JOSEPH CONROY,S.J.

 
 A MILL TOWN PASTOR
 
 Books by Father Conroy 
 
 Published by Benziger Brothers 
 
 OUT TO WIN 
 
 STRAIGHT TALKS TO BOYS ON THE WAY 
 TO MANHOOD 
 
 12mo. Net $1.50. Postage 10 cents. 
 
 CONTENTS. Bill Wakes Up The Devil's Peri- 
 scope Be Bold Follow Your Interference 
 Feathers and Lead Come, Fido Get Along 
 With Yourself A Boy With the Punch Break 
 in Somewhere A Friend of Boys Patting Mud 
 Pies Bogus Money Loose Wires Speed and 
 Oranges. 
 
 TALKS TO PARENTS 
 
 SOLVING THE BOY PROBLEM 
 
 12mo. Net $1.50. Postage 10 cents 
 
 CONTENTS. The Son of His Father Nagging 
 Eddie Anybody at Home Murder in the 
 Third Act Where is Father Untold Agony 
 Merely a Detail Children, be Seated Bringing 
 Them Down Don't Mention It The Family 
 Footpad Diamond Cut Diamond; etc., etc. 
 
 A MILL TOWN PASTOR 
 
 STORY OF A WITTY AND VALIANT PRIEST 
 
 8vo. Net $1.75. Postage 15 cents. 
 
 This is the story of a priest told in a most 
 lively fashion, full of humor and sparkling wit 
 and keen insight, as gay as it is penetrating; 
 and of a very real priest, Father Daniel Coffey, 
 who shaped the spiritual destinies of a little mill 
 town in Ohio. It is a book one will want to 
 read through at a sitting, and come back to it 
 again for its sheer delight.
 
 A MILL TOWN PASTOR 
 
 THE STORY OF A WITTY AND 
 VALIANT PRIEST 
 
 BY 
 
 REV. JOSEPH P. CONROY, S.J. 
 
 SANTA BARBARA. CAUF, 
 
 Students Library 
 
 Santa Barbara, Caiifc 
 
 NEW YOHK CINCINNATI CHICAGO 
 
 BENZIGER BROTHERS 
 
 PUBLISHERS OF BENZIGER'S MAGAZINE^C* 
 1921
 
 3myrimi JJutrsL 
 
 FRANCIS X. McMENAMY, S.J., 
 
 Praep. Prov. Missourianiae 
 
 Nthil (Dbstat 
 
 ARTHUR J. SCANLAN, S.T.D., 
 
 Censor Librorum 
 
 fr PATRICK J. HAYES, D.D., 
 
 Archbishop of New York 
 
 NEW YORK, January 28, 1921 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY BEKZIOER BROTHERS 
 
 1 1 ?>8fi
 
 TO THE DIOCESAN PRIESTS 
 
 WHOM I HAVE MET UPON THE MISSIONS 
 
 IN ADMIRATION OP THEIR ZEAL AND ABILITY 
 
 AND IN GRATEFUL RECOGNITION 
 
 OP MANY KINDNESSES 
 
 THIS SKETCH OP ONE OF THEM 
 
 IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I White and Black 
 
 II At Home ... 
 
 Ill The Ladders of School . . 
 
 IV College Days .... 
 
 V Some Letters .... 
 
 VI Toward the Altar . . . 
 
 VII Early Days in the Ministry 
 
 VIII Another Tunnel .... 
 
 IX The Mills of Men . . . 
 
 X Spreading Sail .... 
 
 XI He Had Compassion . 
 
 XII A Portrait and a Walk . 
 
 XIII A Parish of Peace . 
 
 XIV Straws 
 
 XV The Little Ones . 
 
 XVI An Adventure in Oil . 
 
 XVII A Sea Change . . . , 
 
 XVIII Trade Till I Come . . . 
 
 XIX The Last Road . 
 
 PAGE
 
 A MILLTOWN PASTOR 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 WHITE AND BLACK 
 
 "\7ESSUH, the platform's right here, 
 I suh." 
 
 I took my two bags from the porter, stepped 
 off the train and plunged down into five feet 
 of snow. 
 
 When I emerged and got something like my 
 bearings, all I could see through a clear spot on 
 my glasses was that porter. His eyes had 
 rolled into two astonished little snowballs. 
 
 "Is this the platform I'm on, porter?" I 
 asked, through a mouthful of snow. The 
 question was intended to be severe. 
 
 "No suh, I don't guess it is, suh," said he. 
 
 "I should say it isn't," I retorted, with what 
 was meant for ironic repartee. The porter 
 never answered the crushing remark. I knew 
 he was going to laugh out loud as soon as he 
 got inside. 
 
 The train pulled out and I was left stand-
 
 10 White and Black 
 
 ing almost neck deep in a world of snow and 
 freighted with two bags that had to be landed 
 somewhere. 
 
 Cautiously I settled the two bags at my feet, 
 rubbed more snow off my glasses and looked 
 about. Great hills of whirling snow to my 
 right, off across where I knew the river was. 
 To my left, more hills of snow, with bulges of 
 snow scattered over them and gathered at 
 their base. This was the town. In the center, 
 just before me, and rising stark against the 
 whiteness, the huge stacks of the mills were 
 silhouetted, like black fingers reaching up to 
 grasp at the sky. Nothing else in sight. 
 
 "Are you the Father that's going to give 
 the mission?" I heard a young voice say. 
 
 "Hello!" I answered, looking about. Over 
 near a round bulge that formerly was the sta- 
 tion I saw two faces peering over a snow 
 trench. They were two boys. 
 
 "Yes," I said. "If I can ever get far 
 enough out of this to start something. But 
 how am I going to get out of here?" 
 
 "You'll have to get over where we are, 
 Father. The ground's smooth. Just walk it 
 and we have a path the rest of the way up." 
 
 It was only some twenty feet to go. I 
 waded the distance and sure enough saw the
 
 White and Black 11 
 
 path, hitherto invisible, and back on the path 
 two toy sleds waiting for my bags. I handed 
 up the bags, scrambled up on the platform, 
 shook hands with the boys, placed the bags on 
 the sleds, and we began our climb ; for we had to 
 climb every foot of the way. John went first 
 with bag and sled number one. Vincent sec- 
 ond with bag and sled number two, and I 
 brought up the rear, puffing and vapory, like 
 the steam calliope in the circus parade. We 
 wound around and up, and up and around, and 
 finally straight up. Snow on all sides of us, 
 but for John and Vincent it was the great ad- 
 venture. They kept talking, shouting, boss- 
 ing each other all the way, without a sign of 
 fatigue, until at last a little run, a shove ex- 
 traordinary, and 
 
 "Welcome, Father, to the top of Mount 
 Ararat. You have Noah beaten. He came 
 down here out of the rain, but you climbed up 
 through the snow. Isn't it grand weather for 
 the mission? Now beat it you, John and Vin- 
 cent, and change your clothes or you'll get 
 your death of cold. Don't give them any- 
 thing, Father. They're working for the mis- 
 sion. Well, go along with you now. Come 
 right in, Father, and we'll shovel the snow off 
 you. Such a lovely day 1"
 
 12 White and Black 
 
 I shook hands with Father Coffey, pastor of 
 St. Agnes' Church in Mingo Junction, and be- 
 gan my first mission there that night. 
 
 The memory of that mission will be with me 
 always. Not that there was anything the least 
 pretentious about the externals of the place. 
 It was not a spacious structure of romantic 
 glooms and alluring vistas. It was merely a 
 little wooden, smoke-battered church, with a 
 rectory no whit more luxurious, and a school 
 building and a Sisters' house copied from no 
 Venetian palace. 
 
 All four buildings were on the slope of a 
 steep hill with the church at the top. There 
 was more of the hill above the church, but my 
 surmise is that the original builders got too 
 tired to carry the lumber any further up the 
 hill and stopped while they had strength 
 enough left to go on with the construction. 
 They never imagined perhaps that the day 
 would come when others would build even far- 
 ther up the hill to its very top and then out over 
 the flat land that breaks there. 
 
 It was not the costly architecture that im- 
 pressed me. It was the people. The first 
 notable thing was the way they attended that 
 mission through weather that would bother the 
 monks of St. Bernard. The snow continued
 
 White and Black 13 
 
 for days and it was humorously edifying to see 
 half the congregation stumble up to the church 
 and the other half slide down to it. As early 
 as five o'clock in the morning they could be 
 seen in the half light making their laborious 
 way toward the church and three times a day 
 thereafter various groups made the journey 
 forth and back. Going home, of course, the 
 climbers turned into sliders and vice versa. 
 And it was not merely the young people who 
 did it. Every one in the parish made the mis- 
 sion and all were fervent and jolly over it at 
 the same time, with the buoyancy of genuine 
 hill-climbers. 
 
 "This congregation is not on the level," 
 Father Coffey said. 
 
 The next thing one could not fail to observe 
 was the fact that a large part of the people 
 was made up of Slovaks, Hungarians, Aus- 
 trians, Italians, Poles in the country com- 
 paratively only a short time; while the others 
 were Americans, principally descendants of 
 Irish parentage, perhaps of the third genera- 
 tion. But while there was a difference, there 
 was no division. It was like a family gather- 
 ing. Everyone appreciated everyone else. 
 Racial distinctions were not even thought 
 about. Each person felt completely and com-
 
 14 White and Black 
 
 fortably at home. An atmosphere of good 
 feeling, of cheerful give and take, was abroad. 
 And it did not require subtle observation to 
 note that the whole congregation strongly but 
 quietly gravitated toward Father Coffey and 
 moved with him and about him. It was the 
 first insight I got of his extraordinary power 
 over a wide variety of characters. 
 
 Toward the close of the week the snow 
 turned into rain, even a more disheartening 
 obstacle to a mission than snow. But the peo- 
 ple came as steadily as the rain. 
 
 "Noah is at it again," said Father Coffey. 
 "He's never happy unless there's water on 
 Mount Ararat. I thought he'd send me at 
 least one dove out of two missionaries. But 
 it's two ravens he sent me." 
 
 In a spiritual sense, at any rate, it is the 
 problem of the dove and the raven that fronts 
 the priest at every turn, and nowhere more 
 insistently than in a mill town where heavy and 
 incessant toil tends to bring on a physical 
 fatigue that blots out the soul's heaven with a 
 screen of smoke; a dull monotony that saps 
 away the upleaping of the spirit in the shrivel- 
 ing furnace of routine. 
 
 To preserve the earthly lives of his children 
 white as the new-fallen snow, to keep heaven
 
 White and Black 15 
 
 open to their gaze and the great black fingers 
 of sin from clutching their souls and dragging 
 them down into darkness, was the problem that 
 faced Father Coffey and that Father Coffey 
 faced a problem sharply typified that night 
 by the hills that lay white around me and the 
 black mill-stacks reaching threateningly into 
 the sky above.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 AT HOME 
 
 AT the time of the "Mount Ararat" inci- 
 dent in 1913, Father Coffey was forty- 
 one years of age. He was born in Brooklyn 
 on the thirtieth of July, 1872. He grew up as 
 a little fellow in that city and received his early 
 education in the schools there. The seeds of 
 a character that ripened so beautifully with 
 the years, were started into vigorous growth 
 during those early days at home. 
 
 Young Dan grew up in the parish of St. 
 Francis Xavier in Brooklyn and Monsignor 
 Hickey, the pastor, was his lifelong friend. 
 "I knew him as a boy of good, solid Catholic 
 parents," said Monsignor Hickey. "Solid" 
 is by no means a synonym for stolid when ap- 
 plied to Catholicity. There was very little 
 stolidity about the Coffey family. Plenty of 
 room for Dan's individuality of character to 
 grow, for his native wit to blossom, and his 
 sunny temper to light up everything around 
 
 16
 
 At Home 17 
 
 him. It was not one of those mortuary house- 
 holds where ten thousand and ten command- 
 ments, mostly "don'ts," like a swarm of hor- 
 nets, are daily unloosed around the bewildered 
 head of childhood, and where forcible feeding 
 followed by the broomstick drill administered 
 with grim Puritanic ferocity, are the staple 
 family devotions. 
 
 On the contrary, Dannie had the good for- 
 tune to be trained in a home where the great 
 principle was understood that each soul is a 
 special creation of God, with its own alloted 
 characteristics, its unique temperament, its as- 
 signed gifts, its definite limitations. "As a 
 tree planted by the running waters, that will 
 yield its fruit in its own season" this was the 
 underlying idea followed out in the upbring- 
 ing of young Daniel and this is the reason why 
 his parents are aptly described as "solidly 
 Catholic." 
 
 He wasn't allowed to grow wild, of course. 
 Dan got his "trimmings" like any other boy. 
 But he got them when he needed them. He 
 wasn't torn up by the roots ; suffered from no 
 freak graftings, was stripped of none of the 
 strong, reaching boughs of individuality. ~No 
 attempts were made to get the fruit before the 
 blossom, but there was always patient wait-
 
 18 At Home 
 
 ing, attentive watching, nevertheless, that the 
 fruit should appear "in its own time." 
 
 "He was the same as a boy that he was as a 
 priest," said Monsignor Hickey, "a genial, 
 energetic boy, liked by his teachers, liked by 
 his companions and withal devout and regular 
 at the Sacraments." 
 
 Words like these tell in a nutshell all that 
 we should like to hear about a boy, and every 
 word points directly at his home as the source 
 of that combination of vivacity and seriousness 
 of character which were woven together in his 
 life with so perfect a balance of each against 
 the other. The earliest incidents of his boy- 
 hood forecast this wit and wisdom of his with 
 great accuracy. 
 
 He had a statue of St. John for his room 
 and he got the idea into his little head that this 
 St. John ought to go about doing good. So he 
 took the statue into his arms he wasn't much 
 bigger than the statue and started down the 
 street with it to the church, some blocks dis- 
 tant. Wisely, nobody in the house prevented 
 him, but let him work out the idea for himself. 
 He carried St. John to church, had it blessed 
 and returned home with it. He repeated this 
 performance again and again at intervals of 
 a few days, until the spectacle of a very small
 
 At Home 19 
 
 boy with a very large statue moving down the 
 street began to be a nine days' wonder, espe- 
 cially to the good, if curious, ladies who took 
 a little time from their housework to keep en 
 rapport with happenings in the street. 
 
 "Who is that child that keeps carrying the 
 statue up and down past the house?" asked 
 Number One. 
 
 "I can't imagine who he is," said Number 
 Two. "I watched him several days and he al- 
 ways carries it into the church." 
 
 "Here he is now. Let's ask him what he is 
 doing," said Number Three. 
 
 Dannie came along, solemn as a butler, per- 
 fectly alive to the fact that he was watched, 
 knowing that he was to be questioned, but with 
 that straight ahead look and that apparent 
 oblivion of observation which all who knew him 
 in later life remember with much amusement. 
 
 "Where are you going with the statue, little 
 boy?" asked Number One, as Dan came along- 
 side. 
 
 Dan became conscious of their presence. 
 
 "I am going to the church, lady," said he. 
 
 "Isn't that statue heavy?" ventured Number 
 Two. 
 
 "It isn't as heavy as I am, ma'am," said 
 Dannie, serenely.
 
 20 At Home 
 
 "What is it the statue of?" she asked, rather 
 flustered by Dannie's unexpected answer. 
 
 "It is the statue of St. John," replied 
 Dannie. 
 
 "St. John!" said Number Three. "Isn't 
 that cute!" 
 
 "Cute!" said Dan, putting down the statue. 
 "He was the best friend of our Lord and he 
 was thrown into a big barrel of boiling oil." 
 
 "Mercy!" exclaimed all Three. 
 
 Dan had them where he wanted them and 
 he proceeded to give a picture of St. John in 
 the barrel of boiling oil with the grotesque en- 
 largements of which only a small boy with an 
 imagination is capable, until he had the three 
 ladies petrified with fright. Then he put his 
 arms around St. John and marched off with 
 him to the church. 
 
 "Now they'll know St. John was somebody," 
 said Dan when he told his mother all about it. 
 
 A good non-Catholic lady stopped him an- 
 other day with the statue and kindly tried to 
 show him just what idol worship meant. 
 Really it was too bad that a little fellow should 
 be brought up to adore images in that way. 
 Dan won the battle with his usual tactics. He 
 waited until he could get the point of his wit 
 through an unwatched spot in the enemy's
 
 At Home 21 
 
 armor and then, putting down the statue, he 
 gave the history of St. John again, splashing 
 the boiling oil around with the verisimilitude 
 of a necromancer. 
 
 "Her eyes opened wide," he told his mother. 
 
 Master Coffey had learned early in life the 
 lesson of the beatus vir f the "happy man," of 
 the Scripture, that genuine fun and genuine 
 piety are almost synonymous terms. He 
 never forgot it. 
 
 As a sidelight of the above incident we might 
 gather that Master Dan had a way with him 
 of being close to his mother. So it was. 
 Mother and son were an understanding pair 
 who worked together perfectly, mother giving 
 Dan plenty of room to work and Dan telling 
 his mother just how everything went and tak- 
 ing the necessary directions with an intelligent 
 docility. 
 
 "Daniel dearly loved his mother," writes his 
 sister Josephine, "and as well as circumstances 
 would allow, she was his companion until her 
 death. He shared with her everything he had. 
 Even as a little fellow, when he bought candy 
 he saved half of it for her. Any gift that could 
 be divided, she received half of it. And the 
 half that was left he shared so freely all around 
 that often he didn't have anything at all for
 
 22 At Home 
 
 himself. He made no fuss about giving. He 
 liked to see people have things." 
 
 This liking to see people "have things" was 
 with him until the end. 
 
 One thing he did not like to give away was 
 flowers. He had a great love for flowers, 
 planting them himself and watching them as 
 children. "When but a child," his sister 
 writes, "anything he would plant would grow 
 so splendidly. He seemed to understand them 
 and to know just what they needed. He used 
 to say the flowers loved the dead." 
 
 Off his little dining room in Mingo, many 
 years later, he had built a tiny room, walled 
 with glass for his flowers. He glorified it with 
 the name "Conservatory." And when the 
 huge smoke drifts swept up the hill from the 
 mill stacks below, one could see against the 
 dun background pouring around the windows, 
 like a rainbow in a storm, the gleam of Father 
 Coffey's flowers. 
 
 It is not to be supposed from what we have 
 said that Dannie was a "mama's boy"; mean- 
 ing, in the popular estimation, a boy who on 
 the first appearance of trouble clings passion- 
 ately to mother's skirts and burying a flower- 
 like face deep therein, bursts into convulsive 
 tears. No, Dan was an aggressive youngster,
 
 At Home 23 
 
 and aggressive people haven't time for tears. 
 They are too busy doing things and among 
 those things is the inevitable boys' fight. Dan 
 had his share of the neighborhood fights, re- 
 turning at times therefrom with a face that 
 bore the marks of battle. Doubtless the other 
 fellow carried its mate. The element of fun, 
 though, was not absent from his fighting. 
 
 Once Dan was walking along the street and 
 on turning a corner he came upon a drunken 
 man, followed at a little distance by a bunch 
 of boys. Whether it is a mysterious cruelty 
 that lurks in boys that makes them torment a 
 drunken man, or whether it is their innate dis- 
 gust at a giant deliberately reducing himself 
 to a helpless hulk, at any rate they regard in- 
 toxication as fair game for them. This gang 
 of boys was no exception to the rule. They 
 were still at some little distance behind the 
 man, but gradually were drawing closer for a 
 war dance around him as they sensed his com- 
 plete inability to defend himself. 
 
 Dan took in the situation in a flash. He 
 never thought it square to attack anyone who 
 was down. He knew the crowd, but he went 
 against it. He got in between them and the 
 drunken man. 
 
 "You fellows let him alone," he said.
 
 24 At Home 
 
 "Aw, what's it to you ?" they retorted. "We 
 had him before you came around." 
 
 "Well, you ain't going to have him any 
 longer," said Dan. 
 
 "Is that so? Who says we ain't? Listen to 
 the copper talking!" was the derisive repartee 
 of the gang. 
 
 Just then the man, realizing in a blurred 
 way that someone was trying to help him, tried 
 to straighten up, but after a series of pyrotech- 
 nic zigzags, dropped in a lump to the sidewalk. 
 Dan stepped over to him, took a quick look at 
 him, turned to the crowd of boys and said : 
 
 "You aren't going to make fun of your own 
 father, Billy Jackson, are you?" Billy was 
 the biggest boy in the crowd and about Dan's 
 size. 
 
 "He is not my father," shouted Billy indig- 
 nantly, coming forward. 
 
 "You just look and see," said Dan. 
 
 In a sudden panic, Billy did look closely at 
 the man. 
 
 "You're a liar!" he screamed. "It is not my 
 father." 
 
 "I didn't say he was," said Dan jauntily. 
 
 "I'll hit you a punch in the eye," yelled 
 Billy. 
 
 Dan didn't wait. He hit Billy a punch in
 
 At Home 25 
 
 the eye and another punch in the other eye. 
 Billy was staggered. The crowd was agape. 
 The unexpected turn of events was too much 
 for their brains. 
 
 "Come on, now, and help him up," said Dan, 
 just as though nothing had happened. Billy's 
 head was evidently cleared by the punches he 
 got, for he helped Dan set the man on his feet 
 and take him to his home near by. 
 
 One very cold, snowy night in midwinter 
 Dan came into the house, carefully leading an 
 old woman who had lost her way in the storm. 
 Dan had been trudging home as fast as he 
 could out of the freezing weather, when he 
 observed a bewildered figure standing per- 
 fectly still and gazing about. He stopped, 
 inquired if he could be of help and found that 
 he could be, indeed. The old lady was com- 
 pletely out of her way and was suffering much 
 with the cold. The alert Dan took immediate 
 charge of her, guided her to his own home, in- 
 troduced her to them all and then said : 
 
 "Mother, may we have a cup of hot tea?" 
 
 Mother was delighted. She made the tea 
 and soon the old lady was thoroughly warmed 
 and comfortable. Dan then brought her 
 to her home, a long distance away. 
 
 We are told that such things were not at all
 
 26 At Home 
 
 unusual for Dan to do. "He loved the old 
 and the poor," said his sister Josephine, "and 
 was happy when helping to make them 
 happy." Whenever he could not see his way 
 to assist them, he depended on the folks at 
 home and it says much for the understanding 
 hospitality of his home that they never failed 
 to come to his rescue. Even while away at 
 college, writing to his mother he said: "Mother, 
 do not let a poor person pass by your door. 
 Give him my share." The idea never left him 
 and later in life "my share" grew to be every- 
 thing he had. 
 
 Not many mothers would trust the dressing 
 of their hair to their young sons. Not many 
 boys, I think, would dare to attempt the mazy 
 task. Mrs. Margaret Duffy, sister of Father 
 Coffey, and still living in Brooklyn, tells us 
 that she remembers well how when mother was 
 unwell or very tired and the girls were busy, 
 Master Daniel would drop his ball and bat, 
 take up comb and brush and dress her hair 
 with the delicate skill and sure touch of an 
 artist. Looking at Daniel from this particu- 
 lar angle, I regard him with admiring awe.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 THE LADDERS OF SCHOOL 
 
 ALL this time Dan was climbing rung af- 
 ter rung of the school ladders. In my 
 search of his record through this period I have 
 found no gold medals, no ribbons of excellence, 
 none of those "high marks" which proclaim the 
 youthful phenomenon of the lofty brow. Dan 
 "got through" safely, however, and his teach- 
 ers never forgot him. 
 
 "Did Dan Coffey graduate?" asked one of 
 his teachers who had left the school and was 
 inquiring after her old class that had moved 
 up from her. 
 
 "Yes," was the answer, "he passed in every 
 branch." 
 
 "I knew he would," said his former teacher. 
 "They never could keep that boy down." 
 
 The truth seemed to be that when Dan got 
 his lessons, he mastered them with brilliancy. 
 After winning the teacher's heart with some 
 wonderful work, he would hazard a mental 
 holiday and would appear in class with a brain 
 
 27
 
 28 The Ladders of School 
 
 utterly empty of legitimate answers to ques- 
 tions on the class matter, but full up of original 
 ideas for avoiding discovery and fresh methods 
 of throwing the pursuers off the trail. 
 
 "I was like Eliza crossing the ice with the 
 bloodhounds after me," he once said, remem- 
 bering with delight those contests. 
 
 Dan had shrewd teachers who were not to be 
 easily fooled by the world-old strategy of boys 
 in school. He understood, accordingly, that 
 he had to evolve something new every time to 
 have the least chance of escape. He did it. 
 
 "I used to wait for Dan Coffey at every one 
 of the corners a boy could turn to get away 
 from his teachers," said one who remembered 
 him accurately, "when all of a sudden I would 
 find him right behind me with a look of inno- 
 cence on his face and a touch of wonder as 
 though he didn't know what I was worrying 
 about. Sympathy, too, was in his eyes, as 
 though he would wish to help me out of any 
 trouble I was in, no matter what it might be. 
 No other boys in the room would think of the 
 escapes he planned, and if they did, they 
 wouldn't dare to try them." 
 
 Of course Dan didn't escape all the time. 
 His average of successes, however, made the 
 game worth the risks. It had been easier for
 
 The Ladders of School 29 
 
 him to get the lessons by straight study, but 
 the spirit of adventure led him into these con- 
 tests of wits and no doubt he was here learning 
 things that were not to be found in books. 
 After one of these escapades he would settle 
 down again and sparkle with intelligence until 
 his teachers would be on the point of regarding 
 him as a boy wonder, when another dash across 
 the thin ice would turn incipient admiration 
 into gasps of bewilderment. 
 
 "Dan was never loud, nor coarse, nor de- 
 structive," continues his friend and teacher. 
 "He wasn't what boys nowadays call 'rough 
 house.' He never upset the class and he was 
 the pink of politeness. No matter how tight 
 a corner he was in, his answers to all questions 
 were perfectly mannerly. He did everything 
 gracefully, including mistakes. And his ruses 
 were so new always, so unexpected and so 
 funny is the only word I can think of to de- 
 scribe them so funny, that even the teacher 
 had to see that they left a trail of sunshine after 
 them and over the whole class." 
 
 They threw a slight shadow across Dan's 
 averages, nevertheless; but it was the sunniest 
 shadow that ever flitted across a record book. 
 I may cause a deep frown to mold itself upon 
 the iron brow of the modern statistical educa-
 
 30 The Ladders of School 
 
 tor and I may bring an ominous stone finger to 
 train upon me as a traitor to the cause, but I 
 am free to say that I am glad that Dannie, like 
 Eliza, crossed the ice. 
 
 The grades finished, Dan hesitated as to his 
 next step, whether to continue at school or to 
 go into the world of business. 
 
 New York was then beginning her swing 
 into full financial power and opportunities 
 were many, even for youngsters, to move with 
 the tide to fortune. Dan started to work but 
 kept in the back of his head the alternative of 
 school. 
 
 About this time he came into close contact 
 with Father, now Monsignor, Hickey, his pas- 
 tor, and the lifelong friendship then formed 
 proved a turning point in Dan's career. 
 Father Hickey was in the beginnings of the 
 splendid buildings he has since erected for his 
 parish and was weaving his way through the 
 continuous and often tantalizing difficulties 
 that rose between him and the f ulfillment of his 
 dream. 
 
 Difficulties were always a challenge to Dan, 
 especially the difficulties of a friend. Young 
 as he was he offered himself to aid Father 
 Hickey in whatever way was possible for a 
 lad.
 
 The Ladders of School 31 
 
 "No one," said Monsignor Hickey, "was 
 deeper in the work than Daniel Coffey; none 
 was more jubilant over our successes, or more 
 tenacious in hanging on whenever a setback 
 came. He made the parish cause his own as 
 far as he could, and he had a way with him that 
 could cut through trouble when older heads 
 had failed. And whether the prospects were 
 dark or bright, Dan drew fun out of the situa- 
 tion. He added a touch of sunshine to every- 
 thing." 
 
 One of the activities for the promotion of 
 funds was the then inevitable bazaar. Among 
 the things entrusted to Dan was the decora- 
 tion of the hall where the bazaar was to be 
 held. Dan had a sure taste for decoration. 
 As one of his friends said in later years: "Give 
 Father Coffey a yard of ribbon and a paper 
 flower and he'll make a chicken coop look in- 
 teresting." 
 
