A Treasury of Great Science Fiction Vol 2 Part 18

some of my eagerness must have shown in my face, for the Shogun regarded me quizzically for a moment before he motioned me to go on to the next letter.

I realized then that this offer, like many others, was to be rejected, and that another opportunity to seejustice done would be lost. I knew it was futile to protest, but I could not forbear bursting out: "Isn't it high time, sir, that you said a few words in your own defense?"

He shook his head. "No, Matt," he replied gravely. "Far too much has already been said. Let the others occupy themselves with trying to explain and justify their acts." Then he added with a wry smile: "Some of them have a good deal that needs explaining."

The Shogun's failure to take advantage of such opportunities as that offered by the Harper's editor to set before the public the true story of his services during the years of crisis was a constant source of disappointment to his young secretary, as it was to the generality of his friends.

In his frequent references to the subject Bosley does not always conceal his impatience at his chiefs docile acceptance of his lot and at his seeming content with the neglect and obscurity to which he had been consigned by the forgetful public.

One seldom picks up a magazine or newspaper [wrote Bosley on March 30] without being confronted with one or more articles dealing with the war and its blundering aftermath. Sometimes it seems that every general, and every politician, who had a part in the conflict, however brief or inconsequential, has hurried into print to tell the nation how, by his own unaided efforts, he saved the Union, or to air his wrong-headed opinions and belittle the accomplishments of his betters. Yet in the face of this barrage of egoism and rancor, the Shogun remains silent week after week, deep sunk in lethargy

1.

The Shogun's head-wound, as many know, affected the vision of his left eye, and to spare him needless strain on the other, Bosley was in the habit of reading his correspondence aloud to him. Once he remarked humorously to his one-legged secretary: "Matt, when your good eyes and my good legs are totaled up, the result is one sound man, with half a man left overl" and indifference, lacking the spirit to speak out and deny the most blatant falsehoods...

In conversation here last evening in the office he shares with his former law partner, someone spoke of the flood of war reminiscences now being thrust on the public, most of them from the pens of the Union military leaders. At length the Shogun, who had been listening in moody silence, remarked dryly: "If only the generals could have been made to fight then half as hard as they are writing now, the war might have been over in a matter of weeks."

A few days later [April 2} Bosley returns to the same subject, although this time his tone is less vehement.

The mail this morning had the usual quota of letters from strangers, the writers of which all have favors to ask. Most of them couch their pleas, not as requests, but in the form of commands, they seeming to be under the impression that because he once occupied the White House he has a moral obligation to accede to their demands, no matter how absurd they are.

Each letter receives an answer, although the task makes heavy demands on his time and strength-and on his finances, too, for he rarely disregards the pleas of former soldiers, or their dependents, who write of poverty and illness and state that they know of no one else to whom to turn.

It is useless to remind him that he is often imposed on, that some of the supplicants are professional beggars. Once when I made bold to point that out he shrugged good-naturedly and replied: "If their letters are not genuine, then the rascals deserve some reward for inventing such heart-rending yarns. As you grow older, Matt, you'll come to realize that the man who does his job well is mighty rare, so much so that he deserves to be encouraged regardless of how he chooses to use his talents. In a world so full of blunderers, it's almost a pleasure to be imposed on by experts."Some of the letters are full of spleen, and these too the Shogun listens to with equanimity and answers with forbearance. In one of those received a few days ago, from a mill town in Ma.s.sachusetts, the writer complained bitterly that the influx of liberated Negroes had so overrun the labor market that scores of whites were tramping the streets with empty pockets. For this situation he held the Shogun responsible, citing once more the old canard that his reason for freeing the slaves-and thus betraying the laboring cla.s.ses -was the Negro blood in his veins.

When I protested that a letter so full of venom did not deserve an answer, he shook his head patiently.

"No," he replied mildly, "you can't expect a man whose belly is empty to make distinctions between what's true and what's false. Perhaps nothing I can say will convince him of his error, but he'll like to have someone try to reason with him."

