Something of Men I Have Known Part 27

The Doctor immediately stood up. The psychological question, if it be such, is here presented whether _standing_ is the more eligible position for the severe mental effort indicated above. Waiving all discussion upon this interesting point, the fact is here faithfully chronicled that the Doctor stood up. Looking neither to the right nor to the left, but standing majestically in the middle of the room, and presenting in some of its characteristics the beauty and symmetry of an inverted L, the Doctor began, "S-h-o-o-g ----" whereupon the little schoolmaster burst into loud laughing.

Solemnly warning him against the repet.i.tion of such conduct, the arbiter reminded him that such manifestations in the very presence of the "empire," were in some countries punished with immediate death, and again significantly warned him against its recurrence.

At the same time the Doctor was reminded that he had not yet completed the spelling of the word. The Doctor replied, "If it is all the same to you, Mr. Empire, I believe I will begin all over again." Permission being granted, the spelling was resumed: "S-h-o-o-g-o-r." To this the arbiter responded, "You have spelled the word correctly, Doctor," and _immediately handed him the stakes._

One of the interesting events occurring during my residence in Metamora, was a noted temperance revival under the auspices of "the Grand Worthy Deputy" of a well-known temperance organization. A lodge was duly organized, and a profound interest aroused in the good work. During the visit of the excellent lady who bore with becoming modesty the somewhat formidable t.i.tle above given, the interest deepened, meetings were of nightly occurrence, and large numbers were gathered into the fold. For many days ordinary pursuits were suspended, and the grand cause was the only and all-absorbing topic of conversation.

Chief among the initiated was our old friend Doctor John. His conversion created a profound sensation, and it veritably seemed for a time as though a permanent breach had been effected in the ramparts of Satan. It was even boasted that the Presbyterian clergyman, one saloon keeper, and the writer of these truthful annals were, as Judge Tipton would say, "substantially" the only adherents remaining to His Satanic Majesty. The pressure was, however, soon irresistible, and the writer, deserting his sometime a.s.sociates, at length pa.s.sed over to the _un_silent majority.

The Doctor was the bearer of my pet.i.tion, and in due time and as the sequel will show, for only a short time, I was in good and regular standing. As explanatory of the sudden termination of what might under happier auspices have proved an eminently useful career, it may be casually mentioned that upon the writer's first introduction into the lodge, in answer to the official inquiry solemnly propounded, "Why do you seek admission into our honorable order?" he unwittingly replied, _"Because Doctor John joined."_

This was for the moment permitted to pa.s.s, and the exercises of the session reached the high-water mark of entertainment. At some time during the evening, by way of "exemplifying the work," Doctor John had for the second time taken the solemn vow henceforth and forever to abstain from the use of all fluids of alcoholic, vinous, or fermented character.

The hour for separation at length drew nigh. Thus far all had gone merry as a marriage bell. All signs betokened fair weather.

Barring the temporary commotion occasioned by the uncanonical reply of the writer above given, not a ripple had appeared upon the surface. It was at length announced that this was the last evening that the Grand Worthy Deputy could be with us, as she was to leave for her distant home by the stage coach in the early morning.

Splendidly set off in her great robes of office, her farewell words of instruction, encouragement, and admonition, were then most tenderly spoken. Before p.r.o.nouncing the final farewell--"that word which makes us linger"--she calmly remarked that this would be her last opportunity to expound any const.i.tutional question that might hereafter arise pertaining to the well-being of the order, and that she would gladly answer any inquiry that any brother or sister about the lodge might propose. Her seat was then resumed, and silence for the time reigned supreme. At length, amid stillness that could no longer be endured, she arose and advancing to the front of the platform, repeated, in manner more solemn than before, the invitation above given. Still there was no response. It all seemed formidable and afar off. In the hope that he might in some measure dispel the embarra.s.sment, the unworthy chronicler of these important events, from his humble place in the northwest corner of the lodge, for the first and last time addressed the chair. Permission being graciously given him to proceed, he candidly admitted that he had no const.i.tutional question himself to propound, but that Brother John was in grave doubt touching a question upon which he would be glad to have the opinion of the chair.

"I understand," continued the speaker, "from the nature of the pledge that if any brother, or sister even for that matter, should partake of liquors alcoholic, vinous, or fermented, he or she would be liable to expulsion from the order. Am I correct?"

"That is certainly correct, Brother Stevenson," was the prompt reply in no uncertain tone.

"I so understand it," continued the speaker, "and so does Brother John.

What he seeks to know is this: If in an unguarded moment he should hearken to the voice of the tempter, and so far forget his solemn vows as to partake of alcoholic, vinous, or fermented liquors, and be expelled therefor, would he thereby be wholly beyond the pale of the lodge, or would he _by virtue of his second obligation taken this night,_ have another chance, and still retain his membership in the order?"

