Delphi Complete Works of William Dean Howells

by William Dean Howells

  “Of course, he couldn’t do anything with them. When a man’s offered a big price for his farm, he don’t care whether it’s by a secret emissary from the Standard Oil or not; he’s going to sell and get the better of the other fellow if he can. Dryfoos couldn’t keep the boom out of has own family even. His wife was with him. She thought whatever he said and did was just as right as if it had been thundered down from Sinai. But the young folks were sceptical, especially the girls that had been away to school. The boy that had been kept at home because he couldn’t be spared from helping his father manage the farm was more like him, but they contrived to stir the boy up — with the hot end of the boom, too. So when a fellow came along one day and offered old Dryfoos a cool hundred thousand for his farm, it was all up with Dryfoos. He’d ‘a’ liked to ‘a’ kept the offer to himself and not done anything about it, but his vanity wouldn’t let him do that; and when he let it out in his family the girls outvoted him. They just made him sell.

  “He wouldn’t sell all. He kept about eighty acres that was off in some piece by itself, but the three hundred that had the old brick house on it, and the big barn — that went, and Dryfoos bought him a place in Moffitt and moved into town to live on the interest of his money. Just what he had scolded and ridiculed everybody else for doing. Well, they say that at first he seemed like he would go crazy. He hadn’t anything to do. He took a fancy to that land-agent, and he used to go and set in his office and ask him what he should do. ‘I hain’t got any horses, I hain’t got any cows, I hain’t got any pigs, I hain’t got any chickens. I hain’t got anything to do from sun-up to sun-down.’ The fellow said the tears used to run down the old fellow’s cheeks, and if he hadn’t been so busy himself he believed he should ‘a’ cried, too. But most o’ people thought old Dryfoos was down in the mouth because he hadn’t asked more for his farm, when he wanted to buy it back and found they held it at a hundred and fifty thousand. People couldn’t believe he was just homesick and heartsick for the old place. Well, perhaps he was sorry he hadn’t asked more; that’s human nature, too.

  “After a while something happened. That land-agent used to tell Dryfoos to get out to Europe with his money and see life a little, or go and live in Washington, where he could be somebody; but Dryfoos wouldn’t, and he kept listening to the talk there, and all of a sudden he caught on. He came into that fellow’s one day with a plan for cutting up the eighty acres he’d kept into town lots; and he’d got it all plotted out so-well, and had so many practical ideas about it, that the fellow was astonished. He went right in with him, as far as Dryfoos would let him, and glad of the chance; and they were working the thing for all it was worth when I struck Moffitt. Old Dryfoos wanted me to go out and see the Dryfoos & Hendry Addition — guess he thought maybe I’d write it up; and he drove me out there himself. Well, it was funny to see a town made: streets driven through; two rows of shadetrees, hard and soft, planted; cellars dug and houses put up — regular Queen Anne style, too, with stained glass — all at once. Dryfoos apologized for the streets because they were hand-made; said they expected their street-making machine Tuesday, and then they intended to push things.”

  Fulkerson enjoyed the effect of his picture on March for a moment, and then went on: “He was mighty intelligent, too, and he questioned me up about my business as sharp as I ever was questioned; seemed to kind of strike his fancy; I guess he wanted to find out if there was any money in it. He was making money, hand over hand, then; and he never stopped speculating and improving till he’d scraped together three or four hundred thousand dollars, they said a million, but they like round numbers at Moffitt, and I guess half a million would lay over it comfortably and leave a few thousands to spare, probably. Then he came on to New York.”

  Fulkerson struck a match against the ribbed side of the porcelain cup that held the matches in the centre of the table, and lit a cigarette, which he began to smoke, throwing his head back with a leisurely effect, as if he had got to the end of at least as much of his story as he meant to tell without prompting.

  March asked him the desired question. “What in the world for?”

  Fulkerson took out his cigarette and said, with a smile: “To spend his money, and get his daughters into the old Knickerbocker society. Maybe he thought they were all the same kind of Dutch.”

  “And has he succeeded?”

  “Well, they’re not social leaders yet. But it’s only a question of time — generation or two — especially if time’s money, and if ‘Every Other Week’ is the success it’s bound to be.”

