Twelve Men

by Theodore Dreiser

  “As for you two,” he added, turning to us, but suddenly stopped. “Hell, what’s the use! Why should I bother with you? Do as you damned well please, and stay sick or die!”

  He turned on his heel and walked out of the dining-room, leaving us to sit there. I was so dumbfounded by the harangue our pseudo-cleverness had released that I could scarcely speak. My appetite was gone and I felt wretched. To think of having been the cause of this unnecessary tongue-lashing to the others! And I felt that we were, and justly, the target for their rather censorious eyes.

  “My God!” moaned my companion most dolefully. “That’s always the way with me. Nothing that I ever do comes out right. All my life I’ve been unlucky. My mother died when I was seven, and my father’s never had any use for me. I started in three or four businesses four or five years ago, but none of them ever came out right. My yacht burned last summer, and I’ve had neurasthenia for two years.” He catalogued a list of ills that would have done honor to Job himself, and he was worth nine millions, so I heard!

  Two or three additional and amusing incidents, and I am done.

  One of the most outre things in connection with our rides about the countryside was Culhane’s attitude toward life and the natives and passing strangers as representing life. Thus one day, as I recall very well, we were riding along a backwoods country road, very shadowy and branch-covered, a great company of us four abreast, when suddenly and after his very military fashion there came a “Halt! Right by fours! Right dress! Face!” and presently we were all lined up in a row facing a greensward which had suddenly been revealed to the left and on which, and before a small plumber’s stove standing outside some gentleman’s stable, was stretched a plumber and his helper. The former, a man of perhaps thirty-five, the latter a lad of, say, fourteen or fifteen, were both very grimy and dirty, but taking their ease in the morning sun, a little pot of lead on the stove being waited for, I presume, that it might boil.

  Culhane, leaving his place at the head of the column, returned to the center nearest the plumber and his helper and pointing at them and addressing us in a very clear voice, said:

  “There you have it. There’s American labor for you, at its best—union labor, the poor, downtrodden workingman. Look at him.” We all looked. “This poor hard-working plumber here,” and at that the latter stirred and sat up, scarcely even now grasping what it was all about, so suddenly had we descended upon him, “earns or demands sixty cents an hour, and this poor sweating little helper here has to have forty. They’re working now. They’re waiting for that little bit of lead to boil, at a dollar an hour between them. They can’t do a thing, either of ‘em, until it does, and lead has to be well done, you know, before it can be used.

  “Well, now, these two here,” he continued, suddenly shifting his tone from one of light sarcasm to a kind of savage contempt, “imagine they are getting along, making life a lot better for themselves, when they lie about this way and swindle another man out of his honest due in connection with the work he is paying for. He can’t help himself. He can’t know everything. If he did he’d probably find what’s wrong in there and fix it himself in three minutes. But if he did that and the union heard of it they’d boycott him. They’d come around and blackmail him, blow up his barn, or make him pay for the work he did himself. I know ‘em. I have to deal with ‘em. They fix my pipes in the same way that these two are fixing his—lying on the grass at a dollar an hour. And they want five dollars a pound for every bit of lead they use. If they forget anything and have to go back to town for it, you pay for it, at a dollar an hour. They get on the job at nine and quit at four, in the country. If you say anything, they quit altogether—they’re union laborers—and they won’t let any one else do it, either. Once they’re on the job they have to rest every few minutes, like these two. Something has to boil, or they have to wait for something. Isn’t it wonderful! Isn’t it beautiful! And all of us of course are made free and equal! They’re just as good as we are! If you work and make money and have any plumbing to do you have to support ‘em—Right by fours! Guide right! Forward!” and off we trotted, breaking into a headlong gallop a little farther on as if he wished to outrun the mood which was holding him at the moment.

  The plumber and his assistant, fully awake now to the import of what had occurred, stared after us. The journeyman plumber, who was short and fat, sat and blinked. At last he recovered his wits sufficiently to cry, “Aw, go to hell, you ---- ---- ----!” but by that time we were well along the road and I am not sure that Culhane even heard.

  Another day as we were riding along a road which led into a nearby city of, say, twenty thousand, we encountered a beer truck of great size and on its seat so large and ruddy and obese a German as one might go a long way and still not see. It was very hot. The German was drowsy and taking his time in the matter of driving. As we drew near, Culhane suddenly called a halt and, lining us up as was his rule, called to the horses of the brewery wagon, who also obeyed his lusty “Whoa!” The driver, from his high perch above, stared down on us with mingled curiosity and wonder.

  “Now, here’s an illustration of what I mean,” Culhane began, apropos of nothing at all, “when I say that the word man ought to be modified or changed in some way so that when we use it we would mean something more definite than we mean now. That thing you see sitting up on that wagon-seat there—call that a man? And then call me one? Or a man like Charles A. Dana? Or a man like General Grant? Hell! Look at him! Look at his shape! Look at that stomach! You think a thing like that—call it a man if you want to—has any brains or that he’s really any better than a pig in a sty? If you turn a horse out to shift for himself he’ll eat just enough to keep in condition; same way with a dog, a cat or a bird. But let one of these things, that some people call a man, come along, give him a job and enough money or a chance to stuff himself, and see what happens. A thing like that connects himself with one end of a beer hose and then he thinks he’s all right. He gets enough guts to start a sausage factory, and then he blows up, I suppose, or rots. Think of it! And we call him a man—or some do!”

