flames the sampler-like embroidery with the citation from the Psalms which covered the front of the engine behind its paneled doors, and no one saw the melting of the copper wiring and the aerial rod perhaps (though who can say more than perhaps … ?) not intended entirely to deflect lightning; no one saw the liquefaction of the battery of large cylinders and their zinc plates, and no one saw the acid vaporize. Every tangible evidence of what the engine, the “sending intelligence,” the “audible semaphory” and “trumpery music-box sort of thing,” “irradiator magnet ingine” and “irradiodiffusion machine”—every tangible evidence of what the singular-sounding device might really have been—was gone in the immense conflagration which brought fire fighters from ten townships roundabout. Details are to be found in the document entitled Office of the Coroner of the County of Mitchingham: Inquisition into the Death of Samoset Erastus Hale, a freeholder in said County.

  It was well for Esau Freeman that he had spent the entire evening at the Whipple school, as it was far from well for Hannibal Nickerson, Mechanic of Tusquokum Township, that he had (as was well-proven) called that same night upon Samoset E. Hale in the matter of the overdue note for one hundred and thirteen dollars. Nickerson wanted this extended. Hale declined. Nickerson showed a proper and edifying repentance before he was hanged, but the records do not show that he said, or was asked to say, much about the curious “magnetical irradiofusion machine” destroyed in the fire he admitted setting.

  The question of the identity of the “one other” still remains “unknown.” Both Professor Bell and Mr. Edison have recently [1883—Ed.], and entirely independently, made investigations, but have not been able to find whomever it may have been in Washington City and with whom S. E. Hale was concerned in the perhaps joint invention. Still, we must ask ourselves, Who was this person of mystery, allegedly there at that time? A fragment from the correspondence of General W. Scott refers to “Cranky old Smith and his talk of Message Injines to run without wires,” but as the facts seem to be that there can be no such engine, the reports purporting to describe one man or one hundred men can after all be nothing but phantasies, however ascribed, and it is vain, were it possible, to seek for any “Smith” among multitudes. What we have collected and placed in apparent order here must be a fiction, tastefully tricked out to while away the dull night moments when the outside world cannot divert.

  It is certainly true that some doubt has been cast upon parts of the testimony of both the hired man Esau Freeman and the housekeeper Emma Coolidge, these parts seeming (until not long ago) so very improbable, even phantastical; but it is unlikely that anything further will ever be learned. Emma Coolidge was drowned at sea six months later whilst returning from a visit to Nantucket. Esau Freeman (who it will be remembered was not subject to the draft) fell in an attack by Rebel sharpshooters upon United States Colored Troops in the course of a nameless skirmish somewhere in the Carolinas during the year 1865, in the month of April. May the dogwood and the crepe myrtle gently drop their fragrant flowers upon his grave.

  AFTERWORD TO “THE ENGINE OF SAMOSET ERASTUS HALE, AND ONE OTHER, UNKNOWN”

  This late Davidson gem, concerning a vanished technology considerably in advance of its time, works with characteristic misdirection and uncharacteristic concision. We might call the “irradiodiffusion machine”—created in early 1861 for the purpose of “spreading the Gospel of the Peaceable Kingdom, as well as for mercantile intelligence”—a radio. But the surviving witnesses to the fire in which inventor and invention perished have no such vocabulary to draw upon. Where R. A. Lafferty’s television story “Selenium Ghosts of the Eighteen-Seventies” employs a baroque narrative of duplicity succeeding treachery, Davidson’s story seems terse and straightforward—at first. Hale might be communicating across the aether, or perhaps he is simply muttering to himself.

  In the story’s final three paragraphs, D
avidson cites the names Bell and Edison to send further ripples of historical suggestion that linger in memory. He undercuts the narrative we have just read, creating a sudden leap in time from 1861 to 1883, and pointing to flaws in the evidence and the death long ago of all parties directly connected with the curious events.

  —Henry Wessells

  BUCHANAN’S HEAD

  Grant lived in sin with a buxom shrew; Tumbleton was in effect director of a privately endowed museum. After Eustace Williams had somewhat slightly recovered from his second nervous attack, Doctor Douglas McFall told him straightforwardly that he must give up the cottage-studio. He told him this in the presence of Williams’s friend Tumbleton and Grant, who had come down with McFall from town on the 9:15; and of his friend Harrison, who had already been staying with Williams in the country since having learned of the attack. The sick man’s condition was of such a nature that he required and would (for a while, as yet to be determined) require constant medical attention; and McFall, regardless of the fees, could not constantly be coming down to attend him; other medical men in the neighborhood of Troy Barns there was none. The cottage-studio stood nearer to two miles from the station than not. Sometimes there was a dogcart waiting, or a trap; more often there was not. The weather was unpredictable: McFall could neither be expected to burden himself with mackintosh or oilskins nor risk exposure to pneumonia as an alternative. Troy Barns was an out-of-the-way and brutish place, no neighbors for a full mile in any direction, and the sullen groom who acted as manservant could not be expected to prepare decent food if such were always available, which was not the case; upon neither the butcher’s cart nor the baker’s could one rely. McFall wound up this speech from, as it were, the throne, by saying he wondered Williams had not died of scurvy by now.