 Dan settled down to the work of decorating. 
 He enlisted a little army of helpers and an- 
 other of contributors. Bunting, flags, flowers, 
 Japanese lanterns, pennants, plants, appeared 
 in plenty. Odd, curious and simply unusable 
 gifts likewise came in from generous but un- 
 enlightened souls. Dan received the bric-a- 
 brac with the serious and gracious elegance he
 
 32 The Ladders of School 
 
 knew how to employ, sincerely thanking the 
 donors, but using a necessary ingenuity to hide 
 most of it in the limbo of dark corners. 
 
 Just when the work was about finished and 
 Dan was standing back to give the masterpiece 
 one of his pre-Raphaelite looks of approving 
 contemplation, two ladies stepped up to him, 
 each carrying a bird cage with a canary in it. 
 
 "Mr. Coffey," said one of them, "we simply 
 couldn't resist loaning you our lovely canaries. 
 The hall is so beautiful that it needs only this 
 added touch to make it seem like home. We 
 know you will like them and you will take the 
 best care of them won't you ? " 
 
 Dan groaned in spirit. Canary birds a 
 decoration at a bazaar! Where the boys 
 would poke sticks in at them to see them bite 
 and the girls feed them with indigestible bazaar 
 foods ! But the two were such dear old ladies ! 
 Gallantry won the day. 
 
 "Canaries!" exclaimed he. "What an orig- 
 inal idea! We'll just embower them in a 
 secluded spot and have the people enjoy some 
 invisible singing." 
 
 Dan hung the cages aloft near the roof in a 
 nest of tissue paper and flags and hoped the 
 boys wouldn't see them. The opening night 
 passed famously. Not the least trouble with
 
 The Ladders of School 33 
 
 the birds. They were so quiet that the boys 
 never suspected them. But somebody else did. 
 Next morning Dan came rushing into Father 
 Hickey's study. 
 
 "My God, Father, we're ruined!" he said. 
 
 "WTiat is the matter?" asked Father Hickey, 
 alarmed. 
 
 "Matter!" said Dan. "Here's all that's left 
 of those canary birds." And he held out a 
 weak scramble of yellow feathers. 
 
 "That tomcat climbed up on the rafters and 
 had a midnight lunch off them," he said. 
 "How will I ever tell those ladies?" 
 
 What to do? The strategy board met and 
 after the meeting Dan went down town and 
 purchased two other canaries as like the lately 
 deceased as possible. He brought them in the 
 cages to the home of the two ladies. 
 
 "Ladies," he said, "we are most grateful to 
 you for allowing us to have your beautiful 
 birds for the opening evening. In spite of 
 their great attractiveness we fear that the noise 
 and excitement may get on their nerves and 
 injure them. That would be too bad for such 
 lovely creatures and we should never forgive 
 ourselves if anything happened to them." 
 
 The ladies understood very graciously and 
 Dan withdrew.
 
 34 The Ladders of School 
 
 The following day Dan dashed into Father 
 Hickey's study again, this time jubilantly. 
 
 "What do you think, Father Hickey? A 
 miracle has been performed in the parish!" 
 Father Hickey was mystified. 
 
 "Why," continued Dan, "the Misses Young 
 were in at the hall just now in an ecstasy. I 
 thought they were coming to sue for damages, 
 but they came to tell me the wonderful result 
 of the one night stand their birds had at the 
 bazaar. 'Those birds,' they said, 'began to 
 sing for us the moment you left them at the 
 house and they have been singing ever since.' 
 
 " 'Wasn't that nice of them!' " I said. 
 
 "'Nice, Mr. Coffey!' they said; 'that isn't 
 the word at all for it. It's miraculous, that's 
 what it is. Those canaries never sang a note 
 in their lives before!' ' 
 
 The close and sympathetic companionship 
 of young Dan with Father Hickey had its ef- 
 fect. Dan saw with growing clearness the 
 work of the priesthood with its wide opportuni- 
 ties for helping others and this attraction ap- 
 pealed to him with steadily growing force. 
 "Dan was as deeply interested in the parish 
 as I was," writes Monsignor Hickey, "and I 
 was not surprised to see him finally choose the
 
 The Ladders of School 35 
 
 calling of the priesthood as his vocation in 
 life." 
 
 Dan took up the study of Latin and his pas- 
 tor was his first teacher. He made good pro- 
 gress in that and kindred studies and in the fall 
 of 1890 he entered St. Charles' College, Elli- 
 cott City, Maryland.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 COLLEGE DAYS 
 
 fTHHE college boy, as he appears in the pages 
 JL of the accepted biography or novel, is 
 generally a messy creature. He is either raw 
 unto bleeding or he is overdone to a cinder. 
 A composite of the school characters one re- 
 members from the books would make an olla 
 podrida fit only for a witch's cauldron: A 
 lovelorn, irresponsible gander of an Arthur 
 Pendennis; a romantic desperado of a Steer- 
 forth; the icy flawlessness of a "double first" 
 Gladstone; the bulging-browed memory feats 
 of a Macaulay; heaps of vulgar rubbish from a 
 Stalky & Co.; swashes of egotistical cynicism 
 from a Henry Adams ; atop of this, bunches of 
 hard muscle from incipient pugilists, ballplay- 
 ers, oarsmen, foot racers, high jumpers, and 
 all of it heavily spiced with loud yawps of 
 vacant merriment, indicating "heads to let," 
 and with yodles, rah-rahs, town and gown riots, 
 Jew pawnbrokers, bills payable, parti-colored 
 garments, 
 
 36
 
 College Days 37 
 
 Yo! ho! ho! and a bottle of rum! 
 
 A gruel thick and slap! Sniffing it cau- 
 tiously and from a distance, one concludes that 
 any college undertaking to make that concoc- 
 tion taste like champagne should select for its 
 motto: 
 
 Double, double toil and trouble! 
 
 Especially if the faculty of said college is to 
 be along the lines these same books tell us is 
 typical a more or less rambling and random 
 collection of absentminded, dry-as-dust Dom- 
 inie Sampsons, at the mercy of every sprout- 
 ing youth whose callow imagination runs ex- 
 clusively to tricks ; who succeed with them, too, 
 every time, because the collective faculty has 
 about as much knowledge of human nature as 
 of the hinter side of the moon. 
 
 College days in the books are always a 
 Roman triumph for the boys and a "Vse victis" 
 for the faculty. 
 
 It may be so in the colleges these books pro- 
 fess to describe. My own rather prolonged 
 experience, however, both as a student and as 
 a faculty member of Catholic colleges, tells me 
 distinctly that here it is not so. It is the stu- 
 dents and not the faculty who are trained in
 
 38 College Days 
 
 Catholic colleges. Whatever happens else- 
 where, a boy in a Catholic college is sure not to 
 get "absent treatment." 
 
 A Catholic college is a "strict" college, which 
 means that in the intellectual field the college 
 expects to get its lessons done; on the moral 
 side, it insists on a life aligned with the Ten 
 Commandments ; in the matter of discipline, it 
 calls for such united movement on the part of 
 the students that no friction shall develop to 
 interfere with either morals or studies. 
 
 The main aim of a Catholic college is the 
 morals of the student. Next comes his mental 
 training and last in importance, and entirely 
 as a means to the two great ends, comes disci- 
 pline. Every liberty is allowed the student 
 which in the judgment of the school will not 
 intrude upon his higher purpose there. But 
 discipline is there to check at once any such 
 intrusion, because the college knows well that 
 discipline is the great outer wall of defense for 
 the city of the soul. As soon as students break 
 down that wall and it is the first thing they 
 attempt when they desire to dominate that 
 college had better close its gates. It rapidly 
 becomes a foul nest for the breeding of mental 
 imbecility and moral disease. The Catholic 
 college will not permit it for a minute.
 
 College Days 39 
 
 These paragraphs will sound platitudinous 
 to those familiar with the workings of the 
 Catholic school. They are put down here to 
 indicate briefly to those who do not happen to 
 know, what the typical atmosphere is in a 
 school of Catholic training. 
 
 Such a school Daniel Coffey chose for his 
 classical studies when he decided to go to St. 
 Charles' College. It is a compliment to his 
 judgment that he elected a school that was bent 
 on training, rather than entertaining, its 
 pupils. And it is a compliment to the school 
 that it appreciated Dan's quality, gave him its 
 full training and its degree, and as later years 
 abundantly proved, produced a work worthy 
 of its best efforts. 
 
 Dan Coffey brought to St. Charles' no mean 
 equipment at that. A quick, original yet 
 docile mind, a brilliant wit, a steady moral 
 character. What he needed was to have these 
 deepened, broadened, fused into a single en- 
 ergy, focused upon a single ideal. 
 
 "Upon my return to St. Charles' College," 
 writes Father William Ryan, of the Archdio- 
 cese of Chicago, one of Dan's boyhood and 
 lifelong friends, "in 1890, I think it was, I met 
 Dan for the first time. As I look back 
 through the years, I still can see plainly the
 
 40 College Days 
 
 Dan of college days an open-hearted, sincere, 
 genial soul. His candid, unreserved, out- 
 spoken ways were so distinctive that at times 
 he was misunderstood on account of them. 
 He was impulsive, some would say tempera- 
 mental, but always conscientious. What was 
 apparently flippant independence was nothing 
 more than the expression of a nature frank 
 and free. One always knew just where he 
 stood. Subterfuge was not in the make-up 
 of his character at any period of his life." 
 
 Another boyhood friend, the Reverend 
 James F. Higgins, of the Archdiocese of New 
 York, who was, as he says, the "intimate and 
 companion" of the Dan Coffey of thirty years 
 ago, writes thus of his friend : 
 
 "Our paths diverged on the eve of going 
 out into the world, and except for a rare brief 
 space, our orbits never crossed again. Thus 
 in his years of public life I did not know him 
 by personal contact, but I did know him, I 
 feel, by the strong intimation his young man- 
 hood gave of what his life was likely to be, for 
 his character had almost hardened in its mold. 
 
 "The qualities that, I hear from all sides, 
 glorified his work as a priest, are precisely the 
 qualities that made him conspicuous in his 
 young manhood.
 
 College Days 41 
 
 "There never was a cleaner-hearted boy than 
 Dan Coffey. I never observed then nor since 
 a deeper, more matured sympathy for his fel- 
 lowman in all vicissitudes. I never knew any- 
 one to cloak so genuine a seriousness about all 
 essentials with so constant a joy of heart and 
 such sparkling play of whimsical wit. It is 
 true he saw the laugh in everything if the laugh 
 were really there. It was not levity; he saw 
 deep into the heart of man. Dan never 
 laughed at anyone; he laughed with him, as 
 seeing in all human foibles a common heritage. 
 No child was ever more direct, more without 
 duplicity, so transparent. 
 
 "He entered any gathering and was at home 
 at once. In five minutes the gathering was at 
 home with him and took him to its heart. His 
 personality was his entree to any assemblage 
 of men or women. What a host he must have 
 been in later years! A stranger, by this title, 
 had first claim in his eyes to all the courtesies 
 of his graceful hospitality. 
 
 "To be more intimate, what a love he had for 
 the Blessed Sacrament and for the Holy 
 Mother of God! Not obtruded, sacredly hid 
 away ; but to the close view of a friend, clearly 
 visible deep in his heart, real, personal. Such
 
 42 College Days 
 
 is the memory I hold of Dan as he was in his 
 early years. 
 
 "If Father Coffey of later years fulfilled 
 the promise that winsome Dan Coffey gave in 
 his youth, then he must have grown to the full 
 stature of the ideal friend of men and the ideal 
 priest of God." 
 
 These clever outline sketches of young Cof- 
 fey 's character bring him up before the mind's 
 eye as completely in a few words as a bookful 
 of description could do. The character, we 
 can see at once, is still in solution, but gives 
 distinct promise of the fine crystallization 
 that it took on with the years. 
 
 The one strongly outstanding quality, em- 
 phasized in every phrase, is at once the loveli- 
 est and most reassuring quality of youth 
 openness of soul. "One always knew just 
 where he stood. Subterfuge was not in him." 
 Candor, sincerity, geniality, frankness, are 
 other words lighting up the same ideal and are 
 all based upon a genuine personal love of God 
 and His Mother. Over and through them all 
 played the flash of a brilliant wit. 
 
 Even the limitations indicated are what we 
 should normally anticipate. Impulsive out- 
 spokenness, independence, a touch of flippancy 
 are less limitations than the yet unchecked
 
 College Days 43 
 
 overflow of good qualities, and are full of 
 promise, because back of them we observe the 
 check already in operation Dan was consci- 
 entious. This means that he would not repeat 
 mistakes along the same line very often. Al- 
 together, a character presaging swift energy, 
 always above board, with an eager instinct for 
 justice, a capacity for winning confidence and 
 an irrepressible and sunny wit. 
 
 In the retort of college, Dan was to go 
 through the blending, solidifying, reducing 
 process that would harmonize all these quali- 
 ties and bring them to move as one force. 
 Naturally, the first thing that came in for a 
 trimming was Dan's wit. 
 
 One of the pet resentments of the modern 
 elective system of education is its resentment 
 against any kind of "trimming" for the stu- 
 dent. "And above all things, to attack wit!" 
 they will exclaim, lifting solemnly a theoretic 
 hand in a pedagogic horror. "Why trim wit? 
 Why freeze the genial current of the soul? 
 Why hamper originality? Why flatten the 
 sacred effervescence of youth?" 
 
 Any common sense business man would 
 puncture this "sob stuff" in a single sentence, 
 "Wit should be trimmed for the reason we trim 
 anything, rosebushes, beards, apple pies, boats.
 
 44 College Days 
 
 Trimming makes them look better, grow bet- 
 ter, go better." 
 
 Fortunately for Dan Coff ey he was in a col- 
 lege that made it a business to study boys, and 
 to know them individually. Let us observe 
 here that in a college of this kind, the college 
 learns from the boy just as the boy learns from 
 the college. It is impossible for any college 
 faculty to come into close and sympathetic con- 
 tact with hundreds of boys year after year and 
 not to derive from such contact a cumulative 
 knowledge of all the winding ways of youth, an 
 unfailing instinct in judging whether a boy is 
 going up hill or down, and a practical power of 
 influencing each boy so as to wean him away 
 from evil and urge him to good. A tradi- 
 tional manner of handling boys grows into a 
 college faculty, a college spirit that perpetu- 
 ates itself and improves with time; and it has 
 really been derived from the boys themselves. 
 The faculty may undergo changes but the 
 rooted traditions remain. Individual mem- 
 bers of the teaching body may not grasp the 
 college spirit, but it will grow around them 
 and through them, remaining always fresh, 
 active, adaptable to changing conditions. Be- 
 cause the constant inflow of new characters 
 among the students keeps the faculty just
 
 College Days 45 
 
 enough on the defensive to let it see when and 
 where to attack. 
 
 Out of this perennial contest, for it is nothing 
 less, between the faculty and the boy, there 
 arises a college spirit in the former the keynote 
 of which is a sense of justice toward the boy. 
 As a member of several college faculties of this 
 type, I have always observed this steady 
 trend of fair dealing toward the student. 
 Isolated cases may have arisen where fair- 
 ness was not evident at the beginning, but 
 as the wheels went around, this was invariably 
 eliminated and justice arrived for the boy 
 at the end, without petting the boy either, 
 or making him feel that he was a world con- 
 queror. 
 
 Among the things such a college appreciates 
 in its boys are wit and humor, the lubricators 
 of what were otherwise dry intellectual fric- 
 tion grinding the soul to powder. The genu- 
 ine college knows that wit and humor are the 
 wings of wisdom. Without them no man is 
 truly wise. He may be lean, learned and 
 lugubrious, but without the luminosity of wit 
 his soul yawns before us like an open grave. 
 It is the pseudo-educator who would remove 
 the merry Maypole dance from the intellectual 
 training ground and would blight the blossom-
 
 46 College Days 
 
 ing of youth by substituting penumbral pac- 
 ings around a catafalque. 
 
 All this is far from saying, however, that wit 
 should not be trimmed. Unchecked, wit has 
 the tendency to be like lightning, brilliant but 
 terrifying. It should be more like the aurora 
 borealis, flashing up with new and unforseen 
 beauty but leaving a glow of pleasure at its 
 remembrance. 
 
 In later years Father Coffey spoke with 
 gratitude of his training at St. Charles' Col- 
 lege. He realized that it was there he got the 
 first hints how to direct his wit until it became 
 what we all knew it to be in after life, "sure 
 fire" under every variety of circumstances, but 
 always a joy forever. 
 
 Dan did not need more than a hint to adjust 
 himself to the conditions of college life. He 
 never needed clubbing to get an idea. His 
 mind was so quick, he saw with so swift an 
 intuition to the end of any path that a word 
 was sufficient to set him in the right direction. 
 Once started he never stopped. 
 
 I have heard him say that one wit unchecked 
 was enough to ruin a college. The reason is 
 obvious. It is one boy in a thousand who is 
 genuinely witty. In that same thousand 
 there are at least a hundred who think them-
 
 College Days 47 
 
 selves witty. These will be merely the crude 
 imitators of the leader and nothing can be more 
 shocking to the intelligent than the clumsy and 
 disorderly fumblings of a "near wit." Like a 
 stick of dynamite with a half inch fuse, he 
 produces nothing but noise and disastrous 
 wreckage. He must be stopped. Indeed, a 
 good definition of a college faculty would be 
 "a society for the prevention of imaginary 
 wit." No boy has anything like a liberal edu- 
 cation if he leaves college belonging to the 
 class of "near wits." 
 
 For the good of the human race, therefore, 
 Daniel was forced frequently to submerge. 
 Like a good boat, he obeyed the signals and 
 went under, but like a good boat he came up 
 again after a sufficient interval and periscoped 
 cheerfully about once more. 
 
 I have before me an album filled with choice 
 mottoes and signed with the names of school- 
 boy friends, many of whom have since become 
 distinguished in the Church and in profes- 
 sional life. 
 
 It was one of Dan's treasures, kept in his 
 desk at Mingo where doubtless he often turned 
 over its pages and lived again his boy life 
 among his early friends. The introductory 
 page holds Dan's personal request:
 
 48 College Days 
 
 To my friends: 
 
 Kindly inscribe a few lines, that in future 
 years I may have that priceless pleasure of 
 conversing with those who by their congenial 
 society lightened the burdens of my life, whom 
 I hope some day to meet face to face in that 
 Place where there shall be no separation, but 
 eternal bliss and the sweet presence of the God 
 of friendship. Christmas, 1890. 
 
 The album is mostly filled with the custom- 
 ary good wishes and the conventional advice 
 which youth deals out so solemnly in copybook 
 fashion, with the "So-live-that-when-thy-sum- 
 mons-come-to-join" tone running through it. 
 But back of this the human note gives a cricket 
 chirp. Off in little corners of the pages are 
 mystic dates, cryptic quotations, pass-words to 
 hidden storehouses of fun, known only to the 
 initiated; so that on many pages after telling 
 Dan to be good and he would be happy, and 
 adjuring him never, never to be naughty, the 
 same hands, apparently, balanced the kite with 
 tails like these: "Stop that making chocolate 
 in French class"; "Oh, that noisy table for the 
 
 sick boys"; "Remember and the gas jet"; 
 
 "Wait for the wagon"; "What it mean?";
 
 College Days 49 
 
 "Coffey, President of the Order of the Royal 
 Pull"; "Ah, close your eyes just once"; "Did 
 you get the ball, Dan?" 
 
 Each of these panels conceals a story. 
 "What it mean?" for example, recalls a very 
 delightful French professor, just from 
 France, at the college and not yet able to speak 
 English. In order to master the language 
 with all possible speed, he spent most of the 
 time with the boys in their recreations, gravi- 
 tating toward those who he heard were expert 
 in the English language. In this way he made 
 the acquaintance of Daniel Coffey and several 
 friends. They not only taught him very well, 
 but they likewise ushered him into the inner 
 shrine of English, the mysteries of slang. 
 Only the Father did not know at the time that 
 it was an inner shrine. He found that out 
 later. 
 
 Returning to the Fathers' recreation one 
 day, he proceeded to reveal his progress. 
 $ eating himself near one of the Fathers who 
 had been suffering from headaches, he said 
 sympathetically : 
 
 "Father, how is your swelled head?" 
 
 The Father addressed looked at him in as- 
 tonishment. The quick French professor 
 noted the look and asked:
 
 50 College Days 
 
 "What it mean, 'swelled head'? Je veux 
 dire, Comment va vdtre mal a la tete?" 
 
 He was gently told that the word for that 
 was not "swelled head" but "headache." 
 
 This was his day for specializing in health 
 phrases. So, shortly after, he ventured to 
 ask a Father, "And how is your breadbasket?" 
 
 "Ah," again noting the startled look of the 
 Father, "is it not correct, 'breadbasket'? 
 What it mean vdtre estomac?" exclaimed the 
 professor. 
 
 After he had told various members of the 
 faculty to "take their base," to "keep their shirt 
 on" and had confidentially informed the Rector 
 that "he made him tired," a quiet little investi- 
 gation was started and the trail led to our 
 friend Daniel. The class in modern English 
 for French professors was discontinued. 
 
 Among contraband gifts to the students 
 were meats of any kind. One Thanksgiving 
 an enthusiastic relative sent Dan a fine turkey 
 and told him it was on the way. Dan, hover- 
 ing about the boxes that arrived, lit upon his 
 own open box, and there lying in state in the 
 center of a wealth of other choice edibles, was 
 the most appetizing, oyster-stuffed turkey im- 
 aginable. He begged for the turkey as the 
 one thing needed for a very weak stomach.
 
 College Days 51 
 
 "Too bad, Dan," said the Prefect, "but the 
 law is absolute." 
 
 "Ah, come, Father," Dan then laughingly 
 said, "just close your eyes this once. I'm go- 
 ing to take my turkey." 
 
 "All right," said the Prefect, but with a sin- 
 ister note, "but don't let me catch you." 
 
 "I don't intend to," said Dan; and as the 
 Prefect turned momentarily aside, Dan 
 whipped the turkey under his overcoat and 
 hurried away. 
 
 The "Poor Eight" enjoyed a nice turkey 
 dinner that night. Later Dan sent his coat to 
 the cleaner. The Prefect discovered the joke 
 and enjoyed it. 
 
 Although Dan was a recognized leader in 
 the innocent fun of the school, he was never 
 catalogued, either by the faculty or by the 
 boys, as a "professional joker." Back of all 
 the laughter and the light so constantly in the 
 foregrouiyl, they saw the high, aspiring seri- 
 ousness of his soul rising heavenward like a 
 mountain. 
 
 The judgment of a group of boys upon the 
 character of anyone with whom they associate 
 familiarly, has about it an uncanny finality of 
 truth. A single boy may easily be deceived. 
 But a group of boys will flow over and seep
 
 52 College Days 
 
 under a character like water around a rock. 
 With an unconscious daring and a free-and- 
 easy unceremoniousness, they will touch every 
 angle, probe every shadowy nook and at the 
 same moment, with the photographic accuracy 
 of an X-ray, they will pluck out the very heart 
 of the mystery. Each boy comes away with 
 some particular note of the character he has 
 explored. Then without premeditation, they 
 all meet, pool their separate judgments, fuse 
 them by the wizardry of some kind of spiritual 
 chemistry, focus the result in a word and shout 
 it out to the world for better or for worse. 
 And that settles it. They have "sized up" 
 their man and tagged him. Fifty years after, 
 they will name him by that tag and the chances 
 are a hundred to one that the name will fit him 
 still. 
 
 Like all the rest, Dan Coff ey went through 
 the ordeal of search and seizure and he came 
 out of it with the nickname "Dean." Among 
 his classmates, Dan answered to that name all 
 his life. What they really meant by the name 
 is clear from the class prophecy, composed and 
 read by one of Dan's fellow graduates. After 
 distributing his mates along various walks of 
 life, business, politics high and low, and the
 
 College Days 53 
 
 professions, the prophet forecasts Dan's career 
 in the following lines: 
 
 Afar and alone on the desert's hot sand, 
 
 With thoughts on his God and his beads in his hand, 
 
 A man lonely roams in excess of devotion, 
 
 His countenance eager, yet graceful his motion. 
 
 Announcing the Gospel, he's piously been 
 
 O'er ocean, up rivers, through forest and fen. 
 
 To heathens he's preached, an Apostle unshod, 
 
 Till the temples of Satan are ruined, downtrod. 
 
 "Veni Creator!" we list as he sings 
 
 Through sylvan cathedrals the echoing rings. 
 
 He wanders unawed through dark African mazes 
 
 And chants to his Maker the anthem of praises. 
 
 You're curious, now, that I tell you his name, 
 
 'Tis Daniel from Brooklyn, of cothurnate fame, 
 
 This holy apostle of Africa's shore 
 
 Is Cojfey, Dean Coffey why need I say more?
 
 CHAPTER V 
 SOME LETTERS 
 
 WE have said that it was the fall of 1890 
 that Dan entered St. Charles' College. 
 To be accurate he went there just before the 
 close of school in June. He had been out of 
 school a year, undecided as to his vocation. 
 As soon as he had made up his mind to go on 
 with his studies for the priesthood, he deter- 
 mined to begin at once. He arranged with 
 the college authorities to study at St. Charles' 
 during the summer so as to brush up in his 
 work and be ready for a flying start in the 
 fall. He writes some of his early impressions 
 to his mother. 
 
 ST. CHARLES', June 27, 1890. 
 My Dear Mother: 
 
 Your letter was handed me yesterday after 
 I arrived home from Baltimore where I had 
 been seeing several of my student friends off. 
 I felt very happy at hearing of your improve- 
 
 54
 
 Some Letters 55 
 
 ment. Also that you contemplate going to the 
 country. 
 
 When I came up to the college yesterday I 
 found four letters waiting me, all from old 
 friends. It was like a visit home. 
 
 They were particularly welcome as the stu- 
 dents have all gone home with the exception 
 of a few seminarians and about sixteen of our- 
 selves, who are doing special work here during 
 the vacation; so naturally it is somewhat 
 gloomy. But as I intend to study hard I shall 
 not find time to get blue. 
 
 If you were here you would enjoy seeing the 
 many reminiscences of the war historic old 
 bridges, mills, houses all along the roads where 
 the soldiers of both armies traveled. It brings 
 close up to me the history I studied. 
 
 The country about is charming. A blue 
 haze arises from the surrounding hills and these 
 send a cool air over the place which makes it 
 very healthful. The nights are cool and so far 
 I have not slept without a blanket. Yester- 
 day and the day before, you would melt in 
 Baltimore. It is the hottest city one would 
 wish to find. I was glad to get back from it. 
 
 Had you been at the depot to see those two 
 hundred and more students bidding each other 
 good-by, you would have been amazed. Such
 
 56 Some Letters 
 
 good friends they are of one another! I, who 
 have been at the place three weeks, had as 
 much handshaking as if I had been there three 
 years. All such a splendid lot of boys. In- 
 deed I have made quite a number of friends 
 and they are of the first order. 
 
 You ask me if I would like any fruit. My 
 general answer, dear ma, to all such requests 
 is going to be a shy "Yes." You know we rise 
 at five and get breakfast around seven, so you 
 can feel how weak Daniel must be at that time ; 
 but don't send any of that beef extract. No 
 matter what the docs say about it, all I can say 
 is that it makes me sick. 
 
 I am hungry and will stop here and attend to 
 that. With my love to you and Pa and Kate, 
 Joe, Maggie, Earth, Eugene, Jerry, Peter, 
 aunts and all the children. 
 
 Your loving 
 DANIEL. 
 
 One of the characteristics of Daniel's boy 
 letters is the long list of names of those whom 
 he remembered. He was learning not only 
 how to make friends but to hold them with a 
 tenacity that grew with the years. 
 
 Boarding school letters are proverbially 
 hard things to write. The exterior routine is
 
 Some Letters 57 
 
 always the same and while the everyday inci- 
 dents in a group of several hundred boys are 
 sure to be interesting, yet the interest has so 
 local an atmosphere that nobody except those 
 on the inside can follow the fun. Dan felt this 
 and said so. Some of his letters read like 
 telegraph dispatches. 
 
