EXPERIENCE v>/n H HYPOCRITES 2 O . . . SHAMS . . . UNCLE BEN'S EXPERIENCE WITH HYPOCRITES. A story of simple Country Life giving a Humorous and Entertaining Picture of Every Day Life and Incidents in the Rural Districts, with Uncle Ben's trip to the city of Cnicago and to California, and his Experience with the Shams and Sharpers of the Metropolitan World. BV JOHN S. *S OTHERWISE. UNCLE BEN MORGAN, OF MORGANVILLE, N. Y. THOMPSON & THOMAS, PUBLISHERS. und for Honolulu The Sea Captain After Whales " Wi :i of Interesting Exper- iences" Ben's Dream Green River 150 Miles of Railroad Stealing Trout Dinner Served by the Heathen " Me No Savee Mclican Mannee" Arrival at Ogden 287 CHAPTER XXVIII. Ten Days among the Mormons Close Proximity of the Headquarters of the Saints to the Sulphur Works Below Salt Lake City, the Mecca of the Saints Interview with Brigham Young, Jr. A Visit to the Tabernacle The Z. C. M. I. Store, a marvel of System and Neatness An Evening with the Irish Bishop An Exposition of the true Inwardness of Mormonism Relationship is a Riddle Human Love 297 CHAPTER XXIX. On Board the C. P. Railroad Disposition to Exaggerate Commercial Travelers Noted It is Catching All Classes liable to an Attack of it A Night in Carson City A Night in Virginia City Wonderful Stories A Dream that Hits the Case Results of a Restless Night He Ate too many Pancakes 313 CHAPTER XXX. On Our Last Stretch Truckee Mountain Scenery A Pleasing Change from Winter to Spring Passengers in a California Train Tower of Babel The Lacking Ingredient, Sarah Smuggins The Largest Ferry boat in the World Arrival in Oak- land Crossing the Bay The City of One Hundred Hills They Pillow their Heads in the Baldwin 322 CHAPTER XXXI. Awake in San Francisco Slander in the Breakfast Room The Important Hotel Clerk with Bosom Pin that is a Stunner The Proprietor Directs Them They Call at the Office of Dodgem, Skipem & Oppenheimer Dodger Dodged Skipcm skipped Oppenheimer Sailed for Europe The Jew Caught $200 Saved Si^ni ceipt Return to the Baldwin Letters from Mary and Abe Something Wrong at Home San Francisco The Persecuted Heathen in California Don't waste your Brine for them Advice to them as wants to Marry 326 CHAPTER XXXII. On their Way to Los Angeles The Big Trees A Horse Railroad around One of Them Native Passengers on the Train Orange Groves Fond of Gossip Lying an Essential Qualification 'Arrival in Los Angeles Sunset in California Angels without Wings The Spaniards made a Mistake Angels Fro/e out A Beauty Spot St. Paul's Advice to Timothy in Full Force for the Benefit of Hypocrites 338 SH CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXXIII. PAGE. Departure from Los Angeles Uncle Ben and Clarissa take a Stateroom and are re- garded as Millionaires by the Porter Mistaken for Spreckles Clarissa interviewed by World's Reporter The Sham Appearance Commands the Sham Respect of the Shams Clarissa takes her Taffy Prince Kingokangokoko and other Distinguished Passengers Stuck on Antique Mexican Fanner Adobe 34l CHAPTER XXXIV. Change of Scenery The Oldest City in America Santa Fe, the City of Holy Faith The Hotel Dinner Cannibalism Mr. Juan Fernandez Maracillo Romeo Mar- tinezo, Our Guide, who had Resided there 117 Years, takes them through the City Fort Marcy Bird'seye View of the Town History of Santa Fe Possessed of a Chicago Appetite Bishop Lamy's Garden The Plaza Palacio-del-Gobernador Lew Wallace and Ben Hur Old San Miguel Las Vegas Phoenix Hotel Clarissa's Dream " We have Got Las Vegas and Gallinas River on our Farm" Kansas City Omaha Outdone A Typical Real Estate Agent A New Way to Sell Lots Uncle Ben gets Dizzy The Tallest Liar of the West 358 CHAPTER XXXV. Arrival in St. Louis Hands Off At the Southern Meeting the Mayor They take a Ride over the City with the Mayor Shaw's Garden The Bridge Uncle Ben Makes a 'Suggestion to the Mayor for the Benefit of St. Louis Carter Harrison to be Consulted. 386 CHAPTER XXXVI. Arrival in Chicago Everything on the Move The Tribune Reporter with his Gimlet Lights Down on Uncle Ben, but is Rebuffed A Call at the Mayor's Office Surprised They Call On McDonald Harrison not Elected The Cranks Run the City After the Boodlers Calling on Mr. Harrison The Great Man's Sorrow for the City Clarissa Cries with one Eye. .. 390 CHAPTER XXXVII. Farewell to Chicago At Buzzbee's Reformation a Dangerous Disease Ben- jamin has Improved The Trip Worth All it Costs Pardoned by the Mayor of Syra- cuseArrival at the Village Met by old Neighbors and a Brass Band Escorted to Ebenezer's Store Cigars for the Crowd Squire Bigler's Cattle Scheme An Hour in the Bank Waddles' Forgeries Uncle Ben's Note for $2,000 They Got the Drop on Him Connejs turn the Tables and Uncle Ben gets the Last Drop on them The Old-Fashioned Home. 400 ILLUSTRATIONS FOR SHAMS. ILLUSTRATIONS FOR "SHAMS." PAGE. UNCLE BEN Frontispiece. "PRETTIER THAN THE HONEYSUCKLES." 1 1 UNCLE BEN AND CLARISSA IN TEETERS' STORE 17 'I FORGOT ALL ABOUT IT." jj WE SAW THE LIGHT FROM TOWZER HILL DR. DICKEY EXTRACTING THE HAIR PIN 26 TEETERS' FIGURING How MUCH HE COULD MAKE ON THE HOGS 31 CHOIR AT THE HUDDLE 33 THEY PLAYED ALL KINDS OF PLAYS 40 ZOLLIVKR RA.MSDELL AND NANCY BOYLES SPARKING ? DOCTOR'S OFFICE 53 BUZZARDS AND CARCASS 55 A "GARDEN ANGEL." 57 READING THE ESSAY 62 HE KICKED POOR FIDO 64 TEETERS TALKS OVER THE HOG BUSINESS IN THE BARN 69 DRIVING THE PESKY BRUTES BY THE TAVERN 71 ELDER DANBERRY 75 PRESIDING ELDER JONES 77 THE COLLECTION 82 HEADS 87 SOCRATES AND YOUNG AMERICA 91 You FORGET THAT I HAVE GOT YOUR KEYS HERE 97 1 I K WAS GOING TO FIGHT THE PROFESSOR 103 SIZING UP THE STEERS 107 THE PHRENOLOGIST'S DREAM 109 CAPTAIN OF THE FERRY BOAT 113 SARAH SMUGGINS WHEN A GIRL 119 WATCHING MARY AND EBENEZER 121 NG THE BRIDE 126 BIGLER STARTS FOR CHICAGO 131 LETTER OF CONDOLENCE 134 WADDLES FAINTED; THEY DUTSKD HIM WITH COLD WATER 139 REFUSING TO Go ON TEETERS' BAIL 141 xiv ILLUSTRATIONS FOR SHAMS. TAGE. EXCURSION TRAIN 145 ARRIVAL AT DEPOT in SYRACUSE 147 BUYING TICKETS IN SYRACUSE 151 "HE BROUGHT His FOOT DOWN ON BUZBEE'S CORNFIELD.". IS3 UNCLE BEN GOES UP CHAMBER TO BED 157 "MISTER, WON'T You BUY A MORNING PAPER?" 159 "BREAKFAST is Now READY IN THE DINING CAR FORWARD." 162 THE OLD INQUISITOR 166 THE "HAND OF PROVIDENCE." 170 "SHE ACTED VERY COLD, ALMOST FRIGID." 174 "BENJAMIN MORGAN, WHAT ARE You DOING HERE?" 176 "I DIDN'T WAIT TO HITCH UP T'OTHER GALLUS" 178 " A LL ABOARD." 1 80 "NOT A SIGN OF EITHER POCKETBOOK." 183 "BENJAMIN, WHAT is THE MATTER WITH You?" 188 PALMER HOUSE 192 "I SAW ONE OF THOSE THINGS DRESSED IN UNIFORMITY." 197 "WE TOOK A BIG RIDE FOR FIVE CENTS APIECE." 199 BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG 201 "WHILE I WAS RESTING, CLARISSA WAS READING TO ME." 206 "WE WILL JUST FOLLOW UP THIS BRASS BAND." 208 THE TRIBUNE REPORTER 211 ''ABRAHAM, SOLOMON AND ISAAC'S COMBINATION." 213 CARTER'S PRIVATE OFFICE 219 "LOOK HERE, You DUMB SASSY SCAMP" 221 "CLARISSA WAS DUMBFOUNDED!" 223 'Is IT A NIGH RELATIVE You HAVE LOST?" 227 "1 WAS JUST STEPPING OVER THE BALUSTRADE." 231 "ONE RUN COLD, T'OTHER RUN HOT 233 CARTER CROSSING THE DESERT 237 "READY AND ANXIOUS TO BORE A HOLE." 24! "WE WENT TO MR. LINCOLN'S PARK." 245 "SOMETIMES THEY'LL SHAKE ONE FINGER AND SOMETIMES Two." 249 EBENEZER PLUNKET 251 MARY 253 CLARISSA'S QUEEN ANN DRESS 257 "BECAUSE IT'S THE ONLY BUILDING I KNOW OF IN TUB CITY THAT HAIN'T GOT A MORTGAGE ON IT." 261 "I HOLLERED, 'SQUIRE BIGLER." 264 WELLS HOUSE 269 "UNLESS HE is IN THE LIQUOR BUSINESS, THEN HE CUSSES IT." 271 OMAHA WITH COLONEL SELLERS' ADDITION 273 THE FELLOW THAT COULDN'T LIE , 274 "UNCLE BEN, How ARE You?'' 277 "GET IN BACK OF ME, You GOLDEN TEMPTER.". '. 281 "SHE WISHED SHE COULD GET UP HIGHER." 285 ILLUSTRATIONS FOR SHAMS. XV PAGE. "A DOLLAR, IF You PLEASE." 290 STRANGE VISIONS 293 BRIGHAM YOUNG, JR., TELLS Us TERRIBLE THINGS 301 POLYGAMOUS MORMON 308 "HOLINESS UNTO THE LORD." 310 SANDY BOWERS, AN UNKUIVATED IRISHMAN 314 SANDY BOWERS AFTER HE GOT His WEALTH 315 DOING CHORES AT 4 O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING 318 THE GRAND MASTER OF THE FIREWORKS 319 A REGULAR OLD '49ER 323 SAN FRANCISCO IN THE EVENING 325 MOSES OPPENHEIMER 329 "You VAS PROKE Us ALL UP IN PEEZNESS." 331 JACK RABBIT 337 THE DEAD GIANT 339 "A LITTLE FOR THY STOMACH'S SAKE." 343 A STREET SCENE IN Los ANGELES 347 GREASER PLOWING SCENE ON THE A. T. & S. F. R. R MR. JUAN FERNANDEZ-MARACILLO-ROMEO-MARTINEZO HEAD WATERS OF THE Rio GRANDE PALACIO DEL GOBERNADOR BLOWING OUT THE ELECTRIC LIGHT SINKING A SHAFT FOR BLOOD POINTING OUT WITH MY FORK THE MOST INTERESTING POINTS "NOTHING STRONGER THAN LEMONADE AND CIGARS." 402 BIGLER MAKES A SPEECH 404 SARAH SMUGGINS 409 CHAPTER I. HE showers of April had cleared away and brought in a lovely May, with peace and green grass spread all around. The sweet scent of apple blows was floating through the air, inspiring new life and new ambition. I was getting tired of the hard work that had ever been my lot through life thus far. I had fin- ished the chores and was going into the house for breakfast, when I met Clarissa at the gate with a pail of fresh water she had just brought from the spring down at the foot of the hill. (Clarissa is my wife, and one of the smartest and best wives ever married to a ignorant but honest man.) Says she, " Ben, breakfast is all ready and steaming hot." As she looked up through her specs, her face as clean and pretty as a brand-new silver dollar, I could not help kissing her right there. I don't know what made me do it, but there was some- tiling in the air that seemed to make me feel young and keen-like, and 1 thought Clarissa looked a heap prettier with her clean calico and white apron on than the morning-glories that were creep- 00 ft 12 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S ing up beside the front door. After we had set down to breakfast, either the smell of the hot biscuits and fresh coffee, and the fragrant breeze that came in through the open window next to the orchard, or something else, seemed all of a sudden to inspire me, and I spoke up in more of a man-like manner than usual (for usually I am quite calm and meek-like ; so much so, that folks don't think I know much), and said, " Clarissa, Clarissa !" Says she, "What! Ben, have you got a colic?" I suppose my strange look caused her alarm. I replied : " No, I haven't got the colic, nor anything else that is catching, unless being a author is catching. I am going to surprise you." Says she, "Are you going to buy me a new dress?" " Well," says I, " that would be surprising, but that ain't it ; I'm going to write a book." Clarissa dropped her cup of coffee on ner clean table-cloth, she was so astonished, and exclaimed, " Benjamin Morgan! have you gone crazy?" Says I, " I don't know but I have; they say when a fellow is a little off he will generally, and more or less frequently, turn out to be an author." " Well, if ever I'd thought that of you ! Who do you think will be fool enough to read your book if you write one ?" she asked. Says I : " I don't know, but one thing I do know, that if all the fools in the world will read my book, it will be read more than any other book that was ever printed." '' Well, Benjamin, what on earth ever made you get the idea into your head of writing a book?" she said, to which I replied, " I guess I'd caught an inspiration." Says she, *' More likely you've caught a cold ; this is just the kind of weather for that." Says I, " It's nothing of the sort ; I'm in dead earnest. I'm going to EXPERIENCE WITH HYPOCRITES. 13 write a book. I know I haven't got any education worth speaking about, but I have paid close attention to what few folks I have seen in this world, and I know that a good share of them seem to be one thing, and really are another; and I can see it just as plain as if I'd been born in a Yale or cradled in a Oxford. And if I can't write as pretty words or spell them as correctly as some of these great writers, I can unmask some of the hypocrisy practiced every day around us, and give a hint, at least, to some of the rising generations, as well as to them that's already rose, how to detect the false from the true ; and if I can even get, as you say, Clarissa, the fools to read it, 1 will be satisfied, for I shall then think that a service ren- dered to them as is called fools, that will enable them to see the de- ceitful mask of cunning and unscrupulous persons, and help them to avoid clanger, will be of some value. So I have concluded, and my mind is set on it, to write a book on my experience with hypocrites." Clarissa was silent for a few minutes, and then said : " Benjamin, hadn't you better finish planting that four-acre corn-field before you write your book?" That is just like a woman, says I to myself. Just let a man get an inspiring spell onto him, and think he is going to do some- thing for his fellow man, and perhaps raise himself onto a high eminence, and his wife, or some one else, will remind him of his duty to his family, and call his special attention to some work that has got to be done. " Yes, Clarissa," said I, " I know I have got to plant that corn, and I'll do it to-day; but that ain't going to stop me writing the book. I suppose that everybody that has wrote a book, or preached a sermon, or gone to Congress, has had to overcome obstacles. If the Almighty hasn't given a man brains enough to overcome obsta- cles in order to rise in the world and accomplish some good, he never intended him to rise. All men wasn't created to rise, as that plan would keep everything unsettled ; everybody would be rising ; but 14 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S the Almighty designed it otherwise, and when he sees fit to touch a human soul with the finger of inspiration, and bid him tell the people something, he also gives him courage and power to overcome all obstacles, which are purposely put in his way to strengthen him. So, Clarissa, I'll get around that corn-field by just planting it, and at the same time I'll try to think up something." EXPERIENCE WITH HYPOCRITES. CHAPTER II. jLANTING corn in old Blank County, New York, has a tendency to paralyze any inspiration one may have to be an author. The pesky stones and old stumps drives all poetry out of a soul that has to plow among 'em, or plant corn and carry a hoeful of dirt two or three feet to cover it. A person may arise with the bright, radiant sun in the morning, his soul filled with love for nature, his heart happy and in accord with all pleasant thoughts and inspirations, and a determination to write something that will startle the world. But after he has got his planting done, and he comes to the house at sun- down, with scarcely strength enough to pull his feet after him, and then have to milk ten cows and do the rest of his chores, he will find his morning inspiration has taken wings and flown, and he feels more like saying " Dumb it" than anything else. Most persons would give up the author idea ; but Uncle Ben Morgan ain't going to give it up for any trifles of that kind, for he has got it on his mind to show up some of the mean folks in this world, and if he should fail to make the attempt he would be haunted by a nightmare, and that is the worst kind of a haunt. So I have concluded to make a note now and then on things I have seen in the past, or may come across in the future. I'd got that corn planting business off my mind, and took Clar- issa down to the village to do some trading. She is a very domestic body, but powerful smart. She keeps house in perfect order, and has time to read an awful sight besides. She hadn't been down to the village for three months, and she had considerable trading to do and quite a lot of butter and eggs to sell. The first place we went l6 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN ? S into was Jim Teeters' new grocery-store. Jim Teeters came from Connecticut, and was a regular Yankee. He married Betsey Coon she and I used to go to school together, twenty-five years ago but she went back East to live twenty years ago, and I hadn't seen her since then. He opened a big grocery-store about two months ago, and done lots of advertising m the Village Blade, and out on the fences and barns, and he was getting a big trade. Clarissa thought that we had better go in and try the new store; and I had quite a desire to see Betsey's husband, and a hope that I might see Betsey. We had no sooner entered than a tall, lean fellow, with thin, sandy chin whiskers and blue eyes, and a face all covered with smiles, approached us as if he had known us a lifetime, and put his hand out in a cordial manner and shook hands with Clar- issa, and then with me, and said, " This is a beautiful day ; just step back and have a seat. Let me see, your name is is is " " Uncle Ben Morgan !" shouted a little red-headed woman of forty, who was coming out from behind the counter, " how do you do?" and the next minute the hand of Betsey Teeters was clasped in mine in a regular, old-fashioned shake. The cordiality with which Betsey met me run close onto affection. Betsey is a marvel in the way of a rapid talker ; I think she would take the grist-mill over any woman I ever met, and on this particular occasion we was glad to see each other, and Betsey had to ask me so many questions about our old schoolmates and the old neighbors, and one thing and another, that a whole half-hour went by before I thought a thing about introducing Clarissa, or she thought of introducing Teeters, and as I turned round I noticed Clarissa was looking very consider- ably carroty-colored; but Teeters was doing the smiling act in good style, and I remarked to Betsey that if she'd just hold on a minute I'd introduce her to the best woman in Blank County my wife, Clarissa Morgan. The pause was obtained, and the introduction performed. I UNCLE BEN AND CLARISSA IN TEETERS* STORE, 1 8 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S Clarissa was almost frigid at first, and seemed to feel as though I had used a little too much time ; but under Betsey's warm reception and April shower of words, she gradually thawed down to the talk- ative degree. Betsey introduced me to the gentleman who met us at the door, as her husband. He was very polite and very friendly ; but I thought then that I could see policy written on his face. Bet- sey, no doubt, had told him about the good men and women to work for as customers, and she, of course, mentioned " Uncle Ben Mor- gan," as it is known all over the county that he prides himself on paying for everything he gets, promptly. " Mr. Morgan," said Mr. Teeters, " I have heard Betsey speak of you more than any other man in the county, and I feel as though I was already acquainted with you. I was in hopes you would have called before this. Now I just want you and your wife to make my store your headquarters whenever you can come to town, and if you have anything to sell at any time, give me the first chance to buy it, and I'll give you the biggest price for it of any one in town." " Well," I said, "we'll give you a trial, and so long as you do right by us we'll trade with you." Clarissa had brought in about one hundred pounds of butter and eighty-two dozen eggs, and six pair of socks she had knit. Teeters wanted me to bring them in, and I done so. He examined the butter closely and said : "Mrs. Morgan, did you make this butter yourself?" Clarissa told him, " Yes." " Well," said he, "that is the best lot of butter I have seen since I have been in the village ; and I want to engage all the butter you make from now on, and I'll give you one cent above the market price for it." Clarissa is a powerful good butter maker, and she prides her- self on it ; and this compliment of Teeters' d 36 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S "This, in my opinion, is the most important right and privilege that lies at the very foundation of our government ; and until the women of America will prize honesty above dishonesty, virtue above vice, sobriety above intemperance, and will make the distinc- tion in society so that its effects can be seen in the country, they have no right to ask greater privileges. " Now I am contented to try my hand in government affairs at home, haint I, Benjamin," said she. With due deliberation I replied, " Yes." " And I manage to have you think just about as I do, don't I, Benjamin?" she said. I replied, " Well, Clarissa, because you always think right, I can truthfully say, yes." (It wouldn't do for me to say yes, without explaining before all them women, for if I did, they would misconstrue my position in the neighborhood.) Clarissa continued, " I stand as firm as the stone of Gibraltar on the right that women have to mould the thoughts, socially and polit- ically, of the world. They can make our country better and purer, just as they appreciate their grand and noble rights ; and the very fact that the country is no better, that there is so much corruption in our government, is an evidence in my mind that if the women can't show better results of their influence in society, they are a long way from being competent to fill official positions. "I am in favor of women's rights in their rights to rise up in the majesty of the nature their Creator give 'em, and emancipate them- selves from the foolish fashions and sentiments and female dudeism of the age, that carries them down, and soar aloft to the high pin- nacle they ought to set on ; and when they do that they will be more respected by all mankind than all the rulers of the earth from Adam down to the present day.'' As soon as Clarissa had finished her remarks (which seemed to command the attention of every one present) Betsey Teeters said : EX /.mi iivruckrii 37 ."That's just what I believe, and I've thought that way a good many years ; but I never could express my opinions as you can, Clarissa Morgan ; if I could, I'd get right onto a stump, or stage, or wagon, or any kind of a elevating place, and make the world feel my eloquence." Teeters interrupted further remarks of Betsey's by saying: "There's a big difference between talk and eloquence. Some folks will talk all day, and all the time, and not say anything, either, while others will say a good deal in a few words, and when such persons talk it is generally eloquent. Now Mrs. Morgan has spoken a whole volume in a few words, and if some big man like Lord Salisbury had written a book of 500 pages, and borrowed all he could from Bill Shakspere and others on this same subject, and expressed no more thought than Clarissa has just given us, we'd all say, ' That's a powerful good book.' I believe in giving honor to them it's due to. If we find a rose in the shade of a rock giving oft as sweet a scent as one that sits in the. bay window of a palace, we should pay just as good respects to it as if it was in a palace. How- ever, that isn't the way of the world. Some poet has said some- thing about a good many gems of serene rays being born to get red in the face and throw away all their sweet scents in the airy desert, or words to that effect. Clarissa may be one of them gems, and she may not be. I believe she will some day make her sentiments known to the world." " James Quincy Teeters," said Betsey, " what ails you ? I never heard you talk so much good sense in my life before." " Nothing ails me, Betsey," said Jim ; " I never had a chance before since you knew me, to get out so much. I've got lots more if I get the opportunity to tell it sometime." "Well," said Betsey, " I don't see what you mean, Jim Teeters ; I'm sure I don't talk much." " 1 beg pardon, my dear, I never said you did ; but you know some persons that do, I presume," replied Jim. Sally Tomkins spoke up and said she " felt as Mr. Teeters had remarked, that some folks talk a awful sight and say nothing, while others talk but little but say a powerful sight. And that puts me 38 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S in mind of something I read in a book about a man named Solomori, saying that a greenhorn was known by his much racket, but a wise man was troubled Avith the lockjaw considerably, or words that conveyed a similar meaning, I don't exactly remember the phraseol- ogy. I've heard Peleg say, when I was reading from that passage out loud, that he knew whole families, not far from this neigh r hood, either, that didn't stand in the least mite of danger of ever having the lockjaw," and as she spoke she cast a sort o' wise glance over the top of her gold-plated spectacles toward Sarah Smuggins. Whether or not Sarah caught her in this act, I don't know ; but Sarah spoke right up and said, "Anybody that will believe what is writ in that book aint very strong-minded." Sally asked, " What book do you think I've been referring to?" " You've been readin' that old, worn-out book, the Bible. It goes on to tell about God, and how He made the world, and man and woman, and a whole pack of lies it can't prove ; and then it tells the women folks to be subject to their husbands, and such a book as that aint fit to have in a house," and Sarah looked as if she had made a center shot. Clarissa remarked in her cool way, " Sarah, I don't believe your folks have had a Bible in the house for fifty years ; at any rate, since you was born, and I don't believe you^know much about it except what you've heard your father tell. So far as it tells about wives being subject to their husbands, that ought not to worry you any, for you'll never be called on to be subject." They all laughed except Sarah, who got a swallow of hot tea down her windpipe which nearly choked her, and she had to be ex- cused from the table. I could plainly see that my prediction was correct that Sarah had opened a subject she couldn't close with much satisfaction to herself. EXPERIENCE \\ITll H 39 CHAPTER V. 'HEN Mary went around the neighborhood to invite the women to the quilting, she also invited the young folks to come in the evening to a party. Some of the yotng mar- ried folks was invited with the rest. Of course Ebenezer Plunket was on the list, and I guess Mary had his name at the head, as she thinks immensely of him, and he pays her steady company when he gets a opportunity. After tea the quiltin' party broke up, and Betsey and Jim ex- pressed themselves as wonderfully pleased with their visit, and after we had exchanged mutual invitations to visit one another often and frequent, we bade them adieu (which in French is au river). Again we got our chores all done up it was lamplightin' time and the young folks begun to come in. Mary had got the big front room slicked up, and the new hanging lamp that we bought when we was out to Syracuse on a visit lastwinter, lit up ; in about a half hour the house was pretty well filled up. They begun to have fun and a good time immediately. I was glad on't, for if there is one thing that I enjoy more than another, it is in seeing others have a good time; and if they are going to have a happy time, the sooner they begin and the longer they keep it up the better it pleases me. Life is altogether too short to spend three-fourths of it under a cloud and one-fourth in the sunshine. I believe we ought to spend it all in sunshine, and if we would all be frank and honest, and not assume tc be what we are not, and resort to all kinds of devices and schemes to palm off our counterfeit instead of letting ourselves go for what 40 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S we are actually worth, there would be lots more of sunshine for the human family than what they receive. The world is full of shams, and one sham helps to make another sham, and the hard work too' many folks have in keeping up the shams, causes a heavy bank of dark clouds to shut out the sunshine. A desire to have the world think they are wealthy and doing well in the world, causes more people to live beyond their means, to do things they know they can- not afford to do, than anything else, and consequently they have a THEY PLAYED ALL KINDS OF PLAYS. sham exterior, but a dark, gloomy and cloudy interior. A nice bed- spread and finely embroidered pillow shams too frequently covers up sham bedding. What will society say ?" is one of the biggest shams of all, and keeps too many people in a chilly, unpleasant and unwholesome atmosphere. I want to see folks have sufficient moral courage to appear natural and enjoy the blessed sunshine of life; and if a cloud of sorrow passes over them now and then it is but temporary, and joy is more keen after it passes by. E.\.1'LK. 41 They played all kinds of plays that was becomin' to their age, sex and condition, and some that wasn't. Mary's new organ helped a powerful sight in entertaining the folks. Clarissa and I talked the matter over considerable before we concluded to buy the organ. I felt too poor to put $250 into a wind box when I needed a windmill out in the barnyard more ; but after Clarissa entered into the merits of the case, and said it was as much our Christian duty to do all that was in our power to elevate and improve our children as to go to church and prayer-meetin'; that she believed the Almighty would stuff cotton in his ears, if he had any, when folks prayed to him that was stingy and mean to their own children and wives and husbands, that he might not hear their hypocritical prayers. She said an organ or a piano in the house would of itself educate the finer qualities of the mind and heart, and would assist in blending the intellectual with the sentimental and would aid in unfolding and developing the beauty of their natures ; that pictures, musical in- struments, pretty decorated walls and handsomely carpeted floors, a nice library of well-selected books, would educate and elevate the dwellers in such homes more than all things else combined. Clar- issa is a very economical and judicious wife, and looks onto both sides of a dollar before she lets it go, and when it does go it gener- ally brings back value equivalent. She said with a firm and decided tone that she was in favor of buying the organ ; that cattle wasn't anything but cattle and never would be in this world nor the world to come, that they wasn't made in the image of their Creator, and they could do just as they had done in the past go down to the creek to drink. But our children was the very image of our Heav- enly Father, for the good book says so, and if we do our duty by 'em, and bring 'em up in the right way, they was liable to turn into brighter beings in the "sweet by and by," and if that is true, as the Bible says it is, and they are going to sing all the time and play on harps, then it is our duty to do all we can to fit them so they won't make horrible discords up there. (However, I don't believe much 42 SHAMS ; OR, UNCLE BEN'S in the idea of being transformed into angels, and singing and play, ing, etc.; but some folks seem to get that idea from the way the Bible is explained to them.) She said she was fully satisfied that $250 put into a fine Estey Organ would be the best investment I ever made. I like to argue pretty well, especially when 1 think I've got a good fair chance to beat ; but when Clarissa takes the floor and ends her side of the case, I haint got much to say in general, and nothing in particular. On this occasion I hadn't a word to offer, for I knew she was level, and so she and I looked into organs con- siderable and decided to buy an Estey. Mary said they was the best according to her teacher's judgment and right there comes in another sham. Somehow or other, if you ask for the unbiased judgment of a music teacher in regard to the quality and merits of an instru- ment you may wish to purchase, ninety-nine times out of one hun- dred, a xo-per cent, commission decides their judgment, and they put on a sham face and act so completely disinterested that you think they are honest about it when they are perfect hypocrites. The bigger the commission the stronger is their recommendation, and the real merit of the instrument cuts no figure. Well, we have been well pleased with our organ, but if we had never said a word to Mary's teacher about it we could have got it for $25 less than we paid. Shams are terrible mean things, but they seem a sight meaner when you have to pay a good price for 'em. Mary has learned a powerful sight of music since we give her the organ, and when Clarissa and I get real tired and fatigued from hard work, we go into the square room and I lay down on the lounge, while Clarissa sets in her big cane-seat rocker. Mary sets down to the organ, and with her sweet voice, accompanied by the harmo- nious wind she turns out of the organ, lulls us to repose and seems to waft our souls to fairer lands, and we feel completely rested ; and a hundred times I've felt that the money I put into that wind-box had been paid back to us in the pleasure we have received from it. Mary is considered the best player in ten miles of us. . ITIF mTuCKHi 43 1 find I have slipped away from what I was going to say about the party, so I'll go back to the front room at once. Mclancthon Stevens, being the singing-school teacher, was in- vited to favor the company with a song, which he very promptly accepted upon condition that Mary would manipulate the organ, and she and Ebenezer Plunket assist on the chorus. Mary began in the same way that most young ladies do when asked to play, after their parents have spent a good deal of money on their education, " Why, really, Mr. Stevens, you'll have to ex- cuse me, I'm all out of practice." Clarissa spoke i>p in a sharp tone and said : " Mary, you know better than to make a fool of yourself by such ridiculous excuses just because they are fashionable. You do the best you can, and then you will have done your duty." " Yes, mother," said Mary, " I just wanted to see how it would sound if I done as Amelia Curtis does down to the village, when- ever she is asked to play the piano. I will cheerfully comply with Mr. Stevens' request." Mary was trying the silly sham that too many girls make use of for the purpose of being urged. It is an innocent sham that hurts nobody but themselves. It is a good deal like a lace sham very easily seen through. At it they went. Mr. Stevens was in good trim. He took a regular tour, commencing, " Down by the Sad Sea Waves," " Where the Sea-gulls Moan," then traveled over to " Old Virginny," and staid all night in " The Old Log Cabin in the Lane," and while under its protecting roof he exhibited his nature by trying to " Steal away softly " with " My Grandfather's Clock ;" but fortunately for the old gentleman's heirs, " It was taller by half than the young man himself," so he left it for " Ninety years on the floor," and concluded he had better make himself scarce before the folks woke up, said to himself, "I'll Sperd Aw \\v.iv, on my errand of love" where 1 can 'Listen to the Mocking-bird" in the "Sweet 44 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S By-and-By." After "Roaming over Mountains" and crossing the " Raging Canawl," he felt " Tired Now and Sleepy, too," and bought a return ticket from a scalper in 'Frisco for " Home, Sweet Home." Ebenezer and Mary kept him company the whole trip, and occasionally, when a familiar strain was struck, we all got on board. We all seemed to enjoy Melancthon's efforts to please us, and at the same time do a little advertising for himself. We concluded he could execute most everything he could get his hands on. After the music had died away, and Melancthon and Ebenezer and Mary had retired from the organ amid applause and perspira- tion, there was a lull, each one waiting for the other to speak. Presently, some one called for a speech from Bascom Bigler, who was for short called " Square Big." After a general and pro- miscuous call, frequently repeated, the young 'Squire arose and said : " Ladies and Gentlemen, I did not know it was in order at a social party to have a speech." Bill Green spoke up and said that this was an exception. " Well, then, ladies and gentlemen," continued the 'Squire, "as this is an exception to the general rule, I thank you for the honor you have conferred upon me in calling me to the floor on this special occasion. I do not feel myself competent to the task thus imposed upon me, as I have not made a speech since I left college without taking time to consider the subject of the remarks I was to make. However, as it seems to be the unanimous desire of those present, I will try to say a few words. What I have already said, ladies and gentlemen, are prefacing remarks. Now, to what I will say : " Ladies and Gentlemen, we have met on this occasion to discuss the great political question of the day, labor and capital the down- trodden and horny-handed sons of toil on the one hand, and the over-fed and bloated capitalist on the other. Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen, I forgot ; that is part of a speech I made last fall before I was elected J. P., at a meeting of the Knights of Labor. " Ladies and Gentlemen : The one great purpose of our lives is WITH IIYPOCRITI 45 to secure the greatest amount of happiness we can at the least ex- pense to ourselves, and the greatest expense to somebody else. In order to do this we must use a great amount of policy sometimes. A person to be successful in this course must be very polite to every one, never giving an insult and never taking one, and especially must he be very sweet to all the children. The dirtier they are the more attention must they receive, for through the children he will reach the heart of the mother, and when he has once captured that fort- ress he can bombard the rest of the family with soft-soap bubbles they are cheap things to use in such an attack, as the principal in- gredient in 'em is wind. When he has got all the families in the neighborhood to say, ' He is such a nice man,' ' He is a perfect gentle- man,' and the young ladies to say, ' He is too sweet for anything,' he has succeeded in placing himself in a position where he can com- mand all the happiness he desires with scarcely any expense to him- self, but almost entirely at the expense of his many friends. If he wants to borrow money they are ready to lend it to him. If he has any big scheme on foot whereby he has nothing to lose, but every* thing to gain, he has but to spin out his web and make it look very fine and very secure, and then say, ' Come into my parlor,' and they will just as surely walk in, as he invites 'em. So if, as I said, the ob- ject in life is to secure the greatest amount of happiness at the least expense, I have hinteoVto you a plan which any of you can act upon with sure results. " Ladies and Gentlemen : Again I have forgot the occasion upon which, we have met, and I humbly beg your pardon. This is a part of a speech I delivered at a society meeting when I was in college, known as the Phi Kappa Society ; none but gentlemen were members. " The fact is, ladies and gentlemen, it's rather embarrassing to make a speech without any previous preparation ; a fellow is so apt to run right into something he has said on another occasion. I will, however, try once more, and if possible, avoid the switches and keep the main track. 46 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S " Ladies and Gentlemen : We have met upon a most solemn occasion. That monster, who is everywhere and by all men, in all nations and climes, and under all circumstances most dreaded, who goes through the land principally riding a pale horse, and carries a sickle in his right hand, has passed through our peaceful land, and taken from us the man most dear to our country, without whom we never would have been a country, as he was the father of it George Washington and our temples throb with pain and our hearts sink within us as the teardrops fill our eyes " At this point in his speech some one said, " Rats ! rats !" 'Square Big says, " Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen, where are they? I didn't see 'em. " Ladies and Gentlemen : Please pardon me again for such a fearful break. I got to thinking of my early school days, and was giving one of J. Q. Adams' favorite speeches on the death of our noble George. I will avoid further departure from what I ought to say. " Ladies and Gentlemen : We have met in this pleasant parlor by special invitation of one of the fairest young ladies of this county, Miss Mary Morgan, to enjoy ourselves in a social capacity, and each one present, I have no doubt, can say with me, ' I am glad I come.' These social gatherings are good things to bind us to- gether as friends and neighbors, to cheer each other, and there is no place in this part of the country where we are more heartily welcomed than right here right in this big, square room where Benjamin Morgan lost his first wife with the measles, and where he brought his present wife, the best woman in the State of New York, Clarissa Snodgrass Morgan, to be his consort through life. " The hospitality of this house is known as far as they are known, and this evening will always be remembered as the happiest of my whole life." " Look here, Bascom Bigler," said Mariah, " you've told that same story about being the happiest time in your life a dozen times, and at every place we've been to You told it to me when you 47 courted me, and the day we was married you told it again ; and I think it's pretty nigh time to quit telling such lies ' Clarissa said, " Mariah/you mustn't mind that, although I don't blame you a mite for condemning deceitfulness. I believe it is the wickedest thing one can practice ; but he is only giving us a novel pretty words to hear, but nothing but a story after all." ZOLLIVER RAMSDELL AND NANCY BOYLES SPARKING. Yes, 'Squire Big's speech was only a little speech, but he pur- sued a line of policy in it that shadowed his future course in life. We will see what his sham led him to, and its results. All the while we was being entertained with music, speeches, plays, etc., Nancy Boyles and Zolliver Ramsdell got into a corner be- hind the big, tall stove and sparked the whole evening. I guess they had as happy a time as any one of the party. There was one little 48 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S black-eyed lady that cast curious glances toward the stove fre- quently, and that was Lily Doolittle. Poor Lily is a awful good little soul, and as nice as anybody can be ; but somehow, everybody that wants to go with her she rejects, and everybody she wants to have accompany her, rejects her, and she is gradually, if not with greater speed, sliding down on the shady side of the matrimonial pyramid. Sarah Smuggins was trying to look pretty and agreeable ; but I don't remember of only one gentleman who had the disposition and courage to enter into a conversation with her, and that was Bigler. After he delivered his speech she told him all the men was acting on his line of policy. She knew 'em, and they was all alike, just like bees ; they'd buzz around the clover blossom till it was a little faded, and then fly off to some other new blossom. There was no dependence to be placed upon 'em. I overheard the 'Squire say to her, " Miss Smuggins, that is perfectly natural ; when the bee has extracted all the honey from the flower, and begins to taste the bitter, it can't stand it, and must leave for sweeter blows. There are some flowers the bees light on that haven't a mite of honey in 'em, and the bees don't dwell long enough to argue the case, while there are other flowers that the bees linger around long after they are faded, and seem loth to give 'em up, even after the flower is dead. It ain't very good logic for the bitter blossoms to condemn the bee, when one sip from its cup of life would be death to the bee," and the 'Squire excused himself in his smiling manner, and sought the company of Clarissa. I noticed Sarah seemed to be in a meditating mood. Perhaps she may change her ideas of things yet ; stranger things than that have happened. It was time for the company to go home, and while they were getting on their things and passing around the good-byes, Ebenezer Plunket said he was requested to give notice that there would be literary exercises at the Waddles Corners schoolhouse next Friday I:XPI:KII:XCK WITH HYPOCRITES. 49 evening-, and the new teacher, Timothy Brown, would like to have all come that took an interest in intellectual advancement. The ex- ercises would be of a promiscuous character, and the teacher de- signed to organize a permanent lyceum in order to promote and stimulate mental culture, not only among the children, but the pa- rents and citizens of that vicinity. The exercises would commence precisely at 8 o'clock. After the company had all gone, and peace and quiet was again restored, and the lights blew out, Clarissa and I went to bed. We got to talking about the affair to take place at the schoolhouse, and wondered what it would be. Clarissa said, " I wonder if they will spell down? If they do, Ben, I suppose you and I will be the cham- pions ; for you know, you and I used to spell anything and every- thing down twenty years ago. Now, if they should do that, and we should be the last ones standing, one of us had better miss a word on purpose, so as not to tire them out waiting for us." I agreed I'd miss a word for her benefit, and we went to sleep. Along in the night I heard Clarissa talking out loud in her sleep, and it waked me up. She very frequently talks in her sleep, especially if anything is weighing on her mind. In accents that would wring pity from a stone, these feeling lines poured forth from her lips : 41 For in my heart I felt If Benjamin had misspelt That word on which he dwelt, I would have won the belt" 50 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S CHAPTER VI. LARISSA and I went down to the Waddles Corners school, house, Friday evening, in pretty good season, so as to be sure of a seat, for, as a general rule, when there's any doings in the country school-houses, they are packed full. We wasn't a mite too early this time, for in less than fifteen minutes after we got there the house was just crowded full, and there was a good many that could not get in at all. Mr. Brown called them to order by a few taps of the bell, and then said in a very polite and gentlemanly manner : " Ladies and Gentlemen : My purpose in calling you together this evening is two-fold. First, that I might become acquainted with you. Second, and this is the principal reason, to organize in your community a literary society or lyceum, for the purpose of stimulating a desire for study and self-culture. An institution of this kind will be of incalculable benefit to the young people, and also to you older ones, to come together once a week and discuss ques- tions of more or less importance, prepare essays, deliver original speeches, and enliven the exercises with music ; it will serve to develop and strengthen the mental powers, make you more independent and give you something to think of during the week, and withal, furnish a proper amusement. " I think you will all readily agree with me that it is a good thing for us to do. Some of you may feel a little timid at first about tak- ing an active part in it, for fear you can't say things as you would like to, and think some one will laugh at you. Well, this is just the J I place for us to learn how to speak freely and express our views, and it matters not if we do get laughed at; it won't hurt us a particle. It is always our turn next, and we can laugh at those that laugh at us; and by doing the best we can after a while they won't laugh at us, and we will be able to command the respect of people when we engage in the discussion of any question " The person who educates himself to properly argue a question, arranges his proofs so as to have them at his command like so many well-drilled soldiers, can use them as he desires, and always has the advantage over one who has not had that training and education. All through life we will find plenty of occasions to use just what all of us can learn in a lyceum such as I desire you to enter into here, and keep up. " Now before we proceed further I am going to put it to a vote, and I don't want any one to vote 'Yes' unless you are willing to take hold and work in it. Now, all that are in favor of organizing a ly- ceum here, to be known as the Waddles Corners Lyceum, please manifest it by saying ' Yes.' ' There was a tremendous response of "Yes" all over the house. "All that are opposed to it will say 'No.' " But there was not a response. "The question being carried by a unanimous vote, I will sug- gest one week from to-night as the time to meet in this house and organize, elect officers, and adopt a constitution and by-laws. "Now, ladies and gentlemen, we will have a sort of a variety entertainment to-night. I have arranged a programme as follows : " First, Music. "Second, Debate. Question: Which is the most beneficial to people, the lawyers or the doctors? Limited to half an hour. " Third, A spelling match, to last twenty minutes. " Fourth, Speech by Rev. Jonas Danberry. "Fifth, Essay by Miss Julia Spear, and lastly, " Music." 52 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S It had been arranged to have Melancthon Stevens, Ebenezer and Mary, and Mrs. Lucas supply the music, and an organ was got for the occasion. They proceeded at once to sing and play, " What are the Wild Waves Saying," and " Tit-willow." The last piece Ebenezer sung alone. Mr. Brown selected as principal disputants in the debate, George Waddles and Tom Clark. (Tom Clark is a young man that's been away to a medical school studying to be a doctor, and was at home on a vacation.) The question was stated as follows : Resolved, That lawyers are more beneficial to the people at large than doctors. George Waddles took the affirmative, and Tom Clark the negative side. George chose 'Squire Bigler as his assistant, and Clark selected Ebenezer Plunket as his. I was appointed as judge. Waddles aint much of a speaker, but he done his best at it. He begun, and said : " Mr. Chairman, and Fellow Citizens; Lawyers is necessary to preserve the rights of the people. Everybody knows we have laws, lots of laws; but there aint one in a hundred that knows what the laws be, nor what rights they have got under 'em, and they haint got time to study 'em, and wouldn't know much more about 'em after they'd studied 'em than before, and it is necessary that some one should make it their special business and be able to tell the people what rights they had, and what they haint, in order to keep 'em from doing wrong and getting into trouble. Lawyers is the ones to do that business, and they stand as garden angels, so to speak, of the rights and liberties of the people. But the doctors is a reg- ular set of humbugs, and most of 'em is quacks. Them as aint reg- ular quacks go off to some school and raise Old Harry a cutting up all sorts of tricks, and steal some dead bodies and carry them off in some attic, and cut 'em all up and find out how they are made ; and then they'll get some recipes for curing some diseases, and then they'll manage one way and another to get the teachers in the school 53 to give 'em a certificate and then they'll go out into some town or village, or city, and hire a room up stairs over some drugstore, or as nigh to it as they can, and get some bones and an old skull, and a lot of books and spread 'em around the room and call it an office, and stick out a sign and call themselves doctors. They look won- derful wise, and by-and-by some one gets sick and sends in a hurry < And strengthen our mental powers, We firmly resolved, With the aid of Timothy Brown, Who came from Utica town, We surely could not go down Unless we dissolved. 68 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S CHAPTER VII. HE exercises at the schoolhouse last Friday night has been the subject of conversation between Clarissa and me frequently, and especially the spelling part. Things didn't turn out just as we had calculated on before we went there, and both of us was a little disappointed. She says, " The more she thinks of Danberry's speech, the more dumbfounded foolish it seems." She says, "There isn't a mite of philosophy in it, for some of the best spellers in the world are the meanest kind of folks that ever lived, and some of the best folks can't spell their own names right. I know I mean to do my duty all the time, and I up and spelled cow wrong ; but I think my chances for heaven are just as good as his are. I believe that education is a good thing and what we all ought to encourage yet it haint going to make angels of us, nor take us to heaven, un- less it is the education of the heart. The Bible says, 'From the abund- ance of the heart the mouth speaketh.' If the heart is full of love and kindness and charity and patience, the mouth will talk all right, the hands will do all right, and the feet will carry you straight on the road to heaven ; but if the heart is full of hypocrisy and mean- ness, and all kinds of cussedness, and the head full of right spelling and good grammar, when its owner comes down to the door of death, he will be very apt to realize that the atmosphere in the next room he is about to enter, is uncomfortably hot, if there is any such condition of things to await the soul in the next world, about which I have my serious doubts." While Clarissa was thus philosophizing on Rev. Danberry's remarks, some one knocked on the front door. I opened the door, EXPERIENCE WITH IIYI'OCKIT! 69 and who was there but Jim Teeters and Betsey. We was glad to see them, and had them come right in and take oft their things. Betsey said, "Jim came out to see Benjamin about his hogs, and she thought she'd come along for a ride, and have a little visit with Mrs. Morgan while the men talked business." Teeters and I went out to the barn and put his horse out and fed it. Then Teeters says to me : TEETERS TALKS OVER THE HOG BUSINESS IN THE BARN. " Mr. Morgan, I thought I'd come out and see if you still wanted to sell your hogs.'' I told him " that was what I raised them for, and I intended to sell 'em, but I hadn't been down to the village since Clarissa and I was at his house to dinner, and so I hadn't sold 'em." " Well," says he, " do you still want three and a quarter cents for 'em?" I said, " Yes." " Says he, "Let's go out and look 'em over." After looking them over pretty carefully he said, " I am going 70 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S to load a couple of cars to-morrow night to ship to Albany, and if you'll drive 'era down to the village to-morrow so as to get there before four o'clock in the afternoon I'll take 'em at your price and give you the cash for 'em as soon as they are weighed." I told him I'd try to get there by that time, that I'd start early in the morning with 'em. He gave me sixty-one dollars to bind the bargain. And then we went into the house. Dinner was ready. We had a good visit and talked over neighborhood and village affairs, and Betsey was as chipper as ever. After they went home, Clarissa asked me if I'd sold the hogs to Teeters. 1 told her I had. How much for, she wanted to know. I told her just what I asked him when they were out here be- fore, three and a quarter cents a pound. " Well," said Clarissa. " If Jim Teeters isn't a sharp one I'll miss my guess ; he haint driv out here for nothing, and when you get down to the village with the hogs, I wouldn't be surprised if they wasn't worth a great deal more, and he has figured it out that you haint very sharp (which is too true, Ben), and probably didn't know what hogs was worth, and he'd make a good speck out of you." The next morning I and Abe and the hired man started down with the hogs; we got into the village about three o'clock P. M. As we was turning the corner at the top of the hill going down into the village we met Teeters, who came to help us get 'em through the town to the railroad depot. We had a pesky time getting the contrary brutes past Totman's old tavern. (It is hard work getting a hog by a tavern, anyhow.) Before I got to the depot three different men came up to me and said: "Hello there, have you" sold them ar hogs?" I told them yes. " How much did you git?" they asked. " How much will you give ? " said I. Each one of 'em told me . i'KKIK.NXT. WITH II Y j\ they'd give me five cents a pound. Then I found out Jim Teeters' scheme. My hogs weighed just 15,616 pounds, and Teeters paid me for them just $507.52, and they was worth at the regular market value $780.80. I lost $273.28 by Teeters' base hypocrisy. I had made a bargain with Teeters, and I wouldn't back out for two >ns: one was, I couldn't if I wanted to, and tother was, I was honest, and always mean to be as long as I can. I hate the aw- DK1VINC THK I'ESKY B&OTE8 1:V I II K. IV fullest kind to be swindled and robbed by a cqndemned hypocrite, but come to think it over, I don't see how I could be swindled by body else. On my way home I meditated considerable, and was uneasy in mv mind. I thought of that passage in the Bible where it says: Unto them that knows something shall be given something more, and from them that knows nothing shall be taken what little bit they do know and given to them that knows something," or words that give 72 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S the reader to understand that that is the intention of the Almighty in his law to the human family. I felt that the law was unjust, but nevertheless inevitable, and I had not for the first time in my life either, but about the hundredth time obeyed the law. I didn't know scarcely anything, and Jim .Teeters was mighty smart and knowing, and what really belonged to me, $273.78 worth, had been transferred from me to him. I felt that I was every day losing what little sense I had, and now I was losing my money, too. I didn't want to tell Clarissa one mite, for I knew she'd show me what a fool I was getting to be every day, and then I hated to be taken the advantage of by one we had used so well, on such a short acquaintance. When I got home Clarissa asked me how I got along with the hogs. I just told her all about it, and give her every cent I got for 'em. I told her I was such a dumb fool that it wasn't safe for me to have the money, for I was liable to lose it any minute, and I knew it was safe in her hands. Clarissa saw my dejected look, and she was real sorry for me. She spoke in a tender and soothing manner, and said : " Benjamin, I'm awful sorry, for I know how hard you've worked a-raising them hogs, but I hain't a-goin' to blame you, for I know you are a honest and well-meanin' man, and you are a good husband to me, but I think Jim Teeters would do anything that's mean, if he could make anything by it, and I knew well enough he had some scheme to cheat you when he come up here yesterday. Now, if you'll let me make the bargains for you hereafter, I believe we'll make more money. " I fully agreed with her, and have turned the financial part of our business over to her, and have once more obeyed that inevita- ble law. I think I will be much happier in the future, to have the care of getting swindled off my mind. I am more'n ever persuaded to believe that Clarissa is a true philosopher, and when she said "Jim Teeters, with all his smartness, hadn't got that necessary in- gredient to wash his soul from sin, " she spoke the truth. EXPERIENCE WITH HYPOCRITES. ?3 Of all men that are mean the meanest is the one that will steal from you under the clothes of friendship. I witl drop Teeters for the present, but will, no doubt, pick him up again somewhere in the future. 74 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S CHAPTER VIII. fjfEDNESDAY night I hitched up the old mare and took Clarissa over to the red schoolhouse to meeting. Mary got a chance to ride with Ebenezer Plunket. We was in time to get a good seat pretty well up in front. The house was packed full again the Presiding Elder came ; Elder Danberry and Geo Waddles came along with him. Elder Danberry give out the hymn : " Come thou fount of every blessing." Clarissa haint a Methodist, but they all expected her to start the tune. She did it, and it sounded real good, for you could hear her voice above all the other women, and she has got a power- ful sweet voice, when it's in tune. She took along a pocketful of peppermint drops to keep it tuned up to concert pitch and make her breath smell sweet. After the singing was done and Father Emrnons over in the corner had rubbed his hands and groaned and shouted: "Amen! blessed fountain /" Elder Danberry prayed. Now I don't believe in making light of religion, for to me when it is properly understood, it is the most important subject that can interest the human soul, but I don't believe because a man professes to be very religious, and has the clothes of a minister onto him, that he should presume so much upon a very limited acquaintance with the Almighty as to ask Him, as Elder Danberry did in his prayer, to come right down that minute, bust a hole right through the roof of this house and come right in here and take every sinner here by EXPERIENCE WITH . 75 the hair of their heads and convince 'em of sin and wickedness, and make 'em be born again. And a whole lot more stuff that I think would look very foolish to the Lord. In the first place I don't think the Lord goes around this world, bustin' holes in the roofs of houses because some ignoramus asks Him to, however earnest the ignoramus may be. In the second place I don't believe the Lord has to take sinner* ELDER DANBERRY. or any one else by the hair of their heads and rattle 'em up in order to convince them of sin. In the third place I don't believe the Lord has anything to do with convincing people of sin in any sudden and startlin' manner. If I have lied about anything to anybody, or been dishonest or mean, low and wicked, 1 know it before anybody else does, and the Lord haint got to tell me of it in order for me to find it out. If 1 have fallen from virtue and put a dark stain upon my life, I am the very first person that will be aware of the fact. And 76 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S if I want to be forgiven, I must go to them that I have sinned against for forgiveness. I must go to them and not expect them to come to me. Every sin that a man commits is against the divine law of God, therefore, if we want full pardon, we must go to Him and ask it, and the good book says it will be freely granted. Elder Danberry in his prayer wanted the Lord to do all the hard and dirty work of running around to all the mean, low and degraded cusses in the country and gather them up in His tender arms and hug 'em. He wasn't even satisfied with that request, but presumed the Lord didn't know how to do His work. He went on telling Him how to do it, and advised Him to destroy property in order to get inside of that schoolhouse. Now that may be the kind of religion the Lord taught while on earth. If it is I can't read the Bible straight. I believe that kind of stuff comes nearer blasphemy than any. thing else ; greater reverence for the Almighty is manifested by the poor Hindoo widow that casts herself upon the funeral fire of her dead husband, than is shown in such impudent dictations to Him in the prayers of those who even make praying part of their regular business for a living. Clarissa said, when she heard me criticising Danberry 's prayer, that I was too severe ; that the minister used them expressions in his prayer paregorically. " Very well," I replied, " too much paregoric will kill the pa- tient, or even the oldest inhabitant, and too much of this ministerial shamming on the part of honest ignoramuses or cunning hypocrites would kill their work." I started to tell you about this meeting, and here I've been chasing off after one of them ideas that comes up in front of me once in a while. After Elder Danberry was through praying he said, " Brethren and sisters, our Presiding Elder, Brother Jones, will preach to you this evening, and after the sermon we will take up a collection to F.X vmi IIYPOCRITI 77 he^p pay the brother his quarterly dues. Remember, ' the Lord loveth a cheerful giver.' ' Cast thy bread upon the waters, and after many days it shall return to thee.' " Elder Jones is a portly old gentleman with silver hair and long gray beard that mark well into threescore and ten years. He has a brindle complexion and a very important air onto him. He rose up with the majesty of a city mayor, and after carefully looking the audience over, said: PRESIDING ELDER JONES. " Ahem ! Ahem ! My brothers and sisters, you'll find the words of my text recorded in the blessed good book that was given to us that we might know the way of life and salvation. Yes, blessed be the Lord, you'll find my text in the holy writ. Yes, praise his name, you'lj find my text in the word of the Almighty, glory be to his great name. You'll find the words of my text in the Bible, 'book divine; precious treasure, thou art mine.' And when you find 'em they'll read in this wise : ' As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.' " " Amen ! Amen ! " is shouted by Father Emmons in the corner. 