His reply consumed the greater part of an hour and occupied three pages. I remarked that I hoped the Ma.s.sachusetts man would have the good sense to keep the letter, because someday it might have a value. This thought seemed to amuse him. "Have you got any idea, Matt," he asked, "how many letters I've written during the past forty years? When I think of their number it's hard to understand why the whole country's not suffering from a shortage of paper and ink and quill pens. No, Matt, anybody who tries to peddle my letters will have to bind them into bales and sell them by the hundredweight."

That young Bosley never expected his diary to be seen by others is evident from even a casual reading of its pages. Because his daily jottings were intended exclusively for his own eyes, it is not surprising that he sometimes recorded certain incidents and conversations he would otherwise have hesitated to commit to paper. Needless to say, it is not the intention to bring to light here any material that its writer would have wished to remain secret and confidential. Certain pa.s.sages are so informative, however, and afford such candid glimpses of his chief's personal life that there seems no reason at this late date for withholding them from the restricted circulation they will receive from readers of this memoir. I have therefore elected to include, and thus make available to present and future scholars, a few excerpts from the diary that its author might have preferred to pa.s.s over in silence. The first was written in Springfield on May 26, less than a week before Bosley and his chief set off for Auburn.

The Shogun accompanied his wife to the depot this afternoon and saw her off on the 3 o'clock train, she having decided to visit relatives in Kentucky while he is absent in California. From the station he walked back to the office, and the sound of his footsteps as he came up the stairs caused his old-time partner, who was writing at his desk, to put down his pen and listen closely. When the Shogun appeared in the doorway, the other looked at him in unbelief. "G.o.dalmighty, sir!" he exclaimed, "I couldn't believe my ears when I heard you skipping upstairs. It was almost like listening to a ghost. It must be ten years since you've taken those steps two at a time. It does my heart good, sir, to see you so spry again!"

The Shogun looked a bit abashed at the exuberance of this greeting. "Well, Billy," he said mildly, "I've just seen Mary off, and I confess I'm a bit relieved in my mind to know she'll be among friends in Lexington while I go gadding off to California. I didn't feel altogether happy about leaving her behind for so long, but she refused to consider venturing out into that heathen country and running the risk of being scalped by wild Indians."

The Shogun was carefree and buoyant all the rest of the afternoon, pausing from time to time as we worked on his mail to joke with Billy Herndon or to exchange pleasantries with visitors. We were all much heartened at his new-found lightness of spirit, the reason for which was clear enough, although of course we refrained from commenting on it. Once when someone mentioned his high good humor he grew silent and a look of guilt pa.s.sed over his face. "Poor Mary," he mused pensively, "I do hope she enjoys her little outing."The following entry is dated three days later: There was another gathering last night in the office facing the Court House Square, as there has been each evening since the Shogun's lady set off for Kentucky. In these familiar surroundings, in the company of boon companions of other days, he seems to have recaptured the carefree gaiety of youth, shunting off the melancholy that has recently rested so heavily on his shoulders. The little room nightly grows thick with tobacco smoke as one by one these old-time cronies recall happenings out of the past, each story bringing forth shouts of laughter, in which the chief joins no less heartily than the others.

At one point last evening the conversation turned, as it often does at such gatherings, to youthful love affairs, and Billy Herndon, who had been taking frequent nips at the bottle that stood within reach on his desk, returned to his oft-mentioned plan of someday putting on paper his recollections of the Shogun's career. He now stated in a tone of exaggerated solemnity that in it he intended to bring to light a long-forgotten episode of the Shogun's youth: his romantic attachment for a New Salem maiden, the beauteous and charming Miss Rutledge. The name appeared to mean nothing to the others, and all turned to the chief, curious to see what his response might be. The latter's face was blank. "Rutledge?" he repeated, clearly puzzled. "Rutledge? I don't seem to recall anyone of that name. I'm afraid, Billy," he added mildly, "that someone has been taking advantage of your innocence by supplying you with false information." Then he added with a reminiscent chuckle: "Now, if you had been referring to Vandalia you would have been much closer to the truth. There was a young woman there who waited on table at the boarding-house where a group of us stayed, and we all took a tremendous shine to her. But she was a very cultured miss and she put such great store in refined behavior that she would have nothing to do with us rough backwoodsmen, whose talk and manners at table must have jarred her sensibilities. Anyhow, one day she ran off to Chicago with a handsome law clerk who wore store clothes and a gold stickpin.

