Part 2

You can't always hide away talent so that it can't be dug up, and one Sunday the outlook committee from a fashionable church came down to D-- and listened to the minister. His text that day happened to be one of those which permit of much oratory without enough orthodoxy to set the soul into convulsions. The sermon made a hit with a regular Harvard "H" and in a day or two the pastorate of the Wabash avenue church, whose steeple is nearer heaven than the majority of the congregation are likely to get, was offered to the young man, who told the committee that he must weigh the matter carefully.

The news spread through the village instantly, as it always does--for any country town has Marconi beat to a custard on wireless telegraphy--and on the afternoon of the day on which the call to the new field of labor came, the young minister's parishioners inaugurated a special pilgrimage to find out the prospects. The first arrival was a woman. (Strange, isn't it, that for all a woman takes so long to dress, she can always give a man a killing handicap and beat him from scratch to the scene of a scandal or a bargain sale?) She was ushered into the parlor by the clergyman's little girl. No one else seemed to be visible. The Mother Eve in her wouldn't let the visitor wait long, so she put the little girl in the quiz box.

"I've heerd tell, Cicely, that your pa's been asked to go to a big church up to the city."

"Yes'm," answered Cicely, discreetly.

"Well, child, tell me, hev you heerd him say if he's a-goin'?"

"No, mam, I haven't."

"Nor your mother neither?"

"No, mam."

"Waal, my dear, you must know somethin' abaout it. Dew you think he's a-goin' to leave us?"

The child squirmed about uneasily and twisted her fingers.

"Speak right out naow, that's a good girl. Be he a-goin' to go or stay?" urged the inquisitor.

"I don't know, mam, really. Papa's in his study praying for Divine guidance."

"Where's your mother?"

"Upstairs packing the trunks."

I simply mention this in a general way, father, and would note in addition that in the absence of mother the janitor has helped me do my packing. I decided it was best to agree with you, for I realize that it never pays a man to act like a fool; there are too many doing it as a regular business. While I should have liked a post-graduate course, with an elective or two from Radcliffe, I realize that the difference between firmness and obstinacy is that the first is the exercise of will power and the second of won't power. Give me a little vacation in Europe and I'll come home and let you can me as devilled ham if you want to.

I don't want to brag about myself, but I'll bet you'll be surprised in me. We've all been cured of bragging by a New Yorker in my class who spends all his spare time proving why Gotham should be the only real splash on the map. To hear him, you'd think the good Lord moved the sun up and down simply to accommodate New York's business hours. A fellow from Dublin who's here studying home rule took him down the other day. Gotham was boasting of New York's high buildings when Dublin spoke up.

"Hoigh buildings, is it? Begorra, we've buildings in Dublin so tall that we have to put hinges on the four upper stories."

"What in the world is that for?" asked Gotham.

"To let the sun by so it can reach New York, av coorse."

By the way, you say that some men learn all they know from Life. If you refer to the New York publication, you must have met some very gloomy and dyspeptic individuals of late. I'm not of that sort, nor, on the other hand, am I bound up in books, although, if I do say it, I have the finest set of the Decameron in college, and am considered quite an authority on the poetry of Rabelais. While on the subject of literature, I ought to state that the extra $100 in this month's expense account is for initiation fee and dues in the new Reading Club that a lot of us seniors have organized. We have for our motto Lord Bacon's great phrase "Reading maketh a full man," and it is wonderful to see how accurately the old philosopher hits our case. Owing to lack of accommodations here, we usually meet in some Boston hotel where we are safe from interruption. You would laugh to see how hot some of the fellows get arguing fine points. The other night I become so exercised myself discussing Schenck's "Theory of Straights" that I walked plumb into a pier glass, thinking I was up against another chap. I think the hotel man stuck us on the damages, but the Club chipped in and paid like little men. Despite such occasional drawbacks, the club meetings are very popular. In fact, we have full houses every time we get together.

