A Guest at the Ludlow and Other Stories Part 13

Later on, the fever of ambition came upon him, and he taught school where the big girls snickered at him and the big boys went so far away at noon that they couldn't hear the bell and were glad of it, and came back an hour late with water in both ears and crawfish in their pockets.

After that he learned to be a saddler, fought in the Revolutionary War, afterward writing it up for the papers in a graphic way, showing how it happened that most everybody was killed but himself.

Here the reader is given an excellent view of the birthplace of President Lincoln.

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The artist has very wisely left out of the picture several people who sought to hand themselves down to posterity by being photographed in various careless att.i.tudes in the foreground.

In this house Mr. Lincoln determined to establish for himself a birthplace and to remain for eight years afterwards. In fancy, the reader can see little Abraham running about the humble cot, preceded by his pale, straw-colored Kentucky dog, or perhaps standing in "the branch," with the soothing mud squirting gently up between his dimpled toes.

Here a great heart first learned to beat in unison with all humanity.

Late one night, after the janitor had retired, he pulled the latch-string of this humble place and asked if the proprietor objected to children. Learning that he did not, the little emanc.i.p.ator deposited on the desk a small parcel consisting of several rectangular cotton garments done up in a shawl-strap, and asked for a room with a bath.

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Our next ill.u.s.tration shows the birthplace of President Garfield. He was born plainly at Orange, Cuyahoga county, Ohio. Here he spent his childhood in preparing for the presidency, lying on his stomach for hours by the light of a pine-knot, studying all about the tariff, and ascertaining how many would remain if William had seven apples and gave three to Henry and two to Jane. He soon afterward went to work on a ca.n.a.l as boatswain of a mule. It was here he learned that profanity could be carried to excess. He very early found that by coupling the mule to the boat by the use of a cistern pole, instead of coming into direct contact with the accursed yet buoyant end of the animal, he could bring with him a better record to the cla.s.s-meeting than otherwise. He then taught school, and was beloved by all as a tutor. Many of his pupils grew up to be ornaments to society, and said they had never seen tuting that could equal that of their old tutor.

Mr. Garfield availed himself of the above birthplace on the 19th of November, A. D. 1831. He then utilized it as a residence.

Here we are given a fine view of the birthplace of President Cleveland.

It is a plain structure, containing windows through which those who are inside may look out, while those who are on the outside may readily look in.

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Under this roof the idea first came to Mr. Cleveland that some day he might fill the presidential chair to overflowing. If the reader will go around to the door of the shed on the other side of the house, he will see little Grover just coming out and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

On the door of the barn can be seen the following legend, scratched on its surface with a nail:

"I druther be born lucky than blong to a nold Ristocratic fambly.

S. G. C."

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Here we have an excellent view of Mr. Harrison's birthplace from the main road. It hardly seems possible that a man who now lives in a large house, with a spare room to it, gas in all parts of it, and wool carpets on the floor, should have once lived in such a plain structure as this.

It shows that America is the place for the poor boy. Here he can rise to a great height by his own powers. Little did Bennie think at one time that people would some day come from all quarters of the United States to see him and take him kindly by the hand and say that they were well acquainted with his folks when they were poor.

These various birthplaces prove to us what style is best calculated for a presidential candidate. They demonstrate that poverty is no drawback, and that frequently it is a good stimulant for the right kind of a boy.

I once knew a poor boy whose clothes did not fit him very well when he was little, and now that he is grown up it is the same way.

That poor boy was myself. But I can not close this research without saying that the boys alone can not claim the glory in America. The girls are ent.i.tled to recognition.

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Permit me, therefore, to present the birthplace of Belva A. Lockwood. I do not speak of it because I desire to treat the matter lightly, but to call attention to little Belva's sagacity in selecting the same style of birthplace as that chosen by other presidential candidates. She very truly said in the course of a conversation with the writer: "My theory as to the selection of a birthplace is, first be sure you are right and then go ahead."

We should learn from all the above that a humble origin does not prevent a successful career. Had Abraham Lincoln been wealthy, he would have been taught, perhaps, a style of elocution and gesture that would have taken first rate at a parlor entertainment, and yet he might never have made his Gettysburg speech. While he was president he never looked at his own hard hands and knotted knuckles that he was not reminded of his toiling neighbors, whose honest sweat and loyal blood had made this mighty republic a source of glory and not of shame forever.