78 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S " These, brethren and sisters, are the words of the Apostle Paul, spoken unto the Corinthians, and they are spoken unto us also, and we should take heed unto them lest at any time we should let 'em slip. " We are here taught that the first man was Adam. Yes, my brethren and sisters, the first man was Adam the very first man the Almighty created was Adam. Let us remember that important fact. His name wasn't Charlie, nor John, nor Timothy, nor Teeters, nor Grover, nor James, nor Peleg, nor Ebenezer, nor even Benja- min, nor a thousand other names that I might mention did time per- mit, but it was Adam plain, simple Adam. Why the Almighty called him Adam is a mystery he hasn't seen fit to tell us, and bless- ed be God, he don't have to tell us his reasons for doing things as he is a-mind to ; he simply gives us the plain facts, and it's none of our business why he does this or that. " The book says he called him, Adam and the good book don't mention any other man that the Creator made, and it is to be in- ferred by that, that we are all the sons and daughters of Adam, born in the regular way. " Now, it says, Adam died, and I believe it " again from the cor- ner, comes the shout "Amen !" " If Adam hasn't died, let some of the world's smart infidels show him up yes, show him up, he would be the greatest curiosity ever known. They can't do it, for he is dead ; yes, blessed be God, he is dead as a door-nail, and the fact that Adam is dead, establishes beyond dispute that the Bible is true. " In the fourth place, the text says : ' As in Adam all die ;' the in- ference is very plain and unmistakable, that we are all, from Adam's time down to this present moment, dead or dying. It doesn't mean that all men died when Adam died ; that wouldn't be possible, for the facts stare us in the face, that there are millions and millions of men and women alive now, but it means that the seeds of death was planted in our nature. Yes, blessed be the Lamb that taketh ,n ii iivri.H'Kn i 79 away the sins of the world. By the death of Adam it was, accord- ing to an all-wise and divine purpose, made possible for all men to die; not only possible, but probable that all men would die ; and not only probable, brethren and sisters, but a dead sure thing that they'd got to die, every one of 'em, and that includes us, saints and sinners alike. God proves by this very act that he has the upper hand of us, and it wont do us any good to kick we've got to die, And oh, my brethren and sisters, what a awful thing it is to die. Just think of it ; to lay down dead, some time very Unexpectedly j and how necessary it is for us to be prepared when our turn comes, so we can die in peace. I beseech of you to make preparation for that time, for you don't know what will become of you after that terrible event. Where Adam went to, we know not, for history don't give us any light upon his whereabouts after he passed over that dark and dismal river we have all got to cross, and some of us, very soon. " Now brethren and sisters, we come to the second part of our discourse, viz., ' Even so in Christ shall all be made alive.' Yes, glory be unto him, he will bring every one of us to life again. Then we will know where Adam is, we will know where all our relations are, and it will undoubtedly be a lively time for some of us to get around and see our friends before court sets, for we are informed that court will set very soon after, and this same Christ is going to be the judge, and he will then settle with every one of us ; and if we haint made our peace with him and got our names registered in the book of life we'll be sorry. Yes, you young sinner that's a set- tin' in that back seat a pinchin' that girl to make her laugh in this meetin', if you don't repent and get your name on that book, the Devil will give you a pinchin' that will last you through eternity. And you young woman that's been a gigglin' at everything that's been said here, and that spends your time a dancin' and playin' cards, and scoffin' at religion, if you don't make your peace with the Lord and see that your title is clear in that book of life, you'll 80 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S find yourself a dancin' on the Devil's fire. You'll be playin' a game and not hold a trump in your hands; the Devil will hold all the trumps and big suit cards, and you wont be able to take a single trick ; then the scoffin' will be on the other side. " I want to say to all unconverted persons in this house, pause, and think what you're doing, and do not longer persist in your sin- ful course, but come to Christ and believe on him. And while we sing the familiar hymn, ' We're going home to die no more/ come right forward to these front seats. Come now, brethren, sing." " Amen !" shouts Father Emmons and all begin to sing. Elder Jones was pressing the invitation. The shouts from the corner and singing was simultaneous. Some went forward. After the singing there was a general season of prayer, three or four praying at a time, while the Elder was talking to the sinners that went forward. There are not many persons that could remain long under the cross-fire of two ministers and a half dozen others, without confess- ing they was the biggest sinners on earth. David Kirk, one of them that went forward, confessed that he was a dreadful sinner, and wanted 'em to pray for him. We all knew he was just what he confessed to be, and we haint much confidence in his conversion, for he does that same thing at every revival at the schoolhouse, and in less than a month after the meetings are over, he is just as mean and low as ever. Clarissa says, " The only way Dave Kirk can be properly con- verted, so he will stay so, is for the Lord to knock all of his brains out of his head and put some new ones in, for them old brains of his is a bad lot, and they can't be worked over worth a cent. Where you haint got any true metal to work on, nothing but the basest kind of metal, the work aint going to last very long. It will break down mighty soon." I believe she is about right. It is all well enough for a person that's got a good head on him to be born again, and the right thing EXIT.KIKMK WITH HVl'iiCKIll 8l too, so far as the heart is concerned, but a person that naturally has got a mean, dishonest head onto his shoulders, may be born over and over again, a hundred times or more, and it won't make him a bit better, for with him his meanness is like the small-pox, sure to break out. After prayers was offered a good many told their experience. Old Mrs. Smith said, " It's nigh onto forty years since I found the Lord precious to my soul, and I've been trying in my weak way to follow in his footsteps ever since ;" and the tears begun to fall, and her nose run like rain, so she had to use her big calico handkerchief while she continued : " And brethren and sisteren, I want you to forgive all my shortcomings, and don't let 'em be as stumbling blocks in your way, for I shall soon pass away ah ! from these mor- tal scenes, ah !" "Amen, bless God for that," shouted Father Emmons, and Elder Jones groaned out: "Yes, dear Lord." "Once, ah! I was a dreadful sinner, ah!" And Elder Danberry said : "Bless God for that." "And I got no peace in my heart until I surrendered and give myself to God and ever since then I have been as peaceful as a lamb, ah !" As soon as the old lady set down, old Uncle Nat Baker arose. He was never looked upon as being very bright ; he is very tall and has a small head, and from the end of his long, sharp nose to the back upper corner of his head, it is a straight line. And his chin tapers back to his throat in a corresponding manner. The old man has helped his good, honest wife in raising quite a family, six hoys and seven girls. One of the boys who has always been called Bub, is quite a tinker ; he has put up a little shop near the schoolhouse, and got some tools for mending boots and shoes, and wagons, and sleds, and plows and such things, and he has got a little hand cider 82 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S press, in all worth, I should think, about seventy-five dollars. As the old gentleman rose, he said : "I bless God for this glorious religion that happifies the soul. It's the pearl of great price. It's worth more'n all other pearls in the world, and you can have it if you want it, without money and without price. Oh, sinner, come and secure this pearl of great m THE COLLECTION. price, now, before it is too late. You'll have to make haste to get it, or it will be forever gone." " Yes, praise the Lord," remarked Elder Danberry. Immediately after the old man sat down, his daughter, Dol- lesky Baker, got up and said : "My young friends, I'm glad I've come. I feel it's good for my soul to be here, and I thank father that he ever showed me how to EXPERIENCE WITH HYPOCRITES. 83 secure this pearl of great price, and I devise you to come and get it now ; it's worth more'n everything else in the world. It's worth more'n all of Bub's machinery. Pray for me that I may hold on to it." After Dollesky was seated they took up a collection. Clarissa always believes in giving to a good cause, and she put in fifty cents. I put in twenty cents and George Waddles, who sat right in front of me put in a copper, while the old man Baker who set right next to me, left his pocketbook at home, so he didn't give a cent, although he had the pearl of great price. After they got through and counted up all the money they got, Elder Danberry arose and said : "Brethren and sisters, I am somewhat disappointed in the amount of the collection. I expected we would raise at least ten dollars, but I find on carefully counting it over the second time that there is just one dollar and thirty-nine cents, and that is about one- half a cent a head for those present. Now, brethren, supposing that the pearl of great price that has been referred to by Brother Baker, was to be sold for money, how much of a chance do you think any of you would stand in getting it ? Why, brethren and sisters, if this collection would be a proper indication of the bid you'd make for it, about as near as you'd come of getting it, would be to catch one glimpse of its brightness as the light of God's holy countenance would flash upon it, and then it would be forever out of your sight. But, thanks to our all wise and good God, this pearl was sold to mankind for a costly price, and we can freely have it if we will only take it. "I think when we consider the wonderful price paid for this precious pearl, that it is a mean man or woman that won't give more'n one cent to support those whose business it is to carry this costly pearl around on a platter to each and every one, and persuade you to take it and wear it on your bosoms so it will shine and give light to others to see how to walk, for without a light men are con stantly stepping into the mud and mire holes in this world." 84 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S "Amen ! Amen ! Thank God for that," comes from the corner. "And now Brother Jones who devotes his whole life to this blessed cause, comes here once in three months and he only gets one dollar and thirty-nine cents. Well, we are thankful for that much, and hope God will cause the light of his countenance to shine upon you, and make you more liberal to his cause. We will close by singing the Doxology." While we was driving home Clarissa said : "Benjamin, what do you think of the sermon?' I told her I didn't think much of it, and asked her opinion of it. She replied : " I think his philosophy is powerful weak. He took one of the most beautiful texts in the whole Bible, and made it appear as if Paul, who wrote those beautiful words, was a idiot. If Elder Jones had just quoted the text and stopped right there, he would have given us something more comforting and more sublime to think of than what he said. Why, Benjamin, now just think for a moment what this text means, 'As in Adam all die.' The meaning of Adam is earth-born, or earthly. The Bible tells us that the first man was of the earth, earthy, but the second man was the Lord Jesus Christ, or the heavenly. Now, the first man called Adam, was the earth man, which is the human body, made of material in common with the earth, and destined to return again to its original condition, to the elements from which it is composed. The second man is the spirit that dwells in these earthly bodies and animates them. The first man, Adam, must die, must dissolve and return to earth, in the very nature of things. While the second, the Spirit which is from God, must, by the same natural law return to its author, God, and must live as long as he lives, which is forever. So the meaning Paul intended to convey is, as the human race must taste death by the destruction of their bodies, they will also by the same law, in spirit live forever, and being free from this earth body, will the more rapidly develop into what the Creator chooses to have us." KXl'KKIKNCK \VITII HYPOCRITI 85 "That glorious old man, Paul, put that text right into that good book on purpose to settle any and all disputes in regard to the resurrection." She then asked me what I thought of Elder Danberry's re- marks. I told her I thought he was about like the average of 'em ; he measures a man's chances for heaven by the amount of money he gives, and said I : "Clarissa, you and I are all right, according to hfs idea, for we give seventy cents of the one dollar and thirty-nine cents, and that gives the balance of the scales in our favor. And probably according to his views, we would be the only two in the audience that are on the road to brighter skies." I wonder where George Waddles will go with his copper, or if old man Baker will lose his pearl of great price after all by constitu- tionally leaving his pocketbook at home. Clarissa said: "Well, Benjamin, this world is made up of strange incongruities. It takes all kind of folks to make people, and of course they will have various notions about things. If they are only honest in it, it is all right so far as I'm concerned, but I can't bear hypocrisy." Oh, priceless pearl that's freely given To us to wear from earth to heaven, Guide us on earth to do our part, With a warm and cheerful heart 86 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S CHAPTER IX. [RID AY evening Clarissa and I took an early start for the Wad- dles Corners schoolhouse, so as to make sure of a seat. We knew the house would be crowded, for a free lecture in a coun- try schoolhouse, on any subject, will draw a full house every time, and especially a lecture on Phrenology would surely pack the house. There is something about that subject it makes no odds how old and threadbare it is that will attract most people. There is some- thing in the nature of men and women that they like to hear some- thing said about heads and bumps, that they know is true, and es- pecially about their neighbors and about themselves if it can be done privately. We was in time to secure a good seat ; we wasn't a mite too soon, for in less than ten minutes there wasn't standing room left in the house. The room was well lighted with about thirty lamps. The walls were covered with pictures of men and women noted for their great ability as authors, or statesmen, or generals, or inventors, or men of great wealth or of great kindness and benevolence, or stinginess, or great idiots, and also some heads of animals. It was a regular panorama of heads, and was very interesting to look at. The remarks of our simple country people about the pictures, before the Professor came in, was highly instructive. For instance, old Jim Smuggins pointed his finger up to John the Baptist and said to his wife and Sarah : EXPERIENCE WITH HYPOCRITES. "That's George Washington." Sarah said : "Well, I can't see what made such a smart man as he was part his hair in the middle." Another person, pointing his finger at a picture, said, "Say, Tom, haint that a bully good-looking fellow ? Do you know who it is ? He is the man that can lick any man in this house. That's John Sullivan." Tom replied : " No, it haint Sullivan that's President Cleveland." "Well, then, they must be relatives, for they look a heap alike." Bill Green pointed to the picture of a plain- looking woman, and said : " I wonder who she be." I said, " I guess it's Joan of Arc." Clarissa said, "Why, Benjamin, don't you know better than that ? That is Susan B. An- thony." " Well," said I, " I never met either one of 'em, or corresponded with 'em, but I thought she looked savage enough to lead the whole world to war." Sarah Smuggins spoke up, " Well, Ben Morgan, I don't want your judgment for me. I think she looks like an angel without wings." And so the remarks went on about the pic- tures for about twenty minutes, when Timothy Brown walked in with a small, red-headed and red-whiskered man, dressed up very slick, and set down behind the teacher's desk in a chair that had been kept empty on purpose for him. 88 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S In a few minutes Mr. Brown got up and said : " Ladies and Gentlemen : We all realize the benefits derived from education, and we ought to welcome any and every means for obtaining it ; and one of the best things for us to know, is to know our own capabilities ; that is, to know what we are the best fitted for in the nature of things, so we can more properly educate our- selves for the particular place we can most advantageously occupy, and thus save much valuable time and labor, that without such knowledge would be lost. " We have with us this evening Professor Theodocius Leviticus Feeler, from Boston, the most renowned lecturer on Phrenology in America. He delivers this lecture free, but will deliver four more lectures after this evening, for which there will be an admission fee charged of fifteen cents, except to school children, who will be ad- mitted for five cents a head. I would like to have you be as quiet as possible, considering your crowded condition. " Ladies and Gentlemen, I now have the pleasure of introducing to you Professor Theodocius Leviticus Feeler." The Professor made a pretty bow, and said : " Ladies and Gentlemen : The greatest duty man should per- form is to his God, and the next is the duty he owes to himself. Whenever he properly performs these two duties he will, in the na- ture of things, have done his duty to his fellow men. He cannot possibly do his whole duty to his God without doing his duty to his fellow men. In order to do his duty to himself properly, he should know himself. Therefore, this great fundamental law, KNOW THY. SELF, should be our first and constant study, in order that we may fit ourselves for the positions the All-wise Creator designed us to occupy. " It will be my object to show you how you can know yourselves and give you such instructions, which if you will follow them out you will know how to manage yourselves. " Gentlemen will, by the study of this greatest of all sciences* 89 know what course of hi. They will k;. happy an SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN*S tellectual faculties was very small, and as a proof of it, he never left the scratch of the pen to show to the world that he ever had a thought. It also shows that he was lacking in Benevolence. He was never known to give away a single thing, but on the contrary, he took all he could get. When his devoted and generous wife, Eve, passed the first dish of fruit to him in the garden, he grabbed the biggest apple on the plate, and hogged it down, and never even thanked her for it. "You will notice right here (pointing witha stick to a hollow in Adam's head), where the organ of Inventiveness is located, that he is deficient. He didn't know enough to make any clothes for him- self, but had to wait 'till good, kind Eve sewed some fig leaves to- gether and made him a dress, and then she had to show him how to put it on. You will further observe, right here behind the ears, he is very full ; he is very broad through the ears ; this denotes great Combativeness, and meanness in general. " To prove that the key is right, in this instance : The very first thing he done that we have any account of, after hoggin' down the apple, was to raise Cain. " This picture on our left is said to be a very correct likeness of the great philosopher, Socrates. It was painted from an original photograph, taken by Sarony's great-grandfather, who was at that time engaged in the business of catching shadows in the city of Athens. Socrates is here represented in full figure, as he was stand- ing in the market-place, bare-footed and bare-headed, with an old shawl over his shoulders, that he used to wear summer and winter. " You will notice a very marked difference between him and Adam. He has a large, high forehead which denotes great Benev- olence. He was never known to save a cent, and had it not been for his faithful friend, Crito, who was with him to the last moment of his life, and who, by his own request, gave him the bitter cup of hemlock poison, his family would have suffered. He was not a spendthrift, but his great benevolent nature caused him to give freely from his scanty resources to alleviate human suffering. 9i on will noli' , round, full eyes, and tho pouches under the eyes. They denote Language, and he had a won derful command of language. Not only was he gifted with won derful oratorical powers, but he was the greatest logician in all ol Athens that city of learned scholars. You will notice all these or- SOCRATES AND YOUNG AMERICA. gans in the regions of the eye are very large. Everything about his head and body shows that he was a powerful man mentally and physically, possessed of great power of endurance. He was, in all respects, the most remarkable man of his age, and could he have lived until now, he would be the most remarkable man ever created. 92 SHAMS ,' OR, UNCLE BEN'S " This picture right above Mr. Socrates, represents the result of a union of two common flowers, the calla lily and sunflower. It is named Oscar Wilde. You will notice that his smooth, beardless face is broad in the region of the eyes, and tapering down to a very narrow and slightly drooping chin ; the balance of the head corre- sponding with the face, is richly ornamented with a profuse growth of mer-maiden hair, and the whole supported by a delicate and slen- der neck, the lower extremity of which is surrounded by a faultless white linen collar and huge necktie of green satin, presenting a striking resemblance to the calla lily. Sunflowers is his hobby, and these characteristics predominate in his nature. "You will see here, where the bump of Approbativeness is lo- cated, he is very full indeed. It is the largest bump on his head. You make him think he is one of the smartest men in the world, and you touch his tender spot. Public opinion has branded him as a soft-headed dude, a good sign to put up in front of a milliner's shop. " Right here allow me to remark, that public opinion is not al- ways correct; it is once in a while mistaken, as it doesn't always see through the mask. " This one at our right, is a marked character. You'll observe that the head is very large, very full in the back part where all the animal and social organs are located, broad through the region of the eyes, a low forehead, and the top of the head is very flat; the lines of the face very positive, the mouth large and firmly com- pressed, indicating firmness, strong will-power and determination ; full over the eyes, showing that he is a quick reader of human na- ture ; his perceptive faculties are very keen. You notice he is very full back of the ears ; Combativeness is very largely developed. It is one of the controlling organs in his make-up ; he can argue well, as far as his limited education allows him to go, and when he gets that far, if he is still opposed, he is ready to fight. The most prom- inent bumps on the back head, are Amativeness and Philoprogeni. EX . rni H Y PUCK ITI 93 tiveness. He is powerful fond of children; the more of them he can have around him, the happier he is. lie is remarkably fond of a wife; he thinks so much of that article, that during his life he had more than a score of 'em at the same time, and, not being fully sat- isfied with that number, he was courting about a dozen girls with a view to making them all Young in a short time. The consumma- tion of his wishes in that direction was only prevented by the timely arrival of that grim messenger, death. " You observe the top of his head is very flat. The bump of Veneration was swept off deck at a very early period of his exist- ence, and consequently, he had very little respect for the Deity. His god was his ambition and passion ambition to rule others, and accumulate wealth, and a passion to control a harem of well-selected, obedient and submissive wives. " The loss of his bump of Veneration involved the partial or complete destruction of several other organs, consequently he was unscrupulous. To carry his point was his determination, regardless of the method. He had perfect Order, and the way he systematized the organization of the Mormon Church and carried out his plans in life, proves that the head we are describing properly belonged to no other than its owner, BRIGHAM YOUNG. " This lady that hangs next to Brigham is, in many respects, the direct opposite to him. You can see her head is narrow through the temples, and very high on top, like a church steeple. The greater part of her head is in front of her ears ; the back part is in a straight line with her neck, and where the bump of Philoprogen- itiveness and Amativeness should be, there are hollows. Conse- quently, she is by nature a regular man-hater. She had rather see forty cats in the house than one sweet, innocent baby, and she could no more tolerate a man in the house than she could convince the people of America that she is an angel. She is fully developed in the organ of Combativeness. She can argue from morning till night, and not feel a mite like giving up then. Naturally she has a 94 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S large amount of Veneration, and would be a very devoted religion- ist if it wasn't for her hatred of the first part of God's creation of the human race. She cannot conceive of the wisdom of the Almighty in making such a useless and bothersome thing as a man, and espe- cially in making him before he made woman, therefore it is hard for her to worship such a Creator. She is quite deficient in knowledge of human nature, and her perceptive faculties are very small. She has but one predominant idea, and that excludes from her mind all other subjects requiring much thought. I need not tell you her name, for I presume there is not one in this vast and intelligent audience that does not recognize in her Susan B. Anthony. " This good-looking man that hangs on the stovepipe has given more real fun and amusement to the millions of book-readers in America and Europe than any or all of American authors. His keen sense of the ludicrous side of human nature enables him to strip things of their fictitious robes and let folks see facts undressed. His power to present to the human mind things in nearly their true light causes laughter and amusement. You will notice his percept- ive organs are extremely large, while his deep-seated eye is as keen and piercing as a hawk's. He can smell a joke as far as a Dutchman can Limburger cheese, and if it's stale he can ring the bell on it be- fore it arrives. He can see more curious and funny things in a bag of dried peas than ninety-nine in a hundred can out of a bottle of champagne, even if it is labeled 'Extra Dry' " With him the sacredness of antiquity is destroyed, and mum- mies twenty thousand years old are treated with no more, if as much, respect than Mrs. Jarley's wax works; and the wonderful descrip- tions given by others of the works of the ' old masters ' drop to a par with a pair of fifty-cent oil-painted window-shades. The monk ceases to be of much more value than the pile of old bones and skulls he watches. American speculation, with its glitter and show, instead of having millions in it, hasn't got a cent to bank on, and has to borrow its chew of tobacco from any one that happens to have it in their pockets. KXI'KRIKNCK WITH IIYI'OCKITI 95 " The only real scientific work he has dropped onto is piloting a boat down the Mississippi, and putting wit and humor on paper in good shape. This man is a benefactor to his race, for he drives away the blues, and lights up the face with smiles. I wish we had more like him, and in passing to our next, I will say, long live Samuel L. Clemens. " Ladies and Gentlemen, I will introduce but one more character this evening, and then I will devote a half an hour in examining the heads of half-a-dozen persons, to be selected from the audience by yourselves, which will close this evening's entertainment. " I take pride in showing you this picture, as it is a very good representation of one of God's own noblemen, and the United States' best friend, Abraham Lincoln." (At this point there was tremendous applause.) " His head is very large in all the organs that develop the highest and noblest traits of character in man, and is deficient in those organs which de- velop the evil nature of the race. " You will notice the face beams with a bright, intelligent and kind expression, which indicates an honest, warm, tender and sym- pathizing heart. There is no deception, malice, or low, mean and treacherous disposition there, nor can such traits hide behind such a countenance. The large, full eye denotes Language large, the full- ness above the eye denotes perception, judgment, calculation and forethought. He was a ready and correct reader of human nature, anc few persons ever approached him upon business that he did not perceive their purposes before they even disclosed them, conse- quent Iv he was able to meet them upon the most advantageous grounds. While Combativeness in him was only moderate, his clear insight and powerful logic gave him success in debate. " 1 1 is social qualities were very strongly developed, mirthfulness being very large ; he was a man well calculated to make friends, and society was always more cheerful by his presence. His devotion to truth and honesty was not an acquired art, but the very essence of his 96 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S nature. It was this that endeared him to the people, and it is this trait of his character that will cause his name to live as long as that of his country. When the names of many illustrious men shall have been forgotten, that of Abraham Lincoln will be fresh and green, and will always be coupled with the epithet of Honest Old Abe" Clarissa nudged me with her off elbow and whispered, " Say, Ben, Jim Teeters' head haint a mite like Lincoln's, is it?" With the hog trade fresh and green in my memory, I could not say it was, and so I spoke very emphatic like and said, " No ! by thunder, nor it never will be ;" I wouldn't wonder if I spoke a little louder than I intended to, for a good many who set near us, turned round and looked at us real sharp. Professor Feeler said : " Now, if any lady or gentleman will come to the platform, I will give them a full and complete examina- tion, free of cost. Will some one be kind enough to call for some lady and gentleman that is pretty generally known." There was more'n a dozen hollered out for Clarissa and Uncle Ben Morgan; we declined to go, for the reason that we don't like to make ourselves conspicuous ; we are both of us very retiring in our natures. Clarissa is more retiringer than I am. Our declining didn't work worth a cent, for the whole house kept a hollerin' for us until we concluded to go. We worked our way to the platform amid applause, and occupied the two chairs that was made vacant for our accommodation. The Professor run his fingers all over my head, then took a good square look right into my face, then he went to Clarissa and pulled her back hair down and fumbled her head all over, and then looked her in the face as if he intended to know her the next time he met her, and then he said : " This gentleman and lady ought to be married, if they are not already, for the reason that there is just enough in their nature of the opposite to make them well adapted for a happy union , their general temperaments are opposite, but in some respects they are similar. This lady would rather manage EXPERIENCE WITH HYPOCRITES. 97 their business affairs, and look after the finances than to trust it to him, and he would rather she would. ' I spoke up before I thought and asked him who had been tell- ing him about us. He said, " Nobody but yourselves." Said I, " I never spoke a word to you before." " Well," said he, " You forget that I have got your keys here," putting his hands on our heads at the same time, and he went on : "YOU FORGET THAT I HAVE GOT YOUR KEYS HERE." " This gentleman has a negative temperament, while the lady has a positive. She is not obstinate nor quarrelsome at all, but she is very firm. She is governed by her convictions of right and wrong, and when she has decided a thing is right, you might as well try to move one of the pyramids in Egypt as to move her. You couldn't no more persuade her to do a thing she thought wasn't right than you could get Bob Ingersoll to join the Baptist Church in the regular way. She is domestic in her habits, peaceful in mind, wouldn't quarrel with any one, except forced to in self-defense, or in defense of her family, and then she would stop the moment she toron the victory. 98 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN's " She likes fun as well as anybody, but it must not be at the ex- pense of principle. If this man is her husband, she keeps a close eye on him, and (giving a sharp glance at me, and a cunning wink to the audience) I think he deserves it. She wants to know where he is nights if he isn't at home in good season. Of course I don't mean to say she is jealous, but but she doesn't believe in other folks meddling with her property. She wants to be her own insur- ance company, and as long as she assumes all the risk, she will nat- urally keep a sharp eye on what belongs to her. " She is quite accommodating, likes to be neighborly, is willing to borrow when she is in need of something she is out of, and is equally willing to lend. But she will lend any other animal she has got on her premises quicker than her husband. She is a good judge of human nature, her perceptive organs is very full, she doesn't have to wait until you knock her down in order to understand that you mean to hit her. She will see the blow in your intention before you make it, and will dodge your aim. She has good order and calculation, is naturally very tidy and economical. She can get up a good meal out of what many women throw away. She is a good talker and can keep up her end of a conversation or an argument, especially the latter, and her philosophy is largely original, abun- dant and sound, and she generally carries her point. She is inclined to see the ludicrous point in anything. If she was in Washington, she would be very apt to express her opinions on the way the women dress there. She would not be one of the admirers of Helen Potter either ; Miss Cleveland would rather suit her style. " This lady has a great deal of Veneration, and is naturally in, clined to be worshipful. She holds her God as next to her firm principles, which she is set on. " She likes to go to meeting and wants to do her share of the singing, and I think she can do that part well, as the organs of time and tune are very prominent. She is fond of society, likes to receive company as well as to go a visiting. But to her, home is the dear- est spot, and to beautify and ornament it is her delight and pride. MTII HYPOCRITES. 99 " Take this lady's head all through, and it is remarkable. She is well balanced on all subjects except her Benjamin ; on that point she is inclined to be a little crank v. " Take her head all through and through- Hair of a rich auburn hue, Eyes of an enchanting blue, That speak as they look at you. "[Strong in her Veneration, Keen in her Observation, Full in her Approbation, Ready in Accumulation. " With very strong Ambition To rise to great distinction, And with her Determination She will prove to this nation " By her continuation In careful calculation And due consideration Of men in every station, " That she is of high degree, With a noble pedigree ; To which you will all agree, According to Phrenologee. " So far I stood the examination first-rate. I was rather amused some of the time when he was describing my other half. Clarissa didn't wince a mite as he drove the nails of truth into her head. Most all of them he hit right square on the head, too, except when he referred to her keeping a eye on me. She didn't like to have that told, for she knew 'twas just so. She watches me like a old hen does her one chicken when all the rest but one have died. 1 haven't been away from home without her with me but once in the last two years, and that was when I drove them hogs down to Jim Teeters', and I don't expect she'll ever trust me to go again without her for twenty years to come. The crowd enjoyed the examination, and laughed frequently ; TOO SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S and when the Professor made the hit on her jealousy, they gave considerable applause. I didn't exactly like to have him come at me before all that crowd, specially after he made her out so all-fired smart. I just ex- pected he'd make out I was a fool. The Professor, coming up against my head, said : " We have a very different individual here from the one I have just examined. This gentleman is naturally very kind, does not want to quarrel with anybody, but if he is cornered and has got to fight or run, he will fight, and he will fight hard, but it will be a case of necessity with him. He is not as firm as this lady. In fact, he is not firm enough to keep from being imposed upon by sharp and designing persons. He is strictly honest, unless he sees a splendid opportunity for making a bargain and not get caught at it ; and he naturally thinks everybody else is honest. He is not much inclined to roam around, for two reasons : First, he is not very familiar with the country far away from home, and is a little too timid to go alone ; and second, he is afraid to go away to be gone over night unless his wife gives her full consent, which is not very probable, especially if this lady is his wife. I'll take it for granted she is. He is not very devotional or religious, but his wife being strong-minded, and possessing a strong positive temperament, can mold his belief. If she entertains any religious sentiment he will simply second the motion and join the same church she does, and will, no doubt, see things in about the same light as she does. " In politics he is not very firm, though naturally inclined to be on the right side. " He is very fond of company, and the more ladies in the com- pany the better it suits him, unless his wife watches him too closely. But if he gets into conversation with some pretty woman and his wife drops her eye on him, it kinder frustrates him, and he forgets what he is talking about, and is just as apt to ask the lady he is talk- ing to how much she is paying for hogs, as to ask who made her I'.XI'FKIKNi.T. \VI I'll HYPOC I IOI dress. In fact, he can't stand watching by his wife and enjoy it. Left to his company without the feeling that he is being squinted at by his wife, he could keep up quite a conversation, providing the other party could stand it. " Alimentiveness is full. He is a good eater and likes pie. Ac- cumulativeness is very full. He has a strong desire to make money, and as a farmer he would be successful in that direction, for he is industrious and economical; but he would be a poor merchant. He ought to have a wife that is a good financier, and this lady has got a good head for that. Nature has calculated these persons for each other ; they can pull in double harness well, and never have any se- rious difficulty. Hitch him with some women, he would balk and kick, but this lady can hold him level and keep him cool. " I would advise him to never attempt to sing if he has any re- gard for the peace and quiet of his neighbors, for it would prove a calamity, and cause him to be covered with ridicule ; not but what he is fond of music, but he wasn't built for a canary bird. " Let me suggest to you, to cultivate firmness and independ- ence ; learn to rely on yourself more. Try to make others subser- vient to your will rather than act as a servant to theirs. " Let your constant aim be higher ; Be led by ambition's fire To firmness, and each day aspire To get nigher and nigher To the full stature of a man. " And when you have accomplished in life what it is your priv- ilege to, and you step down the rapid decline, at the foot of which is the open grave, you may be able to say, as did that noble and good man, Judge William Wilkins, of Pennsylvania, when about to part with mortal scenes: " ' Stronger by weakness, wiser men become, As they draw near to their eternal home, Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view, They stand upon the threshold of the new.' " IO2 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN s With this he dismissed me from the platform. Evidently he was pleased with the impression he made upon the audience, for there was tremendous applause as he finished me off; but I assure you I wasn't a mite pleased, for he might just as well said I was a durn- founded relative of Balaam's beast, as to tell me what he did, and I said to him, "You think you are darned smart, don't you? If you'll just set down in that ar chair and let Clarissa tell this crowd what's in your little head, she'll show 'em that you are a dumbed sight bigger fool than I am." Then the crowd just applauded me. But he replied, "I ain't big enough fool to let her have the chance." Then they all laughed like fury, and I concluded I had better keep my mouth shut. Clarissa and I took our seats. The Professor then asked the audience to name two others to come forward and be examined. I wanted some one else shown up as well as me and Clarissa, so I yelled out, '"Squire Bigler and George Waddles," and the whole house called for them until they went up to the plat- form. The Professor took the 'Squire first, and after feeling all over his head carefully, and looking him out of countenance two or three times, he said: "This gentleman is a very ambitious man. He has a great deal of pride; he has more pride and ambition than honest principle. He has good calculation and keen perception, is a good reader of human nature, has good command of language, and is a good easy talker; somewhat magnetic, and can make himself very agreeable when he wants to. He would make a very good public speaker. He has a good deal of the fox in his nature; can be ven^ sly and conceal his real motives. I think he is governed very largely by policy. "He studies policy in all his dealings with men. He can make friends easily, but most of his friends, or those he seeks to make his HE WAS GOING TQ FIGHT THE PROFESSOR. .I'ERIENCE WITH IIYPOCRIT1 10$ friends, he intends to use for his own purpose, and it's only a ques- tion of how much he can make out of them, or how far he can gain his points by them, that he measures the strength and duration of that friendship. " In the true sense of the word, I don't believe it is in his na- ture to know what real true friendship is, but his affable manner, coupled with his command of language, knowledge of human na- ture, and shrewdness, will win him many friends, who will in turn, be duped and made ashamed by their disappointment in him." Bigler got hopping mad and jumped up and said, " I didn't come here to be insulted, and I don't propose to submit to any more abuse." He was going to fight the professor, but the professor very coolly replied, "Hold on, my young friend ; I mean no insult. You are a stranger to me, and I am only telling you what your head in- dicates, phrenologically. When I examine a person, I must tell what I find, and not lie about it ; I must tell the truth as I find it If you can't stand the examination, I will willingly excuse you." The 'Squire got so awful mad that he left the platform, while some cheered and more hissed. I am afraid it will hurt the 'Squire, as those who are not acquainted with him, will think the Proft told the truth, and all those who know him, know the Professor hit him square on the head every time. I pitied George Waddles and at the same time I was glad to have him get a dose of the same medicine I had to take. I said I pitied him, and so I did, for after young Bigler got such a scoring, he must have felt as if he was about to be put into the chemist's cru- cible, and thoroughly analyzed, and with his peculiar nature, analy- zation before the public, would be about as bad as annihilation. As the Professor walked up to George, I could see George's face turn red, and he trembled slightly. We had seen enough of the Professor to know that he could handle his subjects as well as his subject, without gloves. He proceeded as follows : " Ladies and Gentlemen : I wish you would please bear in mind; I06 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S that I do not wish, nor intend to say anything to hurt any one's feelings, but as phrenology is the key the Almighty has given me to Unlock the heads and hearts of the people, I am going to tell what I find in them, truthfully, and if any one who may pass under my examination during my stay with you, should find their heads or their hearts out of order, the best thing for them to do, instead of becoming angry at me, is to change the wrong things for right ones, to cultivate those points of character that seem to be deficient, and suppress the excessively strong points that lead in the wrong direction. " If you will see phrenology in the right light, you will strive to understand it, and will bless God for this wonderful key that unlocks the chambers of the soul." Advancing to Waddles, he said, " I find, upon close examination of this gentleman, some very marked and prominent organs, while others are quite deficient. He has a very good memory ; his per- ceptive faculties are large; his judgment of men is quick, and gen- erally correct, although once in a while he misses it. He thoroughly understands that sugar will catch more flies than vinegar, and also that it is a human weakness to like taffy, and he always has a good supply of that article on hand to deal out to men, women, and chil- dren in just such doses as he thinks they can swallow without mak- ing them sick. " Flattery is the most potent sugar to use in dealing with the human race. Much as we may pretend to the contrary, the real fact is, we are all more or less subject to it. Sweet words, sweet smiles, pleasant things said to us about ourselves, please us much more than sour faces and bitter words. "This gentleman thoroughly understands this principle, and, if I am not very much mistaken, he makes use of his knowledge of this fact as a prime factor in his business operations. He has excel- lent calculation, is shrewd, and possesses the cunning of a fox ; he covers up his shrewd tricks and plays, so that most of the people DCRITES. IO7 cannot discern them ; but men with good perception and penetra- tion, can see through his mask, and understand his motive as well as he can see into others'. He is very avaricious ; his great ambi- tion is to become wealthy. " He doesn't want any one to think he is shrewd, and therefore frequently pretends to be very dull. To illustrate: If I had a dozen steers to sell, and he wanted them (provided he could buy them to suit him), he would liappcn by my house on his way to prayer- meeting, or somewhere else ; he would happen along just as I was milking, and he would in a careless manner say : SIZING UP THE STEERS. " ' Got some nice-looking steers there, h'ain't you ? How much will they weigh, do you think?' " I would probably give him my idea in regard to their heft. He would then say : \Vhat are fat steers worth nowadays?' " I would tell him the last price I had learned. His quick judg- ment of weight would tell him in an instant whether I had over or under-estimated them, and being thoroughly posted on the market values, he would readily know whether or not there was money in I08 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S them if he could buy at my estimate ; if there was, he would close a bargain with me if possible, and let his prayer-meeting, or other engagement, go to the winds, and in less than a hour he would be home, figuring out how much he had made out of the prayer-meet- ing speculation. " This gentleman is liable to make a cloak of great moral recti- tude and religion, to cover up a cold, selfish, remorseless and avari- cious disposition. He always counts the cost and considers the investment before he puts his name down on paper. He is defi- cient in veneration. With him, serving God means to serve him- self best, and whatever he contributes to the religious cause is merely incidental, the same as the merchant pays the printer for advertising his business ; but he will be very careful to allow no impression of insincerity to prevail. " His powers of invention are large, enabling him to readily assume any role he desires, and he can therefore act the part of a zealous Christian so well as to deceive the average man. " He is naturally rather cowardly, and shrinks from any argu- ment or quarrel. He does not believe it pays to combat any one ; he can't see that it does any good, and frequently costs a man some money and loss of friends. He is domestic in his tastes and habits ; thinks a great deal of his home and family ; is naturally socially in- clined, and, were it not for the expense, would like to go into soci- ety a considerable. He is very cautious, and ventures nothing, unless he is well satisfied of success in the outcome. " My advice to him is, to be more frank and honest, and use less policy ; be more considerate of what will pay the best at the end of life's career, than what will yield the most money in the passing bargains he may make. " A life of honesty and truthfulness, with less lucre, makes the closing hours of life's race more serene and glorious than a large fortune gained at the expense of principle and honor, and the legacy left to the heirs more valuable in every sense of the word." EXPERIENCE WITH HYPOCRITES. ICQ The Professor said, as the time had passed so rapidly, he would make no further examinations, but would conclude his lecture by reciting an original poem, entitled: "THE PHRENOLOGIST'S DREAM. I " Wearied by the labors of the day. The professor sought to rest his clay. Hi couch invited him with its charms To seek seclusion in Morpheus' arms ; While the busy world faded from sight Behind the sable curtains of night, A bright spirit, beautiful and fair, Winged its way through the soft balmy air SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S To his bedside, and folding its wings, Talked to him of the wonderful things That God had for his own glory made. And all these things, the light and the shade, The pale moon, and the glittering stars, The bright sun with his radiant bars, The silver stream, and broad, restless sea, The peaceful meadows, and charming lea, The granite mountains that pierce the sky Proclaiming a Creator on high ; The carpet of verdure o'er earth spread, The fragrant flower that lifts its head To bless and kiss a Creator's hand, And give joy and brightness to the land ; The cattle that graze on mead or hill, Or slake their thirst in the running rill ; The beasts of the forest, strong, untame, Various in nature and in name; The many-hued birds that fill the air, And in song proclaim that God is there ; The fishes that plow the mighty deep, And say the Creator knows no sleep ; All these, and all things else he hath made, To Him honor, praise and glory paid, Except the last of creation man ; Who deliberately laid the plan In Eden's fair and lovely bower, To defy his Creator's power, To show the world that man would not die If he ate the fruit that pleased the eye ; Adam took from the tempter's hand The apple fair, that cursed the land, And by disobedience fell From Eden fair to Orthodox hell. " Now go with me to history's tower Man's record of weakness and power While tossed upon the ocean of time ; And there you will trace in every line, The motive that inspires his action To be his own, and not other's good. From its lofty height where prophets stood, And with mystic vision foretold the strife Of selfish man on the field of life, I'll show you a mighty, boundless sea Of struggling, restless humanity, With rocky shoals and fathomless deep, Whose surging billows in motion keep. EXPERIENCE WITH HYPOCRITES. Ill " The masses ebb and flow with the tide, While a few souls on the breakers ride Like nauticals in a ship of state, Controlled by ambition, love or hate. Their glory is for a single day, Then, like butterflies, they pass away, And into deep oblivion sink, While passers by stop only to think Of their deeds, both for good and evil. And wonder if with God or Devil Their poor souls found an abiding place, After they had run their earthly race. " A glorious few, a few indeed, Were ever born to take the lead, To hold the sway in mind's dominion, To form and shape public opinion, Their names are written on these pages old, Where also their life's story is told. " Then taking my hand, the spirit bright, Led me unto a wonderful sight, A large room on whose walls were displayed The heads of all these great men arrayed In their glory. Then said. Would you know The secret by which these great men show Their strength and power ? Then take this key, Unlock their heads, and then you will see, The mystery it is PHRENOLOGY." 112 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S CHAPTER X. HE chief topic of conversation in our neighborhood for the past week has been the lecture of Professor Feeler. And I daren't go into a neighbor's house for fear they'll want to feel of my head, just to see if am such an all-fired fool as that professor tried to make out I was. Even old Jim Smuggins, who doesn't know enough to pack down a hog in butchering time to keep it from spoiling before spring, said to me t'other night, when Clarissa and 1 was up to his house spending the evening : " Uncle Ben, just let me examine that ar top-knot of your'n, and see if I can't find more in it than Feeler did." Said I, " Look here, you infernal old infidel, if a man is such a ignorant old fool, and low, mean cuss as to not know there is a God, who created all things, and who engineers the whole universe, he is too mean and ignorant to run his fingers through my scatterin' locks, hunting for bumps that the Almighty put there. If I haint got as large a crop of bumps on my head as some of our great men have got, I haint to blame for it. The Almighty knows pretty well what kind of soil is best adapted to raising intellectual and etcetera, bumps on, and it there haint rich enough soil in my head to develop as many and as big bumps as Clarissa, or Horace Greeley, or Daniel Webster, and a few others I could mention, had I time, it's no fault of mine, for I had nothing to do in getting myself up, but I'll take just as good care of what few I have got as I know how to, and see they don't grow less ; and what time I am allowed on this EXPERIENCE WITH HYPOCRITES. earth I'll use in doing the best I can with 'em, and when the ferry- boat whistles for me to get on board for the other shore of that stream that we've all got to cross, and the Captain calls for the fare, I'll just point to the few bumps I have and say to him, ' Here is all I've got; you loaned 'em to me; I've done the best I knew how to with 'em, and now take 'em, they're yours, it's all I've got; what little I've done with 'em is left back there. You can judge whether it's good or bad work, and deal with me accordingly.' " Now, Jim Smuggins, what will you say to the Captain? You'll have to say something to him. I know what you will say. You'll look up at him like a whipped cur, and say, ' I haint got nothin' to give you. I didn't know I had got to cross this stream before; I didn't believe there was any ferry-boat to cross it on, even if there was such a stream : and I didn't know, nor I didn't believe there was any Captain on the boat, even if there was a boat, and I didn't believe the Captain CAPTAIN OF THE FERRY BOAT. would exact any fare from me, even if there was a Captain, and so I haint prepared to give you anything.' 114 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S " That's the same story that all you infidels will have for the Captain. You have been all your lives trying to hatch up some infernal lie to give the Captain on this last trip, that you know well enough you've got to take ; but you mark what I tell you, Jim Smug- gins, the gang-plank will be barely hauled in, and the boat will have just left the dock, when the Captain will cast everyone of you dead beat unbelievers overboard ; and you'll wallow around in the dark and murky waters of despond and despair, without any light to show you the way out, and you will never get out. " You may think it's wonderful smart to make all sorts of fun and ridicule of everybody's religious opinions, and try to make out the Bible is a lie, and God is a myth, a creation of the imagination, and all such stuff ; but it's a mistake you are making, and only shows to thinking, reflecting and intelligent minds what a idiot you are." Clarissa and the other women had been listening to our con- versation closely. She couldn't hold in any longer, and she began on a new idea, at least it was new to me, although I have known for a long time that she had philosophized a different theory than most folks entertain in regard to the human soul and its future destiny. She spoke up in an animated manner, and said : " Now, in my humble opinion, you are both talking on a subject that you don't know anything about. Mr. Smuggins, you certainly don't know much, if anything, about the Bible ; if you did, you wouldn't make such false statements as you do in regard to it, and you are equally as ignorant in regard to nature at any rate, you don't exhibit any knowledge of either in your everlasting pratin' of your infidel opinions. If you will study the operations of nature, and take the results of investigations of men who have devoted their lives to study, and who by nature are endowed with mental power that towers as much above yours and mine as the Alps do above the ant-hill in the meadow, and then compare them with a careful analysis of the Bible, you will both see that you are wonderfully in the dark, especially you, Mr. Smuggins. Benjamin is honest in ITII HYPOCRITI 115 his convictions, and tries to do his duty in the lii^ht of 'cm, while you are not honest in what you talk on this subject. You have no well-defined convictions, and consequently have nothing to teach you duty, except a kind of instinct common to animals in general. I don't mean to be disrespectful, but I do mean that by your contin- ual harping upon the subject of atheism and unbelief, you have crushed out of your heart whatever convictions of a moral nature you may have had in a younger and tenderer age. " I was reading Dr. Draper's recently published book, this morn- ing, and there was one thing that impressed me as being similar to what I have for a long time believed in regard to the human soul. I've got the book in my pocket, and I want^to read it to you. Here it is, ' Tracing a Drop of Water : ' " 'A particle of water arising from the sea may ascend invisibly through the air, it may float above us in the cloud, it may fall in the raindrop, sink into the earth, gush forth in the fountain, enter the roots of a plant, rise up with the sap to the leaves, be there decomposed by the sun into its constituent elements, its oxygen and hydrogen. Of these and other elements, acids and oils and various organic com- pounds may be made ; in these, or its own undecomposed state, it may be received into the food of animals, circulated in the blood, be es- sentially concerned in the acts of intellection executed by the brain ; it may be expired in the breath. Though shed in the tear, in i )- ments of despair, it may give birth to the rainbow, the emblem of hope. Whatever the course through which it has passed, whatever the mutations it has undergone, whatever the forces it has submitted to, its elementary constituents endure. Not only have they not been annihilated, they have not even been changed, and in a period of time, long or short, they find their way, as water, back again to the sea, from whence they came.' * " Now, there is given in a few sentences the result of deep study and investigation, not of Dr. Draper alone, but a great many scien- tific men who have preceded him. What is true in regard to the Il6 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S drop of water, is also true in regard to all the elements of the material universe ; none of them are lost, or even changed, although they are continually changing positions, parting with old and forming new associates. They are brought into activity by the invisible in- fluence of the sun. All this is done in a regular order, everything in the material world working under the system of natural law. " Now my opinion is, that we have in the material nature a type of the spiritual, and I think the Bible, when rightly understood, conveys the same idea. God is the great spirit power that animates everything ; that is the life of all things that exist. While this power animates the human clay for a few moments of time, and then leaves it, it as certainly returns to Himself, the Great Spirit fount- ain, as does the drop of water return to the sea. It may, perchance, energize a mortal that is so frail as to fall into all sorts of vice, wal- low around in mire and filth, for a time, but it will certainly emerge from its poor association and return to itself, its author, a pure, free spirit, pure by being freed from its material association. " If this thought which is clearly taught us by all of nature's operations, is true then it follows that the doctrine of eternal future punishment of the wicked and the eternal future happiness of the righteous, or of the eternal separation of the two classes, falls to the ground. The doctrine of rewards and punishments, in fact, has no ground. It is the invention of man man governed by feel- ings not in accord with natural or diyine laws. So also is the doctrine false, perniciously false, that there is no God ; for He is the Great, Supreme Spirit power, the All in All by which we all exist, and to whom we must yield this vital spark, this spirit He has by His own law placed in our clay." Said I; " Clarissa, if your idea is true, then what's the use of be- ing good ? You haint no better off than if you was as mean as pussly." She replied, "That is all foolishness. Should it for one moment lessen our moral responsibility because we have no heaven to gain EXPERIENCE WITH HYPOCRITES. 117 for doing what we ought to do, and no hell to scare us away from doing what we ought not to do? The fact that man is endowed with an intellect capable of evolving thought (the divine image in man) is sufficient reason for us to do right and shun wrong. That our own highest happiness and the happiness of our fellow men in this life is only secured by doing right, is the great lever that should move us to act in harmony with the moral law. " Any man that will serve God because he expects to get a crown of jewels and a seat in the kingdom, and to walk the golden streets of the New Jerusalem, is an avaricious and selfish being, ex- pecting large pay for doing nothing but what he ought to do, and is unworthy to receive any such reward ; and any man that is such a coward that it requires a hell to make him do his duty to himself, his family and his fellow men, deserves punishment for his coward- ice instead of reward for being scared into doing right, and that punishment he will receive in life, for not being true, but wearing a mask that illy becomes him. " Christ was a type of a perfect man, and the spirit manifested in his life was pure and not contaminated with its earthly tabernacle, and shows to the world what man ought to be, and what he can be by strict obedience of the moral law. He neither held in one hand a ticket to heaven to buy man to do his duty, nor a whip in the other to drive him to hell for not doing it ; but He taught men the moral law by precept and example, and showed them that they had it in their power to make their own happiness or misery. And he who obeys the moral law while on earth receives the just reward, not as a gift for obedience, but as a result that cannot be denied ; and the re- verse is equally true. In my opinion this is the idea intended to be conveyed to men in the great volume that is ever open to us." I was surprised at the way Clarissa handled the subject. Smuggins looked astonished at her, but couldn't say a word in re- ply. Sarah Smuggins looked up to her father after a few moments of silence that followed the remarks of Clarissa, and said to him: Il8 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S " Pa, what have you got to say to that ?" He looked red in the face, then took a cud of tobacco out of his mouth, threw it on the stove hearth, and squirted a lot of tobacco juice after it, wiped his mouth on his coat sleeve, and replied : " Nuthin' !" Says I, "Jim, don't you want to examine Clarissa's top-knot and see if you can't find more in it than the Professor did ?" Said he, " No. She's got more in it than I ever dreamed of, and she has said more for you and me both to think of than I ever heard any one say before on that point. I guess I'll look it up, and if she is right I'll change my ideas." I said, " You can't look it up any too soon." " Well,"* says he, "you haint got much to brag about, for she has taken the starch out of your biled linen." Sarah had been quiet as long as she could stand it, and finally broke out : " Well, perhaps Mrs. Morgan is right, and perhaps she isn't ; but there wouldn't be any necessity for any moral law or anything of the sort if things was done right in the first place. All this comes because old Adam was created before Eve was, and just like the men have always been ever since that performance claimed the right to boss everything just because he was on the ground first. If Eve had been made first things would have all been different. She would have made the bigoted thing stand around and do what was right. And the women of the world would have managed the affairs and made the men do right. They would make the men re- spect them, and we wouldn't have such a state of affairs as there is now. We wouldn't have any rum and rows, and fighting and mur- der, and all sorts of wickedness. " But as woman wasn't made first, and things are as they be, it is the duty of the women to reverse the order of things, and take the lead and management of things throughout the world." Said I, " Sarah, what a pity it is you wasn't born before the WITH IIYPOCRI 119 Creator was, so you could have shown Him how to commence business." Clarissa spoke in a sarcastic sort of way and said, " If we are to believe what sacred history tells us, the woman took the reins of government out of the man's hands the first day she met him in the garden, and told him what to do, and he minded her; and also that she was the first to transgress the law." I spoke, and said, "And she has kept the lines in her hands ever SARAH SMUGGINS WHEN A GIRL. since, I think; the only women that I know of that does much kickin', is them that can't find some poor feller to hitch onto." At this remark Sarah flew mad, and said, " Well! for her part she never had seen a man yet she would tie her lines to, and she pitied any woman that was fool enough to do such a thing." " Why, la sake, Sarah, how you talk," said old Mrs. Smug. 120 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S gins. " You have forgot what a powerful sight of trouble you made your father and me, when you was determined to marry that rattle- headed Dugood that the Smith gal married ; you'd ride the front gate a watchin' for him to come along 'till you broke seven pairs of hinges, and you wouldn't sleep nights, and would go round the house daytime a dreamin', and would put sugar in the butter for salt, and put salt in the coffee for eugar, and write notes and send to him ; and almost went crazy when you found he was goin* to marry the Smith gal. Perhaps you've forgot it, but I haint." " Well, mother," said Sarah, " I think it's real mean for you to tell everything I done when I was a foolish girl, right before these folks." We saw there was a storm coming up sudden-like, and if there is one thing on earth that Clarissa dislikes more than another it is a row, especially a regular family storm, so with a calm and dignified complexion onto her face, in a tender tone she said, " Well, Ben, it's getting late and we must go home : we left Mary all alone in the house with no one but Ebenezer Plunket, and she'll be lonesome, and like as not half scared to death, and we must go right away ;" and suiting her actions to her words, she rose majestically and pinned her shawl and bonnet on. After extending the customary invita- tions to come over and spend an evening with us, we bid them good- night, and walked out into the starlight night, and started home- ward. Arm in arm we walked along, commenting upon our visit and what was said. I said, " I hope what you said will cause Jim to think, and change his mind. I believe you are right." " Yes," replied Clarissa, " I hope Mr. Smuggins and every other man will study the great question of what is right and wrong for them to do, and will strive to do right at all times and under all circumstances. If we will all do our duty here it matters not what theory we may have in regard to that unknown future, when the last night closes in upon us ; it will be one of delightful rest ; soft K WITH HYI'i K/kl'l i 121 breezes to cool the lifeworn and tired body ; while deeds of kind- ness, charity, truth and love, and devotion to principle, will shine above and around us, as do these glorious stars in the heaven, all seeming to say, ' Well done, thou art entitled to a blissful repose ; thy life has not been a blank, but one of benefit to the world.' " When we arrived home we noticed a dim light in the front room. Clarissa thought she would go up kind o' cat-like WATCHING MARY AN1> and peck into the window, and see if Mary was there. When she got to the window she saw Ebcnezer a' settin' in the big rocking, chair, and Mary settin' in his lap comfortable-like, and she didn't look a mite scared nor lonesome. Then we both stepped onto the front porch floor, heavy-like, and scraped our feet, then opened the door and walked right into the room. The light was turned up real high, and Mary was setting on one side of the stand, doing some needle-work, and Kbene/cr was on t'other side, reading out loud from Logan's " Great Conspiracy." They was both the very picture of dignified innocence. I said, " Mary, have you been scared any since we went away?" 122 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S " Not a mite," she said ; " what made you think I would be?" " Oh, nothing," said I, "only your mother thought you might be, so we came home early." " Well," she replied, " I'm sorry you hurried on my account." Ebenezer looked a little carroty-colored in the face, and confused- like. We set down and talked about neighborhood affairs and about the lecture. Ebsaid young Biglerwas bilin' mad at the Professor; it was a little more than he could stand to have the truth told on him. He has had the idea that he was a little smarter than any man in this part of the country, and has been expecting to run the political machine, and get elected to the Legislature ; but the Professor's examination kind o' tore the mask off of him, and give the people a chance to see what kind of a feller he really was, and he is afraid it will hurt his chance for the office he is anxious to have. I told him that Bigler was foolish to get mad about that ; the Professor was only an ordinary man, and guessed at one-half he said about anybody's head. Ebenezer said that might be so, but he hit Bigler and Waddles right square every time, and didn't miss them a mite. They are both as dishonest as they could be ; one is all policy with the voters, and t'other is all policy with the church folks, and every- body else, where he thinks he can make a dollar, They are both infernal hypocrites and shams. I told him I guessed there was no room for any argument on that point. The clock struck ten, which was one hour later than we was in the habit of settin' up, and we thought, by the way Mary fidgeted, and the hard work Eb had in thinking what to talk about, that our room was more desirable than our company, and so we went to bed and left them in possession of the square room once more. Both of them seemed to be relieved of a load of something when we bid them good-night. How tedious and tasteless the hours, When kindred souls are kept apart ; EXPERIENCE WITH IIVPOCRITES. When Cupid cannot use his powers To draw his bow and shoot his dart. Dear parents are good in their sphere ; Their sphere is large in Mary's eyes, But when her Ebenezer comes here, He is her all, her only prize. It's hard work for Ebenezer To talk of rascals and their mask, When Mary wants him to squeeze her, And he is dying for the task. So we had better go to bed, And leave them to their glory, And not listen to what is said, When love is telling its story. Them is Clarissa's and my sentiments, and we advise everybody to let lovers alone when they want to talk, for it's the only time in their whole lives they will have to find out whether they want eac'r other for life, or whether they can get each other. So we want al. our friends to join us in saying good-night to Ebenezer and Mary whether they be our Mary and Eb, or some one else's. 124 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S CHAPTER XI. HINGS have been running in the usual way in our neigh- borhood for the past two months. Threshing, husking corn, ^^ digging potatoes, gathering apples, making cider, et cetera and et cetera. And to keep the social engine moving, and give the young folks an opportunity to unload their accumulating burden of love and moonshine, there have been a number of paring bees and huskings, and a few picnic parties down to the lake. Zolliver Ramsdell and Nancy Boyles concluded they had en- dured the anticipation of future bliss about as long as they could stand it, and decided they would enter upon the realization of what joys belong to the marriage state. By the assistance of Rev. Jonas Danberry they placed their names on the roll of independent families, as Mr. and Mrs. Ramsdell. The affair took place down to Mrs. Boyles' house on the i$th of September. Nearly all the neigh- bors was there ; Ebenezer and Mary stood up with them when they was married, and they become so interested in the proceeding, that when Rev. Danberry said, " Let the parties join hands," Ebenezer and Mary grabbed each other's hands, and stood blushing at the minister, not really thinking what they was doing until the minister asked in a peculiar manner,which couple he was to unite. Then they came to consciousness as quick as a flash of lightning. Mary felt as if she had received a shock. The smile that was visible on the faces of the assembled neighbors and others, found an audible ex- pression, to the discomfort of both Eb and Mary, who retired from their position on an Eb tide. They were not seen again until they EXPERIENCE WITH HYPOCRITES. 