Part 3
My resolutions may not be original, they may not even be good ones, but such as they are I am going to write them out for you, for you have often told me that it was every man's duty to himself to set himself a goal and mark out the course by which to reach it. For this and a perfect wealth of other advice I can never thank you enough. Perhaps, however, the knowledge that I am really taking life seriously, as shown by my resolutions, will be some recompense to you for the midnight oil you have burned in the coinage of succinct sayings and meaty metaphors. (I flatter myself that is pretty well expressed, although my English professor would object, as he often did, to my employment of trade terms as illustrations and similes.)
The stain on this sheet of paper is due to Poindexter, who shied a slice of fat pork at my head while I was writing. That was yesterday and he absolutely refused to let me finish my letter. He said a man who couldn't find anything better to do in the woods than write was several unpleasant sounding things. As he emphasized his remarks by war-whoops, Comanche dances and the beating together of tin plates, I was forced to forsake my literary pursuits till this morning. Billy is asleep. He absolutely refused to rise without a pick-me-up and, as our canoe was upset last night, we lost all our camp utensils, including that indispensable adjunct to camp life, the pick-me-up.
Billy is up and insists that we must go to the nearest settlement for a new camp kit. He misses the splendid assortment of pick-me-ups with which we started out and swears he won't know north from south till he gets one. The resolutions will have to wait till we return.
July 13.
We did not get back till to-day. We found a fine collection of camp necessities at the settlement and what we selected proved such a heavy burden that we were unable to start on the return trip till this morning. Billy is asleep again. I never knew he was such a heavy sleeper. It must be the bracing air of the woods. In Cambridge he had the reputation of never sleeping.
I have re-read the resolutions and I think it best not to send them to you until I am out of the woods. Surveyed in the light of this particular morning they seem to need as many amendments as the Constitution of the United States.
Just a word of warning not to be surprised when I show up for work in hunting costume. I was compelled to leave all my other clothes in New York for safe keeping. Storage rates are very high there; the tickets call for a payment of $150. I shall call at the Waldorf on my way through the city and shall get any letters--with enclosures--that may be there.
Your hopeful son, P.
P.S. Do you think that when a man finds he is catching two fish on one hook every time he hauls in his line it is time for him to stop using bait? Billy assures me that it is.
LETTER No. VI.
_The seat at his father's mailing desk does not appear especially comfortable to the Junior Graham, if we may judge by the tone of his correspondence._
CHICAGO, Aug. 30, 189--
_My Dear Father_:
Permit me to say, most respectfully of course, that you are overdoing the emotional business as to my mistake in mailing a note of invitation to the theatre to Jim Donnelly in place of a letter denying his claim of shortage on hams, and denouncing him as a double-distilled prevaricator for venturing the same. As a matter of fact, it was a great stroke, and I've ordered the cashier in your name to put a two-dollar ell on my financial structure. Donnelly came in to-day and gave us a thousand-dollar order for short ribs; said he was devilish glad to find a bit of humanity and sentiment in the house of Graham, and that if you had more blood and less lard in your veins, Chicago would be a better place to live in. He's fond of the old burgh, at that, for he licked a Boston drummer last week for claiming that the Boston Symphony Orchestra was better than Theodore Thomas'. You see Jim has just become engaged and my little break struck him in a tender spot.
I note with pain, dear dad, that you make a great hullabaloo over my robbing you of your time by writing that note. Theoretically you may be right, but practically your kick is so small that a respectable jack-rabbit would be ashamed of it. Let's see; I work--theoretically--from 8 to 6, one hour out for lunch. Under your munificent system of payment I get about 15 cents an hour, or a quarter of a cent a minute. It took me two minutes to write the note. Ergo, I owe you half a cent, whereas you owe me the profit on the thousand-dollar order of short ribs, which Donnelly says must be something immense. Let's square up on that basis.