 February 26, 1891. 
 Dear Mother: 
 
 Your letter reached me this evening and it 
 was a treat to hear from you. 
 
 The big object of interest down here at 
 present is a snow storm. You see we don't 
 go very far in thrills. However, it is a change 
 from the rain which has been coming three 
 times a week lately. 
 
 I hear our Bishop is dying. I hope it is not 
 true. 
 
 I hope you are taking care of your health 
 and that Maggie is too. Please tell her not 
 to go to any more processions. That's one of 
 the best ways of getting pneumonia, standing 
 in a lot of slushy snow to see a crowd go by. 
 Queer she hasn't seen enough of those things. 
 
 As for news, I am a blank. Since I came 
 back it has been merely one thing after an- 
 other and all of them the same.
 
 58 Some Letters 
 
 During Lent here we have nothing outside 
 the ordinary services and it seems very little 
 like the season as I have been accustomed to it 
 at home. However, if we do what is required 
 of us, we can hope for the same reward. I 
 hope all of you are attending Lenten devotions 
 as often as you can. Do not brave danger to 
 go, nor go when you are unable. 
 
 I am feeling better than when I wrote be- 
 fore, and except for a slight headache now and 
 then, I should feel O.K. My love to you and 
 to all. 
 
 Your affectionate 
 DANIEL. 
 
 The headaches Dan mentions here were with 
 him most of his life afterward and, though he 
 was not aware of it, they presaged the end. 
 
 During the following year Mrs. Coffey's 
 health failed somewhat and it was a cause of 
 worry to Dan as is shown in a letter to his 
 sister. 
 
 ST. CHARLES' COLLEGE, 
 
 Mar. 2, 1892. 
 Dear Joe: 
 
 Many thanks for your generous supply of 
 news. It was refreshing to hear of people
 
 Some Letters 59 
 
 and things up home. I only regret that I can- 
 not reciprocate in kind. 
 
 Poor Mother! How often I think of her. 
 Not a night, or even any part of the day 
 passes that I do not think of her. I am deter- 
 mined that she and I shall have a very nice 
 time to ourselves all next summer. I shall 
 keep clear of all "stragglers.'* 
 
 When I read of the boys making the mis- 
 sion I was delighted. I know they will be 
 
 blessed for it. That Father D cured a 
 
 girl in Boston recently, who had been a cripple 
 for years. She and he prayed to Our Lady of 
 Perpetual Help and it was not long until she 
 was perfectly cured. She is now a nun in a 
 convent in Boston. 
 
 Do you know, I felt terrible when I heard 
 what happened to poor Mopsy, for I did 
 like that dog. 
 
 I am puzzled, Joe, what else to write you 
 from this place. You know that nothing hap- 
 pens here. I'll say good-by then and send my 
 love to Father, Mother, Kate, Maggie and the 
 boys, not forgetting the dog and puss. Pray 
 to St. Joseph for me. I need his help this 
 year so very much. Ask him to help me and 
 to grant my special intention. You will see
 
 60 Some Letters 
 
 that mother does not have anything hard to do, 
 like a good girl. With love, 
 
 DANIEL. 
 
 One of the traditions, privileges, or, as he 
 would put it, one of the "sacred duties" of a 
 boarding school boy is to attack the "grub." 
 It is one of his favorite indoor and outdoor 
 sports. Indoor implying a fierce dental at- 
 tack three times a day. Outdoor a scathing 
 verbal attack on the general theme, "The way 
 we suffer." Perhaps it is unfair to limit this 
 characteristic to the boarding school boy. 
 Any group of men, say in the army or navy, 
 who lead a routine life, will make the "grub" 
 their main point of attack. During the late 
 war, I have seen big men, who left responsible 
 positions to enlist, who had never in their lives 
 given two thoughts to the matter of food, sit- 
 ting in the midst of their mates and "bouncing 
 the chow" with a comic viciousness; and they 
 were a pink portrait of health at the moment, 
 transformed from the sickly civic yellow tint 
 they brought with them a few weeks before. 
 The boarding school boy, however, has always 
 been the recognized champion at this game, the 
 only drawback being that his appearance in- 
 variably belies his words. Dan contributes a 
 punch or two to the great cause.
 
 Some Letters 61 
 
 ST. CHARLES', December 6, 1892. 
 Dear Joe: 
 
 Nothing pleased me more than to hear that 
 Jimmie was looking so well. Although I 
 should say nothing about the scamp since he 
 did not answer my letter of some time ago. 
 He dare not plead any excuse. 
 
 'Tis well mother did not send me my plum 
 pudding, for it would have gone where the cake 
 went. Tell mother the cake went to the 
 "poor," so I was not in on it. But if it struck 
 any poorer person than myself, he, or she, was 
 welcome to it. There is nothing more laugh- 
 able than inconsistency. You will be allowed 
 candy, which I am not very fond of; and that 
 which might give you an appetite is given to 
 the "poor." Well, such is life, but there is one 
 consolation that life is not stationary. It gets 
 a move on it once in a while. 
 
 Ask Kate if she will make me a few sponge 
 cakes and send them down for Christmas. 
 Even her cooking, or even yours, would go well 
 down here. 
 
 I will not ask Maggie to write, since I know 
 she has enough to do with her sick one. Tell 
 me what is the trouble. I am very anxious to 
 know. Nothing serious, I hope. 
 
 My love now to Mother, Pa, Kate, Maggie
 
 62 Some Letters 
 
 and the boys with yourself, "Flanagan," not 
 forgetting "Chickens." 
 
 Your loving brother, 
 DANIEL. 
 
 P.S. Since I finished this something hap- 
 pened. You know they do not allow us cake 
 except at Christmas, so they took mine. Well, 
 I said nothing but let them take it ; and I went 
 on the sly to good old Kate and she got it for 
 me by stealing it from the kitchen; and not 
 only the one that was taken but another one 
 with it. Such a feast as we had! I have some 
 of it yet. Myself and Tim, whom Jimmie 
 knows, have our cocoa and lunch all to our- 
 selves on holidays. Tim is the organist and 
 has a room; hence, I am in it, too. He 
 brought a stock with him of all sorts of good 
 things with some cocoa, and I with mine, we 
 get a pretty good lunch. I often think, 
 "What's the use of knocking the grub? It 
 comes back at you like a punching bag any- 
 way." 
 
 Yours, 
 
 DANIEL. 
 
 During the summer of 1893 Daniel visited 
 Chicago and the World's Fair. His impres-
 
 Some Letters 63 
 
 sions are given in a letter to his sister. "Bill," 
 mentioned in the letter, is Father William 
 Ryan; and "Joe Lynch's place" is the boyhood 
 home of the now Right Reverend Joseph 
 Lynch, D.D., the present Bishop of Dallas, 
 Texas. 
 
 CHICAGO, August 25, 1893. 
 My Dear Josie: 
 
 I suppose you have become weary of postals 
 and would enjoy a long letter. This will not 
 be a long letter though, because I am so rushed 
 that I haven't the time. How did Mother and 
 Kate enjoy their sojourn in the mountains? 
 And how are "Chickens" and all at home? 
 My love to them one and all. 
 
 On Saturday morning last, Bill and I 
 started for St. Joe, Michigan Joe Lynch's 
 place and remained there till Sunday night, 
 crossing the lake both ways. St. Joe is noth- 
 ing but fruit farms. Our friend has miles and 
 miles of grapes, peaches, pears, berries. All 
 we had to do was to go and pluck them, drink 
 rich milk and eat homemade bread. Such a 
 feast! 
 
 We went to St. Joseph's Church in the 
 morning. The idea seemed to be that I was 
 to sing at the Offertory and Bill was to play;
 
 64 Some Letters 
 
 but we wouldn't. We saw the whole plac* 
 and returned reluctantly Sunday night; then 
 we went to Lemont and thence to a friend's in 
 Joliet. Was all through the prison, several 
 churches and saw the principal places in the 
 town. Bill came up from Lemont in the 
 evening. They took us out for a drive, and 
 when we returned there was a house full of 
 company and we were entertained till all hours. 
 Oh, such people! The only way I could tear 
 myself from them was to promise that I would 
 return for a few days before I left for home. 
 
 Wednesday I took in Milwaukee and came 
 down by night boat all through the lake. It 
 was glorious. Last night, the Midway Plais- 
 ance at the Fair! If you could only see the 
 Plaisance! Chinese theaters, Turks, Zulus, 
 Igorrotes, every crazy thing in creation. I 
 am sore from laughing. To-day is colored 
 folks day at the Fair. They are out in 
 swarms. I am resting to-day making ready 
 for Sunday. 
 
 I suppose things are rushing up home. 
 Well, give me Chicago. I like it very much. 
 I somehow think I'd like to live here. Per- 
 haps I might. I have certainly made many 
 friends and I like the city. When I shall re- 
 turn has not for a moment given me a thought.
 
 Some Letters 65 
 
 How long I shall stay seems to be my pre- 
 dominating cogitation at present. 
 
 How is Jerry? Give him my love. I'll 
 give him something else when I get rich. Has 
 Maggie gone to the country? Is she well? I 
 do not know why she does not write. I shall 
 always remember her exceeding kindness to 
 me. 
 
 Send me all the news from dear old Brook- 
 lyn, especially of the home. My love to 
 Father Hickey and Father Farrell. 
 
 Affectionately, 
 DANIEL.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 TOWARD THE ALTAR 
 
 DURING the next six years Daniel 
 Coffey moved steadily ahead through 
 his studies, the classics, philosophy, theology; 
 following the regular course of the candidate 
 for the priesthood at St. Mary's, Baltimore, 
 a year in Canada, and finally at the University 
 of Niagara, New York. His year in Canada 
 was necessitated by reasons of health. It was 
 partly devoted to teaching English, and it gave 
 him valuable help later for the practical direc- 
 tion of his school. That he was a successful 
 professor may be gathered from the following 
 sketch, a memory of those days, by the Very 
 Reverend Father Charlebois, now the Supe- 
 rior General of the Viatorians. He writes: 
 
 "Father Daniel Coffey taught for our Or- 
 der at Bourget College, Rigaud, Canada. I 
 was then the Superior of the College and 
 though it is now a long time ago, I have never 
 forgotten the devout, intelligent, active and al- 
 ways happy-humored man that Father Coffey 
 
 66
 
 Toward the Altar 67 
 
 always was. In the midst of the professors he 
 had ever ready a word to evoke a smile, or to 
 rouse their courage. For life with those 
 young professors was not always of a roseate 
 hue. 
 
 "These young men were grouped in narrow 
 rooms, entirely devoid of the least luxuries in 
 furnishings; but they knew how to make the 
 most of their surroundings and what was de- 
 nied to them in one way they made up in an- 
 other. A tone of happiness, contentment, 
 even gayety ever prevailed there. As the 
 walls which separated their rooms consisted of 
 thin board partitions, often their joyous con- 
 versations could be heard easily from one end 
 of the corridor to the other and at times the 
 Superior, passing that way, was called upon 
 to check their hilarity. A single word was 
 sufficient and never do I remember having to 
 give a severe reprimand. An 'All right' 
 from Dan was a guarantee for himself and his 
 companions. 
 
 "Father Coffey was a genuine professor and 
 gave himself heart and soul to his work. He 
 loved his pupils and was in turn loved by them. 
 Not only was his teaching of a high order, for 
 he knew as few do how to make his subject 
 matter interesting, agreeable and profitable,
 
 68 Toward the Altar 
 
 but he was a companion of his pupils, joining 
 happily with them in their recreations, thus 
 rendering them further service by helping them 
 to put into practice what he had taught them 
 in class. 
 
 "Of course his principal duty was his per- 
 sonal studies, as at this time he was preparing 
 for the priesthood, and I must say that neither 
 his gayety nor his work for others ever dis- 
 tracted Dan Coffey from the end he had in 
 view. He wished to be a priest and indeed he 
 had all the aptitude and every quality required 
 for the priesthood. He knew how to be seri- 
 ous and laborious when necessary and he ar- 
 rived at his goal, where he proved his ability, 
 skill and extraordinary worth. 
 
 "His theological science, added to his keen 
 insight into character, was of the utmost prac- 
 tical help to the souls in his care; and the art 
 of preaching held no secrets from him. 
 Father Coffey held important posts and his 
 work was admirable. 
 
 "I visited him in 1902 and had the occasion 
 to congratulate him upon his success as an ad- 
 ministrator, an organizer and a director of 
 souls. I found he had accomplished marvelous 
 things and I was indeed proud of his success 
 in the holy ministry."
 
 Toward the Altar 69 
 
 It is evident from these words of Father 
 Charlebois that the striking many-sidedness of 
 Dan Coffey's character was well on the way 
 to its perfect growth of after years. He could 
 be gay and yet dependable; could interest 
 youth in the classroom and, as well, on the 
 playground; accept direction, or even correc- 
 tion, intelligently and cheerfully; could inter- 
 est himself deeply in others and not forget him- 
 self and his duties in all their details. The 
 "joy of life" had its personification in Daniel 
 Coffey. He lived intensely, laboriously, 
 swiftly, yet with such a glow and a sparkle and 
 a sunniness woven into his work, that an air of 
 ease and playfulness made the most difficult 
 task seem simple. In the words of one who 
 knew him well, "His brilliancy attracted 
 friends and his solidity retained them." 
 
 It was with regret, then, that his friends at 
 Bourget College saw him depart, to take up his 
 theology at Niagara University. There he 
 settled to his work at once. The usual note of 
 happy contentment is in his letters. 
 
 NIAGARA, N. Y., May 17, 1898. 
 My Dear Ma: 
 
 I suppose you have me booked as a careless 
 lad for keeping you so long without a letter.
 
 70 Toward the Altar 
 
 I thought I wrote to you last week but discov- 
 ered only recently that I had not. How are 
 your eyes? I pray the good St. Paul that he 
 will be your friend and cure you. There is an 
 old man here who has just been cured of a cata- 
 ract and now sees as well as ever; and Will 
 Ryan writes me of many old people who have 
 been cured where he is having his eyes at- 
 tended to. Cheer up, now, and when I go 
 home we will have our old rambles together. 
 
 I do not know when we shall leave here but 
 it will be some time around June 23rd. The 
 students seem so happy here that vacation 
 never enters their mind. We are living in a 
 beautiful place. There are miles and miles of 
 blossoming fruit trees and a country far more 
 lovely than any I have ever seen. My friends 
 tell me that I am looking wonderfully well of 
 late. I am waiting for them to tell me that 
 I am good looking but they haven't gone that 
 far yet. Anyhow I have gained eight pounds 
 in the past few months and, thank God, never 
 felt better. 
 
 Tell me how you all are at home and how 
 the war is using you. It is nothing but war up 
 this way and the papers are full of it. The 
 country around is clraped in the Stars and 
 Stripes.
 
 Toward the Altar 71 
 
 Now, dear, write soon and tell me how your 
 eyes are. By the way, did Jerry receive that 
 picture of the Maine I sent him? If anyone 
 has any spare silver dollars about him, tell him 
 to start them rolling this way. I'll stop them 
 before they go over the Falls. 
 
 Yours always, 
 DANIEL. 
 
 The year 1899 brought to a close the long 
 years of preparation. In March of this year 
 Dan was ordained to the deaconship and on 
 May 27th he was made a priest. On the occa- 
 sion of his deaconship he wrote the following 
 letter to his mother, which reveals depths in 
 his soul which, with native reticence, he rarely 
 allowed to appear even to those who were 
 nearest to him. 
 
 NIAGARA, N. Y., March 20, 1899. 
 My Dear Mother: 
 
 I know you will feel glad and rejoice with 
 me on the happiest day of my life. Last Sat- 
 urday I was raised to the deaconship and re- 
 ceived the Holy Spirit, I hope with all His 
 gifts. 
 
 Yes, the happiest day of my life when 
 prostrate at the foot of the altar, I did not
 
 72 Toward the Altar 
 
 forget you. I offered myself to God to do all 
 for Him and I asked that you might be spared 
 to me, that He might give you your sight and 
 bless you with His best gifts. I prayed for 
 Kate to become strong and I know He will 
 hear my prayer. I prayed for Father, for Joe 
 and Maggie, for Eugene and Barth, for my 
 good friend Jerry; for all of you and your 
 intentions. 
 
 The most solemn moment of my life was 
 when the Bishop placed his hand on my head 
 and the stole on my shoulders, called down the 
 Holy Ghost upon me and gave me the power 
 to touch our Lord in the Holy Sacrament; to 
 carry Him in necessity and to serve Him 
 purely and chastely. 
 
 I did not even then forget you, and I feel in 
 my heart that you and Kate will have your 
 health and that the others shall have favors 
 from Him in proportion to their needs. I re- 
 membered you all in my first Office and I shall 
 continue to do so every day. 
 
 The prayer I first came upon in the Office 
 was this: "Thy prayers have been heard from 
 the beginning, Daniel," said by the Angel 
 Gabriel to Daniel the Prophet, but as I look 
 over my life I feel that the Angel then spoke 
 to me also.
 
 Toward the Altar 73 
 
 I have but one step to the priesthood. Pray 
 for me with all your hearts. Ask God to make 
 me strong and ready to do His work. Thank 
 Him and His Mother for all they have done; 
 and whatever He bids me to do, ask that we 
 may all wish according to His will. Love to 
 all of you and God bless and keep you. 
 
 Yours with love, 
 DANIEL. 
 
 Across the top of the page is written: "This 
 letter is strictly private, for the family."
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 EARLY DAYS IN THE 
 MINISTRY 
 
 AFTER his ordination Father Coffey was 
 sent to St. Dominic's Church, Columbus, 
 Ohio, to assist the Reverend Father O'Reilly, 
 who had built up single-handed a very fine 
 parish in what was then the suburbs of the 
 city. Father O'Reilly was not long in seeing 
 the capacity of Father Coffey and as he had 
 not had a rest for many years, he turned the 
 whole management of the parish over to Father 
 Coffey after a few weeks, and enjoyed a sum- 
 mer's vacation. 
 
 Father Coffey took up the work and follow- 
 ing strictly along the lines of the parish 
 methods as established by the pastor, became 
 so great a favorite with the congregation in a 
 few short months that he is vividly and grate- 
 fully remembered by the parish, priest and 
 people, to this day. On a recent visit there, I 
 found those who were children at that time 
 still recalling with a smile his happy sayings 
 
 74
 
 Early Days in the Ministry 75 
 
 and his games with them. The older people 
 spoke with deep affection of his many kind- 
 nesses, his attentiveness to the sick and the 
 sunshine he spread in an already sunny parish. 
 Upon the return of Father O'Reilly, Father 
 Coffey was given his first official appointment, 
 to assist at St. Anthony's Church, Bridgeport, 
 Ohio. Father Joseph A. Weigand, the pres- 
 ent pastor of the fine parish of the Holy Name 
 in Steubenville, was then the pastor in Bridge- 
 port. We can get an idea of the year's work 
 of Father Coffey there from a letter to his 
 mother. 
 
 ST. ANTHONY'S CHURCH 
 BRIDGEPORT, OHIO, August 31, 1899. 
 My Dear Ma: 
 
 Here I am settled in my new home. I left 
 Columbus on Saturday last, having been ap- 
 pointed to this place. I like it very much and 
 am quite happy. Bridgeport is just opposite 
 Wheeling, West Virginia, on the Ohio side of 
 the river. It is situated in a lovely part of 
 the Ohio Valley, and it reminds me very much 
 of the cities along the Hudson, mountains and 
 valleys and the Ohio River winding all along 
 the country for miles. 
 
 Business is rushing this way glass manu-
 
 76 Early Days in the Ministry 
 
 facturing, iron mills, the mines and one hun- 
 dred other kinds of trades are all on full time. 
 All the works that have been idle since the 
 panic are again rushing ahead on increased 
 wages. The people all seem happy and pros- 
 perous. I hope they will continue so. 
 
 The church here is called after St. An- 
 thony of Padua. It is a very beautiful church, 
 set upon a hill and in the heart of the pines and 
 maples. It is of solid brick, nicely decorated 
 and over the main altar stands St. Anthony 
 who, with the Infant, looks down upon me as 
 I say Mass. The picture of Our Lady of Per- 
 petual Help and of the Infant of Prague are 
 here, too. 
 
 I like the church and the people. Every 
 day fresh fruit, butter and vegetables, grapes 
 in plenty and anything else that comes in sea- 
 son. 
 
 The priest of St. Dominic's was quite 
 pleased with my management of things and I 
 made many friends among the people. I was 
 very much at home there. Tell Miss Josie she 
 need not go up to the Swedish church any more 
 as St. Anthony at this place will do anything 
 she wants. Only that the distance is so great 
 I would have Kate, Chickens, Grace and Pa 
 come and spend a day with me.
 
 Early Days in the Ministry 77 
 
 Our school opens on Monday next. Have 
 you moved yet? I hope you are all well and 
 happy. I said Mass for Barth on Saturday 
 last, St. Bartholomew's day. I remember you 
 all every day at Mass. 
 
 Yours with love, 
 DANIEL. 
 
 Father Coffey took a short trip to New 
 York shortly after this and upon his return 
 wrote the following note to his mother. 
 
 BRIDGEPORT, October 12, 1899. 
 My Dear Ma: 
 
 I suppose you received my postal. I am 
 safely back and the people are glad I returned. 
 The children of the school prepared a little 
 entertainment of welcome, and I was received 
 with great applause from the little ones a 
 regular Dewey reception. The Sisters, too, 
 were glad to see me and surprised me with a 
 very pretty surplice. Lasso, my dog, took a 
 whole day to show his welcome. He is with 
 me all the time. 
 
 I was glad to get back from the noise of New 
 York. The hills all about are tinged with the 
 frosts of autumn and the weather is charming. 
 The people are working hard for the fair and I
 
 78 Early Days in the Ministry 
 
 think they have nearly five hundred dollars in 
 money and articles. I am giving a course of 
 instructions every Wednesday night on the 
 Rosary and intend to start one on the Mass 
 Sunday evenings. 
 
 I enjoyed those buns. I passed them 
 around to advertise you and everyone thought 
 they were lovely. My love to all at home. I 
 have not forgotten any of you in my Masses 
 and you I remember especially. 
 
 With love, 
 DANIEL. 
 
 The following year Father Coffey was as- 
 signed to organize a parish in Barnesville, 
 Ohio, and there he began his work as a pastor. 
 It was a really a reorganizing that he had be- 
 fore him. A parish had been started in the 
 town some years before, but a series of 
 setbacks had so paralyzed its activities 
 that for a time previous to Father Cof- 
 fey's coming no priest had been assigned 
 to the place. It had been a small congrega- 
 tion dependent upon a glass works for employ- 
 ment, and as these had been in operation only 
 a few months of the year during the several 
 years previous, the people had necessarily be- 
 come transients. On the heels of these woes,
 
 Early Days in the Ministry 79 
 
 the church burned down. There were no 
 funds to rebuild and a death-like state of coma 
 followed. Father Coffey was asked to revi- 
 vify the corpse. 
 
 It wasn't much of a prospect that he faced 
 the summer afternoon he left the train and 
 started for the top of the highest hill in the 
 neighborhood. For that was where his resi- 
 dence was to be. He climbed the hill to his 
 house and took an inventory, to wit: 
 
 Item One house, warped into a clever imi- 
 tation of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. 
 
 Item One cemetery; weed-grown and ne- 
 glected; tombstones peering spookily over 
 tangles of reeds and long grass. "It was the 
 most realistic cemetery I ever lived in," said 
 Father Dan. "You could be sure they were 
 dead in there, or they would never have stood 
 for the treatment they were getting." 
 
 Item One large heap of blackened beams, 
 timbers, half-burned boards, chimney bricks 
 and broken glass that used to be a church. 
 Beyond these, on all sides around him the 
 horizon. 
 
 "I was like St. Simon Stylites," he used to 
 say in describing it, "alone on the top of a 
 pillar. Only if I remember rightly, St. Simon 
 used to have a crowd of live persons gathered
 
 80 Early Days in the Ministry 
 
 at the foot of the pillar. All I had around 
 me were dead ones." 
 
 The records by no means tell us, however, 
 that Father Dan sat dolorously down on the 
 threshold of his house and burying his face in 
 his hands, gave one long melodramatic moan 
 over all sad things that were and that were yet 
 to be. Tears, idle tears, were never a part 
 of his program. 
 
 The first thing he did was to start "into the 
 jungle" as he called it, to hunt up his parish- 
 ioners. He liked them, liked everything they 
 did. He praised their town, their little homes, 
 their work. He got close to the children, had 
 them all by their first names, Jack, Billy, Mar- 
 garet, Mary, until in a minute they were no 
 more afraid of him than they were of each 
 other. He even praised the church, what was 
 left of it. "What a wonderful location it has !" 
 he said, with a hidden meaning, we suspect, in 
 the word "wonderful." Before the people 
 knew it he had stolen into their hearts. 
 
 Then he invited his friends among the clergy 
 to visit him. "Come," he wrote, "and enjoy 
 the rare atmosphere and the marvelous view. 
 It's like living in a balloon. If you have never 
 made a pilgrimage in your life, now is the 
 time. Come to the Holy Hill."
 
 Early Days in the Ministry 81 
 
 On spare days they visited him. He showed 
 them over the house. "After living in this 
 house a week," he said, "y u could walk a 
 tight rope in a circus." He took them outside 
 for the view. 
 
 "A beautiful location for a church!" he com- 
 mented. "Here you have a commanding view 
 of whole counties at a glance. With the aid 
 of a spyglass I can see in a second just how 
 my parish is going; and in case of a flood, 
 they'll all come to church. They're certain 
 to be safe here. Sure, the Catholics of Barnes- 
 ville are favored above all. Dead or alive, 
 they're nearer heaven." 
 
 Of course, he would admit, with apparent 
 reluctance, what he termed "the natural draw- 
 backs." In summer it was too hot for the par- 
 ishioners to climb the hill and in winter it was 
 too slippery for them even to attempt it. 
 
 After this, Father Coffey would take his 
 visitor out to call on the people. When they 
 saw so many priests coming to Barnes ville, 
 they were amazed. They had not been aware 
 that their town was so important. They had 
 thought that not one priest could live in 
 Barnesville. Now they saw them making pil- 
 grimages to the place. 
 
 Meantime Father Coffey was on the watch.
 
 82 Early Days in the Ministry 
 
 At first he said Mass in his house, which under 
 the conditions was sufficiently large to answer 
 the needs of that portion of the congregation 
 who could get there. To answer the conveni- 
 ence of all his people, however, he must have 
 a more central and accessible location. The 
 only place he could possibly find was a large 
 store in the town. It had been to let for so 
 long a time that only tradition told of a tenant. 
 
 Father Coffey rented the place and it did 
 not take him long to find the source of the tra- 
 dition. Up to this time his troubles had come 
 from above. Now they began to come from 
 below. Barnesville is somewhat of a railroad 
 town and directly underneath his "church" ran 
 a net of tracks, with switch engines, freight 
 and passenger locomotives dashing and pant- 
 ing and puffing and whistling constantly. 
 The "church" was built out over the railroad's 
 right of way. 
 
 The first Sunday there, Father Coffey said a 
 High Mass, and though he had a much better 
 congregation than up on the hill, the noise of 
 the trains was frightful. 
 
 "I hope the Lord will forgive me for bring- 
 ing Him to such a place," said Father Dan, 
 speaking to a brother priest a few days after. 
 "I never felt so guilty; it was like a burlesque
 
 Early Days in the Ministry 83 
 
 on the ceremonies of the Church. I sang the 
 'Dominus vobiscum? and I was answered by a 
 whistle that was inspired by Lucifer. I 
 started to preach and tons of smoke rolled in 
 through the windows until I couldn't see my 
 congregation and every time I breathed I 
 nearly choked. It didn't seem like ordinary 
 smoke, either. It came up from the lower 
 regions. I began the Preface and they began 
 ringing bells down below me that gave me the 
 distracting thought, 'If you weren't cast in 
 hell, you ought to be.' I'll never forget that 
 terrible morning and I hope God will forgive 
 me, for He knows I didn't mean it. But that 
 place is impossible." 
 