The official answer, in tone no less uncertain than before, was instantly given.

"No, sir, if Brother John _or you either,_ should drink one drop of the liquors mentioned and be expelled therefor, you would both be helplessly beyond the pale of the lodge, even though you had _both taken the obligation a thousand times!"_

As the ominous applause which followed died away, Brother John, half arising in his seat, vehemently exclaimed,

"Mrs. Worshipful Master, _I never told him to ask no such d.a.m.n fool question!"_

XXV A QUESTION OF AVAILABILITY

A POLITICAL BANQUET IN ATLANTA, GA.--GENERAL GORDON PROPOSED "THE DEMOCRACY OF ILLINOIS"--THE WRITER'S RESPONSE--A DESIRE IN ILLINOIS TO NOMINATE THE HON. DAVID DAVIS FOR PRESIDENT.

About the year of grace 1889, a number of distinguished statesmen were invited to attend a political banquet to be given by the local Democratic a.s.sociation of the splendid city of Atlanta, Georgia.

Among the guests were Representative Flower of New York and General Collins of Ma.s.sachusetts; the chief guest of the occasion was the Hon. David B. Hill, then the Governor of New York. The banquet was under the immediate auspices of the lamented Gordon, and of Grady of glorious memory. The board literally groaned under the rarest viands, and Southern hospitality was at its zenith. It was, all in all, an occasion to live in memory. I was not one of the invited guests of the committee, but being in a neighboring city was invited by Mr. Grady to be present.

At the conclusion of the feast, a toast was proposed to "The Gallant Democracy of New York." Gla.s.ses were touched and the enthusiasm was unbounded. The toast was of course responded to by the distinguished Governor of the Empire State. He was at his best.

His speech, splendid in thought and diction, was heard with breathless interest.

The keynote was struck, and speech after speech followed in the proper vein. There was no discordant note, the burden of every speech being the gallant Democracy and splendid statesmanship of the great State of New York.

When the distinguished guests had all spoken, the master of ceremonies, General Gordon, proposed a toast to "The Democracy of Illinois," and called upon me to respond. I confessed that I was only an average Democrat from Illinois; that way out there we were content to be of the rank and file, and of course to follow the splendid leadership and the gallant Democracy of which we had heard so much. To vote for a New York candidate had by long usage become a fixed habit with us, in fact, we would hardly know how to go about voting for a candidate from any other State; and I then related an incident on the question of supporting the ticket, which I thought might be to the point.

In 1872, in the portion of Illinois in which I live, there was an earnest desire on the part of conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans, to elect the Hon. David Davis to the Presidency.

He had been a Whig in early life, brought up in the school of Webster and Clay, and was later the devoted personal and political friend of Mr. Lincoln. An earnest Union man during the war, he had at its close favored the prompt restoration to the Southern people of all their rights under the Const.i.tution. As a judge of the Supreme Court, he had rendered a decision in which human life was involved, in which he had declared the supremacy of the Federal Const.i.tution _in war as well as in peace._ Believing that he would prove an acceptable candidate, I had gladly joined the movement to secure his nomination at the now historic convention which met at Cincinnati in May, 1872. For many weeks prior to the meeting of that convention, there was little talked of in central Illinois but the nomination of Judge Davis for President.

Morning, noon, and night, "Davis, Davis, Davis," was the burden of our song.

He did not, as is well known, receive the nomination, that honor, of course, pa.s.sing to a distinguished Democratic statesman of New York.

Two or three days before I was to leave my home for the Cincinnati convention, an old Democratic friend from an adjoining county came into my office. He was an old-timer in very truth. He was born in Tennessee, had when a mere boy fought under Jackson at Talladega, Tallapoosa, and New Orleans, had voted for him three times for the Presidency, and expected to join him when he died. He had lived in Illinois since the "big snow," and his party loyalty was a proverb.

As I shook hands with him when he came into my office, he laid aside his saddle-bags, stood his rifle in the corner, took off his blanket overcoat, and seating himself by the fire, inquired how my "folks" all were. The answer being satisfactory, and the fact ascertained by me that his own "folks" were well, he asked.

"Mr. Stevenson, who are you fur fur President?"

Unhesitatingly and earnestly I replied, "Davis."

A shade, as of disappointment, appeared for a moment upon his countenance, but instantly recovering himself, he said, "Well, if they nominate him, we will give him the usual majority in our precinct, but don't you think, Mr. Stevenson, _it is a leetle airly to bring old Jeff out?"_

XXVI A STATESMAN OF A PAST ERA

ZEBULON B. VANCE, THE IDOLIZED GOVERNOR OF NORTH CAROLINA--HIS LEARNING AND HIS HUMOR--HE RECALLS MEN AND MATTERS OF THE OLDEN TIME--HE SUITS HIS CREED TO HIS AUDIENCE--HIS SPEECH IN FAVOR OF HORACE GREELEY.