You should have seen our table the day we heard the news. Our cries of anguish were heartbreaking to hear." The chief joined in the laugh that greeted this tale, and presently the talk drifted into other channels...

After the gathering broke up, I walked home with the Shogun, for the cottage where I had taken lodgings was a few squares beyond his house at Eighth and Jackson streets. Bill Hcrndon's latest reference to his contemplated memoir had remained in my mind and I ventured to inquire if the Shogun thought his remark had been seriously intended. He walked for a few paces in silence; then he laughed indulgently.

"Yes, I suppose he meant it at the time," he replied dryly. "After a few drinks Billy can be counted on to think up a dozen such schemes, each one more outlandish than the one before. Fortunately for him, he forgets all about them the next morning."

"Then," said I, unable to conceal my disappointment, "the life he talks about so often will never be written?"

We had reached the Shogun's corner and he paused before the gate, re-garding me musingly for a few moments before he answered. "Matt," he said gravely, "you can bank on this: no such work is ever going to be written, not by Billy Herndon or by anyone else." I started to protest, but he motioned me silent.

"The odd part of it is," he added musingly, "that one might have been written-or perhaps even more than one-if one small happening had had a different ending."

"And what, sir, was that?" I asked, mystified. "If only that fool actor had been a bit more accurate," he replied. "D'you know, Matt," he added, his tone half-comic, half-grim, "I've never really forgiven him for being such a bad shot."

In his entry for the next day, that of May 30, Bosley thus comments on his employer's singular remark of the evening before:This is not the first time the Shogun has made reference to what he terms the lamentably poor marksmanship of his a.s.sailant, and although he speaks in a tone of grim humor, it is evident that he truly believes that the nation's welfare, to say nothing of his own place in the regard of the people, would have been more secure had the attack had the tragic outcome that was so narrowly averted.

In his thorough and orderly way the diarist then goes on to state the reasons why he believes this theory to be false. While he grants that his chief's last four years in office saw a marked decline in the support and personal esteem the great majority had accorded him throughout the war years, he contends that this was but a pa.s.sing phase, one that was to be expected during the period of difficult readjustment to a peacetime footing. Bosley argues that once these bitter controversies were forgotten and partisan pa.s.sions had cooled, the Shogun's policy of patience and moderation would be seen in its true light and that his countrymen would elevate him again to his rightful place in the public regard. He continues: Had the Shogun died in 1865, leaving so much of his great task unfinished, who can doubt that his memory would have faded rapidly from the minds of the unheeding public, or that future generations, when they recalled him at all, would have a.s.signed him but a minor place in the nation's annals? For although it would have been admitted that he served ably throughout the war years, there would ever have remained a reasonable doubt as to whether he would have adhered steadfastly to his principles during the violent quarrels of the reconstruction period, or if, yielding to the pressures brought to bear from so many quarters, he might have taken the easy road to popularity by following the dictates of political expediency. Because the a.s.sault of the would-be a.s.sa.s.sin failed of its purpose, that question has happily been answered, and the Shogun's place in history is consequently far more secure than it otherwise could have been.

Young Bosley concludes this well-reasoned-and clearly sound-argument with these prophetic words: 148.

With the pa.s.sage of the years the animosities that were abroad during so much of the Shogun's second term will fade from memory, and future historians will examine his record dispa.s.sionately and render this impartial verdict: that he served courageously and unselfishly what he conceived to be the best interests of all the people, knowing full well that his policies would visit on him the malice and scorn of the short-sighted majority. But the very qualities he then revealed are the ones that will win for him in the end a secure place as one who, while never quite reaching the front among our national leaders, yet during one of the most troubled periods in our nation's history conducted himself in a way that brought discredit neither to himself nor to the high office he was called on to occupy.