 Father Dan had the great gift of tunneling 
 in the dark and of singing as he tunneled. He 
 needed every bit of his gift to make the right 
 start in Barnesville. He began looking for 
 another spot for his church. Ultimately, he 
 knew, he would have to build. The thing to 
 do was to acquire a building site. He looked 
 over the town and found a site just suited for 
 a church and a house. This piece of ground 
 had been listed for sale and the price adver- 
 tised. Father Coffey called on the owner who 
 had the reputation in the town of being rather 
 too shrewd. Father Dan was not aware of
 
 84 Early Days in the Ministry 
 
 this at the time so he told his sad story fully 
 to the owner. 
 
 "We are forced to buy," he concluded, "but 
 our location here will be a good thing for you, 
 also. It will bring Catholics around the 
 church and thus enable you to sell your other 
 holdings. 
 
 "Yes, I see," replied the owner; "and I 
 shall do what I can, Father; but property has 
 gone up rapidly just lately and the best price 
 
 I can make for you is " and he named a 
 
 price hundreds of dollars above the listed price. 
 
 Father Dan said not a word but started out 
 of the office. He was followed to the door by 
 the owner. 
 
 "Just a moment, Father," said he. "Con- 
 sidering what you have said, I think I may be 
 able to er adjust that price. How about 
 ?" and he named the original listed price. 
 
 "I wouldn't take it from you now as a gift," 
 said Father Dan and he left the office. 
 
 Quite by accident Father Dan met a friend 
 in a neighboring city where he happened to be 
 visiting, and their conversation drifted to the 
 recently attempted purchase of the building 
 lot and of the apparently final failure. 
 
 "I am very glad you tell me all this," said 
 the friend. "I happen just now to be buying
 
 Early Days in the Ministry 85 
 
 land in Barnesville myself and if I mistake not 
 we have had in view, among other pieces, the 
 precise lots you describe. If we can get them 
 they are yours at the price we pay for them." 
 
 Within a week Father Coffey had the lots 
 and at a much lower figure than the original 
 offer. He did not take much pains, either, to 
 keep the particulars of the deal a secret. The 
 whole town knew it in a few days and the stock 
 of the Catholic priest jumped several points 
 for his outwitting of the "sharpest man in 
 town." 
 
 "It was all luck and no sense," said Father 
 Dan; "but I'd rather have luck than sense. It 
 proves that the Lord is with the simple," and he 
 assumed a canonized look of childlike naivete 
 which more than hinted that he had at least 
 sense enough to enjoy his luck.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 * 
 
 ANOTHER TUNNEL 
 
 FATHER DAN had dug the first tunnel 
 through, only to face another and, appar- 
 ently, a rockier prospect. What about a 
 church * 
 
 ., could not at this time ask his people to 
 uuild a church. They did not have the money. 
 As we have said, the congregation was small, 
 the work at the glass factory intermittent. 
 They had all they could do to tide themselves 
 across the "slack" periods. 
 
 Father Dan offered many prayers to Our 
 Lady of Perpetual Help, watching while he 
 prayed. He discovered that the Methodists 
 of the town had plans for a new church and 
 were offering the old church at a mere kind- 
 ling-wood price. Father Dan looked over the 
 building and saw he could easily transform it 
 into a church well suited to his needs. 
 
 "It was a great chance to get something for 
 nothing," he said. 
 
 86
 
 Another Tunnel 87 
 
 He bought the church, the pews, lectern, 
 organ and bell. After the place had passed 
 into Father Coffey's hands, the vacating con- 
 gregation asked him if they might have few 
 farewell reunions for the sake of old times. 
 Permission was readily granted and they had 
 three reunions. The children had one, the 
 young men and women another, and finally the 
 old people gathered for a last meeting in the 
 old church. It was purely a social meeting. 
 Father Coffey was invited to attend and he did, 
 mingling in his happy way with all the guests. 
 At the close he was invited to say a few words. 
 He mounted a platform and said : 
 
 "My dear friends, it is and always will be 
 a great pleasure to me to know you and re- 
 member you. It is an equal pleasure to think 
 that you have contributed as you have done, to 
 the Catholic Church, and I am sure God will 
 bless you for it. I shall pray often for you all 
 at Mass in this church and one of the blessings 
 I am going to ask for you is that when you 
 have your new church finished, you will do 
 just what you have done here invite me and 
 my congregation to take it over, remain with 
 us yourselves and we'll all be Catholics to- 
 gether, 'one Church and one Shepherd.' 
 Whatever you do, though, you will not forget
 
 88 Another Tunnel 
 
 that to-night you are witnessing the unheard- 
 of situation of a Catholic priest being pastor 
 of the Catholic and the Methodist churches at 
 the same time, as is evidenced from the 'power 
 of the keys' I have here before you." And he 
 held up the keys of the church. 
 
 The old Methodist residents of the town still 
 remember that night and that speech. 
 
 Everything now looked bright. A house- 
 mover was called in, measurements were taken, 
 figures given on the moving proposition. 
 Suddenly another rock rose right up in the 
 middle of the stream an impassable rock. 
 The house-mover met him at the church one 
 day and flattened the jubilant pastor by 
 saying: 
 
 "Sorry, Father, but we can't move this 
 church." 
 
 "In the name of God, why not?" gasped 
 Father Dan. 
 
 "The measurements show that the streets are 
 entirely too narrow for it. We can't begin to 
 think of moving it." 
 
 "Don't talk to me," said Father Dan. 
 "Leave me, or I'll say something terrible about 
 you and the streets of Barnesville and the peo- 
 ple who made them." 
 
 Father Ryan of Chicago, was visiting with
 
 Another Tunnel 8d 
 
 him at this time in his hilltop house. He saw 
 Father Coffey coming up the hill so slowly 
 that he guessed something had happened. 
 
 "It's all over," said Father Dan, looking 
 tragically into space, and he told the worst. 
 
 "I had a white church on my hands," he con- 
 cluded, "but I'll swear someone has turned it 
 into a white elephant." 
 
 After a melancholy evening together they 
 went to bed. In the early hours of the morn- 
 ing, Father Ryan was awakened by a series of 
 vigorous thumpings and a voice calling, 
 
 "Wake up, wake up !" 
 
 "What for? what for?" answered Father 
 Ryan, grand opera fashion, thinking at the 
 same moment of fire, flood and volcanoes. 
 
 "I've got an idea," said the voice, recognized 
 now as Father Dan's. 
 
 "That's worth waking up for," said Father 
 Ryan. "What can it be? " 
 
 "I've been thinking," continued Father Dan. 
 "I haven't the authority to widen those streets, 
 but I'll wager we can narrow that church by 
 cutting it in two and driving it tandem down 
 to the new place. It's a go!" 
 
 It was a "go." The house-mover was re- 
 called. At first he was amazed at the notion, 
 but soon he saw that it was entirely practicable.
 
 90 Another Tunnel 
 
 The church was cut in half and moved easily 
 along the narrow streets of Barnes ville. 
 
 Meantime twenty feet were added to the 
 foundation. The two pieces were hitched to- 
 gether again, the addition built and in a very 
 short time all was ready for the dedication. It 
 is a beautiful little church to-day. 
 
 In the same period, the congregation built a 
 fine rectory and the prosperity of the parish 
 was mounting to the crest. 
 
 Father Coffey was very happy in Barnes- 
 ville as his letters show. 
 
 ST. MABY'S OF THE ASSUMPTION 
 BAENESVILLE, OHIO, 
 
 August 14, 1901. 
 Dear Ma: 
 
 Your letter came last week and shortly af- 
 ter came Father Harvey. I was delighted to 
 see him and to learn you were all well. 
 
 We are rushing things along for the church 
 and so far I am quite pleased with the work. 
 The people of the town, both Protestant and 
 Catholic, are surprised that in a few months 
 so much has been done. I intend to have it 
 painted, decorated and ready before the fall. 
 If possible, I will then go to Brooklyn and 
 bring you out here.
 
 Another Tunnel 91 
 
 Frank was greatly surprised at the beauty of 
 our city here; and he could not get over my 
 swell house. He preached a beautiful sermon 
 for me Sunday last. 
 
 I wish I had you here. You would enjoy it, 
 I am sure. The fruit is ripening and the 
 weather becoming cool. Write to me soon. I 
 will let you know later about the beds from 
 Bergemot. Love to all. 
 
 DANIEL. 
 
 The next letter reflects the troubles he had 
 with his "divided" church. 
 
 ST. MARY'S OF THE ASSUMPTION 
 BAENESVILLE, OHIO, 
 
 September 5, 1901. 
 Dear Ma: 
 
 Josie's letter of some days ago at hand. I 
 am quite busy here and shall have to postpone 
 my little trip to Atlantic City and Cape May 
 until I see my way out of these difficulties. 
 
 The delays in the work have put back the 
 dedication of my church and at present I can- 
 not tell when it will be ready. However, as 
 I must wait, there is no use in worrying. 
 I heard from Father Hickey the other day. 
 Our peach crop here is most abundant. My
 
 92 Another Tunnel 
 
 peaches are dropping from the trees. I have 
 more than I can use. My grapes are pretty 
 nearly ripe and I intend to make grape wine 
 next week. I wish you were here to enjoy this 
 lovely autumn. 
 
 I will soon need a housekeeper, as the one 
 I have intends to leave. Do you know where 
 I could get a good, clean person for the fall? 
 I want none who cough over the stove or wash 
 their faces in the dishpan. The person must 
 be neat, tidy around the house, be at home all 
 the time and free from all care. No bedbugs 
 will be allowed in the house. The salary will 
 be first class for a first class person but no 
 slovens need apply. 
 
 Love to all. 
 
 DANIEL. 
 
 The jubilant note returns in the following 
 letter when all the wrinkles in the hitherto try- 
 ing situation seem to be ironed out. 
 
 ST. MART'S OF THE ASSUMPTION 
 BARNESVILLE,, OHIO. 
 Dear Josie: 
 
 Your letter at hand and I admit I was rather 
 hasty; but I've had enough to bother me here 
 without annoyance from all points of the globe.
 
 Another Tunnel 93 
 
 Larry and his wife came this morning to my 
 delight. They were greatly surprised at the 
 beauty of my home and could not believe that I 
 was only a year here to-day. I tell you my 
 house is a beauty. 
 
 Last night we had a lawn fete on our lawn 
 and I had all the "swell" people of the town in 
 attendance. The church was moved without 
 a break and already they are starting to put 
 the roof on it. It is the wonder of the town 
 that we could move it and have everything in 
 shape so soon. The man who moved the 
 church gave me the price of a magnificent 
 statue of the Sacred Heart. 
 
 Everything is going lovely and soon we will 
 have a church such as our congregation de- 
 serves. I had a picture "Before" and I'll have 
 one taken "After." I'll send them home. 
 
 Already I am to have four marriages and as 
 soon as the church is finished I expect more. 
 This is a great town for marriages and I am 
 doing all I can to encourage the good work. 
 Larry and his wife will stay here over Sunday. 
 I have plenty of room. 
 
 Where I live would remind you of Bay 
 Ridge, with rows of beautiful summer homes. 
 The housekeeper I now have reminds me very 
 much of you. Wherever she puts anything no
 
 94 Another Tunnel 
 
 one else can find it. She is very careful of the 
 house, though, and very neat; which also re- 
 minds me of you, I must say. 
 
 Tell ma I have a lovely room for her if she 
 will come. Love to all. 
 
 DANIEL. 
 
 The little congregation blossomed and 
 bloomed, growing in age and grace and wis- 
 dom before God and man. Once the waters 
 started flowing they rippled on joyously, and 
 Father Coffey always recalled his four years 
 there with something like merriment. As 
 later in Mingo, he was known to the whole 
 town and country around and every memory 
 they have of him to-day, people of all creeds, is 
 a memory of admiration and affection, with the 
 affection predominant. 
 
 It was in Barnesville in 1901, that the emi- 
 nent traveler and lecturer, John L. Stoddard, 
 first met Father Coffey and their friendship 
 lasted until the end. The following sprightly 
 poem, an invitation in verse to Father Coffey 
 to visit the author in his Tyrolean villa, was 
 regarded by Father Coffey as one of his cher- 
 ished souvenirs and it was found, carefully 
 saved, after his death.
 
 Another Turmel 95 
 
 VILLA POMONA, MERAN, TYROL 
 Jan. 20, 1905. 
 Dear Friend and Father 
 You know I'd rather 
 Talk with you freely and face to face; 
 But no resistance 
 Can vanquish distance 
 When separated by so much space. 
 
 So I'm inditing 
 
 This bit of writing 
 To send this morning from sweet Meran 
 
 Direct to Mingo 
 
 (Queer name, by Jingo!) 
 And may it find you a happy man ! 
 
 Will's crossed the ocean ! 
 
 With deep emotion 
 We saw him leaving the halting train; 
 
 His mammoth shoulders, 
 
 Like mountain boulders, 
 Caused many natives to look again. 
 
 He cried out "Sister," 
 
 And ran and kissed her 
 And laughing said, as he squeezed my hand, 
 
 "Thank God, I'm hearing 
 
 In tones endearing 
 The mother tongue of my native land! 
 
 To saints be glory, 
 I'm hunky-dory! 
 I've safely traversed the ocean blue!
 
 96 Another Tiwnel 
 
 No homesick feeling 
 Is o'er me stealing, 
 For just at present my home's with you." 
 
 And so by working 
 
 And never shirking, 
 He's learned already to typewrite well; 
 
 His face is ruddy 
 
 Despite his study; 
 How much he's learning, 'tis time will tell. 
 
 Forgive this lingo, 
 
 And leave old Mingo, 
 And cross the ocean to fair Tyrol! 
 
 A short vacation 
 
 For recreation 
 Will re-create you in mind and soul. 
 
 We three will meet you, 
 
 And warmly greet you, 
 And show you mountains of dazzling snow, 
 
 And lovely flowers, 
 
 And Roman towers, 
 And much more also, before you'd go. 
 
 And if you're able, 
 
 A billiard table 
 You could be using from morn till night, 
 
 Or else be reading 
 
 The books you're needing; 
 I have two thousand a welcome sight !
 
 Another Tunnel 97 
 
 So, Friend and Father, 
 Your ducats gather, 
 And buy a ticket across the sea 
 To entertain you 
 And never pain you 
 This friendly trio will guarantee. 
 
 Yours cordially, 
 
 JOHN L. STODDAED. 
 
 Father Coffey had been in Mingo Junction 
 two months when this letter was written, being 
 transferred by his Bishop to St. Agnes' 
 Church there in November, 1904.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 THE MILLS OF MEN 
 
 IF you travel by rail eastward out of Deni- 
 son, Ohio, you will observe the grade stead- 
 ily rising toward the hills along the Ohio River. 
 If your journey is by night, then after the last 
 upward plunge of the train, you sweep around 
 a quick, dipping curve, out of the dark rocky 
 gaps and the black woods on either hand, into 
 what at first glance looks like a night scene in 
 fairy land. 
 
 Thousands of lights, like fireflies, pick out 
 the inky blackness. Along both sides of the 
 river, far as the eye can reach, the scene is that 
 of a vast summer garden, hung with Japanese 
 lanterns. Here and there, great bursts of 
 luminous smoke and vapor, copper-colored and 
 pink and purplish white, rise into the air like 
 huge flowered fireworks. A stranger to this 
 locality might suppose it to be a spacious pleas- 
 ure park until as he looked he would see a huge 
 serpent of fire uncoil from some hidden nest 
 and fling himself venomously up into the night, 
 
 98
 
 The Mitts of Men 99 
 
 stabbing at the darkness with swift tongues 
 of flame. And in the glare that lit up the 
 scene for a moment, he could see that it was 
 very far from being a garden of pleasure. He 
 has been looking at the electric lights and the 
 furnace fires of the mills and factories of 
 Mingo. 
 
 The Ohio Valley, meaning by that word the 
 northeastern portion of Ohio, is probably the 
 busiest spot on earth. From Pittsburgh down 
 to Wheeling on both sides of the Ohio, there 
 is one crowding succession of iron foundries, 
 glass factories, steel mills, coal mines, tin 
 works, potteries, oil wells. Within arm's 
 reach all around these are the great plants for 
 the manufacture of automobile tires and all 
 manner of accessories. This entire system 
 goes day and night, without intermission. It 
 is labor on an epic scale. A bird's-eye view of 
 the district would make Homer look about for 
 new similes to visualize multitudes in action; 
 and a "close-up" would very likely give Mil- 
 ton some further ideas for the early books of 
 Paradise Lost and even send Dante back to 
 retouch his Inferno. 
 
 Mingo Junction gives us as good a cross sec- 
 tion of the Valley as any we could have. It is 
 not as large a town as many others in the dis-
 
 100 The Mills of Men 
 
 trict, numbering about five thousand persons; 
 but it is decidedly typical of the whole region. 
 It is built right along the Ohio. The flat land 
 close to the river's bank is taken up, every foot 
 of it, by mills and railroad tracks, with just 
 enough room for a narrow and winding busi- 
 ness street to squeeze itself in against the hills. 
 An interurban car, connecting Steubenville 
 and Brilliant, some four miles on either side, 
 runs down this Main Street of Mingo, lined 
 with grocery and clothing stores, meat and 
 vegetable markets, restaurants, real estate of- 
 fices, garages, a hotel, a postofHce, a bank. 
 
 The rest of the town scrambles on its hands 
 and knees to the top of the steep rise. Houses 
 dropped in on every little level spot, after such 
 fashion that one may stand on one's front porch 
 and look down on the roof of one's neighbor's 
 house. Streets make themselves as they may, 
 twisting in and out but always up. Longfel- 
 low should have seen Mingo before he wrote 
 his "Excelsior." If there were any eagles 
 about they would be jealous of the Mingo folk. 
 "Going u" is the town slogan. It reminds 
 me of the Arkansas farmer who fell out of his 
 cornfield and broke his neck. If a Mingo man 
 fell out of his back yard a searching party 
 would have to go after him.
 
 The Mills of Men 101 
 
 When we have said this much against Mingo 
 (rather in its favor, as indicating the gritty, 
 mountaineer spirit of its citizens) we have said 
 everything that can be brought against it. 
 For its people recall the pleasantest memories 
 I retain after many years of travel. 
 
 Twenty years ago these people did not know 
 one another. There was plenty of reason for 
 that. They belonged to more than twenty 
 different nationalities. It is the same to-day. 
 Recently the General Manager of the Mingo 
 Steel Works, Mr. George Wisener, gave me 
 this official classification of the nationalities 
 employed in his mill: Americans, 697; English, 
 20; Irish, 14; Scotch, 3; Serbians, 57; Bul- 
 garians, 16; Slovaks, 255; Polish, 12; Rus- 
 sians, 8; Croatians, 4; Austrians, 19; Hungar- 
 ians, 18; Italians, 218; Spanish, 6; Rouman- 
 ian, 1; Mexican, 1; Germans, 10; Swedes, 3; 
 Negroes, 52; Danish, 1; Greeks, 3; Macedon- 
 ian, 1. Total 1419, distributed among 
 twenty -two nationalities. It is fair to assume 
 that the same proportions will be found 
 throughout the district. A large percentage 
 of these is Catholic. 
 
 Differing in language, customs, traditions, 
 often, too, with the inherited national antipa- 
 thies; shy, with the shyness of the newcomer
 
 102 The Mills of Men 
 
 to strange surroundings ; forced to the limit of 
 their power to toil for the support of large 
 families, it is not hard to see that they had at 
 first neither the inclination nor the time to try 
 to understand one another. It was this prob- 
 lem of America's melting pot that Father Cof- 
 fey faced when he came to Mingo in Novem- 
 ber, 1904. 
 
 The problem came before him in an acute 
 form, moreover. In the larger cities these 
 nationalities spread more. They form groups, 
 locate in distinct sections, have priests of their 
 own separate tongues to care for the spiritual 
 welfare of each nationality. In Mingo it was 
 not thus. Father Coffey was the single pas- 
 tor assigned to the entire field. To make 
 every one of these people feel welcome to the 
 Church, to the country ; to bring them together 
 understandingly ; to have them pray together, 
 work together, live their social life together; 
 in short, to make a happy and holy family out 
 of these scattered and often hostile units this 
 was the life work that Father Dan took up in 
 Mingo. He had to assemble these disjoined 
 pieces into the spiritual kaleidoscope and to 
 weave them into lasting patterns of divine 
 beauty. How well he succeeded may be 
 judged from the tribute of one who watched
 
 The Mills of Men 103 
 
 his work, who said after Father Coffey's 
 death, "The parish of Mingo during Father 
 Coffey's incumbency was a veritable little king- 
 dom of love." 
 
 He knew none of the languages native to 
 these foreigners, and beyond the dash of a 
 phrase picked up from one or another, he never 
 learned any of their tongues. Indeed, he did 
 not have the time for it. When Father Coffey 
 arrived in Mingo, he found the financial, the 
 social and the religious problems so compli- 
 cated and so pressing that anything like the 
 leisure for language learning was out of the 
 question. To most men this would have been 
 a discouraging handicap, but it never even 
 bothered Father Coffey. 
 
 "How did you get to handle these people in 
 the beginning without knowing how to talk to 
 them?" I asked him on one occasion. 
 
 "I went around and made nice faces at 
 them," he answered. "When they saw I liked 
 them, they wanted to talk to me, and they had 
 to learn English to do it. Now we splash 
 along in fine style. Of course, from the very 
 start I always had priests to come to St. Agnes' 
 and hear the confessions of all who could not 
 go in English." 
 
 That was the cue to all Father Coffey's sue-
 
 104, The Mills of Men 
 
 cess with his people he "liked" them. More 
 than that, he loved them and they knew it. As 
 Father Thomas Powers finely says in his mem- 
 orial booklet : 
 
 "When there is question of duty and human- 
 ity the priest, like the sunbeam, is a native of 
 every sky; and so, Father Coffey was to the 
 foreigner, of whom there were many in his 
 congregation, a father and a friend. He did 
 not learn their language, it is true, but he 
 came closer to their hearts by studying their 
 needs and speaking to them in the universal 
 language of kindly helpfulness." 
 
 Of course the American portion of St. 
 Agnes' parish was hand in hand with Father 
 Coffey from the start ; but he was not satisfied 
 with this. He must have the whole congre- 
 gation, down to the last man, woman and child 
 clasping hands all around. He followed the 
 practical idea of proving to these people that 
 he wanted them by efficiently helping them in 
 their work. 
 
 A fortunate incident occurred at this time 
 which opened the way to him. One day there 
 was handed in to Mr. Wisener, in his office in 
 the mills, a letter, complaining of a shortage 
 in pay. It was brought by an Italian, who 
 could not explain himself well in English.
 
 The Mills of Men 105 
 
 The letter was so well written, both as to com- 
 position and penmanship, that it attracted the 
 attention of Mr. Wisener. 
 
 "Who wrote this letter?" he inquired. 
 
 "The little daughter in the boarding house 
 where I stay," was the answer. 
 
 "I can hardly believe it," said Mr. Wisener. 
 After settling the complaint satisfactorily, he 
 said, "Have that little girl sent to the office." 
 
 In a short time Mary, twelve years of age, 
 appeared and was shown into the office. 
 
 "Did you write this, Mary?" asked the man- 
 ager, showing her the letter. 
 
 "Yes, sir," said Mary. 
 
 "Let me see how you do it," said the manager 
 and he gave her a pen and some paper. "Copy 
 this for me, please." 
 
 Mary took the pen and made a beautiful 
 copy of the lines Mr. Wisener had placed be- 
 fore her. 
 
 "What school do you go to, Mary?" asked 
 he. 
 
 "I go to St. Agnes' School, sir," replied 
 Mary. 
 
 "Do the Sisters teach you this?" 
 
 "Yes, sir," said Mary.^ "They teach me 
 everything." 
 
 "You are going to a good school, Mary,"
 
 106 The Mills of Men 
 
 said Mr. Wisener, and he dismissed her with 
 a present of a half dollar. 
 
 This incident reached Father Coffey. With 
 the sure instinct that was his, he saw at once 
 that he had a future friend in the head of the 
 steel works, a man who saw beyond the mill 
 exits and realized that there was more in any 
 man than mere labor, and that labor problems 
 will never be settled by way of the pocket but 
 by way of the heart. Father Dan was not 
 strong for "future" friends, however. He in- 
 sisted on having them in the present tense and 
 keeping them there. He called on Mr. Wise- 
 ner and invited him to visit the school, naming 
 a date when there was to be a distribution of 
 prizes and a little entertainment. 
 
 "I won't ask you to make a speech, Mr. 
 Wisener," said Father Coffey, "but if you 
 would like to donate any prizes to the children, 
 I shall see that they are given out with my own 
 hands." 
 
 Both invitations were accepted. Mr. Wise- 
 ner sent to the rectory a check for twenty-five 
 dollars to be turned into twenty-five prizes for 
 the children "who had done the best work." 
 On the day appointed he was there among the 
 guests of the school. A pretty entertainment 
 was given and the distribution of the prizes be-
 
 The Mills of Men 107 
 
 gan. As it proceeded, Mr. Wisener noted that 
 they went beyond twenty-five and up to thirty- 
 five. At the intermission he called Father 
 Coffey and said: 
 
 "There were more than twenty -five prizes, 
 weren't there?" 
 
 "Yes, Mr. Wisener," said Father Coffey, 
 entirely unabashed, "but there is so much 'best' 
 work in St. Agnes' School that I had to put in 
 ten dollars of my own for extra prizes." 
 
 "Oh, no, that won't do at all," said Mr. 
 Wisener, "this is my day at the school and it's 
 all the prizes or none." 
 
 "Well, since you insist," said Father Coffey, 
 with mock reluctance, "I shall withdraw my 
 ten with regret." And he took a check for 
 another ten dollars. Mr. Wisener was lured 
 into a speech besides. 
 
 This was the beginning of an entente 
 cordiale between the head of St. Agnes' parish 
 and the head of the steel works, which lasts to 
 the present hour. The results of genuine co- 
 operation are evident. Socialism never got 
 the least foothold in Mingo. The propagand- 
 ists made headway in other districts near by; 
 they tried Mingo time and again but they 
 flitted out as fast as they flitted in. Father 
 Coffey watched his people with affectionate
 
 108 The Mills of Men 
 
 care, instructed them in groups, knew person- 
 ally every individual in his parish and thus an- 
 ticipated every danger that threatened them. 
 He was at the fountain head of every move- 
 ment in the parish. During the eleven years 
 of his pastorate there was not a single strike, 
 and there has been none since. 
 
 One of the methods used by the Socialists to 
 breed discontent was an attempted spread of 
 the Menace through the works. The sheet 
 was mailed to the men in their homes, put into 
 the pockets of their working coats, left about 
 in corners where they could be picked up 
 all this secretly and unknown to the authori- 
 ties at the mill. Father Coffey found it out 
 and immediately went to them with a com- 
 plaint. His people were being attacked for 
 their religion and the edge of discontent was 
 splitting the men apart. 
 
 An order was at once given to have this 
 propaganda stopped and the announcement 
 was made that the first person discovered dis- 
 tributing the Menace would be discharged per- 
 manently. The trouble ended in the mill. 
 
 But Father Coffey did not stop there. It 
 was known that the mailing of the Menace 
 had been done in a nearby town. He set him- 
 self to discover who was responsible for this.
 
 The Mills of Men 109 
 
 One day he was hurrying to catch a car from 
 this town for home. His arms were filled with 
 bundles he seldom returned home without 
 bundles, picked up, as we shall see, every- 
 where as he was met by a friend who stopped 
 him and said: 
 
 "Father Coffey, I have found out the man 
 who has been mailing that Menace." 
 
 "Who is he?" asked Father Dan. 
 
 The surprising answer came with the name 
 of a man whom Father Coffey had done busi- 
 ness with for years, who had often expressed 
 a warm admiration for him. 
 
 "Is that so?" said he. He walked into a 
 store before him, put down the bundles on the 
 counter, said, "Please watch these for me," and 
 walked rapidly down the street to the business 
 place of the man whose name had been given 
 him. 
 
 "Is Mr. Blank here?" he asked, so as to be 
 heard plainly in the store. 
 
