Eben Holden: A Tale of the North Country

by Irving Bacheller

  Chapter 35

  I was soon near out of money and at my wit's end, but my will wasunconquered. In this plight I ran upon Fogarty, the policeman who hadbeen the good angel of my one hopeful day in journalism. His mannerinvited my confidence.

  'What luck?' said he.

  'Bad luck' I answered. 'Only ten dollars in my pocket and nothing todo.'

  He swung his stick thoughtfully.

  'If I was you,' said he, 'I'd take anything honest. Upon me wurred, I'druther pound rocks than lay idle.'

  'So would I.'

  'Wud ye?' said he with animation, as he took my measure from head tofoot.

  'I'll do anything that's honest.'

  'Ah ha!' said he, rubbing his sandy chin whiskers. 'Don't seem like ye'dbeen used to hard wurruk.'

  'But I can do it,' I said.

  He looked at me sternly and beckoned with his head.

  'Come along,' said he.

  He took me to a gang of Irishmen working in the street near by.

  'Boss McCormick!' he shouted.

  A hearty voice answered, 'Aye, aye, Counsellor,' and McCormick came outof the crowd, using his shovel for a staff.

  'A happy day to ye!' said Fogarty.

  'Same to youse an' manny o' thim,' said McCormick.

  'Ye'll gi'me one if ye do me a favour,' said Fogarty.

  'An' what?' said the other.

  'A job for this lad. Wull ye do it?'

  'I wall,' said McCormick, and he did.

  I went to work early the next morning, with nothing on but myunderclothing and trousers, save a pair of gloves, that excited theridicule of my fellows. With this livery and the righteous determinationof earning two dollars a day, I began the inelegant task of 'poundingrocks no merry occupation, I assure you, for a hot summer's day onManhattan Island.

  We were paving Park Place and we had to break stone and lay them andshovel dirt and dig with a pick and crowbar.

  My face and neck were burned crimson when we quit work at five, and Iwent home with a feeling of having been run over by the cars. I hada strong sense of soul and body, the latter dominated by a mightyappetite. McClingan viewed me at first with suspicion in which therewas a faint flavour of envy. He invited me at once to his room, and wasamazed at seeing it was no lark. I told him frankly what I was doing andwhy and where.

  'I would not mind the loaning of a few dollars,' he said, 'as a mattero' personal obligement I would be most happy to do it--most happy,Brower, indeed I would.'

  I thanked him cordially, but declined the favour, for at home they hadalways taught me the danger of borrowing, and I was bound to have it outwith ill luck on my own resources.

  'Greeley is back,' said he, 'and I shall see him tomorrow. I will puthim in mind o'you.'

  I went away sore in the morning, but with no drooping spirit. In themiddle of the afternoon I straightened up a moment to ease my back andlook about me.

  There at the edge of the gang stood the great Horace Greeley and WaxyMcClingan. The latter beckoned me as he caught my eye. I went aside togreet them. Mr Greeley gave me his hand.

  'Do you mean to tell me that you'd rather work than beg or borrow?' saidhe.

  'That's about it,' I answered.

  'And ain't ashamed of it?

  'Ashamed! Why?' said I, not quite sure of his meaning. It had neveroccurred to me that one had any cause to be ashamed of working.

  He turned to McClingan and laughed.

  'I guess you'll do for the Tribune,' he said. 'Come and see me at twelvetomorrow.

  And then they went away.

  If I had been a knight of the garter I could not have been treated withmore distinguished courtesy by those hard-handed men the rest of theday. I bade them goodbye at night and got my order for four dollars. OnePat Devlin, a great-hearted Irishman, who had shared my confidence andsome of my doughnuts on the curb at luncheon time, I remember best ofall.

  'Ye'll niver fergit the toime we wurruked together under BossMcCormick,' said he.

  And to this day, whenever I meet the good man, now bent and grey, hesays always, 'Good-day to ye, Mr Brower. D'ye mind the toime we poundedthe rock under Boss McCormick?

  Mr Greeley gave me a place at once on the local staff and invited meto dine with him at his home that evening. Meanwhile he sent me to theheadquarters of the Republican Central Campaign Committee, on Broadway,opposite the New York Hotel. Lincoln had been nominated in May, and thegreat political fight of 1860 was shaking the city with its thunders.

