Heart's Desire by Emerson Hough (comprehension books .TXT) 📕

His speech still failed of interest, except as it afforded additional proof of the manner in which Yale, Harvard, Princeton, and the like disappeared from the speech of all men at Heart's Desire. Dan Anderson sat down in the shade, his long legs stretched out in front of him. "My boy," said he, "you can gaze at me if you ain't too tired. As a matter of fact, in this pernicious age of specialization I stand out as the one glitterin' example of success in more than one line. Why, once I was a success as a journalist—for a few moments."

There was now a certain softness and innocence in his voice, which had portent, although I did not at that time suspect that he really had anything of consequence upon his soul. Without more encouragement he went on.

"My brother," said he, "when I first came out of Princeton I was burnin' up with zeal. There was the world, the whole wide world, plunged into an abyss of error and wrongdoin'. I was the sole and remainin' hope. Like all great men, I naturally wanted to begin the savin' as early as possible; and like everybody else who comes out of Princeton, I thought the best medium for immediate salvation was journalism. I wasn't a newspaper man. I never said that at all. I was a journalist.

"Well, dad got me a place on a paper in New York, and I worked on the dog-fight department for a time, it havin' been discovered that I was noted along certain lines of research in Princeton. I knew the pedigree and fightin' weight of every white, black, or brindle pup in four States. Now, a whole lot of fellows come out of college who don't know that much; or if they do, they don't know how to apply their knowledge. Now dogs, that's plumb useful.

"I was still doin' dogs when the presidential campaign came along, or rather, that feature of our national customs which precedes the selection of the People's Choice. First thing, of course, the People's Choice had to take a run over the country—which was a good thing, too, because he didn't know much about it—and let the people in general know that he was their choice. I went along to tell the other people how he broke it to them."

I confess I sat up at this, for there was now so supreme an innocence in Dan Anderson's eye that one might have been morally certain that something was coming. "From dogs to politics—wasn't that a little singular?" I asked.

"Yes," said he; "but you have to be versatile in journalism. The regular man who was to have gone on that special presidential car got slugged at an art gatherin'. I didn't ask for the place. I just went and told the managin' editor I was ready if he would give me an order for expense money. It wouldn't have been good form for him to look up and pay any attention to me, so I got the job. I needed to see the country just as much as the People's Choice did.

"Three other fellows went along,—newspaper men. I was the only real journalist. We did the presidential tour for ten towns a day. I watched what the other fellows did, and in about two hours it was easy. Everything's easy if you think so. Folks made a lot of fuss about gettin' along in the world. That's all a mistake.

"People's Choice tore it off in fine shape. Comin' into Basswood Junction he turns to his Honorable Secretary, and says he, 'Jimmy, what's this?' Jimmy turns to his card cabinet, and says he: 'Prexie, this is Basswood Junction. Three railroads come in here—and get away as soon as they can. Four overall factories and a reaper plant. Population six thousand, and increasin' satisfactory. Hon. Charles D. Bastrop, M.C., from this district, on the straight Republican ticket for the last three hundred years; world without end.'

"Then the train would pull into this station to the sad sweet notes of the oompah horn, and the delegation of leadin' citizens would file in behind the car, and the first leadin' citizen would get red in the face with his Welcome talk, while we four slaves of the people were hustling the President's speech to the depot telegraph wire before he said it. People's Choice, he stands on the back platform with one hand in his bosom, and says he: 'Fellow-citizens of Basswood Junction, I am proud to see before me this large and distinguished gatherin' of our noble North American fauna. My visit to your pleasant valley is wholly without political significance. These noble et cetera; these smilin' et cetera; these beautiful et cetera, fill me with the proudest emotions of et cetera. This, our great and glorious et cetera; Basswood Junction has four magnificent factories, and is the centre of three great trunk lines of railroad which radiate et cetera; it is destined to be a great commercial et cetera. And what could be more confirmatory of the sober, practical judgment of the citizens of this flourishing community than the fact that they have produced and given to the world that distinguished statesman and gentleman, the Hon. Charles D. Bastrop, who is your representative in the Congress of the United States and who has always et cetera, et cetera? 'Fellow-citizens, the issue before this country to-day—' and that was where he would hit his gait.

"He had three of these, and on the schedule laid out by the chairman of the Central Committee he couldn't spring any two alike closer together than a hundred miles. The whole business would take about five minutes to a station. We would put number Two, or number Three, or whichever it was, on the wire, while the People's Choice was talkin', provided we could catch the station agent, who on such occasions was bigger than the President. Then, toot! toot! and we were off for the next Basswood Junction, to show 'em who was their spontaneous choice.