125 was brought into the supper room by a searching party, who found them in the northwest corner of the orchard. Aside from this lit- tle mistake, Zollivcr and Nancy completed their part of the cere- mony in good shape amid the applause and congratulations of their numerous friends and the rest of the folks that was waiting with pent-up appetites, to devour the fatted calf and other delicacies to be served up in the supper-room. At the table Ebenezer and Mary received a good many jokes and rubs, until Eb finally mustered up courage like a giant, and spoke right out and said : " Well, if we did make a little mistake, I don't see that it's ver}- much to laugh at ; the next time we do it we won't run away, but will stand there and let the minister guess who it is that wants to be married ; won't we, Mary ? " And Mary blushingly replied, " I suppose it will be just as you say, Eb." Rev. Danberry promptly suggested the present occasion as a fitting time for the re-occurrence of the accident, but Ebenezer said, " Not just now, but when there was a minister handy by who could tell, without asking, who wanted to get married, "and so Danberry 's prospect of another five dollar job vanished, while a calm settled down around the table like a pall, disturbed only by the rattle of dishes and the oscillating motion of the under jaws of thirty-five hungry mouths, until Clarissa remarked, " Mrs. Boyles, what excellent biscuits these are ; I never tasted of any better." " Yes," said Mrs. Boyles, " Nancy made them ; she's a splendid bread-maker." Another short calm ensued, when Lily Doolittle spoke up in her innocent manner and said, " I am so glad the fashion for women to wear short hair has come around ; it is such a bother to take care of long hair, and then, hairpins are not only extremely bothersome, but they are positively dangerous." I made no comments on the whole of this occasion. I do not just now remember of opening my mouth but once except at the 126 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S table, while I was there, and that was when I kissed the bride with the rest of the procession that passed by her, but I could not help thinking then, and Ihaint stopped thinking yet, why it is that some folks instinctively (as it were), spring a conversation upon the most disagreeable topic, just at a time when both peace of mind and tranquility of stomach demand the choicest language and upon the most agreeable topic. If ever there is a time when pleasant sub- KISSING THE BRIDE. jects ot conversation should be selected and choice, pleasing lan- guage used, it is at the table, when that organ, the stomach, which is very sensitive, can be stimulated to increased powers of digestion by delicate and pleasant conversation, or nauseated, if not com- pletely paralyzed, by unpleasant words associated with unpleasant memories. Now the remark of the innocent Miss Doolittle called up the narrow escape the old lady Boyles had from Nancy's hair- pin in the biscuit, and the entire party had their sufficiency of a de- iicious meal, carefully prepared and nicely served. Lily's remark was like ipecac thrown into the soup. Thoughtless and needless unpleasant remarks similar to those of Lily's, made in the sick room, arrest the progress of the patient's recovery, put a damper upon the doctor's success and frequently supply the undertaker with work he ought not to have. In society it sends the raven croaking from house to house, destroys the peace and happiness of home, keeps the lawyer busy, fills the public press with sensational matter and is the daily diet of tattlers and mischief- makers. Prospects are blighted and the honey of life frequently turned to wormwood and gall by ignorant thoughtlessness in conversation. I did not intend on this occasion, to indulge in criticisms on the frailties of human nature. My own frailty should forbid any such criticism. After supper the young folks had a dance, and Zolliver and Nancy was made the recipients of some nice presents. A host of jokes was freely passed around at the expense of Zolliver and Nancy, and Eb and Mary. There has been considerable excitement throughout our county for the last month on account of the election that has just passed off. This being an off-year in politics, as they call it, there wasn't so much interest taken in the State ticket as the county ticket. The people got more excited in the contest for assembly-man than an> of the other candidates. They had a lively time at the caucus do\\ n to the village in electing delegates to the county convention, but there was a good deal more excitement at the convention than at the caucus. Young Bigler was at the Republican convention and working as hard as he could to get the nomination for member of the Assembly on the Republican ticket, but it was no go; they didn't want him, and they gave him the grand snub, by nominating Thomas Conners, a smart young lawyer at the village. Disap- pointed in his failure, young Bigler immediately deserted the Re- 128 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S publican party and became a rabid Democrat. The Democrats held their convention a week after the Republicans. Young Bigler suc- ceeded in getting- the nomination at this convention. He promised to work faithfully for them. The county is very strongly Republi- can, so his prospects was not very bright, but he went to work mak- ing speeches all over the county, speaking in the schoolhouses every night until election day. He attempted to show up the rascality of the Republicans, and the necessity of a reform, and worked in all the claptrap that politi- cal stump speakers use for fillin' in their wind puddings ; but where he spread himself in the biggest style, and soared the most was on Free Trade. " Free Trade," said he, " Fellow Citizens, is the main log in our raft ; we maintain that the Creator made us all free and equal, and gave us the air in the heavens to breathe freely, and the water of the earth for our free use, and the land and its products from one end of this vast world to the other, should be equally free to us. And it is contrary to divine law and judgment to put an em- bargo on everything we want to buy of our neighbors, whether they live on the farm that joins us, or over in England, France, Turkey. Russia or China, or any other part of the world ; we have no right to say others shouldn't sell us their goods at any price they was a mind to, or give 'em to us if they wanted to. No, sirs, gentlemen, everything should be put on a free basis so far as business is con- cerned. We ought to get everything we want at the very lowest price that competing markets ca'n offer, without being restricted by enormous tariffs that are gotten up in the interest of greedy capital- ists and soulless millionaires, etc." He would try to work upon people's prejudices and sympathy, and he wou ; d tell some stories to see how many laughed and how many didn't. While the laughing was going on he would calculate by the number that laughed and that didn't what course to take in the rest of his speech. He used his funny stories just the same as all of 'em do, as feelers. He would shape his remarks as he thought EXPERIENCE WITH HYPOCRITES. 129 would please the majority. lie spread himself in good shape, and \n his flights of rhetoric and fancy, he imagined that he had con- verted every one to his ideas; and a scat of honor in the great fine capitol at Albany loomed up before him as the pearl of great price. He made a regular war on every successful manufacturer or rail- road man. In fact, he give a blow to every one that was financially successful. He took the ground that free trade was the stepping stone to free money, and in his opinion free money was a big thing for the people to have. Me was worked up to such an appreciation of himself and his abilities, that he dreamed in his sleep of the great Bigler that was to be. His joy, however, was like that of the child who sees the rainbow tints glistening on the surface of a soap bub- ble in the sunlight. The fourth of November burst the bubble, and there was nothing left. He forgot to tell the people that the best citizens were those that were sober, honest and industrious; that they were the ones who spent the least time in talking politics, and made the least noise on election days. He forgot to mention in his speeches that the shiftless, lazy and profligate people were the ones that made the most noise about elections, and complained the most about monopo- lies and rich men. He forgot to hint in his speeches that nearly all the rich men of our country were born poor, and worked their way up in the world, that industry and frugality were the principal ele- ments in their success. He forgot to say to the people that there was no country on the globe where honest labor received such high recognition, where the wage earner received so much for his labor, and where the way was open to a fortune for him, as this country. He forgot to mention a word about Professor Feeler's lecture or the examination he received at his hands. He forgot to give his real reasons for changing his politics. As Tom Conners went through the county he so completely riddled Bi^ler's speeches, that there wasn't enough left to them to make a fly net to cover a kitten. He showed it up clear enough for 130 SHAMS, OR, UNCLE BENS the most stupid to understand that the first law of nature is self-pro- tection, and what is true in regard to the individual in protecting himself and his interests, is equally true in regard to a community, a town, county, State and nation. All its interests should be care- fully protectedj and if the products of another country could be scattered throughout our country at such prices as to paralyze if not completely destroy our own industries, then they should be shut out by such a tariff as would place them in a fair competition with our products. He didn't forget to call special attention to all those items that Bigler omitted. He didn't forget to show that the Democrats was alike interested with the Republicans in upholding and protecting the prosperity of our country, and all its industries, and in protect- ing every one in their right to vote, and in securing an honest count. Nor did he forget to refer to Professor Feeler's description of Big- ler. The final result was decided last Tuesday. Tom Conners was elected by a majority of 4,387, which was just 392 short of all the votes cast in the county. Since the election Bigler has been real sick ; the strain upon his nervous system was more than he could stand. The exposition of his true inwardness hurt him as much as his defeat, for his ambi- tion was not only knocked in the head, but his hypocrisy was un- masked, and dishonest Bigler could no longer fool the people of that locality with his numerous shams. He now declares he wont live in such a country ; he is going to move to Chicago. Clarissa says she guesses we will get along just as well without him, and perhaps better. That settles it in my opinion, for when Clarissa once makes a positive declaration of a principle or an idea, it is just as satisfactory as if T'd read it in the Bible. Speaking of Clarissa thusly, makes me think how blessed and happifying it is to have such confidence in your wife, that when she tells you anything, you know it is positively true; and how much more happifying it must be to them that is of a opposite sex from EXPERIENCE WITH HYPOCKIT! !$! what I belong- to, by the nature of things, to have the same sweet confidence in what their husbands tell them. If such was the case generally, marriage bliss would go up in the market five hundred per cent., and the divorce business would be knocked higher than Bartholdi's torch of liberty lighting the world. I wish such was the case, but I'm forced to believe it aint. What might be if the sweet angel of confidence roosted on every front door, isn't, and I don't see any sign of a breeze that is likely to waft that condition of things to the human family in the very near future. When I get to talking to Clarissa in a loving sort of a way, and tell her what perfect confidence I have in her, she generally, and at BIGLER STARTS OJ\ CHICAGO. sundry times, replies, ''Well, Benjamin, I love you, 'tis true, but Ican't exactly return the high compliment you give me." Really, I don't suppose she can, for ever since she found me acting sweet-like to the Widder Lewis, about two years after we was married, she has a vivid recollection of it, and how I mixed myself up in trying to explain. The men think they are the sharp ones of the Creator's handi- 132 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BENS work, but they are deceived ; they haint one-half as sharp as the women, for just as sure as they get caught in doing something mean and wrong, they will commence lying out of it, and they'll mix them- selves up so before they get through explaining, they'll have to con- fess they lied. But, if a woman gets into a difficulty, she will simply lie out of it, and stick to it until the climate changes temperature in the lower regions, before she'll confess. Clarissa doesn't agree with me on that point, but the reason is plain enough. She has always been truthful and honest, and she thinks women in general are. Well, I think women, in general, are. I do not for a moment think the general run of women are liars, but when you do happen, by accident or otherwise, to find one that does prevaricate, the remarks I have made on that pretty correctly apply. Domestic felicity depends largely upon domestic confidence. Chamfort says : " It is with happiness as with watches the less com- plicated, the less easily deranged." I was trying, in my weak way, the other evening, to philosophize with Clarissa in an argument on this question of domestic peace and happiness, and gave her my ideas upon this confidence business, and told her what the world might be, if and if ; and she said : " Benjamin, those are my sentiments, but the l ifs ' take all the starch out of sentiments. Balzac says : ' We are finite beings. There can be no infinite happiness for us. The soul that dreams it and pursues it, will embrace but a shadow.' I am willing to accept the situation, and embrace all the substance I can of every- day happiness, and not spend my time in running after shadows." Thus, my philosophizing, as usual when I get into an argument with her, ended. I think I can safely say, when I get into a discussion with Clarissa, nineteen times out of twenty I can appropriately write the word " Waterloo " at the end of my part of the discussion. When I married Clarissa I thought just as a great many of them think, and as some of them act that I was going to be boss, and have things about as I wanted them ; but I soon found that Clarissa ! HVPOCRIT1 133 was my intellectual superior, and I concluded, for various reasons, that I had better adopt the advice of La Bruyere, who said: " It is often shorter and better to yield to others than to endeavor to com- pel others to adjust themselves to us." I have lived by his advice so long, that now it is a pleasure to yield to her. I find I have been running off onto a different track from what I intended to, when I got through telling about the election and Bigler's defeat. The reason for it is plain. Clarissa made a re- mark, and I got to telling about her remark, and switched off. That woman switches me off my main track very frequently, if not of tener. I may have an idea in my head worth a whole column in a newspaper, but just as sure as she speaks to me it's gone, and I go off in admi- ration of her, and feel my own littleness so much that the idea is gone forever, and when I get back onto the main track again, I have to get a new lot of ideas before I can go ahead. I confess, it is a serious drawback, for ideas with me haint a quarter as abundant as they are with Clarissa and other smart men. Therefore I shall rely upon the patience and forgiving spirit of the readers to excuse the many sudden and unexpected breaks. I was going to say that the political campaign this fall brought out some ideas more prominently than others ; ideas that we all ought to think over. First If there is anything worth laboring for, it is worthy of protection. Second The source of supply to the laborer viz.: capital is as truly worthy of protection as the fountain that supplies us with water. The laborer cannot be protected when the source of his earnings is open to all kinds of attack and to destruction. Third The most important thing to all of us is a pure and honest government, where justice shall be accorded to all, regardless of any condition, and this can only be secured by the protection of every citi/en in the country in his lawful right to vote as pleases him. Bigler didn't adopt any progressive ideas, but resorted to all 134 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S the little catches and points that in his opinion would make votes for himself. He failed to exhibit that high moral character or broad, comprehensive view of the country's needs that public opinion demanded of a man to represent them in the law-making body of the State. He played the part of a fox, and was treated according to his deserts. Clarissa says that, while she doesn't pretend to be a politician, she reads a powerful sight, and thinks a little, and that, as near as she can remember, it has been the custom in this country for the opinion of the masses to be pretty near correct ; that some years the LETTER OF CONDOLENCE. people kind o' go to sleep and forget that " eternal vigilance is the price of liberty," and in those spells of slumber the cunning politi- cal foxes and wolves go prowling around, and steal a victory at the polls ; but it only serves to wake up the sleepers, and the next year public opinion is wide awake and hard at work, and it opens up graves and buries these animals out of sight and smell. Then the country moves along, prosperous, peaceful, and happy for a time. She says they woke up this year, and we won't hear anything more of Mr. Bigler in the political field for a good many years, if ever. I think just as she does on that point, of course. Last night the ladies' sewing society had a meeting at Widow PERIENCK WITH HYPOCRIT1 L3<; Abby Sti^idish's house, and they talked about th election more than anything else. And they concluded that, as Mr. Bidder was going to leave the neighborhood for good, they ought to do something kind of pretty for him. So they decided to have Mis. Dave Kirk write him a letter of condolence, and a verse or two. Jane was never noted for being much of a writer. She said she couldn't write a letter tit for a eow to read, but as he was her cousin by marriage on Kirk's side of the house, she would do the best she could ; so she wrote the following : "Ctv.ziN B. B. BIGLER: "It is with mingled feelins uv sorrow and regret that I pen theze few short, breef sentences uv kondolence and konsolashun to you. I no it must be gallin to your dear good wife Mariah, to have your pollytickle kareer come to such a sudden and unplezant kloze. I no she iz naturally proud, and haz ben in the habit uv goin in respectable kum- pany, and I uzed tu like to go to hur house a vizitin. I hope she will bare up under your disappointment, and not brake down in bodily helth. I regret you did not stick to your furst party and ben willin tu axcept some miner posishun on the ticket az you mite have pulled thru if you had. " However, I spoze the Allmity noze better what we are all made uv better than we do ourselves, and probably it iz best you dun as you did, for we cant help believin that what iz your loss iz our gain. . " Du not be discouraged and give up, but go out West and go into the kattle biz- ness. David sez thare iz lots uv muuny in it, and if you cant make your mark in the world az a pollytickan, you can git to be a kattle king, and if thare iznt quite as much honor in being king uv the long and short horned brutes az a ruler amung the human kind, thare iz lots more munny in it, and a shinin silver dollar will kuver a good sized soar. With these tuchin and feelin remarks, and this little poem on behalf uv the Mor- ganville soin society (in whoze interest I address theze lines) I bid you a disconsolate farewell. Your cuzzin, HELEN KIRK." " Bizzy Bascum Bigler, 'Tho a wiley wigler, With his pollytickle rake Failed in taking the cake ; Partly becauze the young peeler Was shown up by Mister Feeler, But more becauze we saw He didn't respect the law. The greatest mistake he made Wuz advocatin Free Trade, And in not showin the truth By good and suffishent proof. The high and noble honors Wuz given tu Tom Conners, Who saw the way tu eleckshun Woz in the coze uv Proteckshun." 136 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S CHAPTER XII. Y@A@iFITH a favorable breeze and an even sea, most any vessel w\ft with a reasonably tight bottom may venture on a short jour- ney, but if a long voyage is to be made. I would advise the captain to see that his vessel not only has a tight bottom, but that it is thoroughly sound ; that every beam and brace is sound, and prop- erly secured ; that in every way his craft is seaworthy. Too many shipwrecks are caused by unsound vessels, com- manded by incompetent masters. When a storm is encountered by such a vessel, the master is baffled, and loses control of it, and the rotten timbers give way, and total destruction follows. They have had a big shipwreck, so to speak, in this community. George Waddles started on the voyage of speculation ; he embarked in a vessel of his own construction ; all the main beams and stays were composed of his professions of Christianity, and the thin cov- ering of its hulk was his membership in the Methodist Church. When he first started out, everything went smooth and fine. He bought all the hogs and cattle in the country he could get hold of. He went to prayer-meetings and church service as regular as the pilot on shipboard consults his compass and chart. When Jim Teeters moved to the village he went into partner- ship with Waddles in the stock-buying and shipping business, al- though, by a mutual agreement, it wasn't known that they was inter- ested together in business, for by its not being known, they could work their schemes to better advantage. Waddles had a set of large hay-scales down to the village, on EXPERIENCE WITH HYPOCRITES. 137 which he weighed all the stock he bought. For a long time the farmers had sold their stock to Waddles, and drove it to the village, and had 'em weighed on Waddles' scales, and took his weight as correct. Waddles was always very polite to them, and would gen- erally ask all about their health and their families, and was as hon- est in appearance to 'em as a man could be. One day last week he bought sixty head of steers ind 1 10 hogs of Clark Benjamin, a farmer in the town of Henderson. Benjamin is a very careful and prudent farmer, and an honest man, and has got to be a rich man. Last fall he put into his barn-yard a set of Fairbanks' hay-scales, and when he sells any stock or grain or hay, he weighs it on his scales before he delivers it. He weighed his steers and hogs ^before he drove them down to the village, but didn't tell Waddles anything about it, and when he got to the village with his stock, Waddles weighed them all and footed up the amount, and it was 2,000 pounds less on the steers than they weighed on Benjamin's scales, and 1,000 pounds less on the hogs. Mr. Benjamin then informed Waddles that he couldn't have the stock at that weight. " Why, what's the matter ? " says Waddles, in great surprise ; " don't you think that is correct? You saw the scales balance every time, didn't you?" " Yes," said Benjamin, " I saw the scales balance every time, and noticed you took down the exact figures also ; but I don't think it is correct and in fact, I know it is not correct." Waddles looked red in the face, and acted terribly hurt at Ben- jamin's remark, and told Benjamin to weigh them over himself, if he doubted it. "Very well," said Benjamin, "I will; but first I'll just look them scales over a little." He done so, and after a carelul examination, he found that Wad- 138 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S dies had fixed the scales so they would make just 100 pounds less than the actual weight at every draft. There was a number of farmers and business men standing round the scales during this time, and when Mr. Benjamin showed up Mr. Waddles' trick to 'em, and convinced them all of the fact, bv a comparison with the weights on his own scales, and also by the way the scales was fixed, Waddles fainted away, but by dousing him with cold water he came to pretty soon. He looked awful, but he couldn't say nothing. Mr. Benjamin demanded full pay for his stock, according to the weight on his own scales. Waddles was so dazed he didn't say anything for some time. When he had recovered from the shock, he told Mr. Benjamin to go to the bank with him and he would give him the money, and take the stock at his weight. The news of his fraud went all over the village like lightning. In a hour and a half three farmers that had delivered stock to him that same day had him arrested for swindling, and he was tried before 'Squire Dale. The proof was so positive that Waddles couldn't overcome it, but said he never done it; that Jim Teeters used the scales to weigh large amounts of butter and cheese, that he bought to ship to New York, and also hogs. 'Squire Dale bound him over to court. The whole thing came out on him so sudden that the people all over the village appeared thunderstruck, and when the 'squire turned him over to the sheriff, he tried tq get bail, but he couldn't get any one in town to go on his bail for $1,000, and so he had to sleep in jail that night. The next day the bankers, after getting security on $2,000 worth of cattle, went on his bail for $1,000, and Mr. Waddles was let out. This was only the beginning of a general tear-up. The next day Teeters was arrested for swindling. He was tried before 'Squire Dale also. There was plenty of proof to convict him, and the 'squire bound him over to court in $1,000 bonds. When the sheriff took charge of him he got the sheriff to bring him out to WADDLES J'AI NI KL> ; THEY UOl bEU HIM \V11H COl.L) ' EXFI WITH HYPOCRITES. 141 see me, and tried to get me to go on his bond. I said to him, " Mr. Teeters, I would willingly go on the bond of an honest man to help him out of a difficulty, but I have too clear a recollection of your dealings with me last summer, in the hog business, to sign my name to your bond, and you must excuse me if I say, once for all, No" He looked as if he would sink, but I didn't have a mite of pity ior him. The sheriff took him back to the village, and poor Teeters had to sleep in the jail that night. Somehow or other the Meth- odist folks didn't help either Waddles or Teeters out of their diffi, culty. Teeters had to give the bank a chattel mortgage on his store REFUSING TO GO ON TEETERS* BAIL. before they would bail him out ; this was done the next day after he was arrested. Now there was a pair of our prominent men booked for trial at the next term of court, and everybody was talking about it, and most folks was surprised, especially in regard to Waddles, as he had lived there for a long: time, and had been a leader in the Meth- odist Church, but I wasn't surprised at all about either one of 'em ; I knew by experience that Teeters was a rascal, and I have been well satisfied for a good many years that Waddles was masquerading as one thing while in his heart he was another. I don't pretend to 142 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN*S be very sharp, but I know a humbug when I see it, if I can't tell others how to detect it. Things run along about ten days in. the usual way, when on a Sunday morning, after Rev. Danberry had finished his sermon, and just before he pronounced the benediction, he requested all the members of the church to meet in the basement immediately after the close of the morning service. They met in the basement, and the minister told them the object of the meeting was to consider the matter of retaining brother Geo. Waddles and brother Teeters in the church, after the damaging evi- dence that had been brought out against their characters. He wished to have an expression of the members in regard to it. There was a good many remarks made by different members. Some advanced the idea that they should be labored with, while others insisted that if they had deliberately gone to work to steal the livery of heaven to serve the devil in, if they had used the church for no other pur- pose than to assist them in swindling the people, it would be an insult to the church to even offer to labor with them. They took a vote on it, and by a very large majority they decided that the names of these two swindlers should be dropped from the church roll. When this was made known to Waddles and Teeters, they resolved to have revenge on some of these brethren that was so active in getting their names dropped from the church roll, so they circulated several stories damaging to their characters. Stories once started never grow less, but rapidly increase, both in numbers and mag- nitude. The surest way to make a lie the most effectual is to mix enough Of truth with it to give it the semblance of truth, and then it goes well, and hits its intended victim every time. These gen- tlemen understood that scheme perfectly, and started their stories with a determination that as they fell, others would have to go with 'em. The result has been terrible. The church has been nearly broken up. Nearly one-third of its members have been dropped from the roll, or labored with. Scandal seems to have EXPERIENCE WITH IlYl'ocKm 143 been the order of the clay, and each succeeding day developed new sensations. It was hinted around that Rev. Danberry was not above suspicion, that he had called upon certain sisters very frequently, and especially the Widow Crookshank, who runs a milliner store in the village. Things had come to such a pass that one was really afraid to meet his neighbor for fear he would hear some horrible news. \ Clarissa said she was perfectly sick, hearing of so much wick- edness, but she says, "It's not surprising that we hear so much all of a sudden, for when all kinds of meanness and wickedness hides itself behind a mask of piety and religion, it's like a stream that has been dammed up by floodwood and rubbish. After a while one or two of the larger pieces give way, and then the whole mass of rub- bish goes out with a rush, filling the stream below with its mire and filth, but the fountain above is still pure, and as its purifying waters course along it cleanses away the filth, and in time purifies the whole stream. The church is no more to blame because bad men and women drop into its folds, than the fountain is for the drift- wood falling into the stream. The Methodist Church is designed as an institution for the dissemination of high and holy principles ; is an institution of honesty and purity, but some bad persons had got into it and drifted along. Corruption and wickedness hid itself behind great and loud professions. " When Waddles and Teeters gave way, all the hypocrisy and wickedness that accumulated, rushed out upon the world. But it will all be over soon, and the church will be all the better by being rid of the shams and hypocrites that have found their way into it. " The church never hurt a person in the world, and I want infi- dels to understand that. No person was ever made worse 1 by any church, but vile hypocrites that mask as church members do an im mense amount of harm, not only to individuals outside of the church, but to those who become its members from the highest and purest motives. Now a great deal of this slander we hear has been started 144 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S by Waddles and Teeters in order to turn public talk away from themselves, and see if that can't better their case a little when it comes up for trial, and has no real truth in it. Time will set it all right, and justice will light in the right place, though it may seem to be a long time lighting." I believe Clarissa is correct in her opin- ion about this matter, and I will leave Waddles, Teeters and the Methodist Church in the hands of Father Time, while I straighten up matters around home and get ready to take Clarissa on 2 tour abroad. EXPERIENCE WITH IIYPUCRJ 145 CHAPTER XIII. RS. Jonas Buzzbee Clarissa's second cousin on her great uncle's side, that lives in Syracuse, and whose husband is in the hardware business there, sent us a paper week be- fore last, and marked an advertisement in it with red ink. Here is the advertisement she marked : "GRAND EXCURSION." " A GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY that may never occur again. Ev- erybody should take advantage of it. A train composed of forty- eight magnificent sleeping cars, five dining cars, forty baggage cars, EXCURSION TRAIN. two refrigerator cars and one car for servants and dogs, will leave the Grand Central Depot in New York City November 15, for San Francisco, Cal., via N. Y. C., L. S. & M. S., C. & N. W., U. P. and C. P. Railroads. " Tickets good for four months, including berths and meals, and jij.6 SHAMS ; OR, UNCLE BEN'S privilege of carrying 2,000 pounds of baggage, and return via any route passengers desire, either via rail or steamship or both, only $45.00. " Every ticket-holder is entitled to free transportation for one servant and two dogs. Stop-over checks will be given to passen- gers, at any point desired, west of Chicago. The many points of interest can be visited along the route with very little expense. Among these may be mentioned, Omaha, Denver, Colorado Springs, the Garden of the Gods, Pike's Peak, Monument Park, the cele- brated bathhouses of Idaho Springs, Cheyenne, Black Hills, Og- den, Salt Lake City and its wonderful institutions, Helena, Boise City, Sacramento, the Yosemite Valley, the Geysers, Portland, Seattle and .Sitka, Los Angeles, San Diego, the principal cities of Mexico and Central America, New Orleans, Mobile, the orange groves of Florida, and a few cities on the Atlantic coast on their way home. " No one should miss this wonderful opportunity. Tickets from Albany, $44.00 ; from Utica, $43.00 ; Syracuse, $42.00 ; Rochester, $41.00; Buffalo, $40.00 ; Cleveland, $36.00; Toledo, $35.00; Chicago, $30.00. For further information and particulars, address Messrs. Holdem, Ketchem & Skinem, No. 211 Chatham Street, New York, or Jerusalem, Scalper & Co., 148 Clark Street, Chicago, inclosing a two cent stamp to insure a reply." Clarissa and I have been saving what money we could for some years, intending to take a trip some time and travel, and we had got considerable on hand. I had made up my mind to see something of the world beside Morgan ville and the village before I died, and Clarissa was anxious to visit many places, and meet many distinguished people she has read about, and when we read this ad- vertisement, it seemed like a big bonanza to us, and we wondered if there wasn't a kind of a Providence in having this excursion come at a time we was calculating to travel. Clarissa wrote to her cousin Buzzbee, thanking her for the pa- EXPEK ITII IIYPOCRITI 147 per, and especially for the advertisement, and told her we would make her a visit a couple of days before the train left S. I arranged things around home so as to leave Abe and Mary and the hired man comfortable and all right, and went to the village and got me a new suit of store clothes, and rigged Clarissa out, or rather, she done it, and on the I3th of November we took the railroad for Syracuse, or rather the railroad took us to that place. We got there at 5:45 P. M., and Mrs. Buzzbee and her husband met us at the depot with a sleigh. I never heard such a noise in my life as there was as we was going out of the depot yard. A dozen or more of the sassiest ARRIVAL AT DEPOT IN SYRACUSE. loafers I ever saw, was standing in a row, trying to get us to go to some hotel. One of the sassy scamps grabbed hold of my valise. I hauled off and was going to plant a bean over his eyes, when Mr. Buzzbee said, " Come on, Uncle Benjamin, and don't pay any attention to them hotel hoodlums." That dumb scamp dropped 148 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S it mighty sudden, and looked cheap enough. We got into the sleigh and had a fine drive up to a great, fine brick house where they lived. They seemed glad to see us, and although I never met Mr. B. before, he acted as if he always knew me. They have an elegant home, and everything wonderful fine in the house. The next day he took us all over the city in his sleigh. I went down to his store with him, and I was surprised. He had more goods in his store than the whole caboodle down to the village have, all put together. He is a wholesaler, and does a big business. After we had gone over the city, and seen a good many things, we took the women home and had supper, and then Mr. B. drove down town again, and took me into what he called a private club-room, and introduced me to a number of gentlemen, all of whom he told me (afterward) was prominent citizens of Syracuse. Some of 'em was merchants ; some was doctors and lawyers, and some was prom- inent politicians. One of 'em was the mayor of the city ; he was very polite, and in a few minutes after I was introduced to him he asked us all up to the bar to have a drink. All but me took some- thing. Some said, " I'll take a sour" while others called for a " straight," a " mash," a " cocktail," a " mint-julep," etc. Mr. Buzzbee said he wanted a " Thomas-and-Jeremiah.'' All these things was strange to me, and I couldn't understand what they meant. The mayor says to me, " Come, Uncle Ben, what will you have ?" I said, *' Nothing, if you please." They all looked at me, surprised, and says, " What ! don't you drink?" Says I, " Gentlemen, I drink good, fresh water, when I'm to home, and sometimes milk, but that's all." The mayor said, " Well, you know you aint to home now, and when you arc in Rome, you must do as Romans do. We don't drink at home, do we, gentlemen ?" and all responded, " No, of course not," and " Here is some kernels of roasted coffee you can eat, and when you go home your wife can't detect you by your breath/' I replied, " Gentlemen, you will please excuse me-, I don't believe in shams. I don't believe in pretending to the world to be sober and EXPERIHNVI: \\rrii IIYPOCKITI 149 temperate, and then get into some back room, as you are here, and give a lie to all my pretensions ; and, more than that, I don't believe in shamming to my wife who, of all others, should know the truth in regard to my conduct. I can't see the difference between this place, fitted up in such a grand style, with marble counters and great big looking-glasses, and fine pictures and pretty carpets, and patronized by the prominent citizens, including the mayor, and a common coun- try tavern bar-room, with its dirty, low walls, muddy floor, and few broken wooden chairs and benches, filled with blear-eyed, besotted, ragged wretches ; its air laden with the sickening smell of cheap rum and whisky, and its principal sound the discordant combination of oaths and curses and foul vulgarity, except pride, pride in appear- ance, pride in association, pride in not being seen by the outside world, pride in everything except principle, and the material you obtain here is the surest destroyer of pride and principle that I know of. Give it time, and it is sure to kill both. I beg your pardon, gentlemen, if 1 have said anything to hurt your feelings ; I don't mean to do that, but I am a plain farmer, never was away from home before, never saw a city until now, and never met prominent citizens, especially in such a place as this; but Benjamin Morgan is opposed to shams, and opposed to men losin' their heads to satisfy their greedy stomachs. If it is all right to drink this stuff, and sell it, then have places along the sidewalks, or like other places for re- freshments, where it can be sold, and where a man can stop with his wife and daughters, and sons, to drink, and not have burnt coff eat after drinking; and let the mayor, and prominent merchants, doctors, lawyers and politicians see that licenses are issued to c one that wants to sell it. I am opposed to playing the double game of good Lord and good Devil. Hypocrisy don't pay. When have to settle accounts at the closing up of business, you'll have to tell so many lies in explaining things that the lies will down you." Then I turned to Mr. Buzzbee and said, " Let's go home ; it's pretty late, and Clarissa will be worrying about me." I saw Mr. B. I5O SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN 7 S was terribly red in the face, and so was the mayor ; and I could hear some of the others laughing and say something about "country crank" I didn't know what they meant, unless it was a machine for winding up the country with. Mr. Buzzbee and I went home. On our way home Mr. B. said he was sorry I spoke so plain not so much on his own account as on account of all those gentlemen, for they were all his friends. I told him I was sorry on that account that I had said anything, but I told him he could explain to 'em the next time he met 'em, that I was an ignorant old fool, from up in the country, and didn't know any better than to beller out what I honestly thought. He said that would be entirely unnecessary, as they all understood that now. I haint used to very refined society, I know ; but I know enough to feel a stab like that Mr. Buzzbee gave me, and appreciated it just as perfectly as if a mule had kicked me for fooling with his heels. After we went to bed, 1 told Clarissa all about our trip down town and back, and what was said, and how Buzzbee gave me a stab. She said, " Well, Benjamin, we haint to home, and you had better keep your mouth closed and your eyes open, and you will learn just as much, if you don't do so much good," and then she said there was going to be a big temperance meeting at the M. E. Church, to-morrow night, and Mrs. Buzzbee wanted us to go, and as our train did not leave until midnight, we would have plenty of time to go, and visit afterward. I told her I would like to go first-rate. EXPERIENCE WITH HYPOCRITES. CHAPTER XIV. HE next day Mr. B. and I went down to the railroad depot to get our tickets. We told the ticket agent we wanted two ex- cursion tickets for San Francisco and return. The agent pro- ceeded to fill out the tickets, and asked how many servants and clogs we had. I told him I had a hired hand I had left to home to help Abe- take care of the farm, and I had never raised any dogs, as Clarissa wouldn't have the dirty things around the house. Me laughed and BUYING TICKET IN SYRACUSE. said he merely wanted to know how many we wanted to take with us, so he could include them in the ticket. When he got the tickets ready I counted out 84 for the two tickets, and he said it would be $200 more. 1 was thunderstruck, and pulled out of my pocket tin .nl- vertisement Clarissa cut out of the paper, and asked him what they 152 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S meant by that? " Oh! " said he, "that's all right ; you have to pay us $142 for the ticket, and when you get to San Francisco you take what you have left of your ticket into the company's office there and they will give you a rebate of $100 on each ticket; that is, they will pay you back $100. Don't you see, Sir, that the company is protecting its passengers in doing thus? for they might have their money stolen from them before they arrived in California, and in doing this each passenger is sure to have at least $106 when they get there, and their return tickets." I had never thought of that, and at once I concluded that the managers of this excursion was Christians, and was looking out for the safety and welfare of their passengers ; so I very readily paid him the other $200 and took my tickets and also a card of the company's agents in San Francisco, which read, ' Dodgem, Skipem & Oppenheimer, brokers and dealers in Second hand Tickets, 1496 Oakland Street, San Francisco, Cal." After going down to Mr. Buzzbee's store and gaping around town about an hour, we went home to Buzzbee's, and I explained to Clarissa all about the ticket business. She didn't exactly see the Christian part in the ticket performance, unless it was to create faith in the honesty of a lot of men the public didn't know, and as faith was one of the principal elements of professional Christianity it might possibly have a distant connecting link between this company and Christianity, and it might not have. But inasmuch as we had bought the tickets we would go and not worry about it. After supper, we all went to the M. E. Church. I set next to Buzzbee. The church was filled in a short time, and a young man addressed the audience in regard to the object of the meeting. He was very enthusiastic on the subject of temperance, and said they wished to organize a new temperance society, and push the cause of temperance in every part of the city, and State and nation. He said the Rev. W. P. Waterhouse would offer prayer, after which we would listen to an address from one of Syracuse's brightest lights and noblest workers, the Mayor. KXI I K 1 I , .S I 153 The minister offered his prayer, but I didn't hear a word of it, (or ! couldn't help thinking about the mayor that was to speak, and wondered if it was the same mayor I met the night before. After prayer was over the mayor was introduced ; it was the same man, and he talked for about an hour on the evils of drinking, and even made reference to my country tavern bar-room, to show the degra- dation that strong drink was liable to bring a man down to, but never hinted a word about the fine genteel club-room. I was so HE BROUGHT HIS FOOT DOWN (IN BUZZBEE's CORNFIELD. confounded indignant at his mean hypocrisy that I brought my foot down with a heavy thug, right on Buzzbec's corn-field, and he almost fainted. I didn't much care, for his particular friend, the mayor, by every word that he was electrifying the audience with, to me was establishing him as a grand rascal and unmitigated liar, and Buzzbee and the " leading merchants, doctors, lawyers and politicians " knew it. 154 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN*S When we went home to Buzzbee's, I was so mad I couldn't act decent. Buzzbee said, " Uncle Benjamin, you haint used to it. After you have lived in a city a few years you won't notice any. thing of that kind. You'll find that the lawyer pleads cases at the bar, not for the sake of the client, but for pay ; it is his profession. The doctor visits his patient, not because he considers it his Chris- tian duty to cure the invalid, but for pay ; it is his profession. The minister that preaches two long sermons every Sunday, and visits and smiles and shakes hands six days in the week, doesn't do it be- cause he thinks the Almighty will destroy him if he doesn't, but for the pay. The larger the pay the louder the call to 'go preach;* it is his profession, and the man that delivers temperance lectures doesn't do so because he thinks ' his Satanic majesty will call him on a blind ' if he takes a drink, but for the pay; it is his profession. And when a city mayor makes a temperance speech one night and treats the leading citizens in the club room the next night, you can calculate he is acting strictly professional. '' Uncle Ben, come and see us when you get back from Califor nia and let us know if you find any one else that you think is as badly off as our mayor." I kinder got over my huff, talked more pleasant-like until time to go for the train. They took us to the depot, we bid 'em good- by and we got aboard the train, which pulled into the depot about the time we drove up. EXPERIENCE WITH HYPOCRITES. 155 CHAPTER XV. entered a sleeping car for the first time in our lives. As we entered at the wash-room end of the car, a nigger met us and asked us for the number of our berth. I told him that was a delicate question for a nigger to put to a stranger, and as Clarissa was my second wife I didn't care to tell when either one of us was born, and furthermore, I didn't know that it was any of his business when we was born. " No, no," said he, " you don't understand. I am the porter in this car ; I take care of the car, make up the beds and assign the beds to the passengers according to the number on their berth ticket or bed ticket." " Oh," said I ; " well, why didn't you say so in the first place?" And I pulled out my $284 lot of tickets. He looked them over and said, " Your berth tickets are not with these." Said I, " That's all the agent give me." Said he, " He should have given you berth tickets." By this time the train was moving out of the depot, and it was too late for me to get it fixed there. I asked him what we should do. He said he had one upper and lower together left he oould let us have. " Well," said I, " let's have them, for I'm mighty tired." " Said he, *' They will cost you $3 a day as long as you occupy them." Said I, "What kind of a swindle is this, I'd like to know?" and pulled out the advertisement and sbowed it to him. He said it was I$6 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S no swindle. " The agent at Syracuse was at fault tor not giving you the sleeping-car tickets. You will have to pay me three dollars a day for the time you occupy them, and the last day I give you a draw-back check, which you will present to the company's agent in San Francisco, and they will pay you back the money you pay me." "Yes," said I, "that is another one of "the company's Christian acts." The nigger laughed, and said " 'twas his orders, and he had got to obey orders." Well, it was no use in quarreling with the nig- ger, and we was disturbing the passengers that had gone to bed, so- I paid him three dollars, and went to find our beds. He took us to the other end of the car, and gave us what he called section one. Clarissa said she preferred to sleep down stairs, so I had to go ur> chamber to get to my bed. Things was terrible awkward to me. I couldn't find a boot-jack, and I had to work a good while to get my new boots off, they was so darned stiff around the instep. When I got them off I threw them under Clarissa's bed, then I climbed up a short ladder, and got hold of a rod and sprained my back con- siderable, and then I had the darndest time getting my breeches off I ever had, and when I got them off I didn't know where to put 'em; finally I put them into bed with me, and held them in my arms so no one would get my pocketbook without waking me up. I got to bed after awhile, and was just getting into a" drowse, when the feller that slept in the next room to me broke out in the most horri- ble fit of snoring I ever heard in my life, and kept it up for more than two hours; then I got to sleep. I woke up in the morning, and the nigger (I suppose it will sound better to say porter) called out " Buffalo." I got up, and had a worse time in getting my breeches on than I had in getting them off, and then I called for the ladder, but I couldn't get neither the nigger nor ladder, so I had to hang my. self to the curtain-rod and fall down. Clarissa had got up and dressed before I came down stairs, and was in t'other end of the car, washing and combing. I hunted for my boots, found them all pol- ished up so you could see your face in them ; I wondered who done it. UNCLE BEN GOES UP CHAMBER TO BED. Just then the porter came along and wanted to brush me off. When he got through, he said, " A quarter, if you please." "What for?" said 1. " For shining them brogans," said he. "Oh, yes, certainly ; I forgot that," said i. " I haint got used to the city nor the customs of a sleeping-car yet," and handed him a quarter, with the remark, " I suppose I'll get this back from the > ,i a LL j i " MISTER, WONT YOU BUY A. MORNING PAPER?" company's agent at San Francisco? ' " Certainly," said he. I then asked the porter (whom I began to reverence by this time as a part- ner of the president of the road) how much it would cost me to wash and wipe in that wash-room and look in that fine glass. " Oh," said he, " nothing ; that is free." I breathed a sigh of relief, and said, " Young man of auburn complexion, that is one thing that the com- pany's agents at San Francisco don't pay back, does it ?" ' What?" 160 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN*S said he. " Why," said I, " the amount required for washing- and wiping and looking in the glass, nothing." We had got into the depot at Buffalo, and came to a full stop. I had washed and wiped, and was ready for breakfast, and Clarissa had done the same. We felt as though we'd like to step out and look around Buffalo a little. I asked the porter how long we staid there, and he said twenty minutes. I asked him where we could get breakfast. He said we would have breakfast in the dining-car about half an hour after we left Buffalo \_ but if 1 was hungry, I could get a very nice lunch in the eating-house, on the right-hand side of the depot, and pointed it out to us. Clarissa said we had better eat our meals on the cars, as they was to be included in our tickets, and she kind of wanted to see how they managed to set a table on the cars, and cook and wash dishes, so I concluded not to go into the eating- house, as Clarissa had settled it. It wasn't much satisfaction in trying to see Buffalo in twenty minutes ; we only got a chance to go on one side of the depot and look out of the door a minute, when we would hear an engine-bell ring, and thinking it was our train starting, we would rush back to the train, only to find that it was some other engine going through the depot. Then we went on t'other side and looked out of the door a minute, and heard another bell ringing, and back we rushed to the train, only to find we was fooled again. We concluded we would walk up and down the platform, close to the train, so we wouldn't get left. A few minutes passed, when the conductor yelled out, " All aboard ! " and we made a rush for the car, and obeyed the conductor's orders. I don't suppose I have got a very correct idea of Buffalo, although I can say, if any one asks me if I have been there, that I have. While I was walking on the sidewalk outside the depot, a little boy with a pair of bright eyes and a dirty face, clothed in rags, came along with a lot of papers under his arm, and said, " Mister, won't you buy a morning paper ? " EXl'Kl: .1111 HYPOCRITES. l6l "How much be they." said I. " Five cents," he replied. I didn't care for the paper, altnough Clarissa said she would Jike one, but I thought that there was a bright, honest little boy, no doubt earning what he could to take care of a poor, sick mother or crip- pled father, or perhaps both, and it was a Christian and neighborly act to help him, so I said, " Yes, I'll take one, and pulled out a two- dollar bill and gave him, and he counted back the change to me^ one dollar and ninety-five cents. I gave him an extra five cents, and told him he was a nice little bub, and put the change in my vest pocket. He seemed to be wonderfully pleased, while I thought to my. self, " How much more blessed it is to give than to receive." The great mass of people don't exactly understand this giving business. If they are asked to give something to a charitable cause they are a long time pulling out their pocketbook, and when they get it out they make a horrible face, and feel as though they was about to have an arm amputated. Now, in such cases, what they give does 'em no good in fact, it does them a positive injury, because they have violated the true principle of giving they have, in fact, given nothing, but simply undergone the operation of squeezing. A gift should come from the heart, and when it does the reaction on the feelings of the giver is worth more than the amount of money handed to the applicant. He has a calm and peaceful mood onto him that seems to pat him on the back and say, " Good feller ; you'll pass in." I had this kind of feeling come all over me, first commencing at my toes and gradually creeping up over my visible person, end- ing on the topmost spire that towers aloft from the summit of ven- eration bump that surmounts my upper deck, when I gave that extra nickel to that honest little newsboy. And I thought to myself " Why can't folks, when they contribute anything instead of acting so all-fired stingy about it, thereby shutting out the Comforting angel 1 62 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S of satisfaction, give the amount of their donation with a free and pleasant spirit, and have that same happyf ying feeling I have referred to, roost upon their crowning spires?" The widow's mite was a blessing to her, not on account of the " BREAKFAST IS NOW READY IN THE DINING CAR FORWARD." "large amount of property it represented, but the true spirit that prompted the gift. We had been gone about twenty miles from Buffalo, when a big, fat nigger, with a white roundabout and apron, hollowing like a boss at a barn-raising, '' Breakfast is now ready in the dining-car, forward !" EXPERIENCE WITH HYPOCRITES. 163 CHAPTER XVI. WE followed the other passengers (who seemed to be better posted than we was) into the dining-car. They give us a seat, and handed me a tract to read. I handed it to Clarissa, and told her I was too hungry to read tracts I'd read it after break- fast. The waiter said it wasn't a tract, but a bill of fare for me to order my breakfast from. "Oh! "said I," I didn't know that. Well, never mind that now ; Clarissa can get her breakfast out of it if she wants to, but you can just bring me a good, square breakfast. Any good, common vict- uals, such as you use every day, will do me. I don't want you to put yourselves out on my account ; only bring me enough of it, for I am pretty hungry." Clarissa read every word of her bill of fare, and then said she didn't exactly understand all of it, but she would take "beefsteak with toadstools, and some chicken a la fricka with cran- berry sass, and some some some pancakes a la say ! waiter, what is that other word?" "Francaise; it means French style." " Oh, yes," said Clarissa, " I know what it means, but my eyesight is a little poor, and I couldn't quite make out the word ; well, I'll take some of them, and some of that stuff there (pointing the waiter to another word that her eyesight was too poor to make out), and some coffee, and I guess that's all," and the waiter started for the other end of the car, where they do the cooking. After he had gone, I said to Clarissa, " What did you pretend to that nigger you understood that stuff you read, when you didn't know what it meant any more than I know Greek?" 164 SHAMS; OK, UNCLE BEN*S " Well, Benjamin," said she, " what is the use of my confessing I was ignorant to that waiter, when I could just as well lay it onto my eyes as not?" " Well, in the first place, that is shamming in a small way, and you despise that kind of business as much as I do, and then you don't fool the nigger a mite, for he knows you don't know anything about French, and it b/ings you down even in the estimation of the nigger, for he 11 know you are pretending to know something you don't know." The car was beautiful inside ; looking-glasses all around, every- thing nice. While they was getting our breakfast ready, the land- lord of the car handed us a plate of grapes and oranges, and they was first-rate. Pretty soon the waiter came with our breakfast. Clarissa got her bill of fare breakfast, and I got a good, square breakfast. Mine was better than her'n, for there was more of it. I got some good pancakes, and I'll be blamed if I could see any differ- ence between them and her pancakes a la Francaise. We had a might}' good breakfast, and told the landlord he set a good table, and started to go back to our car, when he said I hadn't paid for my breakfast. I told him I guessed I had ; I pulled out my tickets and showed them to him, and then I pulled out the ad- vertisement of the company, and showed it to him. He smiled, and said that the company would no doubt do as they agreed to, but that the dining-car was run by an independent com- pany, and not by the excursion company ; that I had no ticket among those I bought in Syracuse that entitled us to meals ; that I would have to pay him for what meals I got, and he would give me draw-back checks for each meal paid for, and when I got to San Francisco I could present them at the company's office there and have the money all refunded. " Yes, just so," said I ; " this is another Christian act. Well, here is your money," at the same time getting the change out of my vest pocket that the poor little newsboy gave me in Buffalo. " How much is it?" said I. KXI'KKIKNCK WITH HYI'dCRITES. 165 He said it was seventy-five cents apiece. " \Vhcw ! " said I, " it's a good breakfast, but it's a dumb big price for it." I handed him the change a one-dollar piece and a fifty-cent piece. He examined them closely, and then threw them on the table, and handed them back to me, saying, " Those are both counterfeit, sir good for nothing." I was perfectly dumbfounded, and explained to the landlord how I got them. He said he had no doubt of the truth of my state- ment ; that it was an everyday occurrence at that depot. I asked him if they didn't have policemen at the depot in Buffalo. "Oh yes," he said. "Well, then," said I, "why don't they arrest them little villains?" " Because," said he, " they get part of the swag." I paid him good money for our breakfast, and went to our car. When I get back to Buffalo I am going to have that little scamp arrested, if it takes me a week. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if he wasn't some relative of Jim Teeters'. When we got back to our car they had got the beds all put out of sight somewhere, but I couldn't see where they went to, and the car looked fine. We got nicely seated and Clarissa had adjusted her gold-bowed specs, preparatory to reading that one-month-olcl paper I bought of that little villain, when an old gentleman sitting in the seat right in front of us turned round, and with a voice that sounded like wind blowing through an ivory fine-comb put up against a hole in a window-glass, said, "Good-morning; it's a fine day. Are you going very far out this way?" I replied that we intended to go as far as the lay of the land and the contingent fund would allow us. In other words, the Pa- cific Ocean was our present boundary, geographically speaking, and a reasonable purse our financial limit; and unless the Ketchum, Holdem & Skinem Company didn't rob us of every dollar I had, 1 66 SHAMS ; OR, UNCLE BEN'S that me and wife Clarissa (pointing to her at the same time), intend to pillow our heads on the sunny coast of the great Pacific, and see if our dreams will be like the old forty-niners ; that we are engaged in the occupation of picking gold dollars off the bushes, and loading them into ships to be transported back to the land of their nativity. " Well, I am glad you are going out there, for that's just where I am going, too," said he. " I supposed so," I replied, " and I suppose all the passengers on this train are bound for the same place California." The old gentleman had a long, narrow, rounding face, large, gray eyes, a large, crooked nose, the end of which swelled out like THE OLD INQUISITOR. a feeding-bottle, and was ornamented on the left side with a huge seed-wart. His complexion was between a carroty and a strawberry color, and his face was surrounded by a deep fringe of white whis- kers, Horace Greeley style. He skewed himself around in the seat, so he could get a good look at us, and opened out the following conversation : " I've got a son and two sons-in-law living out in that country, EXPERIENCE WITH HYPOCRIT1 l6/ and J haint seen 'em for a long time, and when I found out this excur- sion was going to take folks through to California so cheap, I thought I'd better go out and see the chidren once more before I died. Ypu see, I'm getting pretty well along in years; I'll be sev- enty-seven years old if I live to see a year from the 3istof next May. I live in Vermont, up in Windham County, and I was down to Albany visiting my wife's brother, when I heard of this excursion, and concluded I'd go, so I wrote up home to my son Thomas, who is running my farm, to sell off half a dozen cows and an old kicking mare I have been wanting to sell for a good while, and send me the money, as I was going to California. " I got the money last Saturday, and now I'm on the way there, but I'll be goll-darned if I can see through this scheme of charging us a hundred dollars extra for our tickets, and then give us a draw- back check, can you ?" I said I didn't at first, but the agent at Syracuse explained it to me, and under his explanation (which I gave to the old gentleman) I thought it was a Christian act ; however, since we got aboard of this train I have seriously doubted the Christian motive, and I am inclined to think it is a sort of " an s. s. arrangement." " ' An s. s. arrangement?' " said he. " What is that ?" I told him it was a "soft snap" for the K., H. & S. Company; however, we could tell better when we got through. I found we had got a very inquisitive neighbor. lu two straight hours he had told us his entire family history and given us the line of his pedigree as far back as he could get, and then he began a series of questions with a view to investigating my record and etcet- era, but I declined to be put into the witness box. Clarissa got him engaged in a argument on the temperance question. Somehow or other she thought she could see behind that red face and bottle nose a whole distillery, and she just fired shot after shot of good sound temperance logic at him, and got the best of him every time, and completely downed him. He took his little satchel and went l68 SHAMS; OK, UNCLE BEN'S into the men's wash-room end of the car, and in a few minutes returned, and his breath smelled as though he had opened a door to a country tavern. Across the aisle, at the other end of the car, four gentlemen had got a table put up between them and was play- ing cards. They seemed to enjoy themselves very much, and seemed to be pretty smart men. I always supposed that no one but gamblers played cards, but I have learned in the few days I have been away from home that real good ladies and gentlemen play cards for amusement. Clarissa's cousins, the Buzzbees, at Syra- cuse played cards, and they belong to the Methodist Church. I told Clarissa I was going to learn to play, and then I would learn her how to play, and we could have considerable sport evenings and other times when we hadn't got anything else to do. Clarissa said she hadn't a mite of objection to my learning to play cards if I wanted tOj but as for her, she hadn't got any time to fool with cards, for she had more reading on hand than she could manage to attend to. I went over where they was playing and said "Gentlemen, I don't want to be impolite, but I would kinder like to watch you play, if you have no objection." " Certainly not," they responded ; and one of them very politely offered me his hand and place in the game. I thanked him, and told him that I didn't know one card from another, and never tried to play any game with them. That my name was Benjamin Morgan, from Morganville, Blank County, State of New York ; that 1 never traveled any ; never was forty miles away from home before this trip in all my life ; that me and my wife had been tolerable saving in our lives, and had got quite a little ahead and thought we would take a trip to California and around the country some. I had made up my mind to learn what I could, and I was going to learn how to play cards so we could have a little amusement to home with the children and neighbors. One of the gentlemen, a very nice-looking fellow, and dressed MTH HYPOCKIT1 169 real nice and who I judged must be pretty well off, as he had an elegant gold watch and chain, says : " Here Uncle Benjamin." "That's right! that's right!" said I. "Where did you eversee me before? I don't remember of ever meeting you before." He replied that he had never met me before, and wanted to know why I thought he had. " 'Cause," said I, "every one calls me Uncle Ben at home, and I didn't know how you knew my name was Uncle." " Oh," says he, "that's nothing. Whenever I meet a man that I can see at the first glance is an honest man, plain, frank and generous, unsuspecting, unassuming, and that can't play the part of a hypocrite because he is so honest by nature that he thoroughly despises hy- pocrisy, I always call him Uncle. I do so as a compliment, and that brings him into the closest relationship to me that it is possible, without including him in the direct family line. And as I saw by the first glance that you were such a noble, true man, I could not re- sist the desire to call you Uncle. I hope you are not offended ?" " No sir," I replied, " not at all. I thank you for the compli- ment." " Well, then, Uncle Benjamin, I have no doubt you are on your way, like all the rest of us, to California?" I informed him that that was my destiny. " Well, it's a long trip, and we might as well all get acquainted and enjoy ourselves." I told him I fully acquarificated in his views of the situation. " Now," says he, "you just sit down here in my place and I'll 7earn you how to play." So I sat down in his seat. " Mr. Morgan," said he, "my name is Richard Smooth ; I am from Providence." " Is that so?" said I, and I jumped up and clasped his hand in a most cordial manner, and then I examined his hand very closely. Said he, ' Uncle Benjamin, what do you find so peculiar about my hand?" "Nothin* in particular, only I've heard George Waddles and the SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S other Methodists down in our village say so much about the hand of Providence. .If anybody dies around there, the ' hand of Provi- dence* has something to do with it. If anybody prospers, the ' hand of Providence' has blessed the prosperous party, and I have always had a strong desire to see the ' hand of Providence,' but of all places I should look for it, the last place would be on an excursion train, managed and operated by the Holdem, Ketchem and Skinem Com- pany, but here I've found it, and now I hold in my hand ttxt'handof t THE " HAND OF PROVIDENCE." Providence' It looks just like anybody's hand, but it's awful smooth and soft." " Uncle Benjamin," he said, " don't get the wrong impression. The hand of Providence the Methodists down in your village refer to belongs to another party entirely ; he is from another Provi- dence. I'm from Providence, Rhode Island. The party your Meth- odist friends refer to, has never even visited the city I am from." You can imagine my great disappointment in having all those KXl'KKIKNVF, WITH HYPOCRIT1 17! bright fancies and delights that was for the moment dancing in my heart, and holding high carnival within its realm, suddenly dashed to pieces by the real owner of that*section of human anatomy I was at that moment clinging to. I felt myself relax into a withering and lifeless piece of clay. However, I regained my usual calm habit in a few minutes, when I asked his pardon for my ignorance, and as- sured him I meant all right. He then introduced me to the other gentlemen, as Dr. Montee, of New York City, Thomas Three, of Lowell, Massachusetts, nephew of B. B., and Jackson Kard, of Montreal, Canada, a very successful speculator. Who would ever have dreamed that the plain, homespun Benjamin Morgan, of Mor- ganville, Blank County, New York, who less than a week ago was stripping ten cows and a heifer every night and morning, was now sitting in a elegant palace car in company with four highly educa- ted and polished gentlemen from different States and nations, Messrs. Smooth, Three, Kard and Montee, and the gentleman from Providence trying to learn me the mysterious and highly interesting art of playing cards. He proceeded to inform me that the game they was playing at that time, was Seven-up, or what used to be called Old Sledge. " Now, uncle Benjamin, they will deal off six cards apiece and as you are the first player at the left hand of the dealer, you have the privilege of begging, if the trump don't suit you, or standing your hand if it does suit you. Well, there ! don't you see he has turned a spade ; now spades are trumps, and you have got a good hand ; there is the ace, the king, the jack and deuce; you want to stand your hand ; you will make four times on that hand ;" and so he went on, trying to learn me the game, but I couldn't get a mite of head or tail to it. " I am too stupid to ever learn this game," said I, " and I am just spoiling the game for the rest of you, and I'll get up.'' " No, no ! Uncle Benjamin, you are doing splendid. I never saw a beginner do so well; did you, boys?" said Mr. Smooth, and all joined in the chorus, "No, never. He has beaten us this game, already." And I was just big enough fool to keep 172 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S on trying to learn. But the more I tried, the more I became dis- gusted with it, and Dr. Montee said, if Mr. Morgan didn't care to play any longer they ought not to insist. " Oh ! certainly not," they all responded, and we quit just as the same nigger come through the car, hollering, "Dinner is now ready in the dining car, forward," I took Clarissa to dinner and I told her all about these nice gentle- men, and she shook her head and said, " Benjamin, you had better let them men alone ; there is something, I don't know what it is, but something or other tells me that they don't mean you any good, and I'd advise you to have nothing to do with them." EXPERIENCE WITH HYPOCRITES. 173 CHAPTER XVII. ; E had a fine dinner, and as I had to pay seventy-five cents, I concluded I'd eat all I could at dinner, then I wouldn't get any supper, and in that way I would save seventy-five cents. Things went on the usual way ; we had a splendid dinner. I tried the bill of fare arrangements, but I confess I don't like that way of getting my victuals. I'd rather have 'em bring me the best they have got in the house, without a bill of fare, than to spend twenty minutes or half an hour in trying to find the best they've got, and then run a risk of getting fooled on a good share of it that I can't fully understand. I may get used to it before we get home. While we was eating dinner, Clarissa and I talked together considerable, and she kept an eye on those four new acquaintances of mine. When we went back to our car, she said she believed them fellowe was sharpers. "Oh! no," says I, "they are all fine gentlemen. That fellow there, sitting next to the window, with that large red moustache, is Dr. Montee of New York City, and that gentleman with a gray moustache and keen, black eye, sitting in the same seat with the Doctor, is Judge Three, of Lowell, Massachusetts, and that fellow with his back to us, is Jackson Kard, from, Montreal, Canada." Just at this moment Mr. Smooth approached me, saying, " Uncle Benjamin, wouldn't you like to join us in a social game of cards? I'll learn you a new game." Says I, " Mr. Smooth, let me make you acquainted with my wife, Clarissa." 174 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S Mr. Smooth was very polite, and done his level best to make himself agreeable to Clarissa, but she acted very cold, almost frigid. I was ashamed of her, but Mr. Smooth didn't seem to mind it a par- ticle. He settled down into the seat in front of us, and began talk- ing to that wife of mine just as if he had known her forever, and finally he got her interested in talking history. He seemed to know something of everything ; he was a regular walking, talking and acting encyclopedia. While Mr. Smooth was entertaining Clarissa, Dr. Montee mo- "SHE ACTED VERY' COLD, ALMOST FRIGID." tioned with his hand for me to come over to his seat. I done so, and the Doctor become very interesting to me. He was telling about his travels in this, that and the other country. Presently Mr. Smooth returned to his friends and said, " Mr. Morgan, wouldn't you like to learn another game of cards ? .We can learn you a very simple game, the easiest learned of any game with cards. It is called ' Poker,' " and he went on to explain it all to me. He showed me how four aces could beat anything, and how four kings could beat four queens, and four queens could beat four jacks and so on, and that three of a kind could beat two A nil HYPOCRI1 i 1/5 and a flush could beat threes, and a full hand could beat a flush, etc., etc. I thought I could see into that right away. After I thought I could understand it pretty well, Jackson Kard proposed that we try our luck on a few games. " Well," said I, "if Mr. Smooth will stand by and assist me, 1 don't mind if I try a few games." It was my turn to deal. I dealt 'em all round. Judge Three, my left hand neighbor, said : " I'll anty one dollar, call two dollars." Said I, "What do you mean about bringing your aunt into this game lor one, two or any number of dollars ? What has she got to do with this game any way?" I begun to feel a little indignant, but Mr. Smooth explained it all to me so I understood it all right. After they all got around and called for what new cards they wanted to fill their hands with, I didn'.t bet anything, for I didn't have a very good hand, but when the other fellows dealt I got first rate good hands, and I won several small bets of five or ten or fifteen dollars, and once or twice I lost a little. Pretty soon, when Dr. Montee was dealing, he dealt me four aces and a queen. When Mr. Smooth saw my hand, he whispered to me that I had the best hand it was possible to get, and to just make a heavy bet, for I would surely win. So I said, " I'd bet $100." Dr. Montee said, " I'll see you and raise you fifty." Smooth whispered to me to see him and raise him fifty more, that would be $200. I done as Smooth thought best, as he was my assistant. I thought if I could win a couple of hundred dollars from some fellows that was determined to lose it any way, it would kinder make me even in case the H., K. & S. Com- pany's agent in San Francisco should try to beat me, so I said, " I would raise the Doctor fifty more." The Doctor regretted he could not see me at $200, as $150 was all the change he had. Most of his money was in drafts on the Chemical Bank of New York. He always considers it safer to carry his money when taking long 176 SHAMS ; OR, UNCLE BEN'S trips like this, in drafts, which he could get cashed at any time at any of the banks. He produced one of his drafts ; it was for five hundred dollars. He said, " Mr. Morgan, if you have got that amount of currency about you, and will cash it for me, I'll meet you in your bet on $200." I thought it over, I thought it was just the same as money, and I was sure to win his $200. So I said, " Gentlemen, I don't know any- "BENJAM*N MORGAN, WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?" thing about it, whether the bank is good or not." " Oh, yes," they all responded, " that is the best bank in New York City. If you wish to accommodate the Doctor, we will indorse the draft with him." So I said, " Well, gentlemen, you indorse the draft and I'll give you the money for it." Just at that moment Clarissa (who had been watching us) came up where we was, and in a searching manner and a Major-General EXPERIENCE WITH HYPOCRITl 177 tone of voice, said : " Benjamin Morgan, what are you doing here ? What are you pulling your money out here in this manner for?" I explained to her what had been done, and what was about to be did. She said : " Well, you put your money in your pocket, and let that piece of paper alone, and let these men alone, and come along with me to our seat." I said, " Gentlemen, I am sorry to disappoint you, and sorry 1 couldn't play this hand out, for you can all see I would have won it (at the same time showing my hand by throwing it on the table), but when my wife Clarissa speaks in that manner, it settles it be- yond any question, and all further debate is unnecessary." I left 'em and went to my seat with my garden angel, as she proved to be on this as on former occasions. She told me after we was seated in our own bedroom end of the car, that them fellows was all regular gamblers and blacklegs, and that Smooth was the leader of the gang, that the draft I was about to give them five hundred dollars for was worthless, altogether likely a forgery, and by my getting my money out before them exposed what I had, and if they had got the $500 they would get the rest before they left me. " Now, you mark my word they'll get that money from you yet, unless you keep away from 'em." I told her I wouldn't play cards with 'em any more, and I'd be dumbed if I'd play another card if that was the kind of company it got me into, but I couldn't believe them fellows was rascals. I had, in a long pocketbook that I carried in the inside pocket of my coat, $1,150. I knew just the amount, as I counted it all over at Buzzbee's house in Syracuse, when I was putting on my breeches. I got one gallus on, and just happened to think that I'd better fix my money and know just how much I had ; and I didn't wait to hitch up 'tother gallus, but counted over and put $1,150 in this book. It was a new one that I bought the day before in a store on Salina street. My old one was about wore out and not much account, and I kept $300 in my old book that I carried iu my breeches pocket. 178 SHAMS ; OR, UNCLE BEN\S While Clarissa was talking to me she noticed that there was a button coming off my new coat and a place under the sleeve where it was ripped about three inches. So she says : " Benjamin, if you'll take off your coat I'll mend that before it gets so dark I can't see." She got a spool of thread and a thimble out of her pocket while I pulled off my coat. " Oh say, Benjamin,' 1 said she, " did you buy that paper of 14 1 DIDN'T WAIT TO HITCH UP T'OTHER CALLUS." needles for me that I asked you to in Syracuse? I forgot to ask you for 'em before." " Yes," said I, " here they be, I think," and I pulled out my old pockethook and handed it to her, and said I put them there. I thougni I'd go and wash while she was fixing my coat, as it was pretty nigh supper time. When I had finished my toilet operations and returned to my seat, Clarissa had the coat all mended and held it up for me to put F. WITH in 179 on, and gave me the pocketbook, which I shoved down my right hand breeches pocket, where I always carry it. We was now approaching Cleveland. Mr. Smooth came to me and in a very polite way asked me if I wouldn't like to take a walk around the depot a few minutes, as the train would remain there twenty or thirty minutes. I felt kind o' tired of being boxed up in that car all day, and just wanted a chance to get out a little while, and said, " If Clarissa is willing, I'll go along with you." Clarissa said she didn't care, but she wanted me to remember what she told inc. " All right," I told her. \Vc had at this time arrived in the depot, and I joined company with the four fine gentlemen for a walk around the building. Pretty soon we saw a big crowd around the ticket window, and some one was talking terrible loud, and it looked as if there was going to be a big fight. All the gentlemen said, " Let's hurry up and see the fun." So I rushed up with the rest of them, and in less than two minutes I was jammed right into the middle of the crowd. I couldn't get out, for the crowd kept getting bigger and bigger every minute. My friends and I got scattered, and when I got out of that crowd our conductor was hollering, " All Aboard!" I made quick time for the train and got on the steps just as the train was moving. There stood Clarissa on the platform, looking pale and trembling. I asked her what was the matter. She said, " Oh, Benjamin, I have been so anxious for your safety that I'm all unstrung. I watched you from the moment you left the car until I lost sight of you in that horrible crowd. I was so afraid something would happen to you, or you'd get left !" " Well, I'll be dumbed if I wasn't afraid I'd get left. I never was caught in such a jam as that before, and I never intend to be again." Says she, " Where are your friends?" "Goll dumb it," said I, " I'll bet a cent they are right in that crowd now and can't get out. Now that's too darned bad." I hoi- i8o SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S lered to the conductor and asked him if he wouldn't stop the train and back up to the depot that those four gentlemen was left. Said he, " Do you mean those four fellows you was playin' cards with ?" 4 Yes," said I. "Oh, well, don't worry about them ; they didn't intend to go any further. Their tickets was'for Cleveland." " Well, but they told me they was on their way to California, and was glad I was going along so they could have my company." "ALL ABOARD!" " Well, sir, that gang have been on their way to California for the last half dozen years, but the}' never get any nearer California than Chicago, nor much further from that golden State than Buf- falo. I have no doubt they was glad of your company ; they are quite a lonesome class of fellows always trying to make new ac- quaintances. Generally they pick farmers. The more honest the farmers seem to be, the more readily do they select them for ac- quaintance." KXI'KI MTH HYI'OCKITI l8l 44 Well, I'd like to know how they can tell farmers from anybody else on the train ?" The conductor smiled and said : " That is a puzzler. I can't exactly explain the art, but somehow or other anybody that has traveled much can pick a farmer out on a train of cars every time. I don't know how it's done, unless it's because they pick the honest looking ones. But my friend, I haven't time to talk with you any longer, as I have a heavy train to look after. You may discover why those fine gentlemen didn't get on again." Supper was called for the dining car, and although I thought I would make a big dinner do for supper also, I was just as hungry as if I hadn't had dinner. So we went to supper. We gave our orders for supper, and while the waiter .was gone Clarissa and I talked about what had happened, and I asked her if she could un- derstand it, She replied with an expression of pity behind a veil of sarcasm : " Benjamin, I admire your honesty, but I am getting pretty tired of your simplicity. I knew you was a honest and well-mean- ing man when I married you, and I thought in time you might learn something, and that after a while I might be proud of you. Some- times I think I am, and sometimes I know I aint. Ever since we left Syracuse you have acted foolisher and foolisher. I thought I'd let you go and have your own way, and would have done so had I not seen you in the act of giving away our money, and also doing still worse, trying to get their money from them just because they cal- culated wrong on some cards. Then I thought it was the duty a wife owed to her weaker half to save him from loss of money, and from the temptation the Devil always holds out, Money ! Money ! to take you away from them. " I don't think it would take much to pick you out. the way you have been acting to-day. Now, I want you to steady down and act like a man becoming one of your years." The waiter had already spread a delicious supper before us ; we had supplied the cravings 182 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S of our appetite and arose from the table. I put my hand into my right hand breeches pocket, to get my money to pay for our sup- per, and my pocketbook was gone. I felt in t'other breeches pocket but it wasn't there, then I felt for my long pocketbook in my coat pocket and it was gone. I felt in every pocket I had, but not a sign of either pocketbook. " Clarissa," said I, in great excitement, " I've been robbed ! I've been stolen ! I've been waylaid ! I've been murdered ! No, no, not murdered, but everything else ; what shall I do? I haven't got a dollar, nor a ticket of any kind, nor a drawback check of any kind ; they were all in them two pocketbooks," and trembling like a poplar leaf in a September gale I sank into a seat and was about to faint away, when the conductor came along and inquired what was the matter. They told him, and he said he thought I'd find out why the four fine gentlemen didn't get on again at Cleveland. That made me a little mad, and I spunked up some. Clarissa paid for the supper out of some of her private money. I told the conductoi I didn't know what to do, for my tickets was gone, and I hadn't got a dollar to get back with. The conductor said he would carry us through to Chicago any way, and then I could telegraph home for money. We went back to our car ; Clarissa didn't seem to worry a mite, but seemed to enjoy my discomfort. I said to her that we would have to get back home, some way, from Chicago. She plainly said in a cold and unsympathizing voice, that if I wanted to go back to Morganville and be the laughing stock of that whole country I could go, but she wouldn't go one step back until she had pillowed her head in California and dreamt her dream. I asked her if she meant what she said. She informed me in a very decided manner that she did ; when I saw there was no room for doubt, I asked her how she expected to get through ? She said she knew several rich folks in Chicago, and she intended to stop there two or three weeks and visit, and she would borrow enough from them to take her through NOT A SIGN OF EITHKR TUCKET BOOK. 185 if necessary. I ' borrow enough !tc could. I if some one iv minu; into fragments. I told Clarissa I didn't know where to-night as I hadn't got enough to pay for my lodging nor h it was good enough for me, it might learn me th< me in Syracuse, vix., '* to keep my mouth shut and eyes :n, and know where my pocket book was. Them fellows played you for a S. S. and took you in." She kept on torturing my half-crazed brain with such cold remarks, and even went so far as to ask me if I didn't want to exchange photographs with my highly educated friends, Smooth, Three, Kard and Montee, and take their address. I told her that I should be highly pleased just at the present time to have their pho- tographs and address ; I thought I could make good use of them. She said she had got money enough to pay for our beds, and we would be in Chicago in the morning, and for me to go up stairs to bed and go to sleep, and perhaps in the morning I'd know some- thing. I always knew her superiority over me in point of intellect and perception, but never before did I have that complete feeling that she was the master and I the under dog, I went to bed accord- ing to her orders, but I didn't go to sleep according to her orders. I never slept a wink all night. The whole experience of the day and evening passed before me like a great panorama; there it was all painted out; the car, the old inquisitor, the four gentlemen, the slick Mr. Smooth and the mistaken " hand of Providence," the game of seven up, the simple but very interesting game of poker, the bets, the hand of four aces and a queen, the bet of $100, the of fifty, my raise back, the draft for five hundred dollars, Clar- issa's timely interference, the exposure of my money, the invitation to walk in the Cleveland depot, the walk, the crowd, the horrible jam 1 was in, the close connection made with the moving train, the interview with the conductor, the episode at the supper table, Clar- 1 86 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEITS issa as my master and I obeying her orders, and now tumbling and rolling on an attic bed trying to do what it was impossible for me to do, sleep. All this moved by me under the glare of a strong electric light, in less time than it takes to tell it, and then passed backward under a red light, then back again under a green light, and again it rolled by under a blue light, when I spoke out so loud as to wake Clarissa up and said, " Damn that panorama." Clarissa spoke up and said, " Benjamin, you let the panorama alone and go to sleep ; it ain't a panorama, any way ; it's my curtain you are shoving one way and another." After what seemed to me a month's time had elapsed, day- light broke the horrid, dismal night, and I climbed down and washed up. As I finished, we was pulling into Chicago. It seemed to me we was over an hour from the time we got to where the houses was thick till we got into the depot. In the frenzied condition ot my mind, I wrote the following ode to myself. 1 wrote it on the starched part of my shirt bosom : " Benjamin Morgan is a big fool, To allow himself to be a tool For gamblers and thieves, himself to plunder ; Better always to have staid at hum, Than to go away on such a bum.' WITH H 187 CHAPTER XVIII. had left the train and was standing in the great depot of ' the great Lake Shore & Rock Island Railroad, in the very ' heart of the great city of Chicago. Like the babes in the woods, we didn't exactly know which way to go, and I didn't care much which way I went. All I wanted just then, was to go home and stay there, and let them travel and see the world that wanted to. For my part, I had had enough of it. Of course we couldn't stay there. So Clarissa said we'd go to the Palmer House. She had read a great deal about it, and , c he al- ways wanted to see it, and we would stay there one day, and she would inquire of Mr. Palmer where her friends lived, and then hunt them up. So we followed the crowd along to the door on the ric;lit hand side, where we saw a policeman, or we supposed he was, as he was dressed in uniformity. We asked him if he could show us where the Palmer House was. He told us to take the second bus (pointing to it), and it would take us there. We got into the bus, but before they would take us a foot, we had to pay the fellow fifty cents apiece. Then the fellow started up and drove like fury up one street and down another, and around several more, and finally pulled up in front of a monstrous great big building, and it was the Palmer House. I never saw such a big building before in my life. There was a nigger standing at the door of the bus to take our thiii^- ; he had got Clarissa's umbrella and reticule and was just taking my valise, when I happened to think it wasn't locked, so I 188 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN's said, " Look here, Mr. African, please wait a minute, I guess I'll take care of that valise myself. He politely handed it to me and trotted along- ahead of us. I was looking up at the top of the portico where we was, seeing how awful pretty it was, and didn't notice the steps until I tumbled over the bottom one and fell my whole length on the entry floor. I got up spry and felt ashamed enough. Clarissa said, " Ben* "BENJAMIN, WHAT is THE MATTER WITH YOU?" jamin, what is the matter with you ? Why don't you look where you are stepping ? '* We went along into the end of the hall where the nigger give Clarissa a seat, and told me to go out into the office with him. She set down there while I went out around a big stairway into a mon- strous great big room, and up to a marble counter, behind which stood a smart looking young man with a pen in his hand, which he handed me, and shoved a book in front of me. WITH iivrorRm 189 I said, " Good-morning, Mr. Palmer. I don't want your pen; I merely come in to ask you if it would be convenient for you to keep me and my wife a day or two, or until she found some of her friends here." " Oh, certainly," he replied, " but you take this pen and register your names, so that we can assign you rooms." I shook my head noways, and said I'd go and see my wife first be- fore I put my name on the book. I went back where she was and told her how that it would be convenient for them to keep us, but that they wanted me to sign a big book, and I thought best to ask her opinion before signing. She said she would go with me and see what it was. So she went with me back to the counter in the office, and looked at the book. Then the smart looking young man, with a warm hearted smile, explained to Clarissa the object of our signing the book, and she said she guessed 'twas all right. So I wrote our names down, " Benjamin Morgan and Clarissa, Morganville, N. Y." The young man read the names over and said, " Mr. Morgan, this is your wife, I suppose ?" " You supposed right, the first time," said I, " I don't intend to go around the country with anybody else's wife, so long as I've got a good one of my own." He smiled and put down some figures behind my name, rung a bell on the counter, got a key out of a lot of boxes and handed it to a boy and said, "Show Mr. and Mrs. Morgan up to room 984." The boy started, saying, " Right this way, please," and took us right back to where Clarissa was sitting, and presently a little house came sliding down a big hole in the wall, a door slid open, and a lot of folks walked out, then a lot walked in, and the boy told us to walk in, which we did. Then the little door was slid shut, and our room begun to go up. We passed story after story, and I was a little un- easy, and I said to the nigger that had his hand on a rope, " When did you advertise this balloon ascension? I hadn't heard a word of it before. We was lucky to be here in time to go up in it. Where do you suppose the dumb thing will land ? I don't care much where, I9O SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S only I aint been to breakfast, and I don't want to have to walk too far before I get something to eat. ?< By this time it had reached the ninth floor, and the nigger laughed, and said the balloon had landed, and we could get off. The door slid open, and the little boy with our things in his hand led us down a long hall and turned to the left, and went down another long hall an awful ways, then turned to the left again, and went half- way down that hall and took us into a large room on the right-hand side. Said I, " Young boy, are we still in Chicago, or have we left the city?" "Yes, sir," said he, "you are still in Chicago, and still in the Palmer House ; you have not left the Palmer House since you first entered it." " Said I, " Young boy, I don't want to be imposed upon ; I don't want you to lie to me ; I can't believe that we are in the same tavern we first came into." The boy pointed to a card that was tacked on the door, and said, " Read that, if you think I am lying." We read it. It said, " Rules and Regulations of the Palmer House." I was satisfied the boy was truthful, and he was about to leave, when I asked him how we could find our way out to the office, and where the dining-room was, and when breakfast would be ready ? He told us breakfast was on now, and we could eat any time we wanted to. He showed us a little white button in the wall near the door, and told us when we was ready for breakfast to press on that little button, and a waiter would come to show us wherever we wanted to go,' and we shut the door and looked around the room. It was awful nice, but when we looked out of the window all we could see was the roofs of houses, and high, smoking chimneys ; as far as we could see, it was chimneys, roofs, and steeples. I set down while Clarissa done up her hair and changed her EXPERIENCE WITH HYPOCRITES. igi dress. I was blue as indigo. Clarissa could see by my dejected looks that I was feeling- dreadful, and that unless I had a change in spirits my two feet would soon be meandering toward the grave- yard. I have no doubt that my melancholical countenance aroused her pity, for she came and threw both her white arms around my neck, pushed my face up with her hands, and planted two lovely kisses right on my dry and withering lips, and she spoke in a most cunning and loving manner, and said, " Benjamin, don't feel so bad any longer; we'll go right on and finish our trip according to our original calculations, and will have a good time." " Yes," said I, " that's well enough to talk, but where is the money coming from to do it ? " Says she, " I've got $1,150 right there in that book (hand- ing to me my new long pocketbook, with the contents in it just as I had fixed it at Buzzbee's house), and here, rolled up in this paper, is 229 dollars and seventy-eight cents, and our tickets and drawback checks, the paper of needles, and all the other papers you had in your old pocketbook every penny is saved." I was completely dumbfounded. I jumped up and hugged her and kissed her forty times or less, then I wanted to know how it was. " Well," says she, " I was well satisfied that them fellows was scoundrels and was bent on getting your money away from you. I wanted you to learn a lesson, and was satisfied you had as good an opportunity to learn it then as you would ever have. I watched every move they and you made, and when you drew out your new long pocketbook I knew it had gone far enough. I then interfered and got you away from them. I got your coat to mend so I could slip out the new iong pocketbook and take care of it. I got your other pocketbook to get tne needles, and while you was in the wash room I took all the contents out of it, rolled them up in this paper, took some old newspaper and stuffed the pocketbook as full as usual and when you come in from the wash room I handed you the pock- 192 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BENS etbook, which you put into your pocket, and of which you was robbed last night by those rascals. I hope the lesson is one you wont forget, and you will be more careful in the future who you get ac- quainted with, and who you trust." I hugged and kissed her again, and said : " Clarissa, you dear old soul, you have always proved yourself to be my garden angel, and this is the strongest proof I have ever had of it. I know you are garden and garden and garden me continually, and no one on earth or in heaven ever had a more gardener angel than you have PALMER HOUSE. proved to be. And now, Clarissa, I have to confess my complete inability to take care of money. 1 confessed it to you after I got swindled in the hog business, and now I confess it again, and ask as a favor that you please take all the money and take care of it. Just give me each morning what amount you think I ought to have, and keep me from being swindled and robbed." i:\PKRIK.\CK WITH IIVTUCRIT; 193 She said she would, and si 1 out $8 and said I had better take that much as I would probably need considerable in go- in^ round the cifv. Mv countenance underwent a change from indigo blue to the hottest kind of red in less than five minutes. I could have danced a hornpipe if I'd a knowed how, and had Lank Stevens to fiddle and call off for me. Our joy having become permanently estab- lished over our sorrow, and our toilet being completed, I pushed the button, and presently a waiter boy come and I asked him to show us to our breakfast room. He done so, bidding us to lock our room and take the key to the office if we went out, so it wouldn't get lost. We went back the same way we come until we got to what I thought was a balloon, but which the}' told me was an elevator. We stepped inside the ele and slid down just as nice as butter in August till we got to the parlor floor, when the waiter led the way and we followed around through a magnificent hall, the floors of which was covered with thick velvet, the walls most beautifully painted in ar- tistic designs, solid marble panel work on the sides, elegant massive fireplaces, and the largest looking glasses I ever saw, and on the side of the hall opened a number of elegant parlors, of which we only caught glimpses while on our way to the dining hall. We were now ushered into the dining hall by a portly and fine specimen of the African race. He was dressed in the very height of fashion; white vest and claw-hammer broadcloth coat, white gloves. He was very polite, and gave us choice seats at the head of a great square table. Presently another gentleman from Africa, with Methodist minis- ter's clothes on, handed us a bill of fare. I was so busy looking at that room, the wonderful paintings overhead, and the great marble floor, and tremendous big looking glasses, that I didn't pay any at- tention to the bill of fare until the waiter whispered in my ear: " Say, Clover, what are hogs worth ?" Says I, " I sold mine to Jim Teeters for 3}^ cents, but the 194 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S dumb scamp cheated me, for they are worth 4 cents. But my name aint Clover. You're wrong. My name is Benjamin Morgan, from Morganville, Blank County, New York. How the deuce did you know I was a farmer?" The nigger laughed, and said, " By your honest countenance. But hadn't you better order your breakfast?" " Excuse me," said I. " Yes, just bring me a good hot break- fast anything you have a mind to, only have enough of it." He left and I showed Clarissa all the pretty pictures and things I saw, pointing out with my fork the most interesting points I dis- covered. The waiter returned in about half an hour with our break- fast, and my, it was good enough for a Vanderbilt or the Queen of England to set down to. Such a beefsteak I never tasted before. I asked him if Mrs. Palmer done the cooking in that house ? He said, " No." " Well," said I, " I didn't ask to be impudent, but whoever cooked this breakfast is a dumb fine cook, and could get two dollars a week any minute in our parts. I'd give her that my- self and send Mary off to school." The nigger grinned all over, and said he'd tell the cook, and per- haps he'd like to get a place with me, and went out a laughing. After breakfast we looked through the house some and went down to the office and inquired of the young man behind the counter where Clarissa's friends lived. She gave him the following names: " Carter Harrison, I used to go to school with him, and we used to have pretty good times, but he used to be dreadful big feeling ; and Mr. Van Pelt, Mr. N. G. Rosster, Mr. A. W. Kinney, Dr. Butler, Mr. G. H. Olliver, Mr. Mucklevain, Miss Eudora Slick and Mr. Will Worthington." " I can tell you where some of these live, and some I can't," said the smiling young man. "Mr. Carter Harrison has an office in the Court House, or rather the City Hall, but you'll be more apt to find him around on Clark Street. You step into Mike McDonald's and he can tell you where you can find him in case you don't see EXPERIENCE WITH HYPOCRIT1 195 him in the City Hall. lie and Mike and the Hankin Bros, are real good friends, and they generally know where each other are i of the time. Mr. Van Pelt, (let's see George, do you know who Mr. Van Pelt is?" said he, addressing another clerk. " Yes, he is one of the County Commissioners," was the reply. " Oh, yes, I know now, he is the fellow that has been connected with a good many fat jobs, and things in connection with county and city affairs. Well, Mrs- Morgan, it will be very difficult to find him, as the papers say he moves about considerable, and manages during the year to live in every ward in the city. I don't know whether this is true or not, as the papers tell a good many funny things about him and Carter, and Mike McD., and Joe Mackin, and Gallagher and all those old chums. I don't pretend to believe one-quarter I read in the daily papers. They print a lot of stuff one day so as to have material to correct in the next issue, and that enables them to fill up their columns at half expense. Mr. N. G. Rosster is one of Chicago's most successful Board of Trade opera- tors, and one of the wealthiest men in this city. He used to be a cattle dealer in a little town out West, but he made a very rapid march on to fortune. He has just completed one of the finest resi- dences in this city. I think it is down on Indiana Avenue. Mr. A. W. Kinney ; oh, yes, I know him well. He is one of the best artists in Chicago, and a royal good fellow ; he has a nice studio in the Lakeside building, right over here on Clark Street. Dr. Butler is operating the Chicago Sanitarium, a private hospital. Mr. G. H. Olliver? Yes, I know him. He is a fine fellow ; he is an old time missionary. I think he used to travel among the heathen in the far West. He is now in the wholesale wall paper business down on Wabash Avenue. He is very agreeable and wide awake, a regular Chicago man. He lives somewhere on the North Side, I don't just remember where, but you take this City Directory and you will iind just where any and everybody lives in the city, and where they can be found." 196 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S Clarissa took a card and she put down the names of all those she wanted to see, and then we found what street and number they lived in. Then we thought we'd take a walk a little while, and started out; we went out the front door of the hotel and we was on State Street. My, my, what a sight ! I never saw such buildings in my life before, and such a wide street, and sidewalks that was dumb nigh as wide as a whole street in Syracuse. " Why," says I, " Clar- issa, Syracuse haint no more to be compared with this city than our village is with Syracuse." I got out on the corner of State and Monroe streets and thought I'd look up to the top of Mr. Palmer's tavern, and while I was try- ing to count the windows up next to the roof, some dumb scamp run right into me and knocked me clean off my pins; and when I was down and looking to see how I came there, a ragged little vil- lain with papers hollered, " Clover, ah there, stay there !" but I didn't stay there worth a cent ; I was on my feet in less'n a minute, and making for that little villain my best licks. Say s I, " You little rascal, you are the same fellow that give me that counterfeit money in Buffalo. How in thunder did you get here so quick ?" He hollered at me, " Say, Old Clover, come off from the load," and I turned round and I'll be darned if there wasn't fifteen or twenty more just such looking little villains, all staring at me, some holler- ing, " Mister, have a shine ? Shine for a nickel, Mister." " Morning Tribune, Times and Herald ! Have a paper, Sir?" I was perfectly bewildered. They all pitched right at me, and there was hundreds of other folks on the street, and they didn't bother them. I got back to the corner where I had left Clarissa, and took her arm and said, " Let's go down this way," pointing north, though I didn't know it was north at that time. We walked, but didn't go very fast, for when we wasn't stopping to look into store windows, there was such a crowd on the streets they kept knocking us one way and another. We walked about two blocks when we saw some WITH II 197 Cars moving right down the middle of the streets, and not a thing to make 'cm move no horses, no engine and nobody pushing 'em. That beat anything 1 ever s, I saw one of them things dressed in uniformity. I went up to him and says, "Can you tell me what makes them cars go v> He looked at me a minute as though he thought I was a fool, and said, " A cable, they arc called cable cars ; there is a wire rope running under ground that is constantly in motion, and these cars attach \\V ONE OF THEM THINT. MITY. themselves to that cable by means of a grip, that is operated by that man in the front; that is called the grip car." Says I, " How far does them cars go?" He said, " About six miles." I asked how much it cost to ride? He said, " Fi each way." Says I, " Clarissa, let's take a ride on 'em, we can get a dumb big ride and see lots of the city for five cents apiece." She 198 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S thought as I did, so we got onto the grip car and took a front seat, so we could have a clean look at everything. We went as far as the cars went and come back with 'em. Well, it was the most interest- ing ride I ever had ; it was city, city, city on both sides of us, in front and behind us, and as far as we could see it was city except when we got down where the great Stephen Douglas lay pinned into the ground with a tremendous shaft of marble surmounted by a bronze statue of himself. There we could see considerable of Lake Michigan. We passed thousands of monstrous great stone houses, some with gray, some with brown, some with red stone fronts, and some brick. We passed a great fine stone building, with towers and turrets, standing in a yard by itself, up near the resting place of Douglas. They told us it was " The Chicago University." Far- ther down on Cottage Grove Avenue, we passed a peculiar building, and asked the conductor what it was. "Well, Sir," said he, "it isn't generally known what that is, but people who live down this way and who pass it every day of their lives say it is a manufacturing establishment where they make little pill doctors. They call it ' Hahnemann College.' They do quite an extensive business in the city, and I understand they have a number of orders from country towns for their doctors, and they manage to supply all their de- mands." I told him I never heard of it before. " Did you Clarissa ?" I asked. He said, " You don't keep posted, I'm afraid." " Well, yes," Clarissa answered, " I heard a woman in Syracuse saying she had a son they had been trying to educate for business, so he could help his father in the store, but the boy was so frail and tender the teacher said there wasn't any use of trying him any longer. His health was too poor to put him at hard work, and being discouraged in trying to fit him for business they thought of one place he might be fitted for, and that was a little pill doctor. And so they sent him to this college. He is here now, and they say he is i.RIENCE WITH HYPOCRITES. 199 doing fine, and expects to graduate this coming winter." And Clarissa terminated her remarks by saying, " That everything is designed to fill a proper place, and I suppose this institution sends out the necessary things to fill long felt vacancies." We had made a turn onto a business street they called Twenty, second, and in a short distance turned again to the right, onto what they called Wabash Avenue. " That large house is the Jewish Syn- " WE TOOK A BIG RIDE FOR FIVE CENTS APIECE." agogue ;" a little further down we passed a large, square, lonesome looking building with a sign board circling over the front door, saying, " Home of the Friendless." I thought to myself that if ever there was a Christian act done by any one in this world, it was done by the persons who got up this institution, and who carry it on. Clarissa said she intended to visit that place before she left the city. as she had read a great deal about it. She said it was conducted and maintained entirely by free contributions. 200 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S Says she, " Just think of it, a place where a poor, moneyless, j'riendless woman or girl can go and be cared for, nursed and doc- tored in sickness and supported in health until such time as they can find self-support. I tell you, Benjamin, that if ever the hand of Providence was reached out to anybody, it certainly is reached out to poor friendless mortals in this city by the maintaining of that institution, and it's the duty of every one that can spare a little to send it to that institution ; and I'm going to give 'em ten dollars before I leave." " Well," said I, " you have struck my sentiments exactly, and to-morrow morning, when you count out what money you are going to allow me, just add ten dollars more to it, and I'll give 'em as much as you do, I'll be blamed if I don't." For I believe that all we can do in this world that is really and truly Christ-like, is to heal the sick, raise the fallen, care for the wounded both in flesh and spirit, wipe away the orphan's tears, as- suage the widow's grief, and in all the little things of everyday life do just as we would be done by. Some folks tell us that all this may be done, and still if we have not faith in certain creeds and dog- mas, we are the children of the evil one and heirs to perdition. Well, all I have to say is, that if the fruit does not give evidence of a right spirit, then let the cant religionists apply their brand, and burn it in as deep as they please. I find I am philosophizing, which aint my intention, so I'll re- sume about our car ride. We had now got down to the Panorama of the Battle of Gettysburg. Clarissa said, "Benjamin, I have read so much about that panorama, I do want to stop and see it." So we asked the conductor if he had any objections to our getting off there. He gave his consent, and we went into the Battle of Gettysburg. My ! my ! I'll never forget it as long as I Hve. How we got up on that hill, right in the thickest part of the fighting, I don't know, and I'll be dumbed if I can tell. We went up some dark, winding stairs, and all of a sudden we was right on BATTUi OF UETTVSBU&O. top of a hill in bright daylight. p>ke of tin- batf curl up in our faces, and it seemed as though u c c<>/ . \rrrcal! Uncle Ben Morgan and Clarissa, from Mor- ganvilk-, Blank County, N. Y." Clarissa read it out loud, and there they had our whole trip terday to the Fat Cattle Show and the Palmer House buslines, all brought in, written up in a flourishing style, and while Clai 22O SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN s reading it, she couldn't help laughing right out although she was the maddest I ever saw her. ""Well," said the Mayor, "never mind the paper. I'll send my carriage after you to the Palmer House, at three o'clock this after- noon, and you come to my house and stay a few days, and we'll have a good visit." Just then some one called him. "You see," said he, "I am called here and there continually, by some one or other that think they want something." "Yes," said Clarissa, "I know your time is taken up and you can't be bothered much. They told us at the hotel that they thought it very doubtful if we found you in }'our office, but if we didn't find you here, to go around to Mike McDonald's, and we would find you there; but I am glad we found you in, but now we will not take *,ny more of your time." As we started to go he made us promise to go to his house in his carriage. As we left, he went to the door with us, and bowed us out with a broad smile. When we got out on the sidewalk, I turned round to look up to the top of that City Hall building. It was the prettiest building I ever saw, prettier than Mr. Palmer's tavern. The great, round stone posts in front, beside the front door, was polished so you could see your face in them ; and way up to the top was some stone men and women standing on top of some columns, dressed in old Bible style of clothes, and holding great flat stones on top of their heads. I was quite interested in looking at them, when the first thing I knew I was upset into a cart of oranges and peanuts. A dirty looking fellow had run a two-wheeled hand-cart loaded with that stuff, right against my back legs and I fell right into his cart and he went to swearing at me. I said to him, f g "Look here, you dumb sassy scamp, if you do that again, I'll have a policeman arrest you." Clarissa told me to come along and not pay any attention to him, but look what I was doing, and not be gaping at everything. I asked her how she expected I could see anything of the city, if I WITH HVrOCHI 221 had to be looking out for everything and everybody in the road. She told me to look at that big window in the City Hall. I du and there was standing Mr. Harrison and another follow who had been watching the whole performance. They was laughing enough to kill them. We walked along down Clark Street till we come to the Dime Museum, when I invited Clarissa to go in with me. The low price was the principal inducement. We spent about two hours t! and saw an awful sight for the amount we paid. The last thinu saw, just before coming out, was a play on the stage, which the}- gi fc!! ! "LOOK HERE, YOU DUMB SASSY SCAMP!" called "Dante's Inferno, or The Devil's Home." The play was so exciting that for a few minutes it seemed real, and I forgot wh< was. I spoke up and said, "'Mr. Boss Devil, have you got four follows there I left in the Cleveland depot t'other night, by the n;i of Smooth, Three, Kard and Montee?" He said he had, that they was his best men and was working for him all the time. I tunu d to Clarissa, and said ''Let's get out as quick as we can or they '11 have us, "and as we 222 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN s kit, everybody in the house was laughing at us, and the old Devil on the stage laughed louder than all the rest. After we was on the street again, Clarissa told me if I didn't stop making such a fool of myself and disgracing her, she would take the first train for Cali- fornia, and leave me to get along the best I could. 1 promised to try my best, and asked her as a favor, to pinch me real hard when- ever she discovered I was about to make a break. She agreed, and we went to the Palmer and got dinner. While we were eating, I saw an awful pretty woman at one of the tables that seemed to at- tract an awful sight of attention. Ladies and gentlemen would go up and shake hands with her, and the men would leave a little bou- quet at her plate until it was completely covered up with them. It made me envious, and I asked Clarissa to excuse me a minute. I had forgot something and would be right back. I went out into the hall and found a waiter boy. I said to him, "Bub, look here; here is two dollars; you go out and buy three of the biggest bouquets you can find for fifty cents apiece, and bring 'em into the dining-room and come right to my table and bow and smile, and hand 'em to my wife, and speak right up loud, and say, "Mrs. Benjamin Morgan, these is the compliments of the editor of the Tri6une t the editor of the Times, and Mr. Hizonor Harrison." He said he would. I told him to hurry up, and get back in ten minutes if he could, and he might keep the other fifty cents. I went back to the table, and as I set down with a smile, Clarissa mistrusted I had been doing something. I asked the waiter that took my order who that woman was that attracted so much attention. He said it was Mrs. Langtry, the "Jersey Lily." "Well," said I, "just wait a few minutes, and I'll show you a York State Rose." Clarissa pinched me. I told her that that pinch was in the wrong time, as she would presently discover. The waiter had but just come in with our dinner, when t'other waiter come in with three monstrous big bouquets, any one of which HYP' was as big as all of Lan-try's, and he handed o Clarissa with a genteel bow, and said in a real loud voice, "Mrs. Henjamin Morgan, accept the compliments of the editor of the Tribune, and also this, with the compliments of the edit the Times, and also this, with the compliments of Mr. Ilizonor Harrison." Mv bosom, for the first time since I arrived in Chicago, swelled with pride as I saw all eyes turned upon my Clarissa, whose face was crimson with natural blush, and Mrs. Langtry, as she ga/ed with envy at her, wore a white painted blush. Clarissa was dumfounded. She couldn't understand what it " ii! CLARISSA WAS DUMFOUNDED. meant. She didn't know why she should be made the recipient of compliments of the editors of the two greatest newspapers in Amer- ica. I told her that the Tribune always recoinii/ed true merit wherever it was discovered, and if any person on earth p. true merit, she did, and the Tribune had, no doubt, discovered that fact by means of its " reportorial staff." And the Times would i allow the Tribune to get ahead of it, and consequently had sent its compliments in to head off the Tribune. I told her I was proud of her, and I was glad to have the comparison drawn in such a public 224 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S place between a pretty face and brains. The pretty face had lots of little bouquets from little men, while her intellectual capacity re- ceived big bouquets from big men. After dinner we carried the bouquets to our room, and set down for a little talk. We had been seated but a few minutes, when there was a knock on the door, and as I opened it, a waiter handed me a letter addressed to my wife. She opened it. It read as follows: MRS. BENJAMIN MORGAN AND HUSBAND: Noticing your arrival in the city,by an article in this morning's Tribune, I desire to renew our acquaintance of years ago, and will be pleased to call upon you at such time as you may be pleased to name. I shall also be pleased to have you inspect my studio be- fore you leave the city. Yours truly, A. W. KINNEY, Lakeside Building. Clarissa replied as follows: MR. A. W. KINNEY: Dear Sir, Your note is just received. I thank you for your expression of a desire to renew our old acquaintance, and your invitation to call upon you. The latter we shall be pleased to do as soon as convenient, but I cannot name the time for you to call upon us, as we leave this tavern in a short time for Mr. Carter Harrison's residence, for a short visit. Very truly yours, MRS. B. MORGAN. The boy had scarcely left the door before another boy handed another letter for "Mrs. Clarissa Morgan." It read as follows: MRS. MORGAN : I noticed in this morning's Tribune that you and your husband had arrived in our city, and are the guests of the Palmer. I shall be happy to have you visit me, and also to take in the Board of Trade before you leave the city. Please state where I may call for you at 2 P. M. on Monday next, with my private carriage. Very truly yours, N. G. ROSSTER. Clarissa replied as follows: MR. N. G. ROSSTER: Dear Friend, I hope you will not think it presuming too much to address you by the title I used to consider you. I thank you for your kind invitation, and shall be pleased to accept. We leave this tavern in a few minutes for Mr. Carter Harrison's residence, for a short visit, and unless you hear from me in the intervening time, you will find us there at 2 p. M., Monday next. With many thanks, I am yours, MRS. B. MORGAN. Clarissa had not completed her answer to Mr.Rosster's letter be- fore another boy called with a letter addressed to me. I opened it and read as follows: KUIKN'CE \VITII IIY1'" 225 MR. BENJAMIN MORI. noticed I li.it you had arrived in the city. We are also informed that you visited our mus.