But even had results been worse, absent-mindedness is a fault, not a crime. Literature is full of well-authenticated instances of that perversity of wit which makes one do the wrong thing instead of the much easier right one. The poet Cowper's feat of boiling his watch while he timed it by an egg is really a very commonplace illustration of the vagaries of the human mind.
It was surpassed by Dean Stanley and Dr. Jowett, who were both extremely absent-minded and very fond of tea. One morning they breakfasted together and in their chat each of them drank seven or eight cups of tea. As the session broke up, Dr. Jowett happened to glance at the table. "Good gracious!" he exclaimed, "I forgot to put in the tea." Neither had noticed it.
Even this, I think, is excelled by the case of a remarkably absent-minded man in the western part of Massachusetts, whose freaks of memory made him the sport of the country for miles around. He once went for days without sleeping because he was very busy in his library and didn't leave it, so did not see his bed as a reminder. He capped the climax, however, when he came home one night and hanged himself to the bed-post by his suspenders. As he was wealthy and cheerful, with much to live for, it is generally believed that he mistook himself for his own pants. At all events absent-mindedness, like bad penmanship, is a sign of genius, and, as a loving father, you should be glad that I have one of the symptoms.
I must frankly admit that the addressing of envelopes is not the most fascinating of pursuits. If I must write in order to earn my salary from the house, I should much prefer to do it across the bottom of checks. I would then feel that the business was more dependent upon me and also that it might mean more to me. It has got so that the sight of a U. S. stamp after business hours gives me a bilious attack. Let me at least fill out the checks if I don't sign 'em. Then I'll be better able to imagine that I'm the real thing around here, even if my salary's attenuation continues to eat a big hole in my sainted mother's pin money. The next best thing to owning an auto, you know, is to wear an auto coat.
Of course Milligan made a noisy, braying, Hibernian ass of himself when he came around to take your cussing of him out on me. He swore and danced and waved his arms, and got still madder when I asked him what he was Donnybrooking around in Chicago for. He didn't seem to like it a bit when I told him that one little finger of the girl I wrote to, was worth a thousand times as much as himself and the hogs he associated with, put together. He allowed that I was an impudent young jackass and the dead copy of my father; went on to say that if he hadn't started the firm and kept his weather-eye on it ever since, you would have been in the bankruptcy court or jail years ago. When I got mad and told him that I'd have him bounced, he said you didn't dare to fire him because he knew the secret of--but really I don't think it safe to entrust it to paper.
Milligan is a dirty beast who belongs to the Shy-of-Water tribe and smokes a horror of a clay pipe. To think that I, who have mingled with gentlemen for the past four years, should be compelled to breathe his air is too much. I won't work under a man who habitually insults my honored father. If you haven't pride enough to rebel, I have. He is vulgar enough to call you the "ould man," and I am morally certain he is a pretty liberal toucher of that private stock you keep in your inner office. For heaven's sake, throw him out and purify the place.
Jim Donnelly seems to have taken quite a shine to me, and last night he invited me to his club for dinner. This was a great relief for yours truly, for between you and me, Ma has got pretty stingy with the table since you left, and is trying to use up a box of our products she found down cellar. (By the way, I notice from a slip Milligan gave me to file to-day, that you crossed off all the Graham foods the steward of your private car had picked out for your trip--wise old dad!) So Jim's invite was like an early cocktail to Col. R. E. Morse. After dinner we hied ourselves to a vaudeville show, which I simply mention in a business way. I see you've an "ad" on the drop curtain at the Hyperion, and if you won't kill the poet who wrote those verses, I must. Such awful rot as:
"We corrall the choicest hogs, Stab 'em, scald 'em, flay 'em; Then you get the superfine Sausage made by Graham,"
may appeal to you as A1 inspiration, but trust an humble member of your family when he says that you simply nauseate the public by such tomfool stuff. You're rich enough to hire Howells if you like, so there's no excuse for this.
Wish I was with you on the car instead of being compelled to hear Milligan blart about "our house" like an Irish Silas Wegg. They say around the office that the car is bully well stocked with things and things, and they even hint that you have been taking to it pretty regular of late to change climates with Ma. I don't encourage such idle talk.
