CHAPTER XI
THE OLD TEACHER
"Chicago, Illinois.
"Dear Carol and David--
"It is most remarkable that you two can keep on laughing away out thereby yourselves. It makes me think perhaps there is something fine inthis being married business that sort of makes up for the rest of it.I think it must take an exceptionally good eyesight to discern sunshineon the slopes of sickness. If I were traveling that route, I amconvinced I should find it led me through dark valleys and over stonypathways with storm clouds and thunders and lightnings smashing allaround my head.
"You admonished me to talk about myself and leave you alone. Well, Isuppose you know more about yourselves than I could possibly tell you,and since it is your own little baby sister, I am sure you are morethan willing to turn your telescope away from the sunny slopes a whilefor a glimpse of my business dabbles.
"This is Chicago.
"Aunt Grace was rendered more speechless than ever when I announced myintention of coming, and Prudence was shocked. But father and I talkedit over, and he looked at me in that funny searching way he has andthen said:
"'Good for you, Connie, you have the right idea. Chicago isn't bigenough to swallow you, but it won't take you long to eat Chicagobodily. Of course you ought to go.'
"I know it is not safe to praise men too highly, they are so easilyconvinced of their astounding virtues, but that time I couldn't resistshaking hands with father and I said, and meant it:
"'Father, you are the only one in the world. I don't believe even theLord could make your duplicate.'
"'Mr. Nesbitt was very angry because I left them'. He said that afterhe took me, a stupid little country ignoramus, and made something outof me, my desertion was nothing short of rank ingratitude and religioushypocrisy and treason to the land of my birth. One might have inferredthat he picked me out of the gutter, brushed the dirt off, smoothed myragged looks, and seated me royally in his stenographic chair, and madea business lady out of me. But it didn't work.
"I came.
"Mr. Baker, the minister there, is back of it. He met me on the streetone day.
"'I hear you are literary,' he said.
"'Well, I think I can write,' I answered modestly.
"Then he said he had a third-half-nephew by marriage, to whom, groundunder the heel of financial incompetency, he had once loaned thestartling sum of fifty dollars,--I say startling, because it startledme to know a preacher ever had that much ready cash ahead of hisgrocery bill. Anyhow, the third-half-nephew, with the fifty dollars asa nucleus,--I think Providence must have multiplied it a little, forour fifty dollars never accomplished miracles like that,--but with thatfifty dollars as a starter he did a little plunging for himself, and isnow owner and editor of a great publishing house in Chicago.
"And Mr. Baker, the old minister, kept him going and coming, you mightsay, by sending him at frequent intervals, bright and budding lightswith which to illuminate his publications. It seems thethird-half-nephew by marriage, in gratitude for the fifty dollars,never refused a position to any satellite his uncle chose to recommend.And Mr. Baker glowed with delight that he had been able, from theunliterary center of Centerville to send so many candles to shine inthe chandelier of Chicago.
"All I had to do was to come.
"As I said before, I came.
"I went out to Mrs. Holly's on Prairie Avenue and the next morning setout for the Carver Publishing Company, and found it, with theassistance of most of the policemen and street-car conductors as wellas a large number of ordinary pedestrians encountered between Prairieon the South Side, and Wilson Avenue on the North. I asked for Mr.Carver, and handed him Mr. Baker's letter. He shook hands with me in amelancholy way and said:
"'When do you want to begin? Where do you live?'
"'To-morrow. I have a room out on the south side, but I will move overhere to be nearer the office.'
"'Hum,--you'd better wait a while.'
"'Isn't it a permanent position?' I asked suspiciously.
"'Oh, yes, the position is permanent, but you may not be.'
"'Mr. Baker assured me--'
"'Oh, sure, he's right. You've got the job. But so far, he has onlysent me nineteen, and the best of them lasted just fourteen days.'
"'Then you are already counting on firing me before the end of twoweeks,' I said indignantly.
"'No. I am not counting on it, but I am prepared for the worst.'
"'What is the job? What am I supposed to do?'
"'You must study our publications and do a little stenographic work,and read manuscripts and reject the bum ones,--which is an endlesstask,--and accept the fairly decent ones,--which takes about fiveminutes a week,--and read exchanges and clip shorts for filling, andwrite squibs of a spicy nature, and do various and sundry other thingsand you haven't the slightest idea how to start.'
"'No, I haven't, but you get me started, and I'll keep going all right.'
"The next morning he asked how long it took me to get to the officefrom Prairie, and I said:
"'I moved last night, I have a room down on Diversey Boulevard now.'
"He looked me over thoughtfully. Then he said: 'You ought to be apoet.'
"'Why? I haven't any poetic ability that I know of.'
"'Probably not, but you can get along without that. What a poet needsfirst of all is nerve.'
"I didn't think of anything apt to say in return so I got to work. Dayafter day he tried me out on something new and watched me when hethought I didn't notice, and went over my work very carefully. Onemorning he asked me to write five hundred words on 'The First Job in aBig City,' bringing out a country aspirant's sensations on the occasionof his first interview with a prospective employer.
"I still felt so strongly about his insolent assurance that I couldn'thold down his little old job, that I had no trouble at all with theassignment. He read it slowly and made no comment, but he gave it aplace in the current issue. And then came a blessed day when he said,'Well, you are on for good, Miss Starr. I now believe in thescriptural injunction about seventy times seven, and a kind Providencecut the margin down for me. I forgive Uncle Baker for the nineteenatrocities at last.'
