Ten North Frederick

by John O'Hara

  Mike had laughingly turned down opportunities to become chief burgess of Gibbsville, county clerk, sheriff, register of wills, and other offices that were as high as some men could aspire. Mike, when asked to run for such offices, would always reply that his committee work was more important, which indeed it was. It was more important to the party, and it was much more important to Michael James Slattery, who did not want to be marked with an early defeat for a minor office. In the beginning, as soon as he got out of law school, Mike did work that demanded the qualifications of a moderately industrious office boy, not a man with a law degree. But he soon proved his ability and his dependability: a couple of times he was given sums of money to hand over to ward leaders. It was only a venial political sin to pocket some of that money on its way from the committee to the ward leader: but when Mike was given $400 to deliver to a ward captain, the ward captain received $400, not $375. There would have been no comment and no disillusionment if Mike had paid himself a $25 delivery fee, but he early showed that he was not a $25 man. The $25 men are indispensable, but they invariably remain $25 men, and it is worth a great deal to a political organization to find out who among their younger workers are above nervous larceny. The wiser old politicians were also pleased to note that Mike was not in any great hurry to go into the street-paving business or make premature demands for his share of legitimate county legal fees. The paving business and the receiverships came later, along with Mike’s partnership in an insurance firm and directorships on the boards of farseeing corporations. In the beginning Mike was content to wear out a lot of shoe leather and pay for it himself while building up what eventually became a personal organization without its becoming publicly identified as the Slattery gang.

  In his entire career Mike was never once indicted. No ambitious district attorney could ever have shown that Mike had handed a man two dollars for his vote. Mike did not even buy the barrel of beer for a volunteer fire company. The beer got there, and it was well understood that Mike had seen to its arrival, but he was careful to mask his connection with it. And of course it is not illegal for a citizen to slake the thirst of a group of unpaid smoke eaters; nor is it illegal for a public-spirited citizen to provide the ice cream and pretzels for a Lutheran Sunday School picnic; nor is it illegal for the wife of some such citizen to make an appearance at the African M. E. Church for the funeral of a popular waiter, and if she happens to be accompanied by her husband and is the only white woman present, she and her husband may be kindly remembered by the members of the congregation. (That particular funeral took place in 1915, and Mike might have attended it without political intent, since he was genuinely fond of Clarence Whitehall. Twenty years later the Slatterys’ attendance at a 1915 funeral was recalled by several important Negroes who were being invited to forsake the Republican party for the greener pastures of the New Deal.)

  There were men and women who availed themselves of Mike’s services while withholding approval of his activities, and among them were many members of what was always called the Lantenengo Street crowd. There were two things the snobs did not know and never could believe: first, that Mike and Peg were reconciled to their social status, and wanted social preferments only for their children; second, Mike’s activities as donor of ice cream and charitable intermediary were successful for one reason: he liked to do things for people. He was shrewd and perceptive and capable of ruthlessness, but he was also a man who took pleasure in administering kindnesses. He did many kindnesses automatically, instinctively, and without time for hope of reciprocal favors. On visits to the big cities he performed acts of generosity and kindness and politeness among strangers who could not possibly know who he was and whose only way of returning the kindnesses was to acknowledge them with the words, “Thank you.”

  He was also quite capable of killing anyone who hurt his wife or his daughters. By killing is meant depriving of life. Mike could and did use the telephone, tie a necktie, read the bass clef, speak French and translate Latin, explain the Dartmouth College Case, handle a pair of hackney ponies, understand the principle of the internal combustion engine, keep his temper, eat in moderation, outbox a stronger fellow, and observe all rules of personal cleanliness. He had come all the way with civilized man. But he was also quite capable of killing anyone who hurt his wife or his daughters. In all other matters he was tractable and sometimes eager, sometimes willing, to compromise. Moreover, he knew that about himself; his ability to size up other men began with a rather thorough understanding of his own personality, an understanding which in part was traceable to frequent examinations of conscience before visiting the confessional. Because of his awareness of his extreme concern for his family, he was carefully slow in adjudging offenders against their happiness or well-being. But when a man or woman was found guilty, Mike was thorough in his punishment. The negative fact that he did not commit murder was less valuable in an estimate of Mike Slattery than the unproven fact that he was capable of it.