SOME SELECTIONS.

FROM THE REMINISCENCES OF.

HUBERT MCKNIGHT CANS,.

PLACER COUNTY PIONEER.

ONE of the few persons now living in Auburn who recall the summer of 1869 is Hubert M. Gems, who is now eighty-nine years old and for the past five years has been a patient at the Placer County Hospital. Gans's father had a dairy on the outskirts of the town, and it was one of the boy's jobs to deliver milk each morning to the David summer home, about a mile distant on the Truckee road. Young Cans made the trip on horseback, carrying two one-gallon cans, one on each side of his saddle. A few excerpts from his "Recollections," dictated to the editor of thisnarration, are given below.

... I had to start on my regular route at six o'clock, and that meant that when old man David came up for the summer I had to get up an hour earlier to make the delivery to his place. But I enjoyed riding out into the country that early in the morning. The air was cool and fresh and I had the road to myself except for the squirrels and bluejays and cottontail rabbits. The David house was a bit off the road, on a knoll looking out over the valley. It was a two-story affair, painted white, with a slate roof, with some big oak trees in the yard and with the barn and stable in the back, down the hill a piece. I used to ride up and leave the milk outside the kitchen door and pick up the empties and hurry back to town.

Usually n.o.body was up yet when I got there, but one morning when I came into the yard I saw an old man sitting on one of the benches and looking at some gray squirrels playing in the big oak. They were racing round and round the trunk and jumping from limb to limb the way squirrels do, moving so fast you could hardly keep track of them. When I came closer my horse scared them and they ran away down the hill.

The stranger said good morning and I said good morning, and then he asked me what I was doing up so early and what I had in the cans. I told him I was from the Star Dairy and that I was delivering milk. He said it was very good milk and that he drank a gla.s.s at each meal. He wanted to know how many cows we kept and I told him sixteen, but that we were only milking eleven. Then I said I had to go because I still had my regular route and I didn't want to be late for school. He asked me what grade I was in and I told him I would be in the fifth next term. He said that was fine, that he never got beyond the third grade himself and that he was always glad to meet someone who was better educated than he was.

After that I used to see him almost every morning. Once I asked him why he got up ahead of everybody else, and he said he liked to come out and watch the squirrels. He said I ought to watch them too because if I could learn to jump from one thing to another the way they did and always land on my feet it would be useful to me later on, especially if I went into politics and got to be President. I told him that when I grew up I intended to be a railroad engineer, but that if that didn't work out I wouldn't mind being President. He shook his head and said no, that I had better stick to my original plan.

We got to be pretty friendly and I was always polite, although I didn't think very highly of him, especially his quitting school so early. I thought he was one of old man David's hired hands, and one morning I asked him what time he went to work. He said he wasn't working just then, that he had lost his job a few months before and hadn't found anything else. I told him my dad was looking for someone to help with the milking, but that if he was a drinking man there wouldn't be any use of his applying because Dad wouldn't allow any whisky on the place. He said he had never been a heavy drinker, so that wouldn't be any hardship, and he would think the matter over and let me know.

A day or two later I was walking down High Street on my way home from school and I saw old man David drive up and stop in front of the post office, and who was sitting in the buggy with him but my friend. I was surprised to see him riding into town with Mr. David because David was a rich man and I couldn't understand why he would have anything to do with a fellow who didn't have a job and had only got as far as the third grade. While old David went into the post office, my friend stayed in the buggy, sort of slumped down with his gray beard resting on his chest, and his hands on his knees. Pretty soon a man stopped and stood looking at him for a few minutes and then went over and introduced himself and the two shook hands. I moved closer and heard the man on the sidewalk say that he had fought at Shiloh and Chancellorsville, and that it was an honor to shake hands. My friend said no, that the honor was his, and then he asked what the other was doing out in California, and the man said he had a little farm out near Pilot Hill. Old man David came out then and my friend introduced him to the farmer and pretty soon they drove away...I had a birthday about that time, and when my mother asked what I wanted for a present I told her I wanted an autograph alb.u.m. One of the boys at school had got an alb.u.m for his birthday and he had been getting his friends to write their names in it, and the rest of us wanted to follow suit, the way kids do.