-um this forenoon. V. to meet you on a business matter. Will you please call at our office this r. M., between fi%-e and seven, or to-morrow morning, between nine and ten? We think we can make you a satisfactory offer. We are on the constant lookout for new attractions. respectfully, yours, KOHL & MIDDLETON. To this letter I replied: MR. KOHL AND MR. MIDDLETON : one of you Gentlemen Your letter has been handed to me by one of Mr. Pal- mer's waiter boys.who is at this moment standing at my left-hand elbow, waiting for me to finish this letter. I can't conceive what on earth you can want of me. If you have got some kind of scheme on foot, and want me to go into it. you have been writing to the wrong one. I am no schemer, and no hypocrite, and I don't want anything to do with them as is. I have no desire to get acquainted with any one that will harbor and keep in their employ such confounded hypocrites as Smooth, Three, Kard and Montee. as your boss, the Devil, told me you did, when I was in there. I want nothing to do with any- body that plays Hell, as you do, morning and night, and, besides all the above and fore- going reasons, I haint got time to call on you, as we are going visiting to Mayor Harri- son's. So you needn't write me any more about it. Yours, UNCLE BENJAMIN MORGAN, Morganville, Blank County, New York. P. S. If you want a feller that's good on schemes, to help the Devil in that play of yourn.I know a first-rate one for you. He lives down to the village, and his name is Jim Teeters. He has been helping the Methodists down there, but I guess they canget on without him. In fact, they was talking about turning him and Waddles out before we left home. Maybe you could get Waddles, too. P. S. Say, you haint got a feller working for you by the name of Bascom B. Big- ler, have you? They called him 'Squire Bigler. He kind of got knocked out of his cal- culations down there last fall, and moved out here, hunting for a job. If you have got him to work, you might tell him Clarissa and I are here right here in Chicago. P. S. Say, come to think of it, you needn't to tell him about our being here, for if he has seen the Tri/>mic\\e knows it. P. S. I haven't time to write any more, as Mr. Harrison's horses and buggy are Waiting for us down to the front door. We dismissed the boys with the letters, and got our things to- gether and went down the ele to the office, and paid our bill. The young man behind the counter said, "You haint going to U'nv now, are you?" I told him we was just entering upon that act. I Io said he was sorry to have us leave, as we had been the main at: tion in the house since our arrival. Just then he introduced us to a fine-looking old gentleman, by saying, "Mr. and Mrs. Morgan, 226 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S let me make you acquainted with Mr. Palmer, the proprietor of this house." Mr. Palmer said, "I am very glad to meet } T ou. I was out at my private residence, on the North Side, when you arrived, and when I discovered by the article I read in the morning Tribune that you were the guests of my house, I hastened down here to meet you. I am real sorry you are going to leave; any time you will come in to a meal or stay all night while you remain in the city, you are welcome to do so, free of costs." We severally and jointly thanked him for his kind invitation and welcome, and told him, as he had such a fine tavern and they was all so kind to us, we would make it our central point while we was in town, and bid him good-by. EXPERIENCE WITH HVl'OCKI 227 CHAPTER XXI. ( E went out on Monroe Street, where an elegant carriage was waiting for us. A gentleman that was dressed up in fine style with a stove pipe hat on, showed us into the carriage and was just closing the door when I asked him if it was a nigh relative he had lost. He asked me what I meant. "IS IT A NIGH RELATIVE YOU HAVE LOST?" "Why," said I, *'I merely wanted to know if 'twas a father or mother or son or daughter, or wife,-you was called upon to mourn." "Not either," said he: "what makes you think I have?" 228 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S "Why, that wide black band on your hat," said I, pointing to it. He laughed and said that he was the coachman, and that was O ' why he wore it, and closed the door and drove off to the City Hall, where the Mayor soon joined us. With a great big hearty smile of welcome he shook our hands with that peculiar kind of a shake that made me think that shaking hands was a science that he had studied all his life. Somehow or other there is no one that has got that kind of a shake hands business about them that seems to say, "You just stand by me and I'll be your friend," like an old politi- cian. We drove off at a rapid rate until we arrived at No. , Ashland Avenue, where we alighted and was led into the house by Mr. Har- rison, who introduced us to his excellent wife, who greeted us with a cordial spirit, and we was taken into a beautiful parlor. Time forbids any extended description of our visit of four days there. At 7 o'clock we had what they called dinner. Clarissa sat next to Mr. H., and received a good share of his attention. In reply to some of her questions, he said: "He had been mayor of Chicago for a number of terms; that as one term was about to expire, the citizens of Chicago would come up almost en masse and beg him to accept the nomination again, and although he had repeatedly declined and refused the nomination, still they had persisted in electing him by tremendous majorities, and of course he had to act when he was elected; that the city had thrived and prospered and increased rapidly under his government, and he was considered 'The Best Mayor Chicago ever had;' that he had been invited to New York City to show them how to run a city government; that he supposed more than likely they would in- sist on making him mayor again at the next spring election, but he had got so tired of it, so tired of trying to run an honest govern- ment that he positively would not accept it, and he was going to write to the people of the city through the Times., over his own sig- nature, not to nominate him next spring, for he would not serve," h<>wed that something had sucked away his life blood, until ninety on the scales would be a hard thing for him to turn. I asked them if skeeters was very thick in Chicago. He said the kind we had in the library room was most mighty plentiful; he dreaded the winter from them kind more'n he did the summer from the swamp mos- quitoes, for he could keep the latter out of his house by bars, while it was impossible to keep the former out of his secrets and his busi- ness transactions. Mr. Harrison said, "Never mind, John; don't cry till you're hurt." Wren smiled all over, and said, "Coming events cast their shadows away in front of 'em." I couldn't understand very much what they was -drivin' at, and, being tired, Clarissa and I thought we would retire, so we went off up-stairs to bed. 244 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN s CHAPTER XXIII. HAT night there was a heavy snowstorm, and Monday morn- ing Mr. Harrison had his private coachman bring around his private sleigh, and they took us down to the City Hall, where the great man left us with an au resivoir which I didn't know what it meant, and the driver took Mrs. Harrison and the rest of us all around the city. We went to Mr. Lincoln's park, and then to South Park, and then to Mr. Garfield's park, and we see more city than I ever dreamed there was. By the time we got home it was one o'clock. After lunch we was setting in the private parlor, when the door bell rang, and Mr. N. G. Rosster presented his card, with a request to see Clarissa and me. He was shown into the parlor, and although Clarissa hadn't seen him for nigh onto a quarter of a century, he recognized her to once, and seemed glad to meet her. After an introduction to me and Mrs. Harrison, he said he had called for us to go to his house. Mrs. Harrison seemed sorry to have us go, for she said she had enjoyed our visit so much. She had been on the laugh most of the time, and Carter had said that he had felt more chirked up since we come there than he had at any time since they arrived here on their wedding return, and urged us to make them a visit on our return from Calfornia. We left their beautiful Ashland Avenue residence with pleasant memories of a delightful visit and wishes for the prosperity of the Harrisons, and the hope that Chicago would make him its mayor for life. >^ "": *.. " WE WEST JQJit&^lgCOLN's PARK. . \V ITU I Seated in the magnificent private sleigh of Mr. Rosster, we drove down to State Street, thence south to his residence. We thought some line houses, but Mr. Roaster's residence beat anything we had yet seen. It was beautiful outside, but it was a perfect marvel of beauty and richness inside. In all its appoint- ments comfort seemed to have been the great aim, and the mark had been hit right square in the center. We had a delightful visit in the afternoon, and in the evening we went to the opera that is what they called it at the Chicago Opera House. The theater was full. We had some preserved seats that was kept empty on purpose for us, as we didn't get there till pretty late. Mr. Rosster gave Clarissa a pair of spy-glasses, and told her to look at the folks on the stage through them after the curtain was pulled up, and she could tell better how they looked. Mrs. Rosster had a pair, too. Then they bought some books of some boys that went through the crowd selling 'em. They called them librettoes. I asked him what he wanted of them. He said that was the opera, and by reading it we would understand the play. In a few minutes the curtain pulled up, and there was fifteen or twenty men and women, all dressed up in fantastics representing people from other countries and in other times, and while the orchestra played furi- ously, they all broke out singing, and done their level best to drown the orchestra. All the way through they made the most fearful work in trying to sing I ever saw. Sometimes a feller would have his hand on his heart, and then on his head, and some other feller would point a pistol and a sword at some one else, and threaten to kill them, and all the way through it was just a mixedupness. I tried to read the book, and when I done that I couldn't see 'em play, and when I looked up to see 'em play I lost my place in the book. So between the book and the stage I got so mixed up I couldn't understand a single word. I just wish Melancthon Stevens could have had hold of 'em and trained 'em ; he'd learned 'em so 248 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S they could sing so folks could tell what they was singing, for Me- lancthon prides himself on learning his pupils to pronounce their words while singing, so folks can understand them. After the show was out, I could hear lots of the ladies and gen- tlemen, say that it was "Perfectly splendid;" "It was grand! 1 ' and I know well enough they was shamming, for I don't believe there was one in the house that knew half they sung or said. I don't want any more opera for me. I'll take the old fashioned singing school, with its do-re-me-faw-sol-la-se-do, than the teedle-teedle- teedle; tidle-tidle-tidle-tidle; twadle-twadle-twadle; bubble-bubble- bubble; w7-bum-bum, etc. Clarissa told me, after we went to bed, that she tried to look through them spy-glasses, but her specs bothered her so she couldn't see anything with them. She didn't want to let Mr. and Mrs. Rosster know but that she enjoyed the opera, as they was so kind to take us, but really it was tortures to her. The next morning Mr. Rosster took us down to the Board of Trade and showed us all through the building, and then took us into the Exchange Hall, where all the buying and selling is done. Of all the din and racket and roar I ever heard, that place beats them all. If every lunatic in the State of New York was turned loose in one big room they couldn't make a worse noise. There are a lot of steps built up around an open space on the floor, and they call that the wheat bin; and then a little south of them is an- other circle of steps they call the corn bin, and west of the wheat bin is another they call the pork bin, and the men that want to buy or sell wheat, or corn, or pork, get into these bins, and on the steps, and when the time comes to open the board, which means to com- mence trading, they begin to yell at each other as loud as they can holler, and they'll shake their hands right in each other's faces. Sometimes they'll shake one finger at a fellow; sometimes two fingers, then the whole hand, and sometimes both hands. I thought they had got into some terrible fuss, and I told Mr. Rosster that I KX1-KRIKNC1-; WITH HYPOCRITES. 249 guessed I'd go. "What :' ;id he. " 'Cause I never was a hand for a tight, nohow, in my life,'' I replied. I thought there > be a trt-tn. minus light sure, but he explained it all to me and showed me how that when one fellow hollered to another, and threw one linger out toward him, he wanted to sell 5,000 bushels, and when he threw out two fingers, he wanted to sell 10,000, three fingers, 30,000; the whole hand, 50,000 bushels, and if the other fellow held his hand toward himself with the same fingers up, it showed he would buy the corresponding amounts. After Mr. Rosster explained the whole process, I said, "Well, "SOMETIMES THEY'LL SHAKE ONE FINGER, SOMETIMES TWO." Mr. Rosster, I think I understand it; it's just like that game them fellows learned me on the train between Buffalo and Cleveland. They called it poker. The fellow that holds the best hand takes the pot, but once in a while a fellow that didn't hold any kind of a hand won the collaterals by a scheme that is practiced extensively in all departments, called bluff. A fellow that can handle the cards fine they tell me can so manipulate the dealing of 'em as to bring the winning cards into his own or his partner's hand. And, so far as 250 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN s I can see, it is just so here. A few shrewd, long-headed fellows have been operating on the board so long that they understand just how to manipulate the deal, and they generally take the pot. They don't do it very often, as they would scare away the game, but as often as the pile is big and fat, they manage to call it in." Mr. Rosster said, "Well, Mr. Morgan, you have hit it pretty close; but we are no more gamblers here than you farmers are. You risk your time, hard labor and seed against the elements, with the hope and expectation of winning a good crop, and frequently you lose it all. It's a game of chance with you, and so dealing in the grain after it is raised, is a game of chance in which the members of the Board of Trade take their risks. These old boys that have been here for a long time, have grown wealthy; they are scientific shearers, and know how to take a fleece off of a lamb in quick time. Why! all these elegant residences you see, riding through the city, that be- long to the Board of Trade men, and even this great costly temple built for purposes of trade, is virtually lambs' wool, for the rich fleeces removed from the tender lambs have built them all. The successful shearers are known as great financial men, and receive the fat of the land, but the poor, tender lambs, chilled by the frost of a cold world, crawl into some fence corner and die, and are heard of no more." After leaving Mr. Rosster's we went to the Palmer House to stay one night before we left the city. Mr. Palmer was there be- hind the counter and seemed dreadful glad to see us back again. The clerk handed me a pen, and I wasn't afraid to step up, and in my best manner write, "Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin Morgan, Morgan- ville, N. Y." They gave us one of their fine parlor bedrooms, on the same floor the dining-room is on. As we was about starting to our room, the clerk took out a great big bunch of letters and looked them all through, and handed me two. One was directed to me, and one was to Clarissa. After we had got seated in our room, I opened my letter and read it. The following is an exact copy of it: U 1TH HYl'uv. i: 25' DEER PA havunt had a letter from yoU sense You left hum morne tu weeks ago and we begin tu f< . Tu us i got a paper, called the Chicago trib- une, that sum wun sent tu ben brown down tu the villege and he let me take it, and i lirot it hum fur marytu read, thay wuz a long peece printed in it about you and ma, and the brass band, bigolly I \\ish id lien thar, fur i like brass BanDs and pi bettern ennything and every buddy In the naburhud h iz red it and last nite when i wuz down tu wacKli s skule house tu the liseeum thay wanted me tu speek a peece or n seleckshun, so i red that peece about you, and youd jest ort tu hav ben thar, the house wuz crowded full, and when I red that, i never hurd such arore uv laff in my life rnary wuz hoppin mad coze i red it, and sed she never wuld let me dun it if she had noed i wuz goin tu, but i tell'd her i wuz glad you had so much fun in that big sitty. and i v. tu let em no what a good time you wuz bavin, and make our jelly us naburs feel mad a EBBNEZER PLUNKBTT. little while, jim teeters haz got hiz skrape fixt up, and got out uv Jail and the raethodist church and hez sold out hiz grosery tu eb plunkiT whu tuk, Possesshun last friday and give raary a grate big bagful uv Candy Last Saturday and left the villege fur sum place out west thay say he. Haz gone tu Chicago and dassent never cum back hear fur fear the methodists will lick him and ebeneezer iz having a good trade and a good tim mary. i'll i> partner, and feel that way : ^r, and I wish y>u wouM v.-ritu me a good letter so I can show it to Ebenezer. It will tickle him half to death. Then I would have 1< pleasure in showing him what a good nurse I can he in curing him up. I shall : fur granted that you will write as 1 want you to, for you are such a dear good mamma. So I will now ask your advice as to how I shall make my wedding clothes, and what to Ket. I know you have such good taste in dress, and then you have seen the folks in the big cities and know how they dress on such occasions. I don't want anything very extravagant. Pa left money enough with me for all I want. I can get Sarah Smuggins to make my outside dress, and I guess 1 can make the rest of the things myself. Li: I needn't get any furniture or bedclothes, for he will buy everything we need in that line as a part of the capital stock in the new firm's business. I do need some new stoc' as mine are all worn out, and I have darned them so much that they are a darned l.,t to look at. They have got a real pretty green silk at Brown's store, I think would be just the thing. I can trim it in cardinal red velvet for the wedding, and this win* *-, and next MARY. summer I could take off the velvet and put on black lace, so it will do for my nice dress a long time. I shall wait your answer, however, before I buy anything, and will be gov- erned by your advice largely, but oh, do say yes, and I'll love you ever so much if yon will. Tell Pa not to chase up the street cars until he has tired out all the brass wagons in the city, and that I love him still with all his failings, for he is a "dear good honest and kind old Pa. Your loving daughter, MARY. "P. S. Eb is here and wants his love to you and Pa put in this letter, and here it 254 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN *, "I luv to make raunny, I like my pa; I luv to eat honey, I luv my ma. But I luv my Mary And hur good ma, More muchly than 'nary Mun' nun' and Pa. "It's the dream uv my life, A muthur-in-law; And Mary for my wife With hur good sweet jaw To assist in the strife With the world so raw. And brass band, drum and fife And Mary 'spa, Pa-w. "I've just bot out Teeters Munny tu make; With Mary and meeters, Hunny and cake, We'll ketch the old skeeters, We're bound tu take, We'll show them two sweeters That's wide awake. "So tu give us a start, A cup full of bliss That'll gladden Mary's hart, Pleese du say Yis. And axcept on my part Fur all uv this, The esteem uv my hart And a big kiss." WITH HYPOCRITES. CHAPTER XXIV. LARISSA was visibly affected by Mary's earnest letter. I could see the rain water drip off the end of her nose occasion- ally, like sap from a spile, but when she came to Eb's poetry I thought she'd bust, and when she had finished the letter, she re- moved her specs and wiped her weeping eyes, while she looked toward the ceiling for mansions in the skies, and after she had re- gained her normal (normal is a medicated term and used only by doctors, but I borrow it for this particular purpose) condition, she spoke as follows, to wit: "Benjamin, you have heard Mary's let- ter; what do you think of it?" I said I thought it was a dumb good letter, and I was awful glad she had wrote it. " But that haint what I mean," she said ; " I want to know what you think about her request, and about her marrying Eb before we get home." "I don't know; what do you think?" said I. "Well, we've known all along that that's been their intentions, A >ut I didn't expect they'd want to marry before next summer. I am surprised at Eb; he is worth more'n I had any idea, and he is smarter than any one in that neighborhood, and his going into busi- ness in the village will give Mary a good position in society at the very start, and looking it all over, I think it's best to do as Mary suggests." I said I fully agreed with her, and that long ago, and now since she had expressed her opinion, I was fully convinced that Mary's head was level, and I asked Clarissa to write Mary a good letter, and slip a fifty-dollar bill into it for her to buy stockings, 256 SHAMS; OR UNCLE BEN'S with my compliments and good wishes for a successful trade, but to be sure to tell Ebenezer to have nothing to do with them hay- scales, as it is a sign of bad luck, but to be honest and just, and give down weight if he has to charge a little extra for it. Tell Mary she needn't worry about me; my legs are good for a few more days in Chicago, and I have just as much to laugh at here as the folks have to laugh at me about. Tell her I am the same honest pa I always was, and the most honest pa she ever had. Clarissa wrote as follows: "Palmer House, Spare-bed-room. "CHICAGO CITY, Nov. 28th, 1886. "My Dear Daughter: I am glad to get your letter, and altho' I am wonderfully surprised at your sudden decision, and earnest desire, I am, after thinking it all over and looking at it in all its bearings, satisfied to have you do as you wish to in the matter. Ebenezer is a smart young man, and I believe will make you a good reliable husband. I am surprised to find he is a poet. I am sorry I have not time to write you a long letter and give you full di- rections in all matters pertaining to your contemplated partnership. We have an engage- ment to go to the Theater with Honorable John Wentworth this P. M. and I have no time to spare now, but will write again in a few days. For the present I will suggest that you have your silk dress cut and made in the Queen Ann style. I see everything here is running that way. They cut and build their houses, and bedsteads, and bureaus and chairs and looking-glass frames and dresses and cloaks and bonnets, Queen Ann style. I'll send you a book of Butterick's patterns to aid you in selecting your style of dress. One thing, don't, under any circumstance, have it cut goring, for that is all out of fashion. I inclose you a present from your pa, a fifty-dollar bill, for you to buy stockings and sundry things to go into them, with his compliments and good wishes for your trade. Hoping you will under the pressing circumstances of the present, excuse my short letter, I will close with these touching lines "I want you to love one and t'other Better than trade and money; I want you to love your mother Better than cake and honey. "Remember, while it is sunshine, That there may be cloudy days, And dont turn love into moonshine But be true in all your ways. "Your own Mother, Clarissa." The letters read and Mary's answered, we was ready for sup- per, and supper was ready for us. As we entered the dining-room we seemed to be the observed of all observers, and the African KM'KIUK.NCi; WITH HYPOCR1 257 waiters was awful polite to us, and they was all grinning. Clarissa was more nicely dressed than when we was at the Palmer a few days before, as she had been into Marsh Field's big store and bought her a brand new silk dress ready made. It was right in the height of fashion. She got it at a bargain, as it was made for a wealthy Board of Trade man's wife, but before they got it done he had gone CLARISSA'S QUEEN ANN DRESS. long on so much stull, that he got short of cash and was completely, teetotally, and now and forevermore busted, and consequently the dress was on their hands, and they was willing to sell it for what it cost to make it and throw in the price of the material. They told her to try it on and if it fitted, she might have it for twentv-tive dollars. She tried it on and it fitted her better by a considerable sight than if it had been made for her. It was black crow grain 258 SHAMS; OR, UNCI.E BEN'S silk and shiny satin. There was one thing about it that bothered Clarissa muchl}', and that was a wire basket or chicken-coop ar- rangement in the back end of the skirt, to make it have the appear- ance of a city lot, narrow in front but running back a good ways. She never had anything of the kind on before. She wore it this afternoon the first time, and when she sat down to the table in the dining-room, it took her as much as five minutes to sit down com- fortable like without doing damage to the rear attachment to her new Queen Ann dress. I don't generally try to listen to other folks' conversation, but I couldn't very well help hearing the following talk going on between some women that was sitting at the table right back of us. It run about as follows, to wit: "Say, Mrs. Blatty, isn't that the woman that was here last week and received them bouquets?" "Yes, Mrs. Teller, that's that Benjamin Morgan and his wife, Clarissa, the Tribune had so much fun about." "She is considerable dressed up to what she was then," said Mrs. Smeller. "Yes; but say, just look at that dress closely and see if you don't believe that that is the very identical dress that Marshall Field & Co. made for Mrs. Buncum." "Well, as true as } r ou live, it is the same one, or one made exactly like it." "Why didn't Mrs. Buncum take it?" "Why, didn't you know he had failed, and lost every cent he had?" "No, I hadn't heard of it." "Well, it's so, and he is so badly involved that he can never recover, and she couldn't pay for the dress. I was along with her when she ordered it, and it was to be $200." "Well, I'm glad of it. She used to fly high and outdo all of us, here. I always knew she was a coarse, low-bred thing." "Why, Mrs. Teller, how can you say that, when you and she was bosom friends while they was boarding here, and you copied : WITH HYPOC'Kl 259 after her in a great many things? I think she was a lady in every sense of the word, and I am truly sorry for her, and I am going to ascertain her whereabouts and call on her, and offer what assistance 1 can, without giving offence." "Mrs. Porter, I'm glad you think so much of her. I can't afford to associate with any one that haint able to keep up to style." Clarissa had heard every word, and her firm principles of right and honesty got the better of her sense of propriety, and she wheeled round in her chair and addressed the last lady that spoke, who hap- pened to be right back of her, as follows: "Ladies, please excuse me for interrupting your conversation, but I can't sit in the hearing of hypocrites without giving them a piece of my reproving mind. I want to say that any woman that is not a natural lady, and has not the essential elements in her of true womanhood, can't afford to associate with anybody that can't prop them up and carry 'em along, but a true woman can not only afford to continue to asso- ciate with her friends in adversity as well as prosperity, but they can better afford to do so than otherwise, for they elevate them- selves to a higher position in their sex, and reflect more of the image of their Creator by such a course of life. Now, I don't think it is any of your particular business where I got my dress, so long as it is paid for, and don't come out of you, but since you have made known to me the unfortunate lady's circumstances, I shall find out where she is and send the dress to her, with the compliments of an honest woman who feels sorry for them as is unfortunate. I can afford to do it, while you possibly can afford to cut her acquaintance. I don't know but you may be a millionaire, but one thing I'll proph- esy, and that is you will see poverty before you die." If a camphene lamp had bursted on that table it wouldn't have cleaned them women out quicker than Clarissa's shot of burning words. All but the one they called Mrs. Porter left the room with horror-stricken and scornful complexions on their countenances. She came up to Clarissa and said, "Although I am a stranger to 260 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S you, yet I feel truly gratified to meet you as a representative of the true worth in woman, honesty and charity, and although it may shock some of the boarders at this hotel to hear such plain remarks, especially in the dining-room, it will do them some good, and may be the means of stopping some of the backbiting that is of too fre- quent occurrence. I shall be pleased to have you call at my room, No. , third floor, before you leave the city." Clarissa thanked her for her kind invitation, and said she would try to do so if she could get the time. By this time the African waiter came in with our supper, and we paid special attention to taking care of it. I was pretty hungry; in fact, I am always hungry when it comes anywhere near meal time. After we had returned to our room, we engaged in a talk about the dining-room episode. I told Clarissa I was just on the point of asking that Mrs. Teller if she wanted to know where I bought my clothes, when she opened on them, and I was glad she did it, but just as likely as not they would have the whole affair in the paper the next morning. While we were talking the Hon. J. Wentworth called and introduced himself to Clarissa by saying. " I don't know but you may have forgotten me, as it has been a good many }?ears since I have seen you, but I used to know your father, Mr. Amasa Snodgrass, intimately when I was a young man in New Hampshire, and I knew you when a young lady." Clarissa met him in a cordial spirit and said she remembered him as well as though their acquaintance had continued up to yesterday, and in fact, it would be quite impossible for her to ever forget such a long acquaintance. He said after noticing our arrival, he had recalled her to mind and thought he would renew the old acquaintance and also get ac- quainted with Mr. Morgan, therefore sent his card and invitation to us this morning. Clari-s&a then introduced me to him. He sat down and for an hour he was the most entertaining gen- tleman I ever met. He is quite old in body, but young and vigor- \vn ii 26l ous in mind, and chuck full of wit and humor. He gave, us a com- plete history of Chicago, and well he could, as he has been identi- fied with its birth and wonderful growth. His description of its physical and political growth sounded like a thrilling novel ; his reference to scores of men whose names are as familiar all over the United States as household words and a summing up of their hypocritical characters, made me feel that the great Chicago was born in sin (of poor parents that was naturally well-meaning but "BECAUSE IT'S THE ONLY BUILDING i KNOW OF IN THE CITY THAT HAINT QOT A MORTGAGE ON IT." wanted to make money so bad that they had left their honest clothes back yonder where they came from) and was cradled in iniquity, but when it got strong enough to get out of its cradle and go alone, it had become better, and had been growing better ever since, until now it was full as good as some of its neighbors, especially Cincin- nati and New York. 262 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S He told us that Chicago was a good deal like an animal that once in about so often, when its coat of corruption got too long and had a strong odor, would shake itself and shed it, and come out with a clean, slick coat. It done this when the Colvin govern- ment had become a sickening sight to honest people. "And, "said he, "I prophesy that about next spring she'll shed her coat again, for Harrisonism is getting to smell pretty loud." If I had time I could make quite a book on the play of "high- spy" by Chicago politicians, from what little I have heard since I've been here, but it wouldn't be new nor interesting, as everybody knows all about it, for what the Tribune don't tell on one side the Times does; so, after all, the city is a good deal like a Christian ought to be, "read and known of all men." As the little clock on the mantel struck quarter to eight, Mr. Wentworth said it was time to go. We went to the Grand, right opposite the Court House and City Hall. As we were passing in front of the courthouse Mr. Wentworth said that was the greatest curiosity in the city, pointing to it. I asked him how so? He said, "Because it's the only building I know of in the city that haint got a mortgage on it." I told him he must be trying to sell us some cod, or mackerel, but I didn't take it in. We went into the theater and had some nice seats in the front row in the first balcony. That night we took the biggest trip that's recorded in the pages of history, either sacred or profane. We went round the world in eighty days. The coolest man I ever met in my life was that ar Phineas Fogg. I suggested to Mr. Went- worth that they ought to elect him Mayor of Chicago; I believe he'd clean out them anarchists completely. When the party was coming east from San Francisco on the Union Pacific Railroad, and got into them robbers' gang and Indians, it made Clarissa a little nervous, and she said she was almost afraid to go over that road; but Mr. Wentworth assured her that that was only in the play. A novel couldn't be got up without having all the circumstances just right to show off the hero or heroine, or both, in the strongest light, and if the circumstances never did exist, the writer had to make them exist, and right there lay the strength and power of our great writers the ability to create what never did and in all human prob- abilities never could, exist. That's the reason Charles Dickens is so great, and one reason why he went home disgusted with Amer- ica on his first visit, was that he found his extreme ideas more nearly realized here than he thought they could be in any country, and when he wrote his next book 'twas harder work for him to make new characters and new circumstances; that's what ailed Charles Reade, and a host of others.. Clarissa regained her usua. calm habit after his explanation. The trip completed, the money won, and the curtain dropped, we went home, bidding good-night in the office of the Palmer 1 1 to the greatest man by some inches, that Chicago can lay claim to as her own. \Ve ascended the grand marble stairs to the parlor floor and wended our way to the spare bedroom we occupied. The next da}' we visited the Home of the Friendless, the Public Library, the Battle of Shiloh, the Fat Cattle Show, the Chicago Waterworks, and called on some old friends we had run across. All of which we have not time to speak of, as the train we want to go on leaves at 10:20 A. M. to-morrow morning. By the time we reached the Palmer it was 6 o'clock in the even- ing, and we was considerablv wearied, if not more so. But an hour in the supper room and the grand meal we ate rested us so that after supper we went down to the "Entr^ Sol" and sat in the little bal- cony and watched the moving, restless crowd in the office room. md not been sitting there long till we saw 'Squire B. B. Bigler and Jim Teeters walk in from the State Street entrance, and go up to the counter and register. Teeters had a satchel and a plug hat on, and evidently had just arrived, but Bigler didn't have any, and kinder acted as though he'd been in there before. I kinder thought 264 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN s I'd like to find out about things at home, and know something about what they were here for, so I hollered out, ''Squire Bigler. ' I hol- lered three times before he looked up, but the whole crowd looked up as if they was surprised, but I didn't care for that; I was too tired to go down there, and I wanted him to come up. When I got his attention he seemed wonderfully pleased, and he and Teeters come up where we was. He shook hands with me and Clarissa as if he was our son, and said he had been trying to find us ever since he read in the Tribune about our arrival. He said he had been in Chicago pretty nigh a month. He come here right from our neigh- "I HOLLERED, ''SQUIRE BIGLER. '" borhood. He said his defeat in the election last fall was just the best thing that ever happened to him, for now he had got a position as assistant to the general solicitor of one of the largest railroads that runs from Chicago westward. He gets good pay, and a chance to make considerable outside, and already he had got a big deal on hand for three or four silver mines in Colorado, and if he made the deals he would clear $150,000. He was awful glad to see us, and wanted us to come and see WITH HYPOCK1 265 him before we left, but we told him we was going to leave in the morning. He told us if we went to Denver to be sure to stop at the St. James Hotel and he would be very apt to meet us there, as he was going out there the latter part of next week. He hadn't sent for his wife yet, as he was waiting to get a house to move into that he had the promise of. Teeters came up and shook hands with us and took a seat and waited till Bigler got through before he said anything. He looked and acted cheap enough. He told us all about things around the village, and about selling out, and said he left there yesterday morn- ing, and had just come in. He said Waddles had got out of jail, but had to pay about $1,875 an ^ costs; he was now trying to sell out, and if he succeeded he was going to move to Chicago. After Clarissa and I went to bed I told her that I didn't wonder at what Mr. Wentworth said about the city in its early days. If three such men as Waddles, Teeters and Bigler should move to Chi- cago from every neighborhood in the United States it would be the largest city in the world, and the most hypocritical. It was a good thing there was honest women and mothers here, and that children was born regularly every year, otherwise it would perish from the face of the earth. One thing I am glad on, that is my reasoning is not true in facts, for where one swindler moves to this city, five good, likely, well-meaning and honest people come along to keep them down. Clarissa signified a desire on her part for me to shut my mouth and go to sleep, so she could sleep and rest. As her desire is law to me, I at once obeyed. The usual roar and rattle of wagons and the endless cry of the newsbo} r s awoke us at an early hour, and Clarissa packed our things and had everything ready for us to leave before we went to break- fast. 266 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S CHAPTER XXV. FTER breakfast we had our baggage taken to the Chicago & Northwestern Railway depot, and after urging Mr. Palmer to make it convenient to make us a visit if he ever come our way, we bid him and his smart young clerks good-by and walked over to the depot. We preferred to walk so we could step into Mr. Harrison's office on our way and bid him good-by. We found Mr. Harrison in, and as he shook our hands cordially he urged us to return via Chicago and give him a visit, so he might know how we got along. We expressed our gratitude for his kind treatment and attention, and told him if ever he came to the village, although I wasn't its mayor for two reasons, first, the village wasn't big enough to have a mayor, and second, I lived eight or ten miles out of it I would do all in my power to return his kindness. We walked on to the depot. We got there about twenty minutes before the train left, and I had plenty of time to get my baggage checked. We finally got on the train, and I secured two down-stair bed- rooms in the sleeping car, right opposite each other. I had made up my mind to get as good accommodations for Clarissa on the whole of this trip as I could, whether Ketchem, Holdem & Skinem paid it or not, as it would, in all probability, be the last trip of the kind we would ever take. As the train pulled out of the depot and we were leaving the city of Chicago, I felt a pang of regret, as we had passed several days, with the exception of the first, most pleasantly within its lim- its. It had been both a school and playhouse for us. We was con- .IT 1 1 IIVPOCRITI 267 stantly learning something new, and being amused at the same time. The fact that we two green countrv folks had, at the very outstart of our great Western trip, visited the greatest city on the American Continent, had met many of its most prominent citizens and been received by them in a most cordial and friendly manner, made our departure in one sense regretful. I am well satisfied, although unacquainted personally with other cities, that for push, vigorous prosecution of business, friendly feel- ing, and power to manage its own affairs, ability to rise above all disasters and obstacles, nerve and pluck, it is the greatest city in America, and it's only a question of time when she will be the great- est in population, as she has got plenty of room to grow. I am fully satisfied that Jim Teeters' project of hiring the river there and shedding it over for bathhouses won't work worth a cent, for three reasons : First, he'll never have money enough to do it ; second, he never can get the water clean enough and smell sweet enough to answer the purpose, and third, almost every house has got a bath- tub in it, and the folks you meet on the street are as clean a looking lot as can be found anywhere. Clarissa had provided herself with some good books to read on the way, and after we was well out of the city she brought out a book from her satchel called "Shadows of the Future." I asked her where she got it. She told me Mr. Harrison give it to her and told her he studied it considerable, and as he knew it pretty nigh by heart he could spare it as well as not. Nothing worth noting took place during the day until we arrived at Boone, where our train was detained about ten hours on account of an accident on the road ahead of us. We walked around the town and dropped into several stores and other places, and found a thriving, wide-awake town, with some large business houses. Doctors and drugstores seemed to be the most numerous, and seemed to have the most to do. The fur- niture dealer and undertaker seemed to have the next best business. I talked with one or two lawyers. They said business was a good 268 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S deal better since the State had passed a law known as the Pharmacy Act. They had a chance to work up all the business they wanted If they didn't get it one way they could make it another. I met a lawyer there that knew Squire Bigler intimately. We didn't disa* gree in our opinion of him. We went into the Wells House and found one of the most complete taverns I ever saw. The landlord saw we was strangers, and asked us who we was, etc. Of course I knew he didn't want to pry into our private affairs, but still I saw he had a sort of a lingering, longing, gnawing appetite, that most all tavern keepers have, to know who you be? where you come from? where are you going ? how long are you going to stop with me ? how much money have you got, and how much of it can I get? So I told him my name was Uncle Benjamin Morgan, of Morganville, Blank County, New York, and this here woman was my wife, Clarissa; that if he took the Chicago Tribune he had heard of us; that we was on our way to California, was blocked here by a acci- dent on the road ahead of us, and we thought we'd look around a little. He was awful polite to us, and showed us all around, and then insisted on our taking dinner with him, which we did. When we come out into the office we noticed hanging on the walls in a gilt frame, the following : "DIRECTORY FOR THE USE OF TIRED, WEARY AND SICK FOLKS. "If you wish a doctor in Boone to find, The first in the block is Dock Ensign ; Next below according to our plan, Is our railroad doctor, Alleman ; Go up the next stairway not fearing, And you'll find within Dr. Deering. Then comes the one on which we wager. The jolly good Doctor Stockslager ; Continuing on, thetiext below Is the ladies' favorite, Doctor Rowe ; And in the same room without a jar, Dwells the scientific Dock DeTarr ; Within the next four walls' inclosure Is to be found the oldest, Moser; But if little pills you are stuck on, At the next door you'll find Huntington. EXPERIENCE WITH HYPOCRITES. " With drugstores all of which are alive, Our city is blest with numbers five ; The first that keeps stuff colic to squelch, Is owned and operated by Welsh ; The next across the way you peek in, Is J. Peterson and McMechin ; The next, where you can stop your wailin' Belongs to one Henry Thormalin ; As you go down, not very far. Is the establishment of DeTarr ; 269 WELLS HOUSE. Step across the street and walk in To the store of Draper & Laughlin ; Wbn through with doctors and druggists, you lie On your sick bed, waiting to die, You want a coffin to hold your arms, You can get what you want, at G. W. Barnes. " BUT IF YOU TAKE YOUR MEALS AT THE WELLS HOUSE, YOU WILL HAVE NO USE FOR EITHER OF THE ABOVE." I merely introduce the above directory to show the novelty and 270 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S ingenuity of Western men ; every man, woman and child in Morgan- ville, Blank County, New York, or down to the village would have died, buried themselves, been resurrected, brought before the Judge and received final sentence before they'd ever thought of such a scheme to get folks to eat at their tavern, but these Westerners are right up to the front in everything, while we old fogies down on our little potato patches, grubbing along with old dull hoes, don't know half as much as we ought to. I shall always remember the village of Boone, with its doctors, drugstores and magnificent hotels. Our train was ready to start and we was aboard and ready, and we shook the dust of Boone off of our car wheels as we made a dive for the Des Moines River at a fearful down grade rush, and climbed out of its valley at equally as hard a grade on the opposite side. As we pass through the State of Iowa one cannot help being impressed with its beauty, although November is not a favorable season of the year to see beauty in landscape. Yet its undulating surface, with broad prairies and numerous streams, makes it look beautiful, even in the bleak and desolate November. 1 learned that Iowa derives its name from the Indians, and in their language it means "the beautiful land." It was originally part of the large territory of Louisiana, ceded to the United States in 1803. The first white man that settled within its borders was Julian Dubuque, a Canadian Frenchman, who in 1788 got a grant of a big tract, in- cluding the present city of Dubuque and the rich mineral lands nigh to it. It was admitted as a State into the Union December 28, 1846. The first Constitution was adopted August 3, 1857. Every lowan brags about his State unless he is in the liquor business, either as a buyer and consumer, or as a seller. Then he curses it. We passed the two Missis in the night, therefore I am unable to tell how they looked or describe their winter clothes, but they tell me that Sippy is more graceful and has a cleaner complexion than " Soury." I know the bridge over Soury is a wonderful structure of iron, supported by monstrous great iron pins that go ATIH HYPOCRITES. 271 right down into Soury's bosom, and I'm told by some people that got on at Omaha that them iron pegs go clean through Soury and fasten themselves upon her grandparent called sub-strata, but I don't pretend to believe all I hear these Omaha folks say, for all of 'em that got on our train tell such big stories that they smell fishy. For instance, out of the ten Omahaians that come into our car at that city there was only one that didn't tell some whopper about Omaha, and he seemed kind and didn't speak a word during the whole " UNLESS HE IS IN THE LIQUOR BUSINESS, THEN HI CUSSES IT." day we was spinning along on the Union Pacific, and such state- ments as these was the burden of their remarks: " Yes, sir; Tom, I tell you that Omaha in ten years from now will be a bigger city than Chicago." " Well now, Bill, you just bet your bottom dollar she will. You know that Phil Armour is going to move his pack- ing houses here from Chicago, and that will double her in less 'an five years. I just wish them are Eastern strikers would just go 272 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S ahead with their strikes, for just as fast as they do the manufact- urers will just close up their establishments and find a location out West to move to, and I'm just tellin' you, boys, that if we work our pins right, we can get every one of 'em to Omaha." "Now you're shouting, old boy; why, last week Studebaker, from South Bend, Indiana, was in Omaha trying to buy seventy-five acres of land to move his big wagon factory on ; he went and looked at the land down on the flats, and to-day you can't buy a lot 40x120 down there within half a mile of the piece he looked at for less than five hundred dollars, and two weeks ago they would have been dumb glad to sold 'em at five dollars apiece; why, I've got two lots right opposite the Cuzzins' House that I tried to sell a year ago at $1,000, and to-day I wouldn't thank a man to offer me less than $75,000 for 'em." "Well, George, my advice to you is not to sell 'em for any such money as that. You just hang onto them and in ten years from now, with the present rapid growth of our king city, they'll make you a clean half a million." "I believe you, Ben, and I guess I'll hang." "There is one thing, boys, you haint mentioned yet," said a big bushy-headed fellow that had been silent up to the present, "and it's a very significant indication of Omaha's wonderful future, and that is this, Colonel Sellers is down in Kentucky organizing a col- ony of rich Kentucks, and is going to bring them up to Omaha, and go out to the northwest part of the city and build a large addition. They will go into various kinds of manufacturing business, and that alone will double Omaha in less than one year. I received a letter from the Colonel last week, in which he states that everything is all ready, and the organization is complete except one thing, and that is the signing of the articles of agreement. That juit as soon as the parties have all signed they will make immediate preparations to move, that he expects to have all the signatures within two or three days. Why, everybody over in Council Bluffs is putting runners 'l-; WITH HYl'uCKI 273 under their houses, and just as soon as the river is frozen over solid, you'll see more Council BlullV residents sliding over to Omaha than there are bees in a hi The remarks of the last gentleman seemed to be the Bartholdi story of the party. A dead lull seemed to rest upon us all. I had oecome so interested in their descriptions of the future of Omaha that the suspense caused by this lull was more'n I could bear, so I went over and set down beside the man that had not thus far utt a word, and I spoke in a quiet way to him so as not to attract too much attention, and asked him if he could give me a correct idea of OMAHA WITH COLONEL SELLERS* ADDITION. the size of Omaha, its population, facilities and future prospects. He turned his face to me, and with a grin that closely resembled a cross between that of a monkey and a son of the lost tribe of Isnu-1 shook his head and give me to understand that he did not under- stand me, when I repeated my question more clearly and in a louder voice, and in reply received the same shake of the head, and the same idiotic smile. I repeated the question four times, increasing the power of vocalization each succeeding time, when one of the gentlemen in the party said, as he spoke between his laughs, "I la, ha, ha; say, he, he, he, stranger, ho, ho, ho, that ar feller, hu, hu, hu, is deaf and dumb. Wha, wha, wha." J said, " Thanks^ and I said to Clarissa when I returned to 274 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S our seat, " God bless Omaha." "What for?" she asked. "Why," said I, "she has got one citizen that can't lie! That fellow over there is deaf and dumb." The fellow that told the Bartholdi story overheard my remark and said, "Stranger, perhaps you don't believe what we have said concerning Omaha, and I am not surprised at all, as I can scarcely believe it myself." I said, "I thought so when I heard you." "Wait THE FELLOW THAT COULDN T LIE. till I finish my remarks," said he, "but I know it is just as I have stated." "Well," said I, "I am surprised that we folks back in New York State haven't heard of your wonderful city. I remember reading about Omaha in our village paper about twenty years ago, as a pio- neer village where the Union Pacific Railroad started from, but hadn't any idea before now that the sun rose in a town on the Mis- WITH iivi'ivu: 275 souri River, or that it had its golden bed there, but I don't know much about geography, and if Clarissa says it is .so, I'll believe it, lern citi quite numerous. I think it was a bli'SMiig to ;at Pharaoh's daughter hid him from the old man, as, in all probability, had the old king discovered what a smart lad his daughter had found, he would have made him his principal dealer. But it is sad, however, to be made aware of the painful fact that Moses' nigh relatives are very fond of Pha- *'GET IN BACK OP ME, YOU GOLDEN TEMPTER." raoh's game, and spend much of their time nights in trying to beat the banker or amusing themselves with his tire poker. Sometimes they get their hands on the hot end of it and get burnt, sometimes to the extent of several hundred dollars' worth. However, there are other kinds of people besides the sons of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob that do business at the old king's bank. 282 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S When we returned to the hotel for supper it was 5:30 P. M. (which means Post Master under the last administration), and we was glad to take a little rest in the parlor before supper was called. While setting there Mr. Bigler came in and greeted Clarissa with a real warm spirit and shake of hands. We went in to supper to- gether, and really it was pleasant to have his company, for he can act the finished gentleman in a most agreeable manner. He asked us to go to the theater with him, and we accepted his invitation* We went to Tabor's Opera House, and saw the play of Three- eyed Richard. The building is a very fine, massive structure, and 'he theater room is nicer and more grand than any I saw in Chicago. We both of us liked the play very much, but I never knew there was such a confounded old rascal as that humpbacked old villain, Richard. I don't .know but that, after all, some of these days I'll be compelled to disagree with Clarissa on the point of hell, for if there isn't a hell, I think there ought to be for just such villains as this feller was, and several others I have met since I started out on this trip. The next day I waa walking leisurely down the streets, swing- ing the gold-headed cane that Clarissa made me a present of, and looking at everything I saw, and if I was stopped and interviewed once on the subject of mines and mining stock, and asked to buy, I was a dozen times. Before I returned to the hotel for dinner I was so confused that both of my arms was lame and paining me. The wonderful fortunes that I could make in a very short time by the investment of a little money was appalling, and stronger minds than mine have tumbled down before such temptations. But I have managed to say, "Get in back of me, you golden tempter; I don't want to be contaminated by you." I don't know what it is about me that conveys the idea to so many strangers that I have money to invest in every scheme that comes up, unless it is my gold-headed cane and calfskin boots, and honest countenance. I was offered stock in the Dives,Pelican, Vul- WITH i 283 ture, Blackhawk, Old Crow, Mudhcn, Bluejay, Robin, Peacock, Turkey, RattK-.siKik.i-, Busted, Big Silver and Little Silver, Tom Cat, and every other animal name you can think, any one of which would, according to the seller's story, make me a millionaire. The thought of so suddenly and in such a short time being made the richest man in America, and having such a burden thrust upon me was revolting to my nature, so I persistently declined being made rich on such short notice, and in such a short time. The two days I was in Denver I discovered that wr .le the Den- verites are a very intelligent class of people and are full of tact and push, the uppermost and controlling thought which seems to line their clouds of speculation by day, and gild their dreams by night, is money, money, money. I merely judge by those I met with; per- haps the masses there are no more greedy than the rest of mankind. We made the tour of Central City, Georgetown, Leadville, Canyon City, Pueblo, Colorado Springs, Manitou, Pike's Peak, the Garden of the Gods, and back to Denver. Of all the sights i;i nature I ever dreamed of, the most wonderful we saw on this trip. There is sufficient to fill a large volume and be of intense intei- est to the average reader, if written by one skilled in such art, but I have only time at present to say but little about it. In rattling up the mountains and twisting through the canyons and gorges, you qn to get a little dusty and smoked, and I would advise when you get to Idaho Springs, to go down and visit one of the tall representatives of Blank Count}', New York, Harrison Monta- gue, and wash oil and swim in his big bathhouse. It is the most de- lightful bathing place in the whole world, so far as I've seen. The water comes from original headquarters, at just the right temper- ature. Colorado is a high State. The ground is high, the air is high, the mountains are high, the people are high, they look high, they think high, they walk high, and they talk high. Everything you look at is high. If you want to buy anything it is high, everywhere you go you 284 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN*S have to pay high for it. Clarissa seemed to fill up with the spirit and air of the country, and she got high notions, and felt younger than I had ever known her to since I courted her ; and when we was driv- ing through the Garden of the Gods, she was completely enthused with the spirit of rapture and admiration, and as we passed Cathe- dral Rock, at the very entrance to this wonderful garden, she ex- pressed a desire to climb up to the top of its lofty pinnacle and view the wondrous land we was entering into, as the eagle does from his superior heights, but we drove on, and she didn't climb. When we come to the balanced rock the driver stopped the carriage and told us we could get out and go around the rock and take our time to see this wonderful piece of work that was supposed to have been begun by one of the ancient gods, who was driven out of the garden and murdered before he had completed his job. Jealousy on the part of the other gods is supposed to have been the principal cause of the dark and foul deed. He showed us all over the sides of the rock, where visitors had inscribed their names. As high up as we could see through our spy-glasses we could see names chiseled into its sides. Clarissa said she wished she could get up higher than any of them and cut her name, then she could always feel that Mary and Abraham's mother had her name as high as any mortals in this mundane (I don't ex- actly know what that word means, but some big writers have used it more or less frequently, and I guess I can) sphere, and it would f be a source of pride, when she had departed from mortal scenes, for them to tell to their posterity and others, that their mother's name was recorded on high in one of the tablets of the gods in Colorado. The driver, seeing she had a strong desire to do what so many others had done, thought he would assist her. He found, hid behind another big rock, a crude ladder, made of poles and sticks tied onto it with strips of rawhide. It looked very old, but he thought it would be safe. It had the appearance of having been made at the same time the rock was. The ladder was EXPERIENCE WITH IIYPOCRITF?. 285' brought forth and placed against the rock, when, to her disappointment, it did not reach as high as she wanted to go by several feet. But the driver brought his ingenu- ity to bear upon the case, and got a couple more poles and tied on the bottom of the lad- der, and tied some more sticks across them and got it long enough to reach about a foot higher than the highest name we could see. Clarissa is pos- sessed of not only considerable nerve, but lots of inventive genius, and on this occasion she displayed both. She pin- ned her skirts tight around each ankle in such a way that a passing observer would have sworn (if in the habit of swear- ing) that she had on a pair of zouave pantaloons. When she had completed her toilet she proceeded to cli mb. Cautiously she stepped upon each succeeding higher stick, while the driver and I held the foot of the rickety ladder to keep it steady. She finally, amid squeaks and squawks and twistings of the WISHED SHE COULD GET UP HIGHER. 286 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S ladder, reached the top stick, and the snriek of disappointment she uttered as she caught a glimpse, on the very summit of the rock, about twenty-five feet beyond her, the name, " H. A. W. Tabor, Governor of Colorado," was truly heartrending. But she opened my old jack-knife I had loaned her for the occasion, and proceeded to cut. She had cut the letters C L A, when the splicing strings the driver had tied the poles on with broke, and down came Clarissa and the ladder. As good fortune would have it, I and the driver caught her on the fly. It was a fearful fall for all three of us. Clarissa was a total wreck so far as her habiliments and zouaves was concerned, and her hands and nose was covered with bruises, scratches and blood, while the driver had his nose knocked out of joint by Clarissa's head coming in close contact with it, and my arms was stuck as full of pins as if I had caught a porcupine. We carried her to the carriage and carefully wrapped her in blankets and laid her on the back seat, while I and the driver got on the front seat and drove to the hotel in Colorado Springs as fast as we could. In fifty minutes from the time Clarissa left her "Cla" on the gods' balanced rock, we was in our private room, surrounded with medicine and a doctor, sore from bruises and wounded ambition, and nothing left us but scars and meditation of ruined pride and blasted hopes. It was one day before she had sufficiently recovered from her shock and pain to be able to take the train for Denver, where we stopped over night. The landlord noticed she was powerful weak and con- siderable lame, and asked her what the matter was. She said she had met with a slight accident that the climate and other things in Colorado was altogether too high for her health, and she had con- cluded to leave the next morning, which we did, via the C. C. R. R., arriving in Cheyenne in time to connect with the Union Pacific train west. I succeeded in getting Clarissa a down-stairs bedroom, but I had to take a bed in the loft. EXPERIENCE WITH HYPOCRITES. 287 CHAPTER XXVII. ,NCE more on our main line we felt a little at home. It is sin- gular, but nevertheless true, that when one is traveling a long distance, the road that takes him to his objective point is re- garded as a sort of home, and when he leaves it for a few days and again returns to it, a home-like feeling seems to possess him. It was so in our case this time. We felt that for at least thirty-six hours we hadn't got to make any changes, as we concluded to not leave this line again until we reached the end of it at Ogden. Pulling out of Cheyenne, we made rapid time for about four or five miles, when the engine began to puff and snort and roll out the smoke in mon- strous great black clouds, as she climbed up the steep grade to Sher- man, the highest point on the Union Pacific Railroad. As the train stopped about five minutes, we stepped out on the platform, and filled our lungs with the air that circulates around the highest rail- road point on the American continent, which is about 9,000 feet above the level of the sea. Judging from the looks of the half-dozen natives we saw swaggering around the depot with their hands in their pockets, their mouths filled with tobacco, and dirty slouch hats drawn down over their eyes, I cannot say that a close residence to heaven has any great tendency to improve the human race. Look- ing off to the north we saw a huge pile of rocks they called " The Skulls ;" I suppose they are the skulls of them gods that made that garden down in Coloradb. Leaving Sherman we went down a sharp grade about twenty- five miles, passing over Dale Creek on a bridge of iron trestle-work, 288 SHAMS; OR. UNCLE BEN*S 130 feet high and 650 long, to Laramie City, the capital of Wyo- ming Territory. The little city is noted for its rolling-mill, its lonely location, and for its being the home of the famous "Bill Nye," whose writings are like the climate and soil of his home, dry and sandy, sparkling with little gems. Two miles to the east of the city is Fort Laramie, where the government keeps a company of soldiers, when they haint down in the village getting high. After leaving Laramie we settled down into a sort of stupor ; everything without was monotonous, cold and uninteresting. In every direction I looked, I could see distant rocky points of the Rocky Mountains. The sun had already dropped behind a range|of these rocky points, and his glimmering rays, streaking up the western sky like the framework of .a Japanese fan, made me think^ of the dying fire in our old fireplace in the kitchen, before we lit the candle, when I was a innocent boy. The brakeman come in and lit the lamps in our car. Presently a card party was organized, composed of three wholesale drummers and a newspaper man. I discovered this by their talk. I have learned one thing on my travels, that if you take the advice that Clarissa gives me, viz., keep your eyes and ears wide open and your mouth shut a reasonable part of the time, it wont take long to find out who nine-tenths of the passengers are, where they are from and where they are going to, and what the drift of their business is. Somehow or other, about nine out of ten, when they get on a train, get very talkative, and they grow confidential and tell more than they think they are doing, just as I did the first day we started out, and about one-tenth are close mouthed and keep a keen eye on the rest. Well, I know I haint smart, but since I adopted Clarissa's advice, I have learned lots. They proposed a game of whist. After deciding on their co- partnership, they went at it. The first round was won by a Chicago grocerymanand a Boston clothing man. They claimed three points. The next round was lost by a St. Louis hardware man and the Den- EXPERIENCE WITH HYPOCRITES. 289 ver New s man. They lost four points, and as St. Louis generally does, according to the Chicago Times lost the game. They was a jolly set of fellows, and real smart, but they was troubled with the same weakness that drummers in general, are ; they tell their busi- ness to most everybody. In less than ten minutes I found out that the Chicago man represented Sprague, Warner & Co., and was going to Ogden and Salt Lake. The Boston fellow was traveling on com- mission and represented half a dozen concerns his name was Tom Ticklefeller. The St. Louis man they called Simmons Hardware Co., and t'other fellow, by the very gimlet and corkscrew combi- nation countenance couldn't be mistaken for anything but a news- paper man. For right-down smoothness, greasy slickness, oleomargarine smearing over of things, the Sprague-Warner combination took the cake ; for swell and lofty self-estimation, the Boston combination had the bulge on the pot of beans ; for hard luck and hard kicking, the Simmons hardware combination took the hard-tack; but for brass, volubility of words and fly-specks of ideas, combined with masterly lying, the Denver News machine took the whole Dutch oven. By the time they had finished the game and exchanged the usual amount of funny jokes, ready-made witty speeches some- what stale and soap, hard-tack and concentrated lye, the train stopped at Rock Creek for supper, and we was glad of it, as we was real hungry. We missed our magnificent dining car, which was left at Omaha. The pleasure of sitting as long as you please in an elegant car, with a delightful meal spread before you, and any quantity of time to eat it, with "not a wave of trouble to roll across your peaceful breast " compared with making a mad rush for a hotel dining-room table, keeping your hat on your head for fear of having it stolen, and bolting your victuals down on express time, swallowing a cup of hot coffee to one gulp for fear you can't get another cup in time, and then, with a feeling of uncomfortableness hear the cry of "All aboard !" 290 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S while you make a rush for the train, being interrupted on the way by the landlord, who wants a dollar apiece from you is true happiness. After returning to our car I called Clarissa's attention to the difference between taking our meals this way and the dining car system. She said, "Yes; but Benjamin, we ought to be satisfied, when we think how delightful this is compared with the first rail- "A DOLLAR, IF YOU PLEASE." reading that was done about fifty years ago in the United States. I was just reading in the Philadelphia Press I have here, about the wonderful growth of railroads. I'll read it to you; it is this: ' Early Railroading. The marvelous growth of the railroad inter- est of the country in such a short time is illustrated by the fact that old men are still living in Baltimore who took the first ride with Peter Cooper in the first steam locomotive in America. The loco- motive was simply an old stationary engine, about the size of a bar- rel, mounted on a truck, and connected with the wheels by a crank. EXPERIENCE WITH HYPOCRITES. 