Life on the Mississippi
We had a succession of black nights, going up the river, and it was
observable that whenever we landed, and suddenly inundated the trees
with the intense sunburst of the electric light, a certain curious
effect was always produced: hundreds of birds flocked instantly out
from the masses of shining green foliage, and went careering hither and
thither through the white rays, and often a song-bird tuned up and fell
to singing. We judged that they mistook this superb artificial day
for the genuine article. We had a delightful trip in that thoroughly
well-ordered steamer, and regretted that it was accomplished so
speedily. By means of diligence and activity, we managed to hunt out
nearly all the old friends. One was missing, however; he went to his
reward, whatever it was, two years ago. But I found out all about him.
His case helped me to realize how lasting can be the effect of a
very trifling occurrence. When he was an apprentice-blacksmith in our
village, and I a schoolboy, a couple of young Englishmen came to the
town and sojourned a while; and one day they got themselves up in cheap
royal finery and did the Richard III swordfight with maniac energy and
prodigious powwow, in the presence of the village boys. This blacksmith
cub was there, and the histrionic poison entered his bones. This
vast, lumbering, ignorant, dull-witted lout was stage-struck, and
irrecoverably. He disappeared, and presently turned up in St. Louis.
I ran across him there, by and by. He was standing musing on a street
corner, with his left hand on his hip, the thumb of his right supporting
his chin, face bowed and frowning, slouch hat pulled down over his
forehead--imagining himself to be Othello or some such character, and
imagining that the passing crowd marked his tragic bearing and were
awestruck.
I joined him, and tried to get him down out of the clouds, but did not
succeed. However, he casually informed me, presently, that he was a
member of the Walnut Street theater company--and he tried to say it with
indifference, but the indifference was thin, and a mighty exultation
showed through it. He said he was cast for a part in Julius Caesar, for
that night, and if I should come I would see him. _If_ I should come! I
said I wouldn't miss it if I were dead.
I went away stupefied with astonishment, and saying to myself, 'How
strange it is! _We_ always thought this fellow a fool; yet the moment he
comes to a great city, where intelligence and appreciation abound,
the talent concealed in this shabby napkin is at once discovered, and
promptly welcomed and honored.'
But I came away from the theater that night disappointed and offended;
for I had had no glimpse of my hero, and his name was not in the bills.
I met him on the street the next morning, and before I could speak, he
asked--
'Did you see me?'
'No, you weren't there.'
He looked surprised and disappointed. He said--
'Yes, I was. Indeed I was. I was a Roman soldier.'
'Which one?'
'Why didn't you see them Roman soldiers that stood back there in a rank,
and sometimes marched in procession around the stage?'
'Do you mean the Roman army?--those six sandaled roustabouts in
nightshirts, with tin shields and helmets, that marched around treading
on each other's heels, in charge of a spider-legged consumptive dressed
like themselves?'
'That's it! that's it! I was one of them Roman soldiers. I was the next
to the last one. A half a year ago I used to always be the last one; but
I've been promoted.'
Well, they told me that that poor fellow remained a Roman soldier to
the last--a matter of thirty-four years. Sometimes they cast him for a
'speaking part,' but not an elaborate one. He could be trusted to go
and say, 'My lord, the carriage waits,' but if they ventured to add a
sentence or two to this, his memory felt the strain and he was likely to
miss fire. Yet, poor devil, he had been patiently studying the part of
Hamlet for more than thirty years, and he lived and died in the belief
that some day he would be invited to play it!
And this is what came of that fleeting visit of those young Englishmen
to our village such ages and ages ago! What noble horseshoes this man
might have made, but for those Englishmen; and what an inadequate Roman
soldier he _did _make!
A day or two after we reached St. Louis, I was walking along Fourth
Street when a grizzly-headed man gave a sort of start as he passed me,
then stopped, came back, inspected me narrowly, with a clouding brow,
and finally said with deep asperity--
'Look here, _have you got that drink yet?_'
A maniac, I judged, at first. But all in a flash I recognized him. I
made an effort to blush that strained every muscle in me, and answered
as sweetly and winningly as ever I knew how--
'Been a little slow, but am just this minute closing in on the place
where they keep it. Come in and help.'
He softened, and said make it a bottle of champagne and he was
agreeable. He said he had seen my name in the papers, and had put all
his affairs aside and turned out, resolved to find me or die; and make
me answer that question satisfactorily, or kill me; though the most of
his late asperity had been rather counterfeit than otherwise.
This meeting brought back to me the St. Louis riots of about thirty
years ago. I spent a week there, at that time, in a boarding-house, and
had this young fellow for a neighbor across the hall. We saw some of
the fightings and killings; and by and by we went one night to an armory
where two hundred young men had met, upon call, to be armed and go forth
against the rioters, under command of a military man. We drilled till
about ten o'clock at night; then news came that the mob were in great
force in the lower end of the town, and were sweeping everything before
them. Our column moved at once. It was a very hot night, and my musket
was very heavy. We marched and marched; and the nearer we approached the
seat of war, the hotter I grew and the thirstier I got. I was behind my
friend; so, finally, I asked him to hold my musket while I dropped out
and got a drink. Then I branched off and went home. I was not feeling
any solicitude about him of course, because I knew he was so well armed,
now, that he could take care of himself without any trouble. If I had
had any doubts about that, I would have borrowed another musket for him.
