From Pillar to Post Part 7

The second almost certain manifestation is in the physical relation of the sufferer to the chair in which he sits. He makes it bear the heavy material burden of his despair by sitting not as Nature intended that he should sit, but as nearly upon the small of his back as the available s.p.a.ce at his disposal will permit. If he occupy an aisle seat, he sits wholly on the small of his back, with his legs crossed, and his hands tightly clasped across his freer knee.

Once located, this man is the special person that I go after. It becomes my persistent effort, and in so far as I can master the situation my determination, to win his reluctant heart. If I can only get him sitting up like a vertebrate animal, using his spine like a prop instead of like a hammock, and returning my gaze with a gleam of interest, I am happy.

If I can get him not only to sit up but to lean forward with his head c.o.c.ked to one side, much as a horse will c.o.c.k its ears when something unexpected comes within the range of its vision, I feel that I have scored a triumph. I should say that at a rough guess in eight cases out of ten the effort is successful, although there have been ninth and tenth cases that have chilled me to the marrow, and sent me home with an uncomfortable sense of failure.

My lamented friend, the late R. K. Munkittrick, an American humorist who never really received the full measure of appreciation to which his delicious humor ent.i.tled him, once when we were "reading" together one night at Albany, scoring a fiasco so complete that we could only laugh over it, put the situation before me in terms so wholly comprehensive that I have never forgotten it.

"See that red-headed chap in the fourth row?" he whispered, as the chairman was indulging in some extended remarks concerning our greatness to which we could never hope to live up.

"You mean the pall bearer with the green necktie?" I asked.

"Yes," said Munkittrick, "he's the one."

"Well--what of him?" said I.

"Oh, nothing," grinned Munkittrick, "but I'll bet you seven dollars and forty-seven cents he's bet the boxoffice fifty cents we can't make him laugh."

I may record with due humility that if good old Munkittrick's surmise was correct our highly chromatic but otherwise funereal friend won his bet. I doubt we could have moved him with dynamite.

But these gentlemen serve a highly useful purpose. They keep us with our feet on the earth, and prevent us from soaring too high in our own estimation.

Another effective factor in this disciplinary element in platform work is the "back-handed" compliment that leaves the party of the second part suspended like Mahomet's coffin, midway between heaven and earth, and in some uncertainty as to exactly where "he is going to get off." I have rejoiced in several such. The great State of Pennsylvania, which has "officially" done so much for the platform by its liberal appropriations for teachers' inst.i.tutes, enabling the school centers to secure the services of speakers of high cost who would otherwise be beyond their reach, is responsible for one of these.

It occurred some three years ago, and grew out of an unexpected summons by wire from one of the largest cities of the Quaker State asking me to "fill in" for Dr. Griggs, who because of sudden indisposition was unable to meet his engagement in a large and important course there. It was an emergency call, which fortunately found me disengaged, and willing to serve.

The chairman of the occasion was a delightful individual, with a considerable fund of dry humor, and his introduction was a gem of subtle wit. It occupied about fifteen minutes, the first five of which were devoted to matters pertaining to the course; the second five to a well deserved eulogy of Dr. Griggs for his inspiring lectures and the uplifting nature of his work, coupled with an expression of the intense disappointment which he, the chairman, knew the audience must feel on learning that the good doctor could not be present. I thought he rather rubbed the "disappointment" idea in a little too vigorously; but I tried not to show it, and sat through that part of the chairman's remarks with the usual stereotyped smile of satisfaction at hearing a colleague so highly spoken of. This done, the chairman launched himself upon a four-minute discourse upon what he called "The Age of Subst.i.tution."

"You know, my friends," said he, "that this great age in which we live is so rich in resources that at times when we cannot immediately lay our hands on some particular article we happen to want there is always to be found somewhere a _just as good as_ article to take its place.

If you desire a particular kind of porous plaster to soothe an all-too-self-conscious spine, and the druggist you call upon for aid does not chance to have it in stock, he invariably has another at hand which he a.s.sures you will do quite as well. So it is with the nerve foods, breakfast foods, corn plasters, face powders, facial soaps, suspenders, corsets, liver pills, and lecturers. If we haven't what you want, we have something just as good in this Age of Subst.i.tution. So is it with us to-night. While we may not receive the all-wool-and-a-yard-wide spiritual uplift that Dr. Griggs would have given us, we are privileged to listen to the near-silk humor of a subst.i.tute, who, the committee in charge venture to hope, will prove to be _just as good as_ the other. We of course don't know that it will be; but we live in hope as well as on it, and, lacking the great satisfaction that I had expected to be mine in presenting Dr. Griggs to you this evening, it still gives me a certain melancholy pleasure to introduce to this audience that highly mercerized near-speaker, Mr.