291 It pulled an old-fashioned coach, loaded with forty-two passengers, thirteen miles in fifty-seven minutes. On the return trip it raced with two fast horses. The contest Was nip and tuck, when the band slipped off the fly wheel. Peter Cooper, the engineer, in attempting to replace it, lacerated his hand. The horses won the race. The first engine of really serviceable qualities was manufactured at York, Pennsylvania, by Phineas Davis. It made a mile in three minutes, drawing forty persons, and it took the prize offered by the Baltimore & Ohio Road. Davis became the road's chief constructor of engines.' " The gentlemen resumed their card playing and funny talk, while Clarissa and I got acquainted with an elderly lady and gentleman who was sitting right in front of us. They was from New Jersey and was on their way to Honolulu to visit their son, who, they said, was Secretary of State in King Kalakaua's Cabinet. We found them real interesting folks to talk to, and the old gentleman had been to Honolulu before, and could talk the language of the natives of the Sandwich Islands quite well. He was telling us something in that language so we could see how it sounded, when a man that was sitting in a seat front of him, hearing him talk in the Sandwich language, spoke to him in the same tongue, and then came over and set down beside the old gentleman and went right into a conver- sation with him. We all got well acquainted in a short time. This man was a sea captain sent out by a New Bedford whaling company to take charge of a fleet of whaling vessels that was to sail from San Francisco up into the North Seas. He had been in that business for the past thirty years, and had spent a good many winter Honolulu. They could all tell very interesting incidents in real life that they had experienced, except Clarissa and me. We was as barren of interesting experiences with which we could make up a marvelous story as an apple tree is of fruit in winter. However, we was good listeners, and considering that good listeners are as neces- 292 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S sary to the interest of story telling as the narrator, we felt that we filled an important part in the sleeping car drama after all. The evening passed away so pleasantly that time had stolen itself from us unawares, and we was forced to disband, by the porter making up the beds. A half hour later we was in bed, and the rattle and hum of the train was a lullaby song that sent us to the dream land of forgetfulness. Strange visions of snorting whales, savage sharks, barking sea lions, howling walruses, bare-legged and bare- headed dusky natives, wonderful sugar plantations, intermingled with coffee, spices, oleomargarine and oily stories hammered with Simmons, Hardware Co.'s hard tack, clothed with Boston garments and papered with Denver News sheets, was playing hide and seek through my brain a good share of the night. When the morning light came peeking into my loft through the windows in the sides of the chamber story of our car, I stretched the usual morning stretch and got my pantaloons on with consider- able trouble, threw myself down to the floor, woke Clarissa up and proceeded to toilet myself, after which I went into the front car and got a seat, where I remained until the sleeper was made up. We was approaching Green River Station, and the scenery was wonderfully grand. At Green River we took breakfast, and had plenty of time to eat a good meal, and we had a glorious meal to eat. After breakfast was paid for, which was $1.00 per head, we walked out on the platform and took a good view of the great cliffs that rise up behind the village several hundred feet. They are wonderful mountains of limestone shell formations, slate deposits and other kinds of stones in regular layers, alternating one above the other like a huge layer cake. We was told that the cliffs was full of fossil fish and reptiles. I bought several specimens they had for sale at the lunch counter. As we pulled out of the station, our train hugged the base of monstrous cliffs to the left of us, while to our right, bending in graceful curves, following close to our track, was the placid waters EXPERIENCE WITH HYPOCRITES. 293 of Green River. Some of the rocks that attract the traveler's at- tention in this vicinity are Castle Rock, the Giants' Club, the Gi- ants' Teapot, and the Twin Sisters. As my purpose is not to write descriptions of country, but rather to give a few glimpses of hu- man nature as it is revealed to me in different places, and as every foot of the country over which we have and may yet pass has been so oft described by able writers, I shall omit all references to scen- STRANGE VISIONS. cry except incidentally, for the purposes of showing what effect the surrounding country has upon the people. I was informed that the people in the village of Green River, like the cliffs surrounding 'em, are scaly, fishy, and considerable mixed that their motto is, when you meet a stranger, take him in. I am fully satisfied that the fel- ler that runs the lunch counter and curiosity shop at the depot lives up to the motto strictly. Passing through a countless number of snow sheds and over about 150 miles of country that was entirely 294 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S unnecessary to have been traversed by this railroad as it could have been made that much shorter with less work and expense that the way it is built but which would have cut out 150 miles of steal- ings at the average rate per mile figured on by the projectors and constructors of the gigantic Union Pacific Railroad scheme we arrived at Evanston, where we took dinner at the Mountain Trout House. The name of the hotel indicates the principal characteris- tic of the dinner you are to get, namely, fresh mountain trout, which, to lovers of the finny tribe, is a great treat. Beside this, the table is abundantly supplied with venison and bear meat. You are waited upon by grinning, goring-eyed Chinamen, who wear their shirts outside of their pantaloons, and in reply to any question you put to them not directly connected with the victuals before you, are always ready with the same speech, "Ah ! Ah ! Me no savvee, Melli- kee manne. Me Chinee ! Yum !" After we have had all the dinner we want, and taken the last look at the human puzzle in the form of the "Me no savvee" Chinee waiter, we stepped aboard, and left the little town with its 1,500 inhabitants, about 300 of which are Chinamen, just where it belongs on the geography, just half way between Omaha and San Francisco, 957 miles from each city. Twenty miles from Evanston we enter the most sublime and won- derful scenery on the entire length of the Union Pacific, Echo Can- yon. From the time we enter this canyon at Castle Rock until we pass out of Weber River Canyon, a distance of sixty miles, we are constantly met with new surprises. It must have been the masters of the gods that built the Colorado gardens, that arranged these two canyons. The gigantic walls, reaching iu many places the height of 2,000 feet, are so varied in color and shape as to claim the atten- tion of the tourist every moment. Echo Station, a little town at the mouth of Echo Creek, is famous for the echoes which gave it its name. Here is to be seen the remarkable monument, a square column of red sandstone, 50 feet thick and 250 feet high. Four miles below Echo we pass a lone fir tree, called the 1,000 Mile .Yin I HVPOCRIT! 395 as it is just 1,000 miles from Omaha. Then comes that wonderful crevice between two sharp rocks, extending down the side of the mountains, where it is said that Brigham Young and the Mormon elders that was with him during his memorable exploring trip hunt- ing for the promised land, slid down the mountain side into the little stream below, when they all got out of the water and brushed the dirt off themselves. It is said that Brigham stretched himself up as far as his one unbroken suspender permitted, and exclaimed, "Well, I be d d ! That is a devil of a slide," and ever since then it has been known as The Devtfs Slide. We are now fairly in the country where the Devil ought not to be Utah, the land of the "Latter-day Saints of Jesus Christ," and certainly his Satanic majesty ought to keep out of this land. How- ever, we are all more or less painfully aware that the Devil is quite apt to crowd himself in where he has no business to. At 5:30 we arrived at Ogden, the terminus of the Union Pacific Railroad, and where we took the train for the Great Salt Lake City, thirty-seven miles to the south. We had become so well acquainted with each other in our sleeping car, that to leave it and part company was a good deal like breaking up housekeeping. Our jolly, good-natured Sprague, War- ner & Co.'s drummer had become so genial and kind, and our St. Louis hardware man had made so many pleasant hits; our Hono- lulu-bound friends was so kind and interesting ; our big-hearted sea captain so noble and generous; our Denver News man was so clever with his questions and lies ; Clarissa was so philosophizing and motherly in her many remarks, while I done the best I knew how to in my country style and with my farm speeches to make all things smooth and agreeable, and even the Boston swell uncorked himself once in a while with some concession that there was some things worth seeing outside of Boston, so that by the time we got to the end of our road we had become so free with each other in conver- 296 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S sation that we felt like a family, and the separation was the break- ing up of the household. Rattling o'er the mountains, and running through the sheds, While setting in our seats or lying in our beds, It was amusement combined with learning and song, While our toiling engine was pulling us along. Our Chicago drummer, selling taffy and tolu, And our elder couple bound for Honolulu; With our whaling captain headed for the North Sea, Was just the kind of folks that suited Clarissa. The thing that on dry land in his eyes makes a swell By coming all the way from Boston, clothes to sell; And the St. Louis traveler and the Denver News Was good company for Uncle Ben and his muse. But when the time drew nigh for us all to depart, There was shaking hands and good-byes that come from the heart. EXPERIENCE WITH HYPOCRITES. 297 CHAPTER XXVIII. days among the Mormons ought to give a close observer of folks and things a little insight to their ways of living and their religious notions, especially if the sole purpose of his visit is to that end. I think, to use a watchmaker's term and speak figura- tively, I saw the cap taken ofl, and the mainspring, as well as a good share of the wheels in their machine. The first night we staid at Ogden, stopping at a little hotel close to the depot. I wanted to go down to Salt Lake City by daylight. It was dark when we got to Ogden, and as we was quite fat-i-gued, we didn't leave the hotel that night, but we had a good night with the landlord. He was a great, fat, good-natured man, and was a Gentile, and we got a good many pointers from him that helped us considerable. (Gentile means any and everybody that isn't a Mormon.) The next morning we took the train on the Utah Central Rail- road, and whizzed along down the narrow valley lying between the foot of the Wasatch Mountains and the Great Salt Lake, thirty-seven miles south to the " Holy City," the Mecca of the Saints. The scenery is grand in the extreme ; the mountains rise so abruptly and present such sharp, rugged outlines and peaks that they seem higher, and come nigher to the pictures I used to see in Olney's geography, when I went to school, than any we had yet seen. The overbear- ing Wasatch humps his back up and puts on high airs, on our left, while on our right is the Great Salt Lake, its quiet bosom glistening in the morning sunlight just breaking over the rocky peaks, like a vast sheet of silver. And the valley, running from two to sevei* miles 298 SHAMS ; OR, UNCLE BEN'S wide, dotted with small farmhouses and villages, ail surrounaed by orchards and shade-trees, even with a light covering of snow on the ground, formed a beautiful picture. I know of no spot where Nature has put her choice bits to- gether in a more pleasing and harmonious manner than all through this wonderful valley. Even in the winter, when the beauty of na- ture is concealed by an icy overcoat, one is charmed by its appear- ance, and in spring and summer it must be delightful indeed. Just before I arrived at the Mormon paradise, I was reminded of the Clark Street museum in Chicago, where Clarissa and I saw them play Hell, by the strong smell of sulphur, and, looking out of the car window on the left side, there I saw a stream of water boiling out of a rock so that a heavy cloud of steam was continually rising from it. And off to the right of the track there was acres and acres covered with this hot sulphur-water, and the cloud of steam rising from it looked like fog lifting off the meadow in autumn. This curious spring impressed Clarissa in a peculiar manner. She said, " Benjamin, don't you think it is a singular coincident that the headquarters of the Mormon Church and the big sulphur works down below should be so close together?" I told her " Perhaps it was, but the impression I got of Joe Smith and the organization of their church, when I was a young man, and read a good- deal about it was, that it originated in that big sulphur factory, and had worked its way up to the top of the ground, but I was perfectly surprised at its spreading and growing so rapidly." " Well, Benjamin," she replied, "you know that pussly, Canada thistles, and every other mean and vile weed, when it gets a start on a man's farm, will spread all over it mighty quick, and it grows so fast that it will ruin it in a short time; and, if what I've read about the Mormons is true, they are the pussly and thistle to the morals of this lovely country, and in time they will be the destruc- tion of it in a moral point of view ; but we will know more about it in a few days." EXPERIENCE WITH HYPOCRITi: 299 We had now arrived at the depot. We took a street car for the Walker House, where I met an old friend, Mr. C. M. Henderson, from New York City, who was representing a blank book manufact- ory. He used to know me and Clarissa a good many years ago. He introduced us to Mr. Erb, the landlord, and told him where we was from. Mr. Erb was very nice to us, and gave us a very fine private bedroom on the parlor floor, right next to Mr. Henderson's sample-room, fronting on the principal street in the city Temple Street. The Walker House is one of the best taverns we have seen since we left Chicago in fact, it is the best. They set a splendid table, and give you five meals a day, and everything is done to make the stranger that stops there feel at home. After we was settled in regard to room, etc., Mr. Henderson volunteered to go with us to what places he was familiar with. We walked up Temple Street slowly, so we could have a good chance to see what we viewed on the way. The first large building on our left was the White House; across the street was the large mercantile institution of Walker Brothers, the largest Gentile store in Utah. These gentlemen was originally Mormons, but perceiving a ray of light piercing the misty cloud of Mormonism in an early day, they abandoned the church, and was branded by the hierarchy as apos- tates, a title of which they were proud. Further up the street, and on the opposite side, he showed us the first hotel built in the city the old Salt Lake House ; it is one of Brigham's landmarks. Next, we passed the Z. C. M. drugstore, and next door to it the drygoods store of the Mormon elder, Jennings. On the opposite corner was the drugstore of Godbe, Pitts & Co. Godbe was a seceder from the polygamous church, and the head of a branch known as the Godbeites. As we proceeded up the street, we passed the great bookstore of one of the Mormon bishops. We crossed the street to the corner, where stands the exponent of the controlling power behind and under the Mormon throne, the Deseret Bank. The next building of importance was the mammoth Zion Co-operative 30O SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S Mercantile Institution. This is the largest general store I ever saw The building is eighty feet wide and over three hundred feet deep, three stories high, and basement. We went into it, and was introduced to Mr. Eldridge, the general manager. He was very polite, and showed us all through this monstrous establishment. It is a marvel of neatness and system ; everything is in perfect order, and a sepa- rate department for each kind of goods. The floor is as white and clean as soap, water and scrubbing-brush can make it. Mr. Eldridge, understanding who we was and where we was from, and where we was bound for. and our desire to see and learn all we could about his city, called a young man, and told him to go with us to the Tithing House, the Deseret News office, through Temple Square, the Main Tabernacle, Winter Tabernacle, the Museum, and also to ask the president if he would receive a call from us. As Mr. Eldridge wished to see Mr. Henderson on business, we excused him and went on in company with the young man. We first visited the office of the Deseret News, the principal Mormon news- paper; was introduced to several, among the rest Brigham Young, Jr., who told us in a very pompous way what a wonderful people they was, how they was the chosen people of God, and they had been led by the prophets of God into this beautiful land, how God had protected and prospered them, and had been on their side all the time, and how mean the United States government had been to them ; how they had persecuted them on every hand, how they threatened to destroy them in days past, how the government had all the big cannons up at Camp Douglas pointed right down on their sacred city, so that in an hour's time they could destroy the entire city ; how, at one time, the Mormons had combustible mate- rial so arranged in every house, that they would have the whole city reduced to ashes in an hour, had the government troops moved upon 'em ; but how the hand of God had stayed the power of the gov- ernment ; how the Gentiles was lying about them all the time, and working themselves into the country, trying to undermine them-* EXPERIENCE WITH HYPOCRITES. 301 Continually meddling with that which was none of their business ,- how Congress was passing laws that was wicked and unjust, and wasn't satisfied with persecuting them by taking away their right to vote, but now they wanted to take their wives away from them, and make their children orphans, and their wives nameless things, to be thrown on to the cold and uncharitable world, and not even satisfied with that damnable work, was trying to confiscate all their r BRIGHAM YOUNG, JR., TELLS US TERRIBLE THINGS. property ; but they had gone as far as they could go, and if they wus interfered with any more, the Saints would rise up in a body and destroy the government. I fairly trembled in the presence of this wonderful big piece of human clay, and Clarissa spoke up and advised Mr. Young not to do such a rash act, as he might scare some one ; that Uncle Sam was pretty nigh as big as he was, and there might be some trouble if he SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN*S and the rest of the Saints got so mad. Her remarks had a quieting- effect upon him, and he softened up some, and asked us to call again before we left the city, if we had time. We then went into the Tithing House, and was showed all through it. We saw great bins of wheat, and oats and flour, and all kinds of produce ; and out in the yards was cattle and hogs, sheep and horses, hens, geese and turkeys of all kinds, that people had brought in as their gift to the church. " You see," said a big Scotchman, who, we was told, was a bishop, and who had charge of the house and yards, " every good Mormon brings into this place one-tenth of all he produces, or of all his income, as his gift for the support of the church ;" and then he went on, quoting Scripture to prove that that was the way they done in Christ's time; and he talked for more'n an hour to show us how Joe Smith was the prophet of God, and that the Mormon Church was the only true and authorized church of Jesus Christ on earth. We left the Tithing House and walked out of the high wall in- closure, crossing the street to the great eastern gate to Temple Square. As we passed through the gate we was requested to step into the little house close to the gate and write our names in the big register book where every visitor's name appears. We shall always have the satisfaction ol knowing that the names of Benjamin Mor- gan and his one, single, solitary wife, Clarissa Snodgrass Morgan, are written on the Saints' book in their New Jerusalem. After sign- ing the book, a carroty colored haired gentleman proceeded ahead of us as a guide. In front of us a few feet, stands the great Tem- ple that has already been over twenty-five years in process of con- struction, and which, according to our guide, will not be completed for thirty years or more to come. This building, he said, is built of the hardest gray granite taken from the mountains about twenty- five miles from here. The walls are fifteen feet down in the ground and fifteen feet thick at the base, tapering up to the surface of the ground, where it is nine feet thick. The walls are now up to the top WITH HYPOCRITES. 303 of the second story. When the building is completed, it \viil be two hundred feet long, one hundred feet wide, and one hundred feet high to the roof, and the top of the steeple will be two hundred feet above the ground. This building is to be arranged for the use of the church in the administration of its rites and ceremonies until Christ comes to earth again to reign a thousand years, when he is to occupy it as his official mansion while here below. (This is one of the ideas they teach, and which most of them believe.) For the construction of this temple, every year all the Mormons are re- quired to pay a tithing of their income. This money is called the Temple fund. In the basement of this temple is constructed a huge stone washbowl, called the baptismal font, where all the dead gen- erations of the glorious and inglorious past are to be baptized by proxy in order to be restored to the kingdom of the Saints in the endless future. Passing by the Temple, we come. to one of the wonders of the nineteenth century, the great Tabernacle. Its wonder consists in its plan of architecture, which was given to the great prophet, Brigham Young, by the Almighty, in a dream. It is the largest auditorium in America, capable of seating 15,000 people, if necessary. The roof is oblong oval shape, like a dish cover, and is supported by stone and brick piers nine feet thick. Between each pier are wide folding doors, so that when thrown open, the room, if crowded, can be entirely emptied in three minutes. A deep gallery extends three- fourths of the way around the room. The west quarter of the room is occupied by the officials of the church, so distributed and arranged as to represent the complete organization and power of the church. In the center, the lower front seat, behind the commun- ion table, is occupied by twelve elders. Behind them and a step higher up, is a seat occupied by priests ; behind them and another step higher up, is a seat occupied by high priests ; and behind them and another step higher up, is the seat occupied by -the twelve apos- tles ; and behind them, and another step higher up, is the seat 304 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S occupied by the president and his advisory council. This is the last and highest seat. On the one side are the seats occupied by the bishops, while on the other side sit the deacons and teachers. Behind all these and on raised seats sit the great choir of sing- ers, while back of them is the monstrous pipe organ, forty-two feet wide. This organ was built within the room, our guide told us, by one of their members, a Swede. The guide called our attention to the wonderful acoustic (as he called it, I don't know what it means) properties of the room, by having us go up in the gallery at the further end of the room while he stood by the side of the organ and whispered to us. We could hear him as plain as if his mouth was within an inch of our ear. We were perfectly astonished, and wondered if after all it was not true that God did give the plan of this great Tabernacle to Brigham. We was telling about it when we got back to the hotel, when we was informed by truthful persons that if we set in the seats on the floor anywhere in the middle of the house, we could not hear a single word distinctly ; and for hearing, it was a failure everywhere except in the gallery and under it. Then the story of God having anything to do with the plan appeared as false to us as the idea is apparent, that He has nothing to do with their church, in any manner whatever. But the great mass of Mormons no doubt be- lieve implicitly what their shrewd and crafty leaders teach them. After leaving this building we went through the Winter Taber- nacle or Assembly Hall, on the south side of the square inclosure. It is called the Winter Tabernacle, as it is used in the winter and during cold weather, as the great Tabernacle is used only in the warm weather, there being no means of warming or lighting it. Coming out of the Winter Tabernacle we noticed a smaller house over in the northwest corner of the square, and asked our guide what it was. He said it was the Endowment House. We asked him to show us through it, but he very firmly declined ; and told us that none but Saints was ever permitted to enter there. EXPERIENCE WITH IIYPOCRIT! 305 Clarissa cast a look at me with a meaning visibly upon her countenance, that she wished I was a Saint ; while for the purpose of satisfying my curiosity at the time, I wished she was a saintess and I a sainter. but from what I have since learned about it, I ara glad we are neither one of which. As we left Temple Square by the same gate we entered, we thanked our guide, and give him fifty cents. It being one o'clock, we told the young man we would not trouble him more that day, and thanking him for his kindness, walked down to our hotel. We had rode, walked and talked and seen enough in this half day to tire younger and stronger persons, and we felt quite weary. We ate a hearty lunch and went to our room, where I took a little nap, while Clarissa was reading her " Shadows of the Future." In a couple of hours I woke up, feeling much refreshed. Mr. Henderson called at our room, and suggested our taking a ride ; we expressed our thanks for his kindness and a desire to accept, and he ordered a carriage and driver. The day was pleasant and quite mild and springlike. We rode all over the city, and went up to Camp Douglas. The ride was delightful. The streets are all wide, smooth and hard, with a clear stream of mountain water running on each side. The evidence of prosperity and quietness was abundant on every hand. We saw the Lion House, where Brigham and several of his wives used to live, and across the street the magnificent palace he had erected for his nineteenth wife, who was generally called his favorite, in honor of whom he gave it the name of Amelia. It is said that she was quite beautiful, but I can't understand how any woman possessed of either beauty or brains, with self-respect, could for gold or palaces consent to be the nineteenth wife of a great ani- mal in human form; but the strangest of all strange things in this world, I believe, are the freaks of human nature. We returned to the hotel at six o'clock, and had an excellent meal, after which by invitation we visited Mr. Henderson in his sample room. He told us he had an engagement with Mr. 306 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S (whose name I purposely omit), the Mormon Bishop, who owns the big bookstore, at 7 o'clock, and if we would remain he would intro- duce him to us, and we would find him a jolly, bright fellow, full of Irish wit which he inherited from his Irish parents. Mr. H. said his customer stuttered terribly, and might make us laugh. While we was talking about the bishop, there was a rap on the door, and as Mr. Henderson opened it, there he stood ; a tall, sandy complected man with a twinkle about his eyes. As he took Mr. Henderson's hand in response to a good-evening welcome from Mr H., he bowed and said, " Go-go-go-go-go-good-e-e-e-e-e-e-evenin', good-evenin'." Mr. H. turned and said *'Mr. , let me make you ac- quainted with some old friends, Mr. and Mrs. Morgan, of New York, who have stopped here for a few days.'* "Ho-ho-ho-how d-d-d-de d-d-do. How de do. I-I-I-I'm g-g-g-g glad glad t-t-t-to me-me-me-meet you. Glad to meet you. It's a f-f-f-f-f-fine d-day. D-d-d-do yo-you come to s-s-s-s-s-see the wi-wi wicked M-M-M-Mormons ?" he said. We saw he was of a happy nature, and we felt free to ask him some questions, which he as freely answered. We talked consid- erable about the Mormons. Finally Clarissa said : "I understand you are a Bishop, which I presume is an import- ant office in your institution. Now I want to ask you a plain ques, tion, and would like a plain reply. Are you a Mormon from con. viction as to its being right and true, or for fun, or for the money you can make out of it ?" In reply, he said, "T-t-t-to b-be p-p-p-p-plain, i-i-it's f-f-f-f-for all th-th-th-th-three re-re-re-reasons, b-b-b-b-but p-p-p-p-p-principally the la-la-latter. Y-y-you s-s-s-s-see I-I-I-I am c-c-c-convicted in m-m-my o-o-o-own m-m-m-mind tha-tha-tha-that to m-m-m-make m-m-money is ri-ri-ri-right, tha-tha-therefore, therefore my c-c-c-c-convictions is a-a-a-a-all right ; and i-i-it's f-f-f-fun t-t-t-t-to m-m-m-make m-m-m-m- money. So you s-s-s-see I-I-I am a M-M-M-Mormon f-f-f-for all th-th EXPERIENCE WITH IIYl'OCIUTI 307 three re-re-reasons, and-and-and I m-m-make 1-1-1-lots of m-m-money out o-o-of it. Wouldn't y-y-y-you 1-1-like to b-b-be < Clarissa very emphatically told him No ; she didn't believe in trading principles for money. "B-b-but m-m-m-my d-d-dear m-m-madam, if-if-if y-y-y-you c-can ex-ex-ex-exchange p-p-p-poor p-p-p-p-principles f-f-f-f-f-for g-g-good m-m-m-mon-money, th-th-the m-m-m-money b-b-b-becomes g-g-good p-p-p-principle ; a-a-and y-y-y-you c-c-c-can af-af-af-afford t-t-t-t-to th-th-th-throw a-a-a\vay y-y-your p-p-p-poor p-p-p-principle. D-don't y-y-y-you s-s-see ho-ho-how it is ?" I could see how it was from his standpoint, and I can under- stand how a couple of dozen shrewd and deceiving men organized and promoted the growth of that whole institution, and became the hierarchy themselves, for money, and that money is the mainspring to the whole Mormon machine. The Deseret Bank, an institution managed by this hierarchy, is the main wheel into which all the smaller wheels fit, and play their necessary part. Honest convic- tions of conscience have led many to embrace the strange religious doctrines and belief, while a desire to better their condition has led thousands and thousands in Europe to leave homes of poverty with the prospects of beautiful homes in a land flowing with milk and honey, and come to this country only to be made slaves, to contrib- ute to the insatiable greed for money that has been and is the con- trolling spirit of the leaders of this institution; and while this Bishop spoke half in jest, he revealed the true spirit aud reasoning of these leaders. There is a good side and there is a bad side to this institution. The good side is the practical results that have given thousands and thousands of poor people homes to live in, if not paid for, and the conversion of a vast desert into a garden of fruit, flowers, and abundance of grain. But the motive of the organizers, leaders and contractors of the church is one of fraud and swindle. Hypocrisy of the deepest and darkest kind stamps the whole concern. The 308 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S incorporating of the church as a business institution under the Ter- ritorial laws, establishing the tithing scheme under pretense of giv- ing to the Lord for the support of the Church the building of the Temple under the hypocritical pretense of providing an executive mansion for Christ to dwell in, but the real purpose of which is to extort from its devotees large sums of money to go into their hands; POLYGAMOUS MORMON. a temple that will never be completed stamps the origination and perpetuation of the scheme with fraud and wickedness. And then, the most infamous of all, where the animal shows itself superior to the spiritual among these leaders, is polygamy. That they are a quiet, well disposed, peaceable class of people, as a rule, does not for a moment lessen the moral degradation of the leaders and teachers of this infamous doctrine. To give an idea why I EXPERIENCE WITH HVPOCRIT1 309 speak in such strong terms, I will tell you what Clarissa and I saw. We was walking U p Temple street one day, and a gentleman called our attention to a man about thirty years old with a woman on one side of him about forty years old, with a baby in her arms, probably six weeks old. On the other side of him was a woman about twenty years old, with a baby about the age of the other baby in her arms. He said, "Both of them women are that man's wives, and one of them is the mother of the other, while each of them are mothers to his babies." If such practical results of the teachings and practices of this Church are not enough to damn it, then cease to censure any other actions of the human race. Under this mon- strous doctrine human convenience is substituted for human love. As Shakespeare wrote to a friend once : " Call it not love, since love to heaven hath fled; And passion, base usurper, hath taken its throne instead." A condition of society that creates large families without being able to establish the relationship existing among them, must have a tendency to destroy all the finer sentiments of the human heart. We remained in Salt Lake City a few days, and while we was well treated, and saw a great deal to interest us, the more I saw of some of the leading men, including President Taylor and George Q. Cannon, representatives who was acting for them while they was off hiding from the officers of the government, the more I read in their papers, and the stuff I heard them preach the Sunday I was there, the more I was convinced that there was the biggest lot of contemptible hypocrites connected with the Mormon Church that can be found alive in America out of jail. There are a great many Mormons that are pleasant people, and there are also a good many pleasant fellers that have been unfortunate enough to get into prison. Pleasantness, prosperity and peaceable- ness don't make the principles of the institution right. Its founders were frauds of the worst type, and its managers have been SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S apt scholars, guarding well their precious treasure and all the ave- nues leading to it. The play they make upon the ignorant religious superstitions and prejudices of its followers is their gold mine. Their institution has left its filthy tracks on every foot of soil over which it has passed, from Palmyra, New York, to Indepen- dence, Missouri, to Nauvoo, to Council Bluffs, and thence across the plains and over the mountains to this lovely valley where, taking ad- vantage of the natural barriers surrounding them, it flourished and " HOLINESS UNTO THE LORD." spread with magic speed, so that from the few that landed there forty years ago next July, it has reached to nearly, if not quite, 200,000, which is more followers than the Saviour had 300 years after his birth, so I am told. There are a great many laughable things in Salt Lake City -ITU HYPOCRITES. 311 One is a large signboard with an open eye painted on it, and over and under the eye the words, "Holiness unto the Lord," put up over the door of a whisky saloon. Profanity does not seem to be out of order by officers and members of the church. The cheating of a Gentile is strictly in order. A quarrel between two Saints : erally ends in both Saints taking something to drink at the other's expense in the nearest saloon. A quarrel between a Mormon and a Gentile generally ends in one of the parties getting an overcoat. I understand that Senator Edmunds has got up a bill he is going to paste up all over Utah next year. He'll have quite a job of bill-posting, for Utah is a larger country than most folks are aware, and it's alive with people. After taking a bath in their famous hot sulphur springs bath- house, we said good-by to Mr. Erb and some friends we had formed there, and left for Ogden, where we remained over one day to take a drive up some of the beautiful canyons and around where we could get views of the grand mountains which rise so abruptly and reach enormous heights. Clarissa is captured by the loveliness of this country, and says if it wasn't for Mormonism she would want to move here, but as it is she will take the old farm in Morganville and be contented, for there, unlike Utah life, by her own fireside she can realize what the poet said of human love when he wrote : " There is a story told In Eastern tents, when autumn nights grow cold, And round the fire the Mongol shepherds sit, With grave responses listening unto it : Once, on the errands of his mercy bent, Buddha, the holy and benevolent, Met a fell monster, huge and fierce of look, Whose awful voice the hills and forests shook. *O, son of peace,' the giant cried, 'thy fate Is sealed at last, and love shall yield to hate.' The unarmed Buddha, looking, with no trace Of fear or anger, into the monster's face, In pity said, ' Even thee I love. Lo! as he spake, the sky-tall lot i or sank To hand-breadth size the huge abhorrence shrank 312 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S Into the form and fashion of a dove, And where the thunder of its rage was heard, Circling above him sweetly sang the bird * Hate hath no charm for love,' so ran the song, ' And peace, unweaponed, conquers every wrong.' " I am aware that the country is flooded with books and news- paper articles on Mormonism, therefore I'll say no more about them. I only envy them on account of their lovely country and healthful climate, a climate that is free from any germs of disease. 1 don't envy them for their numerous wives, for while I think one wife, if she is a good, true and smart one, like my Clarissa, is the greatest boon to man, two would be bad luck, and a multitude would be his everlasting damnation, morally and socially, and ought to brand the man who enters into such business with a curse that should make his name a hissing and byword as long as the memory of him exists. God pity the poor innocent believers and supporters of such a horrible doctrine as polygamous Mormonism ! EXPERIENCE WITH HYPOCRITES. 31$ CHAPTER XXIX. 1 THOUGHT we would go from Ogden up to Helena, Montana Territory, and visit the National Park, see the spouting geysers - and other curious things we had read so much about, but Clarissa said that while she would like to take the trip, she thought it was pru- dent not to do so, as our finances was working down considerably fast. She had counted over the money last night and found that we had paid out pretty nigh $300 since we had arrived at Chicago, and in case we should fail to get any drawback in San Francisco, we would need all we had got with us. This decided the case, and we took the train the next morning on the Central Pacific Railroad for the West. We was lucky in getting down stair beds for both of us in the sleeping car. The scenery from Ogden to Sacramento is in the main monotonous, but in places very wild, picturesque, and inter- esting. Nearly every one who reads English has read so much about it that I will not take your time, or punish you with such ex- aggerated stories in regard to it as have been so often told. I found out one thing to be true, by actual observation, and that is, most all the descriptions of the entire route over which we have traveled, are overdrawn and exaggerated. A mountain that is about 1,000 feet high is put down anywhere from 1,500 to 5,000 feet high, and so in regard to everything else that is described. To keep within the limits of the exact truth, seems to be about the hardest thing for a traveler to do. The longer he has traveled, the harder the task becomes, and when they tell their stories in print for the public SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S to read, the higher color they can gild them with the more interest- ing they think they will be to the reader. Commercial travelers are noted for being liars ; the longer they have been on the road the more accomplished liars they become. Why ! what little time I've been traveling I feel I'm getting to be " somewhat of a liar myself ;" and still I intend to confine myself as close to the truth as I can. There is something in the air of a car, stage coach and steam- boat, that is catching when it comes to telling stories and relating SANDY BOWERS, AN UNEDUCATED IRISHMAN. what a person has seen, gone through and experienced, that gives it a balloon appearance. The fellows that get up geographies and histories are troubled with the same complaint to quite an extent. Somehow or other distance seems to add greatness to scenery as it does to noted poli- ticians ; they haint nowhere nigh as great when you are at home with 'em, or if they be, you see so many of the little things that stick out all around 'em, that their greatness is very materially lessened. The first place we stopped off at was Reno, near the middle of the Truckee Valley, at the base of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, OCKITI 31$ and fifty miles from their summit. We look the train on the Vir- ginia and Truckcc Railroad for Virginia City, which is only six miles from Reno, as a crmv Hies, but which is fifty-two miles by this railroad. I think it must be the crookcdest railroad in the world; it is stated that if all its curves was put together they would makes seventeen complete circles. They never allow very long trains to run over the road, for fear the engine might run into the hind end of its own train. We went thirty-one miles south to Carson City, the capital of SANIJY I'.UWKkS A I- IKK UK GOT HIS WEAL I'll. Nevada, where we rested for the night, and listened to marvelous stories of immense fortunes that had been made and lost in that vicinity in the palmy days of the glorious past. Gulliver can't hold a candle to some of them Carson City shams. There are a class of fellows that loaf around these Western hotels that I believe the land- lord hires to entertain the strangers that stop within his gates, with lies ; the bigger liars the more entertaining they are, generally. We passed through Washoe, a once busy but now a played out town, sixteen miles south of Reno. We was shown the Bowers' mansion, a magnificent dwelling built by Sandy Bowers, an uned- ucated Irishman, a miner who, when the rich deposit of gold-bearing 316 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S quartz was discovered at Gold Hill, in 1860, owned a good share of the vein, and he soon became worth millions. He erected this man- sion, bought the furniture, carpets, etc., for it in France at an enor- mous expense, filled the spacious grounds with beautiful shrubbery and had the most costly and elegant home in the whole State. Like as it is with thousands of people, his great misfortune was his sud- den fortune, for while it come to him swiftly it as swiftly left him, left him worse than before he had a dollar of it ; and now, having dissolved all connection with earth and its fleeting scenes, he leaves a widow in poverty. The magnificent gardens have disappeared, and the great mansion stands there as a curiosity. The next morning we left Carson City for Virginia City, stop- ping at Mound House, about half way between the two cities, near Sutro, the outlet of the Sutro Tunnel. This tunnel strikes the great Comstock mine, 1,898 feet below the surface croppings of the Gould & Curry mine. It is 19,790 feet long, and cost $4,500,000 for con- struction. It drains and ventilates the mines. An hour after leaving Mound House we was in the far-famed Virginia City, noted the world over for the marvelous fortunes that have been made there in mining and mining speculation. One of the wealthiest if not the richest man in America is Mr. J. W. Mackay, who has made millions of dollars at this place. It is not a difficult thing to hear and read about the fortunes made at this and in other places, nor to ascertain the names of the parties who have had their pockets tickled by the goddess fortune, but of the fortunes lost, of the thousands upon thousands that have chased her deceiving figure to this and hundreds of other places, with bright hopes and great expectations, and dropped every nickel they pos- sessed and walked away hungry paupers, nothing is said ; and it is a very difficult task to find them all out, and still more difficult to trace out the dark and damnable tricks and schemes that have been resorted to to swindle and rob the unfortunates. " You can safely calculate that for every dollar that has been taken out of the won- EXPERIENCE WITH HYPOCRITES. 317 derful mines here the richest mining camp in the world in days gone by there has been a dollar dropped by some one." An old miner who told me he had lived and worked there for more than twenty years, said : " Stranger, if you want to see the tallest hypo. crites, the biggest liars, under pretense of telling the truth, you go into a gold or silver mining camp and live there for six months." While I listened to his remarks, I could not help seeing Geo. Wad- dles and Jim Teeters right in front of me. Virginia City, with Gold Hill, has about 7,000 population, ^ind is built on the side of a steep hill. The entire 7,000 souls depend upon the Comstock Lode for their existence. The Comstock Lode is composed of twenty mines, namely : Utah, Sierra-Nevada, Union, Mexican, Ophir, California, Consolidated Virginia, Savage, Best & Belcher, Gould & Curry, Hale & Norcross, Chollar, Bullion, Ex- chequer, Alpha, Imperial, Yellow Jacket, Kentuck, Crown Point, Belcher. The deepest workings are 3,000 feet below the surface. The total yield since 1860, has been $350,000,000. I heard so much about gold and silver and great fortunes, that I was all fuzzed up; I didn't know but what I might run right into a big fortune in spite of myself, before I got out of that part of the universe. I knew one thing, and that was that I wouldn't get caught in any swindling speculation that would involve the loss of more'n fifty cents, as that was the limit of my visible pile of cash at that time, and so long as Clarissa carried the money, I didn't have a particle of fear of getting caught in any schemes. After eating a hearty supper, and listening for three hours to tall stones, every one of which was tipped and trimmed with gold, and heavily lined with silver, I went to bed. It was not long before sleep stole away con- sciousness. Soon, however, I was suddenly transcontinentalized to use the fashionable language of this winter's congress to my father's old farm. There I was cleaning out the cow stable, and milking with freezing fingers, coming in to a late supper, going to an early and cold bed in the chamber attic, getting up by candle* SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S light in the morning, doing all the chores, and then walking over a mile over the snowdrifts to the little schoolhouse, getting hold of a book that one of the boys at school let me have, telling about the wonderful gold fields of California, and the fun there was in getting it, and how anybody with pluck in their heart and sand in their giz- zard, could be worth a million in a few years ; how tired I got of the cold and hard life I was having on the farm, when an eagle fly- DOING CHORES AT 4 O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING. ing over the barnyard, while I was watering the horse, flew down and grabbed me in her claws and carried me with lightning speed over the great States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Ne- braska, Colorado, the Rocky Mountains, and the great Tabernacle in Salt Lake City, and dropped me down in Virginia City, and before I had time to thank her for the wonderful trip, two little angels as sweet as sweet could be, flew down from the clouds into my lap. EX1M WITH 1 1 \TOCRITES. 319 One had rosy cheeks and crimson lips, and golden wings, and said, "Young man from Samuel Morgan's cow barn, in Morganville, Blank County, New York, ain't you tired of those coarse, dirty boots?" I was muchly agitated as I tremblingly said I guessed I was, when suddenly my boots by some magic power flew off and out of sight, and the rosy cheeked angel stooped and put on my feet a pair of elegant, eighteen-karat solid gold slippers. The other angel had light blue eyes, blonde curly hair and the loveliest freckled cheeks that ever adorned a face, and silver wings ; and as he stroked my THK GRAND MASTER OF THE FIREWORKS. hair so softly, he said, "Young man from the rural districts of the Empire State, your clothes smell a little fresh of the bovine kine and the fruits of the udder ; wouldn't you like to change them for new robes ? " I was so surprised I couldn't speak, but with a con- senting wink of my left eye, I nodded, "Yes." Immediately my clothes left me, and the angel put a beautiful robe, woven of pure silver onto me, and then both angels put a crown, made of gold and studded witn diamonds and rubies, on my head, and said to me: " With this crown we make you this day, King of the Big Bonanza. Ask for what you may. and it shall be yours, except one thing, which 320 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S you cannot have, by accepting this crown." I asked them what that was, and they said, " The crown of everlasting life." And in the twinkling- of an eye the angels had flown out of sight. I was dizzy with the thought of being so suddenly the possessor of such vast wealth. What to do with it, puzzled me ; and then the thought of los- ing my chance in the crown of everlasting life annoyed me terribly, and while I still sat there with my crown of jewels, and silver robe and golden slippers on, turning the wheel of thought in my mind, and wondering one minute and trembling the next, a horrid mon- ster, with huge ears and fiery eyes, holding in his hand a fork of red hot iron, rose up out of the earth in front of me, and with a voice that seemed to shake the mountains that echoed back from their rocky sides his awful command, said, " Come ! You are mine. I have bought you with these glittering trinkets with which you are clothed and crowned, and they, together with your soul, belong to me ; and I want you to go with me ! " i was so scared, my hair stood erect, and I stammered out, " Who be you ? " He said, " I am the Devil, the grand master of the fireworks down below. Come with me ; you must go." In horror I shrank, and cried, " How and when did you buy me?" "I sent my gold and silver imps in the guise of angels, and they gave you the things with which I purchase more souls than with any other price I pay." " Say what you will, Think what you may, The truth is still, Gold is the pay For which a man, Tho' sick or well, Does all he can His soul to sell." I tried to reason how I had of my own will, sold myself to even these angels, but even reason forsook her throne, and I was his prop- erty. He reached his bony fingers out to take my arm, when sud- denly I awoke. Oh, what a sigh of relief I heaved. A reliefer sigh EXPERIENCE WITH HYPOCRITES. 321 was never heaved by mortal man, and I just hollered out, "Thank God, it's nothing but a dream." My hollering awoke Clarissa, who wanted to know what ailed me. I told her to wait a minute and I'd tell her. I got up and lit the gas, and of all the iookin' sights our room was the worst. Usually I am pretty orderly and have a good deal of system. When I go to bed and retire, I lay my coat in the chair first, then my vest, then my pantaloons, and then 1 draw the chair up side of the head of my bed, and put my shoes and socks down on the floor in front of the chair, and that was the way I done when I went to bed and retired this time. When I lit the gas one of my shoes was in the washbowl, and t'other was in the slopjar ; one sock was lodged in the transom over the door, and one was under the back side of the bed. The pants was in the middle of the floor, and the chair was bottom side up on top of my coat and vest, and the pillow-case was pulled onto my head. I didn't notice it until I went in front of the looking-glass on top of the bureau (they had regular sleeping-car pillows in this hotel). I explained to Clarissa my dream, and told her how scared I was after I got through. She said, " Benjamin, that is either a prophetic dream, or else you have had a nightmare. I told you not to eat them twelve big pancakes for supper, if you expected to sleep." " Well," says I, " pancakes never affected me that way before, but them dumb stories about fortune, etc., is what has set hard on my stomach, and I be- lieve the dream is a warning for us not to love money more'n life and our fellow men, and above all, not to stay in Virginia City another day, if I value your and my eternal happiness, for it's as catching here as the measles, and we'll take the first train for Reno." $22 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S CHAPTER XXX. FTER a light breakfast, we took the 8 o'clock train, and was m Reno in time to catch our west-bound train. Once more on our regular journey, and nearing its latter end, we felt better. I did, especially. This time we was unfortunate about the sleeping-car arrangements, as we couldn't get a down-stairs bed for either one of us, and we had to take what the porter calls uppers. We wanted to stop at Truckee, and take the stage for Lake Tahoe we had heard so much about it; but it was a little too cold, and we was somewhat tired. So we was content to listen to the stories of some of the passengers who got on there that had visited the wonderful lake, twenty-two miles long by ten wide, and 1,800 feet deep, whose waters are so clear that they say you can see the bot- tom, where it is sixty feet deep. At Truckee we strike the steep grade reaching from there to the summit, which averages seventy-nine feet to the mile. At Sum. mit we are 7,020 feet above the sea level, and are surrounded with very wild and interesting scenery. We go through a i,659-feet tunnel, and begin the descent of the mountains to Emigrant Gap. A person that is a lover of romantic scenery can spend a couple of days in this vicinity very pleasantly ; can climb to the summit of Castle Peak, and Fremont Peak, if he is a good climber, and with a good glass can take in an immense scope of country, both in Ne- vada and California. We made no more stop offs until we arrived in Sacramento, the capital of the paradise of the old forty-niners, California, a lively business city of 20,000 souls. From this city the traveler can take the trains for Los Angeles and San Diego. WITH HYPOCRITES. 323 The change \ve experienced in arriving in California was pleas- ing indeed. ; out of winter into mild spring, from cold, - and desolate mountains, clad in snow, into green valleys, where flowers bloom and fruit trees bud for the coming harvest, is as de- lightful as going from the cheerless woods in New York, where the farmer has been chopping wood all day, with cold feet, into a warm and cheerful house to be entertained by young and mirthful friends, and a bounteous table, loaded with choice fruits and flowers. In his enjoyment he soon forgets the cold without. A few days' living in me delightful California climate causes one almost to forget the winter he has left behind. Again we was on board the cars and rolling on to the desti- nation of our great excursion ride across the American continent. We took a regular passenger instead of the sleeping-car, and was 324 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S pleased with the change, for we saw a much greater variety of peo- ple coming in and going out than we did in the sleeper. In the front seat set a couple of pigeyed Celestials, while on the opposite side was one of the old settlers, a regular old forty-niner, whose brindled locks fell upon his shoulders like a Piute squaw, while under the shade of his broad-brimmed hat and heavy, shaggy eye- brows sparkled a couple of black eyes that seemed to tell a story of a long and hard experience with the gold and silver-winged angels and his Satanic majesty. There was an air about him that seemed to say that the latter had been his master, and that he had been in hard luck. Most every nation seemed to be represented in that car Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Russia, Austria, Ireland, Scotland, Eng- land, New York, Chicago, and Missouri. To walk slowly through the car and hear them all talk, one would think they had been ordered by King Babel to some city to erect another tower. We didn't pretend to understand what they was talking about, but by their actions I knew they was talking about something or other. Clarissa, in remarking about the confusion of tongues with which we was surrounded, said, " If Sarah Smuggins and Betsy Teeters was here, the thing would be complete, and the car itself would be a good first story to start a tower with." At Benicia, thirty-three miles from San Francisco, we crossed the Strait of Carquinez on the largest ferry-boat ever built the Solano, 424 feet long, and 116 feet wide. Our whole train ran right onto the boat, and when we got across our engine pulled us on land again. We whizzed along at a rapid rate until we reached the west- ern rim of the city of Oakland, by which we slowly passed, running out on a mole one and a half miles beyond, to a large station-house on the bay. We changed to an elegant ferry-boat, and soon started to cross the four-miles wide bay. We went on deck. It was evening, and i;xi i \\TIII HVI 325 the sight before us was grand. To our right was quietly sleeping Goat, Angel, and Alcatraz Islands ; to our left, glistening in the moonlight, was the Golden Gate, while in front was the City of a Hundred Hills, the successor of two old villages, San Fran- cisco, named by Franciscan friars who settled there in 1776 rising up before us with its thousands of gaslights, like a mountain of stars kissing their sister stars above. In twenty minutes we landed and took a carriage for the Bald- win Tavern, where we secured an elegant private bed room and set- tled down for the night with a feeling of rest and satisfaction to know we had reached the end of our journey, and Clarissa and I could pillow our heads on the great Pacific shore. I had already dreamed my dream, and Clarissa was entitled to have her dreum now. 326 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S CHAPTER XXXI. HE next morning the noise of the newsboys and rattling wagons awoke us, and looking out onto Market street we thought we was in Chicago, but the fact that the atmos- phere was so different dispelled that idea. I asked Clarissa what she dreamed. She said she was so tired and sleepy when she went to bed she never thought a word about dreaming, but she felt young and strong, and ready to put in the day sight-seeing. We had a splendid breakfast, and enjoyed the hour we was in the big dining room very much. There was lots of fine dressed women and men eating breakfast, and we heard some women sitting at the next table to us talking a good deal like them women in Mr. Palmer's dining room in Chicago, and Clarissa said she guessed the women was pretty much alike the world over them that wants to be good are good and kind, and them that wants to be mean and hypocritical are as mean as they know how to be regular slander- ing hypocrites. I was so biling mad to hear 'em slandering folks that according to their own talk had been friends to 'em, that I was just going to wheel round and give 'em a piece of my mind when Clarissa, perceiving my mind (she is an awful perceiver, and can tell what a person is thinking about before they speak a word), said: "Benjamin, stop! don't you do it. It's no use for us to under- take to make folks true and honest by talking to 'em. We'll find, if we undertake it, that we've got a bigger task on our hands by two thousand times than General Grant had in driving the rebels out of Vicksburg," , ITU m 327 Clarissa was right, and I knew she was, so I finished my break- fast and let the rest of 'em alone. After breakfast Clarissa and I went down to the office and in- quired for the office of Dodgem, Skipem & Oppenheimer. The smart young fellow behind the counter twisted his red moustache several times in a meditative manner as though he didn't know whether 'twas best to answer our questions or not, and turning so as to get the most sparkle possible on the big sign for a glass factory he had deposited on his shirt bosom, finally condescended to tell us that he didn't know any such persons in the city. I told him if it wasn't too much trouble I'd be much obliged to him if he'd show me some one that wouldn't spoil by answerii few civil questions. Just then a middle-aged gentleman, standing near the counter, overhearing my remarks, says, "Mr. what is it you want to know? Perhaps I can tell you." This man, I found out, was the proprietor of the tavern, and it didn't hurt him a mite to talk like a gentleman, which he was. I asked him about the agents of Ketchem, Holdem & Skinem, and handed him the card of Dodgem, Skipem & Oppenheimer. He said he would send a boy with me to the street and number indicated on the card, but he had never heard of the firm. I told him about the excursion, and showed him the advertisement, and then told him how I had to pay for everything, and received the promise of a rebate to be paid to me for all these extra charges at this office, and showed him the checks. The landlord shook his head in a doubtful manner, and said the names of the parties didn't inspire much confidence in his mind that, the thing was very honest. The boy started, while Clarissa and I followed until we found the place, which was a small, dingy room in a dirty-looking part of the city, not far from the wharf where our ferry boat landed us. Wo went into the office and found a fellow behind a desk. As we went in he got up and come up to us. 11- A< ighed about 140 pounds, had a horrible big nose shaped like a parrot's bill, a little low fore- 328 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S head, short, kinky black hair, and black eyes that could look right through you. There was something about our manner and looks that told him what we was there for. ' I said, "Is Mr. Dodgem in?" "Ah, mein frent, you vants to see Mr. Dodgem, doen't you ? Yis. Veil, I am reely sorry, but Mr. Dodgem dodged onto a train for Ni Yark last Vendsday, and ve haf not heard von word from him sense." "Well," said I, "is Mr. Skipemin?" "Veil, now, mein frent, it vas reely too bad agin ! You see, mein frent, Mr. Skipem vas a vary nice shentleman, and from a vary respectable family, but the poor feller had the consumption ven he come oud here from Boston. He thought this climate vud cure him, but effry sense he vas here he has had a horwyble cough, und last Saturday night, ven all vas still, the poor feller skipped the country." "Where did he skip to?" I asked. "Oh, mein frent, he must haf skipped right up to Heften ! Oh, it's too bad ; Sharley vas such a nice feller. I am reely sorry he isn't here for you to meet him." "Well," said I, "I suppose your name must be Oppenheimer, as I don't see anybody else in." "Yis, that vas mein name. Vas there anything I can do for you, mein frent ?" I said, "Yes," and immediately produced my tickets, rebate checks, receipts, and the company's advertisement, and the card of Dodgem, Skipem & Oppenheimer, and told him my story, which tvas backed up by the testimony of my beloved Clarissa. He looked the papers and checks all over, and then, with a holy grin on his dirty yellow countenance, that looked as though it had been handed to him by Jacob and his forefathers (for certainly it was an old grin) said, as he wrung his hands together : EXPERIENCE WITH HYPOCRITES. 329 "Ah! mein frent, I am not the Oppenheimer you vas looking for. I don't belong in that firm. I vas a broker in diamonds. It is mein pruther, Moses Oppenheimer, what is the member of that firm. Reely I vas vary sorry for you, but mein pruther Moses sailed for Europe last Sunday, the day we all luf to observe on ac- count of the Holy Shesus. I don't know vat can pe done for you." Said I, "Haven't they left any one here to attend to their busi- ness, and hasn't the company made any arrangements for doing as they agreed?" MOSES OPPENHEIMER. "Veil, now, mein frent, I don't know nudding at all apout that company or any of their arrangements. Only I know mein pruther paid lots of money to Eastern passengers coming in here on a big excursion, but I spose the firm haf vound up their peeziness." While we was talking to this son of Abraham, a fine, healthy- looking young fellow come in through the back door, smoking a cigar, and threw some papers on the desk ; at the same time a fine- dressed young man come into the front door, and approaching the young man that come in from the back door, hollered out : SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S " Well, well ! Charley Skipem, old boy, how do you do?" " My dear Ben, by George, I'm glad to see you ; when did leave Boston? and how are the folks? did you see my father and mother before you left ? Come in Ben and have a seat, and tell me all the news, and everything about yourself." During this short conversation between Charley Skipem (who died last Saturday night) and his old friend Ben, Mr. Oppenheimer's face had turned ashy pale. Mr. Skipem, upon noticing it, hollered out, " Moses Oppenheimer, what in the devil ails you ?" Moses sank into a chair as limp as a dish rag, and cried out : " Oh ! mein Shesus, mein Shesus ! You vos proke us all up in peezness, and our hull tarn shanty vill pe arrested ;" and the Jew fainted, while I took advantage of the situation and asked Charley if he was Mr. Skipem of the firm of Dodgem, Skipem & Oppenheimer. He replied that he was. I asked him if that sick Jew was his partner. He said he was. Then I told him who I was, where I was from, and produced the advertisement, my tickets, checks, rebate receipts, etc., and de- manded a settlement. He began to hem and haw, and said he was very sorry that he could not do anything for me. " The fact is," said he, " the funds deposited with us for rebates on those excursion tickets have all been exhausted, and I can't pay any more rebates until the company ad- vance more funds." " Well," said I, " I have already paid an extra price on tickets, and sleeping car fares and meals, to say nothing about the enormous railroad fare in Colorado, Utah and Nevada, over $380, and I want my pay ; and if you don't settle this at once I'll have you arrested in less than five minutes." I got hopping mad when I discovered their scheme, through their lying son of Abraham, and I thought I'd scare them if I couldn't do any more. " Well," said Skipem, " I haint got any of the company's money, and I don't see how I can pay you." 1 HYPOCRITES. 