  “You don’t mean to say, Fulkerson,” said March, with a half-doubting, half-daunted laugh, “that he’s your Angel?”

  “That’s what I mean to say,” returned Fulkerson. “I ran onto him in Broadway one day last summer. If you ever saw anybody in your life; you’re sure to meet him in Broadway again, sooner or later. That’s the philosophy of the bunco business; country people from the same neighborhood are sure to run up against each other the first time they come to New York. I put out my hand, and I said, ‘Isn’t this Mr. Dryfoos from Moffitt?’ He didn’t seem to have any use for my hand; he let me keep it, and he squared those old lips of his till his imperial stuck straight out. Ever see Bernhardt in ‘L’Etrangere’? Well, the American husband is old Dryfoos all over; no mustache; and hay-colored chin-whiskers cut slanting froze the corners of his mouth. He cocked his little gray eyes at me, and says he: ‘Yes, young man; my name is Dryfoos, and I’m from Moffitt. But I don’t want no present of Longfellow’s Works, illustrated; and I don’t want to taste no fine teas; but I know a policeman that does; and if you’re the son of my old friend Squire Strohfeldt, you’d better get out.’ ‘Well, then,’ said I, ‘how would you like to go into the newspaper syndicate business?’ He gave another look at me, and then he burst out laughing, and he grabbed my hand, and he just froze to it. I never saw anybody so glad.

  “Well, the long and the short of it was that I asked him round here to Maroni’s to dinner; and before we broke up for the night we had settled the financial side of the plan that’s brought you to New York.”

  “I can see,” said Fulkerson, who had kept his eyes fast on March’s face, “that you don’t more than half like the idea of Dryfoos. It ought to give you more confidence in the thing than you ever had. You needn’t be afraid,” he added, with some feeling, “that I talked Dryfoos into the thing for my own advantage.”

  “Oh, my dear Fulkerson!” March protested, all the more fervently because he was really a little guilty.

  “Well, of course not! I didn’t mean you were. But I just happened to tell him what I wanted to go into when I could see my way to it, and he caught on of his own accord. The fact is,” said Fulkerson, “I guess I’d better make a clean breast of it, now I’m at it, Dryfoos wanted to get something for that boy of his to do. He’s in railroads himself, and he’s in mines and other things, and he keeps busy, and he can’t bear to have his boy hanging round the house doing nothing, like as if he was a girl. I told him that the great object of a rich man was to get his son into just that fix, but he couldn’t seem to see it, and the boy hated it himself. He’s got a good head, and he wanted to study for the ministry when they were all living together out on the farm; but his father had the old-fashioned ideas about that. You know they used to think that any sort of stuff was good enough to make a preacher out of; but they wanted the good timber for business; and so the old man wouldn’t let him. You’ll see the fellow; you’ll like him; he’s no fool, I can tell you; and he’s going to be our publisher, nominally at first and actually when I’ve taught him the ropes a little.”

  XII.

  Fulkerson stopped and looked at March, whom he saw lapsing into a serious silence. Doubtless he divined his uneasiness with the facts that had been given him to digest. He pulled out his watch and glanced at it. “See here, how would you like to go up to Forty-sixth street with me, and drop in on old Dryfoos? Now’s your chance. He’s going West tomorrow, and won’t be back for
a month or so. They’ll all be glad to see you, and you’ll understand things better when you’ve seen him and his family. I can’t explain.”

  March reflected a moment. Then he said, with a wisdom that surprised him, for he would have liked to yield to the impulse of his curiosity: “Perhaps we’d better wait till Mrs. March comes down, and let things take the usual course. The Dryfoos ladies will want to call on her as the last-comer, and if I treated myself ‘en garcon’ now, and paid the first visit, it might complicate matters.”

  “Well, perhaps you’re right,” said Fulkerson. “I don’t know much about these things, and I don’t believe Ma Dryfoos does, either.” He was on his legs lighting another cigarette. “I suppose the girls are getting themselves up in etiquette, though. Well, then, let’s have a look at the ‘Every Other Week’ building, and then, if you like your quarters there, you can go round and close for Mrs. Green’s flat.”

  March’s dormant allegiance to his wife’s wishes had been roused by his decision in favor of good social usage. “I don’t think I shall take the flat,” he said.