Yes, that being elected president of my class was a good thing, for at last I can get my name on programmes and things without any reference to pigs tacked to it. But I don't know as it proves any overwhelming popularity on my part, for it was a dull season and I just slid in. Of course I would have liked to be marshal, but as I hadn't made any home runs and you wouldn't let me kick goals through your check-book, I was put on the mourners' bench so far as that ambition went.

I am glad to be able to write you the cheerful news that I shall graduate; up to last week there seemed to be considerable doubt about it in certain high quarters not far removed from Prexy's mansion. But I went over to see one of the influential overseers, a Boston Brahmin with moss on his front steps, and plead with him. I was finally obliged to promise him that you would leave Harvard $100,000 by your will if he would see that I graduated. Of course it's a pretty stiff price, but as you won't have to pay it you ought not to mind. Besides, dad, think of the pleasure to Ma and the girls to have one real Commencement in their lives. It's cheap all round.

Your affectionate son, PIERREPONT.

P.S. If my dream comes out and I get a diploma, I'll bring it home. It may be useful to you as a by-product. It's sheepskin, you know.

LETTER No. IV.

_From the Waldorf-Astoria, Pierrepont gives his father some inside information as to life and manners in New York and cites some experiences._

WALDORF-ASTORIA, June 30, 189--

_My Dear Father_:

I used to think you had a strong sense of fun, but I am beginning to fear that long connection with such essentially un-humorous animals as hogs condemned to the guillotine, has dulled it. I say this because it is evident that you didn't take my little joke about wanting to go to Europe in the spirit I intended. The idea of suggesting to you, dear old practical pig-sticker that you are, that Europe was in it for a minute with a pork-packing house as a means of culture seemed so irresistibly comic to me that I thought you would roar with laughter also, and perhaps put another dollar on that eight per I am going to receive so soon. I can catch echoes of your roar even here, but I get no suggestion of cachinnation. Really, the laugh is on me for attempting such a feeble joke. When I get fairly into the pork emporium, I shall confine my witty sallies to Milligan.

On the whole, and seriously, I'm glad you drew a red line through my scheme of letting the Old World see what a pork-packer's only looks like after his bristles have been scraped through college. Since I've been at the Waldorf-Astoria I've seen so many misguided results of a few days in London that I never want to cross the duck pond. Montie Searles, who graduated when I was a soph, was a tip-topper at Cambridge, but he unfortunately got the ocean fever. I met him in the palm room last night and the way he "deah boy"-ed me and worked his monocle overtime was pitiful. He's just got back and took the fastest steamer, for fear his British dialect would wear off before he got a chance to air it on Broadway. If I should borrow his clothes and come home in 'em you'd swap 'em for a straight-jacket. They are so English that boys play tag with him in the streets waiting to see the H's drop, and so loud that every time he goes out of the hotel an auto gets frightened and runs away. After I left him last night I had to sing myself to sleep with "Hail Columbia."

Familiarity breeds contempt; no man is a hero to his own valet, and I'm afraid no son is taken seriously by his own father. For instance, you draw a pretty strong inference that I've never earned a dollar which is hardly fair. I have earned considerable at times as a dealer in illustrated cards, and have picked up a tenner here and there by successfully predicting the results of various official speed tests. These things require hard labor and mental application. But the pay is sometimes uncertain, and on the whole I think your plan for me is better.

I told Searles about the packing-house job, and he pooh-poohed the idea. "Ma deah boy," he cried, "why don't you be independent? Try writing for money, old chap. That's what you were always doing in college." I'll bet he read that joke in Punch.

This is the greatest hotel in the world for one thing--in it you can meet a more varied assortment of people than under any one roof on earth. Billionaires jog elbows with impecunious upstarts who saunter about the hotel corridors in evening clothes, and live on some cross street in hall-rooms way up under the eaves. There is one young fellow who haunts the hotel and looks like a swell, who is said to be only a few dress shirts shy of being a pauper. But he actually believes he's the real thing, and the story goes that to keep up his self-deception he goes home every afternoon, sits on his trunk and toots a horn, after cleaning his trousers with gasoline, and thinks he's been automobiling.