One morning I took my book out to the David place, and when I rode up, my friend was sitting on the porch with his feet on the rail looking out over the valley. After I had left the milk and picked up the empties I went up on the porch and took the alb.u.m out of my pocket and took off the paper I had wrapped around it to keep it clean and told him I would like him to write his name in it.

He took the book and admired its red plush cover and said he would be glad to sign it, but that his pen and ink were upstairs and he didn't like to go inside because it might disturb the others, who were all late sleepers. He asked if it would be all right for him to keep the book and sign it later, and I could pick it up the next morning. I told him that would be O.K. if he would promise not to get it dirty or smear the ink, and he said he would be careful about the ink and that he would be sure to wash his hands before he began. So I wrapped it up again and gave it to him, and I was halfway down the steps when I thought of something else and came back. I told him I'd rather he didn't sign it too near the front because I was saving the first few pages for some names I hadn't got yet. Some of the kids had been taking their alb.u.ms down to the courthouse and getting the names of prominent people like the sheriff and the county clerk and the a.s.sessor, and I was planning to do the same and of course I wanted them up front where I could show them off. He said he understood how I felt and that he would remember to put his name well toward the back. He did, too, on the very last page, and he wrote it small and neat, just his initial and his last name, and underneath he wrote: "One candid friend is worth a bushel of flatterers."

I've often wished I had kept that little book. But I soon lost interest in autographs and I remember trading it with another boy for an agate marble I wanted to use for a taw. Of course it wasn't long until I lost the marble, but that's the sort of thing that's been happening to me all my life...

GLEANINGS FROM AN EDITOR S NOTE-BOOK," BEING AN INSTALLMENT OF THE.

RECOLLECTIONS OF C. E. HARGRAVES, REPRINTED FROM THE CALIFORNIA.

PLOWMAN OF OCTOBER 1J, IQOJ.

DURING the summer of 1869 the editor of the Auburn Weekly Sentinel was C. E. Hargraves, then a young man in his middle twenties. Hargraves was later a well-known figure in California journalism, for many years the Sacramento political correspondent for several state papers, and subsequently the owner and editor of a farm journal called The California Plowman, published at San Francisco.

In the early i goo's Hargraves wrote a series of reminiscent sketches that were first printed on the editorial page of his paper and later issued in pamphlet form under the t.i.tle: Gleanings from an Editor's Notebook. Some of his papers have to do with happenings during the period, more than thirty years earlier, when he had edited the little Auburn weekly. The following is quoted from The California Plowman of October 17, 1903, in which he outlines Brooke David's career and recalls his first meeting with David's summer guest.

The town in those days was well known as a health resort, and there were a number of sanatoriums in the vicinity where sufferers from asthma and TB came to take the "cure." One regular visitor was the San Francisco journalist Ambrose Bierce, who now [1903] represents the Examiner and other Hearst papers at Washington, D.C. Another asthma victim who benefited by Auburn's salubrious climate was Brooke David. David, as old-timers will recall, was long a prominent figure in California politics, having espoused the newly formed Republican Party in 1856 and campaigned for Fremont on the national ticket and for Stanford for governor. Fr6mont was defeated by Buchanan in a close election, but Stanford was swept into office and David was rewarded by being appointed to the board that had supervision over thestate's prisons.

Four years later David was a delegate to the Republican Convention at Chicago, and before he returned home he traveled down to Springfield to offer his congratulations and support to the successful candidate.

That was the beginning of a friendship that sprang up between the two men and lasted many years. Early in 1862 David was appointed collector of customs at San Francisco, and during the time he held that office he had a great deal to say about federal patronage within the state. For years it was said that no Californian who wanted to be appointed postmaster, or marshal, or even federal judge would hope for a hearing at Washington unless he first got Brooke David's endors.e.m.e.nt.