 Mr. Blank was in his office. He came out 
 and seeing Father Coffey, came forward ef- 
 fusively, holding out his hand. 
 
 "Father Coffey! " he said. "I am delighted 
 to see you. How are you?" 
 
 "Quite well," said Father Coffey. "But I 
 won't shake hands with you now. I have just
 
 110 The Mills of Men 
 
 been told, Mr. Blank, that you are the chief 
 distributor of the Menace in this town and in 
 our town of Mingo. I don't like to think this 
 of you. But let me tell you something. I'm 
 trying to raise funds to build a little Catholic 
 church for my poor people and 'A. P. A.' 
 money looks just as good to me as any other 
 kind. That's all I have to say to you at pres- 
 ent." Turning on his heel he walked rapidly 
 out of the store. 
 
 Two days later he received a substantial 
 check from Mr. Blank to be applied to the 
 church. 
 
 "We'll call this the slush fund," he said, 
 "but we'll make even the devil help to build 
 the Catholic church." 
 
 Times there were, too, when the men them- 
 selves were to blame for their troubles. 
 Nearly always the cause was drink. Father 
 Coffey was not opposed to the workingman 
 having his glass of beer; but he came down 
 heavily on the whiskey drinker and the sot. If 
 he discovered a man intoxicated he would rid- 
 dle him with so fierce a fire of sarcastic scorn 
 that he often stung him sober. 
 
 "Lo, Father Coffey!" mumbled a maudlin 
 fellow to him one day in the street, "gladda see 
 yaP
 
 The Mills of Men 111 
 
 "Don't grunt at me," said Father Coffey, 
 stepping back from him. "I'm no hog. Get 
 back to the trough you just left and nose in 
 there with the other hogs. They'll be glad to 
 see you." He left the man standing there be- 
 wildered, already half sobered by the shots that 
 went through him. 
 
 In his sermons, he withered the "saloon 
 hounds," as he termed the drunkards, in 
 phraseology that reduced them to a cinder. 
 "Big kangaroos, with nothing but a long neck 
 with a pin head on top of it, leaping from their 
 hind legs for the bar and kicking their families 
 in the face!" 
 
 He knew, however, that words alone would 
 never stop them effectively. He must cut in 
 at the source. He wasted no time in trying 
 to influence the type of saloon keeper who 
 poured the drink into his men. These he re- 
 garded as past human feeling. He went to the 
 general manager of the mills. 
 
 At a conference, it was agreed between them 
 that any man of his parish who neglected his 
 work through drink would be laid off indefi- 
 nitely and could not return to work there until 
 he had seen Father Coffey and brought a 
 signed pledge to abstain from drink. The 
 plan worked perfectly. Gradually the drink
 
 112 The Mills of Men 
 
 evil declined and finally disappeared alto- 
 gether. The men learned to control them- 
 selves without any prohibition law. 
 
 It was not pleasant for them to have to face 
 Father Coffey on second infractions of the 
 pledge, and sometimes they attempted strategy 
 to avoid him. One day after a second drink- 
 ing spree, a man came into the mill and asked 
 for his job again. The manager looked him 
 over, talked to him a little and finally asked: 
 
 "Where is your pledge?" 
 
 "Here it is," said the man, and passed a 
 signed document across the desk. The mana- 
 ger looked at it. 
 
 "That won't go here," said he. "No pledges 
 but those signed by Father Coffey will be 
 taken in this mill." 
 
 The man left, returned after an hour and 
 was reinstated. He never needed another 
 pledge. "That tongue lashing I got from 
 Father Coffey," he said, "will do me for the 
 rest of my life."
 
 CHAPTER X 
 SPREADING SAIL 
 
 WE have dwelt upon Father Coffey's rela- 
 tions with the heads of the mills in 
 Mingo, because a large percentage of his par- 
 ish worked there, and it was to the interest of 
 every one to establish cordial and lasting busi- 
 ness relations from the start. 
 
 The mill, however, by no means measured 
 the circumference of his circle of influence. In 
 a very short time, Father Coffey was inti- 
 mately known by all the business men of Mingo 
 and of Steubenville as well. His idea was 
 that every one should know exactly what a 
 Catholic priest was like, and just what the 
 Catholic Church stood for in her work; so he 
 went up close to every one and in a moment 
 each one saw he was coming as a friend. 
 
 "I'm a salesman for the Catholic Church," 
 he used to say, "and I have to be out on the 
 road." 
 
 And in the language of the salesmen, he was 
 master of the perfect "approach." It took no 
 
 113
 
 114 Spreading Sail 
 
 formal introduction to put him in touch with 
 any one. In the easiest, most natural manner 
 possible he would move down the street, miss- 
 ing not a person as he went, from the smallest 
 child to the distinguished citizen, with a smile 
 of recognition, or a friendly nod, or a wave of 
 the hand; or, if words were spoken, with just 
 the word that fitted. 
 
 He would drop into a store and in a minute 
 would have the manager engaged in delighted 
 conversation, not forgetting a happy remark 
 to the assistants and a sparkle of wit for the 
 customers. Even on his first visit to a place, 
 an observer would suppose from his manner 
 that he had known the people all his life. Not 
 a hint of the spectacular about all this, not 
 the suggestion of patronizing or posing. On 
 the other hand, not the shadow of cringing 
 none of the crude and frothy effusiveness of the 
 professional friend-maker. Everything was 
 as simple and as spontaneous as the song of a 
 bird, and as enjoyable. It was the perfection 
 of the "Cor ad cor loquitur" the acme of affa- 
 bility. "I never saw a man like him," was the 
 serious judgment of an official who had met 
 men in every walk of life. 
 
 It is not surprising that he had the entree 
 everywhere. In a very short while he grew to
 
 Spreading Sail 115 
 
 be the most trusted man in Mingo. On a re- 
 cent visit to the town, I met many of its busi- 
 ness men of varying creeds and characters. 
 We talked of Father Coffey and though he had 
 been dead four years, he was still so close to 
 them, so vividly remembered, that it seemed 
 as if he were still in their midst and might be 
 expected to drop in on our conversation at any 
 moment. 
 
 While he lived, there was not a civic move- 
 ment in the town with which he was not identi- 
 fied. The citizens depended upon having his 
 advice and help. At the same time he never 
 forgot that the most beneficial movement in 
 Mingo was the work of the Catholic Church. 
 As he gave the best he had to the town, he ex- 
 pected the men of the town to give his church 
 more than mere sympathy. 
 
 As soon as he came to Mingo, he saw that he 
 must get ready to build. He had a little 
 church, a school, a house, all built of wood 
 and already drooping with age. The Sisters' 
 house, too, was not what he would like them to 
 have; and his congregation, though willing, 
 was poor. They were beginning their own 
 homes and could not carry a building proposi- 
 tion of that size. 
 
 Accordingly, after he was settled in the
 
 116 Spreading Sail 
 
 town, he began to collect funds for the church. 
 His parish responded generously, but he did 
 not limit himself to the Catholics alone. Non- 
 Catholics should contribute also, to his way of 
 thinking. 
 
 "Aren't they getting the benefit of the power 
 of the Catholic Church among them?" he said. 
 "Why, we're helping them and they ought to 
 pay for it." 
 
 One of his familiar friends was Mr. D. J. 
 Sinclair, since dead, then a prominent banker 
 and mill owner in Steubenville. Father Cof- 
 f ey walked into his bank one morning. 
 
 "Good morning, Father," said Mr. Sinclair. 
 
 "Good morning, Mr. Sinclair. I've come to 
 take some money out of your bank ; and it isn't 
 going to be from my deposit, but from yours." 
 
 "How is that?" asked Mr. Sinclair. ' 
 
 "Well," continued Father Coffey, with fin- 
 ished repose of manner, "everybody knows that 
 you are interested in furthering every move- 
 ment for the good of Steubenville and its 
 environs. Now .1 am pushing ahead the big- 
 gest and absolutely the best movement ever 
 started in this region and you simply have to 
 be in on it." 
 
 "What is the movement?" inquired Mr. Sin-
 
 Spreading Sail 117 
 
 clair, much surprised that he hadn't heard of it 
 before. 
 
 "It's the Catholic Church, which I represent 
 in Mingo and which is working hard day and 
 night to make the men of this section better 
 men, better workers and better citizens. I 
 need money for a new school and church to 
 keep this movement vital ; and you're not going 
 to stand one side and see me want it." 
 
 Mr. Sinclair wrote a check for five hundred 
 dollars and gave it to Father Coffey. 
 
 "Thank you very much," said he, as he care- 
 fully put it away. "But remember, D. J., this 
 is only the beginning. You'll be dying to 
 give me more after a while and I'll be back to 
 get it." 
 
 Some time after, the evangelist, Billy Sun- 
 day, came to Steubenville and held a revival. 
 When the subscriptions were published, Father 
 Coffey noted that Mr. Sinclair had given five 
 hundred dollars. The next day the latter hap- 
 pened to look out of his office window and 
 saw Father Coffey standing in front of the 
 bank in a most dejected attitude, with a coun- 
 tenance the picture of woe, looking in at the 
 window at intervals, but not making any at- 
 tempt to enter. Mr. Sinclair was mystified.
 
 118 Spreading Sail 
 
 He went out to Father Coffey and invited him 
 in. He did so and seated himself funereally. 
 
 "What has happened, Father? Has any- 
 body died?" 
 
 "Yes," said Father Coffey. "My hopes are 
 dead. Here is this Billy Sunday coming to 
 town and preaching out of a false bible six 
 weeks. He gets five hundred dollars for it 
 from one of my best friends. I work around 
 here for six years, teaching out of the true 
 Bible and nobody offers me a cent." 
 
 He got another check the equal of Billy 
 Sunday's. 
 
 "Now, I feel revived," he said as he folded 
 the check. "If you keep on this way, D. J., 
 do you know what I may do? I may have a 
 stained glass medallion made with your picture 
 in it and put it up over the door of my 
 church; and I'm thinking that's as close to 
 heaven as a lot of you Presbyterians will 
 ever get." 
 
 The inevitable bazaar and festival was part 
 of the machinery he employed. His congrega- 
 tion responded generously mill workers are 
 proverbially generous but Father refused to 
 allow them to do it all. He went personally 
 to his "money friends" and invited them to 
 be present.
 
 Spreading Sail 119 
 
 "And be sure to come well heeled," he told 
 them. "We'll get all the heels and you'll be 
 lucky to get off with your soul." 
 
 "We came to be fleeced," said one of Father 
 Coffey's old friends. "And you can believe 
 we were fleeced artistically. If I hid a dime in 
 my shoe, I think he would have got it; but we 
 never had so much fun for the money." 
 
 As they were leaving, Father Coffey would 
 anxiously inquire if they had car fare. "I'll 
 lend you a nickel," he would say with an air 
 of generosity. 
 
 He had his own way, too, of keeping down 
 repair bills. If a pump were broken, or a fur- 
 nace out of order, he sent a note to the mill, 
 asking Mr. Wisener to have a man "drop in 
 to look at it." The man came over and fixed 
 it. 
 
 "How much will that be?" he asked the man. 
 
 "I don't know," was the answer. 
 
 "Then tell Mr. Wisener to send the bill," 
 said Father Coffey. Of course, the bill never 
 came. 
 
 One day during the dinner hour at the mill, 
 a dynamite explosion occurred that shook up 
 the neighborhood somewhat. Before two 
 o'clock the mill office received a bill from 
 Father Coffey for broken glass and plaster
 
 120 Spreading Sail 
 
 in the school. "I always aim to be business- 
 like in these little matters," he added. 
 
 The bundles he came home with from his 
 walks were very often presents he received 
 from the merchants of Mingo and Steuben- 
 ville. He had his unique way of getting them. 
 He "took them" he used to say. His usual 
 way, when he needed anything, was to wander 
 into a store, looking sadly out of pocket (as 
 indeed he was) and to gaze longingly at the 
 object he was after. 
 
 "Anything you would like, Father?" 
 
 "Yes," he would reply. "That!" pointing 
 at the article with a meaning that it never 
 could be his. 
 
 "Take it," was the invariable reply. "It's 
 yours." 
 
 "Well, if you insist," Father Coffey would 
 say deprecatingly, "then wrap it up for me." 
 
 As a matter of fact, any of the stores would 
 give him anything they thought he needed even 
 before he expressed a wish for it. They so 
 much enjoyed his "approach," however, that 
 they liked to wait until he made it; and he 
 never made it twice in the same way. 
 
 Mr. Sulzbacher, a general merchant in Steu- 
 benville, told Father Coffey one Christmas 
 time to select anything in the store he wished
 
 Spreading Sail 121 
 
 for a Christmas gift. Nothing loathe, Father- 
 Coffey fastened his eyes on a cut glass water 
 set, which in due time was on display in his. 
 "den" at Mingo. Some days later he was, 
 making his rounds of the same store when he, 
 noticed a combination cane and umbrella. He 
 brought it to Mr. Sulzbacher. 
 
 "Sulz," he said, "this is what you should; 
 have given me for Christmas. I'll take it for 
 New Year's." 
 
 "Take it," said Mr. Sulzbacher. "And a 
 Happy New Year with it." 
 
 The telephone was an ally of his in the same 
 cause and his use of it was most artistic. On 
 the eve of a great Feast Day, the Sister in* 
 charge of the altar decoration sent up word to, 
 Father Coffey that more flowers would be- 
 needed to have things at their best, and that 
 roses would be preferred. Father Coffey told 
 the messenger to say to Sister that the roses, 
 would be there in a few minutes. 
 
 He turned to the 'phone and called a num- 
 ber. 
 
 "Hello, that you, Bert? Father Coffey 
 speaking I wish to thank you for those beau- 
 tiful roses you sent me. Such gorgeous color- 
 and so large! What, didn't you see them?' 
 Why I can smell them from* l*er, a, dozen of'
 
 122 Spreading Sail 
 
 them, American Beauties they're on the way, 
 you say? Thank you, Bert, you're a lovely 
 man. Good-by." 
 
 He had been talking with the florist. The 
 flowers were at the house immediately. 
 
 His library had the best and the latest books 
 sent him by the bookstores. Nothing, thought 
 these people, was too good for Father Coffey. 
 
 To hear him talk about "money," a stranger 
 would imagine that his soul was set upon gold. 
 Those who knew him understood well that 
 every move he made was directed to his church 
 and to his poor. He was most exact in his 
 official accounts and would exercise his genius 
 to help the church. In his personal accounts, 
 he was the very opposite. He kept no record 
 of what was due himself. It was too much 
 bother, he said, to worry over such things. 
 
 He had enough money collected to begin his 
 building when the war broke out. He died be- 
 fore the war was over, but he left to his suc- 
 cessor a nucleus which will soon develop into 
 the realization of his dream. As to his own 
 fortune, his death disclosed that the only 
 earthly possessions which were his to be- 
 queath, were his books and thirty-six dollars 
 in money.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 HE HAD COMPASSION 
 
 fin HE grace of giving, which we noted in 
 JL Father Coffey's boyhood, grew with his 
 growth. The words of scripture, "He had 
 compassion on the multitude," had a special 
 attraction for him. If we followed those bun- 
 dles he used to bring home from the stores we 
 should find nearly all of them ultimately in 
 the hands of the poor. He was not content 
 to work singly in this field. He saw it was 
 impossible for him to cover the ground alone. 
 He thought ot things always on a large scale 
 and in the matter of helping the poor, his idea 
 was to reach them all, regardless of race or 
 belief. 
 
 One of his earliest perceptions was the need 
 of a hospital for the workers of the vicinity. 
 Dr. Strayer, the surgeon of the steel plant, had 
 the same idea and he came to his friend, Father 
 Coffey, to confer with him, confident of a 
 sympathetic hearing, and knowing that once 
 he had enlisted Father Coffey in the work, a 
 
 123
 
 124 He Had Compassion 
 
 sure and rapid way of solving the difficulty 
 would be found. The first discussion of the 
 matter took place on the steps of St. Agnes* 
 Church. Father Coffey was enthusiastic. 
 They worked out a plan together. Ready to 
 answer detailed questions, they approached 
 Mr. Wisener. He saw the necessity and prac- 
 ticability of the plan and promised his efficient 
 cooperation. Father Powers, the pastor of 
 St. Peter's Church in Steubenville, and other 
 business men of that town were likewise in- 
 terested. A committee was formed to organ- 
 ize the people of both Mingo and Steubenville 
 to assist in securing funds. They responded 
 quickly and under the capable direction of Mr. 
 Wisener, the work was pushed forward. The 
 original idea contemplated a hospital for the 
 Mingo mills. Father Coffey suggested a 
 larger building to be located in Steubenville, 
 to care for the people of both cities. This was 
 adopted. To-day the handsome Ohio Valley 
 Hospital in Steubenville stands as a witness 
 to Father Coffey's love for the suffering. 
 
 In past years, before the Ohio River was 
 dammed, annual floods threatened the dwellers 
 along the banks. Many times it was more 
 than a threat. In 1913 a sudden and disas- 
 trous flood rushed in over the river bottoms
 
 He Had Compassion 125 
 
 at Mingo and swept everything before it. 
 Houses with all their contents, furniture, 
 stoves, bedding, were whirled away within an 
 hour and spun down the river, the people 
 barely escaping with their lives. A hundred 
 families were left huddled along the hills, en- 
 tirely destitute of clothing and food. 
 
 The town of Mingo at once came to their 
 rescue. A relief committee was formed, with 
 Father Coffey one of its members, and dona- 
 tions of money and of household goods for 
 immediate use were called for. Help came 
 from all sides. Bread, meat, groceries, fuel, 
 stoves, kitchen ware, clothes, furniture, beds, 
 all the essentials of home, to say nothing of 
 a large sum of money, were contributed in a 
 day by the people and the merchants. The 
 different articles were sorted and each lot as- 
 sembled, under supervision, in accessible parts 
 of the town where the destitute could readily 
 get them. 
 
 On the same day the committee held a final 
 meeting to decide how they should identify 
 those deserving help, thus to prevent fraud in 
 the distribution. As soon as the purpose of 
 the meeting had been announced, a lady rose 
 and addressed the house. 
 
 She was pleased, she said, to meet such an
 
 126 He Had Compassion 
 
 efficient group of men. She had traveled 
 much and had not been long in Mingo ; but she 
 must confess that in all her experience she had 
 not witnessed anywhere more marvelous work 
 for the uplift of humanity than the men of 
 Mingo had accomplished in so short a time. 
 
 "But," she continued, assuming the role of 
 patron and prophetess, "our real work is ahead 
 of us, namely in the distribution of the goods. 
 Statistics prove that the great leakage in all 
 charitable movements, the one rift in the lute, 
 comes from slovenly methods in apportioning 
 the intake. Really to identify the deserving 
 is to-day a problem worthy of the most dis- 
 cerning intelligence." 
 
 The men sat stupefied. For most of them 
 it was the first time they had encountered an 
 uplifter and her patois was totally unintelligi- 
 ble to them. They looked at her with their 
 fingers in their mouths, metaphorically speak- 
 ing. 
 
 "Gentlemen," continued the prophetess, "I 
 hold in my hand a paper containing the results 
 of a scrutinizing research made through the 
 town to-day, and I shall direct your attention 
 to the following particulars which will control 
 us in meting out our aid to the genuinely 
 worthy. I shall read it to you :
 
 He Had Compassion 127 
 
 "Thomas Williams earns $20 a week. 
 Spends part of that for drink. He 
 should receive no help. 
 
 "Samuel Brown while not able to work, has 
 two boys who bring in $25 weekly. 
 
 "David Whipple owns a market garden and 
 a small farm. 
 
 "Arthur Landers catches fish in the river and 
 sells them. He may be classed as a mer- 
 chant. 
 
 "Henry Johnson makes a good salary work- 
 ing on the railroad and has a daughter at 
 work also. 
 
 "These five I have discovered to be unde- 
 serving of help. If any gentleman here has 
 more to add to this list, it will simplify our 
 process of elimination and enable us to focus 
 our attention upon the worthy." 
 
 Nobody stirred. The reaction was nil. 
 
 Father Coffey waited in silence to see what 
 the others would say. They said nothing. 
 They were back in the stone age. "I couldn't 
 quite get it all," said one of them afterwards. 
 "But I knew some one was throwing a marlin- 
 spike into the machinery." Father Coffey 
 arose. He had not much patience with the
 
 128 He Had Compassion 
 
 professional uplifters. As a class, they did 
 not seem genuine to him. 
 
 "Lady," he said, "and gentlemen: I do not 
 wish to make a long speech, because we haven't 
 the time now for anything but work. How- 
 ever, I am certain that I voice the opinion of 
 every man here when I express our apprecia- 
 tion of the incomprehensibility of the beauty 
 -of the instruction our friend has vouchsafed us. 
 
 "Especially illuminating are the lady's re- 
 marks upon statistics as compared to loot. It 
 recalls to our minds, I am sure, the saying of 
 Thucydides, that 'the only thing loot needs to 
 succeed is to have itself backed up by statis- 
 tics.' And in the present work, if we wish to 
 avoid the rift in the loot, we shall likewise have 
 to steer clear of statistics. 
 
 "As to the five names given, all I have to 
 say is that if Arthur Landers catches fish, he 
 has no stove to cook them on. If David 
 Whipple owns a market garden, he can't put 
 his head under water and pull up radishes with 
 his teeth. If Thomas Williams drinks, his 
 wife and children must eat. As for the others, 
 they may be making money, but if any of us 
 found a millionaire starving in the desert, we 
 Wouldn't tell him to take out his bank book 
 and eat it.
 
 He Had Compassion 129 
 
 "To conclude, I move that we start in this 
 very hour to make the distribution, each of us 
 using his best judgment according to the work 
 assigned to him. All in favor of the motion 
 will please say 'Aye.' ' 
 
 A resounding chorus of male voices sang 
 out "Aye." The distribution began within 
 the hour. 
 
 All the clothing had been entrusted to 
 Father Coffey. It made a mountainous pile 
 in the school hall. Himself, with some trusty 
 parish assistants, attended personally to all 
 the work. 
 
 On the second day of the distribution, after 
 all who had come had been fitted out, a negro 
 woman wandered into the hall and began to 
 look about. Father Coffey went over to meet 
 her. 
 
 "Is there anything I can do for you, 
 madam?" he inquired. 
 
 Madame paused. "Is you Preacher Cof- 
 fey?" she asked. 
 
 "Yes, madam," said Father Coffey. 
 
 "Well, Ah'se suah glad to heah it. Dey 
 tells me you all gives the people jes' what 
 dey want." 
 
 "Yes, anything in the way of clothes," said
 
 130 He Had Compassion 
 
 Father Coffey. "Do you live along the 
 river?" 
 
 "Ah'se done did live dere," said madame. 
 "But dat ribber done washed mah house out 
 clean." 
 
 "Then you'll want some kitchen things," 
 said Father Coffey. "I can tell you where to 
 get a stove and some chairs and a table." 
 
 "Ah doan want no stoves, an' no chaiahs, an' 
 no tables." 
 
 "Were the beds carried out of your house, 
 too?" asked Father Coffey. 
 
 "Yeah, dey was. Eberyting went out, 
 'cept de house. But Ah doan want any of 
 dem tings now. Ah'se tell you all whut Ah 
 do want " lowering her voice to a stage whis- 
 per and rolling her eyes around the hall, "Ah 
 want a set of furs." 
 
 "A set of furs!" gasped Father Coffey. 
 
 "Yeah, a set of furs, like de grand ladies 
 wears. Ah ain't neber had none, and Ah 
 want 'em now." 
 
 Father Coffey, thoroughly alive to the hu- 
 mor of the situation, dug into the mountain 
 and came out at last with a fur coat. She put 
 it on at once. 
 
 He plunged into the mass again and exca- 
 vated a fur hat. Madame took off her old hat
 
 He Had Compassion 131 
 
 and jammed the fur one on. It had to fit. 
 
 At the third attempt Father Coffey came up 
 with a heavy fur muff. 
 
 "I hope this will fit you, lady," he said. 
 
 She pushed her hands into it and began 
 marching around the hall. 
 
 "Ah'se a queen!" she exclaimed in ecstasy. 
 
 It was a warm day in April but royalty 
 never bothers with the weather. She steamed 
 down the hill, a rapturous ball of fur, calling 
 out all the way, "Ah'se a queen! Ah'se a 
 queen !" 
 
 With the view of continuing and fostering 
 this spirit of cooperation in Mingo, Father 
 Coffey gave an annual dinner at his residence 
 to which he invited the head men of the mills 
 and his business friends in the vicinity, 
 
 "How we used to look forward to those din- 
 ners!" said one. "The welcome we received 
 and the easy way in which we got to feel at 
 home there. No preliminary melting away of 
 thin ice. We never thought, many of us, that 
 we would arrive at the point where we would 
 be happy to be in a priest's house. 
 
 "Then the dinner! The banter and the wit 
 and laughter of it all, with Father Coffey lead- 
 ing the way. It made me feel twenty years 
 younger. We were all like a bunch of boys.
 
 132 He Had Compassion 
 
 "After dinner a smoke in Father's 'den.' 
 Here we got down to business. Our discus- 
 sions invariably went into the subjects nearest 
 Father Coffey's heart. How we could im- 
 prove things and men in our town; defects 
 that ought to be attended to; ways and means 
 of helping the workingman and his family and 
 the poor. Father didn't forget his church, 
 either. 
 
 "We left his house better men and more 
 anxious than ever to do our part." 
 
 On other occasions he would invite one or 
 other of the men to dine with him, to talk 
 over special cases in detail. 
 
 In this busy life of his, it was not to be 
 expected that Father Coffey could always es- 
 cape criticism. Wherever a strong light is 
 focused upon a central figure, there will al- 
 ways be some croaking from the outlying 
 shadows. The following is a copy of a letter 
 which Father Coffey doubtless sent, and of 
 which we have no further details. Internal 
 evidence, however, indicates that it is an 
 answer to somebody, who was indulging in 
 patronizing worry over Father Coffey's 
 spiritual welfare. We give Father Coffey's 
 reply:
 
 He Had Compassion 133 
 
 December 5, 
 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 I am in receipt of a letter from you, con- 
 taining a category of questions, which has 
 given me no little surprise and vexation. 
 
 The matter about which you write you seem 
 to be better informed on than I. You are par- 
 ticularly well informed as to date, persons 
 participating and program. This informa- 
 tion you seek from me, yet graciously vouch- 
 safe it yourself. The only question you did 
 not ask was whether I had attended the af- 
 fair. No doubt you diligently informed your- 
 self upon this ; hence the reason for not adding 
 it to your category above mentioned. 
 
 I cannot recall any action of mine that has 
 jeopardized my standing as a priest, for I 
 feel I know when to judge between my official 
 duties and my privileges. This latter I know 
 would require consultation and permission of 
 my superiors. To these would I have recourse 
 had I occasion to do so, and to these would I 
 have to answer and to these only were I 
 rash enough to do anything which might incur 
 their censure. 
 
 I would likewise remind you that my zeal for 
 Catholic principles and discipline, though it
 
 134 He Had Compassion 
 
 may not be spectacular, is nevertheless sincere. 
 Since, therefore, you are better informed on 
 the subject about which you write than I am, 
 I must tell you that I see no reason for fur- 
 ther correspondence between us on the matter. 
 
 D. A. COFFEY. 
 
 Father Coffey's charity was by no means 
 restricted to community emergencies. He 
 was suspicious of what are nowadays stj r led 
 "movements," or "drives." 
 
 "The organized charity, scrimped and 
 iced," found him somewhat cold. He disliked 
 its air of condescension, its too frequent adver- 
 tising of self. He believed, and taught his 
 people, that the best form of charity is exer- 
 cised by the individual in the little circle where 
 God has placed him. "Watch that spot," he 
 used to say, "and you'll find plenty to do with- 
 out any parading." 
 
 He gave constant example of his teaching, 
 No case of need in his parish ever went un- 
 attended ; and he did not wait until the trouble 
 was brought to him. He was aggressive in 
 discovering the wants of others. Particularly 
 was this true with the children. He observed 
 each child in the school and noted when any 
 seemed to need assistance.
 