I left the city pretty early the next morning, and if this grizzled man
had not happened to encounter my name in the papers the other day in St.
Louis, and felt moved to seek me out, I should have carried to my grave
a heart-torturing uncertainty as to whether he ever got out of the riots
all right or not. I ought to have inquired, thirty years ago; I know
that. And I would have inquired, if I had had the muskets; but, in the
circumstances, he seemed better fixed to conduct the investigations than
I was.
One Monday, near the time of our visit to St. Louis, the
'Globe-Democrat' came out with a couple of pages of Sunday statistics,
whereby it appeared that 119,448 St. Louis people attended the morning
and evening church services the day before, and 23,102 children attended
Sunday-school. Thus 142,550 persons, out of the city's total of 400,000
population, respected the day religious-wise. I found these statistics,
in a condensed form, in a telegram of the Associated Press, and
preserved them. They made it apparent that St. Louis was in a higher
state of grace than she could have claimed to be in my time. But now
that I canvass the figures narrowly, I suspect that the telegraph
mutilated them. It cannot be that there are more than 150,000 Catholics
in the town; the other 250,000 must be classified as Protestants. Out
of these 250,000, according to this questionable telegram, only 26,362
attended church and Sunday-school, while out of the 150,000 Catholics,
116,188 went to church and Sunday-school.
CHAPTER 52
A Burning Brand
_All _at once the thought came into my mind, 'I have not sought out Mr.
Brown.'
Upon that text I desire to depart from the direct line of my subject,
and make a little excursion. I wish to reveal a secret which I have
carried with me nine years, and which has become burdensome.
Upon a certain occasion, nine years ago, I had said, with strong
feeling, 'If ever I see St. Louis again, I will seek out Mr. Brown, the
great grain merchant, and ask of him the privilege of shaking him by the
hand.'
The occasion and the circumstances were as follows. A friend of mine, a
clergyman, came one evening and said--
'I have a most remarkable letter here, which I want to read to you, if
I can do it without breaking down. I must preface it with some
explanations, however. The letter is written by an ex-thief and
ex-vagabond of the lowest origin and basest rearing, a man all stained
with crime and steeped in ignorance; but, thank God, with a mine of pure
gold hidden away in him, as you shall see. His letter is written to a
burglar named Williams, who is serving a nine-year term in a certain
State prison, for burglary. Williams was a particularly daring burglar,
and plied that trade during a number of years; but he was caught at last
and jailed, to await trial in a town where he had broken into a house at
night, pistol in hand, and forced the owner to hand over to him $8,000
in government bonds. Williams was not a common sort of person, by
any means; he was a graduate of Harvard College, and came of good New
England stock. His father was a clergyman. While lying in jail, his
health began to fail, and he was threatened with consumption. This
fact, together with the opportunity for reflection afforded by solitary
confinement, had its effect--its natural effect. He fell into serious
thought; his early training asserted itself with power, and wrought with
strong influence upon his mind and heart. He put his old life behind
him, and became an earnest Christian. Some ladies in the town heard of
this, visited him, and by their encouraging words supported him in his
good resolutions and strengthened him to continue in his new life. The
trial ended in his conviction and sentence to the State prison for
the term of nine years, as I have before said. In the prison he became
acquainted with the poor wretch referred to in the beginning of my talk,
Jack Hunt, the writer of the letter which I am going to read. You will
see that the acquaintanceship bore fruit for Hunt. When Hunt's time was
out, he wandered to St. Louis; and from that place he wrote his letter
to Williams. The letter got no further than the office of the prison
warden, of course; prisoners are not often allowed to receive letters
from outside. The prison authorities read this letter, but did not
destroy it. They had not the heart to do it. They read it to several
persons, and eventually it fell into the hands of those ladies of whom I
spoke a while ago. The other day I came across an old friend of mine--a
clergyman--who had seen this letter, and was full of it. The mere
remembrance of it so moved him that he could not talk of it without
his voice breaking. He promised to get a copy of it for me; and here it
is--an exact copy, with all the imperfections of the original preserved.
It has many slang expressions in it--thieves' argot--but their meaning
has been interlined, in parentheses, by the prison authorities'--
St. Louis, June 9th 1872.
Mr. W---- friend Charlie if i may call you so: i no you are surprised to
get a letter from me, but i hope you won't be mad at my writing to you.
i want to tell you my thanks for the way you talked to me when i was in
prison--it has led me to try and be a better man; i guess you thought
i did not cair for what you said, & at the first go off I didn't, but i
noed you was a man who had don big work with good men & want no sucker,