It's a long shot that you can't tell anything about a man in New York until you find out his business. He may look like a tramp and have curvature of the spine from carrying around certified checks, or he may seem the real thing in lords and only have a third interest in an ash collecting industry. I had an illustration last Sunday of how impossible it is to judge a man's motives until you know his business. I went to church--fact, I assure you. I saw a new style hat and followed its wearer into the sacred edifice, as I wanted to fix its details in my mind to tell mother. She--I mean it--was very pretty. On second thought I guess you'd better not mention this to mother. In the course of his sermon the minister--one of those preachers who seem to think it necessary to shout out an occasional sentence to keep his congregation awake--declared in stentorian tones, "Wonders will never cease." A fat, bald-headed man in front of me nodded and murmured audibly, "Thank Heaven!" I wondered and asked the sexton who he was. It appears that he runs a dime museum on Sixth avenue.

Here's a straight tip for Sis. If she must marry a title let it be an American one, a Coal or Ice Baron. Counts and earls are thicker than sand fleas here and about as useless and annoying.

Speaking of straight tips, I've got a sure one on the horses sewed into the lining of my vest: If you want to go to the races without losing money don't take any money with you. The subject of money reminds me that your old Kansas friend, "Uncle" Seth Slocum was in town a day or two ago. With all due respect to him and his, you must admit that with his particularly flourishing facial lawn he looks more like a hayseed than a wheat king. At all events the head clerk tipped off a house detective to keep an eye on him. They don't want any one robbed in the hotel--by outsiders. Seth hadn't been in town an hour, most of which he spent in telling me how he once got you into a corner on July wheat, when he remembered that he had an appointment down town and started out for the L. I went with him as far as the door, and as I stood there waiting for a cab, I saw a burly, flashily dressed man step up and grab Seth by the hand.

"How do you do, my dear Mr. Haymaker. How are all the folks at the Corners?" he cried.

Uncle Seth looked at him a moment and said, "Haven't you made a mistake?"

"In the name, perhaps, in the face, no," said the big chap, suavely. "Can it be possible that you are--"

Seth took hold of the fellow's lapel and drew him closer to him. "No, my name's not Haymaker nor am I from the Corners. Come closer. I've heerd tell a lot about those bunker men and I don't want any one to know my name, except you; you're such a likely chap."

The burly man laughed and inclined his head. Then, in a stage whisper that could be heard a block, Uncle Seth said, solemnly, "Sh, don't breathe it. I'm Sherlock Holmes, disguised as the real thing in gold-brick targets, but don't give me away."

Uncle Seth nearly started a riot one day at luncheon. It had been very hot in the morning, but the wind changed and the temperature went down rapidly. Seth saw me at a table in the palm room and came over. "Well, Ponty," he shouted, in that grain-elevator voice of his, "quite a tumble, wasn't it? Dropped 15 points in half an hour." You ought to have seen 'em. It seemed as if every one in the room jumped to his feet in wild excitement. You see they thought he was talking stocks instead of thermometer.

By the way, Uncle Seth is infringing on your territory. He's going in for philosophy and gave me a little advice. "If you ever want to build up a big trade, Ponty," he said, "mix up a little soft soap with your business life. Flattery counts. There's a man here in New York who's made his pile as a barber because it is his invariable rule to ask every bald-headed man that he shaves if he'll have a shampoo."

I gather from your statement that my allowance dies a violent death on July 15, that you are very anxious to see me on or about that date. You will. I have no desire to walk to Chicago, and my general mode of life trends toward Pullmans rather than freight cars. _Ad interim_, as we used to say in our debating societies, I think I shall run down to one of those jaw-twisting lakes in Maine to get some of New York soaked out of my system before dropping in on you. Billy Poindexter, a classmate of mine, has a camp there, and he writes me that hornpouts are biting like sixty, and mosquitoes like seventy. But I don't mind that, for I believe a little blood-letting will do me good after my stay here.

