The Gentleman from Everywhere Part 11

"And so the shadows fall apart, And so the sunbeams play; And all the windows of my heart I open to the day."

CHAPTER XVI.

ON THE POLITICAL STUMP.

I had always been somewhat prominent in politics, being President of the Republican Club in our town, and that autumn I was hired by Dr. George B. Loring to conduct his campaign for the position of Representative in Congress; this I accomplished so successfully that Judge Thayer, the chairman of the State Committee, hired me to stump the Commonwealth against General Butler and in favor of the Hon.

George D. Robinson as candidate for Governor. This campaign will long be remembered as being the most fiercely contested of any in the political history of Ma.s.sachusetts, and many incidents in my career as a public speaker are much pleasanter in the reminiscence than in the endurance. One will suffice by way of ill.u.s.tration.

Free speech was not tolerated by our frantic greenback opponents, and stale eggs with decayed cabbages hurled at the heads of Republican orators were the strongest arguments used by the General's admirers to combat our appeals for protective tariff and sound money. At a meeting of our state committee in Boston, Judge Thayer announced that General Hall of Maine, one of our most brilliant speakers, could not reach Rockport, where he was billed to hold forth, before ten o'clock that evening, and called for volunteers to hold the audience for two hours.

Rockport was almost solid for Butler, and his friends had declared that no Republican should speak there, consequently no one volunteered. At last, the Judge, in despair, said:

"Foss, will you go?"

"I shall obey orders," was my reply, amid cheers of the much-relieved s.h.i.+rkers, and I bolted for the train.

On arriving at my destination, I found the station crowded with a howling mob, and the Republican town committee were frantically shouting: "General Hall, General Hall!" "Here," said I, and only by the vigorous aid of the clubs of the police was I hustled through the embattled hosts to a hack, which took me to the hall where I walked on the shoulders of a friendly uniformed club to the platform, which I finally reached with torn apparel and in a condition of almost physical and mental collapse.

The "hail to the chief," by the band was drowned by the cat-calls: "Put him out!"--"Duck him!"--"Ride him on a rail!" etc., etc., Yells of the Butlerites who had packed the hall. At last I got my "mad up,"

and rising, I lighted a cigar, puffed vigorously, and smiled upon my uproarious foes. This astonished the "great unwashed," and a big Irishman jumped on the stage, shouting:

"Shut up, shut up, byes! Let's hear what the cuss has to say; he's a cool un."

There was silence. Taking out my cigar, I laughed long and loud.

"What you laughing at?" howled the mob.

"This reminds me," said I, very slowly, "of a little story."

"Out with it," was the response.

"When I was a teacher in Marblehead," drawled I, "I had occasion to wallop a boy with a cowhide. I made him touch his toes with his fingers and laid on the braid where it would do the most good; the more I whaled him the more he laughed. I laid on Macduff with a 'd.a.m.ned be he who first cries hold, enough,' determination, and yet he laughed. 'What you laughing at?' cried I. 'Oh, ha, ha, ha, you're licking the wrong boy,' giggled the unspeakable scamp. It's just that way here. You gentlemen are licking the wrong boy; I am not General Hall, at all, I am Lieutenant-General Ulysses S. Grant." The crowd roared: "He's a good un, let's hear him--ha, ha, ha, he's a good un,"

and for two hours I had as good-natured an audience as you ever saw.

"You say you don't want a protective tariff; you don't want sound money. Well, you remind me of the man who killed his father, mother, brothers, sisters, and when condemned to death he begged the judge to have mercy upon a poor orphan. You have killed the tariff twice, and nearly every mill wheel stopped, and you and I had to beg from door to door or live on dry crackers and s.h.i.+n-bones. Do you want that kind of provender again? Butler says, 'give us greenbacks by the ton, and everybody will be rich.' You tried that once and you carried your money to market in a bushel basket, and brought back the dinner you bought with it in a gill dipper. Do you want any more such times?"

"Be Gorrah," cried my big Irish friend, "that's so: I rimimber it well. I'd forgut it; the bye's right, he is."