"I was very happy about it, for I do love the work and the others inthe office are splendid, so keen and clever, and Mr. Carver is reallywonderful. We are not a large concern, and we have to lend a handwherever hands are needed. So I am getting five times my fifteendollars a week in experience, and I am singing inside every minute Ifeel so good about everything. The workers are all efficient andenthusiastic, and we are great friends. We gossip affectionately aboutwhoever is absent, and hold a jubilee at the restaurant down-stairswhen any one gets ahead with an extra story. No other publishers havecome rapping at my door in a mad attempt to steal me away from Mr.Carver. I have no bulky mail soliciting stories from my facile pen.But I am making good with Mr. Carver, and that's the thing right now.
"Have I fallen in love yet? Carol, dear, I always understood that whenfolks get married they lose their sentimentality. Are you the provingexception? My acquaintance with Chicago masculinity is confined to theoffice, the Methodist Church, and the boarding-house. The office forceis all married but the office boy. The Methodist congregation iscomposed of women, callow youths and bald heads of families. Women arecounted out, of necessity. I am beyond callow youths, and not advancedto heads of families. Why, I haven't a chance to fall in love,--worseluck, too, for I need the experience in my business.
"At the boarding-house I do have a little excitement now and then. Thesecond night after my installation a man walked into my room withoutknocking,--that is, he opened the door.
"'Gee, the old lady wasn't bluffing,' he said, in a tone of surprise.
"It was early in the evening and he was properly dressed and lookedharmless, so I wasn't frightened.
"'Good evening,' I said in my reserved way.
"'Gave you my room, did she?' he asked.
"'She gave
me this one,--for a consideration.'
"'Yes, it is mine,' he said sadly. 'She has threatened to do it, lo,these many years, but I never believed she would. Faith in ficklehuman nature,--ah, how futile.'
"'Yes?'
"'Yes. You see now and then I go off with the boys, and spend my moneyinstead of paying my board, and when I come back I expect my room to beawaiting me. It always has been. The old lady said she would rent itthe next time, but she had said it so many times! Well, well, well.Broke, too. It is a sad world, isn't it? Did you ever pray for death?'
"'No, I did not. And if you will excuse me, I think perhaps you hadbetter fight it out with the landlady. I have paid a month's rent inadvance.'
"'A month's rent!' He advanced and shook hands with me warmly before Iknew what he was doing. 'A month in advance. It is an honor to touchyour hand. Alas, how many moons have waned since I came in personalcontact with one who could pay a month in advance.'
"'The landlady--'
"'Oh, I am going. No room is big enough for two. Lots of fellows roomtogether to save money, but it is too multum in too parvum; I think Iprefer to spend the money. I have never resorted to it, even in mybrokest days. I didn't leave my pipe here, did I?'
"'I haven't seen it,' I said very coldly.
"'Well, all right. Don't get cross about it. Out into the dark andcold, out into the wintry night, without a cent to have and hold, butlandladies are always right.'
"He smiled appealingly but I frowned at him with my most ministerialair.
"'I am a poet,' he said apologetically. 'I can't help going off likethat. It isn't a mental aberration. I do it for a living.'
"I had nothing to say.
"'My card.' He handed it to me with a flourish, a neatly engraved one,with the word 'advertisement' in the corner. I should have haughtilyspurned it, but I was too curious to know his name. It was WilliamCanfield Brewer.
"'Well, good night. May your sleep be undisturbed by my ghost stalkingsolitary through your slumbers. May no fumes from my pipe interferewith the violet de parme you represent. If you want any advertisingdone, just call on me, William Canfield Brewer. I write poetry, drawpictures, make up stories, and prove to the absolute satisfaction ofthe most skeptical public that any article is even better than you sayit is. I command a princely salary,--but I can't command it longenough. Adieu, I go, my lady, fare thee well.'
"'Good night.'
"I could hardly wait for breakfast, I was so anxious to ask about him.I gleaned the following facts. The landlady had packed his belongingsin an old closet and rented me the room in his absence, as he surmised.He is a darling old idiot who would rather buy the chauffeur a cigarthan pay for his board. He says it is less grubby. He is too good afellow to make both ends meet. He is too devoted to his friends toneglect them for business. He can write the best ads in Chicago andget the most money for it, but he can't afford the time. Mrs. Gaylordis a stingy old cat, she always gets her money if she waits longenough, and he pays three times as much as anything is worth when hedoes pay. Mrs. Gaylord's niece is infatuated with him, withoutreciprocation, and Mrs. Gaylord wanted her, the niece, to stick to thegrocer's son; she says there is more money in being advertised thanadvertising others. Wouldn't Prudence faint if she could hear thisgossip? Don't tell her,--and I wouldn't repeat it for the world.
"I hoped he would come back for another room,--there is lots ofexperience in him, I am sure, but he sent for his things. So that isover. I found his pipe. And I am keeping it so if he gets smokey andcomes back he may have it.
"Oh, I tell you, Carol, Experience may teach in a very expensiveschool, but she makes the lessons so interesting, it is really worththe price.
"Lots of love to you both,
"From
"CONNIE."