  I turned in my copy at the city desk in good season, and, although thegreat editor had not yet left his room, I took a car at once to keep myappointment. A servant showed me to a seat in the big back parlour ofMr Greeley's home, where I spent a lonely hour before I heard his heavyfootsteps in the hail. He immediately rushed upstairs, two steps at atime, and, in a moment, I heard his high voice greeting the babies. Hecame down shortly with one of them clinging to his hand.

  'Thunder!' said he, 'I had forgotten all about you. Let's go right in todinner.

  He sat at the head of the table and I next to him. I remember how,wearied by the day's burden, he sat, lounging heavily, in carelessattitudes. He stirred his dinner into a hash of eggs, potatoes, squashand parsnips, and ate it leisurely with a spoon, his head braced oftenwith his left forearm, its elbow resting on the table. It was a sort ofletting go, after the immense activity of the day, and a casual observerwould have thought he affected the uncouth, which was not true of him.

  He asked me to tell him all about my father and his farm. At length Isaw an absent look in his eye, and stopped talking, because I thought hehad ceased to listen.

  'Very well! very well!' said he.

  I looked up at him, not knowing what he meant.

  'Go on! Tell me all about it,' he added.

  'I like the country best,' said he, when I had finished, 'because thereI see more truth in things. Here the lie has many forms--unique, varied,ingenious. The rouge and powder on the lady's cheek--they are lies, bothof them; the baronial and ducal crests are lies and the fools who usethem are liars; the people who soak themselves in rum have nothing butlies in their heads; the multitude who live by their wits and the lackof them in others--they are all liars; the many who imagine a vain thingand pretend to be what they are not liars everyone of them. It is boundto be so in the great cities, and it is a mark of decay. The skirts ofElegabalus, the wigs and rouge pots of Madame Pompadour, the crucifix ofMachiavelli and the innocent smile of Fernando Wood stand for somethinghorribly and vastly false in the people about them. For truth you ve gotto get back into the woods. You can find men there a good deal as Godmade them, genuine, strong and simple. When those men cease to come hereyou'll see grass growing in Broadway.

  I made no answer and the great commoner stirred his coffee a moment insilence.

  'Vanity is the curse of cities,' he continued, 'and Flattery is itshandmaiden. Vanity, flattery and Deceit are the three disgraces. I likea man to be what he is--out and out. If he's ashamed of himself it won'tbe long before his friends'll be ashamed of him. There's the troublewith this town. Many a fellow is pretending to be what he isn't. A mancannot be strong unless he is genuine.

  One of his children--a little girl--came and stood close to him as hespoke. He put his big arm around her and that gentle, permanent smile ofhis broadened as he kissed her and patted her red cheek.

  'Anything new in the South?' Mrs Greeley enquired.

  'Worse and worse every day,' he said. 'Serious trouble coming! TheCharleston dinner yesterday was a feast of treason and a flow ofcriminal rhetoric. The Union was the chief dish. Everybody slashed itwith his knife and jabbed it with his fork. It was slaughtered, roasted,made into mincemeat and devoured. One orator spoke of "rolling back thetide of fanaticism that finds its root in the conscience of the people."Their metaphors are as bad as their morals.

  He laughed heartily at this example of fervid eloquence, and then werose from the table. He had to go to the office that evening, and I cameaway soon after dinner
. I had nothing to do and went home reflectingupon all the great man had said.

  I began shortly to see the truth of what he had told me--men lickingthe hand of riches with the tongue of flattery, men so stricken with theitch of vanity that they grovelled for the touch of praise; men even whowould do perjury for applause. I do not say that most of the men I sawwere of that ilk, but enough to show the tendency of life in a greattown.

  I was filled with wonder at first by meeting so many who had beeneverywhere and seen everything, who had mastered all sciences and allphilosophies and endured many perils on land and sea. I had met liarsbefore--it was no Eden there in the north country--and some of them hadattained a good degree of efficiency, but they lacked the candour andfinish of the metropolitan school. I confess they were all too muchfor me at first. They borrowed my cash, they shared my confidence, theytaxed my credulity, and I saw the truth at last.

  'Tom's breaking down,' said a co-labourer on the staff one day. 'How isthat?' I enquired.

  'Served me a mean trick.'

  'Indeed!'

  'Deceived me,' said he sorrowfully.

  'Lied, I suppose?'

  'No. He told the truth, as God's my witness.'

  Tom had been absolutely reliable up to that time.