So, in the future, whether it be a Grover, a Benjamin, or a Belva, may the President of the United States be ever ready to remove the cotton from his ears at the first cry of the oppressed and deserving poor.

ON BROADWAY

XXIII

Once when in New York I observed a middle-aged man remove his coat at the corner of Fulton street and Broadway and wipe the shoulders thereof with a large red handkerchief of the Thurman brand. There was a dash of mud in his whiskers and a crick in his back. He had just sought to cross Broadway, and the disappointed ambulance had gone up street to answer another call. He was a plain man with a limited vocabulary, but he spoke feelingly. I asked him if I could be of any service to him, and he said No, not especially, unless I would be kind enough to go up under the back of his vest and see if I could find the end of his suspender. I did that and then held his coat for him while he got in it again. He afterward walked down the east side of Broadway with me.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _A man that crosses Broadway for a year can be mayor of Boston, but my idee is that he's a heap more likely to be mayor of New Jerusalem_ (Page 220)]

"That's twice I've tried to git acrost to take the Cortlandt street ferry boat sence one o'clock, and hed to give it up both times," he said, after he had secured his breath.

"So you don't live in town?"

"No, sir, I don't, and there won't be anybody else livin' in town, either, if they let them crazy teamsters run things. Look at my coat!

I've wiped the noses of seventy-nine single horses and eleven double teams sence one o'clock, and my vitals is all a perfect jell. I bet if I was hauled up right now to be postmortumed the rear breadths of my liver would be a sight to behold."

"Why didn't you get a policeman to escort you across?"

"Why, condemb it, I did futher up the street, and when I left him the policeman reckoned his collar-bone was broke. It's a blamed outrage, I think. They say that a man that crosses Broadway for a year can be mayor of Boston, but my idee is that he's a heap more likely to be mayor of the New Jerusalem."

"Where do you live, anyway?"

"Well, I live near Pittsburg, P. A., where business is active enough to suit 'most anybody, 'specially when a man tries to blow out a natural-gast well, but we make our teamsters subservient to the Const.i.tution of the United States. We don't allow this Juggernaut business the way you fellers do. There a man would drive clear round the block ruther than to kill a child, say nuthin of a grown person. Here the hubs and fellers of these big drays and trucks are mussed up all the time with the fragments of your best people. Look at me. What encouragement is there for a man to come here and trade? Folks that live here tell me that they do most of their business by telephone in the daytime, and then do their runnin' around at night, but I've got apast that. Time was when I could run around nights and then mow all day, but I can't do it now. People that leads a suddentary life, I s'pose, demands excitement, and at night they will have their fun; but take a man like me--he wants to transact his business in the daytime by word o'

mouth, and then go to bed. He don't want to go home at 3 o'clock with a plug hat full of digestive organs that he never can possibly put back just where they was before.

"No, I don't want to run down a big city like New York and nuther do I want to be run down myself. They tell me I can go up town on this side and take the boat so as to get to Jersey City that way, and I'm going to do it ruther than to go home with a neck yoke run through me. Folks say that Jurden is a hard road to travel, but I'm positive that a man would get jerked up and fined for driving as fast there as they do on Broadway; and then another thing, I s'pose there's a good deal less traffic over the road."

He then went down Wall street to the Hanover Square station and I saw him no more.

MY TRIP TO DIXIE

XXIV

I once took quite a long railway trip into the South in search of my health. I called my physicians together, and they decided by a rising vote that I ought to go to a warmer clime, or I should enjoy very poor health all winter. So I decided to go in search of my health, if I died on the trail.

I bought tickets at Cincinnati of a pale, sallow liar, who is just beginning to work his way up to the forty-ninth degree in the Order of Ananias. He will surely be heard from again some day, as he has the elements that go to make up a successful prevaricator.

He said that I could go through from Cincinnati to Asheville, North Carolina, with only one easy change of cars, and in about twenty-three hours. It took me twice that time, and I had to change cars three times in the dead of night.

The southern railroad is not in a flourishing condition. It ought to go somewhere for its health. Anyway, it ought to go somewhere, which at present it does not. According to the old Latin proverb, I presume we should say nothing but good of the dead, but I am here to say that the railroad that knocked my spine loose last week, and compelled me to carry lunch baskets and large Norman two-year-old gripsacks through the gloaming, till my arms hung down to the ground, does not deserve to be treated well, even after death.