331 "Well," said I, " I'll see h " So I asked Clarissa to write a note to the landlord of the Baldwin Tavern, to send an offi- cer right down here, and 1 right up to him by the boy, who was still here. Then Mr. Skipem said, "Look here; rather than have any trouble, I'll pay you the $200 extra that you paid for your tickets in Syracuse, and will write to Ketchem, Holdem and Skincm, and state the case and tell them to send me the funds, and you come here before you leave the State, and I'll have it all fixed up for you." "YOU VOS PROKE US ALL UP IN PEEZNESS." I said, " Very well, I'll take it that way." Then he sat down and wrote out a check for $200 on a bank (that had been busted for more'n four years) and handed it to me. I asked him what he wanted me to do with that? " Why," said he, " take it around to the bank on Montgomery Street, and get your money." " Yes !" said I, " well, I'll do nothing of the kind. I want the cash." " Well, then," said he, " I'll go around and get it for you. You just stay right here till I come back." 332 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S Said I, " I guess not ; you died last Saturday night, and your Moses, there, sailed for Europe Sunday. I guess I'd better go right along with you, for fear you may die on the way." " Why, what do you mean?" said he. Said I, " I mean that you are a confounded hypocritical set of swindlers, and I wouldn't trust you out of my sight." He grew red in the face and finally went to his safe and got the money and gave me $200, and handed me a receipt for the money for me to sign, which I did. As we left the office I said to Clarissa, "That is $200 more than I really expected to get." Said she, " I wouldn't be a bit surprised if the money is counterfeit." We returned to the Baldwin and I got the landlord to give me directions for finding the principal points of interest in the city. I went to the postoffice and got some letters that was sent to us by mail and returned to the tavern, went to our room, where Clarissa and I read the letters. The first one we read was from Mary, and was as follows : "THE VILLAGE, BLANK Co., N. Y., ) "December 6, 1886. j" "DEAR MA : "I have been expecting a letter from you every day, but have not received but the one you wrote in Chicago. I was so glad you consented to my request. I showed your letter to Ebenezer, and it tickled him so that he forgot what he was doing when he waited on the next customer, which was a woman from up north of the village, who called for fifty cents worth of granulated sugar, and he weighed out and wrapped up twelve pounds of salt ; and then a boy that came in after a quart of white vinegar, got a quart of kerosene. Eb said you was a darling good old lady, and he was going to kiss you when you got home. "Well, we was married last Sunday night, in the front room, where he and I was sitting the night you come home from Smuggins'. We had to get Elder Danberry to marry us as the Baptist minister was away from home. I invited our old neighbors in, and they all had a good time except Sarah Smuggins, who seemed to be out of sorts all the evening. Abe be- haved real nice, and hitched up the horse for us to take a sleigh ride. After it was all over, we drove down to the village and staid all night at Brown's tavern. We have just com- menced housekeeping upstairs over the store where Teeters used to live. Oh! ma, you don't know how much fun we are having. Eb is up stairs two-thirds of the time, and he wants to kiss me all the time. Say, ma ; can you tell me what is good for sore and chapped lips? My lips are dreadful sore. I think it was from taking cold in. them when Abe brought us dowtj here Sunday night. Ebenezer has had to hire a clerk since we got married, as he don't get time to wait on all his customers. He says that I draw trade wonderfully ; that although I ilATF. WITH IIVPOCRIT1 333 have not been in the store an hour altogether since we was married, yet every one of our old neighbors and fri< uling with him. Say, tna ; can you tell me what is good to make p? I haven't slept scarcely a wink for the last five nights, and I feel ju-: though 1 had done a l>ig washing. Oh ! Kb is a perfect darling, he is so good to me ; but ma, tx 1 with an awful headache. What had I better give him for it? He 1 our rooms all furnished up just as nice and pretty as they can be. 11 \X good darling ; and the cook stove is splendid. He is as neat as wax. The carpet on the front room is three ply. He helps me get the meals and wash the dishes an 1 says it is fun, and then winds up by kissing me a dozen times. The curtains are buff and have got a bra- on the bottom of them. lie brings up all the wood and water, and stops to kiss in- trip. I brought the organ from home, and have got it in the front room. He carries all the slops down stairs for me, and says it's fun. The bedstead and bureau are black walnut, and are real nice. He made up the bed this morning, and the looking-glass is a large nice one ; the carpet is rag, and was presented to me by Abby Standish. He shuts the store up real early so as to be with me during the evening. Our dining-room table is a ten foot ash sion. Aint he awful nice ? We have got a room all fixed up nice for you and pa to s! when you get home. Oh ! he is just too sweet for anything. Now m.i, write me just as soon as you get this, and let me know when you are coming home. I hope it will be soon. He is hollering for me to come down to the store to sell some candy, as he is awful busy and hasn't time to come up stairs to see me. So I'll have to go, and bid you good-by. "Your loving daughter, MARY." "Well," said I, "she's got it bad, haint she?" " Well," said Clarissa, "it looks that way; but, Benjamin, you know they always have it worse the first part than any other time, but generally, when they have a severe attack the first week, it aint apt to last very long " "Is that so?" said I. "Well, it will be a good thing for Eb's business if it don't, for if it does, his business won't be apt to last very long." It was my turn to read my letter now, so I tore open the envelope, and read out loud my letter, which was from Abe, and is as follows, to-wit: "DEER DAD. mary has got marreD. and I'm golldarned glad on't, i never got so sick uv enny thing in mi life as i hav uv hur. she haz ackted like a golldarned fule fur the last munth, until she got marred, she wuld go around the house like a kat with fits, and i had tu hitch up the old mare and taker down to the villege every forenoon, and every nite i'd hav tu take care uv plunkits Horse, i didnt git ennything tu eat haf the time, After she got your letter, she jest went krazy she cum up tu me and kissed me. and kissed the hired man an kissed the pump and kissed the old brindled kow. She ackted like a fule, until the nite she got marred Then she behaved sweet, and I wuz glad ont, and sence then she has ben down to the villege, and dolly dulittle has bin keeping house fur us, and we hav plenty tu cat now and dolly iz az alltired nice az she can be, and she luks kinder sweet on me every time 334 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S i cum in the house, say pa, The old mare slipt down tother day and spraned hur back, and i'm frade she wont git well and missis boyles iz sick with morbus kolick and dave Kirk wuz sude fur cheatin the baptist minister in a hoss trade, and george waddles haz had to sell his farm to git monney enuff tu pay fur his swindlin and keep from goin to Jale and lie and hiz wife hav packed up thayer goods and are goin to go to Chicago and pa and ma, i wish you would hurry home i want you to take kare uv the cows and help milk, so good by, "Your dutiful AbraHam." Clarissa said, " Well, there haint any deceit about Abe. What he thinks, he says." " Yes, just like his dad," I replied. There was another letter 1 had not yet opened, so I tore it open and read it, viz.: 'THE VILLAGE, BLANK Co., N. Y., "Dec. 7, '86. "Ma. BENJAMIN MORGAN, San Francisco, Cal. Dear Sir : We regret being obliged to ask you to make your visit to the Pacific Coast short and hasten home, but certain things have recently developed in relation to the Waddles difficulty, and other things, that we deem it to your interest to be here before the next term of court, which commences four weeks from to-morrow. If you can arrange to be here within two and a half weeks, or three at the outside, from now, we should like to have you do so. It will be to our mutual interest for you to do so. "Very respectfully yours, "BARKLY & EVANS, Bankos." I was perfectly surprised at the contents of this letter, and could not possibly imagine what was up. We talked the matter over, and concluded to look around San Francisco for two or three days, then go down to Los Angeles, stay there one day, and then take the Southern Pacific Railroad home. After we had dinner we started out to take the whole city in, and know all we could about it in the short time we had allowed ourselves. We went through the new City Hall, the United States Mint, taking some specimens from the mint with us, the National Treasury, the Palace Tavern, the Standard Theater, the Panorama Hall, the Vienna Garden, the Mercantile Library, the Mechanics' Institute, the Mechanics' Pavilion, the Hammam Baths, the Art School, the California Market, the Fish Market, Leland Stanford's residence, Saint Patrick's Church, the Hop Wo Joss House, the Ning Wong Joss House, the Kong Chow Joss House, the Dan San '.nil HYi'OcuiTi 335 Fung Theater, the Anu Quai Yuen Theater, the Chinese Mer- chants' Exchange, and the Cliff House, and Fort Point Narrows of Golden Gate. Considering that we took all these and some other points that was interesting in, and got an idea of them in three days, we think we done pretty well for green farmers. Nothing escaped our notice that we saw, and we wasn't afraid to ask all kinds of questions. I was most interested in Chinatown, as there I met a class of people that don't grow in Morganville or anywhere nigh there. Their pigeyes and pigtails, greasy, yellow faces and heathenish countenances; their funny shoes, and pantalet breeches, with their shirts hanging outside, was so different from any other kind of folks that I couldn't keep from looking at them as I would a menagerie, and the way they lived, ate, slept, and done business was so peculiar that I come to the conclusion that they must have been dropped down onto the earth from some of the planets. I presumed they fell from Jupiter, as they look as though they might be a cross be- tween a Jew and the original Peter, for the way they live, move and have their being, is strongly suggestive that they came from some celestial climate, and are bound for the place to which it is said Peter carries the keys, and have stopped temporarily on the surface of old earth to pick up what they can, like flies in summer, and carry it along with them. Like the bothersome flies, they are con- tent with a little at a time, but they are all the time after that little, and when I found out there was about 25,000 of them in this city I could readily see how they managed to get pretty much all the subsistence away from the respectable white laborers. I had read in the papers during the past ten years more or less about the persecution of the poor Chinaman on the Pacific Coast, and naturally, I come to the same conclusion that most of the Eastern people have that they was a innocent and honest class of folks, being imposed upon and persecuted by a lawless set of Irish vaga- bonds. But my ideas have undergone a radical change, for I find 336 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S the honest laborers, including Irish and all other kinds, have been driven almost to want and poverty by these pesky transient heathen, who, by their low wages and miserable living, serve to fat- ten the pockets of the avaricious capitalists of the Pacific Slope, and rob the honest, respectable white laborer of his livelihood ; and I ask my Eastern friends, in justice to humanity and the facts in the case, not to waste their sympathetic brine and spoil their lovely countenances with red eyes for the poor, persecuted heathen in Cal- ifornia. If these are true representatives of that Celestial country, I'll pray to the Creator to keep Jupiter on t'other side of the earth, and under no circumstances let him roll through the heavens over the Empire State, and fill its domains with any of its windfalls. Hypocrisy crops out all along the sunny Pacific's slope, as thor- oughly, and in some instances, more so, as it does on the Atlantic side of this great country. I would like to refer to many instances where I met it in all its grandeur and submitted to its tricks in be- ing swindled to the extent of what little loose change I had in my pockets, but I haint got time to do it. I am, every day of my life, convinced that the wisest thing that Benjamin Morgan ever done in his whole life, was to make his wife Clarissa, the banker and general financial manager of the firm of B. Morgan & Wife. Ever since he done that deed, the swindling hypocrites have had mighty poor picking in his patch ; and my ad- vice to the male sex in general is this : First, wait before you marry a female, until you are old enough to know what you want to marry her for ; then pick out a level headed, smart woman of the female sex and marry her. Don't, under any circumstances marry a fool because she is pretty, nor a male woman, because she can talk and argue, but take a genuine, sweet-tempered, but firm female, and then make her what the name of her sex indicates she ought to be a fee-male, and give her the fees that you receive from your business, and let her take care of it, and you'll be surprised in ten years to know how much she has saved for you, and how many chances of EXPERIENCE WITH HYPOCRITES. 337 being swindled you have escaped. In case she doesn't prove to be a good financial manager, you'll have the satisfaction, at least, of having some one else beside yourself to blame for your lack of prosperity. Of course, I am aware that circumstances alter cases. You might not have any money for her to take care of. In such cases, you needn't pay any attention to this piece of gratuitous advice, and you needn't bother her with the responsible duties of being your cashier. 338 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S CHAPTER XXXII. days of San Francisco life has crowded my head with many pleasant things that may be profitable for me to keep there, until such time as I want to draw them out. We took the morning train for Los Angeles, stopping on our way to visit some of those mammoth trees whose wonderful pro- portions have been described by every press in the world, and no one thinks of visiting California without writing a full description of them, even if they haven't been within a hundred miles of them, and generally they will manage to lie all they dare to about them. They are all-fired big trees, anyhow, and it makes you dizzy to try and watch a mosquito light on one of the top branches. I mean one of the branches on the top of the trees these big tall trees I'm talking about, is what I mean. I saw the biggest one in Cali- fornia, and walked around it. I was tired when I got around to the point I started from, I acknowledge, but what of that? I've been pretty tired at times when I hadn't walked half as far, but that's no sign that it's necessary for them to build a horse railroad around it, so the visitor can see the tree on all sides the same day, and save the expense of five dollars for staying over night, in order to finish his tour of inspection. I went into the hollow place inside, and I know now by my own observation, that it haint half large enough to accommodate a crowd at a World's Fair as the Californians have been hinting about. As I said before, it is an all-fired big tree, but there has been a tremen- dous big lot of lies told about it. Out oi respect to this king of THE DEAD GIANT. F.Xl'F.KIKNTE WITH HVPOCRITI 34* the forests and his cousins, 'and his sisters and his aunts (I wish I knew who rung that bell in my ears, then?) I guess I'll let 'em stand there, and go on to Los Angeles. The ride to this city, made famous by its fruits and wines, is delightful. The cars are well filled with natives and tenderfeet the latter being in the majority. The train talk differs from what you hear on the Eastern railroads, as it consists largely of expres- sions of surprise and wonderment, such as, " Oh, oh ! Isn't that grand ! " " Say, Jennie, haint that pretty ? " " Yes ; and George, do you see that mountain peak off yonder ? " " Oh, do you mean that one that glistens in the sunlight? " "Yes; it looks like the Bartholdi statue when the torch is blazing." " Oh, say ! what are those pretty trees?" "Why, those are orange trees; that is an orange grove. Don't you see that farmhouse almost hid in their shade ? " " Oh, yes ; now I do.," etc., etc. The talk of the natives, instead of being on the topic of hogs and cattle, is about mines and orange plantations, with an occa- sional story of some San Francisco scandal, in which some United States Senator, or banker, or big gun of some kind, or a common preacher is mixed up with some woman of the female sex. The average Californian that one meets in traveling through the country, seems to live and grow fat on sensation. It makes but little odds what it is; anything, from the torturing of a pigeyed heathen to the killing of an editor; from kissing another man's wife, to the real, genuine domestic happiness and purity of a family (considered a rarity by some), so long as the news is fresh, and likely to create a little breeze, it is a good meal, and seems to be relished. Of course, I don't mean to apply this remark to the general run of residents in the Golden State, but to the average of them that you meet on the trains and boats, and at the taverns. And for that reason, I understand that a first class liar that can swing the quill in good shape, has no difficulty in getting a good paying job 342 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN*S as a reporter for the press in the Golden State. There is not any- more difficulty in finding first class liars in California, than there is in Nevada, Chicago, Omaha, Denver, or even New York, but to get one that can use the pen in a smooth and rapid manner, and can wrap up his stories in Webster's choicest words, is not so easy a task, consequently good reporters get good pay. A reporter that can tell both sides of a lie in good shape at the same time, can get double pay by working for two opposition papers at once. He wants to possess the qualities of that reptile that has the power to change his color at will. Most good liars get in the habit of telling their lies in the same style, consequently they are unfit for newspa- per use as double-barreled reporters, and have to content them- selves in lying for small papers at moderate pay . A reporter that confines himself strictly to the truth has no commercial value, and consequently, is out of the market. Even tract publication con- cerns have no use for them ! When I was in Chicago, Clarissa tried to get such a situation, but they wouldn't give her enough to board her at a free lunch counter. One would think females would make good reporters, but there haint a newspaper in the country, not even a temperance journal, that will hire them. I know no other reason for it than that they are too truthful. I find I have pretty nigh for- got to tell what I started out to, which was about our arrival at Los Angeles. We got into " The City of the Angels," Los Angeles, in the even- ing. The sun had crossed the Pacific, or had sailed over its pacific bosom out of sight, but had left his rays of gold, crimson and pur- ple on the sky, and scattering clouds that seemed to spread over the great ocean like a huge crazy quilt, and looked like a sublime pic- ture, set in a dark navy blue velvet frame, the surrounding shades of night furnishing the velvet. We took a omnibus to the principal tavern. I was going to mention the name of this house, and speak well of it, but the landlord charged us for everything we had, just as if he never expected to meet us again on earth or in heaven, and EXP1 WITH HYPOCRITES. 343 considered it his last chance to shear us lambs, and I wont say a word about his tavern, for I don't want to do either him or the trav- eling public any harm. We didn't intend remaining but one day, but there was so much to be seen, and something so enchanting about the place, that we staid there two days, and then hated to leave. We felt almost, bound to it, and had it not been for them letters we received in San Francisco I wouldn't be surprised if we had staid there until now. "A LITTLE FOR THY STOMACH'S SAKE." When the Spaniards founded this place in 1781, they named it the "Los Angeles," which means the city of the angels. Judging from its lovely location in one of the finest valleys in the world, fourteen miles from the great Pacific, divine inspiration must have caused them to give it that name. If the angels ever occupied the city, they have long since flown away. I have no doubt that the avaricious speculator and land grabber put up a deal with them and froze them out. At any rate, there are no angels there, but the 344 SHAMS ; OR, UNCLE BEN'S land-grabber and lot speculator is there in all the glory and strength of his prime, and is pretty nigh monarch of all he surveys. This is one of the beauty spots of nature. Nature and art seem to have joined hands here and received the approving compli- ment of the Infinite : " It is good ; Yea, very good. I'll bless thee with sunshine and dew ; thy fields shall yield abundance." The orange groves, orchards and vineyards are wonderful, and furnish millions of people throughout the United States with delica- cies for the table. I had to lay aside my scruples on the drinking question, and take some of their elegant wine. The force of St. Paul's sugges- tion to Timothy, " Take a little wine for thy stomach's sake and thine oft infirmities," seemed to appeal to my conscience and set- tled the question in favor of the wine, which I imbibed several times while I was there. Clarissa told me she was afraid Saint Paul would have a tremendous accouut to settle if he had to father all the drunkards in the world. She said there was more hypocrites sailing under Saint Paul's advice to Timothy, than under all other banners in the world, " And now," said she, " you have joined the band." Her remarks was cutting, and I found I had got to lie if I ex- plained it under that old sham. So I up and said, " Well, Clarissa, I wont lie. I drank the first glass of the wine to see what it tasted like, and I have drunk the rest of them 'cause I like it." I haven't got any headache, toothache, stomach ache, weak lungs, liver complaint, rheumatism nor scaldhead, to offer as an ex- cuse for drinking that wine ; and I haint Timothy nor any relation to him ; so I've either got to lie for an excuse, or tell the truth, and I prefer to maintain the purity of my standard of principle, and own up to the real reason why I drank the fluid extract of grapes man- ufactured in the City of the Angels. I have firmly resolved not to drink any more of it for fear I shall like it muchly, and I advise my friends to quit drinking just before you take the first drink. EXPERIENCE WITH HYPOCRITES. $45 CHAPTER XXXIII. A.^THTH regret we leave the angelic city of delicious fruit anc, \\ 1 sparkling wine, California's rosy-cheeked joy, but the time comes when the best of good things must separate. There is no such thing in this world as permanency in union ; the bonds will and must break in time, and then separation follows. We turned our faces eastward. A bright star shining in the heav- ens over the Empire State, marked the exact location of Morgan- ville, Blank County, and henceforth was to be our guide. What its beauteous rays foretold, we could not understand, as the missives we received in San Francisco seemed to cloud affairs in that lo- cality with a veil of mystery. Although we had for two days been dwellers in the City of the Angels, 'nary an angel condescended to tell us whether to joy or sor- row we was urged to return by the banker's letter, and the feeling of uncertainty and doubt was more annoying than the real facts, however unpleasant, could have been. Right here let me ask some of our learned men in the school of metaphysics why it is that men and women can't be honest and frank enough to write about plain facts in a plain, straightforward man- ner, and not go to work and make a great mystery out of a simple fact, and if it is unpleasant news they have to communicate put their hand on an honest pen and make it say the words plainly, that its recipient may know the worst as it really is, instead of torturing him with cruel and hypocritical ambiguous phrases of uncertainty ? If it is joyous news they have to impart, why mix the wormwood 346 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S of doubt with the sugar of bliss in store, thereby destroying the delectable dish, and converting it into stale grapes? I don't suppose any of them will be able to give any better explanation than the one Clarissa gave me just now, as she looked over my two shoul- ders while I was asking this question. She said, " Benjamin, that is simple enough ; it's because the folks that write that way can't help it, they have so much sham in their make up. They couldn't be plain yes and no kind of folks if they tried to." I believe Clarissa is right. That banker, Brown, down to the village, could just as well have wrote me plain just what \vas up, as to have done as he did, if he hadn't been born a sort of hypocrite. Here I am chasing alter a figure that hasn't any business figur- ing in this book, and I am sorry, patient reader (if you have read the book so far) that I have inflicted this trip after a figure onto you ; but if you haven't read the book I am glad I have done the inflicting, for you deserve it. If you allow all the other cranks to stuff their books into your head, you ought to give me an equal show with the other idiots that think they can write something. I will invite you to " get on board" the Southern Pacific train and go East with us. " Some great writer has said, " There is a limit to all good things." Much as I regret the discovery was ever made, I have always found it out to be a fact. Even that beautiful suggestion of the immortal Horace G., " Go West, young man ; GO WEST," good as it seems to be, has a limit, for you finally arrive at a point where you can't go west unless you are a good swimmer. Clarissa and I had reached that point, and as we started out to travel for a period of what Julia Spear in her essay, called, " Tempus fugiting," but which being translated from the Turkeyses language, means "flying time," we would have been obliged to go East about now, if banker Brown hadn't urged me to come home. Clarissa and I have talked it over and we have concluded to not let that letter worry us at all, and take our time in going home, EXPERIENCE WITH HYPOCRITES. 347 Ufe is too short to perspire it all out, and if we keep cool we will last longer. And now if you'll go East with us, we will have a good time, but if you wont, just you watch us while we go, and see what nice things we pick up on our way between the wine cup of California and the pleasant meadows of Uncle Ben Morgan's farm in Mor ganville, Blank County, New York, and look out for "Tidings of Comfort and Joy." A STREET SCENE IN LOS ANGELES. We took the train leaving Los Angeles, of the Southern Pacific Railroad, at seven o'clock Tuesday morning. The usual perform- ance was undergone in securing our bedrooms. This time Clarissa and I concluded we would take a box room pretty nigh one end of the car so she could lay down during the day if she felt tired. We found this to be an improvement over the up and down-stair 348 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN V S arrangement, as we could be a little more secluded, and then it was higher toned, and gave us an appearance to the rest of the passengers of being millionaires, and you know there is a little satisfaction in being considered wealthy where you aint known. We paid our respects to the colored lord of the car in the shape of a fifty-cent piece in order to secure civility on his part. It is surprising how much colored respect and attention you can buy for fifty cents. I lost my identity as a Morganville cow- stripper, and was taken for Spreckles ; whether it was because ot my wealthy appearance or because of Clarissa, who looked as sweet as a hogshead of Sandwich Island sugar, I couldn't tell, but I sup- pose it was on account of that box room and the fifty cents. The common passengers looked up to me with a sort of rever- ential air, and was very polite to us. Clarissa had on the black crow grain silk dress she bought in Field's store in Chicago, and which she intended to give to the poor busted speculator's wife, for whom it was made, but which she didn't do on account of not having time to hunt her up ; and of course she made an impression that money with us was plenty. I was frequently called " Mr. Spreckles." I couldn't under- stand what they meant, at first ; but when a gentleman approached me with a pencil and book in his hand and said, " Excuse me, Mr. Spreckles, for taking the liberty to ask you a few questions. I am the traveling correspondent of the New York World, and am getting all the points of interest I can in this country for its columns, and as I have been informed you are the great sugar man of the Pacific coast, I should like to have a brief outline of your history, and an account of your immense posses- sions, and the modus operandi of conducting your mammoth business," I laughed at the anxious reporter, and said : " Young man of the World, I have suffered a great many in- flictions in the course of my life ; I have had the measles and the mumps, the yellow jaundice and the rheumatism ; I have had my left EXPER: VITII IIYPOCRITI 349 leg broke and set, and a crick in my side ; I have lost more or less property, have been fearfully deceived in men, and swindled besides, but the worse inflicticated I ever was in my life, was by a newspaper reporter, and you will please excuse me if I turn you over to ray sugar plantation, the only one I possess at the present time, or ever did possess, my wife Clarissa, and maybe she can entertain you." I took a paper, borrowed Clarissa's specs, and set down in the seat next to the one she and the reporter occupied. I pretended to be reading, but really was listening to their talk. I wanted to see how she would handle him, 'and the joke that that porter had evi- dently started. It run about as follows : " Mrs. Sprcckles, I beg pardon for disturbing you, but if it will not be asking too great a favor, I would like an outline of your hus- band's history, and his great business interests. The world has been wanting to know all about him for a long time, and this is the first opportunity I have had to meet him." ' Well," said she, ' are you the world ? and are you the whole world ? and is it possible that everybody lives and moves in you ? " " No, no ! Madam, you don\ understand me. There is a news- paper published in New York City called the World, and I am its correspondent, and that newspaper desires the information I ask." Clarissa heaved a sigh of comfort, and seemed to feel easier, and alter wiping her eyes and taking a peppermint, she said : "Well, Mr. Man of the World, I am glad I understand you. Now, as a general rule, I do not allow myself to be interviewed by newspaper reporters. I don't like them. I have found them to be meddlesome, and as a rule, inclined in a large degree to prevaricate. And furthermore, I am by natural build opposed to giving away family secreJ^fciad if I have the correct idea of what you are after, it is my h JRmcl's life " " I beg your pardon, Madam," said the correspondent, " I am no murderer." 350 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S " Well, I didn't say you was. I don't suppose you intend to kill him, although, nine times out of ten, when you fellows get a chance to write up a person's history, you manage to kill them either socially, religiously, politically, or financially, and I suppose you want me to tell you all about him that I know, so that the world may know it, and put its approving, or otherwise, stamp upon it?" " Yes, yes ! you catch my idea." " Well, as we have got a long ride before us, and as I see noth- ing of interest in the country through which we are passing, I had just as soon kill time in accommodating you with what information 1 possess. In the first place, I am unable to give you his early history I mean from the time he first received the kiss of woman down to the period when manhood seemed to rest upon his shoulders. Whether he came from highly respectable and honorable parentage, or, to use a lawyer's term, versus, I know not, as I never saw them ; but I have strong suspicions that they was the former, and not versus, as he bears the earmarks (so to speak) of respectability and honor, and I know he is strictly honest, and in the main, truthful. How do you think that description of my husband will suit the World f" " Oh, splendidly; but please go on." " Oh, certainly, I intend to go on, as I have only just begun. When he first met me, it was at a prayer-meeting-, at the Giddings schoolhouse. I was introduced to him by his .aunt, who seemed to take a strong liking to me. I can tell you enough that happened during our courtship and early marriage to fill the World three or four times, if you will only leave the advertisements in." " Please excuse me, Madam, but I do not wish to enter into your private life, or know anything about your family relations. I do not wish to enter the secret domains of family privacy." Clarissa threw her hands up in perfect astonishment, and the spectacles fell off from my nose onto the floor breaking the left-hand I'ERIKNCF. WITH MVI'Of'RITES. 351 glass into three pieces. I never saw a more astonished person in my whole life, and in a loud voice she exclaimed, " Youn^ man, do vou mean :!iat the \Vor!d don't want to know all about our family affairs that it d< i down the curtains of our private apartment that it don't want to even enter into the Holy of Holies of everybody's pri ! trample its sacredness into the dust, in \ r desire to : 1 for the scandalmongers do you mean to tell me tins?" " Madam, that is just what I wish you to understand." " Well, then, all I've got to say on that point is, that you are not of this luorld. I want to know what kind of a world your World is. I want to go to it. 1 long for a world where the sacred rights of an individual may be considered safe, and where the scandal- monger has no place or vocation." " Madam, I am not surprised at your remark, or your desire for a fair world ; but my World will afford you little, if any, comfort, as it is nothing but a paper world not a real wOrld. So, please lay aside your astonishment, and proceed to give me the general points of your husband's public career." " Well, I can't tell you much about how he has careered in the public, as he has been around home on the old farm, ever since we was married, until we started out on this excursion train. He and I own a good, nice farm down in Morganville, Blank County, . York, about ten miles from the village, and it is all paid for; and what time we have lived there, which is going onto a quarter of a century, he has careered pretty decent. Once in awhile he has acted real foolish, and got swindled to pay for it ; but that is nobody's busi- ness but his'n. I guess almost every man acts foolish, some time or other, during their lives." It was the correspondent's turn, this time. He dropped his pencil, and looked up in perfect astonishment, and exclaimed, " Isn't this Mrs. Spreckles, of San Francisco?" Clarissa seemed to enjoy his bewilderment, and in a laughing 352 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S manner said, " Well, she was not, unless she had changed her name unconsciously." With a sort of fox-and-geese puzzle running all over his coun- tenance, he said, " Is not that gentleman (pointing to me) Mr. Spreckles, the great sugar man of the Pacific Coast ?" " Well," she replied, " he is a great hand for sugar and all sorts of sweet things, but his name is not Spreckles, but Mr. Benjamin Morgan generally called around home and down to the village, 'Uncle Ben.'" The correspondent said, " I must confess that I have been mis- taken, or rather, misinformed. That colored porter told me that your husband must be Mr. Spreckles. I asked how he knew, and he said, ''Cause he was a mighty rich man, and give him a fifty-cent lump of sugar,' and here I have been bothering you on the supposi- tion that it was Spreckles, and I beg your pardon for taking your time." Clarissa said she was real glad to have her time occupied, and that she had enjoyed the conversation. "But," said she, "appearances are deceiving. If wealth seems to gild the outside, the world is ready to take off its hat and bow to the appearance, not stopping to see whether the inside be emptiness, or still worse. If rags clothe the appearance, the world passes it by cold and stiffly, not caring to take the pains to see whether or not An angel fair, Bedecked with jewels rare, Is there enthroned. "The SHAM appearance commands the SHAM respect of the SHAM part of the world. But I suppose your World, being a Sham World, readily detects the world of SHAMS?" "Yes," said he, "you are quite right. Although I have made a mistake, I am quite well pleased in my good fortune in meeting Uncle Ben Morgan and his excellent wife Clarissa, and I am sure the World will be much more interested in knowing about them than EXPERIENCE WITH IIVPOCRI7I 353 Sprecklcs, and I hope, at no distant day, to make you acquainted with the world, and make the world, including ' BILL NYE,' ac- quainted with you." Clarissa took his taffy in a professional manner, the same as Grant, Blaine, Sherman, and Cleveland and all the rest of the big men of the world do and have done, easy and graceful-like, with a matter-of-course air onto her complexion, and said : " I thank you for your kind intention, but you needn't put your- self out to introduce us, as we have already got pretty well ac- quainted with part of it; and if our money holds out and life continues in partnership with us long enough, we will become bet- ter acquainted with some more of it." I had by this *ime joined them in the occupation of the double seat, and shook hands with the Young Man of the World, and we fell into conversation very easy like. He wanted our address, so I gave it to him as he wrote it down " Benjamin Morgan, Morgan- ville, Blank Co., New York, care of The Village." He wanted to know the name of the village. I told him it hadn't got. a name. He was surprised, and desired to know the reason for a nameless village of 1,000 souls. I told him that it happened this way: "There was three men got together in a beautiful little valley in our county, through which perambulated (which means a sort o* saloon-reel-homeward at four o'clock in the morning) a charming stream. It swaggered from one bank to the other, stepping up high in some places to get over some big rocks, and then pitching headlong into the mud on t'other side. It was going up and down, and ziggerty-zaggerty all day long, in order to keep up its perambulate through that lovely valley, while them three men was concluding on a plan to establish a town at that par- ticular spot. Mr. Givemall, a farmer, owned all the land, and pro- posed to stake out 100 acres into lots, streets and alleys, and give every odd numbered lot. Mr. Takemall, a civil engineer, proposed to do the surveying and laying the land off into lots, and establish 354 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S and define the boundary of each, and to take every odd numbered lot for his trouble. Mr. Runemall, who had been an alderman in Albany a number of years, said he would organize the village after there was enough people there, and run the town. They drew up a contract and signed it with a stick dipped into some elderberry juice (as they had forgot to bring any ink with them), after which they all lay down on their front side and took a drink out of the creek. The Albany ex-alderman, after regaining his normal standing, and wiping his mouth on his shirt sleeve, said he hadn't tasted any- thing like that since he was first elected as a member of the water board in Albany, thirty-odd years before. After their free drinks they each lit a cob pipe and smoked the emblematical pipe of peace as a guarantee of their bond of union, and their faithful efforts to build there a city. " In time there was 200 people there and a town organized, and the question of name came up. Mr. Givemall insisted that as he had given the land, that it should be] named Givemallburg. Mr. Takemall insisted that as he had took it all, by rights it should be named Takemallburg, and Mr. Runemall demanded that, as it be- come his business to Run 'em all, the city should bear the name Run- emallville. The spirit of rivalry run high, and the question is not yet settled, and probably will not be for twenty-five years to come. I have got a private petition in the hands of Tom Conners to take to Albany with him to the Assembly, to have the place named Hypocritsburgh." The man of the world listened patiently to my lengthy answer to his question, and said he would take that as an item for the World. While we was rattling along through a dry and uninteresting country the passengers in our car got pretty well acquainted, and the day didn't seem half as long as it would have, had it not been for that. The man of the World and Clarissa and me seemed to at* tract more attention than any other corresponding number of gen- ;PERIENCE WITH HYPOCRITES. 355 t.emcn on the train. I couldn't understand it, for there was a number of men of notable names on the train, as you will readily see by the following schedule : Prince Kingokangokoko, the heir apparent of the Whaicki-Woo- icki Islands, and his wife, Bridget O'McGinnis Kingokangokoko ; Rising Grand Duke Van Haltren, the celebrated baseball t wirier; Moxie Jim Bludsore, the inventor of a ginger and molasses com- pound solution that is being drunk all over the United States as a substitute for beer, and " Mr. O'Reilly, they speak of so highly, that keeps a hotel." There was a number of others of minor importance on board, but we three seemed to be the pivotal point of attraction. It was getting along toward nine o'clock P. M., and I got tired of attracting, and Clarissa had already gone into our box, so I said to my friend that if he would excuse me, I guessed I'd bid him and the world good-night and go to bed and retire, which I did in less than five minutes. We had a refreshing rest and sleep. The gentle swaying and rocking of the magnificent sleeper, supplied with the finest kind of beds, seemed to act like a charm, conveying us to dreamland in less time than a mother can rock her baby to sleep when she has com- pany waiting for her in the front room, and the next morning found us fresh and ready for anything. As we looked out of the window a dreary, desolate country, stretching its dry. sand-and-fine-pebble covered surface off into space beyond the reach of our eyesight, dotted here and there with various kinds of cactus, met our gaze, and it seemed as though a day of monotonous scenery was before us; but we was happily dis- appointed before two hours had elapsed. We was in New Mexico. When I was at nome on the farm, about all I knew about New Mexico was from the map I used to see in the children's geography. I didn't suppose it amounted to much. I didn't have the least idea that it was to the history of the United States what a rare specimen is to a museum ; that it was a mine of 356 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S wealth to the botany-maker, the geologer, and the builder oi an-ti-que history. I use the word, AN-ti-^ to satisfy Clarissa. She insists upon it, and says it is proper to put it in my book just at this place, and that I may not have another chance to use it, and she says, " A book without the word An-ti-que in it haint of much account nohow." All along this trip, from the time I left home until now, I am finding out what a ignorant old fool I have been; but when I look out of the car-window and see a native New Mexican, or, as they call them here, Greasers, trying to plow a patch of ground with a GREASER PLOWING. crooked stick, with a steer's horn on the ground end of it, drawn by two oxen hitched to it with rawhide straps (as I did just now), I con- clude there are others in the world that are ignoranter fools than I am. And when I see women out in the hot sun, standing around a clay hut about six feet high by five or six feet or more in diameter, just outside of an old adobe wall surrounding a lot of low, flat- roofed, one-story adobe buildings, baking bread for their hungry families, while the perspiration rolls down their greasy, dirty, brown faces, as we saw them just then while passing, I conclude that it will be a pretty tough job to find a ignoranter set. It seems to roe as though that old man that is pictured in , rni iivi-ucKi'i 3S7 the almanacs with long shaggy hair and whiskers, and carrying a scythe on his shoulder, has mowed a swath of one hundred years out of time's calendar in this country, and left them that much be- hind the rest of the world. I do not make my calculations merely from their ways of plowing, baking and grinding corn by rubbing it between two big flat stones, operated by hand, but because what work there is done seems to be largely done by women. So far as the outside world is concerned, the majority, I am told, are in com- plete ignorance. Everywhere you look, primitiveness seems to reign. What the Creator done, seems to remain. The native evidently is contented with its being so, and cares not, if possessed of the ability, to im- prove thereon. If he can succeed in finding enough mud, gravel, water and straw, or "dead grass, to tread into mass by driving his ox over and through it, he will cut it into blocks about a foot square by one-half a foot thick, and spread them around on the ground for the sun to dry and bake. When his adobe bricks are hard, he will build him a little one story flat-roofed room, and feel proud to think he has a house. This much of improvement on nature, fills his cup of ambition, but the way the adobe brick was made by the first man- ufacturer of the article, is the way they make it now. If ignorance is Wiss, their cup of bliss is running over. 358 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S CHAPTER XXXIV. HE scenery had suddenly changed, and from the dull monot- tp ony of arid plains, we was surrounded by the picturesque landscape in and around Albuquerque, and from here on to Lamy, where we changed cars for Santa Fe, eighteen miles north, and on to that city, the scenery is very interesting. At noon we rolled into the oldest city in America. When I was a boy, and up to the time I was married, I supposed New York was the oldest place in this country, and that the Dutch was our grandparents on both our sides. At that time Clarissa up and made me believe that the Spanishers was the first to lay claim to us as pos- teritors; however she didn't know any more'n I did that there was a city away out west, in a country thai neither one of us didn't know nothing about, that was a dumb sight older than New York City. But here we was both of us ignoramuses right in the heart of the oldest city in America, so far as anybody in this world had any knowledge of, Santa Fe. We entered a hotel, the walls of which was laid up by hands that for three centuries or more had been sweeping the strings of golden lyres, in paradise, or poking up the fires down in Hades & Co.'s sulphur factory, and wrote our names in a register that bore visible signs of a corresponding an-ti-que-i-ty. Somewhat weary from our long ride, we was glad to rest our- selves on the splint bottom chairs in the low, but spacions dining- rooin. The dinner was Spanish in its general architecture and build. The first thing on the printed programme was Chili soup- THit ATCHISON, TOPEKA & SANTA K RAILROAD. 35, KXTKRIKNCi; WITH IIVlM.CKIli 361 It being a hot day, we thought something Chili would go first-rate. Since we left home we have drank all sorts of chilly drinks, and eat icecream and frozen puddings, but Chili soup was a thing we had never heard of before. So Clarissa and I called for a plate of it. I took a heaping tablespoonful to one swallow, and I thought the whole upper story of my physical mortality was on fire. I called for ice water while 1 held a towel to my burning tongue. After smothering the conflagration, I said to the greasy waiter, " Young Spanisher, if such be your ancestral character, what do you mean by playing such a trick on your honest and unsuspect- ing customers?'' " What trick for you mean ?" said he. " Why," said 1, " palming that goll-darned hot stuff on us for ice-cold soup." " Oh!" he replied, "that is Chili soupeo." " It's a dumb lie," said I, "it's hot enough to scald hogs in." "Oh, Noeo! Noeo! You no savveo; the soupeo be made of chilio, which is Mexicano red peppero, and is a heap goodo." " Oh, I see ; it is red pepper soup, is it, with a sham name to deceive folks? Well, I don't want any more of it." Clarissa said, " Ben, it is no deception. All there is about it, you don't understand the Mexican, or Spanish, language." " I know it. I know I am no Spanisho Mexicanero Greasero, and consequcntlyo am not supposed to knowo what to eato and be safo, buto one thingo I do knowo, and that iso, they don't geto any moreo confounded Chili stuflo into my moutho." Clarissa said, " Wello, Ben, don't make such a fusso about that soup, or they'll all find out what a greenhorno you areo ; but eat your victuals and let them stop your mouth." The next things on the catalogue was Chili con-corne, Chili colo- row, Chili baked beans, and one or two other Chilies, roast beef, roast chicken, and a few other roasted and boiled American animals. 362 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S After a fashion, I managed to make out a pretty good meal. I asked the waiter if they was cannibals ? "What be they?" he asked. Said I, " You poor, benighted heathen, be you so ignorant that you don't know what a cannibal be ? Well, I am sorry for you ; you ought to be converted. A cannibal, my poor fellow, is a savage brute of a man, that will slay his brother man and cook and eat his body." The waiter started in surprise and said, " Why, me no hear of such a horriblo thingo. No ! me no cannibal." " Well, but according to this here dinner catalogue, you must be," said I. " Look there right there (pointing it out to him), do you see what it says don't it say meats for dinner there ?" " Yes." " Well, now, put your two black Spanish eyes on that sentence, don't it say Chili Colorow?" " Yes." " Well, that Chili Colorow is to be eaten, isn't it?" " Yes." " Well, you ignoramus, don't you know that Old Colorow was an Indian chief of national reputation, living up in Colorado, and the Coloradoans have been trying a long time to get rid of him, but couldn't, because they was all afraid of him? And now they have evidently killed him and sent his carcass down here to destroy all traces of his murder, and you have got hold of his cold, dead remains, and are disgracing the proud name of America, as well as the name of its oldest city, by Mexican red peppering it, cooking and serving it to your boarders," and I turned to Clarissa and said, " Come, let's get out of this hotel ; it aint safe to be here." The waiter turned from horrifying surprisedness into violent laughter, and said, " Stranger, wait a minuto ; that be no dead In- diano. That is a very fine Mexicano dish, made of potatoes, cab" WITH HYPOCRl 3*3 >age, turnips, and any other good, fresh vegetables we can get in the marketo, mixed with Chili and cooked in plenty of lardo, and it be a very nice disho. You just try someo." I found I was the " benighted heathen ignoramus " this time. I have resolved not to make another break of that kind as long as I live. I wonder if all the heathen think the same of the missionaries we smart people send to 'em to convert and enlighten them, as that Greaser thought of me? If they do, I pity the poor missionaries. s MR. JUAN FERNANDEZ-MAR ACILLO-ROMEO MARTINEZO. I eat that colorow, and found it a little hot, but very pleasant. After dinner I had a very pleasant chat with the landlord ; told him who we was and where we was from, and stated also that, as our time was limited, we desired to see and learn all we could of Santa Fe in our allotted time, and asked how we could do it. He informed me that my best way was to get a competent guide, one that knew all about the city and its history to go with us. Said I, "That is a capital idea, and I am much obliged to you; but how is a fellow going to find such a man, when he is a total stranger?" 364 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S " Oh. that is easy enough. That old porter of mine hat lived here 117 years, and knows all about Santa Fe, from its infancy, and you give him a couple of dollars, and he will tell you all you want to know and more, too." I was pleased with our good fortune, and Clarissa was fairly tickled. If anything on earth can tickle that noble, good woman, it is a opportunity to learn, and she has been infatuated (I believe I've got the right word) for the past fifty-three hours, coming five o'clock this afternoon, with a desire to learn all about Santa Fe. Said I, " Will you please produce the porter, and get us ac- quainted, for I'd like to get a early start." The porter was called and introduced to us as Mr. Juan Fer- nandez-Maracillo-Romeo Martinezo. We bowed a very polite bow in recognition of his lengthy title and his extreme old age. He re- ceived us with equal cordiality, and said he was proud to serve us. We found him to be a remarkably smart man, quite vigorous, and that he spoke United States perfectly, without any Spanish brogue. We started out, and after walking a long distance through a narrow street lined on either side with low, flat-topped houses, with overhanging balconies that afford shade to their fronts, and following our guide a short distance out, we came to a hill back of the city, on whose top were the crumbling ruins of an old fort. We climbed up to the summit of this hill, whose color resembled a crazy-quilt, with brown and yellow predominating, and set down on some rocks. Our old guide commenced his description of the city by giving us the following history : " You must know, in the first place, that this is a very old town, and you will, no doubt, be surprised when I tell its age, so far as we have any reliable information." I interrupted him, and said, " Well, never mind our being sur- prised. You can tell us as big a whopper as you are a mind to. You can put its age anywhere from 100 to 100,000 years. We are used to whopping tall stories. We have heard all sorts of big yarns EXPERIENCE WITH HYPOCRITES. 365 about all sorts of things, ever since we crossed the Missouri at Omaha, and we have got over being surprised at anything. This HEADWATERS OF THE RIO GRANDE. whole Western country is so full of surprises that they have got to be quite common to us, and we run onto a dozen or more of them every day. So, just go ahead, and tell us about it." 366 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S While we was admiring the scenery he went on : " In 1540, Coronado, a Spanish adventurer, while on a tour of exploration, with a large force of Spaniards, marched up the Colo- rado River from its mouth, where they landed, to the confluence of the Green and Grande, which form the Colorado. Here he divided his forces, sending part up the Green, while he with the remain- der came up the Rio Grande. " Arriving at this place, he found a large and important city, occupied by the most intelligent race of Indians that there is any historical evidence of, as having been the inhabitants of North America the Aztecs. " Coronado was seized with a desire to obtain it. His forces were camped upon this hill, which you see commanded a view of the entire city. At his command they marched down and leveled its walls, and laid the city in ruins, driving its inhabitants to the mountains. " The present city was erected upon its site. Although many changes have occurred during the past 350 years, yet I am able to show you some of the landmarks of 1540 that still exist. " The world has been cheated out of the history of this strong, hold of the Aztecs by the cruel and inhuman treatment of this won- derful race. With Coronado's conquest, every vestige of history of the city was destroyed. The tyrannical treatment of the la* dians so embittered them that in 1680, after more than a century of humiliation and grinding servitude, they arose and drove the Span- ish invaders out of the land. The example set by the Spaniards was followed, and they, in turn, destroyed everything they could. Churches and public buildings were burned, and all the document- ary records of Coronado's discovery of the place, served as a fire in the plaza, by the light of whose flame the angry Indians pushed on their work of destruction. Time did not serve them to com- plete the destruction, for in 1693, DeVarque, at the head of the Spaniards, reconquered the city. From then until now it has beea EXPKKIKV 367 undisturbed, an rule, quietness and la/mess have lini^ around and through it. " Were it not for its place in the history of America, and its pic- turesque appearance, it would receive but little attention from the travelers that are daily visiting it, but as it is, it commands the atten- tion of every one passing through New Mexico. " You will find the city, outside of the modern structures, is emphatically Spanish. You will see its streets are narrow and crooked, and lined on both sides with low, one-story, quaint old adobe buildings. The balconies give us the shade that is n< in this warm, sunny climate. The flowery placitas add much to the picturesque appearance, and give the place a charm." I spoke up and said, " I'll be dumbed if it aint so." " Everywhere you go, you will see the Spanish origin of the town. "Lieut. Pike, of Pike's Peak notoriety, is supposed to be the first live, genuine Yankee to visit this city. In 1806 he run the risk of registering his arrival in our hotel, and I waited on him. Forty years later General Kearney captured Santa Fe from the Greasers. He and his bold soldiers marched to victory without any op; tion. Not even a pin was pointed toward them by us wicked Spaniards. " He built Fort Marcy on this hill top, and we are now sitting on its old ruins. I brought you up here so you could get the best view of the old city and the surrounding country that can be obtained." " Well, I'm glad you did," I said. " You are a dumb good fel- low, if you be a Greaser, and know your business first-rate, but ex- cuse me for breaking in on your story. You know where you left off, don't you ? " " Oh, that is all right ; it don't bother me any. I am used to being interrupted. That is part of my everyday experience. " You see this view overlooks the plateau on which the city is 368 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN's built and the country stretching off toward Old Mexico. Right off to the north you notice a range of foot hills, and back of them a number of mountain peaks whose summits are covered with per- petual snow ; while over there, reaching off southward, are the blue Cerrillos. You see they are partially hid by wreaths of clouds hanging around their summits. The distance gives them a dim and smoky appearance. You will observe that the constant shifting of the clouds produces a succession of lights and shades, and heightens the interest in the scene." Clarissa spoke up and said, " Isn't it beautiful ? I could sit here a month and look at this wonderful picture and not grow weary." I couldn't help saying " I'll bet you'd get goll-dumb hungry before the month would be up, and want something to eat. I don't know of but one fellow that could set in one place for a whole month and live on shadows, and he is a lunatic." " Who is that ?" asked Juan A-mile-and-a-half-long-name. " Why, I don't know his right name, but by occupation he was a Tanner ; but don't stop ; go right on with your story." " Now turn your attention to the city lying at your feet. I don't suppose you care for the modern buildings and improvement!*, but will be more interested in the antique portion of the city." " Yes, you are just right ; an-ti-que is the thing we are after. You can give us all the an-ti-que. I like it pretty well, and Clarissa can live on it, almost." " Benjamin I " ejaculated Clarissa. You will notice it you have read the book so far, that this is the first time I have used " ejacu- lated." I had it ready to use more'n two weeks ago, but something or other happened so that I lost it. I had it writ down on a slip of paper and stuck it in my vest pocket, and two or three cimes when I was in San Francisco I tried to find that slip of paper, but missed it, and just now I went to light a cigar that Juan 'o gave me, and stuck my fingers in my vest pocket, after a match, and .PERIEXCK WITH IIVPOCRITI 369 pulled out that slip, and for fear I may lose it again, I just put now. As I started to say, she just ejaculated, " Benjamin, don't in- terrupt the gentleman ; I am anxious for this description." Mr. Juan 'o proceeded as follows, to-wit: " Those old flat-roofed houses you see along- the Santa Fe Creek, that little stream that divides the city, are among the first that were constructed after Coronado captured the town. You notice the color of the children playing around the doors is about the same as the houses dark-brown, bordering on the red. The adobe houses, when newly built, are brown, or the same color of the ground ; but age acts upon these as it does upon men it gives them a darker shade, and deep furrows are made in their walls by the action of weather and time, as wrinkles come upon the aged human being. " The streets are narrow and crooked, winding and twisting among the buildings like huge serpents. Over there, a little to the right as you are sitting, is the broken facade of San Miguel, the oldest church in the United States. It is nearly in its original con- dition, barring the inroads of natural decay worn by time. Over there stands the Church San Francisco. There is but little of its exterior but what is modern, having received a new painted roof and new stone walls; but by carefully examining the interior, yeu will discover some of its original make-up. " Out yonder you see the spire of the great Church Guadeloupe. There, in the center of the town, is the plaza, or what you folks in the East call a common. On that side of the plaza, almost hid by the trees, whose rich foliage in spring and summer produces a pleasing contrast with the somber, brown walls and yellow, drab streets, is the palacio del Gobernador. Now/ said he, " we witt descend, and take a walk through the city." We was loth to leave the spot, as the beauty of the scene seemed to speak right out and say, " Don't be in a hurry; just lay off your things and stay a spell. You can have your old friends and neigh- bors with you back in your Eastern home all the time, but it will be 3/0 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S but once in your lifetime that you will, in all probability, visit us,** The broad, open country to our left seemed to say, " Come and see us before you go home, and we will do our best to entertain you." The peaks, with their foot-hills, to our right, beckoned to us, and seemed to whisper in our ear, " Don't forget to come up and stay all night with us, before you go home. We will give you lots of good fun, catching trout in our crystal streams, and will treat you to ice- cream in abundance." The blue Cerrillos and their snow-capped neighbors behind them, who seemed to be disputing with the sky above for the possession of the clouds, called to us in imagination, and said, " Don't fail to come over and stay with us a couple of weeks, before you start on your homeward journey. We will show you wonders that few in this world know about. We have plenty of rare and pretty things locked up where none but our invited guests can see them. We will show you the ancient homes of the Cliff Dwellers, and let you climb a ladder and sleep in one of the places where the grand old Aztec Indian dwelt. We can charm you, if you will only come." The historic Rio Grande, that moves majestically toward the sea twenty miles west of us, seemed to sing to us in pensive tones, " Come ! come, come, see me." Even the smoke that twirled and circled from hundreds of chimneys below us, up into the clear blue vault above, seemed to say, " Stay a little longer, and I will paint you some fancy scenes, "Wreaths, clouds, and castles fair, For you I'll build in the air." But to all these pressing invitations we had to say, " No, we thank you, for old Mr. Juan 'o is waiting for us to join him, and he is half-way down the hill now." After we had caught up with him, he says : " Now we will enter the city Santa Fe, or, as the name means in your language, Holy Faith, and we will go to the Plaza, passing by the Bishop's Garden on our way." i:\TERIENCK WITH HYPuCklTI 371 As we proceeded, every little while he would call our attention to this and to that church. I said, " It looks to me that the Fathers that founded this darned old town got awfully stuck on religion, or else they was afraid the Devil would steal their young ones, and built these churches for places of refuge, should that old cuss with big ears and a hot pitchfork attack the place. I don't think tin- men needed to be afraid of that, for there couldn't have been money enough here in them days to have induced him to raid the place. Its money men he's after and he gets 'em, too." He ask;ed me what made me think that. I told him that I knew it, for I had a personal interview with the old cuss up in Virginia City, and he told me all about it. Said he : " I can't say how that is ; but it seems to have been the Spanish custom to have plenty of churches. Perhaps their idea was to keep the people moneyless, by taking every penny they had to spare, to support the priests, thereby removing all temptation for the Devil to attack them. I can't say what the reason is for so many churches here; but one thing I can say, and that is this: For over one hun- dred years they got all the money I could save. As fast as I could get it they called for it, and I either had to hand it over to them, or go to purgatory when I died. But about ten years ago I concluded I would take care of my money myself, and run the risk of old pur- gatory. I have quit being under the priesthood's control, and I in- tend to run the remainder of my days on my own hook, try and do what I know to be right, and do my own thinking." I grabbed the old man by the hand, and gave him a regular old New York shake, and said, " Good for you, young man ; them is my sentiments. Stick to 'em, and by golly, I hope you will live to a good ripe old age." He was visibly affected by my congratulating him, and said, " Thank you," and as we was passing a saloon at the time, he further remarked, " Let's go in and take a drink." Alas! alas! the noble character he had already created for him- 3/2 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S self in my mind began to drop down to the level of the ordinary human being, as I discovered the regulai Chicago taste was formed in his gullet. I swelled up with my old-fashioned farmer honesty and purity, and in the dignity of a man that has the consciousness of knowing he isn't a dumb hypocrite, and said, " No, sir ; I don't drink, and I don't like to trot around with them that does." He looked at me with utter amazement, and seemed glued to the spot where he stood for five minutes, looking at me from feet to head, and back again, and exclaimed, " Please give me your photograph." "What for?' I replied. '< Because, for 117 years that I have lived in Holy Faith Town I have never known of a stranger coming within our borders that didn't drink something for the 'stomach's sake' and his oft infirmities, if not because he loved it, and I want your picture to look upon and show to my posterity by the woman I expect to marry next July, as a living curiosity." Said I, " When I get home I'll get some pictures took, and I'll be glad to exchange with you, for I assure you it will be as big a curiosity for me and Clarissa and the posterity we have got raised up down home, to look upon the picture of a man that is well along in the second century of his life who is going to raising posterity, as it will be for you to gaze on the picture of an honest, sober, and temperate man, that isn't a Biblical Timothyan hypocrite, always looking, for his stomach's sake, in the bottom of a whisky-glass or beer-mug. But, as we are losing time standing here, if it will be any accommo- dation to you, I'll go in and take a glass of ice-cold lemonade, and Clarissa can eat a dish of icecream while I am drinking the lemon- ade. She is powerful fond of it." We agreed on the picture exchange, got our drinks and ice- cream, and proceeded on our way. Soon we came to a place inclosed by a high adobe wall, and Mr. Juan 'o began EXT1 WITH IIVrOCK! 