Of course David's political influence ended when the administration changed in 1869. He promptly resigned and, the following year, established, with Lloyd Hammill, the still-existing importing firm of David & Hammill. About 1865 he built a house near Auburn, where each year he spent most of June, July, and August to escape the summer fogs about the bay, which were bad for his asthma.

As related in last week's installment, I took over the Auburn Sentinel in the spring of '69, and I had been on the job only a short time when David came up as usual to spend the summer. Of course, the people of Auburn were interested to have so important a man living among them, and I made up my mind to go out to his place at the first opportunity and get an interview with him. But the job of getting out the paper on the antiquated press kept me busy, and several weeks pa.s.sed before I found time to carry out that plan.

Then, late one afternoon, I set out. It was hot walking up the dusty road, and when I turned in at the David place I saw a group sitting in the shade of a big oak tree, the ladies wearing white dresses and the men in their shirt-sleeves, all drinking gla.s.ses of lemonade.

David came forward to see what I wanted, and when I told him I was editor of the Auburn weekly he shook hands and took me over and introduced me to his wife and guests. Then he poured me a cool drink from the pitcher on the table and told me to sit down and make myself at home.

It was easy to see why Brooke David had been a success in politics, for he was a big, affable man with an easy flow of talk that inspired the confidence of strangers and put them at their ease. I was so much taken with him that I paid very little attention to the other members of the group. He asked me a few questions about the paper and inquired after certain friends in town, and when I had answered as best I could, the conversation became general.

It was then that I first noticed that most of the others' remarks were addressed to the man on my right, who was sitting straddle-fashion on a wooden bench, with one leg on each side of it. The bench was low and his legs were so long that his knees came up to his chin, which gave him an awkward appearance that was almost laughable. Although, as I have said, it was a warm afternoon and the other men were in their shirt-sleeves, he was wearing a knitted shawl over his shoulders, and this added to his oddity.

Somehow I had failed to catch this stranger's name when David introduced us, and although there seemed something very familiar about his long, homely face, as though I had met him somewhere, it was some time before I realized who he was. Then, when his ident.i.ty became clear, my surprise was complete, and I was at a loss to know how a man so well known, who had been only a few months out of the White House, could have slipped into Auburn without anybody knowing about it. It was not until later that I learned that he had come two days earlier, arriving on the overland train that pa.s.sed through Auburn in the early hours of the morning. That accounted for the fact that, except for David himself and the night telegraph operator, there had been no one at the depot who might have recognized him.

After that I paid far closer attention to David's guest, and I must say that my first impression was disappointing. Although I had cast my first ballot for him in '64, and although one of the earliest editorials I had written for the Sentinel had been a defense of his policies and an indictment of the Congress thathad defeated his every effort to deal fairly with the South, I must confess that now I felt my former enthusiasm slipping away.

It was the first time I had seen in the flesh a political figure of national importance, and I was young enough to feel a sort of shocked surprise that he bore so little likeness to the knight in shining armor my imagination had pictured. That experience was so often repeated in later years that it ceased to trouble me, but its effect then was one of disillusion, as though someone had taken advantage of rny confidence.

Regarding the gangling figure on the bench, I told myself that he looked far less the statesman than the handsome and dignified Brooke David. Indeed, he seemed the least prepossessing member of the group, one who but for his odd clothes and grotesque posture would have pa.s.sed unnoticed.

It was not long, however, before I found myself revising that first impression. The others addressed him as the Shogun, which, I subsequently learned, was a name conferred on him by one of his former secretaries, which had been brought out to Auburn by young Matt Bosley, who then occupied that post.

The Shogun took little part in the conversation, contenting himself with following the talk of the others, and when he answered such questions as were put to him it was with a sort of indulgent and good-humored brevity.

But soon there came a change. This was brought about by the fact that Mrs. David, with a hostess's concern for the comfort of her guests, suggested that he move from his bench to a near-by camp chair.

He replied that he was well content where he was, and went on to explain that in the backwoods where he had grown up chairs had been scarce articles and that most of his youth had been spent sitting astride a log, much as he was doing then.