I like New York, even if it is a bit commonplace and straight-laced compared with Chicago. They are great on Sunday observance in this town, and I find I am gathering a little of the same spirit myself. For instance, at an auditorium called the Haymarket, there is always a devotional service very early on Sunday mornings. I attended yesterday, and was much attracted by the ceremonies and the music. You would be surprised to see the number of ladies who are willing to be absent from their comfortable homes at such an inconvenient hour.

Say what you will, father, New York is a hospitable place. Although an utter stranger, I was invited the other night to the house of Mr. Canfield, a very wealthy gentleman who lives in great style. Mr. Canfield is well known as a philosopher who devotes a great deal of his time to the working out of the laws of chance and sequence. Beautiful experiments are made at his home every evening before a number of invited guests, among whom are some of the most prominent men in the city. It seems that it is the custom to have the youngest and least known guest contribute largely for the evening's entertainment, so naturally I went pretty deep into my available funds. I think I have just about enough to settle my hotel bill and buy my transportation to Lake Moose-something-or-other. It will be quite necessary that I hear from you at that point, and to the point, if you don't want me to become a lumberman or a Maine guide.

By the way, I've been observant and I've discovered something, though you'll doubtless not credit it. I see at last how so many dunderheads marry pretty girls. Two of them--pretty girls, not dunderheads--were talking at the next table to me the other day.

"So she's going to marry Dick Rogers, is she?" said one. "Poor thing! He's awfully flat."

"Well," replied her companion, "he's got a steam yacht, an auto, a string of saddle horses and his own golf links."

"Ah, I see," murmured her companion, "a flat with all the modern improvements." Not bad for a New York girl, is it?

Your affectionate son, P.

P.S. I met Colonel Blough the other evening and he invited me to sit in at a poker game. Of course I refused. He was surprised, said he supposed it ran in the family, and related the details of a little business transaction he and some other gentlemen had with you when you were last in New York. I hope mother is well. I am very anxious to see her. I think you'd be in line for repute as a philanthropist if you would send me a check for a hundred.

LETTER No. V.

_Pierrepont goes fishing and writes his father some of his experiences, not all of which, however, seem directly identified with the piscatorial art._

LAKE MOOSE, ETC., ME., July 11, 189--

_Dear Dad_:

Here I am in a little hut by the water, writing on the bottom of a canned meat box--not our label, for I gave Billy a bit of wholesome advice as to packing foods, which he accepted on the ground that mine was expert testimony--a tallow candle flickering at my side, and the hoarse booming of bullfrogs outside furnishing an obligato to my thoughts. One particular bullfrog who resides here can make more noise than any Texas steer that ever struck Chicago. It isn't always the biggest animal that can make the loudest rumpus, as I sometimes fear you think. I simply mention this in passing that you may see that all the Graham philosophy isn't on one side of the house.

As a spot for rest this place has even Harvard skinned to death. It is so quiet here--when the frogs are out of action--that you can hear the march of time. Besides Billy Poindexter and our guide, Pete Sanderson, I don't believe there's another human being within a hundred miles. It's a great change from the Waldorf-Astoria, where you couldn't walk into the bar without getting another man's breath. The commissary department is different, too. The canned goods Billy bought are as bad as yours, dad, upon my soul, while as for fish, there's nothing come to the surface yet but hornpouts, and they'll do for just about once.

We have fried salt pork for a change and Pete makes biscuits that would make excellent adjuncts to deep sea fishing tackle. Altogether, this is great preparation for the packing-house, for I shall be so hungry by July 15 that I'll do anything to get a square meal. By the way, you haven't said anything on the subject of board--whether I could live at home on a complimentary meal ticket or be landed in a boarding-house and made to pay. I am going to write to Ma on this subject, for I think she is a good deal stronger on the fatted calf business than you.