A name to conjure with in the old North State is Zeb Vance. What Lee was to Virginia, Hendricks to Indiana, Clay to Kentucky, and Lincoln to Illinois, Zebulon B. Vance was for a lifetime to North Carolina.

He was seldom spoken of as Governor, or Senator, but alike in piny woods and in the mountains, he was familiarly called "Zeb Vance."

He was the idol of all cla.s.ses and conditions. A decade has gone since he pa.s.sed to the grave, but his memory is still green.

A grateful people have erected a monument to commemorate his public services, while from the French Broad to the Atlantic, alike in humble cabin and stately home, his name is a household word.

"He had kept the whiteness of his soul, And thus men o'er him wept."

The expression "rare," as given to Ben Jonson, might with equal propriety be applied to Senator Vance. Deeply read in cla.s.sic lore, a profound lawyer, and an indefatigable student from the beginning in all that pertained to human government, he was the fit a.s.sociate of the most cultured in the drawing-room or the Senate. None the less, with the homely topics of everyday life for discussion, he was equally at home, and ever a welcome guest at the hearthstone of the humblest dweller in pine forest and mountain glen of his native State.

Of all the men I have ever known, Vance was _par excellence_ the possessor of the wondrous gift of humor. It was ingrained; literally a part of his very being. He once told me that he thought his fame for one generation, at least, was secure, inasmuch as one-half of the freckled-faced boys and two-thirds of the "yaller" dogs in North Carolina had been named in his honor.

Upon one occasion in the Senate, a bill he had introduced was bitterly antagonized by a member who took occasion in his speech, while questioning the sincerity of Vance, to extol his own honesty of purpose. In replying to the vaunt of superior honesty by his opponent, Vance quoted the old Southland doggerel:

"De darky in de ole camp ground Dat loudest sing and shout Am gwine to rob a hen-roost Befo' de week am out."

The summer home of Senator Vance during the later years of his life was in his native county of Buncombe, about twenty miles from Asheville, where for some days I was his guest, many years ago.

Leaving the cars at the nearest station and following the trail for a dozen miles, I found the Senator snugly ensconced in his comfortable home at the top of the mountain. He was alone, his family being "down in the settlements," as he told me. An old negro man _to whom Vance once belonged,_ as he a.s.sured me, was housekeeper, cook, and butler, besides being the inc.u.mbent of various other offices of usefulness and dignity.

The first inquiry from Vance as, drenched with rain, I entered his abode and approached a blazing fire, was, "Are you _dry?"_ It would only gratify an idle curiosity to tell how the first moments of this memorable visit pa.s.sed. Suffice it to say that old-time Southern hospitality was at its best, and so continued till the morning of the fifth day, when I descended in company with my host to the accustomed haunts of busy men.

The days and evenings pa.s.sed with Vance at the cheerful fireside of his mountain home still live in my memory. He literally "unfolded himself," and it was indeed worth while to listen to his description of the quaint times and customs with which he was familiar in the long ago, to hear of the men he had known and of the stormy events of which he had been a part.

His public life reached back to a time anterior to the war. He was in Congress when its Representatives a.s.sembled in the Old Hall, now the "Valhalla" of the nation. Events once of deep significance were recalled from the mists of a long past; men who had strutted their brief hour upon the stage and then gone out with the tide were made to live again. Incidents once fraught with deep consequence but now relegated to the by-paths of history, were again in visible presence, as if touched by the enchanter's wand.

The scenes, of which he was the sad and silent witness, attendant upon the withdrawal of his colleagues and a.s.sociates from both chambers of the Capitol, and the appeal to the sword--precursors of the chapter of blood yet to be written--were never more graphically depicted by mortal tongue.

I distinctly recall, even at this lapse of time, some of the incidents he related. When first he was a candidate for Congress, far back in the fifties, his district embraced a large portion of the territory of the entire western part of his State. Fully to appreciate what follows, it must be remembered that at that time there was in the backwoods country, and in the out-of-the-way places, far off from the great highways, much of antagonism between the various religious denominations. At times much of the sermons of the rural preachers consisted of denunciations of other churches.

By a perusal of the autobiography of the Rev. Peter Cartwright, it will be seen that western North Carolina was only in line with other portions of the great moral vineyard. The doctrines peculiar to the particular denomination were preached generally with great earnestness and power. "Blest be the tie that binds our hearts in Christian love," was too seldom heard in the rural congregations. In too many, indeed, Christian charity, even in a modified form, was an unknown quant.i.ty.

Under the conditions mentioned, to say that seekers of public place obeyed the Apostolic injunction to be "all things to all men" is only to say that they were--_candidates._