This remark seemingly put him in a reminiscent mood, for he went on to recall stories bearing on the austerities of frontier life as he had known it long ago in Kentucky and Indiana, one incident suggesting another until presently he was holding our undivided attention. As he talked, the la.s.situde seemed to lift from his shoulders, and his face, which in repose had been stolid and dull, became alert, his deep-set eyes beneath their bushy brows full of animation, and his features, recently grim and stern, transformed as they broke into frequent, droll smiles.

He continued thus for some time, talking in an easy, informal, self-effacing manner that I found most engaging. As I listened to his rambling monologue, to the homely force of his diction and his frequent flashes of humor (the latter the more amusing issuing as they did from so dolorous a countenance), the disappointment I had felt at my first sight of him slipped away. Gradually I came under the spell of his oddly appealing personality, and it was no longer a mystery to me why during his last contentious years in office he had retained the grudging respect of his enemies.

It was not until the supper bell rang that he broke off his seemingly inexhaustible store of frontier anecdotes, and even then the group stood up with a reluctance that I fully shared. Brooke David hospitably asked me to stay and take potluck, and when I declined, explaining that the paper had to go to press that night, he walked down the driveway with me and, as we parted, confided that he had a favor to ask. The Shogun, he explained, had been in poor health-which his bent figure and deeply lined face made obvious enough-and he had come out on this visit because David had promised him unlimited rest and quiet. David went on to say that he was anxious to carry out his part of the pact, and that meant he wished to protect his guest from the demands that would be made on him once his presence in California became known. Would I, therefore, keep word of his visit out of my paper?

Of course I promised to respect his wishes, but I pointed out that news of this sort had a way of leaking out and that he couldn't hope to keep the secret for long. David replied that he was well aware of it; he merely wished to extend as much as possible the interval before his guest was again caught up in the activities that had been his lot for so many years. Then he added with a chuckle: "I haven't much hopethat he'll allow us to keep him on the shelf indefinitely. The chances are he'll be craving action before he's here a fortnight. If nothing happens of its own accord, it won't surprise me if he goes out and stirs it up himself!"

Events were to prove that, in this instance at least, Brooke David was a trustworthy prophet. Next week's installment will deal with how Auburn's famous guest got involved in the town's Fourth of July celebration, and will tell something of the repercussions that followed.

Hargraves's reminiscent articles in The California Plowman must have been closely read by the paper's subscribers, for each installment brought forth a number of letters, which were printed on another page of the weekly in a department called "The People's Forum." The editor's recollections of Auburn during the summer of 1869 had the usual response, and two weeks later, in the issue of October 31, 1903, a number of the letters in "The People's Forum" bore on this subject. Several of these seem to have enough general interest to warrant preserving, and they are accordingly reprinted below.

Editor: Your article in this week's Plowman about your visit to Brooke David's house outside Auburn reminds me of the one and only time I laid eyes on David's distinguished guest.

I was then attending high school in Oakland and was spending the summer working for my uncle, Lester Wilc.o.x, who had a 3O-acre orchard, mostly Bartlett pears, some miles south of Auburn on the Placerville road.

One day I rode into town with my uncle, and after he had delivered his load of pears at the freight shed, we went into Lyman & Briggs's store to do some shopping.

There were a number of men back toward the rear of the store, sitting about on boxes or on the counter.

While my uncle was waiting for the grocer to fill his order, I wandered back and stood at the edge of the group.

Almost at once my attention was drawn to a curious-looking individual who was leaning against the counter near the coffee-mill. There was a big sack of walnuts beside him and from time to time he helped himself to one. While he talked or listened, he would crack the nut with his strong, bony fingers and, having clapped the meat into his mouth, would deposit the sh.e.l.ls in a neat pile on the counter.

He seemed to be the center of interest and everybody paid attention when he talked. The conversation was about the Civil War, and one of the group, a youngish-looking man wearing steel-rimmed eyegla.s.ses, was telling about having once read a speech the stranger had made. It had, he said, been printed in a newspaper that had found its way into the army camp where he was stationed, and he had been so taken with it that he had cut it out and stowed it away in his knapsack.