373 " This is the beauty spot of Santa Fe, the Garden, owned by Bishop Lamy." Gaining admission, we found therein a beautiful garden indeed. The guide said, " The Bishop has labored a great many years in making this lovely garden, and you have no idea of the amount of purgatory money that has gone into it. Neither have I." We walked all through the grounds, and found them indeed delightful. A small fish-pond, beautiful trees and flowers in great DEL GOBERNADOR, abundance, and rustic seats, where we could sit down and look over the walls and see the tops of cities over in the sea of sky. We went on until we reached the Plaza. Passing on to the farther side, we were in front of a long, one-story adobe building, in front of which was a wide portico, held up by a number of wooden columns. " This," said Juan, " is one of the oldest and most important structures in our city. It is the Palacio del Gobcrnador, or the Gov- ernor's Palace. 374 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S " We all take a great deal of pride in this old palace, as the his- tory of Santa Fe is closely allied with it, and if its walls could give up their secrets, stories of pathos and thrilling incident could fill many a volume. This was the palace of the Pueblo chiefs, long before the Franciscan friars gave the town its present name. The Spanish generals issued their orders and proclamations from its rooms for nearly three centuries. It is now occupied as an official residence by the Territorial Governor." We was indeed interested, alike in his story and in the exam- ination of the palace, some rooms of which we entered. It was time for us to return to our hotel for supper, and the long walk we had taken made us tired and hungry. A good meal and an hour's sitting under the portico in front of our hotel rested us. The soft, cool air of evening was very refresh, ing. We talked with the landlord considerably, and also with a number of the business men that was sitting around in front of the house. After we went to our room Clarissa and I talked about what we had seen. She said it was the strangest place she ever saw. Says she : " Strange things meet us in nearly every direction we travel. Strange incidents seem to pop up in the road right in front of us wherever we go ; but about the strangest thing we have run across in looking around this famous city, musty with age, resembling an old coat, tattered, torn, and patched with many-colored cloths, is that old palace not so strange because of its long and lingering existence, nor for its having been the executive mansion of noble Indian chiefs and hot-headed Spanish usurpers and rulers, but because the man that everybody supposed was over in Judea visiting with the natives of that country, while he was writing the story of the three white camels and their riders from three different nations meeting upon the desert on their way to discover the Saviour Lew Wallace, was secluded in one of its dingy rooms while he was writing the interesting story of Ben Hur. WITH HYPOCRITES. 375 " Strange, also, is the fact that so great a man as Wallace is should play sham by trying to make folks think he was in the Holy Land, a-discovering, when he hadn't left the United States. Now, I read that book through last summer, and enjoyed it, and many was the time I wished I could join company with his party in that old land of ancient story, and see some genuine Judeans, and enter Jerusalem with him, and see those things so sacred because of their connection with the New Testament and its principal characters. And BLOWING OUT THE ELECTRIC LIGHT. now, to come away out here and find out he wasn't in Jerusalem at all, but secluded in this old palace, making up that story, has opened to my eyes a new sham. I wonder if any of that New Testament was written in such a way?" And she concluded her remarks by heaving a heavy sigh upon whose ebb tide were the words, " Woe unto ye, Scribes and Pharisees Hypocrites." " May be," said I, " he sketched the book over in Palestine and polished it off here in this Holy Faith town. Don't be too severe in your remarks on an author ; you may be doing him a wrong." M Well," says she, " I don't mean to. But I am tired ; let's go to bed and retire." I agreed to the proposition. 376 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S The bedroom we slept in had a musty smell of old time linger- ing about its walls. It was lighted up with new-fashioned light- ning, in little glass-covered contrivances, just the same as the Denver tavern had, and for the second time 1 got fooled in trying to blow it out. After trying to blow all the wind I could muster at it, I hap- pened to remember that the Denver porter turned a little brass thing to put it out. I found it and turned off the lightning just as easy as could be, and got into bed. The next morning after breakfast our guide met us in the office, ready to take us through the town. I told him we had concluded to leave on the noon train, and we couldn't be out but an hour or two; and as we had got a pretty general idea of the place, we would be satisfied if he would take us into one of them old, moldy churches. "All right. Then we will go and see Old San Miguel." As we approached it I was not struck to the heart with the idea that it was beautiful, in any sense of the word, on the outside. Its broad, squatty tower, century-stained, surmounted by a wooden cross that time did not intend should remain another century, on account of its feebleness, had no pleasing proportions, but the an- ti-que-ity of the thing made it look like some old picture. It was evidently built for solidity and durability, rather than beauty. Our Juan 'o called our attention to the empty belfry, and said, " In early days, when the church was completed, the Spanish parishioners hung a heavy bell there that was cast in Mexico in 1356, but the walls being rendered unsafe, the bell was removed and placed in a niche that has been made for it within the church." We entered through the wide doorway, and as the heavy doors swung together behind us, shutting out most of the light, at first we felt as though we was in a vault, as we couldn't see very plain, but a soft light struggled through the small windows, and assisted us to see the interior quite well. The room is long and narrow, and the windows are set into .L WITH HYPOCKIT1 377 deep-cut openings. In the further end stands the altar, decorated with high-colored ornaments and emblems, and dressed up with a whole lot of candlesticks and candles, and a lot of stuff that looked as if it had been bought cheap at some second-hand store. Right up over the front doorway is the gallery, supported by massive beams, on whose brown surface can be seen some carvings made by the builders. There is nothing in it of any interest to the practical world, and only that crank that is hunting after old, worn- out, musty things to put into his collection of an-ti-que-ities, could see anything here that he would want to take away with him. I asked Mr. Juan 'o if he knew when this church was built. Said he, " It was originally built about the year 1600, when Onate was the Governor, but during the Indian revolution, in 1680, it was mostly destroyed by the enraged Indians, who for 140 years had been cheated out of their homes and liberty, and there was only a small portion of its walls left standing. After the Span- iards reconquered the city they rebuilt this church, completing it in 1710, since which time it has remained undisturbed by aught but time." We tuld Juan that we guessed we had seen about ail of this old place we had time to, and Clarissa paid him and expressed our thai Jr. for his kindness, and asked him to come and visit us after he got ? little older. He walked back to the hotel with us, and after waiting on us very politely, urged us to come again. We took the noon train and rolled out of America's oldest city with a feeling of pleasure we had received in going over and through it. It was a chapter in geography and history that neither one of us had ever studied in school, and one we shall always remember. Whether in point of greatness Santa Fe will have a future his- tory that will compare with the past, remains to be seen, and we will let it remain, while we take our homeward journey. 378 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S We was told that we would not do New Mexico nor ourselves justice if we did not stop at the celebrated Las Vegas, and take a bath in the hot springs. So, when the train stopped for sup- per, I told the conductor we would stop there a day. He fixed our tickets for us, and we took a 'bus for the Phoenix Hotel, where we staid all night. We had a fine private bedroom. The bed was so soft and springy, the air so cool and delightful, we had a rest and sleep that thousands (locked up in prisons) would have given a good deal to have enjoyed. Clarissa said she dreamed of God's Garden and she saw me and her and the driver standing a-looking at that Balanced Rock. She tried to find her CLA but couldn't see it, and while the driver was pointing it out to her, she woke up. I am glad we stopped there, as it gave us a good opportunity to see another of Nature's beauty-spots. The hotel is a magnificent building, put up for man's comfort. While in its outside and inside appearance it is handsome and grand, in its construction the comfort and happiness of its guests was not for a single moment lost sight of. In every detail the ease and pleasure of its custom- ers was studied. The location could not have been excelled if they had sent old Coronado with his exploring party all over the world hunting a spot for it, for here is a beautiful dell, surrounded on three sides by mountains, and its other side open toward the broad mead- ows, where, six miles distant, is the town of Las Vegas. It enjoys a lovely climate and ever-changing scenery. Everlasting freshness meets the eye, and all the variety one can ask for. The sparkling waters of the Gallinas River tumble along at a short distance from the hotel, while the most delightful wash-water is furnished at any temperature desired in the wonderful springs, whose waters have, no doubt, been boiling and bubbling up for ages past, and will con- tinue to bubble and boil long after Clarissa and I, and a few othei good souls, have gone to join the angels. We took a bath in the springs, and, for making a fellow feel first-rate and getting him real clean, it beats all the places we have come across. WITH HVI 379 I iaid to Clarissa, " We have got Las Vegas, and mighty good ones, on our old farm in Morganville, and we have got the Gallinas River, and I wish we had these hot springs there. If we had, I'd open up a summer resort, and see if we couldn't make a lot of money, as well as some other sharp folks." " How do you make that out, Benjamin?" said she. I'd like BALANCED ROCK. to know wnere we've got Las Vegas and Gallinas River on the old farm !" " Well," said I, " we have the meadows, haven't we ? and migh- ty fine ones, too." " Yes, that is so." " Well, that is what Las Vegas means the meadows, and we have got old Hen Creek, running down through the west pasture, hamt we ?" 380 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S " Yes, to be sure," she said. " Well," said I, " that is a Gallinas River, for that's \f~ Y, it means in United States language." " How did you find that out, I'd like to know?" ''Just the way I find out most everything by asking what they meant. I asked that young Greaser that scrubbed me in the bath- house about it, and he told me that them was the meanings of the terms." Clarissa wanted to stay here another day, but said she couldn't afford it as they wanted a small farm for keeping us a very short time, so we bid The Meadows and Hen Creek good-by, and took the Atchi- son, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad for Kansas City, the nineteenth marvel of the nineteenth century, where we arrived after passing through the magnificent State of rich prairie farms, with their won- derful improvements, and splendid schoolhouses Kansas. I would like to have stopped at a dozen places in this glorious State, renowned for its struggles for existence without the dark stains of human slavery blemishing its rich soil, but I hadn't got the time. Kansas City is one of the wonders of the age. It is wonderful for its push and go-aheadativeness, but its greatest wonder consists in its wanting the whole earth and claiming over half of it. We met several fellows there that could beat the Omaha gentlemen for tali stories about its future prospects, but we didn't meet any one there that was deaf and dumb; we asked several if there was any such a person there, and was informed that there was not one in the city. I told Clarissa that it was a downright pity that the Almighty had failed to bless Kansas City with one. What the city would come to, nobody could tell. We was entertained one day by the Mayor and the leading men, and we found that while they was all good fellows, so far as we could see, they was all dreadfully troubled with the same complaint. See reference to the Omahaians that boarded our car at their city. EXPERIENCE WITH HYPOCRITES. 381 4 wouldn't be surprised to hear at almost any time that the sun had quit getting up in the east in the morning, but would hereafter rise in Kansas City and set in Omaha. Well, I believe them is the kind of fellows to make business, and develop all there is in a coun- try. I wish we had some of them down in The Village. As long as we have got to have more or less hypocrites, we had better have live ones that have got snap and vim in 'em that will' do other folks good by giving life and prosperity to a country, than a lot of old close-fisted, penurious, never-dying ones, that will hang on to all they have got, and never give anybody else a chance. While in Kansas City I discovered a new scheme, a scheme that would just suit Jim Teeters. I wanted to get an idea of what property was worth. So I went into a real estate dealer's office and putting on the appearance of a man that had got more money than he knew what to do with, asked him if he had got any good corner lots to sell. " Oh, yes sir. I've got some that will just suit you. If you'll wait five minutes, I'll have my private carriage brought around and will take you over the city and show you a number of very desira- ble lots, any one of which you can double your money on in sixty days, at the rate our city is growing. Please excuse me a moment, while I order my porter to bring up my carriage." " Oh, certainly," said I. " You go on and get your horse and don't mind me ; I'll wait right here, and see that they don't anybody carry anything off." He slipped out into the next door which was in a barber shop separated from his office by a thin board partition, and I heard the following conversation ; "Tom, will you go down to Jim's livery stable, and tell him I want a good horse and buggy right away, and you bring it up, will you ? '* " Yes, boss ; but de last time I was down there after a hoss for you, he said dat was de last one he was goin' to let you hab, until 382 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S you paid up, and I spoze he wont let me bring one up but I'll go and see." " Well, you just tell Jim that I have struck a soft snap ; that I've got a rich old farmer that I want to show through the city, and I think I can sell him half-a-dozen lots ; tell Jim 1 will try to sell that old hole in the ground, that he calls a residence lot the one he got off from Bob Green in a game of poker, and which haint worth twenty-five dollars to the old man, and if I strike him for .a deal, I'll come right down and pay him up. Just say to Jim forme that my business has been very dull for a month past ; that during that time I haven't sold a single piece of property, but I have got a good many prospects, and now I've got a soft looking old farmer that is no doubt rich, in the office, and I can stuff him the same way we stuff everybody that comes here, with K. C.'s wonderful future, and I will sell him some lots, sure." " Yes, boss ; I'll go." "Well. Say, Tom, when you drive up to the door, you please act just as though you was my porter, for I want the old man to think I am away up. You know a big impression helps business." " Yes-sah ; I spose it do. Well, all right, boss ; I'll be dar in a few minutes." The gentleman returned to the'ofiice with an air on to his coun- tenance of business importance, as much as to say ' I am the heaviest real estate man in the city," and sitting down in his spring cushioned, whirl-around chair at his desk, he pulled out a drawer and took out of it a box of cigars, and passed them to me and very politely said, " Please take a cigar." I don't smoke very often, but on this occasion I thought I would. He drew his chair up near mine and in a very confidential way, laid bare the tremendous city this place would be within the next ten years ; that its million of inhabitants would require so many hun- dreds of railroads to convey them to and fro. " And, sir," said he, " ^very lot within fifteen miles in either direction from where we EXPERIENCE WITH HYPOCRITES. 383 are sitting, will b'e gobbled up in less than six months from now, and if you want to invest some money where you can clear 500 per cent, profit in less than a year, I can take you to some pieces of prop- erty that you can buy, where you can make that much, easy." " By George ! You don't say so?" I exclaimed in surprise. " Yes, but I do say so, and more than that, I can take you where you can buy a couple of lots that by holding on to 'em four or five years will make you a millionaire." " How in thunder is that? " I asked. " Why, the capitol of the State is going to be moved here within that time, and they will have to have those two lots to rest one of its wings on," he replied. " Look here !" said I. ' You don't pretend to tell me that the capitol of the great State of Missouri has got wings, and flies around from one place to another, do you ?" " Yes ; she has wings, and she is bound to leave Jefferson City, and she will roost right down by these two lots, sure. Then don't you see they'll have to have 'em, and you can put your own price on them?" " Yes," said I. " How is business with you? Are you selling a good many lots ? " " Well, I should smile," said he. " Why it's simply marvelous, the amount of business I am doing. I average about a hundred sales a day. Some days my office is just crowded, and I can't get around to wait on them all. It is a little quiet just now, but it will give us a good chance to go out, and here is my carriage at the door." We stepped into the buggy and drove off. As we rode over hills and through hollows, shaded by an overhanging cliff on our right, while on our left was a yawning chasm one moment, and the next crossing a street that seemed to be running down a ravine, I said, quietly : "You have a very fine horse and buggy ; it rides mighty easy. How much do they charge you a day for such a rig here? " 384 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S " I don't know how much they would charge for such a turn, out. You see I own this rig. I have several more ; I have to have them in my business to take our customers over the city with. I presume that I have five or six out this morning with my clerks, showing property to customers." By this time we stopped at a corner where there was a deep hole in the ground, about thirty feet wide by one hundred and twenty feet deep, and right next to it, a monstrous high hill. "Now, look at those two lots," said he. " There is a fortune for you. That corner lot belongs to a poor livery stable man in town. He took it of a man that was unfortunate in a little speculation, and as he needs some money pretty bad, he will sell that lot dirt cheap." " Why," said I, "you don't call that hole in the ground a lot, do you? " " My dear sir, that is one of the most desirable lots in the city. You see you have got your cellar dug already. You lay the found- ation of your house right on top of the ground, and the man that owns that high lot next to you will give you fifty cents a load for the privilege of shoveling his hill into your lot, and fill it all up even to grade." " By George ! I never thought of that. It looks reasonable, though, don't it ? How much do you ask for it? " " I can sell you that lot, if you should conclude to take it before two o'clock this P. M. the hour when the Real Estate Exchange meets for $400 a front foot, but at that hour it is liable to go up another hundred dollars a foot." " That is very cheap, I must confess, but I don't believe I want it. I would rather have the lot next to it. How much can that be got for?" I inquired. " Well, the man that owns that lot, holds it at $450 a foot." " Whew! How's that?" " Why, he says that the man that owns this low corner lot will give him a dollar a load for his hill to fill up his lot with, and the . rn i ir. 385 dirt that he can sell in getting his lot down to grade will more than pay for it." I could not help saying, " By Gosh ! " and I asked him if them two lots was a fair specimen of the balance he had to sell. He said they was about a fair average. I was taken with a violent swimming in my head, and asked him if he would please drive me to my hotel. He saw I was as white in the face as a ghost, and took me to the hotel in quick time. He wanted to know when he could call for me. I told him not until I had recovered from the first attack. Of all the doses of rank, genuine hypocrisy that I have swal- lowed since I left home, this was the worst, and I told Clarissa that it wasn't safe to stay in Kansas City any longer, for if we did, I should be prostrated on a bed of sickness. So we took the even- ing train, and the next morning arrived in Chicago's great rival city, that stretches its busy arms up and down the meandering Mis- sissippi, while its monstrous body lays back from Sippi's western bank. 386 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S CHAPTER XXXV. we was in Chicago we got the impression from remarks we frequently heard, and from items we occasion. ally ran across in their papers, that St. Louis had in former days been a thriving, active small city, but that in the race for busi- ness and influence with the great Chicago it had been completely distanced, and consequently had become discouraged, and had laid down, fatigued, and gone to sleep, content with being numbered with the great things of the past. Therefore, we was expecting to see a city of Qtnet peacefulness, whose large buildings were closed, and upon whose walls we would see posted, " Hands Off. Don't mar these premises, or carry off any splinters for relics," and other indications of sacred silence that usually reigns in abandoned and dead cities and towns. But we was perfectly surprised, when we rode through the streets from the depot to the Southern Hotel, to find all the activity and stir there was in Chicago. There was not quite so much rusk and bustle, but there was an air of determination resting on the faces of the men we met and passed on the streets, that seemed to say, " We are getting there all the same, if we don't make so much fuss about it." At the Southern we was treated first-rate, and everything was done to make us feel at home that could be done. They gave us their best spare bedroom, with a bathroom opening out of it, and they took special pains to introduce us to several distinguished per- sons that was there; among the rest was the mayor of the ity. EXPERIENCE WITH HYPOCRITES. 387 He was a perfect gentleman, and was very polite, especially to Clar- issa. He invited us to take a ride with him in his own private car- riage. We was just as polite to him as we knew how to be, and told him we was dreadful glad to go riding with him. While he was having the carriage hitched up and brought up to the hotel, I went and got a store shave the first one I ever had, for I always shave myself and got a nigger to black my boots, while Clarissa changed her dress and put on her crow-grain black silk, so both of us would look real slick and nice. The carriage had arrived at the front door, and the mayor was waiting for us. As we stepped into the elegant carriage I noticed his driver, like Mayor Harrison's, had on a mourning hat-band. They took us all over the city, and out to Mr. Shaw's garden. We was surprised almost every minute, for, instead of a dead or abandoned city, we found a great city, chuck-full of enterprise and business, while in the residence portions we found an air of old- fashioned comfort, solidity combined with beauty, that was far ahead of Chicago, and Mr. Shaw's garden was perfectly beautiful. Clarissa said she would like to live in that garden for a month. She is pas- sionately fond of posies. We drove across the pride and glory of the city her wonder- ful bridge and had a good look at Old Mississippi. The steamboats that lined the bank of the river told the story of her wonderful ad- vantage in reaching the towns up and down the river, that Chicago did not possess. The ride was highly instructive, as well as pleasant. On our way back to the hotel Clarissa and I and the mayor got quite well acquainted. He went on for a long time, telling us about the advantages St. Louis possessed over Chicago. I asked him if he thought that St. Louis would in course of time be as large and important a city as Chicago was at present. " Of course," said I, "it will never catch up with it, for while your city is growing, Chi- cago is jumping right ahead all the time." 388 SHAMS; OK, UNCLE BEN'S He said, " Of course it will. While Chicago is a little ahead of us in population, and outstrips us in braggadocio and flapdoodle, we are far ahead of her in solid wealth. Our city is prosperous, and its inhabitants own their places of business, and their homes are paid for, and not plastered all over with mortgages, as two- thirds of the Chicago houses and homes are." I saw there was a spirit of envy sticking out of both ends of his remarks. I spoke up, and said : " Isn't it an indication of the prosperity and growth of a city, when it is able to borrow all the money it needs on the security of its property ? Men of means don't very often loan money to dead folks and take mortgages on their corpses, do they ?" " I want you to understand that St. Louis aint dead, by any means," said he, in a little huffy tone. " I beg your pardon. I did not say she was, and by the way she kicks whenever the word Chicago is mentioned, I know she haint dead, nor did I even think she was ; but I spoke as I did to show that if Chicago has got some mortgage porous plasters on her back, she is an all-fired smart city, and the business men are making money there, and your folks hadn't ought to be so sensitive whenever there is any mention made of the eighth wonder of the world." The mayor didn't like my remarks, which I could plainly see, and I said, " If you won't get offended at my suggestion, I think I can put you on the track of rapidly improving your city, and ulti- mately make it go away ahead of Chicago." He brightened up, and said, " Certainly not. I shall be very happy to receive any suggestions you have to offer." "Well, then," said I, "you just enter into an arrangement with Carter Harrison, of Chicago, to give you some pointers, and if he will, and he is not elected mayor this term, he can put you on the right road to success." " Well ! well ! well ! what makes you think so ?" " Think so? think so?" said I. " There is no think about it. I know so, for he told Clarissa and I both that he took hold of Chi- cago when it was a small city of a couple hundred thousand, and since he had run it as its mayor he had brought it up to nearly 800,- ooo. Why! it's perfectly marvelous what that man can do. You just take my advice, and write to Carter in regard to it." He said he would think about it. By this time we had arrived at the hotel. We thanked him for his kind attention, and invited him to come with his family and visit us some time, which he agreed to do. After dinner I went to pay my bill, and the landlord wouldn't take a cent. He said he had noticed our visit in Chicago, and he felt it as much of an honor to him to entertain us as it was to Mr. Palmer. After expressions of gratitude, and extending him a pressing invitation to visit us, we bid him good-by, and took the Chicago & Alton train for Chicago. 390 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S CHAPTER XXXVI. arrived in Chicago Friday morning, and went to the Pal, mer House. Everything seemed to be alive and stirring, The rustle, bustle, rattle, roar, bang and jam on every side seemed about as it did on our former visit. They was glad to see us back again at the tavern, or at least they said so, and of course, tavern-keepers and their clerks never say anything they don't mean. I thanked them, and said I was glad to return. Everything around this great palace seemed quite natural. The same general rush in the office, the same mixture of different nationalities, the majority being the descendants of the dwellers in the Holy Land, who seemed to have an eye open to the main chance, the same lot of country merchants, stockmen, and farmers, and the same crowd of swells and dudes, with their one blind eyeglass and cane. And among the general crowd I saw the tall, lean, lank, hawkeyed, cadaverous cuss that belongs to the reportorial staff (as he calls it) of the Chicago Tribune. I made up my mind I would avoid him if possible, and so I started for my room, and proceeded up the grand stairway. I had only got up to the first broad stair, when that cuss, with a hop, jump and three steps, landed beside me, and with ex- tended hand and a horrible grin, said, s How are you, Mr. Morgan? Glad to see you ! When did you return ? f d like to have a little interview with you, if you can spare me a little of your time." If you ever had a bare spot on top of your head when you have been sitting on the bank of a river under the shade of a tree in the summer, with your hat off, holding a fishpole in your hand, wait- 391 ing an hour or so for some innocent fool of a fish to invite you to pull him in out of the wet, and realized the peculiar sensation of having the tallest skeeter in the woods light on the clearing in your locks and sink a shaft for blood, you can imagine my feelings just at that moment. I turned to the town tattler, and in the language of Mr. Harrison, said, " I won't be interviewed ; I don't want to be in- owed, and dumb me, if I will be interviewed. I haint got noth- ing to tell ; I don't want to tell nothing, and dumb me, if I will tell gMZF* 4 &$%'+. ^ SINKING A SHAFT KOR BLOOD. nothing. I don't want to be lied about, and dumb me, if I will be lied about. I am an honest and upright man ; I always was an hon- est and upright man, and dumb me, I am always going to be an honest and upright man. I am Chicago's best mayor, and dumb me, I always will be Chicago's best mayor No ! no ! Excuse me. That last remark didn't apply to me. I was thinking about what he told me, and wasn't thinking what I was saying. No, I haint, nor never will be, mayor of this city. I haint been to breakfast yet, and haint got time to be interviewed, so good-morning." 1 went 392 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S up-stairs, and left him on the broad stair in front of the big look- ing-glass. He had a pencil and paper in his hand, and was scratch, ing like a hen after grubs. We went into the grand dining room for breakfast. Every thing- looked as usual, except they had got a new picture over one of the doors. It was off to my left side, and I said to Clarissa : " Do you see that big picture over there? It's awful nice." " Where, Benjamin ? I don't see it." " Why, right over there," and I pointed it out with my fork, and she pinched me. Said I, " What's that for ; what have I done now ?" " I thought I told you, when we was here before, that your fork was made to eat with, and not be jabbing things with it," said she. After breakfast Clarissa and I went down to the mayor's office, to see Mr. Harrison. We was surprised when we was informed that Mr. Harrison wasn't the mayor any longer. That the people had decided at its recent election not to take any more of his valua- ble time and cause him any more trouble in running the city gov- ernment, and had elected one of the common people, Mr. Roche, for mayor, and at present Mr. Harrison was out of a job. If lightning had struck the city and shattered it from one end to the other, I wouldn't have been more thunderstruck. I asked a young man in the office where we would find Mr. Harrison. He said he didn't know. I asked him if he could direct me to Mike McDonald's place of business. He said he could, and after getting our directions we bid him good-by, and went over to Mr. McDonald's place on Clark Street. We found that gentleman, and after introducing ourselves, told him who we was and what we wanted. He was very pleasant, and invited us into his private room. After we was seated he said, " I have heard Carter speak of you often, and I know he will be glad to see you. At present you'll find him at home he is not feeling well. The facts are these : He wanted to be mayor of the city, and thought -- ,- , . n PU1M1NG Oil' WITH MY FORK THE MOST INTERESTING POINTS. 393 ' . I I H II Y F'CK -j^j the best way to make sure of it was to announce in the papers that he would under no circumstances run for the office ; that by doing so the people would run after him in a mass, and make him the mayor in spite of his assumed objections ; and in case they did, he could do as he pleased, just as he always has done. But the dumb fools of people thought he was honest, and meant what he said, and they wouldn't and they didn't elect him, but, on the contra- ry, they went to work and ignored all of his suggestions, and elected one of the common men, Roche, by the biggest majority that was ever given to any mayor ever elected in the city. When Carter saw the people had misconstrued his real meaning, and took him at his word, he tried to get them to elect a highly respects ble anarchist ; but the people hadn't got over thinking about a little trouble the city had with the anarchists last spring, and they didn't comply with Carter's desire, and he has been so mad about the way things have gone that he won't come down town any more, only when he is obliged to, and when he does, he is hounded to death by them reporters." Clarissa spoke up, and with a sigh, said : " Well, I'm awful sorry for Mr. Harrison, for he is such a good man." "Yes, so am I," said Mr. McDonald; " I am sorry, but I, and four or five of his old chums, drive out to see him most every c ing and cheer him up with a few games. The fact is, the city has drifted into the hands of a lot of cranks, and they have got every paper in the city under their influence, and they are just playing with the best men we have got. They have gone to work and got all of the old commissioners, and some of the best men we have, in- dicted for swindling the county and stealing, and a whole lot of other nonsense, and now they are going to send them to the State's Prison, if they can hire enough liars to prove their charges. Now, there is Dan Wren. Everybody knows that he is the very soul of honor. If he ever gets beat, he pays up like a man. They have a dozen or more crimes charged against him. And Van Pelt, 396 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S who wouldn't think of doing a wrong they've got him with the rest. And then, to cap the whole scheme, they got the chairman of -the board, Mr. Klehm, indicted on the contemptible charge of steal- ing $5>oco u t of the bottom of a well down to the Insane Asylum. That is the dirtiest part of the cranks' work. You see, it was just like this: You know crazy folks drink a pile of water. If they drank good old whisky and beer, they wouldn't be crazy, and they had to have a new well down there, and of course, they wanted a big one. Now, Klehm was working for the interests of the county, and watched everything, and saw that the county got the lowest prices on everything, and that nothing was stole. So, when the well was to be dug, he let the contract to the LOWEST bidder, of course. So he let the job to a feller for 80 cents a foot for the first 300 feet, and for every additional 300 feet a large increase ; and when below 2,000 feet, it was to be $4.50 a foot. When the well was done, Klehm went out and measured it with his own weight and line, and when the weight struck bottom, it broke loose from the line ; but he measured the line, and it was about 2,500 feet deep." " Oh, what an awful deep well! " said Clarissa. " Yes, it is ; but you must understand, madam, that they are avfful crazy out there, and drink lots of water. Well, when this crank jury was hauling the commissioners over, they thought the well was too deep; so the fools all went out there and got Furthmann to measure it, and he went down and measured every foot till he got to the bot- tom, where he found Klehm's weight, and brought it up with him. He said the well was just 1,500 feet deep. And now they want to raise the devil with Klehm, and send him to the pen, just because he made a mistake in measuring that crazy-house well, of a thousand feet. Don't you see what a mean, pusillanimous piece of work that is ? And just so with all the rest of the commissioners. They are being persecuted by these cranks for some little, trivial mistakes or over- sights. Why, they have got my little brother, Eddie, who was a poor, hard-working engineer out at the Cook County Hospital, indicted rni nvrocRrn 397 for stealing, on some trumped up lies, and poor Eddie feels so sick that he can't say his prayers before he gets into bed in his cool, cool cell. And they indicted Eddie's old playmate, Billy McGar- rigle, for being an honest warden, and have locked the boys up in jail." " Oh, oh ! what a pity ! " said Clarissa. " Yes, it is a pity," said Mike. " You see, condemn it, it breaks up all our arrangements. It breaks up our Sunday-school class, and all the nice picnics we had arranged for this coming summer are knocked into a cocked hat by these infernal old cranks. I tell you what it is, I'd rather live in Canada any time, and if I could get the boys together without being watched, we'd all move over there; but there it is, it, these cranks are right onto us all the time, and we can't breathe but they've got a detective on the spot to catch the lost breath. I am getting disgusted with the city, any way, and I am going to move out, if it goes on this way much longer. We can't act as we would if they would let us alone. As it is, we are forced into a position of hypocrisy which is contrary to our natures, as every one knows that knows us." Clarissa heaved several sighs, and expressed her sorrow for the persecuted good men of Chicago. As we left his place, and returned to the Palmer for dinner, I said to Clarissa that she had better keep her briny tears corked up until we heard the dear people's side of the case. Although I know I am chuck-full of shortcomings, yet there is one thing I have al- ways stuck to, and that is to never turn myself loose until I have heard both sides of a story. We had been so busy traveling and seeing sights ever since we left Chicago for the West, that I had not read very much in the newspapers, so I was ignorant of what had been going on in -the city while we was gone; but Clarissa had finished reading her book, and when we went to our room, after dinner, she guessed that Mr. Harrison had anticipated his defeat, as the book, " Shadows of the 398 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S Future," was a kind of prophecy pointing to such a result in the coming election. She was sorry for him, as he was such a great man. " Well," says she, " we'll do our duty, and go to his house this afternoon and see him, and console with him. I know that when folks are in trouble, and are passing under the dark cloud of afflic- tion, they need the sympathy of all their friends and neighbors, and it is the duty of all their friends and neighbors to call an them, and tell them how sorry they are for them." We went out to Mr. Harrison's house, and rung the door bell. The same servant girl that was there when we was at his house be- fore came to the door, and says, " Och ! and ye bees the Morganses as was here last winter, and would ye be after wantin' to see the boss?" Clarissa told her that we came to call on him. " Well, thin, I'll be axin' him if he wants to see ye," and off she went, and in a few minutes he came to the door, and in his pleasant manner invited us into the parlor. He had changed considerable, ad looked much poorer thaa be- fore. He said he was glad to see us, and Clarissa told him she was glad to see him, but was awful sorry to see him looking so poor. Says she, " I presume it is wearing on you to be disappointed so." Said he, " What do you mean by being disappointed ?" " Why, in not being elected mayor of the city," she replied. "Oh! no, that isn't wearing on me a mite," said he, " but to think that Chicago has got to get along with a mayor that hasn't had any experience, and is liable at any minute to ruin the city, worries me a great deal, and I can't bear the thought that all the good men I have put into different official positions, and have spent so much time in drilling, so]they would do any and everything I told them to do, should be turned out, without a dollar in their pockets, and noth- ing to do for an honest living." Clarissa said, as the tears began to wet the left side of her nose (there is something peculiar about Clarissa she can't cry out of only one eye), " Mr. Harrison, you are too great and noble a man to KXPKi: vrni nvrocRiTi 399 sacrifice yourself for the benefit of such an ungrateful city. Why don't you go to St. Louis and be mayor for that city ? They need you there !" " Thank you, Mrs. Morgan, for your kind remarks and your advice. I cannot possibly think of being mayor of any city again, as I intend to sail for Europe very soon," he responded. We had a very pleasant visit, considering the gloomy conversa- tion, for about two hours, when we bid him good-by, and returned to our hotel. It may be just possible that Chicago may survive the terrible blow of losing its able Carter and its county commissioners. She survived the greatest fire that ever warmed any city in the world, and in time, I think she will survive this calamity. 400 SHAMS ; OR, UNCLE BEN'S CHAPTER XXXVII. 'E remained in Chicago but a few days this time, as we was anxious to get home. I wish I had time to tell the many experiences I had with a host of smooth, highly polished and genteel hypocrites. I met them under the guise of merchants, unfortunate capitalists, heirs of great expectations, but temporarily laborin' under a " Col. Sellers" misfortune of bein* financially em- barrassed, missionaries, ministers (that the Lord has no further use for), obliging gentlemen, ready to show a stranger golden opportu- nities for making a fortune, and a hundred other characters, all seeking one common end, the bottom end of my pocket but I have not, as the bus is waiting at the door, to take us to the L. S. & M S. R. R. depot, where we take the train for Syracuse. So, good-by to Chicago, the great city of activity, filled with great and good men, who tower like a Pike's Peak above the common mass, and an immense host of hypocrites, who like worms, and snakes, crawl all through it, working their way into every phase of its life. We left the city on the morning train, and reached Syracuse the next day about noon. Mrs. Buzzbee and her husband met us at the depot, and we went to their house and staid over night with them. The evening passed off so quickly at the house, that before we was aware of it it was midnight. Mr. B. said, " Uncle Ben, how do you and the hypocrites get along? have you reformed them all?" To which I replied, " No ! I've given up the job. I thought we had a few up in our neighborhood, but they haint a fly speck compared with what we've met. It's no use, Mr. Buzzbee; to reform one is plant- EX MTU HY 4OI ing the seeds for a hundred ; it's like killing one skeeter in the woods his body seems to turn into a dozen more. And then there is something so catching about that moral disease, hypocrisy, that while you are trying to reform others that are afflicted with it, you are liable to have an attack of it yourself, and when a professional reformer catches it, it goes awful hard with him, and like lepi he never recovers from it. You take these great political reformers, temperance reformers, railroad tariff reformers, financial reformers and even religious reformers, and you'll find that most of 'em get a dreadful severe attack of it. So I've concluded not to undertake the job, but to go home to the old farm, and with Clarissa do my duty as I understand it ; be honest and content with what I have, and try to make Clarissa happy as long as we live, and leave the job of correctin' the evil practices of human men in the hands of the great Engineer of the universe, who has His hand upon the lever and can reverse action and shut off steam, whenever, in his judgment, it is necessary. He has done it all along the past. His- tory is but a description of the mysterious workings of the great spiritual engine moving under the guidance of His hand and will." When I had finished, Mr. B. and his wife both spoke up with an air of surprise pervadin* every lineament of their countenance, and said, " Well, Mr. Morgan, you have changed considerable since you left here on this trip. You talk as though you had been to college, studying." Clarissa spoke up and said, " Yes, Benjamin has improved con- siderable. When we first started out, I done most of the talkin', and now he does most of it, but he has taken a good many lessons. His first lesson was here in Syracuse; his next was on the train from Buffalo to Cleveland ; then again at Chicago, and again in Virginia City, and then in San Francisco, and all along. I'm glad on't. Our trip has cost us lots of money, but it has been a good school to both of us, and we could, in no other way, have learned so much, to say nothing about the pleasure we have had for the 402 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S same amount of money, as we have by the swindling scheme ol Ketchem, Holdem, Skinem & Co., in running their great transcon- tinental excursion." The next day I met the last year's mayor at Buzzbee's store, the same one I met in the club room when I was here before. He was the same polite gentleman he was then, and was very nice to me. I begged his pardon for the abrupt remarks I made when in their clubroom last November. I told him I had just left the farm and was totally ignorant of the ways of the world, and at that "NOTHIN' STRONGER THAN LEMONADE AND CIGARS." time supposed that shamming and hypocrisy was an occasional ex- ception to the general rule, but I had, during my travels, learned that it is the general rule ; that it is quite fashionable to sham, and I was and still continue to be out of fashion ; but I did not intend, in the future, to be a fool by blurtin' out my prejudiced notion of things, and hurting others' feelings without doing any good. He said I was fully pardoned, and he had not thought ill of me, for he knew I was honest, but had not seen the world as it is. His remarks was true. We arrived at the village at five P. M. We was met at the depot EXPERIENCE WITH HYI'OrRITI 403 by Eb and Mary, and Abe and Lily, and a whole lot of our old neighbors, all glad to see us home again. And we was glad to see them. They had hired the village brass band to escort us from the depot up into The Village, and as we walked up the sidewalk, the band marched ahead of us with a big banner in front of 'em, say- ing ; " This way to the Fat Cattle Shu Of course we had to take it, and I had to stand treat for the whole town. " Nothin' stronger than lemonade and cigars," said I, when we arrived at Ebenezer's store. Eb made a barrel of lemon- ade, and set out 500 cigars to the crowd. Zolliver Ramsdell stood on the steps in front of the store and delivered a speech of welcome, to which I had to respond. Whether it was the speech of Zolliver or my speech, or the cigars and lemonade that kept the whole vil- lage there in a jam for more'n two hours, I can't say, but it was mid- night before they all left, and Clarissa and I retired to Ebenezer and Mary Plunket's private spare bedroom, to blissful repose, which we / stood in need of. When we come out to breakfast in the morning, Ebenezer handed me a lot of letters. The first one I opened was from Squire Bigler, containing his Cattle Scheme, showing a statement of the concern he had organized. He had his picture in the center of it representing him in the act of making a speech. Here it is, just as he had it printed : COLORADO CATTLE COMPANY. This Company was organized under the laws of the State of Colorado for the purpose of buying, raising, shipping and selling cattle and other live stock, and for the purpose of buying and owning grazing land in said State. The capital stock is ONE MILLION DOLLARS, divided into TEN THOUSAND SHARKS of the par value of ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS each, issued full paid and non-assessiblc. The affairs of the company are under the management of not less than live nor more than nine trustees, who are to be elected annually by the stockholders at their meetings to be held on the first Monday in November in each year. The business of the company, as provided by its charter, is to be carried on in the State of Colorado, vrith its principal office in the city of Denver and a branch office in the city of New York in the State of New York, where the meetings of the stockholders and board of trustee* may be held, and where the books of the company may be kept, and its tm.ua bl affairs coo- 404 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S ducted. There may also be established by direction of the board of trustees, if they shall deem it expedient for the interests of the company, branch offices in the cities of Chicago and Baltimore, where certificates of stock may be transferred, and any necessary business of the company transacted. This company owns one of the largest stock ranges in the State of Colorado. It lies between the Huerfano and Apishipa Rivers in Southern Colorado, and comprises over four hundred thousand acres. The river frontage is more than one hundred miles; the central portion of the range being interspersed with living springs and lakes. The company derives its title to four hundred thousand acres from the grantees of the ILas Animas Grant, a grant made December 9, 1843, by Manuel Armiso, Governor of Mex- BIGLER MAKING A SPEECH. ico, to Cornelio Vigil and Ceran St. Vrain, which grant was fully ratified under and by the treaty of Gaudaloupe Hidalgo, in 1848, between the United States and Mexico, The entire grant amounted to about four million acres of the finest grazing land in the world. The company also owns fourteen thousand acres under government patent and pre- emption, which controls vast water privileges. The lakes upon this land are inexhaustible and never become frozen to any extent during the winter months. These lakes flow into deep, grassy canyons, which average five hundred feet in width and have natural sandstone walls thirty to fifty feet high, affording an absolute shelter to stock. This range has a very heavy growth of grass, blue joint, buffalo and gramma, and is ample for the support of at least forty thousand head of cattle. It has all the necessary im- provements, such as corrals, buildings, branding pens, water tanks, etc. It has a good, sub- [YPOCRITES. 405 stantial fence cedar posts and barbed wire, forty miles in length, connecting with the head of A pishipa canyon on the north, and Spring canyon on the south, and inclosing with the deep canyons, about two hundred thousand acres. Waterways are cut, at intervals, down the banks of the canyons and Apishipa River, on the side next to the inclosure. Alfalfa are grown at different points upon the range, one field of two thousand acres, closely fenced, now yielding not less than three tons per acre. Groves of cedar and pinon, under which is a heavy growth of grass, are scattered over this vast range., and afford shelter from the sum- mer sun and the winter winds. Tlu- St. Yrain Land and Irrigation Company is constructing a sixty-foot canal across this range, which will afford at all seasons an abundant supply of pure mountain water. The bank of the canal next to the range will be left open to the company's cattle under an ar- rangement made with the said St. Vrain Company. The company will also be able to irri- gate from this ditch or canal a large amount of its land, which can then be cultivated to great advantage and benefit. The following is a correct statement of the property now owned by the Colorado Cattle Company, together with the cost of the same: STATEMENT. 400,000 acres of grazing land, part of the Las Animas Grant, at 25 cents $100,000 14,000 acres Government Patent and Pre-emption, together with cost of implements, improvements, fences, water rights, etc. . 69,000 4,480 cows, 3 years old and over, improved ; 200 bulls, Short - horn, a few bloods ; 938 steers, mixed, 3 years and over; 523 heifers, yearlings, 2 years old Spring '87 196,080 67 horses, not including 17 colts 4i2OO Total cost to date $369,3^0 RECEIPTS. From sale of 3,750 shares of stock at $100 $375,ooo From sale of 978 steers and 112 fat N. C. cows, net 44.4 10 Total receipts $419,410 DISBURSEMENTS. Commissions, added to cost of cattle, expenses paid in full to Nov. i, '86 $ 6,385 Range 169,000 Cattle 196,080 Horses 4. 2 <*> Total disbursements $375-^5 Balance $ 43i 7-o CAPITAL. Total number shares, 10,000, par value, $100 $1,000,000 Number shares sold, 3,750 for 375. 000 Remaining in treasury, 6,250, value $ 625,000 Cash in treasury 43.745 Capital stock and cash on hand $ 668, 745 406 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S TAXES. There are no taxes levied upon the Mexican grant land. The tax on Government pat- ents is merely nominal. Very light on cattle, average about 25 cents per head. The tax for this year will be payable January ist, to May ist, 1887. CATTLE. Cows, 3 years old and over, improved , . . ,4,347 Bulls, mostly Short-horn, a few high bred 200 Calves, 1886 crop, heifers improved 2,213 1886 crop steers, improved . i ,874 Heifers 2 years old in Spring 1887, grade 523 Total number owned by Company January i } 1887 9.*57 January /, 1887. It needs no comments to show the hypocrisy of this swindling scheme, as it carries on the face of it, the same as hundreds of other similar schemes, hypocrisy. After breakfast I went over to the bank to find what they wanted me to hurry home for. Mr. Brown took me into his private office, and showed me a note for $1,000, signed by me, and said, " Mr. Morgan, did you sign that note ?" I said, " No, I never signed a note in my life." " Well," said he, " I didn't believe you did. Will you please write your name on this piece of paper, so I can compare it?" I did so and when he compared it he said, " I am now fully satisfied that it is a forgery, and think there will be no trouble whatever in satisfying the court of that fact." Then he went on and told me how George Waddles had been sued by twenty different farmers for various amounts they proved in court he had swindled them out of, and how he had got his criminal case and all the other cases continued to the next term of court ; how he had come to them and turned in several notes (this among the rest), and mortgage on his farm, as collateral security for money they loaned him for the purpose of settling these cases of the farmers, and not let them come to trial ; and how they had gone on his bail, so he could be let out of jail ; how he had skipped to parts unknown since then, and how they would be heavy losers, if the notes was all forged/which they feared was the case. He said they had found out he had not paid any of these claims, 1 1 Y POCRITES. 407 but had taken all the money they had loaned him, and, said he, " We want to know what to do before court meets. We have every con- fidence in you, and for your sake as well as ours, we felt that you must be here before the time court was called." I was dumbfounded, for, although I was satisfied he was a big hypocrite, I didn't think he was such an awful big rascal. They have got a detective on his track, and they may catch him. I had just left the bank, when I met Tom Conners, the lawyer that I hi elect to the Legislature. Said he, " Mr. Morgan, I am glad to sec you back again. I would like to see you in my office a minute." I went with him. Said he, " I have just received a letter from San Francisco ; I'll read it to you." He read as follows, to-wit : SAN FRANCISCO, CAL., Jan. 25, 1887. MR. THOMAS CONKERS: Dear Sir Inclosed you will find a note for $2,000, given me by one Benjamin Morgan, of your place. Will you proceed to collect the same, and forward the amount, less your fees, to me as soon as collected ? Very respectfully yours, CHARLES SKII The following, to-wit, was the note : SAN FRANCISCO, CAL., Dec. 24, 1886. For the sum of ($2,000) two thousand dollars, received of the firm of Ketchem, Holdein & Skinem, by the hand of their agent, Chas. Skipem, for expenses while in California, the receipt of which I hereby acknowledge, I promise to pay two thousand dollars and in at the rate of ten per cent, per annum, on demand. BENJAMIN Moi " Now, Mr. Morgan, is that correct?" I was never so surprised in my whole life, and in my excitement 1 come mighty nigh swearing, when I stood right up like one of them big trees, and said, " It's a goll-dumb lie. I never borrowed a cent from 'em, but the goll-dumb hypocrites owe me more'n two hun- dred dollars now, and, by thunder, I'll have every goll-dumb one of 'em put in prison, if I can." " Hold on a minute, Mr. Morgan; look at the signature and tell me whether or not you wrote it yourself ?" I looked at it closely, and said I thought I did, for it looked like 408 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S my writing. Just then I thought of the receipt I signed for the two hundred dollars. I also remembered signing it in a hurry, and not reading it over carefully, and I related the whole circumstance of our visit to the office of Dodgem, Skipem & Oppenheimer, and said I, " Clarissa was with me every minute 1 was in that city. I didn't go anywhere without her, and she paid close attention to everything that was done in that office, and I'll go right over to Eb's and bring her over here, and you ask her all about it." " Very well, Mr. Morgan," he said. I went across the street and up to Eb's store on a run, and took Clarissa back with me in less than five minutes. She told Mr. Conners everything connected with it, just as I had. Said Mr. Conners, " You will swear to this, will you ?" " Yes," she replied. " You'll swear to this, will you, Mr. Morgan ?" said he. " Well," said I, " although it's agin my principles to swear, but on this occasion I'll swear a blue streak" and I commenced with geewhilliker dam when Conners said, " Uncle Ben, hold on ! hold on ! That haint what I mean." (I did know what he meant, but I felt just like swearing, and I wanted to swear.) " I know you so well, and everybody knows you so well, that if you say a thing is so, I believe it, and now what you say is fully corroborated by your wife's statement. I see that it is a scheme to swindle you. They have converted the receipt you gave 'em for two hundred dollars into a note for $2,000. You needn't give yourself a particle of uneas- iness about it, but just leave it to me and I'll see them inside of a penitentiary, and if they are worth it, you'll get all the money back on their advertised agreement that you have paid out. Had it not been that your wife was present, and is a witness that can beat 'em in any court in the United States, you might be caused a great deal of trouble, but she will save you from any trouble in the case." I again felt she was my garden angel, and every day she be- comes more gardener to me, and I feel every day the value of a good KXI \vrni HYPUCK: 409 wife. God bless the wives! for they prove a blessing to many a poor man. As we was riding home with Abe and the old mare, and just as we was passing old Smugginses house, Sarah run out to the gate to speak 10 us. She was dressed up in her best, and she tried to look sweet. After talking with her a tew minutes, we drove on. Clarissa said, " Well, Benjamin, I'm glad to get home again, and I SARAH SMUGGINS. sha- 1 be contented to stay here the remainder of ray days, for, after seeing so much of the world, so much grandeur, and style in high life in the large cities and centers of business and fashion, the old borne, with its plain and unpretentious air, surrounded by the old orchard, and wrthal so quiet, seems like a paradise, and I can join the poet in his description of 4IQ SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S THE OLD-FASHIONED HOME. " Of ail the tender and comfortable things That now and then sweet memory brings, There's nothing dearer that love recalls Than the old-fashioned house with its whitewashed walls. " Not a mansion to-day, though a marvel of art Can ever usurp its place in my heart, For there my earliest prayers were said, And I slept at night in a trundle bed. " 'Neath coverlids reaching from feet to chin, By a mother's hand tucked gently in, And a good-night kiss on my tired brow Oh, earth holds no such blessings now. " A garden was fragrant in flower-beds, Where marigolds lifted their velvet heads, And warmed by sunshine, refreshed by dew, The bachelor-butticm and touch-me-not grew. " In a river that curved like a shepherd's crook We fished for minnows with a bent pin-hook, Or with little bare feet oft waded through, And bravely ' paddled our own canoe.' ** 'Twas a home of welcome, no one could doubt, Whose latchstring hung inevitably out, And many a stranger supped at its board, While blazing logs in the chimney roared. " Oh, this is an age of reform and change ! And things aesthetic, modern and strange Improvements that savor of silver and gold Are superseding the cherished and old. " But I turn from palaces built for show ! With mansard roof and stories below ; Of frescoed, kalsomined, dadoed halls, To the old-fashioned house with its whitewashed walls." Again we are seated in our own big square room, well-lighted by the hanging lamp. Abe is snoring on the lounge ; the old dog is stretched out in the corner behind the stove, and the cat is curled up on the rug under the stove-hearth, purring her evening song to feline notes, and everything is peaceful and quiet. Clarissa says, in EXPEK: TITH uvrocRrn 411 her old-fashioned way, " Benjamin, it seems just as though we had left a heaven, and taken a trip through the noisy world below, where hypocrisy seems to be superior to plain, simple honesty, and re- turned again to heaven ; it is so quiet here." " That is just the way it strikes me ; but we had a good time, after all, and learned an awful sight of human nature, a knowledge of which we did not possess to any great degree before we went." " Well," said she, " that is so ; but, after all, human nature is hu- man nature the world over, whether on the quiet New York farm, or in the busy cities; whether digging potatoes in Blank County, or dig- ging gold and silver in the old Rockies ; whether attending meeting in the Corners' schoolhouse, clad in plain calico, or sitting in cushioned chairs in the great halls and churches in the city, dressed in silks and ornamented with diamonds and bits of sparkling glass; whether in our lyceums at the schoolhouse, or in the great dramas on the stage of the cities' splendid theaters the feelings and passions of the hu- man heart are alike manifested in daily life. The unscrupulous are continually inventing new schemes to cover up their real natures and keep the public from understanding their true characters, while the careless drift into channels of deception, and in time become stereotyped into the habit ol presenting a false self. A few and what a GLORIOUS few! are honest by birth, by training and edu- cation, and how they tower above the hypocrites that surround them ! How Mr. So-and-so, in this village and that, in this city and that, on this farm and in that manufactory, occupying this pulpit and sitting on that judicial bench stands out prominently, and is admired by all, from the simple fact that his word is as good as his note ; that in every act of his life he is frank, truthful and hi. The Almighty seems to be his guide and governor. It matters not if his education is deficient, or he lacks the [polish that rules of so- ciety require for a gentleman. Though he be a diamond in the rough still he is a gem of greatest value to the world. The polish thai education and contact with the world will add, will cause him to 412 SHAMS; OR, UNCLE BEN'S sparkle and appear more brilliant, but it is not the education nor polish that gives him value, or singles him out from his fellows, but because his heart and head are right and true all the way through, but he has got to have that trait born in him." Clarissa got into one of her regular talking spells, and I said to her, in a sort of mellow tone, a little on the 'dulcet stop, " Clarissa; now, do please do." " Please do what?" she replied. " Please let up please shut down a little." " What do you mean, Benjamin ?" she asked. " I mean to say that this is my first book, and you wondered who'd ' be fool enough to read it.' Now, if you don't let up on this continual philosophizing, and telling what you think, it will kill it, and if ever I should write another, 1 couldn't hire a fool to read it. Now, let's sing the doxology to close your remarks, and let me just tell the dear people, and men and women in general, in closing this volume, what I think. I think that MAN is, after all, partly a product of climate and soil. It is not true that man is the crowning glory of God's creation, for it depends upon where he is located, and his surroundings, as to the position he occupies in the scale of Glory in Creation. You go into parts of Africa, where the palm and bread fruit tree flourish, and man sinks to the level of other brutes that feed upon the bread fruit and sleep under the shade of the palm. There, these trees are the crowning Glory of Creation. Certain impulses lead man in certain directions. Surroundings, cli- matic and scenic, have very much to do in establishing his tastes and inclinations, while his social surroundings direct his mental habit. Education broad, liberal and thorough causes the mental to rise in power above the animal, while idleness and neglect give the ani- mal supremacy over the mental. Neglected fields return the farmer naught but weeds, while cultivation brings him rich grains and grassy meads. So, with the heart, the bond of man's mental and animal dispositions, if rightly directed, yields the results of Honesty - if wrongly, Hypocrisy.' 1 ,