I've worried a lot since you went away. The business seems to have got on my nerves. Of course I realize that all I have to do is to lick stamps and try to look as if I enjoyed it, but as the family heir I can't help worrying about the firm. Several matters have come to my attention, in the way of business, that make me fearful that perhaps you made a mistake in going away without leaving one of the family at the helm here. The Celtic gentleman who signs himself "Supt." and whom the boys call "Soup," does not take kindly to my advice. When I told him yesterday that I feared that a carload of lard that was shipped to Indiana was not first chop and would be returned, he looked me over curiously for a minute and said:
"Don't let that worry ye, me bye; the toime to fret is when they sind it back."
And then, in a very loud voice, so that everybody in the office could hear, he told me a story.
"Your anticipation av trouble reminds me," he said, "av an ould maid up in York state twinty years ago. She was so plaguey homely that if she'd been the lasht woman on earth the lasht man wud a jumped off it whin he met her. Arethusa Prudence Smylie--I've niver forgot the name, how cud I?--was as full av imagination as a Welsh rarebit is av nightmare, and ye niver cud tell phwat her nixt break wud be. She was sittin' in the kitchen one winter's day, radin' po'try and toastin' her fate in the open oven door, while her good ould slob av a mother was rollin' out pie crust, whin all av a suddint she burst out cryin'. This startled her mother so that she dropped her rollin' pin and rushed to her daughter's side. She thought she'd had a warnin' or cramps or somethin'. It was a long toime before she cud squeeze a worrd out edgewise bechune the wapes.
"'Phwat is the matter?' she cried, agin and agin. Finally, wid the tears a streamin' down her chakes an' the sobs wrestlin wid her breath, Arethusa tuk her mother into her confidence. 'I was sittin' here, radin',' she said, 'whin the po'try suggisted somethin' to me an' thin I got to thinkin',' and here her gab trolley was trun off by sobs.
"'Thinkin' of phwat, darlint?' cried her mother.
"'Oh, mother, I was thinkin', as I sot here wid my feet in the open oven door, that if I should get married and a little baby should come and--and--' Agin she stopped to put on brakes wid her handkerchief, and thin wint on rapidly, 'I was thinkin' how terrible it would be if I should git married and should leave the baby here in the kitchin' and go out and--and it should crawl into the oven an' you should shut it up wid the pies and--and--boo-hoo, hoo!'"
The point of this yarn appeared clear enough to the boys in the office, for they laughed like hyenas and looked at me as if I were the latest thing in tailor-mades. Strange how everybody knows when to laugh when the boss makes a joke! This morning one of the boys had the nerve to call me Arethusa. When I got through with him, in the vacant lot back of the hog pens, he couldn't have said "Arethusa" to save his life. You will commend this, I know, for the dignity of the family name must be upheld. I found long ago that in order to maintain the respect of the world it is sometimes necessary to give it a few drop kicks.
I am disappointed in Milligan. Until recently I thought he really felt an interest in me. For instance, a day or two ago he expressed surprise that you had not established me in the real estate business, and said that it struck him that I was better suited for it than for the coarse details of pork-packing. After that I went round like a pouter pigeon. But I have since learned that he followed his remark about the real estate business with a side speech to one of the clerks: "He certainly knows more about the real estate business than he is likely to ever learn of this. He _can_ tell the difference between a house and lot."
Milligan is so full of jokes that it's safe betting that if he had the shaking up I'd like to give him he'd shed comic operas, end-men's gags and "side-walk conversation" enough to keep the show business running for years to come. Do you wonder that I have written you several letters demanding his resignation or acceptance of my own? You will not receive any of those letters, however, for home, although humble, is a place of shelter. I must say, though, that Milligan's _penchant_ for presenting the naked truth without even the traditional fig leaf is annoying.
Your chafing son, PIERREPONT.
