Tales of the Road Part 30

After luncheon we went to our sample rooms, which adjoined. Late in the afternoon I heard the newsboys calling out: "Extra! Extra! All about the * * *" I know not what. My friend came into my room.

"What is that they are calling out?" he said.

We listened. We heard the words: "All about the Great Chicago Theater Fire."

Three steps at a time we bounded down stairs and bought papers. When my friend saw the head-lines he exclaimed: "Hundreds burned alive in the Iroquois Theater. Good G.o.d, man, Dolly went to that theater to- day!"

"Pray G.o.d she didn't," said I.

We rushed to the telegraph office and my friend wired to his father: "Is Dolly lost? Wire me all particulars and tell me the truth."

We went to the newspaper office to see the lists of names as they came in over the wire, scanning each new list with horrified anxiety. On one sheet we saw his own family name. The given name was near to, but not exactly, that of his wife.

May a man pray for the death of his near beloved kin--for the death of one he loves much--that _she_ may be spared whom he loves more? Not that, but he will pray that both be spared.

Back to the hotel we ran. No telegram. Back to the newspaper office and back to the hotel again.

A messenger boy put his hand on the hotel door. Three leaps, and my friend s.n.a.t.c.hed the message from the boy. He started to open it. He faltered. He pressed the little yellow envelope to his heart, then handed it to me.

"You open it and pray for me," he said.

The message read: "All our immediate family escaped the horrible disaster. Dolly is alive and thankful. She tried but could not get tickets. Thank G.o.d."

All do not escape the calamity of death, however, as did my friend Ned. The business of the man on the road is such that he is ofttimes cut off from his mail and even telegrams for several days at a time.

Again, many must be several days away from their homes utterly unable to get back. When death comes then it strikes the hardest blow.

A friend of mine once told me this story:

"I was once opened up in an adjoining room to a clothing man's. When he left home his mother was very low and not expected to live for a great while; but on his trip go he must. He had a large family, and many personal debts. He could not stay at home because no one else could fill his place on the road. The position of a traveling man, I believe, is seldom fully appreciated. It is with the greatest care that, as you know, a wholesale house selects its salesmen for the road. When a good man gets into a position it is very hard--in fact impossible--for him to drop out and let some one else take his place for one trip even. Of course you know there isn't any place that some other man cannot fill, but the other man is usually so situated that either he will not or does not care to make a change.

"My clothing friend was at Seattle on his trip. His home, where his mother lay sick, was in Saint Louis--nearly four days away. The last letter he had received from home told him that his mother was sinking.

The same day on which he received this letter a customer came into his room about ten o'clock--and he was a tough customer, too. He found fault with everything and tore up the samples. He was a hard man to deal with. You know how it is when you strike one of these suspicious fellows. He has no confidence in anybody and makes the life of us poor wanderers anything but a joyous one.

"Under the circ.u.mstances, of which he said nothing, my clothing friend was not in the best mood. He could not help thinking of home and feeling that he should be there; yet, at the same time, he had a duty to do. He simply must continue the trip. He had just taken on his position with a new firm and needed to show, on this trip, the sort of stuff in him. He had been doing first rate; still, he must keep it up.

"I happened to drop in, as I was not busy for a few minutes, while he was showing goods. I never like to go into a man's sample room while he is waiting on any one. Often a new man on the road gets in the way of doing this and doesn't know any better. Selling a bill of goods, even to an old customer, takes a whole lot of energy. No man likes to be interrupted while he is at it. When it comes to persuading a new man to buy of you, you have, frequently, a hard task. There are many reasons why a customer should not leave his old house. Maybe he is still owing money to the firm he has been dealing with and needs credit. Maybe the salesman for that firm is a personal friend. These are two things hard to overcome--financial obligations and friends.h.i.+p.

"At any rate, my clothing friend was having much difficulty. He was making the best argument he could, telling the customer it mattered not what firm he dealt with, _that_ firm was going to collect a hundred cents on the dollar when his bill was due; and that any firm he dealt with would be under obligations to him for the business he had given to it instead of his being under obligations to the firm. He was also arguing against personal friends.h.i.+p and saying he would very soon find out whether the man he was dealing with was his friend or not if he quit buying goods from him. He was getting down to the hard pan argument that the merchant, under all circ.u.mstances, should do his business where he thought he could do it to best advantage to himself.