I think you would like to meet Pete Sanderson, for he's a veteran of the Civil War with a pension for complete disability, which he was awarded a little while ago. There isn't anything the matter with Pete except a few little scars, which he came by in a curious manner. It seems that he was examined by the pension board down at Bangor a few weeks back for complete paralysis. His home doctor swore that Pete couldn't move nor feel, and two strapping sons brought him to the office in their arms.

The other doctors punched and pounded him nearly to a jelly, but Pete never yipped. As a last resort they jabbed him with pins in a dozen different places, yet he didn't budge. Complete paralysis, they declared, but they didn't know that Pete had been stuffed so full of opium that he couldn't see nor feel, either. But he says he helped just as hard to save the nation as any one else, and ought to be recognized. At any rate his case is quite as worthy as that of the man who visited a Washington pension agency and sought government aid on the ground that he had contracted gout from high living, due to his profits on army contracts.

Pete is a great hand to spring stories of the war on us, and some of them are pretty good. One he tells about the chaplain of the ---- Mass., when that regiment was lying on the Rappahannock or Chickahominy, or some other river during the summer of '62. It seems that the chaplain was acting as postmaster for the men, and had been much bothered by requests for the mail, which had got tangled up with the Rebs somewhere. One hot afternoon he allowed to himself that he'd like a good snooze free from interruption, so he affixed to the front of his tent a placard that read thus:

CHAPLAIN DOESN'T KNOW WHEN THE MAIL WILL ARRIVE.

This worked like a charm, and the reverend soldier had a fine sleep and came out several hours later, greatly refreshed in body and mind. He was just a bit surprised to find a row of grinning privates sitting outside his canvas residence, their eyes fixed on his warning in so noticeable a fashion that he himself turned to look at it. There, to his horror, mixed with amusement--for he was a very human sort of chaplain--he found that some wag had got at his card so that it now read:

CHAPLAIN DOESN'T KNOW WHEN THE MAIL WILL ARRIVE, AND DOESN'T GIVE A DAMN.

I merely mention this anecdote as evidence that a man cannot always be judged by what appear to be his deeds, as you seem to think, and that the devil often gives him a side wallop when he's engaged in perfectly innocent recreation.

Thanks to your kind little remembrance I shall be able to be officially introduced to Milligan on the 15th. I note that, through your customary forethought, the check is just sufficient to land me in Chicago with eleven cents in my pocket, provided I practice strict economy _en route_. Permit me to compliment you on being the most skillful promoter of labor any son ever had.

I have racked my brain in vain to think what I could have said in the letter of the Fourth of July to arouse your encomiums. Your assertion that it "said more to the number of words" than any letter you ever received from me suggests that it was brief. As it was written on the Fourth, a day that, as a good American, I always celebrate, its brevity may be accounted for. The same explanation, however, will scarcely answer for the condensed power of expression you note.

By the way, Poindexter isn't going to marry old Conway's widow, spite her millions. I quizzed him about it and he finally put me wise. "Yes, I could have married her," he said. "In fact, we agreed, but I squirmed out of it. The truth is I proposed by mail--I didn't have the nerve to do it face to face--and she accepted me on a postal card. Her evident economy was a bit too much for me."

I've done a lot of thinking (this word is not written very plainly, but it _is thinking_ and nothing else) since I have been in the woods. Billy says I only think I'm thinking, but he's a cynic. There's been little to do but think. The hunting is worse than the fishing and the only thing I've bagged is my trousers. The sum total of my thoughts seems to be a few resolutions. Although I know resolutions are not ripe till Jan. 1, I've had time to make them here and I'll have plenty of chance to get accustomed to them before I write them down in the Russia leather diary that I know you will be glad to include among my Christmas gifts.