  During this amazing and wholly unexpected harangue (I never saw him stop any one before), the heavy driver, who did not understand English very well, first gazed and then strained with his eyebrows, not being able quite to make out what it was all about. From the chuckling and laughter that finally set up in one place and another he began dimly to comprehend that he was being made fun of, used as an unsatisfactory jest of some kind. Finally his face clouded for a storm and his eyes blazed, the while his fat red cheeks grew redder. ”Donnervetter!“ he began gutturally to roar. ”Schweine hunde! Hunds knoche! Nach der polizei soll man reufen!“

  I for one pulled my horse cautiously back, as he cracked a great whip, and, charging savagely through us, drove on. Culhane, having made his unkind comments, gave orders for our orderly formation once more and calmly led us away.

  Perhaps the most amusing phase of him was his opposition to and contempt for inefficiency of any kind. If he asked you to do anything, no matter what, and you didn’t at once leap to the task ready and willing and able so to do, he scarcely had words enough with which to express himself. On one occasion, as I recall all too well, he took us for a drive in his tally-ho—one or two or three that he possessed—a great lumbering, highly lacquered, yellow-wheeled vehicle, to which he attached seven or eight or nine horses, I forget which. This tally-ho ride was a regular Sunday morning or afternoon affair unless it was raining, a call suddenly sounding from about the grounds somewhere at eleven or at two in the afternoon, “Tally-ho at eleven-thirty” (or two-thirty, as the case might be). “All aboard!” Gathering all the reins in his hands and perching himself in the high seat above, with perhaps one of his guests beside him, all the rest crowded willy-nilly on the seats within and on top, he would carry us off, careening about the countryside most madly, several of his hostlers acting as liveried footmen or outriders and one of them perched up behind on the little seat, the technic
al name of which I have forgotten, waving and blowing the long silver trumpet, the regulation blasts on which had to be exactly as made and provided for such occasions. Often, having been given no warning as to just when it was to be, there would be a mad scramble to get into our de rigueur Sunday clothes, for Culhane would not endure any flaws in our appearance, and if we were not ready and waiting when one of his stablemen swung the vehicle up to the door at the appointed time he was absolutely furious.

  On the particular occasion I have in mind we all clambered on in good time, all spick and span and in our very best, shaved, powdered, hands appropriately gloved, our whiskers curled and parted, our shoes shined, our hats brushed; and up in front was Culhane, gentleman de luxe for the occasion, his long-tailed whip looped exactly as it should be, no doubt, ready to be flicked out over the farthest horse’s head, and up behind was the trumpeter—high hat, yellow-topped boots, a uniform of some grand color, I forget which.

  But, as it turned out on this occasion, there had been a hitch at the last minute. The regular hostler or stableman who acted as footman extraordinary and trumpeter plenipotentiary, the one who could truly and ably blow this magnificent horn, was sick or his mother was dead. At any rate, there he wasn’t. And in order not to irritate Culhane, a second hostler had been dressed and given his seat and horn—only he couldn’t blow it. As we began to clamber in I heard him asking, “Can any of you gentleman blow the trumpet? Do any of you gentleman know the regular trumpet call?”

  No one responded, although there was much discussion in a low key. Some could, or thought they could, but hesitated to assume so frightful a risk. At the same time Culhane, hearing the fuss and knowing perhaps that his substitute could not trumpet, turned grimly around and said, “Say, do you mean to say there isn’t any one back there who knows how to blow that thing? What’s the matter with you, Caswell?” he called to one, and getting only mumbled explanations from that quarter, called to another, “How about you, Drewberry? Or you, Crashaw?”

  All three apologized briskly. They were terrified by the mere thought of trying. Indeed no one seemed eager to assume the responsibility, until finally he became so threatening and assured us so volubly that unless some immediate and cheerful response were made he would never again waste one blank minute on a lot of blank-blank this and thats, that one youth, a rash young society somebody from Rochester, volunteered more or less feebly that he “thought” that “maybe he could manage it.” He took a seat directly under the pompously placed trumpeter, and we were off.

  “Heigh-ho!” Out the gate and down the road and up a nearby slope at a smart clip, all of us gazing cheerfully and possibly vainly about, for it was a bright day and a gay country. Now the trumpeter, as is provided for on all such occasions, lifted the trumpet to his lips and began on the grandiose “ta-ra-ta-ta,” but to our grief and pain, although he got through fairly successfully on his first attempt, there was one place where there was a slight hitch, a “false crack,” as some one rowdyishly remarked. Culhane, although tucking up his lines and stiffening his back irritably at this flaw, said nothing. For after all a poor trumpeter was better than none at all. A little later, however, the trumpeter having hesitated to begin again, he called back, “Well, what about the horn? What about the horn? Can’t you do something with it? Have you quit for the day?”