 He Had Compassion 135 
 
 "Many a time," writes one of the Sisters 
 who taught in St. Agnes' School, "he would 
 order shoes and stockings, in fact clothes of 
 all kinds, sent to the Sisters' house, with direc- 
 tions to have the needy fitted out. This was 
 to be done quietly so that the others would not 
 find it out. It was evident to me why he was 
 so poor himself. 
 
 "I remember too,' ? continues the Sister, 
 "his goodness to the children of the mining 
 camp district. This was a shifting district 
 with the people constantly moving in and out, 
 and besides so distant and isolated a place, 
 that even with the cars to help, it was not easy 
 to reach. Father watched the children there 
 and saw that they were prepared for the Sac- 
 raments. 
 
 "Once a class of twelve of these children 
 were instructed for their First Communion 
 at our school. Father, at his own expense, 
 paid their way in and out. Before the great 
 day he observed that three of them would not 
 be able to dress for the occasion as neatly as 
 they would like to. He fitted out -these three 
 with suits and shoes. On their Communion 
 day the class had dinner in town, which Father 
 paid for. Then the pastor, holding two grin- 
 ning lads by the hands, others holding on to
 
 136 He Had Compassion 
 
 his coat, the rest at his heels, and all chattering 
 together, made their way in a crowd to the 
 movies. 
 
 "In the evening, amid calls of 'Good-by, 
 Fader,' and 'We had a good time, Fader,' they 
 were placed on the street car for home. It was 
 hard to tell who had enjoyed the day most, 
 the priest or the children." 
 
 Tramps had his house marked. He was a 
 "sure thing" for them. He never gave them 
 much money, as they failed to fool him into 
 believing their stories of a cruel world; but 
 he would never take the chance, as he said, of 
 adding the last straw to their burden. "Be- 
 sides," he said, "they earn the little they get in 
 the scolding I give them." 
 
 The "scolding" was a straight talk to them 
 to get to work and take care of themselves. 
 Some of them he started again on the good 
 road by getting them work in the mills. 
 
 Often in conversation he would remark that 
 he had to get a pair of shoes, as he had only 
 one pair. 
 
 "Why, where are your shoes? You had two 
 pairs last week," said one who had seen them. 
 
 "Oh, there was a poor fellow over at the 
 house the other day," said Father Coffey, "and 
 his shoes looked so bad, I gave him mine."
 
 He Had Compassion 137 
 
 When the children presented him with a 
 Christmas gift in money, he would immedi- 
 ately plan to return it in some way for their 
 good. 
 
 He noted what one might call little needs in 
 the children, things that inexperienced parents 
 overlooked. A child showed by his actions in 
 class that he was shortsighted. Father Cof- 
 fey would attend to him when the parents 
 could not afford it. 
 
 Jimmie was a tall gangling young lad, just 
 at the awkward age, and very nearsighted. 
 Father Coffey met him one day and said: 
 
 "Let's take a ride, Jimmie. I want you to 
 help me." 
 
 "All right, Father," said Jimmie. 
 
 They boarded a car and rode to Steuben- 
 ville, Jimmie wondering what was in the air. 
 Alighting, they went straight to the oculist, 
 Jimmie shuffling along after Father Coffey's 
 fast walk, and elbowing a lane among the 
 passengers along the street. 
 
 "I want this boy's eyes examined," said 
 Father Coffey to the oculist. "If you can, 
 have the glasses done to-day." 
 
 The examination was made. The oculist 
 arranged with the optician to have the glasses 
 done that afternoon.
 
 138 He Had Compassion 
 
 Father Coffey and Jimmie met at the ap- 
 pointed time at the optician's. There Jimmie 
 put on his first pair of glasses. The new ad- 
 justment of his vision bewildered him and he 
 stared around at the people in the store like 
 an owl out of a tree. 
 
 Father Coffey looked up at six-foot Jimmie, 
 in his quizzical way, and then in a serious and 
 business-like tone, said: 
 
 "Come, Secretary," and with the dignity of 
 a drum major, marched out of the store with 
 Jimmie tumbling along after him. 
 
 Mr. Klein, a clothing merchant of Mingo, 
 saw Father Coffey coming into his store on a 
 very cold winter morning. Looking a second 
 time, he saw a tiny lad alongside of Father. 
 He came over to them. 
 
 "Mr. Klein, I just picked this little fellow 
 up along the street. Dress him up, or he'll 
 freeze to death. He needs everything." 
 
 The boy had on only a ragged pair of trous- 
 ers; he was barefooted, hatless and naked 
 from the waist up except for a thin piece of a 
 shawl he had twisted about him. 
 
 "Sure, we'll fix him up," said Mr. Klein, get- 
 ting busy at once. 
 
 "What is his name?" 
 
 "I didn't have time to find out his name nor
 
 He Had Compassion 139 
 
 where he comes from," answered Father Cof- 
 fey. "I just dragged him in here before he'd 
 perish. But we'll have it now. What is your 
 name, son?" 
 
 He took down the boy's name and his ad- 
 dress. Mr. Klein fitted him out from top to 
 toe and the lad smiled. 
 
 "Now," said Father Coffey, "we'll go out 
 and put something inside that frozen stomach, 
 and then I'll bet you'll laugh. What is the 
 bill, Mr. Klein?" 
 
 "I'll take care of the bill, Father," said Mr. 
 Klein. 
 
 "Thank you, Mr. Klein. Now" (to the 
 boy), "we'll go out and get that laugh that's 
 coming to us." 
 
 And the two had breakfast together. 
 
 "I'll never forget Father Coffey," said Mr. 
 Klein, after telling me this story. "When my 
 mother died and I was called away suddenly 
 to New York, the first thing to console me 
 there, was a telegram of sympathy from 
 Father. I didn't have time to tell any one 
 why I was going, but Father Coffey saw the 
 store closed the next day and found that my 
 mother had died; and he went right away and 
 wrote words that helped me." 
 
 When Father Coffey died, Mr. Klein,
 
 140 He Had Compassion 
 
 though of the Jewish faith, sent an offering 
 for Masses for the repose of his friend's soul. 
 
 I always like to think of Father Coffey as 
 he was in those golden days of his ministry. 
 The first impression I had of him was that of 
 dignity, and this impression remained through 
 the intimacy of after years of friendship. It 
 was, I think, the general impression. A dear 
 invalid lady, who knew him well, but who had 
 not seen him for years, speaking of him a short 
 time back, said in her soft whisper, "Wasn't 
 he dignified !" The dedicatory page of Father 
 Powers* booklet, In Memoriam, describes him 
 as a man respected and loved by all who knew 
 him. Respect was the earliest feeling Father 
 Coffey inspired. 
 
 His appearance conveyed this sense at once. 
 He was tall, just under six feet, and very 
 erect in bearing; not the least stiff, however, 
 nor military in carriage. On the contrary, 
 his every movement was a combination of 
 flexible grace and easy alertness. He was 
 rapid in his walk, in his actions, but with no 
 suggestion of hurry. A quiet, unstudied ac- 
 curacy, a "deliberate speed, majestic instancy" 
 pervaded all he did and revealed that thought 
 was well in advance of action and that he 
 knew exactly what he was about. Though he
 
 He Had Compassion 141 
 
 created in every one about him an atmosphere 
 of contentment and repose, yet the memory of 
 him is not of one at rest, but of one eagerly 
 pressing forward. His soul had caught the 
 quenchless fire from Him who "went about 
 doing good."
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 A PORTRAIT AND A WALK 
 
 ALMOST simultaneously with his strength 
 appeared his gentleness. This was not 
 revealed as a passive quality, but as an active, 
 even an aggressive, adaptability. What we 
 termed his "approach," his ability to judge 
 each character swiftly and to make just the 
 proper advance to it, was strikingly in evidence 
 at all times. If Father Coffey met twenty- 
 five strangers in succession, he could say the 
 fitting word to each of them, with no two re- 
 marks alike, and the chances are that a dozen 
 of these remarks would be witty and all of 
 them brotherly. He never offended through 
 tactlessness. He never cut unless he had to. 
 One of his parishioners unconsciously voiced 
 this judgment of him in a group of ladies. 
 After some pleasant banter between herself 
 and the pastor, in which a good laugh finally 
 turned upon her, she said: 
 
 "Oh, no one ever minds what Father Coffey 
 
 142
 
 A Portrait and a Walk 
 
 says." She meant to imply that she enjoyed 
 the laugh as much as any of the others. 
 
 The secret of his perfect balance and his 
 gentleness was that he showed respect for 
 everyone as a good father would for his chil- 
 dren, the children of God. 
 
 His voice was the perfect mate to his man- 
 ner. Decision was the first note of it, but in- 
 stantly again one felt it permeated with intelli- 
 gent sympathy. He never gushed. He 
 spoke rapidly, but his words came "trippingly 
 on the tongue," with such clear enunciation 
 that every syllable was caught without effort, 
 and every shade of humor or feeling rose easily 
 to the surface. There was color in his speech. 
 He never spoke loudly, not even in the church, 
 but suited the tone to the idea, substituting in- 
 tensity for volume of sound when desiring to 
 send home a thought. Hamlet's address to 
 the players would be superfluous for Father 
 Coffey. In his sermons, each one of the con- 
 gregation felt that he was being talked to indi- 
 vidually. He had no sympathy for the "lion 
 in the pulpit" style of preaching. 
 
 "Whenever I am tempted to shout in a ser- 
 mon," he said, "I think of the Scripture words, 
 'The devil goeth about as a roaring lion.* 
 That stops me."
 
 144 A Portrait and a Walk 
 
 He was convincing, but neither resonant nor 
 domineering; persuasive, but neither oily nor 
 sentimental. His voice held the intimate note 
 of conversation between friends. His lan- 
 guage was fluent, but apt, never inflated by 
 phraseology nor banked with flowers. There 
 was no marking time in his sermons, nor coun- 
 termarching. He went forward constantly. 
 
 I find it difficult to describe his countenance. 
 His face was full, not fat, and with a touch of 
 the florid ; his hair was dark, his forehead high, 
 looking more so in his latter years of advanc- 
 ing baldness. It was not a countenance from 
 which one would anticipate unusual power of 
 expression; yet this is the very reason that 
 makes it difficult to fix his countenance in a 
 portrait. I have never seen a picture of him of 
 which I could say, "That is Father Coffey," 
 He must have been the despair of the pho- 
 tographers and I imagine he would bewilder 
 even a painter. 
 
 Because the thoughts of his constantly active 
 mind rose to his countenance as the changing 
 reflections of the sky reveal themselves in 
 clear waters, and with a similar dissolving 
 quietude ; not the sudden and startling changes 
 of the nervous temperament, perturbing the 
 observer, but a childlike openness of soul shone
 
 A Portrait and a Walk 145 
 
 out with the sure serenity that betokened as 
 well the dignified inner control of the man. 
 Thompson's lines 
 
 Artless as the air 
 
 And candid as the skies, 
 
 perhaps describe Father Coffey's countenance 
 best. And, admittedly, it is not easy to put 
 the air and the skies upon canvas. 
 
 His mouth was rather small, but showing de- 
 cision, the lips even and well together, without 
 any hint of sullenness or acidity; his dark blue 
 eyes were lively and penetrating, but steady 
 and unsuspicious. He was a little nearsighted 
 and when he wore his glasses, one of his man- 
 nerisms (he was singularly free from these) 
 was a humorous pushing back of his pince-nez 
 upon his nose which seemed to be restive under 
 the pressure. 
 
 "This nose doesn't take well to the saddle," 
 he used to say. 
 
 Finally he would lay the glasses aside and 
 would appear happier. 
 
 If he were indignant or angry, a fierce light 
 would come into his eyes as he stood straight 
 and perfectly silent. Almost at once, how- 
 ever, the internal check to his anger would 
 begin to show in the mingled expression of
 
 146 A Portrait and a Walk 
 
 kindness and of humor that came up from their 
 depths, as though he were saying within him- 
 self, "This is funny as well as serious and we'll 
 find the remedy for the blunder anyway." 
 His anger passed off like a summer storm and 
 his actions toward the person who had aroused 
 it were as natural as though nothing had hap- 
 ; pened. He was very slow in attributing sin- 
 ister motives to others. The only permanent 
 resentment he held was for double dealing and 
 hypocrisy. 
 
 Father Coffey seldom laughed. In an at- 
 mosphere vibrating with laughter, created 
 mostly by his own sayings, he had a bland and 
 innocent way of looking about at the merriment 
 he caused as though astonished and wondering 
 what they were all laughing at. At the same 
 time, one could feel, though not see, that he was 
 enjoying the fun quite as much as anyone. 
 This attitude of unaffected amazement put a 
 rare edge upon his wit. 
 
 On the other hand, his sympathy was mani- 
 fested with equal felicity. His manner, his 
 voice, his looks, his brief but chosen words, to- 
 gether made an impression upon the sorrow- 
 ing and the lonely that they never forgot. 
 
 I had been giving a mission in the neigh- 
 borhood of Mingo and at its close dropped in
 
 A Portrait and a Walk 147 
 
 for a few days rest at St. Agnes' Rectory. In 
 the evening of the first day, Father Coffey 
 said: 
 
 "Come, we've been indoors too much to-day. 
 Let us have a little walk." We strolled out 
 into the town. We had gone hardly a hundred 
 feet when we met a gentleman coming up the 
 street. 
 
 "Good evening, Doctor," said Father Cof- 
 fey, pausing. 
 
 The introductions finished, Father Coffey 
 said: 
 
 "Father, Doctor is the rector of the 
 
 church here." He named a denomina- 
 tional church. "I regret to hear, Doctor, that 
 Mrs. has not been well." 
 
 "Yes, Father, I fear she is failing fast," 
 answered the rector. 
 
 "I am sorry to hear it," said Father Coffey. 
 "Would a change of air benefit her?" 
 
 "The doctors think so, Father, but where 
 shall I get the means?" 
 
 "Your people perhaps would help." Dr. 
 looked dubious. 
 
 "And your friends," continued Father 
 Coffey. 
 
 Dr. knowing what was meant, looked 
 
 gratefully and said:
 
 148 A Portrait and a Walk 
 
 "Thank you, Father. I should not be 
 ashamed to ask you if I needed it." 
 
 "Plan it out," said Father Coffey. "And 
 meantime I shall not forget Mrs. -- in my 
 prayers." 
 
 We moved on. In another moment, 
 
 "Good evening, Andy," from Father Coffey. 
 I looked up and met a handsome giant, a tre- 
 mendous man of flowing muscle and athletic 
 build, straight as a mountain pine and stately 
 as a commanding general. 
 
 "Good evening, Father," said Andy, cheer- 
 fully but reverently. 
 
 "Andy," Father Coffey explained, "is the 
 best worker in our mills, even if I do say it to 
 his face." Andy laughed bashfully, but hap- 
 
 "And what's more," said Father Coffey, "he 
 is one of the best workers in our church. Isn't 
 he a handsome Austrian? He'd have made a 
 fine Captain of the Black Hussars." 
 
 "Father make fun," said Andy in his grow- 
 ing English. 
 
 "And how is the work going, Andy?" 
 
 "Oh, the same, Father. I am just going 
 now on my twenty-four hours. You know I 
 fear them, Father. If anything happens to
 
 'A Portrait and a Walk 149 
 
 me, it happens then. I get so tired. My hand 
 slips foot slips all over with Andy." 
 
 "Now, Andy," said Father Coffey, "noth- 
 ing will happen to you. Say a prayer when 
 you start and often when you are working, and 
 I'll say many prayers for you, too, and put 
 your name in my Masses. You'll be safe, 
 Andy. Good-by and God bless you." 
 
 We came to a millinery store. The door 
 was open and several lady shoppers within. 
 Father Coffey stepped in. 
 
 "A beauty shop!" he exclaimed. "Flowers 
 on the hats and flowers looking at the hats !" 
 
 "Oh, Father Coffey, you're terrible!" said 
 they, meaning he was delightful. Evidently 
 they were ladies of his parish. 
 
 "Aren't these flowers lovely," he said. "I 
 can almost smell them. Miss Nellie," ad- 
 dressing the young lady who kept the shop, 
 "those flowers are a creation. The only thing 
 I fear is that when the ladies bring them into 
 church on their hats, they'll distract the con- 
 gregation. Good evening, ladies!" 
 
 Down the street we go amid salutations 
 right and left, till suddenly we stop. 
 
 "How do you do, Sam?" said Father Cof- 
 fey. "Father, here's a man I want you to
 
 150 A Portrait and a Walk 
 
 meet. This is Sam , and he's a pagan 
 
 Jew. What do you think of that! It 
 wouldn't be so bad if he were an orthodox. 
 But a pagan Jew! I think I'll make a Cath- 
 olic out of him. He's too good to leave out in 
 the cold this way." Sam was smiling all the 
 while, unembarrassed. 
 
 "But Sam is one of my best friends, all the 
 same," continued Father, "and he has a heart 
 as big as himself. We're on the hospital com- 
 mittee together and I know Sam is doing good 
 work. When is the next meeting, Sam?" 
 
 "Wednesday night, Father," said Sam. 
 
 'Til be there. Good-by, Sam." 
 
 "Good-by, Father." 
 
 Now we climb up and sideways and around 
 until we arrive at the poorest section of the 
 town a jumble of wretchedly built houses, 
 impossible of repair. Sanitation, to say noth- 
 ing of cleanliness, was an absent feature of the 
 place. 
 
 "This isn't going to stay this way," said 
 Father Coffey, as we stood together and looked 
 about. "We have been talking over this spot 
 at the mill and a change is on the way." 
 
 To-day this locality is in process of becoming 
 one of the neatest spots in Mingo. Trim, 
 well-kept homes, many of them new, are build-
 
 A Portrait and a Walk 151 
 
 ing, with all the ordinary modern improve- 
 ments, nicely painted and with grassy little 
 lawns where formerly the ash heap flourished 
 the slum will soon be transfigured into a 
 thing of beauty. The steel company has taken 
 up the question of good homes for its employes, 
 has devised a clever and very liberal home own- 
 ing plan, cooperating with its men in building 
 their houses and in paying for them, and there 
 will be no more comfortable homes anywhere 
 than those of the workingmen of Mingo. 
 
 We move across the town a bit, mount the 
 steps of a dwelling and ring the bell. The 
 door is opened. 
 
 "Oh, Father Coffey," says a boy's hearty 
 voice. "Come in, Father." 
 
 Father Coffey looks through to the dining 
 room and sees the family are at supper and 
 are beginning to rise. 
 
 "Don't get up," he calls to them. "We're 
 coming right in to you." They do as he says 
 and in a moment he is among them. After 
 introductions, he says: 
 
 "We're both thirsty, and we'll enjoy a cup 
 of tea with you." 
 
 A place is made for each of us and in an- 
 other moment Father Coffey is cozily chatting 
 with the family of father, mother and six chil-
 
 152 A Portrait and a Walk 
 
 dren, all perfectly at their ease with their 
 pastor. He has a question for each child, with 
 a humorous comment for each that delights 
 everyone. After our cup of tea is finished, we 
 leave them there pleased and happy. 
 
 By this we are nearly back at the rectory. 
 At the corner we come upon a group of chil- 
 dren. 
 
 "Hello, Joe! Hello, Tommy! Hello, 
 Harry! And here's Billy. What grade are 
 you in, Billy?" 
 
 "Jus' beginnin' de firs', Fader," says Billy. 
 
 "Did the Sisters teach you to spell anything 
 yet?" asks Father. 
 
 "Yes, Fader, but not hard words," says 
 Billy, cautiously. 
 
 "Well, I'll bet you can't spell 'house'," says 
 Father. Billy looks pained. "Here," con- 
 tinued Father Coffey, reaching into his pocket, 
 "I have five pennies. I'll give you one for 
 every letter you get correctly. Now spell 
 'house'." 
 
 The ring of youngsters falls back to a stra- 
 tegic distance, leaving Billy in the center. 
 
 "House," says Billy in a far away tone, his 
 eyes wandering to the ring. He comes back 
 from his forage and says loudly : 
 
 "Haitch "
 
 A Portrait and a Walk 153 
 
 "Aitch is right," says Father. "Here's one 
 penny." 
 
 Billy grabs the penny and goes at the job 
 again, fixing his eyes intently upon the ring. 
 
 "I" he announces. He had missed his 
 signals. 
 
 "Here, you fellows," said Father Coffey, 
 turning to the ring. "No fair on that! 
 You're telling. You can't spell 'house' your- 
 selves. 'I' in 'house'!" he said hopelessly. 
 
 "We never told him 'I,' Fader," chorused 
 the gang. 
 
 "Ah, yuh did too tell me 'I'," says Billy, 
 giving away the game. 
 
 "Ah, we never!" said the ring, with deep 
 scorn for Billy. 
 
 "Well, don't tell him anything, or you won't 
 get any fill-me-quicks and ink." 
 
 "Fill-me-quicks" meant baker's cakes and 
 muffins. "Ink" was his name for soft drinks. 
 
 This direful threat reduced the crowd to a 
 suffocated silence. 
 
 "Try again, Billy," said Father Coffey. 
 "House," saying it very carefully for him. 
 
 "O " ventured Billy. 
 
 "That's it," said Father Coffey. "Here's 
 another penny." 
 
 By dint of more pronouncing, he forced the
 
 154 A Portrait and a Walk 
 
 letters u, s, e, from Billy, until the youngster 
 had the five pennies. 
 
 "See, Billy?" he said. "You can spell with- 
 out anyone telling you. After that wonder- 
 ful, orderly class, here's something for the 
 crowd. Get your fill-me-quicks and ink and 
 divide evenly. And don't leave Billy out, 
 either. Now beat it." 
 
 We went into the house and the gang "beat 
 it" down the hill with a whoop.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 A PARISH OF PEACE 
 
 4 'TOURING the eleven years of his pas- 
 JL/ torate here the spiritual progress of 
 St. Agnes' never lagged and the most signifi- 
 cant feature of its uninterrupted growth was 
 the large number of reconciliations he brought 
 about." I quote from Father Powers' mem- 
 orial sketch of Father Coffey. Father 
 Powers, as the neighboring priest in St. Peter's 
 parish of Steubenville, and as a close and sym- 
 pathetic observer of the work done in St. 
 Agnes', had every opportunity of knowing the 
 inner heart of the parish. The outstanding 
 visible blessing brought to the people through 
 the ministrations of Father Coffey was the 
 grace of brotherly love. "Little children, love 
 one another," was the gospel constantly 
 preached by word and example all those years. 
 In a parish like St. Agnes' "The parish of 
 the Five Nations," Father Coffey used to call 
 it it was easy to anticipate misunderstandings 
 
 155
 
 156 A Parish of Peace 
 
 between individuals and more especially be- 
 tween groups of nationally different people, 
 many of whom were brought up in the old 
 country to dislike one another. From child- 
 hood they breathed a traditional atmosphere of 
 hostility and mistrust. Political intrigue saw 
 to it that the earliest impressions upon the 
 waxen hearts of the young were seared in with 
 the hot iron of hatred. Let such a child grow 
 up with this seal stamped in and hardened 
 upon his heart and it becomes second nature in 
 the man. To eradicate it and to substitute 
 God's law, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as 
 thyself," requires divine grace, indeed; but, 
 under God's dispensation, requires also a faith- 
 ful bearer of the torch of grace, a worthy dis- 
 penser of the word of the Spirit. 
 
 Father Coffey was the electric spark that 
 fused these opposite and dangerous elements 
 into one homogeneous and wholesome sub- 
 stance. 
 
 He acted upon the principle that people who 
 like the same thing will ultimately like one an- 
 other; and he was the "thing" they were going 
 to like. I had an opportunity of personally 
 observing his memorable success in this field. 
 
 Arriving in Mingo one evening for a short 
 stay between trains, I was told that I had come
 
 A Parish of Peace 157 
 
 just in time for a parish outing, a boat ride on 
 the river. 
 
 "The Five Nations are going on a moonlight 
 picnic this evening," said Father Coffey, "and 
 you must come along." 
 
 I had doubts of my ability to mingle at all 
 gracefully with the "Five Nations" and felt 
 that my awkwardness would prove a killjoy 
 rather than a help. I pleaded train fatigue 
 and offered to stay at home and keep house. 
 
 "No, no, by no means," said Father Coffey. 
 "There'll be no house to keep. The whole 
 parish will be out." So I went down to the 
 wharf and boarded the big boat. 
 
 They were all there, as he said. The boat 
 was crowded. A band was playing; children 
 chattering over the sides ; young folks walking 
 mostly in twos as well as one could walk in that 
 crowd; the older people grouped in cozy cor- 
 ners. The boat cast off amid cheers from land 
 and shore and the "Five Nations" were afloat. 
 
 But they weren't the "Five Nations" at all. 
 There was only one nation. Instead of seeing 
 distinct parties of Americans, Hungarians, 
 Austrians, Slovaks, Italians, Poles, Serbians, 
 Croatians, I found, after a little looking about, 
 that I could not begin to pick them out sepa- 
 rately. Americans were talking familiarly
 
 158 A Parish of Peace 
 
 with Slovaks; Hungarians "chumming" with 
 Italians; Poles, Serbians, Croatians laughing 
 and joking together, everyone snugly at home 
 with everybody else. 
 
 What was more, I was not left out of it for 
 a moment. I had hesitated to go to the picnic, 
 forecasting the probability of my being a spec- 
 ter at the feast; but once I got aboard that 
 boat, I wasn't allowed to hesitate. I didn't 
 have to make any advances. They made the 
 advances. I was invited to sit down here, and 
 called to come over there, and hailed from the 
 upper deck and waved at from the lower deck, 
 until I began to feel like the nominee for the 
 Presidency. 
 
 They had brought lunches with them and I 
 was in on the lunches or they were in on me, 
 as I found out afterwards. I ate Hungarian 
 sausage laid on Slovakian cakes; I juggled 
 Italian spaghetti between bites of Croatian 
 cheese; I swallowed American ice-cream, and 
 let me speak it in a whisper I drank Bul- 
 garian beer. It was a fearsome performance. 
 Being all things to all men sometimes has its 
 aftermath. The specters at the feast came 
 around the next day. 
 
 The old folks talked with me as though they 
 had known me all their lives. The youngsters
 
 A Parish of Peace 159 
 
 asked me to play games that demanded the 
 agility of a rabbit. Meantime the band kept 
 swinging into one air out of another until we 
 were well on our way. Then the dancers be- 
 gan. There were American quadrilles, and 
 Irish reels, and Scotch flings, and Hungarian 
 hops, and Slavish folk dances and all were ap- 
 plauded and appreciated. 
 
 Moving constantly in and out through the 
 throngs went Father Coffey, like a humming 
 bird, with a word here and a joke there; an 
 inquiry of one person, a bit of news for an- 
 other ; paying special attention to the old peo- 
 ple and seeing that they were comfortable and 
 had everything they wished for. He must 
 have walked twenty miles that night, but it was 
 twenty miles on the road to happiness. 
 
 "Here," I found myself thinking, "is a re- 
 production of the early Christians. 'Every 
 nation under heaven' and all understanding 
 one tongue, as it were, the Pentecostal tongue 
 of love." Any bystander could say, too, as 
 was said of those same early Christians, "How 
 they love one another!" 
 
 I looked out on the serene night. The boat 
 was gurgling melodiously through the shim- 
 mering ripples. The band struck softly the 
 "O Sanctissima" and a quiet came over the
 
 100 A Parish of Peace 
 
 crowd. The boat was slipping into her land- 
 ing place. I looked up. The round moon 
 was shining down contentedly. 
 
 "Oh, look," said one of the children. "The 
 man in the moon is smiling at us." 
 
 "No wonder," I said. 
 
 Another thought struck me as we walked up 
 to the house after the picnic. Over the whole 
 boat all the conversations, the joking and the 
 merriment, had been carried on in the English 
 language and the entire entertainment was 
 American in tone. Father Coffey had solved 
 the problem of the melting pot. 
 
 One of the reasons for such a success, 
 achieved within ten years, was the unwearied 
 service Father Coffey gave to the parishioners. 
 In all his time with them he took but one vaca- 
 tion of any extent ; and he never left his parish 
 a day without a priest. He established Sodal- 
 ities, with one of the Sisters acting as Prefect 
 for the ladies. He had a great devotion to 
 the Blessed Sacrament and to the Sacred 
 Heart. The first Friday was a special day in 
 the parish. He insisted upon the children 
 going to Holy Communion the first Friday 
 and any child who was absent was invariably 
 missed by the pastor and was questioned about 
 it afterward.
 