  “Well, don’t reject it without giving it another look, anyway. Come on!”

  He helped March on with his light overcoat, and the little stir they made for their departure caught the notice of the old German; he looked up from his beer at them. March was more than ever impressed with something familiar in his face. In compensation for his prudence in regard to the Dryfooses he now indulged an impulse. He stepped across to where the old man sat, with his bald head shining like ivory under the gas-jet, and his fine patriarchal length of bearded mask taking picturesque lights and shadows, and put out his hand to him.

  “Lindau! Isn’t this Mr. Lindau?”

  The old man lifted himself slowly to his feet with mechanical politeness, and cautiously took March’s hand. “Yes, my name is Lindau,” he said, slowly, while he scanned March’s face. Then he broke into a long cry. “Ah-h-h-h-h, my dear poy! my gong friendt! my-my — Idt is Passil Marge, not zo? Ah, ha, ha, ha! How gladt I am to zee you! Why, I am gladt! And you rememberdt me? You remember Schiller, and Goethe, and Uhland? And Indianapolis? You still lif in Indianapolis? It sheers my hardt to zee you. But you are lidtle oldt, too? Tventy-five years makes a difference. Ah, I am gladt! Dell me, idt is Passil Marge, not zo?”

  He looked anxiously into March’s face, with a gentle smile of mixed hope and doubt, and March said: “As sure as it’s Berthold Lindau, and I guess it’s you. And you remember the old times? You were as much of a boy as I was, Lindau. Are you living in New York? Do you recollect how you tried to teach me to fence? I don’t know how to this day, Lindau. How good you were, and how patient! Do you remember how we used to sit up in the little parlor back of your printing-office, and read Die Rauber and Die Theilung der Erde and Die Glocke? And Mrs. Lindau? Is she with—”

  “Deadt — deadt long ago. Right after I got home from the war — tventy years ago. But tell me, you are married? Children? Yes! Goodt! And how oldt are you now?”

  “It makes me seventeen to see you, Lindau, but I’ve got a son nearly as old.”

  “Ah, ha, ha! Goodt! And where do you lif?”

  “Well, I’m just coming to live in New York,” March said, looking over at Fulkerson, who had been watching his interview with the perfunctory smile of sympathy that people put on at the meeting of old friends. “I want to introduce you to my friend Mr. Fulkerson. He and I are going into a literary enterprise here.”

  “Ah! zo?” said the old man, with polite interest. He took Fulkerson’s proffered hand, and they all stood talking a few moments together.

  Then Fulkerson said, with another look at his watch, “Well, March, we’re keeping Mr. Lindau from his dinner.”

  “Dinner!” cried the old man. “Idt’s better than breadt and meadt to see

  Mr. Marge!”

  “I must be going, anyway,” said March. “But I must see you again soon,

  Lindau. Where do you live? I want a long talk.”

  “And I. You will find me here at dinner-time.” said the old man. “It is the best place”; and March fancied him reluctant to give another address.

  To cover his consciousness he answered, gayly: “Then, it’s ‘auf wiedersehen’ with us. Well!”

  “Also!” The old man took his hand, and made a mechanical movement with his mutilated arm, as if he would have taken it in a double clasp. He laughed at himself. “I wanted to gif you the other handt, too, but I gafe it to your gountry a goodt while ago.”

  “To my country?” asked March, with a sense of pain, and yet lightly, as if it were a joke of the old man’s. “Your country, too, Lindau?”

  The old man turned very grave, and said, almost coldly, “What gountry hass a poor man got, Mr. Marge?”

  “Well, you ought to have a share in the one you helped to save for us rich men, Lindau,” March returned, still humoring the joke.

  The old man smiled sadly, but made no answer as he sat down again.

  “Seems to be a little soured,” said Fulkerson, as they went down the steps. He was one of those Americans whose habitual conception of life is unalloyed prosperity. When any experience or observation of his went counter to it he suffered — something like physical pain. He eagerly shrugged away the impression left upon his buoyancy by Lindau, and added to March’s continued silence, “What did I tell you about meeting every man in New York that you ever knew before?”

  “I never expected to meat Lindau in the world again,” said March, more to himself than to Fulkerson. “I had an impression that he had been killed in the war. I almost wish he had been.”