  After Peg had begun to understand Mike’s fierce protectiveness, her discovery taught her to exercise caution in reporting slights and wounds. Mike did not always agree with her estimates of men and women, but he believed everything factual that she told him. Her lesson was learned in the second year of their marriage. They were sitting at home one evening after supper, and Peg, in her recital of the events of her day, mentioned, casually, she thought, a happening that had annoyed her. “ . . . I was buying the groceries and I had my arms full, and on my way out the door that Paul Tristram let the door swing on me and I dropped everything.”

  “He what? He let the door swing on you?”

  “Yes, it made me furious. I had to stop and pick up all my bundles off the floor.”

  “He didn’t even help you pick them up?”

  “No, he just looked at me.”

  “He knew he’d done it, though.”

  “Oh, of course he knew. I said to him, ‘What’s the matter with you, anyway?’”

  “And he could hear you?”

  “Sure, he turned around, and then he kept on going.”

  “He did, eh?” said Mike. He got up and put on his coat and hat and while walking to the door he said, “I’ll be back.”

  “What are you going to do?” said Peg.

  He did not answer her.

  He first walked to the north side of town, where he knew Paul Tristram lived. He turned the handle of the doorbell, and Tristram’s wife opened the door. “Hello,” she said.

  “Is your husband in?”

  “No, he ain’t. He ain’t in. I think he’s over’t the hose company.”

  Mike nodded and left. The Perseverance Hook & Ladder Company was three blocks from the Tristram house. Mike knew it well. He went upstairs to the social room, where there were a bar, a pool table, a poker table and chairs. Mike was not a member of the Perseverance, but he was greeted by the half-dozen men present, among them Paul Tristram. He went directly to Tristram and slapped his face. “You gotta learn some manners, Tristram,” said Mike. He then closed his fists and attacked Tristram with punches to the face and body, hammering him until he fell, and when he fell, Mike gave him a kick in the ribs. Mike for the first time addressed the others: “Let him tell you why I did it,” and left.

  It was not a fight; it was a beating. Even Tristram’s friends suspected that it was a deserved beating, although they could not be sure what had provoked it. If it had been a fight they might have felt called upon to take Tristram’s side, during the fighting and in the years that followed. But when a sober man goes to so much trouble to track down and punish someone who has insulted his wife, the sober man is given the benefit of the doubt. The incident may have cost Mike six votes, but no more, and it gained him that many among members of the Perseverance Company who until that time had had no feeling about him one way or the other.

  The story got around Gibbsville in three or four days. It annoyed Mike, and he kept it out of his conversati
ons by refusing to discuss it. But it remained a part of the Mike Slattery legend. It did not reach the ears of the ladies of the Gibbsville upper crust, although there was hardly a man in the Gibbsville Club who did not hear of it. Among them were some men who were just beginning to hear of Mike, and when they were told that it had not been a typical Irish brawl, Mike suffered not at all in their estimation. As to Peg, she cared little enough about what other women thought, and the incident embarrassed her not in the slightest. But it made her think twice before saying anything that might arouse her man.

  Opportunities to influence Edith Chapin were not often given Mike Slattery and he decided to create one. He considered the various men friends of the Chapins, immediately ruling out Arthur McHenry as too obvious and too close. Next in the friendly relationship—although a distant second—was Henry Laubach.

  Henry Laubach belonged to a family that was accustomed to hearing its name pronounced two ways: among the Lantenengo Street people, Laubach was pronounced Law-back. All other citizens of Gibbsville pronounced it Lah-bock. Henry belonged to the first generation to use the American pronunciation, which was considered less Dutchy. The family dated from pre-Revolutionary times and intermarriage had bred out most of the obvious German characteristics, so that Henry could easily have called himself Lowell and no New Englander would have disbelieved him on account of his cranial or facial details. Born the same year as Joe Chapin, Henry was literally a boy Joe had grown up with. When Joe went to The Hill, Henry’s family sent him to Mercersburg and then to Lafayette, where he was popular among the students, and Phi Beta Kappa. He worked for the golden key because his father, who had retained a few of the old German traditions, believed that a boy went to college to learn something. The key was satisfactory evidence of Henry’s obedience, and earned him a present of $2,000.