The man by the coffee-mill seemed interested and asked the other if he recalled what the speech had been about and where it had been delivered. The first speaker said he didn't recollect just what the occasion had been, but he seemed to recall that it had had something to do with one of the battlefields.

He was inclined to think that it might have been delivered at Antietam.

The old man picked up another walnut, and while he was cracking it he looked thoughtfully at the ceiling.

Antietam? Yes, he said, he might have made some remarks at Antietam. He was expected to say a few words whenever he visited the soldiers in the field, but for the life of him he couldn't recall what he had talked about. Then he chuckled and said that it was probably just as well that he had forgotten the occasion, because it was the nature of politicians to make speeches, and n.o.body was much interested in what they had to say on the battlefields where the actual fighting had taken place.I wanted to hear more, but my uncle had finished his shopping and I had to help carry the groceries back to the wagon. It wasn't until later that I learned who that peculiar-looking old man was.

After that whenever I went to town I made a point of going around to Lyman & Briggs's, but I never saw him there again. Then one day I read in the Auburn paper that he had gone back to his home in the East...

Red Bluff, Cal. -Wm. S. Hicks October 22, 1903 Editor:... Califomians who are familiar with the high-handed methods of boss Brooke David were not surprised at his action in inviting to California and receiving as an honored guest the politician who, more than any other, was responsible for the abuse and humiliation meted out to the helpless people of the South...

The record is clear, and only those whose vision is distorted by prejudice and blind partisanship can fail to read it. If, during those hapless years, the occupant of the White House had been possessed of even moderate firmness the nation would have been reunited and the wounds of war quickly healed... It was a time when the country desperately needed a leader strong enough to curb the malice and greed of the party that, to the lasting shame of the nation, twice elected him to office. Instead, we had for eight long years a policy of weakness and vacillation that reached its climax when the so-called radical wing of the party gained control in 1866...

The public at large has forgotten much of the misery that resulted from that catastrophe... but those who, like this writer, have personal knowledge of conditions in the South under the cynical rule of the Republicans will not soon forget, nor will we fail to register our resentment at the polls on November next...

Petaluma, Cal. -A. L. Everett October 19, 1903 Editor: It was a privilege to read, in the current issue, your memoir of Auburn during the summer of 1869, when that town played host to one of the least appreciated of the nation's public servants, a man who during his lifetime was so bitterly maligned that few today recognize the soundness of many of the measures he advocated toward the vanquished people of the South.

But it is one of the weaknesses of a democracy that, having first made national heroes of our leaders, we take delight in going to the other extreme and, having consigned them to obscurity and neglect, we attribute to them follies that they deserve even less than the uncritical adulation we once bestowed on them...

It is a tribute to the stature of the man that, when you met him that summer at Auburn, he bore himself with fort.i.tude, accepting his unpopularity with unconcern and showing no evidence of the bitterness and disillusion that might have been expected in a nature less generous.

His services to his country-and they were considerable-have been too long obscured by the prejudices of the postwar era. But few can doubt that in the end he will be a.s.signed a modest but honorable place in the nation's history as a man of courage and integrity, as a reasonably able administrator, and as a leader whose humane policies time will doubtless vindicate.

Morgan Hill, Gal. -Richard R. DixonOctober 24, 1903 Editor:... It was my good fortune to be in Washington, D.C., when Edwin Booth opened his engagement at Grover's Theater on E Street in the spring of 1867. Probably there are few now living who recall the furor his coming aroused not only in the city itself but throughout the country.

That the actor would dare make a public appearance in the capital at such a time (for less than two years had pa.s.sed since the irrational act that had brought disgrace on the entire Booth family) was denounced by some as brazen effrontery, while others professed to see in it a courageous gesture on the tragedian's part to make amends for his brother's folly.

At any rate, feeling was high for weeks in advance, and all over town posters announcing his coming were torn from walls and fences or scrawled over with abusive comments. I remember standing in line for several hours to gain admittance on the opening night, and from my seat in the gallery I listened to the whistles and catcalls from the predominantly hostile audience.