  “Oh, hello, now!” cried Fulkerson.

  March laughed, but went on soberly: “He was a man predestined to adversity, though. When I first knew him out in Indianapolis he was starving along with a sick wife and a sick newspaper. It was before the Germans had come over to the Republicans generally, but Lindau was fighting the anti-slavery battle just as naturally at Indianapolis in 1858 as he fought behind the barricades at Berlin in 1848. And yet he was always such a gentle soul! And so generous! He taught me German for the love of it; he wouldn’t spoil his pleasure by taking a cent from me; he seemed to get enough out of my being young and enthusiastic, and out of prophesying great things for me. I wonder what the poor old fellow is doing here, with that one hand of his?”

  “Not amassing a very ‘handsome pittance,’ I guess, as Artemus Ward would say,” said Fulkerson, getting back some of his lightness. “There are lots of two-handed fellows in New York that are not doing much better, I guess. Maybe he gets some writing on the German papers.”

  “I hope so. He’s one of the most accomplished men! He used to be a splendid musician — pianist — and knows eight or ten languages.”

  “Well, it’s astonishing,” said Fulkerson, “how much lumber those Germans can carry around in their heads all their lives, and never work it up into anything. It’s a pity they couldn’t do the acquiring, and let out the use of their learning to a few bright Americans. We could make things hum, if we could arrange ’em that way.”

  He talked on, unheeded by March, who went along half-consciously tormented by his lightness in the pensive memories the meeting with Lindau had called up. Was this all that sweet, unselfish nature could come to? What a homeless old age at that meagre Italian table d’hote, with that tall glass of beer for a half-hour’s oblivion! That shabby dress, that pathetic mutilation! He must have a pension, twelve dollars a month, or eighteen, from a grateful country. But what else did he eke out with?

  “Well, here we are,” said Fulkerson, cheerily. He ran up the steps before March, and opened the carpenter’s temporary valve in the door frame, and led the way into a darkness smelling sweetly of unpainted wood-work and newly dried plaster; their feat slipped on shavings and grated on sand. He scratched a match, and found a candle, and then walked about up and down stairs, and lectured on the advantages of the place. He had fitted up bachelor apartments for himself in the house, and said that he w
as going to have a flat to let on the top floor. “I didn’t offer it to you because I supposed you’d be too proud to live over your shop; and it’s too small, anyway; only five rooms.”

  “Yes, that’s too small,” said March, shirking the other point.

  “Well, then, here’s the room I intend for your office,” said Fulkerson, showing him into a large back parlor one flight up. “You’ll have it quiet from the street noises here, and you can be at home or not, as you please. There’ll be a boy on the stairs to find out. Now, you see, this makes the Grosvenor Green flat practicable, if you want it.”

  March felt the forces of fate closing about him and pushing him to a decision. He feebly fought them off till he could have another look at the flat. Then, baked and subdued still more by the unexpected presence of Mrs. Grosvenor Green herself, who was occupying it so as to be able to show it effectively, he took it. He was aware more than ever of its absurdities; he knew that his wife would never cease to hate it; but he had suffered one of those eclipses of the imagination to which men of his temperament are subject, and into which he could see no future for his desires. He felt a comfort in irretrievably committing himself, and exchanging the burden of indecision for the burden of responsibility.

  “I don’t know,” said Fulkerson, as they walked back to his hotel together, “but you might fix it up with that lone widow and her pretty daughter to take part of their house here.” He seemed to be reminded of it by the fact of passing the house, and March looked up at its dark front. He could not have told exactly why he felt a pang of remorse at the sight, and doubtless it was more regret for having taken the Grosvenor Green flat than for not having taken the widow’s rooms. Still, he could not forget her wistfulness when his wife and he were looking at them, and her disappointment when they decided against them. He had toyed, in his after-talk to Mrs. March, with a sort of hypothetical obligation they had to modify their plans so as to meet the widow’s want of just such a family as theirs; they had both said what a blessing it would be to her, and what a pity they could not do it; but they had decided very distinctly that they could not. Now it seemed to him that they might; and he asked himself whether he had not actually departed as much from their ideal as if he had taken board with the widow. Suddenly it seemed to him that his wife asked him this, too.