"The merchant would not start to picking out a line himself, so my friend laid on a table a line of goods and was, as a final struggle, trying to persuade the merchant to buy that selection, a good thing to do. It is often as easy to sell a merchant a whole line of goods as one item. But the merchant said no.

"Just as I started out of the room, in came a bell boy with a telegram. My clothing friend, as he read the message, looked as if he were hitched to an electric wire. He stood shocked--with the telegram in his hand--not saying a word. Then he turned to me, handed me the message and, without speaking, went over, laid down on the bed, and buried his face in a pillow. Poor fellow. I never felt so sorry for anybody in my life! The message told that his mother was dead.

"I asked the stubborn customer to come into the next room, where I showed him the message.

"'After all, a "touch of pity makes the whole world akin",' the merchant said to me:

"'Just tell your friend, when he is in shape again to talk business, that he may send me the line he picked out and that I really like it first rate."

Sometimes the tragedies of the road show a brighter side. Once, an old time Knight of the Grip, said to me, as we rode together:

"Do you know, a touching, yet a happy thing, happened this morning down in Missoula?

"I was standing in my customer's store taking sizes on his stock. I heard the notes of a concertina and soon, going to the front door, I saw a young girl singing in the street. In the street a good looking woman was pulling the bellows of the instrument. Beside her stood two girls--one of ten, another of about fourteen. They took turns at singing--sometimes in the same song.

"All three wore neat black clothes--not a spark of color about them except the sparkling keys of the concertina. They were not common looking, poorly clad, dirty street musicians. They were refined, even beautiful. The little group looked strangely out of place. I said to myself: 'How have these people come to this?'

"How those two girls could sing! Their voices were sweet and full. I quit my business, and a little bunch of us--two more of the boys on the road having joined me--stood on the sidewalk.

"The little girl sang this song," continued my companion, reading from a little printed slip:

"Dark and drear the world has grown as I wan-der all a-lone, And I hear the breezes sob-bing thro' the pines.

I can scarce hold back my tears, when the southern moon ap-pears, For 'tis our humble cottage where it s.h.i.+nes; Once again we seem to sit, when the eve-ning lamps are lit, With our faces turned to-ward the golden west, When I prayed that you and I ne'er would have to say 'Good-bye,'

But that still to-gether we'd be laid to rest.

"As she sang, a lump kind of crawled up in my throat. None of us spoke.

"She finished this verse and went into the crowd to sell printed copies of their songs, leaving her older sister to take up the chorus.

And I'll tell you, it made me feel that my lot was not hard when I saw one of those sweet, modest little girls pa.s.sing around a cup, her mother playing in the dusty street, and her sister singing,--to just any one that would listen.

"The chorus was too much for me. I bought the songs. Here it is:

CHORUS.

"Dear old girl, the rob-in sings a-bove you, Dear old girl, it speaks of how I love you, The blind-ing tears are fall-ing, As I think of my lost pearl, And my broken heart is call-ing, Calling you, dear old girl.

"Just as the older sister finished this chorus and started to roll down the street a little brother, who until now had remained in his baby carriage unnoticed, the younger girl came where we were. I had to throw in a dollar. We all chipped in something. One of the boys put his fingers deep into the cup and let drop a coin. Tears were in his eyes. He went to the hotel without saying a word.

"The little girl went away, but soon she came back and said: 'One of you gentlemen has made a mistake. You aimed, mama says, to give me a nickel, but here is a five-dollar gold piece.'

"'It must be the gentleman who has gone into the hotel,' said I.

"Then I'll go find him,' said the little girl. 'Where is it?'

"Well, sir, what do you suppose happened? The little girl told the man who'd dropped in the five, how her father, who had been well to do, was killed in a mine accident in Colorado and that although he was considerable to the good, creditors just wiped up all he had left his family. The mother--the family was Italian--had taught her children music and they boldly struck out to make their living in the streets.

It was the best they could do.

"The man who had put in the five was a jewelry salesman from New York.

While out on a trip he had lost his wife and three children in the Sloc.u.m disaster. He just sent the whole family,--the mother, the two sisters, and the baby--to New York and told them to go right into his home and live there--that he would see them through.

"I was down at the depot when the family went aboard, and it was beautiful to see the mother take that man's hand in both of hers and the young girls hug him and kiss him like he was their father."