P.S. I have just learned that Milligan is at home, sick. I wish him well, of course, but if he should find a change of climate necessary I will gladly hunt up the timetables for him.
LETTER No. VII.
_Pierrepont writes of "independent work for the house" and its results; of the methods of "guide-books-to-success" philosophers, and of divers other topics._
CHICAGO, Sept. 10, 189--
_Dear Father_:
What a clever, indulgent, far-seeing old boy you are, to be sure. Your ultimatum that I must continue to be subject to Milligan sounds harsh at first reading, but I see your motive. You think by keeping me under him for a while I shall work like a fiend to get promotion, and thus escape his Celtic cussedness. I shall. No greater incentive to rise was ever offered a poor young man. In fact, you couldn't keep me down with Mike if you gave me ten thousand a year. My lacerated feelings are worth much more than that.
Ma is a pretty good Samaritan these days. I told her that Milligan was my _bête noir_, and she said it was a mean shame for a grandson of her father to have to affiliate with such an animal. Her sympathy cost her ten, but I feel that it was worth that to have her wellsprings of emotion tapped once more.
I see the logic of what you said in your last. True it is that if it isn't a Milligan over us, it's some one else--I won't say worse, for that would be lying. I have Mike, Mike has you, you have Ma, and Ma has Mrs. Grundy. We are all travelling over the ocean of life in the same boat, but I'm hanged if I wouldn't prefer to be in the first cabin drinking champagne, than down in the stoke-hole sweating like a galley slave.
I am sincerely glad you are coming home. The old adage about the mice playing when the cat's away is away off. Since you've been gone, except for the half day that your Brian Boru-descended super was sick, I've not even had time enough in office hours to devote an occasional few moments' thought to how I will improve methods here when you elect to add "retired" to your recital of personal facts for the city directory. The way Milligan keeps me jumping would have pinned all the Mott Haven medals on me, had his system of training been adopted in Harvard athletics. I've lost seven pounds in three weeks, and if this thing keeps on I'll be so far under weight that I'll be sent out to pasture or to the boneyard.
I used to think Milligan a well-balanced man, but I was wrong,--no man whose lungs are so out of proportion to his brains can be. I'm getting used to being bossed, but I shall never be broke to being roared at in the fashion of the Bull of Bashan. I don't object to being told that it is necessary to have a state as a component part of the superscription on a letter,--but is it essential to the business code that the people in East Saginaw should have full particulars of my dereliction shouted at them?
Milligan takes especial delight in introducing me to all the visitors who inspect the works, but never by any chance does he tell who I am. Not a bit of it. "This is our new mailing clerk: he is just from Harvard," is the neat way he puts it. And then they look me over and say, "Harvard? Oh, indeed!" and the look passed out with it--you'd think I was a new line of prize pig. I've come to believe that I'm under suspicion here in Chicago; and I've locked up all my college pins and insignia in a closet down cellar, and couldn't be roped into confession of my _alma mater_ with a lariat. Education is evidently not a thing to brag of in Chicago.
I can't quite get on to what it is, but Milligan is up to some game. He's very chummy with the visitors and insists upon showing them about himself. An English lord who was here the other day, chatted with him for fully half an hour in your private office. Think of it--in your private office. I shall have it deodorized before you return. As usual, Milligan boasted and, as the door was open, we all heard. Something was said of the Irish land bill, and this opened the throttle of the super's conversation.
"It's no more than roight to do somethin' for Ireland. Who won the Boer War for ye? Kitchener, Lord Roberts,--both Irish."
"Really, you don't tell me?" drawled his lordship. "And were all our great fighters Irishmen? Was--was Wellington?"
"Certainly," said Milligan.
"And Nelson?"
"Shure. All great fightin' min were Irish."
"How about Alexander?" asked the Englishman.
"Celtic, for shure."
"So? And say now, how about--well, Balaam?" lisped the peer.
"Irish," cried Milligan, "Irish to the backbone. But--an' I asks ye to note this, your lordship--but the ass was English."