Just-as-Good-as K. Bangs, on whose behalf I bespeak your charity and your tolerance."

As a rule I like to play a little with my chairmen; but I deemed it unwise on this occasion to "monkey with a buzz saw," and plunged directly into the work in hand without venturing upon the usual facetious preliminaries. I felt that I had enough work cut out for me already, and for an hour and a half exerted myself strenuously to be _just as good as_ I could be, neither more nor less. Then, when it was all over, and my case was in the hands of the jury, a charming woman, with a delectable smile on her face, came rus.h.i.+ng up to the platform.

She seized my hand and shook it vigorously as she spoke.

"Oh, Mr. Bangs," she said with an enthusiasm so delightful that I listened eagerly for the honeyed words to come, "we are so glad you came! _You have made our disappointment complete!_"

Another incident I prefer not to locate other than by saying that it was in the West--and where the West begins no man may say. I know a New York lady to whom it begins at the Cortlandt street opening of Mr. McAdoo's Hudson River tubes, who has no notion at all that anything lies beyond save the names of a few cities that mean nothing to her, and the Rocky Mountains. With others it begins on the banks of the Mississippi. Once in the heart of Iowa, when I was speaking to a young college student there on the glorious opportunities of the West, in the hope of making him see how much I appreciated the wonderful country in which he lived, the young man staggered me with the reply:

"Yes, sir, I believe you are right. _My father wants me to go West when I get through with my work here._"

So it would seem that the old rime about the little insect--

Every flea has a little flea to bite him, And so it goes ad infinitem--

may very well be adapted to the uses of those good souls who now and then try to reach the infinity of westernness. But there is another poem more directly applicable to some conclusion as to the problem, which I like to think of in moments when I am reflecting upon its cordial welcome to me:

Out where the hand clasp's a little stronger, Out where a smile dwells a little longer-- That's where the West begins.

Out where the sun is a little brighter, Where the snows that fall are a trifle whiter, Where the bonds of home are a wee bit tighter-- That's where the West begins.

Out where the world is in the making, Where fewer hearts with despair are aching-- That's where the West begins.

Where there's more of singing and less of sighing; Where there's more of giving and less of buying, And a man makes friends without half trying-- That's where the West begins.

The author of those lines, who was, I believe, Arthur Chapman of Denver, seems to me to have come closer to a solution of the problem than any other. For our own purposes just now, however, let us say that the incident to which I wish to refer took place in that part of the West which lies between Sandy Hook and the Golden Gate.

My audience in this particular spot was delightfully responsive; so much so that I was all of two hours in the delivery of a lecture that ordinarily takes me an hour and a quarter to deliver. It was as exhilarating as a cross-country run, with turf and skies just right. But for the pauses made necessary by the interruptions in appreciation I should have galloped across the finish line in less than an hour. So stimulating in fact was the readiness of the good people before me to take what I had to say and run away with it, that, while I was immortally tired when I went out upon the platform, when I finished I could have started in and done it all over again with zest.

But even with so pleasing a background of responsiveness, there was one young man seated in the front row who was a source of particular pleasure to me. He was a rather distinguished looking youth, with flas.h.i.+ng eyes, and somewhat longish blond hair, and a physique that suggested a modern Viking. There was something in his face that suggested the scholarly habit--occasionally his expression was wistfully questioning. His eyes never left my face while I was speaking, and his physical att.i.tude, forward-leaning, and a trifle tense, seemed to betoken an interest in what I had to say that was more than gratifying, and his mouth was kept half open, ever ready for action. If there was to be anything to laugh at, he at least was not going to be caught napping, or in any way unprepared, if by keeping his mouth open he could remove all obstacles that would have prevented the easy flow of his mirth.

And his laugh! I wish I might have a rubber record of that laugh to secrete in an automatic machine located somewhere in the middle of my lecture halls, so that in response to the pressure of an electric b.u.t.ton it could be let loose at certain psychological moments. It was as infectious a laugh as I ever listened to, and there were times when its contagion brought me perilously close to seeming to laugh at my own jokes--which is a dangerous thing for a lecturer to do, and contrary to the technic of the "business," which requires humorous periods to be delivered with a face solemn to the point of the funereal. It had really musical modulations, rising from pianissimo to fortissimo on the wings of nicely graded crescendos, and returning whence it had come with a sort of rippling gurgle that was mighty fetching.

Finally not only was nothing I had in mind lost upon him, but he actually appeared to discover subtleties of wit in my discourse of whose presence I had not myself had the slightest suspicion. It is hardly necessary to say that he was pleasing unto my soul, and naturally enough I spoke of him afterward to my chairman.