  Laubach & Company was a family firm, wholly owned by Laubachs and first cousins, which invested Laubach money and made Laubach profits; collected Laubach rentals, clipped Laubach coupons, and protected the Laubach name. The embossed letterhead contained no more than the name, in script, and the address, in Roman, and revealed nothing of the powers and activities of the firm or of the sub-corporations owned by Laubach & Company. It was not generally known, for example, that the firm was entitled to function as a private bank and agent for several steamship lines, rather more for the convenience of the firm than for the public. Visitors were not encouraged at the firm’s offices: the window in the main entrance had the firm’s name, the word Private, and the request, Please Knock, to indicate the firm’s attitude toward casual callers. The firm was so set in its ways that when someone did knock, it was extremely likely that he had no business there, and was stared at accordingly by the officers and staff. Joe Chapin, Arthur McHenry, and a very few other men could drop in for business or non-business chats. But most men, including the Chapins and the McHenrys, were seen by appointment. Henry believed in his father’s motto that an office was not a Kaffeeklatsch. In the office of Laubach & Company there was not so much as a family portrait on the walls.

  Henry Laubach answered his own telephone, and when Mike Slattery asked him for ten minutes of his valuable time, Henry was already deciding how much financial support he would give the party before Mike hung up.

  Mike, as always, was punctual, arriving in Henry’s office at two minutes before three o’clock. Henry signaled to him to come to his glass-partitioned space.

  “How are you, Mike?” said Henry.

  “Very well, thank you, Henry. And all goes well with you, I trust?”

  “About as usual,” said Henry. He opened a mahogany humidor and held it out to his visitor. “Offer you a cigar?”

  “Never use them, Henry,” said Mike. “Never use them. No bad habits except politics.”

  “Well, I hardly ever indulge, myself, except after a heavy meal. I like a good cigar, but sometimes a week’ll pass without one.”

  “No doubt you must be thinking I’m a little early this year, Henry.”

  “A little early?”

  “For a campaign contribution.”

  “Well, it is a little early, isn’t it?” said Henry.

  “I’m squeezing in an extra visit because this time I’m not here to ask you for money.”

  “Well, it’s always a pleasure to hear that,” said Henry. “What else is on your mind?”

  “It’s a difficult problem, political problem. I know you’re a busy man, so I won’t take up too much of your time with a lot of beating about the bush.”

  “I’d appreciate that, but not because I don’t enjoy your company.”

  “Thank you, Henry. Well, it boils down to this: I have been weighing all the pros and cons, and I’ve come to the conclusion that we ought to try to persuade Joe Chapin to take a more active interest in party matters.”

  “Joe Chapin, eh?” said Henry. “Joe Chapin.”

  “How does that sound to you?”

  “Well, I know he never has been active in politics. But of course that’s no reason why he shouldn’t start now. His father never ran for office, but his grandfather was lieutenant governor. Long before our time, of course, but that was as close as Gibbsville ever came to having a governor. What I’m wondering now is why you came to me. Joe’s one of my best friends, but I don’t think I’d like to try to influence him in a matter of that kind. Granting I could influence him.”

  “This is the hard part, Henry, and I don’t want you to refuse me out of hand.”

  “Oh, I never do that. I always listen to whatever the other fellow has to say.”

  “Fine. Now don’t be surprised, what I’m going to say.”

  “Can’t promise you that, not knowing what you have up your sleeve,” said Henry.

  “All right, then. I believe you’re a cousin of Edith Chapin’s, are you not?”

  “Not a first cousin, but I’m related to Edith. You could say I was related to Joe, too, but I’m a little more closely related to Edith.”

  “And you and your good wife are friends of hers, are you not?”