"Yes," I yelled, "Butler says he'll leave the Republican party out in the cold. It reminds me of the old farmer who rushed outdoors in his bed-s.h.i.+rt, bareheaded and barefooted in winter, grabbed a barking dog who was disturbing his rest, by the ears; his wife came down to hunt him up. 'What on airth, father, you doin'?' she cried, as she saw his knees knocking together, and his teeth chattering with the cold. 'I've gut the cuss,' he shouted, 'and I'll hold him here till he freezes to death.'

"You'll hold your employers out in the cold, will you? Well, who'll freeze to death first if you stop the factories? The owners who have plenty of money, or you who are dependent upon the work they give you for every cent you get? General Butler who lives in a palace, and drives a kingly equipage tries to frighten you by painting the bugaboo; 'the rich growing richer, and the poor growing poorer,' that soon a half-dozen plutocrats will have all the money there is in the world, and then the rest of the people will all starve. It reminds me of the old farmer who set up such an outrageous looking scarecrow in his field that the crows not only let his present corn alone, but they actually brought back in their terrible fright all the corn they had stolen in the previous ten years. Are we craven crows to be scared by such windy effigies?"

Thus having caught their attention by light weight stories, I gave them broadsides of facts and arguments until I won the greatest political fight of my life. We won a famous victory; the workers, as usual, were soon forgotten; the elected exulted in their brief authority; the defeated at once began log-rolling for the next election, and so the office hunting strife goes on forever. After this I resumed the work of my crusade against ignorance and bad literature, having had my pockets well filled by those who are always eager to trade money for fame.

Our home was three miles from the railroad station, and the wintry winds with deep snows made the frequent journeys to and fro over the bleak, uncomfortable country roads, extremely cold and often hazardous.

I had endured for years these alternate freezing and roasting rides for the pleasure of living near the old folks; but now the numerous colds and coughs resulting from the exposure drove me to move nearer to the depot, and we bought a large three-story house with barn and fourteen acres of land on High Street in the city of N----.

We rejuvenated our old castle with paint, new boiler and paper, letting loose upon our devoted heads numerous fevers and other diseases which generations had stored up on the walls, all eager for new victims. Strange it is, that all bad things are so contagious and so long-lived to punish the innocent for the sins of the guilty.

Upon me, the descendant of a long line of farmers, fell the agricultural fever, and I broke my own back as well as that of the hired man, cultivating that sterile soil where my potatoes cost me about a quarter of a dollar a piece, and each blade of gra.s.s, sickness and much hard-earned cash. We made the old place to bud and blossom like the rose, but the game as usual was not worth the candle, and an ulcerated sore throat which some predecessor had breathed upon the paper which we tore off, left me a walking skeleton, when ex-Congressman Loring, then United States Commissioner of Agriculture, came to my relief by appointing me his deputy for Florida at a good salary, to investigate and report upon the developed and undeveloped resources of that State, and its attractions for northern settlers. I gladly accepted this commission to serve my country, for--

Somewhere the sun is s.h.i.+ning, I thought as I toiled along In the freezing cold of the winter, Yes, somewhere the sun is s.h.i.+ning Though here I s.h.i.+ver and sigh, Not a breath of warmth is stirring Not a beam in the arctic sky.

Somewhere the thing we long for Exists on earth's wide bound, Somewhere the heat is cheering While here winter nips the ground.

Somewhere the flowers are springing, Somewhere the corn is brown, And is ready unto the harvest To feed the hungry town.

Somewhere the twilight gathers, And weary men lay by The burdens of the daytime, And wrapped in slumber lie.

Somewhere the day is breaking, And gloom and darkness flee; Though storms our bark are tossing, There's somewhere a placid sea.

And thus, I thought, 'tis always In this mysterious life, There's always gladness somewhere In spite of its pain and strife; And somewhere the sin and sorrow Of earth are known no more; Somewhere our weary spirits Shall find a peaceful sh.o.r.e.

CHAPTER XVII.