"Well, Mr. Bangs," said the chairman as we walked back to the hotel together after the lecture was over, "what did you think of your audience to-night? Some responsiveness there, all right, eh?"

I was impulsively enthusiastic enough to say that I thought it was a "corking good audience." "If they were all like that," said I, "this work would be as easy as cutting calves-foot jelly with an ax."

"I thought you liked them," said he. "Our people here are appreciative, and they believe the laborer is worthy of his hire in showing it."

"I'll put Blanksville down in my red-letter book," said I. "But tell me who and what is that rather distinguished looking young man with the longish blond hair and snappy eyes, who sat in the aisle seat of the front row next to the white-haired old lady with an audiphone? He had a wistful sort of face, and--"

"Oh, I know who you mean," said the chairman. "He's So-and-So. What about him--he didn't bother you, I hope?"

"On the contrary," said I, "I loved him. He was about the most appreciative chap I ever talked to. He fairly hung on every word I spoke, and when it came to a funny point I'm blest if he didn't meet me more than halfway!"

"Yes," said the chairman, "he would. He's half-witted."

My swelling head immediately resumed its normal proportions, and when I left Blanksville the following morning the only discomfort I found in wearing my regular hat was that in some way or other it seemed to have grown a little too large for me, and showed a tendency to settle down over my ears. I have nevertheless comforted myself with the thought that sometimes the difference between half-wittedness and genius is so slight to the eye of the familiar beholder that wise men are not infrequently believed by their neighbors to be fools. My young friend after all may have been a poet, and, like some prophets, "without honor in his own country."

VII

FRIENDS OF THE ROAD

In the days of my cynicism I used to laugh in my sleeve, and occasionally in print, at the ways of the politicians and statesmen en route, who have their pictures taken hobn.o.bbing with locomotive engineers, trainmen, and Pullman porters. Since I have myself become a professional wanderer and have come into closer, somewhat enforced, fellows.h.i.+p with these individuals I laugh at the politicians and statesmen no more. On the contrary I commend them, and I think with appreciation and grat.i.tude of a poem by George Sterling, one of our real voices to-day calling down blessings on the heads of these "workers of the night" to whose watchful care we who travel intrust our lives.

One who makes only occasional journeys by rail is not likely to think very much about the man at the throttle; but when one has practically lived on the rail for two or three months running, not only the man at the throttle, but the man at the switch, the flagman, the fireman, the conductor, and the Pullman porter as well, come to be in a very real sense members of his family.

Mr. Carnegie's hero medals are often bestowed, and worthily, upon men who on sudden impulse have performed some deed of heroism and self-sacrifice for the benefit of others; but I have yet to hear of one of these desirable possessions being bestowed upon the flagman who, in the face of a raging blizzard, at midnight, the thermometer at zero, leaves the comparative comfort of the rear car, and walks, whistling for company, back some four or five hundred yards along the icy track, and stands there with his red lantern in hand to warn a possibly advancing train behind of danger ahead.

When the ice-incased wires are down, and the signal and switch towers are out of commission because of the rampageous elements, how many of us who lie comfortably asleep in the warm berths of our stalled trains give so much as a thought to the man outside in the freezing cold of the night, keeping the switches clear that we may proceed, or to the flagman at the rear, shelterless before the storm, who stands between us and disaster? Most of us, I fancy, do not think of them at all, and I fear that many of us so occupy ourselves with self-sympathy on these occasions that we find no words of commendation in our hearts for anybody connected with the whole railway system; but rather words of condemnation for that system and everybody connected with it, from the innocent stockholder looking for dividends, all the way down to those poor devils who have forgotten under the stress of demoralizing conditions to fill the water tanks that we may drink and get our fair share of the nation's supply of typhoid germs.

For myself, I can truthfully say that the remark of a railway official made to me many years ago in response to one of my complaints has of late years gathered considerable force and significance. This gentleman was a neighbor of mine, and one Christmas he presented me with an annual pa.s.s on the Hudson River Railroad. It was a delightful gift, and I used it with enthusiasm. One morning, however, as he and I sat together on a local train that had in some mysterious way managed to lose four hours on a thirty-minute run, I turned to him and said:

"Charlie, sometimes I wish I had never accepted that confounded old pa.s.s of yours. I've bartered my freedom of speech for a beggarly account of empty minutes. If it wasn't for that blankety-blank pa.s.s, I could tell you what I think of your blinkety-blink old road. Here we are four hours late on a thirty-minute run!"

"Why, my dear boy," he replied with an amiable smile, "you are dingety-dinged lucky to get in at all!"