I hate Milligan, but I love a joke, and I joined in the laugh that went up. Then I heard his lordship pipe up, "How delightful, don't yer know, that your clarks are so merry. I do wonder what they are laughing at."
Just then he toddled out and surveyed us through his monocle. As Milligan joined him he turned to him and said: "So Balaam was Irish, too, Mr. Milligan? But I really didn't know the ass was a native animal in my country."
Milligan certainly possesses self-control. He was as grave as a government inspector opening a Graham tin can as he replied, "Those laugh best who laugh last, your lordship."
By the way, there was a little excitement in the packing house yesterday which you may hear of in some other way. I'll tell you the straight facts. I happened to be over in the refining house during the noon hour, to get some butterine for a sandwich, when a fellow with some sort of monkey togs blew in and acted in a very suspicious manner. He nosed around into the vats, poked a queer glass machine plumb through a keg of butterine, broke open some tins and raised particular Ned in the olive oil department When he started to put some stuff in his pockets, I remembered your oft-repeated injunctions to occasionally do some independent work for the house--to get out of the ruts, as it were--and I came an old-time Soldier's Field tackle on his jiglets which resulted in his complete disappearance from the interior of the plant, and a compound fracture of the left shoulder-blade where he landed on the cobblestones of the yard. He cursed me as he was being carried away on a stretcher, and said the concern would hear from him to its sorrow.
I understand he's a government inspector, but I rely on your little way of settling such things. However, I think it would be just as well that you cut your expedition in two and get around here by the time the plot thickens. If you don't care to go home so much sooner than you intended, you can live in the private car right here in the railroad yard, and I won't let Ma know. You would enjoy the surroundings immensely. Think of being lulled to sleep by the squealing of your own hogs and awakened in the morning by the music of Texas steers that are going into Graham cans.
Billy Poindexter is here for a day or two on a little trip from New York. He cut up horribly when I told him I couldn't get out to air myself all day long. But I pointed out to him that I was in training to carry Graham & Co. around on my shoulders one of these days, and he admitted that it looked like a good game to follow. I showed him one or two of your letters, and he said they were too clever for a pork-packer and too greasy for a philosopher. Asked if you weren't over-doing the "Beyond-the-Alps-lies-Italy" business a trifle, and allowed that too much watering has killed many a promising plant. However, I don't believe water will be the death of me. Billy says my occupation would drive him to drink, but I guess he isn't on to my salary or else doesn't know the price of cabs out here. Besides, he doesn't need driving.
Billy has developed quite a philosophical streak lately. I guess the girl he really wanted for better or worse decided it a long shot for worse and scratched Billy in the running. I taxed him with it.
"Young man," said he--he's only fourteen months older than I, but how he does swell up over it--"Young man, the pursuit of a girl is like running after a street car and missing it. You're never quite sure that it was the right car, after all."
That's all I could coax out of him, but I guess he got the stuffed glove all right. The other night, after we had spent several hours in the Palmer House examining some very curiously shaped glasses and some quaintly embossed steins, Billy became pathetically confidential and imparted a secret to me.
"Piggy, my boy," he said, "I once cherished rainbow visions of being a great man some day, but I've given it up. After all, the only sure guarantee that you _are_ a great man is to have a five-cent cigar named after you and see them sold at the drug stores at seven for a quarter." The thought affected him so that he tried to conceal his emotion by hiding his face behind one of a couple of glasses that were just then submitted to our inspection.
If Billy only could set his mind on any thing he'd be sure to make a success at it; but the only thing he has ever tried to do is to help spend his governor's money, and he is certainly the entire ping-pong at that. He is of a companionable nature, however, and is not averse to assistance in his pecuniary labors. I help him all I can, and, to square things up a bit, I invited him to be my guest at the house during his stay here. He doesn't eat much, so the family exchequer will not be lowered materially. He never has any appetite for breakfast. Mother has cottoned to him as if he were an orphan. She likes me to be with him for his good example, for she knows that he doesn't drink, he's always so thirsty in the morning.