THAT _EDDYFYING_ CHRISTIAN SCIENCE.

This season there broke out in our community, as elsewhere, what has always appeared to me, to be a distemper, misnamed by its crafty creator, "Christian Science." Unchristian scienceless would be a more appropriate name, as the so-called divine revelation was made to its Eddyfying high priestess about 1800 years after the sublime career of Christ was ended, and its preposterous claims antagonize every principle of modern science.

This craze seized certain discontented young women who studied "Science and Health" under the tutorage of its author, and they soon became too transcendental to perform the useful duties of life, posing as teachers of the "utterly utter." It monopolized the feeble intellects of some farmers' boys, who at once began to try to get a lazy living by sitting beside sick women with their hands over their eyes, ostensibly engaged in prayer, but really endeavoring to prey upon the weak minded.

Some superst.i.tious people who had been long under the care of a regular physician, and who were just at the turning point of receiving benefit therefrom, took an "Eddy sitting" and jumped to the conclusion that said mummery affected a miraculous cure.

As a drowning man clutching at a straw, I confess that I accepted the offer of treatments, made by a pleasant lady "Christian science"

doctor. I found it tolerably agreeable to sit by her side, holding her soft hand while she a.s.sumed an att.i.tude of supplication, but my malady was in nowise benefited thereby. This amiable lady finally loaned me a copy of their sacred book called "Science and Health," expressing the opinion that a careful reading thereof would renew my youth and make me a believer in their modern Eleusinian mysteries forever.

I read this preposterous book with all the earnestness and prayerfulness of which I was capable; but found it to be a heterogeneous conglomeration of words--mere words, a hodge podge of all the exploded philosophical, religious, and scientific heresies of the past ages, so cunningly jumbled that the gullible, unable to find any meaning to it, conclude that it is too profound for their comprehension, and unwilling to acknowledge the fact for fear of being called ignorant, solemnly p.r.o.nounce it to be great.

One quotation will reveal the utter nothingness of this book, from the sale of which "Pope Eddy" is said to have realized, a half-million dollars. Says this modern G.o.ddess: "The word Adam is from the Hebrew Adamah, signifying the red color of the ground, dust, nothingness.

Divide the name Adam into two syllables, and it reads a dam or obstruction. This suggests the thought of something fluid, of mortal mind in solution."

Like all the other humbugs of superst.i.tion, this new doctrine seems to me to contain but a single drop of truth submerged in an ocean of folly. Mary Baker G. Eddy, the great high priestess, claims to possess the power to heal the sick and raise the dead; yet she has retired with much lucre to her palatial residence, lives like a queen, rolling in luxury, refusing to exercise her pretended healing power upon the thousands writhing in agony and whom she claims to be able to cure.

Surely her "Key to the Scriptures" should thunder in her ears the anathema, "To him who knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is a sin."

I, too, claim a great discovery, a new "sacred book," which I have been inspired to write, and if people will give it the implicit faith required to benefit by "Christian Science," I will guarantee to cure all mental ills, and to bring eternal peace on earth. I herewith give my revelation to all, without money and without price, in strong contrast to the mercenary methods of the Eddy healers. My "science and health" is _multum in parvo_. Here it is:

Columbus discovered the new world; but his wife discovered the old world. The name of his wife, of course, was Columba, which in Latin, means a dove. Columba, the dove, flew forth from the ark, and so discovered the Eastern Continent. Columbus sailed from G--noa; but Columba sailed from Noah, and when the G.o.ds saw her with the olive-branch, they said "blessed be the dove, for whosoever shall receive her by faith into his heart, the same shall be free from unrest and from war forevermore."

Faith can remove mountains, and faith is all there is to "Christian Science," so far as we have been able to ascertain. We concede to its many devotees an almost unlimited amount of this saving grace; but sincerely claim that our "Columba science" will be equally efficient for good if received in the same spirit which has greeted the new gospel promulgated by Saint Mary Baker G. Eddy. _Selah_.

[Ill.u.s.tration: We Steamed up the Lordly St. John's River of Florida.]