Chapter 5

ADVENTURE V—BEING THAT OF CRICKET AND THE HAND-MADE GENTLEMAN

I TOOK the road again, faint with hunger. I tell you, one will have faith in the goodness of men and women who makes a journey like that of mine. I remember it almost broke me down to go to a farm-house and face the good woman who opened the door and ask for a chance to earn my breakfast. When I spoke to her, there must have been something in my voice and countenance not to be denied or even rudely dealt with. I got all that I needed and more, and went on my way with a bundle of luncheon and a heart full of gratitude.

The sun was shining out of a clear sky behind me, and I knew that I was travelling in the right direction. The white-throated sparrow sang on a wooded slope:

Will you mar-ry me, mar-ry me, mar-ry me...

The sidings were aglow with goldenrod and bluebells, and the breeze had a musky breath, and every bush was a fountain of song. I posted a letter to my mother in a little hamlet through which I passed about ten o’clock.

Near noon I overtook a boy some two or three years older than myself. He had a wooden leg—a rude stump on which his knee rested—and walked with a grip in his hand. He was a rugged, serious-looking boy, with a face browned by the sunlight. He asked for my name and “place of residence.”

“I’m a commercial traveller,” he informed me, presently.

“What do you sell?”

“Sit down an’ I’ll show ye.”

We sat on the grass together, and he opened his grip. It was full of round white balls, differing in size and neatly wrapped in tinted tissue-paper.

“What is it?” I asked.

“What is it?” he answered., with dignity. “That, sir, is Sal.”

“Sal?” said I

“Sal,” said he, with a fond look at one of the white balls which now lay in his hand. “Sal cleans and polishes silverware, glassware, gold, brass, and pewter; removes dirt from woodwork and makes the home bright and beautiful.”

He spoke this lingo as if it were some passage from a book of poetry, and paused to note its effect upon me.

“What is your line?” he asked.

“I’m on my way West to find employment,” said I.

“How would you like to take Sal with you?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” was my answer.

“I’ll sell you the receipt for a dollar,” said the boy with a wooden leg. “Fifty cents’ worth of material will make a hundred balls. They sell like hot cakes—ten cents for the small sizes, twenty-five for the large.”

“I haven’t much money—only sixteen cents,” I answered, with embarrassment, remembering that I had just paid three cents for postage.

He looked me over from head to foot, and said, “I’ll trust ye, if ye’d like to try it.”

“All right,” I said.

He opened his little grip and counted out ten of the small balls and as many large ones.

“There,” said he, “ye ought to be able to sell ‘em all in a day. Then you can send me a dollar for the receipt.”

“How do you go to work to sell it?” I asked.

“The towns are best,” said he. “When I get to a town I make a little map of the main streets and put down the names—the hotel man is always glad to help you. By-an’-by I begin to ring the door-bells. I don’t ask for the lady of the house—no, sir; I say, ‘Is Mrs. Smith at home?’ It works grand—there she is. ‘Kind lady,’ says I, ‘I’m introducin’ Sal, who cleans silverware, glassware, etc. Sal is better than a hired girl.’

“Don’t forget to say that it makes the home bright and beautiful. It’s a nice chunk o’ language an’ tells just what the women are trying to do. Course she says, ‘No, thanks.’ Then says I, ‘If you’ve any old piece o’ tarnished silver, I’d like to make a little exhibition. As the poet says:

I'll make it shine
As brightly as those eyes of thine.’

“Throw in a little portry once in a while. It sounds good an’ is easy to remember. But ye got to be careful. Some don’t like it. Women that wear aprons an’ rings an’ breastpins, an’ have their sleeves rolled up, ‘ll generally stand portry, ‘specially if they’ve got curly hair. Look out for handsome women that wear diamonds an’ set around with their feet up readin’ portry.’ Seems so them that read portry get enough of it. Don’t ever give ‘em any of yours.

“Women are funny. Around here there’s two kinds of ‘em—insiders an’ outsiders. The outsiders talk about their neighbors; the insiders talk about their livers an’ lungs, an’ so on. I know one that talks about her liver shameful. You’d think it was the meanest thing in the world.

“They ain’t all alike. In some places you’ll find ‘em perched in their fam’ly trees. Lord! I know one that sets an’ chirps by the hour in her fam’ly tree. You’ve got to let her go it, an’ bym-by, maybe, you can bring her down to the fam’ly tea-pot. If so, you’re all right. It’s wonderful how they go on. You’ll enjoy it, an’ that’s half the battle.

“Be sure to notice the children. I always let ‘em fool with my wooden leg. Sometimes I put one end on a chair an’ let ‘em set on it. I suppose this old leg has been set on an’ abused more than any leg in the world.

“You ain’t got a wooden leg, an’ it’s kind of a pity, as ye might say, for it’s wonderful how this thing helps in business. Lots o’ times it helps ye git acquainted, an’ that gives ye a chance. Then say, look a-there.” He flung his wooden stump over his knee and felt the surface of it, and explained: “That’s where one kid drove a nail in it, an’ that’s where one fetched a whack with a stove iron, an’ there a little red-headed boy bored a hole with his gimlet. Curious how they take to it; an’ I don’t mind much. Helps business an’ makes ‘em happy.”