  Up went the horn once more, and a most noble and encouraging “Ta-ra-ta-ta” was begun, but just at the critical point, and when we were all most prayerfully hoping against hope, as it were, that this time he would round the dangerous curves of it gracefully and come to a grand finish, there was a most disconcerting and disheartening squeak. It was pathetic, ghastly. As one man we wilted. What would Culhane say to that? We were not long in doubt. “Great Christ!” he shouted, looking back and showing a countenance so black that it was positively terrifying. “Who did that? Throw him off! What do you think—that I want the whole country to know I’m airing a lot of lunatics? Somebody who can blow that thing, take it and blow it, for God’s sake! I’m not going to drive around here without a trumpeter!”

  For a few moments there was more or less painful gabbling in all the rows, pathetic whisperings and “go ons” or eager urgings of one and another to sacrifice himself upon the altar of necessity, insistences by the ex-trumpeter that he had blown trumpets in his day as good as any one—what the deuce had got into him anyhow? It must be the horn!

  “Well,” shouted Culhane finally, as a stop-gap to all this, “isn’t any one going to blow that thing? Do you mean to tell me that I’m hauling all of you around, with not a man among you able to blow a dinky little horn? What’s the use of my keeping a lot of fancy vehicles in my barn when all I have to deal with is a lot of shoe salesmen and floorwalkers? Hell! Any child can blow it. It’s as easy as a fish-horn. If I hadn’t these horses to attend to I’d blow it myself. Come on—come on! Kerrigan, what’s the matter with you blowing it?”

  “The truth is, Mr. Culhane,” explained Mr. Kerrigan, the very dapper and polite heir of a Philadelphia starch millionaire, “I haven’t had any chance to practice with one of those for several years. I’ll try it if you want me to, but I can’t guarantee—”

  “Try!” insisted Culhane violently. “You can’t do any worse than that other mutt, if you blow for a million years. Blow it! Blow it!”

  Mr. Kerrigan turned back and being very cheerfully tendered the horn by the last failure, wetted and adjusted his lips, lifted it upward and backward—and—

  It was pathetic. It was positively dreadful, the wheezing, grinding sounds that were emitted.

  “God!” shouted Culhane, pulling up the coach to a dead stop. “Stop that! Whoa! Whoa!!! Do you mean to say that that’s the best you can do? Well, this finishes me! Whoa! What kind of a bunch of cattle have I got up here, anyhow? Whoa! And out in this country too where I’m known and where they know all about such things! God! Whoa! Here I spend thousands of dollars to get together an equipment that will make a pleasant afternoon for a crowd of gentlemen, and this is what I draw—hams! A lot of barflies who never saw a tally-ho! Well, I’m done! I’m through! I’ll split the damned thing up for firewood before I ever take it out again! Get down! Get out, all of you! I’ll not haul one of you back a step! Walk back or anywhere you please—to hell, for all I care! I’m through! Get out! I’m going to turn around and get back to the barn as quick as I can—up some alley if I can find one. To think of having such a bunch of hacks to deal with!”

  Humbly and wearily we climbed down and, while he drove savagely on to some turning-place, stood about first in small groups, then by twos and threes began making our way—rather gingerly, I must confess, in our fine clothes—along the winding road back to the place on the hill. But such swearing! Such un-Sabbath-like comments! The number of times his sturdy Irish soul was wished into innermost and almost sacrosanct portions of Sheol! He was cursed from more angles and in more artistically and architecturally nobly constructed phrases and even paragraphs than any human being that I have ever heard of before or since, phrases so livid and glistening that they smoked.

  Talk about the carved ivories of speech! The mosaics of verbal precious stones!

  You should have heard us on our way back!

  And still we stayed.

  * * * * *

  Some two years later I was passing this place in company with some friends, when I asked my host, who also knew of the place, to turn in. During my stay it had been the privilege and custom among those who knew much of this institution to drive through the grounds and past the very doors of the “repair shop,” even to stop if Culhane chanced to be visible and talking to or at least greeting him, in some cases. A custom of Culhane’s was, in the summer time, to have erected on the lawn a large green-and-white striped marquee tent, a very handsome thing indeed, in which was placed a field-officer’s table and several camp chairs, and some books and papers. Here of a hot day, when he was not busy with us, he would sit and read. And when he was in here or somewhere about,
a little pennant was run up, possibly as guide to visiting guests or friends. At any rate, it was the presence of this pennant which caused me to know that he was about and to wish that I might have a look at him once more, great lion that he was. As “guests,” none of us were ever allowed to come within more than ten feet of it, let alone in it. As passing visitors, however, we might, and many did, stop, remind him that we had once been his humble slaves, and ask leave to congratulate him on his health and sturdy years. At such times, if the visitors looked interesting enough, or he remembered them well, he would deign to come to the tent-fly and, standing there a la Napoleon at Lodi or Grant in the Wilderness, be for the first time in his relations with them a bit civil.