"Well, that was all right, and it was easy work to report. The only thing was not to get number One speech mixed up with number Two or number Three at any given point. The Honorable Secretary had to attend to that. So all the time we were bored for something to do. What we was hopin' and longin' for all the time was that some one in the opposition at some station would haul off and throw a brick at the car. Then we would have had some News."

"Oh," said I, "you got to wanting news! You had a narrow escape."

"Maybe," said Dan Anderson. "I admit I got to likin' the game. I think, too, I did get to understandin' what news was. So one day, when I was mighty tired of the four-factory, railroad-centre, leadin'-citizen business, I mixed up the speeches on the Honorable Secretary between stations." Dan Anderson blew a faint wreath of blue smoke up toward the blue sky and remained silent for a time.

"The next particular Basswood Junction happened to be a Democratic minin' town, instead of a Republican agricultural community. It didn't have any overall factories at all. They didn't relish bein' told that they had voted the straight Republican ticket ever since Alexander Hamilton, and that they had given to the public that distinguished citizen, James K. Blinkensop, when the man they had really given to the public was Dan G. Healy. Oh, the whole thing got all mixed up! Now, that was News! And they fired me by wire that night! The People's Choice was awful hostile. And me raised tender, too!"

"Well, then, what did you do?" asked I, getting interested in spite of myself.

"I was far, far from home. But not thus easily could I be shaken out of my chosen profession. In thirty-eight minutes I was at work as managin' editor of a mornin' paper. That particular Basswood Junction was just startin' a daily, the kind the real-estate men and the local congressman have to support or go out of the business. Their editor had been raised on a weekly, and had been used to goin' to sleep at eight o'clock in the evening. The rumor spread that a metropolitan journalist had fallen out of a balloon into their midst. That morning's paper was two days late. So I just went in and went to work. I sent every one else home to bed, and sat down to write the paper.

"Of course, I began with dogs, for on account of my early trainin' I knew more about that. Two columns of dogs as a Local Industry. Then I took up Mineral Resources, about half a column. Might have played that up a little stronger, but I was shy on facts. Then I did the Literary and Dramatic. I shuddered when I struck that, because when a man on a paper gets put on Literary and Dramatic, it usually isn't far to his finish. He don't have to send out after trouble—it comes to him spontaneous. Next, I had to do Society. Didn't know anybody there, so that was a little hard. Had to content myself with the Beautiful-and-Accomplished-Who-Shall-be-Nameless,—that sort of thing. Why," said Dan Anderson, plaintively, "it's awful hard to write society and local news in a town when you've only been there fifteen minutes. But a real metropolitan journalist ought to be able to, and I did.

"By this time the office force was standin' around some awed. I sent the foreman of the pressroom out for a bottle of fizz. Sarsaparilla was the nearest he could come to it, but it went. Then I turned my hot young blood loose on the editorial page. 'This,' said I, 'is my opportunity to save the country, and I'm goin' to save it, right here.' It was then eleven hours, forty-five minutes, and eight seconds by the grandpa clock which adorned the newly furnished sanctum." Dan Anderson again sat silent a few moments, the stub of his cigarrillo between his fingers.

"Oh, well," said he, "it might, perhaps, have been worse, although I admit that was unlikely. I couldn't prove an alibi, but there were extenuatin' circumstances. The fact was, I got the politics of the place mixed up almost as bad as the People's Choice. That community woke up as one man at six-thirty the next morning, and turned out to see the evidence of their progress. I never did see so many Democrats in my life. Or was it Republicans? I forget. I had given 'em a good, hot, mixed Princeton paper,—dog, international law, society, industrial progress, footlight favorites, and the whole business; had Sermons from Many Lands, and a Conundrum Department, as well as a Household Corner—How to get Beautiful for the ladies, How to get Rich for the men, How to get Strong for the advertisers—why, if I do say it, I don't believe any one fellow was ever much more cosmopolitan in all his life, inside the space of one night's writin'. But they didn't like me. I was too good for them. Ah, well!"

Dan Anderson sighed softly. The lazy sun crawled on. Nobody came into the street. There was nothing to happen. It might have been an hour before Dan Anderson leaned over, picked up a splinter to whittle, and went on with his story, back of which I was long before this well convinced there remained some topic concealed, albeit beneath inconsequent and picturesque details.

"At that state of my entwickelung, as the French say, I still wore my trousers with a strong crimp at the bottom and cut pear-shaped at the hips. That pair was. The next one wasn't. It was a long, long way to that next pair. I