He called my attention to many small dents in the wood.

“That’s where the dogs has bit it,” he went on. “If a dog comes at me, I always put it out to him. It keeps ‘em busy.”

He showed me a small atomizer, adding, “A little ammonia ‘ll shift the trouble onto them.” We rose and resumed our journey. I had stored my small stock of Sal in my coat-pockets.

“There’s the receipt,” said he, gravely, as he handed me a piece of paper.

It revealed the fact that Sal was chiefly composed of whiting and ammonia.

“All ye need now is a small sponge an’ some tissue-paper, an’ here’s a piece o’ chamois that ye can have an’ welcome.”

He explained his method of applying the Sal, and presently handed me his card, on which I read this legend:

JAMES HENRY MCCARTHY

Commercial Traveller

Hermon Centre, N. Y.

“I ain’t much there,” he went on. “The boys call me Pegleg at home, an’ that’s one reason I got out. I wish you’d call me Mr. McCarthy, please. I intend to be a gentleman, an’ try to be. Can you tell me what a gentleman is?”

I looked thoughtful and said nothing. Mr. McCarthy continued:

“He’s a man that don’t git drunk or swear or pare his nails in public, an’ always takes off his hat to a lady. He washes his hands before he goes to the table, an’ eats kind o’ slow an’ deliberate, an’ maybe smokes a fine cigar after dinner, ‘an always does as he’d like to be done by. That’s why I’m tryin’ to help you along.”

I expressed my gratitude in no half-hearted way.

“I like you, dinged if I don’t,” said Mr. McCarthy, with a kindly patronage. “You’ll git along all right—don’t worry.”

After a moment of silence, he went on:

“Ye see, I’m careful about all these things. I keep my eyes an’ ears open, an’ I’m teachin’ myself. I’m a kind of a hand-made gentleman, an’ that’s the most durable kind. But I ain’t finished myself yet. You wait; I’ll show ye something one o’ these days. How do you happen to be on the road?”

I told him my story.

“Don’t worry,” he went on. “Mr. James Henry McCarthy will see you through. I try to be benevolent.”

We walked on a little way in silence.

“I suppose you’ve noticed that I can sling some rather big words,” he remarked, presently. “Well, I always carry a pocket dictionary, an’ when I hear a word I like I look it up an’ chalk it down in my note-book; helps my conversation. I study it a good deal while I’m travelling. Ye see, I never had a chance to go to school much—just learnt how to read an’ write an’ cipher a little. My knowledge ain’t very superior. Now, that’s quite a word—superior. How does it sound?”

“All right,” I answered.

“Never used it before—found it in the book to-day. I’ve got about forty dollars saved, an’ I’ve learnt thirty new words so ‘t I can use ‘em. When I go home by-an’-by they’ve got to look up to me.”

The oddness of it all was not lost upon me, young as I was. I think often of the frankness of that young son of America, just beginning to feel his way upward from the plane of lowly poverty and of his kindly heart. I dreamed not then of what he was to do in the world.

“Come into this house with me,” said Mr. McCarthy. “I’ll give ye an exposition—ahem! that’s one o’ my new ones. Pretty fair kind of a farm-house. Wouldn’t wonder if there was some old silver in it.”

He led me to the front door of a big, square, old country mansion. A maid opened the door and asked to know our business. Mr. McCarthy removed his hat and bowed.

“Will you please communicate with the lady of the house,” said he, “an’ tell her that I am selling Sal? Kindly inform her that Sal cleans silverware, glassware, gold, brass, and pewter; removes dirt from woodwork, and makes the home bright and beautiful. If you’ve any old silver I’d like to show ye what it ‘ll do.”

The maid brought him a tarnished tea-pot, and McCarthy went to work and soon made it glow like a drop of dew in the sunlight. The maid took it to her mistress, and returned presently with fifty cents to be invested in Sal.

“I just wanted to show ye what Sal can do,” said Mr. McCarthy, as we went away. “Ye got to believe what ye say or ye can’t sell anything. Make yourself believe in it, an’ you’ll succeed.” We came presently to four corners in the road, where my new friend bade me sit down with him. He consulted his note-book.

“Here,” said he, “are Jehoshaphat Corners. The straight road goes to Canaan, Waterville, and Van Kleek’s Huddle; the left to Putney, Porridgeville, and Lawrence. You take one road an’ I’ll take the other, an’ four weeks from now we could meet an’ settle up at Graham’s Hotel in Buffalo. It’s only a dollar a day there. Here, I’ll lend ye fifty cents; it ‘ll help some till ye get a-going.”

“You’re very kind, and I thank you for it.”

“Don’t mention it,” said he. “It’s no more than any gentleman would do.”

So we parted there, and I took the straight road and he turned to the left.