 A Parish of Peace 161 
 
 The Holy Hour was never omitted on this 
 day. One of the Sisters of St. Agnes' School 
 writes: "Father ascribed all his success as a 
 priest and all the blessings, spiritual and tem- 
 poral, that came to the parish, to the devotion 
 of the Holy Hour." 
 
 He had great confidence, also, in the inter- 
 cession of the saints. His favorite was the 
 saint of the poor, St. Francis of Assisi. He 
 was often found in the evenings re-reading the 
 life of this charming saint, and the example of 
 St. Francis doubtless had great influence on 
 his own life. 
 
 He took good care, however, not to ask St. 
 Francis for money. "We'll have to leave St. 
 Francis out of this," he used to say when there 
 was a question of raising funds. "He won't 
 be interested." On such occasions he went to 
 the Blessed Virgin and to the Little Flower. 
 
 He said Mass with great devotion and after 
 Mass he made a visit to each shrine in the little 
 church. If his needs were very urgent, he 
 made a novena of visits to these shrines and all 
 the Sisters were asked to make a visit to the 
 shrines some time during the day. Each saint 
 then had a lamp of oil burning before his statue 
 throughout the nine days. 
 
 Considering all the smoke that poured over
 
 162 A Parish of Peace 
 
 the place day and night, his church was won- 
 derfully clean. His altar boys were well 
 trained and always on time. They observed, 
 too, the rule of silence in the sacristy. It was 
 a crowded little nook, but no matter how loudly 
 those boys had been talking and playing out- 
 side, the moment they entered that sacristy 
 they never spoke unless in answer to some 
 question from the priest. 
 
 "Father Coffey took a childlike delight," 
 writes one of his friends, "in seeing the altar 
 decorated with flowers. Sixty to eighty dol- 
 lars were expended every Christmas and Eas- 
 ter to beautify God's earthly home. For the 
 Holy Hour, too, he always had fresh flowers." 
 
 He was steady and regular in the Confes- 
 sional and strongly urged frequent Com- 
 munion. Missions were held at set intervals 
 and for the portion of his congregation who 
 could not grasp the English well enough, he 
 engaged missionaries who spoke their lan- 
 guage. During the week of the mission, he 
 was in the highways and the byways gathering 
 in the sinners. 
 
 His reputation as a pursuivant made this 
 part of his work comparatively easy. Hard 
 shells broke open at his touch and slackers, at 
 his approach, emerged from their dugouts.
 
 A Parish of Peace 163 
 
 "Aw, what's the use," said one of them who 
 had been pursued for two days. "I'm nearly 
 dead, and he'll get me anyhow. The only 
 way to get loose from him is to jump in the 
 river." 
 
 One instance of his following the strayed 
 sheep occurs to me. During a mission we had 
 been giving in his parish, he frequently be- 
 wailed the fact that there was one man whom 
 he could not get, who had not been near the 
 church for years. 
 
 "And yet Bill is a good fellow," he said. 
 "He has the loveliest children going to our 
 school and he provides well for his family. I 
 can't think of him missing this chance." 
 
 Mary was Bill's little daughter. Father 
 Coffey enlisted Mary in the cause. 
 
 "Mary," he said, "you will have to make the 
 mission every night for your father." 
 
 "Yes, Father, I'll make it for him," an- 
 swered Mary. 
 
 Mary came faithfully night after night, but 
 had to report to Father Coffey: "No change 
 in papa." 
 
 "Too bad, Mary," said Father Coffey. 
 "But we'll not give up." 
 
 Friday night came bringing a heavy rain 
 during the services. Father Coffey saw his
 
 164 A Parish of Peace 
 
 chance. He got a big cloak and went into the 
 church, found Mary and told her to come into 
 the vestibule. When there: 
 
 "Here, Mary," he said, "put this cloak 
 around you and we'll run over to the house a 
 minute. I want you to telephone to papa to 
 come and take you home. Tell him to bring 
 a raincoat for you." Mary obeyed, wonder- 
 ing what it meant. 
 
 "Now, Mary," said Father Coffey, "y u 
 hurry back to the church. Papa will be wait- 
 ing for you at the door of the church, but don't 
 you come out that way. You go up past the 
 altar and go down that way to the basement 
 where the religious articles are. Stay there as 
 long as you can, picking out a nice pair of 
 beads for yourself. Don't come out till I tell 
 you. Here's something to buy the beads 
 with." 
 
 Mary was a bright girl and understood read- 
 ily. The services closed and Mary made her 
 way quickly down to the basement. Father 
 Coffey stepped into the sacristy and there hap- 
 pened upon me. 
 
 "Father," he said, "I wish you wouldn't go 
 into the confessional for a while to-night. I 
 have a big fish I am catching to-night and you 
 can help me. He'll be as good as fifty others.
 
 A Parish of Peace 165 
 
 Go down to the basement and I'll meet you 
 there after a while and tell you more." 
 
 As much mystified as Mary was, I went 
 down to the basement and waited. The pur- 
 chasers of religious articles were leaving one by 
 one and nothing happened. Meantime, Bill 
 was waiting before the church door, wondering 
 why Mary did not appear. He began to be 
 anxious and to look in. Father Coffey spied 
 him and going out to him said pleasantly : 
 
 "Good evening, Bill. How did you enjoy 
 the sermon?" 
 
 "I wasn't at the sermon," said Bill, uneasily. 
 "I'm waiting to bring Mary home. I wonder 
 where she is." 
 
 "Oh, Mary!" said Father Coffey, in appar- 
 ent surprise. "I just saw Mary downstairs. 
 She is getting a pair of beads or something. 
 You just go around the church, Bill, and wait 
 for her at the side door below. She'll be out 
 right away." 
 
 A moment after Father Coffey came on the 
 jump into the basement and said to me: 
 
 "You'll find your man standing just outside 
 the door over there. Get him any way you 
 can. I'll let nobody out that way." 
 
 Then he saw Mary. "Don't you move yet, 
 Mary," he warned.
 
 166 A Parish of Peace 
 
 I wandered over to the door, opened it as 
 though to look out at the rain still pouring 
 down and saw a man alongside of me under 
 the arch of the doorway. 
 
 "Good evening," I said. "Big rain we're 
 having." 
 
 We began a conversation which ended with- 
 in five minutes with Bill making his confession 
 standing there in the doorway, the rain splash- 
 ing all around us. It was easy to reach Bill, 
 too. 
 
 I think that in a sudden flash, Bill saw 
 through the whole elaborate plan of Father 
 Coffey and at that moment the grace of God 
 made him see how he was pursued. The 
 "Hound of Heaven" had touched him at last. 
 
 "Thank God!" said Father Coffey, when I 
 told him all was well. "Now, Mary, you can 
 go to your father and God bless you!"
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 STRAWS 
 
 TO assemble such diverse forces and to gear 
 them so accurately as to have them re- 
 volve together without friction, is in itself a 
 notable work. But to keep them as they have 
 begun is the final test of values. Putting a 
 hand to the plow is easy. The difficult thing 
 is to keep from looking back and then letting 
 go. Beginnings may be hard, but the un- 
 broken, relentless continuing at it is harder. 
 The grind of eternal vigilance is wearing on 
 soul and body, yet that is the price, not alone 
 of liberty, but of everything great that man 
 attempts. 
 
 This was a truth that Father Coffey reduced 
 to practice in the upbuilding of his parish. 
 He watched the gearing constantly and as soon 
 as he noted the beginnings of trouble, he acted 
 quickly. His watchfulness did not take the 
 form of gossiping or of spying, however. He 
 tabled nearly all tales and discouraged their 
 bearers. If he considered a report, it was only 
 
 167
 
 168 Straws 
 
 to sift it to the bottom. He did not credit 
 paper statistics. His method was to go to the 
 person involved and there he depended upon 
 getting the truth. Generally he did, because 
 he was trusted. 
 
 His action in any matter was carefully ad- 
 justed to the character he was meeting. He 
 was quick, but never pounced upon anyone, 
 never nagged nor stormed. His intuition was 
 exceptional and his corrections were always 
 flavored with humor. 
 
 One Sunday morning he was entering the 
 church to say Mass, when his eye fell upon Sue 
 Carbery, ordinarily a very staid and unpreten- 
 tious, but to-day a highly decorated, person. 
 
 "Good morning," said Father Coffey. "My 
 God, Sue, you have enough powder on your 
 face this morning to make a batch of biscuits !" 
 
 "Father," replied Sue, not at all discon- 
 certed, "I put on an extra supply. I'm going 
 to be out for the day." 
 
 A widow made a second marriage. A week 
 later the newly wedded wife called at the rec- 
 tory to have the priest settle matrimonial diffi- 
 culties. 
 
 "I am unable to account for the trouble," 
 she said, "as I asked the guidance of St. Joseph 
 in my choice."
 
 Straws 169 
 
 "Poor St. Joseph!" said Father Coffey. 
 "That's the way people treat him. They go 
 in front of him and make pious faces at him. 
 Then they get behind him and shove him 
 around until they have him over in the corner 
 they've already picked out for him, whether he 
 likes it or not; and they put the words into his 
 mouth. If you had let St. Joseph take a hand 
 in this, all would be well; but he has the name 
 without the gain." 
 
 During one of his sermons a baby became 
 restless and began to cry. The crying grew 
 in volume until it filled the church and it be- 
 came plain that either Father Coffey or the 
 baby would have to stop. 
 
 "There are two of us preaching in this 
 church at once," said he, "and I don't know 
 which of us is giving the better sermon. When 
 a baby cries in church, he is telling us two 
 things. First, that there are babies in the fam- 
 ily; and second, that the mother has come to 
 Mass with her baby. On the whole, I think 
 the baby is preaching the better sermon and I'll 
 let him go on with it. In the name of the 
 Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy 
 Ghost." And he continued the Mass. 
 
 A class of boys in the high school got a spell 
 of coltishness and began some of their boys'
 
 170 Straws 
 
 irresponsible plunging and galloping. Sister 
 warned them to settle down, but the spring was 
 in their blood and they had to go through with 
 it. Finally Sister complained to Father Cof- 
 fey, a thing she seldom did, and then told the 
 boys they had better expect something as 
 Father knew of their conduct. They settled 
 down beautifully but they felt the worst had 
 not } r et arrived. A week passed and they were 
 beginning to feel easy, when one morning 
 Father Coffey appeared and proceeded to 
 settle the matter. 
 
 He said no word but immediately started 
 showering blows right and left on the backs 
 of the offenders, with a short rubber hose 
 he had taken from his pocket. They all 
 knew what the punishment was for and 
 their thoughts were not of surprise but of 
 escape. 
 
 There was a large bookcase, with glass doors, 
 on one side of the room and in a moment the 
 quickwitted lads had ranged themselves with 
 their backs to it, knowing that Father would 
 be handicapped by this background. Then 
 they threw up their hands. Father Coffey 
 looked them over seriously and then spoke the 
 only words that were said all through the per- 
 formance.
 
 Straws 171 
 
 "Good morning, Sister. Good morning, 
 children," and walked out. 
 
 It is, perhaps, bromidic to say that all the 
 dogs of the town were friends of Father Cof- 
 fey. Every modern novel hero is "loved by 
 dogs and children." Whether the dogs loved 
 Father or not, we have to say that Father liked 
 dogs. Seeing this, a gentleman of the town 
 presented him with a huge Newfoundland. 
 Father Coffey was very proud of the animal 
 and used to take him out on exhibition walks 
 through the streets. But he had to give him 
 up. 
 
 "That wasn't a dog," he said. "It was a 
 steam roller. I couldn't stand the expense. 
 Every time he leaned against anything in the 
 house, he broke it. After he began caving in 
 the front porch I saw I'd have to take out a 
 new insurance policy for cyclones. He'd 
 make a fine house wrecker." 
 
 Soon after this, his friend Father Ryan pre- 
 sented him with another, a Boston bull dog, 
 they called it. If the Bostonese knew about 
 this, they tolerated a libel. He was the ugliest 
 dog in the world, with a shape like Daniel 
 Quilp's and a face that would have made a 
 gargoyle jealous. When he arrived at the 
 house and was uncrated, Father Coffey looked
 
 172 Straws 
 
 at him sideways over the rim of his glasses and 
 named him, "Pansy." He was loyal to Pansy, 
 probably because of his friendship for Father 
 Ryan. Whatever the reason, to any unfavor- 
 able comments made about Pansy's beauty, he 
 would seriously reply: 
 
 "Pansy is a lovely dog. He's pedigreed. 
 He belongs to a royal family." 
 
 Every morning thereafter, himself and 
 Pansy could be found walking up and down 
 the front yard for Pansy's exercise. The Sis- 
 ters passed that way to Mass in the morning 
 and if by chance the dog would run to the 
 fence to greet them, he would be reminded by 
 Father Coffey calling to him in a tone of pro- 
 fessorial reprimand, "Here, Pansy, choose 
 your company." 
 
 To live with Father Coffey in his home was 
 to enjoy the ideal of priestly hospitality. A 
 visitor there felt that surely enough he had 
 come into harbor. Even outside the charm of 
 his conversation, his "den" was a place to 
 browse about in. He had a good sized library 
 in which there was very little dead wood. 
 Paintings and clever crayons done by the chil- 
 dren in the school were among the most inter- 
 esting of his pictures. Pottery was one of his 
 minor hobbies and there were about twenty-
 
 Straws 173 
 
 five pieces of the different wares set in odd 
 corners. Just outside, on a small porch, he 
 kept some hardy flowers. 
 
 "I can't keep looking out at that smoke," he 
 said. "It becomes depressing. I fight it with 
 flowers. The poor things have nothing to 
 breathe but smoke, though. They're only car- 
 bon copies of flowers, but they cheer me up." 
 
 An hour of entertainment was always cer- 
 tain whenever Father Coffey gave one of his 
 readings in palmistry. He had read some- 
 what on the subject, had acquired some of the 
 phraseology, and it was no effort to him to 
 assume the inspired manner of the professional 
 palmist. This, of course, was his main reli- 
 ance for the complete success of the delusion. 
 
 A casual visitor would easily be led to sup- 
 pose him perfectly serious. He opened the 
 session with an impressive talk on the reality 
 of the hand's power of expression of character. 
 Then in a casual way, he would exemplify by 
 reading a hand of one of the company. The 
 reading always started off with the magnificent 
 qualities of the owner, portrayed so clearly in 
 the lines that they startled Father Coffey into 
 eloquence. 
 
 Just when the client was about ready to 
 vault into the seventh heaven with the sudden
 
 174 Straws 
 
 realization of the marvelous qualities he always 
 knew he possessed, but which never were ap- 
 preciated before, he was winged with the 
 solemn and single word shot at him : 
 
 "But " then would follow a series of re- 
 verse qualities picked right off the same hand. 
 This completely negatived the earlier reading 
 and ran the client with so headlong a descent 
 down into the criminal class, that at the close 
 of the reading he felt like a murderer. Never 
 a smile out of Father Coffey, though the com- 
 pany was in pain with suppressed laughter. 
 He must do his duty here. He must read just 
 what he saw, and his manner and voice sug- 
 gested that he was indeed an oracle. It was a 
 scene worthy of the comedies of Shakespeare. 
 
 He never read the same hand twice in the 
 same way, as the lines changed, he said, with 
 the soul's condition. So that a hero one day 
 would very likely be a villain the next, and be 
 glad he had thus far escaped the gallows. I 
 shall not forget the way he used to close many 
 of the readings of uninitiated clients. 
 
 "The thumb," he would say. "Ah, the 
 thumb " this with an intense stage whisper as 
 though the company must not hear it. "It's 
 the thumb of a primitive hand the thumb of 
 a chimpanzee !"
 
 Straws 175 
 
 His subjects of conversation took a wide 
 range over people and things. He spoke of 
 the absent with respect and no one could ap- 
 preciate with more enthusiasm the good quali- 
 ties of others. Often in the midst of an in- 
 teresting discussion, he would be interrupted 
 by a caller. He never delayed, but broke off 
 immediately and went down to meet the per- 
 son, greeting him cordially and taking up his 
 business with no air of preoccupation. His 
 grasp of a situation was rapid and thorough, 
 his advice clear and decided, so that he attended 
 to a great variety of matters with an unworried 
 ease that was astonishing. 
 
 In addition to all this, he published every 
 month the "Parish Messenger," a sixteen page 
 booklet. The advertising, the proof reading 
 and most of the copy were attended to by him- 
 self. A beautiful poem, or a striking religious 
 thought in prose took up the front cover page, 
 done in color. The articles followed closely 
 the needs of the times. He wrote frequently 
 on Socialism in all its aspects, realizing that his 
 people needed a regular antidote against that 
 particular form of irreligion. Neither was he 
 afraid to say what he thought when political 
 bigotry attacked the Church. He wrote on 
 friendship often and the blessings of peace with
 
 176 Straws 
 
 one another, of the home, of cheerfulness, of 
 the advantages of the Catholic Faith. 
 
 Financial reports were made regularly in 
 the Messenger and the personal chat always 
 took the note of appreciation of the spirit and 
 generosity of the people of St. Agnes' parish. 
 There was thankfulness for all favors done and 
 praise for all worthy work. 
 
 Father Coffey showed in this paper that he 
 would have made a striking writer and a good 
 editor. His style was himself. He talked 
 with his pen. Directness, clearness and in- 
 tensity made his articles interesting every line 
 of them and worthy of the columns of any jour- 
 nal. Humor is not absent and the whole is 
 permeated with religious conviction and a 
 forceful piety. 
 
 If I could put down here the list of names 
 in his financial report, nothing further would 
 be needed to reveal the diversity of the nation- 
 alities he was molding into the best kind of 
 citizens; for he was leavening them with the 
 grace of God in the spirit of the Catholic 
 Church.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 THE LITTLE ONES 
 
 remains, too, a living force for good 
 in the limpid innocence of the children 
 he guarded with a father's care," says Father 
 Powers, writing of Father Coffey's work with 
 the young. 
 
 "No superintendent could take more interest 
 in his school. He was an inspiration to teach- 
 ers and pupils," are the words of one of the 
 Sisters who taught in St. Agnes' School. 
 
 These two brief statements indicate the al- 
 pha and the omega of all Catholic school work. 
 "Interest in the school" as the cause, must have 
 the "limpid innocence of the children" as the 
 effect; and nothing short of this result will 
 satisfy the educational ideals of the Catholic 
 Church. "Innocence in the children!" is her 
 first and her most persistent demand; for she 
 knows 'that without innocence there is no edu- 
 cation. The most unconquerable ignorance is 
 immorality. 
 
 177
 
 178 The Little Ones 
 
 It took no deep research to see that Father 
 Coffey liked children. Written large on the 
 surface of his activities was the predominating 
 interest in the little ones of his parish. In his 
 own nature, there was a boyishness that never 
 waned; and, with the children, he could give it 
 room for play. Besides, as he once said, it was 
 the kind of company that made it easy for him 
 to think of his prayers, "For of such is the 
 kingdom of heaven." 
 
 For their part the children were completely 
 at home with Father Coffey. They would 
 walk right up and talk to him like little men 
 and women; and, while they missed none of 
 the humor and the fun of the talking, it was 
 the serious side of them that appeared above 
 the rest. Instinctively they caught the idea 
 that back of the fun their pastor was reaching 
 out to touch the best and noblest that was in 
 them, because Father Coffey did not associate 
 with the children for mere amusement, simply 
 to pass away the time pleasantly. 
 
 Woven through the apparently aimless tan- 
 gle of quip and jest and passing question, un- 
 obtrusive but distinctly felt, ran the unbroken 
 threads of the greater things, the continuous 
 though happy suggestions of the life of duty 
 that lay before them. He met them upon their
 
 The Little Ones 179 
 
 own level but gently kept striving to raise them 
 higher. 
 
 He did not, therefore, coddle the children at 
 any time, but as occasion offered, told them 
 the truth, sometimes not the immediately 
 pleasant truth, with all the vivid directness 
 that was his; and they looked at him with 
 open eyes and took the truth understandingly 
 and unflinchingly. They knew he loved 
 them. 
 
 He avoided the other extreme as well, the 
 sense of conscious maturity of years and super- 
 iority of wisdom. He did not regard the 
 ofttimes tumultuous presence of children with 
 a martyr's air of toleration of a necessary evil. 
 Such an attitude was not, in his opinion, a sign 
 either of maturity or of superiority. Icy 
 aloofness had no part in his dealings with the 
 young. He was not an advocate of the "Lit- 
 tle-children-must-be-seen-and-not-heard" idea. 
 In order to see them at all properly he thought 
 they ought to be heard. "Out of the mouths 
 of babes" he knew that perfect praise of God 
 could come, and he gave his little friends every 
 chance to reveal it. 
 
 Practically he brought these things to pass 
 with an easy simplicity. His visits to the class- 
 room were frequent but not lengthy. He did
 
 180 The Little Ones 
 
 not wish to interfere with the continuity of the 
 teaching. His attitude while there was more 
 that of a guest than of a superior. With a 
 few questions and a word from the Sister he 
 found out all he wished to know about conduct 
 and studies and then he left. 
 
 He watched particularly those children who 
 seemed to lack talent for the school studies. 
 He talked with them, observed them at their 
 play, and wherever they "let themselves out," 
 as he put it. He believed that shyness often 
 kept children from showing themselves at their 
 best. He obtained results from this method. 
 "A child who lacked ability for brain work," 
 writes one of the teaching Sisters, "was found 
 to possess other qualities. These were gener- 
 ally discovered in the ball game played in the 
 alley." 
 
 When a teacher reported a child as being a 
 hopeless case, it was taken over to the rectory 
 and for some time Father Coffey gave the 
 child special help and training. These in- 
 stances led him to be a strong advocate for in- 
 dividual help for the backward pupil, and he 
 was looking forward to the day when such help 
 could be given in St. Agnes' School. 
 
 The children who succeeded were generously 
 and tactfully praised. Father Coffey let them
 
 The Little Ones 181 
 
 know that he appreciated effort more than suc- 
 cess. 
 
 "It is the trying that counts more than the 
 high marks," he told them often. "I'd rather 
 have done my best and be low in the class 
 standing, than be first in the class and not have 
 done my best." 
 
 He was not anxious for the children to try 
 to be "first" in the class. 
 
 "It's a poor ideal," he said. "Later on, 
 when you can't be first, you'll be tempted to 
 think yourselves failures. And as soon as you 
 think that, you are failures. I don't want any- 
 body here to be a failure." 
 
 In order to bring pupils to appreciate things 
 beautiful, he encouraged painting, drawing 
 and music. He would go into the music rooms 
 and listen attentively to the playing, often not 
 an easy task for one who liked the best music, 
 but he always ended with a word of commenda- 
 tion and good cheer. 
 
 He inspected the drawings and the paintings 
 and selected the best of them "to be hung in his 
 salon," which meant his dining room. There 
 they would be seen framed and on exhibition 1 
 for his friends, until the next selection would 
 be made and a new exhibit started. Many of 
 the pieces, too, were sent to friends in Brook-
 
 182 The Little Ones 
 
 lyn, which made the children feel that they 
 were getting into the Louvre or the Sistine 
 Chapel. All of which resulted in a great boom 
 for painting and drawing. For children of 
 their age, their work was excellent. 
 
 At the end of the year, among other prizes, 
 were those for the arts. Father Coffey would 
 appoint from the men of the town, a committee 
 of three, who would solemnly adjudge the 
 merits of the artists. He would hover in the 
 background with an appearance of great de- 
 tachment, but at critical moments dropping a 
 remark that would steer the judges whenever 
 their decision seemed to hang doubtful. 
 
 The reason for this shameful tampering 
 with the ballot box was that the prizes were 
 money prizes and wherever two pieces of work 
 were about even in merit, Father Coffey 
 wanted the money to go to the child that needed 
 it the most. That child usually got the money. 
 
 His financial backing in this department 
 came from Mr. Wisener, who had discovered 
 the school through the artistic penmanship of 
 one of the little girls. From a fifty cent gift 
 for handwriting, he had risen gradually and, of 
 course, expensively, to the art section of the 
 school until one of Father Coffey's latest Mes- 
 sengers announced him as the donator of forty
 
 The Little Ones 183 
 
 dollars to be distributed for meritorious work 
 in painting and drawing. 
 
 Father Coffey also watched attentively the 
 development of individual characters. The 
 restless age for boys begins strongly around 
 fifteen. They feel the school desk a cage, the 
 school hours a prison sentence, the school disci- 
 pline a ball and chain riveted on them. They 
 want to get out of there, away from there, to 
 ramble at will over the earth. The wandering 
 spirit possesses them and they must aviate. 
 
 They throw down the books, those inden- 
 tures of their slavery, and if told to take them 
 up again, they paw up the ground and pass 
 into the sulky stage. They're going to leave 
 school, that's all there's to it. 
 
 This is a problem in any school. When the 
 Sisters met a case that they could not manage 
 themselves, they sent the boy over to Father 
 Coffey to have a last talk before jumping off 
 the cliff. Father Coffey understood this phase 
 of a boy's life and sympathized with it. 
 
 "I know how you feel, Billy," he would say. 
 "You feel rotten." 
 
 "Rotten is the word, Father. I can't stand 
 any more school. I want to go to work." 
 
 "But, Billy, you haven't got your education 
 
 yet."
 
 184 The Little Ones 
 
 "I've got enough. Look at how big I am 
 sittin' in those little seats!" says Billy, wild 
 with mortification at the thought of it. 
 
 "I know that, son. But look at how little 
 you'll be when you get out there swinging a 
 big maul eight hours a day and shoving freight 
 cars up and down the track. The worst of it 
 is you'll stay little all of your life. You'll 
 never get a good job. Nowadays they're look- 
 ing for a fellow with a 'bean,' a boy who can 
 do some thinking. You can't think if your 
 head isn't trained, and what training have you 
 got? Just about enough to drive a coal 
 wagon ! You don't want to drive a coal wagon 
 for the next fifty years, do you, Billy?" 
 
 "No, Father," says Billy, half aghast at that 
 prospect. 
 
 "Listen, son. I was just like you once. I 
 wanted to get loose, to fly up in the air, to trot 
 all over the ground; but I had some good 
 friends. They held me down and I am thank- 
 ing them every day of my life since. Xow, 
 I'm your good friend here. Let me hold you 
 down for a while and I'll guarantee you'll 
 never be sorry for doing what I told you. 
 You'll do that, now, won't you, Billy?" 
 
 "Yes, Father, I'll do it."
 
 The Little Ones 185 
 
 "Come on, now, and we'll go down town and 
 have some ice cream." 
 
 "I don't want any ice cream now, Father. 
 I'll go back to class." Billy settled down to 
 his books again, and, writes his teacher, "we 
 heard no more of quitting from that quarter." 
 
 Occasionally, however, Father Coffey met 
 defeat. This was when the culprit used 
 Father's own tactics against him. 
 
 Five-year-old Harry began wondering why 
 the afternoons in school seemed so long. Af- 
 ter deep thought he struck for shorter hours by 
 the simple plan of "bumming" from school. 
 He took the afternoons of a week off visiting 
 neighbors. His parents discovered him and 
 were greatly alarmed at Harry's early start as 
 a bushranger. After chastising him them- 
 selves, they asked Father Coffey to help them 
 in Harry's reformation. Harry was called to 
 the rectory. He sat in a little chair, looking 
 with round, sad eyes at Father Coffey. The 
 pastor spoke to him. 
 
 "Harry, I hear that you have been running 
 away from school." 
 
 No word out of Harry. 
 
 "Don't you know that's naughty?" 
 
 Still an eloquent silence.
 
 186 The Little Ones 
 
 "And if you run around with nobody to help 
 you, don't you know that some day a big rho- 
 dodendron will come galloping down the street 
 and grab you?" 
 
 A little shiver from Harry at the thought of 
 the galloping rhododendron, but no other re- 
 sponse. 
 
 "Well, Harry, I don't know what to do with 
 you," said Father. 
 