  “Oh, yes. Yes indeed.”

  “Good. Good. Now here is where I need your help. I think—and I believe I’m right—that if her friends could convince Edith that it would be a good thing for Joe to take a more active interest in party matters, Edith could do the trick.”

  “Oh, I’m afraid—Mike, that’s the kind of thing I always stay out of. Family matters. No, that’s none of my affair.”

  “I’m not a bit surprised, Henry. I respect you for that, but I haven’t asked you to do anything yet, have I?”

  “No, but you’re going to, I have a feeling.”

  “For the time being, if the subject comes up, of Joe going into politics and if you believe it’s a good idea, will you tell Edith you think it’s a good idea?”

  “Well, I might do that, yes. I see no harm in that. But you’re going to want something else.”

  “You’re right, I am. If the subject comes up, and you tell Edith you think it’s a good idea, and she asks you any more about it, will you say to her, ‘Why don’t you ask Mike Slattery?’”

  “‘Why don’t you ask Mike Slattery?’ I’d have to think about that, Mike.”

  “But if she wanted to know, there’d be no harm in saying that to her.”

  “No, I suppose not. All right, I guess I could say that much without incriminating myself. If she asked me, it wouldn’t be sticking my nose in her family affairs. Yes, I guess I can do that much.”

  “I’d appreciate it, and I know it would be a good thing for the party. I’d also appreciate anything else you did that might influence Joe in the right direction. Men like you and Joe—”

  “Now, now, Mike! I won’t have you mention my name in any political connection whatsoever. I mean that.”

  “Henry, I wouldn’t think of it. I know exactly how you feel. That’s why I didn’t ask you i
n the first place.”

  “Just as long as you understand that. If you ever get me mixed up in politics, I’ll send my contributions to the Democrats, and I mean that, too. Joe’s a lawyer, and if he wants to go into politics, that’s his business. But not me. We want to stay anonymous. We always have, and we always intend to.”

  “I’ll respect your wishes to the letter, and thank you for these few minutes of your valuable time. So long, Henry.”

  “So long, Mike,” said Henry.

  Mike had no difficulty in respecting Henry’s wishes. He would have had, as he told Peg, trouble getting Henry elected dog-catcher, even if the Gibbsville table of organization had included the office. Moreover, dog-catcher had been an appointive, not an elective, office. It disappeared from the municipal table because for several terms nobody wanted the job. When the function was restored, in 1920, it was under the auspices of the Gibbsville chapter of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, with a full-time employee who was sworn as a special constable, but not as a public servant on the public payroll. Interestingly enough, one of the leading supporters of the Society, and thus a contributor to the dog-catcher’s salary, was Josephine Laubach, Henry’s wife. The dog-catcher selected by the Society was a man named Pierson, a distant cousin of the Howard Pierson who later married the Slatterys’—in 1916—unborn daughter. In a small town the most casual remark can have constant repercussions.

  The threat of Woodrow Wilson made for a revival of interest in politics that was somewhat stronger than the usual reanimation which occurs in a presidential year. Mr. Hughes, with his whiskers, made a lot of people think of Father; Mr. Wilson had the appearance of a man who had a schoolteacher’s switch hidden in the folds of his Prince Albert. Mr. Hughes was a Republican; but Mr. Wilson was a Democrat who had kept us out of war and who was not a horse to swap in midstream. Mr. Hughes was not in the least warlike; Mr. Wilson had sent the National Guard and Black Jack Pershing to the Mexican border, ostensibly to punish the bandits, but actually to train an army and to show the Central Powers that we were getting ready and would have no nonsense. But if we were having no nonsense, was it not time that we stopped sending Notes when our ships, flying our flag, were torpedoed on the high seas? Mr. Wilson was pussyfooting, keeping us out of war and hurrying us into it with his warlike gestures. There was no argument in favor of Wilson that could not be answered with the countercharge of inconsistency, and as the people of Republican Gibbsville turned out their lights they were able to go to sleep with the comforting knowledge that Mr. Hughes would soon take over and Woodrow Wilson would be politely banished to Princeton.