 Harry got up from his chair, ran up to 
 Father Coffey and threw his arms about 
 Father's neck and kissed him. 
 
 "I was conquered," said he, telling the story 
 afterward. "That ended the correction." 
 
 The children liked to give him presents and 
 he took them for the pleasure they got from 
 the giving. He carried about with him a little 
 match box, a Christmas present from a poor 
 boy, with as much appreciation of it as of a 
 costly diamond. 
 
 Their group gift to him at Christmas time 
 was always planned as a "surprise." One year 
 he mentioned to the Sisters that if the children 
 wanted to give him a camera at Christmas it 
 would be welcome, but that he desired to select 
 a particular kind. 
 
 "I'll be surprised," he said. 
 
 Naturally a camera was decided upon by the
 
 The Little Ones 187 
 
 children as the mysterious gift to Father Cof- 
 fey. He ordered the camera himself, had it 
 sent to the house and examined it. Then he 
 sent it to the school. 
 
 The presentation was made. Father was 
 delighted and very much surprised. On the 
 moment he decided to take a snapshot of the 
 whole school as they stood before him. He 
 adjusted the camera and suddenly discovered 
 that a part was missing. 
 
 "Frank," he said, forgetting that he had 
 been ^surprised," "go over to the house and 
 get that missing part." 
 
 "Sister," asked the children, "how did a part 
 of our camera get over in Father's house?" 
 They were the ones surprised. 
 
 Every year, the children had their Christ- 
 mas tree, trimmed by the young ladies of the 
 parish to look like a little corner of Paradise, 
 and hung with all kinds of glittering gifts. 
 They had their school picnic, too, and there 
 Father made the boys learn how to wait on the 
 Sisters, reversing the schoolroom process. 
 
 We have touched upon his spiritual care of 
 the children when speaking of the general 
 parish devotion. The "limpid innocence" of 
 those young souls testifies to the worth of his 
 work there.
 
 188 The Little Ones 
 
 In addition to his care that they approach 
 the Sacraments often, he impressed upon them 
 the necessity of much prayer. The Sisters 
 took the children to the church at eight o'clock 
 to recite the rosary. Frequently he would call 
 from his front porch as they were passing, 
 "Sister, have them say the beads for my inten- 
 tion to-day." 
 
 Their school days over, he helped the boys to 
 get positions, and followed them as they grew 
 up. I remember inquiring about one of the 
 boys in whom I was interested. 
 
 "He is working at ," he answered. "But 
 they'll ruin him there from all I hear of the 
 place. I'm getting him another position." 
 
 It is easy to conclude that in all his dealings 
 with the Sisters as to the management of the 
 school, there was an entire absence of friction. 
 His admiration of the work of Sisters in gen- 
 eral, and in particular of those of his own 
 school, was unbounded and was often ex- 
 pressed. He did everything in his power to 
 make their heavy work lighter and to rob 
 teaching of its impending threat of monotony. 
 It was his little kindnesses that did this, rather 
 than any spectacular attempts at diversion. 
 An incident that occurred on his first day in 
 Mingo will indicate his spirit all through.
 
 The Little Ones 189 
 
 "Sister X, our music teacher," writes one of 
 the Sisters, "had been wishing for an organ for 
 the school, but so far there seemed to be no 
 prospect of getting one. I think that it was 
 during Father Coffey's first visit with us that 
 Sister mentioned the fact. Father laughingly 
 answered : 
 
 "Sister, I am shipping an organ with my 
 furniture and if you can intercept it before it 
 reaches my house, you may keep it." 
 
 "My good Sister, nothing daunted, took 
 Father at his word and watched every load of 
 furniture that came up the hill. She was 
 about to give up, when to her joy, along comes 
 the dray with the coveted organ. She stepped 
 outside and ordered the driver to place the 
 organ in the school. 
 
 " 'It was a plot,' said Father Coffey, 'but I'll 
 enjoy the plot and I hope you'll enjoy the 
 organ.' ' 
 
 He loved music and he had surrendered the 
 only musical instrument he possessed.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 AN ADVENTURE IN OIL 
 
 OIL is a synonym for smoothness, but in 
 these modern days it has made rough 
 going for a sufficient number of our progres- 
 sive countrymen who have gone out to seek it, 
 if not with the high motives of a follower of the 
 grail, at least, with the persistent hardihood of 
 a voyager after the "Fountain of Youth." 
 
 One thing an oil boom will do for any section 
 of country it will convert that land into the 
 ugliest territory under heaven. The land of 
 oil certainly does not look like the land of milk 
 and honey. 
 
 "Ah," the oil enthusiasts will breathe at you, 
 "it may be homely, but it is rich. The hands 
 may be the hands of Esau, but the voice is the 
 voice of Jacob. And the sound of that voice 
 is all we care about. It sings grand opera 
 for us." 
 
 The oil boom struck Mingo, shortly after 
 Father Coif ey was appointed as pastor. The 
 whole district still bears the marks of the dis- 
 
 190
 
 An Adventure in Oil 191 
 
 ease. Hundreds of skeleton derricks, like 
 hideous gibbets, stud the land at intervals all 
 about the scene (in many cases still active) of 
 feverish diggings and drillings. 
 
 It is easy to stand at a distance and express 
 a cold detachment from oil wells. A differ- 
 ence comes with the inhalation of the oil atmos- 
 phere. Only those who have lived in a com- 
 munity blessed, or afflicted, with oil, can pro- 
 perly gauge the situation, feel the thrill or even 
 outline the experiences. It would take the 
 "movie" with its rapid succession of trans- 
 formation, to convey the correct impressions 
 to the uninitiated. 
 
 When the first test around Mingo resulted 
 in a considerable show of oil, there was a mad 
 scramble for leases. The Widow Jones, who 
 owned a quarter of acre of weedy ground, dis- 
 covered after signing a paper she could 
 scarcely read, that her shack was now located 
 on "The Golden Stream Oil and Gas Com- 
 pany" lease, with a flock of agents making a 
 sortie on every "tenderfoot" that came near 
 their web and inviting said tenderfoot after 
 payment of a nominal sum, a mere nothing, to 
 dip his barrels into the "golden stream" and to 
 fill them with the food of millionaires. 
 
 Most of the leases were esteemed so valuable
 
 192 An Adventure in Oil 
 
 that they were held on the basis of "sixteenths." 
 That is to say, the stock was divided into six- 
 teen parts and priced to cover the entire cost 
 of lease, drilling and equipping. 
 
 Father Coffey used to tell of one man who 
 had a very small property. With no means to 
 finance drilling, he organized a stock company 
 selling "sixteenth" shares at one hundred and 
 seventy-five dollars. 
 
 A wild dash was made for the new spot. 
 Investors tumbled over one another to pick up 
 their fortune in oil. When this particular or- 
 ganizer came to take account of his properties, 
 he discovered, Father Coffey said, that he had 
 sold forty-two "sixteenths." Drilling had be- 
 gun and now he stood facing the law and per- 
 haps a prison sentence for fraud. 
 
 The only escape was prayer and he began 
 to pray God that no oil would be struck on his 
 land. 
 
 "Any time of the night," said Father Coffey, 
 "you could come upon the old man wandering 
 around that claim beseeching the Lord that if 
 He had put oil under this lease, He would 
 drain it off before the drill got through the cap- 
 rock. He was the only one in the locality who 
 prayed that he might not 'strike it rich.' '
 
 An Adventure in Oil 193 
 
 And, as Father Coffey told it, he was the 
 only one who obtained his petition. 
 
 Looking on at a scene like this and seeing 
 everyone "squeezing the oil out of the ground 
 right under his nose," Father Coffey began to 
 think. He met men who, a few months back 
 had hustled a pick and shovel, now lolling sar- 
 torially and senatorially in luxurious automo- 
 biles. He heard women whom he had seen 
 hanging out the family wash and sweeping the 
 front sidewalk, now languidly ordering their 
 chauffeurs and moaning about their maids and 
 their oriental rugs. 
 
 "Is there no balm in Gilead?" thought 
 Father Coffey. His mind was not upon him- 
 self but upon his church. Everyone else was 
 getting the oil. Why couldn't his parish have 
 some. Then he would have the new church 
 and the new school and everybody would live 
 happily ever afterwards. 
 
 "The Lord filled the widow's cruse with 
 oil," he said, "and we need oil in this parish just 
 as much as she ever did. I'm going to pray 
 for something to happen to us in oil." 
 
 Sure enough, something did happen. 
 Friends who had organized a local company 
 gave him a present of some stock. They "car-
 
 194 An Adventure in Oil 
 
 ried him along for luck," they said. Then they 
 started drilling their first well. 
 
 "Never in my life," said Father Coffey, 
 "shall I forget the days of that baby well. 
 The excitement was frightful, increasing as 
 the drill went down. We would go out every 
 day to see how the work went on. No reason 
 for our being there, but we couldn't stay away. 
 Talked oil all the time. If anyone had asked 
 me how to spell any word at all, I'd have said, 
 'O-i-1.' And if eyes were drills, we'd have 
 been down a thousand feet in a minute. 
 
 "Then we'd meet over to one side and dis- 
 cuss profoundly how we were to dispose of our 
 profits. That new English Gothic church I 
 was after became so real that I got to be sur- 
 prised of mornings on looking out my window 
 not to see it there on the hill. It seemed, in 
 fact, that each one slept with a pad and a pencil 
 beneath his pillow so that if he awoke in the 
 night, dreaming of a new way to spend his 
 fortune, he might write it down before another 
 idea replaced it." 
 
 The day the well came in, found all the pro- 
 moters gathered around the derrick looking on 
 at the last preparations before the drill was 
 sent into the pay sand. 
 
 "We stood there," said Father Coffey,
 
 An Adventure in Oil 195 
 
 "trying to assume that look of stolid manly im- 
 perturbability, but inside we were shrieking 
 with excitement." 
 
 The cap-rock was struck. The drill went 
 into the pay sand. Just heavens! No oil! 
 
 "We took a last look at the corpse," con- 
 cluded Father Coffey, "and left like a lot of 
 pall bearers. I don't know how I got home. 
 I think I walked home backwards." 
 
 Though no oil had been found and though 
 disappointment was keen, yet what was 
 strange to Father Coffey was the feeling of 
 confidence which quickly reasserted itself in 
 all except himself. They met again and 
 talked much about the dead well. The quality 
 of the sand was good anAthe quantity fair. 
 They got into a pleasant glow over that sand 
 which surely indicated oil nearby. 
 
 Father Coffey surveyed the group, now on 
 their way to a second jump, owing to the 
 splendid sand they got in the dead well. They 
 poured so much sand around him that he finally 
 interrupted them, saying: 
 
 "Gentlemen, I thought I was given stock 
 in an oil company, but I find I have been 
 swindled into accepting shares in a sand bank." 
 
 Other gifts of stock followed the first, al- 
 ways with the same result. Believing that his
 
 196 An Adventure in Oil 
 
 luck might change, if he invested some money, 
 he took a sixteenth in a well about to be drilled 
 in West Viiginia. A reputed authority on oil 
 prospects offered him a "sixteenth" on what 
 was said to be an excellent lease. Father Cof- 
 fey took it. Not a drop of oil anywhere about, 
 "though I assisted," said he, "in helping to 
 make a pin cushion of that farm." 
 
 One day here when the third or fourth dry 
 hole had "come in," the field man called a 
 meeting of the stockholders. The log of the 
 last well was read and as usual the manager 
 produced a handful of fine sand. 
 
 "We did not hit oil, gentlemen," he said, 
 "but we have the finest sand in the whole 
 district. Put the glass on it and see for your- 
 selves." 
 
 Father Coffey, impatient of this eternal 
 sand, looked grimly at the few grains that had 
 been poured into the palm of his hand and 
 said: 
 
 "It has cost me more to see that sand than 
 to see the whole of Europe." 
 
 One might imagine that such disastrous at- 
 tempts to "get oil" would have discouraged 
 him. Not so. 
 
 "It appears to me," he said, "that I am on 
 the wrong side of this oil business. In every
 
 An Adventure in Oil 197i 
 
 company I am referred to as the 'party of the 
 second part.' The party of the first part se- 
 cures the lease, portions out the cost, signs the 
 beautifully engraved certificates, and thought- 
 fully permits 'party of the second part' to bear 
 the expenses. I shall become the 'party of the 
 first part.' ' 
 
 The idea was more quickly realized than he 
 had expected. A man whom Father Coffey 
 had befriended, wishing to show his gratitude, 
 as he said, tried to get him to induce friends 
 to invest in a new company. Father Coffey 
 investigated and discovered that the fellow 
 had no leases whatever in the county he claimed 
 was largely his. During his investigation, 
 however, the same leases were offered him and 
 thus within a few short hours he had reached 
 what seemed to him, from his past experiences, 
 the summit of oil fame. He had become a 
 "party of the first part." 
 
 The "party of the first part" had an agent 
 lease up about one half of a big county. It 
 didn't seem to matter much whether the geo- 
 logical survey showed the territory decid- 
 edly poor in oil bearing sands ; or, that for the 
 most part only small quantities of gas were 
 discovered, barely sufficient to heat the farm 
 house adjoining the well.
 
 198 An Adventure in Oil 
 
 His utter disregard, too, of so primary a 
 factor in oil as "sand" provoked endless amuse- 
 ment among his friends. He never could be- 
 lieve in the necessary connection of the two. 
 So with a magnificent and ritual solemnity 
 that only a Father Coffey could lend to such 
 an occasion, he signed a contract for a well on 
 one of his leases. 
 
 The driller employed had an outfit which 
 might possibly do to drill a water well, but 
 never under any circumstances could reach 
 even a shallow pool of oil, had one been there. 
 The driller knowing less about the "party of 
 the first part" than Father Coffey did about 
 him or his rig, insisted that the money for the 
 drilling be deposited in a bank in the vicinity 
 of the operations. Father Coffey agreed. 
 
 Accompanied by a friend, he went in to 
 Cleveland, not far from the place, and not be- 
 ing acquainted with any of its banking insti- 
 tutions, wandered up and down, surveying 
 with a critical eye the various banking houses. 
 Finally, a massive pile with huge Corinthian 
 columns, struck his eye. 
 
 "That's the bank for me!" he said. "It cer- 
 tainly looks strong." 
 
 Entering the bank, he was met by one of 
 the officials to whom he explained his business,
 
 An Adventure in Oil 199 
 
 with such impressiveness that a special trust 
 officer was detailed to wait upon him, and he 
 and his friend were conducted to a private 
 booth. 
 
 "I am the president of an oil company," said 
 Father Coffey with the suave and confidential 
 condescension of a magnate, "and this is my 
 manager. We have located new and wonder- 
 ful oil bearing lands in this vicinity and we 
 contemplate extensive operation. We shall 
 astonish the country. Our intention is to 
 make this bank our sole depository and I have 
 come to-day to make a preliminary deposit, 
 merely to insure the business." 
 
 The officer listened carefully, with increas- 
 ingly deferential attention as the language of 
 Father Coffey grew grandiloquent. At its 
 close he was evidently expecting a first de- 
 posit of not less than twenty-five thousand 
 dollars. In a most respectful tone the officer 
 finally came to the point. 
 
 "And how much would you like to deposit 
 with us?" 
 
 "Just this for to-day," said Father Coffey, 
 "merely as a preliminary, you understand." 
 And he laid on the table three hundred and 
 fifty dollars. 
 
 "What!" exclaimed the official, in a tone of
 
 200 An Adventure in Oil 
 
 poorly suppressed disgust. "I understood you 
 to talk of oil wells. Perhaps I was mistaken. 
 It must be a water well you are drilling." 
 
 "Water well!" said Father Coffey, with 
 hauteur. "Do you think I am a President of 
 a Water Peddlers' Association?" 
 
 The money was accepted but when the presi- 
 dent and his manager left, nobody walked with 
 them to the door. 
 
 "Did you see the way he looked at us when 
 we gave him our money?" said Father Coffey 
 to his manager when they reached the sidewalk. 
 "You'd think we were two fakirs. When our 
 wells begin to produce, we'll let him see that 
 we'll bank elsewhere." 
 
 After a short interval, word came that the 
 great day had arrived. The well was due. 
 Early in the morning after his Mass, he 
 lighted a lamp at each of the little shrines in 
 the church and told the Sister sacristan to keep 
 them burning all day. He sent word to the 
 convent asking for special prayers during the 
 day for "a very important business matter." 
 Then with thrills of expectancy he left for the 
 scene, dreaming on the way of the new English 
 Gothic church. 
 
 Next morning himself and his manager 
 stood at the well.
 
 An Adventure in Oil 201 
 
 "And how is everything going, sir?" said 
 Father Coffey to the driller, with the dignity 
 that befitted the President of the Company. 
 
 "We're down three hundred and twelve 
 feet," answered the driller. "And I'm sorry 
 to report that the hole is flooded with water to 
 within ten feet of the top." 
 
 "I'm not Rebecca at the well," said Father 
 Coffey. "I came here for oil, not water." 
 
 "There's no oil yet," said the driller. 
 
 Father Coffey knew that whatever little oil 
 had been discovered in that county lay at a 
 depth of over fifteen hundred feet. In spite 
 of this he consults his check book and finds he 
 has funds enough to drill five feet more. He 
 waves his hand. 
 
 "Go down five feet more," he orders, and 
 walks away to survey his remaining leases. It 
 was like sticking one's finger in the ocean to 
 bring up the Spanish Armada. 
 
 But in spite of the thrills and the humor of 
 it, Father Coffey felt that his adventure in oil 
 was drawing to a close. "I see it plainly," he 
 said. "The Lord never intended a priest to 
 be rich." 
 
 He paid some few bills for things he never 
 before knew had reference to the oil industry; 
 ordered a gas stove for a family that had done
 
 202 An Adventure in Oil 
 
 him kindnesses ; bought a ticket for home, and 
 purchased a pair of durable shoes, saying: 
 
 "I'll have to walk to my holdings after this 
 and I'll need to be well shod to walk so far 
 from home." 
 
 Arriving home that evening he passed the 
 Sister sacristan on her way from church. She 
 looked at him inquiringly, as though to read 
 from his countenance the happy results of her 
 care of the shrines that day, and of all the 
 prayers said for his success. 
 
 With a stolid face he stalked by the Sister, 
 but just as he passed, he said: 
 
 "Blow out those lights." 
 
 This was the last of the oil boom for Father 
 Coif ey. Gas was discovered on his leases and 
 he got most of his investment out of it. The 
 rest he refused to credit to the teachings of 
 experience. 
 
 "Experience isn't a teacher," he said. 
 "She's a murderer. She murdered my dreams 
 of a beautiful English Gothic church." 
 
 His ideas of the possibilities in being an oil 
 magnate also shrunk. 
 
 "Being 'party of the first part' is all right in 
 theory," he remarked. "The trouble is that 
 there are not enough people who belong to the 
 'party of the second part.' '
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 A SEA CHANGE 
 
 FATHER COFFEY had been ten years 
 in Mingo and had not taken what one 
 might call a real vacation. His people often 
 told him he should go away for a good rest but 
 he kept postponing it until he could feel that 
 he had things as he wished them. 
 
 In the summer of 1914, he decided to go to 
 Europe for a good visit, to view historic 
 scenes, to study the immortal masterpieces of 
 art, but above all things to see the Holy 
 Father, Pius X, and to obtain his blessing for 
 himself and the parish of St. Agnes. 
 
 For a time after he made the decision to go, 
 he was in the happiest mood and in conversa- 
 tion he would often remark to his friends, 
 "Just wait till I go to Europe." However, as 
 the time approached for his departure, they 
 noticed that his gayety lessened and he began 
 to feel lonesome at leaving the parish. 
 
 "If my ticket were not bought," he now said, 
 
 203
 
 204 A Sea Change 
 
 "I should not go at all. I think I am getting 
 'cold feet'." 
 
 Before he left, an entertainment was ar- 
 ranged for him and the parish presented him 
 with a purse as a token of their appreciation 
 of his work among them. He strove to thank 
 them, but he was so overcome with emotion 
 that his voice failed. They had never seen him 
 moved so. Indeed, the parting was equally 
 felt on both sides. 
 
 Once he started his journey, however, he 
 enjoyed it thoroughly, never forgetting by 
 cards and messages to keep in touch with his 
 parish and to have them share in his pleasure. 
 On the boat he soon became known among 
 the passengers and his affability and usual wit 
 made the voyage a delight. The letters that 
 came to his family after his death from passen- 
 gers who had met him for the first time on this 
 trip, reveal the lasting impression he had made 
 upon them. 
 
 On the way over an incident occurred that 
 serves to reveal Father Coffey in two charac- 
 teristic phases of his character. 
 
 Among the passengers was a lady who was 
 in a very sad state of depression. She had 
 been bereft of a favorite nephew, who was to
 
 A Sea Change 205 
 
 her, she said, as a son. Her grief was piercing 
 and so continuous and so much in evidence that 
 it threatened to cast a shadow over the whole 
 voyage. The passengers did all they could to 
 cheer her, and to distract her mind from its 
 mournful brooding. They failed completely. 
 The more they tried, the more despairing she 
 became until they were themselves infected 
 with the gloom. 
 
 Father Coffey noted this unusual condition 
 of melancholy and set himself to bring cheer 
 and comfort to the wounded heart. He 
 wished not only to relieve the suffering soul but 
 to prevent the passengers from losing the 
 pleasure of their trip. 
 
 Through a considerable part of two days he 
 tried to suggest consoling thoughts, advising 
 prayer and resignation. He made no visible 
 progress. The lady still weltered in grief. 
 The evening of the second day, one of the pass- 
 engers spoke to him and said : 
 
 "Father, how goes the patient?" 
 
 "Worse, if anything," replied Father Cof- 
 fey. "I am a dismal failure." 
 
 "And I think you will remain so," said the 
 passenger. "Do you know when this nephew 
 died?"
 
 206 A Sea Change 
 
 "No, sir, I do not," said Father Coffey. 
 
 "He died just seventeen years ago, Father," 
 said the passenger. 
 
 That was enough for Father Coffey, as well 
 as for the nephew. He went immediately to 
 find the Lady of Tears. 
 
 "Madam," he said, "I am given to under- 
 stand that this nephew of yours is dead seven- 
 teen years. Now I have two strong sailors 
 hired on this boat and the next whimper from 
 you on this voyage, at a signal from me, they 
 are going to throw you overboard." 
 
 That was the end of the Clouded Lady. 
 She was a professional sob artist seeking the 
 spot light. 
 
 Father Coffey's route was the usual one fol- 
 lowed by tourists, with Rome the end in view. 
 When he arrived there, he found, to his great 
 regret, that the Holy Father was in his last 
 illness and had ceased to receive all visitors. 
 Among the friends he made in Rome was the 
 late Father Charles Macksey, the American 
 Jesuit, a professor in the Gregorian Univers- 
 ity. He often spoke of Father Macksey with 
 high regard. 
 
 The war now broke out and Father Coffey 
 was compelled to shorten his vacation and to 
 hurry home. He embarked at Naples for the
 
 A Sea Change 207 
 
 return. This was a voyage of a different char- 
 acter from the voyage out. The passengers 
 were tense with nervousness. They were in 
 the war zone, with the possibility of an attack 
 at any moment from above, from below, from 
 all quarters of the horizon. Every speck on 
 the sea was the periscope of a submarine; 
 every unusual noise an airplane; every whisp 
 of cloud the smoke from a hostile battleship. 
 
 Father Coff ey had plenty to do in removing 
 their fears and steadying their nerves. The 
 following reminiscence from the Reverend Dr. 
 Edwin E. Rogers, Rector of the Presbyterian 
 Church in Bowling Green, Ohio, will convey 
 to us an idea of the poise of Father Coffey in 
 time of danger, and at the same time of his 
 quick thoughtfulness for others. 
 
 "I first met Father Coffey," writes Dr. 
 Rogers, "on board ship the morning after we 
 left Naples late the night before. During the 
 days we were in Naples, seeking passage home, 
 all sorts of rumors concerning the war were 
 afloat, and every one was somewhat nervous. 
 While looking at a queer appearing craft in the 
 distance, I became conscious that some one was 
 near, and looking up saw Father Coffey. We 
 at once entered into conversation, and an ac- 
 quaintance commenced which became more and
 
 208 A Sea Change 
 
 more intimate until we bade each other good- 
 by, September 22nd, on the pier in New York." 
 
 "During our companionship, we talked 
 freely upon all kinds of subjects. Sometimes 
 we discussed our theological views; at other 
 times the problems which confronted us in our 
 parishes, and again our experiences in dealing 
 with certain phases of irreligion. In these 
 conversations there was an unusual frankness 
 and cordiality, and never for a moment was 
 manifest the slightest controversial spirit. As 
 I recall our talks, he appears before me as a 
 brother Christian with a great heart, which was 
 warm towards all that was right. 
 
 "I especially recall the conversation of one 
 morning. I had asked him whether in Amer- 
 ica, and in our day, he found his young people 
 at all restless under the Confessional. During 
 the somewhat lengthy conversation I learned 
 much of the working of this institution of the 
 Roman Catholic Church and saw more of its 
 advantages than I had ever before seen. 
 
 "On another occasion we were discussing 
 the drinking habits formed by some of our 
 young men. He condemned the saloon, con- 
 sidering it as a source of great evil and an in- 
 fluence which led astray many a young man. 
 He spoke of his endeavor to counteract this
 
 A Sea Change 209 
 
 influence and keep his young men sober. For 
 some time when a young man appeared for 
 Confirmation he required him to sign a pledge 
 that he would not drink intoxicating liquors 
 until he was twenty-one years old. The plan 
 worked in quite a satisfactory manner. 
 
 "Father Coffey on many occasions mani- 
 fested a ready wit. Only a few of his sayings 
 at this time am I able to recall. One morning 
 as we were walking the ship's deck, under an 
 awning, we noticed that while it was raining, 
 and the sea was rough, the crew was busily 
 painting the smoke-stack. This was black 
 with a red band, and now they were painting it 
 a dull gray. Everyone was nervous, as no 
 explanations were given for the change. A 
 young lady met us and anxiously asked: 
 
 " 'What does that mean? Are there Ger- 
 man boats near? ' 
 
 "We were aboard an English steamer and 
 did not care to meet German boats. Father 
 Coffey made some general remark, then added 
 something to this effect: 
 
 " 'The news this morning is more assuring. 
 The wireless tells us that the entire Swiss navy 
 has sailed from port, commissioned to devas- 
 tate the valley of the Rhine. And another 
 item is that some Irish battleships are sailing,
 
 210 A Sea Change 
 
 loaded with three thousand heavy-armed 
 Irishmen, who are thoroughly aroused, and are 
 bound for the German front, anxious to be in 
 the fight. When the Prussians meet these fel- 
 lows they will turn and flee for Berlin/ 
 
 "The lady appeared comforted, and hastened 
 away to impart the inspiring news to other 
 despondents. As we walked on, Father Cof- 
 f ey remarked : 
 
 'You know some one has to say something 
 of this sort to keep these poor mortals from 
 hysteria.' ' 
 
 Meantime in Mingo, everyone from the little 
 children to the oldest folk of the parish, was on 
 tiptoe for the return of Father Coffey. He 
 had kept them fully informed of all his move- 
 ments. 
 
 It was planned that the day Father arrived 
 in Mingo the children should go to the depot 
 in a body to meet him. They were to march 
 there in ranks, everything nice and orderly. 
 
 "Needless to say," writes the Sister who 
 tells us this story, "there was very little done 
 with the lessons that day. Just as they lined 
 up ready to march, some one called: 
 
 " 'There's Father Coffey coming up the 
 hill.' With that, the children gave one bound. 
 Ranks were flung to the winds and all the
 
 A Sea Change 211 
 
 teachers could see were heels, as the children 
 ran down the hill to extend their greeting in 
 their own fashion. He had come on a train 
 just ahead of the one we expected. 
 
 "The Sisters were waiting at the convent. 
 The first signs of the advance were several 
 boys pulling a little express wagon which con- 
 tained Father's two suit cases. Then they 
 knew he had arrived. A moment more and 
 three hundred children, with Father in the 
 midst of them, turned the corner at the foot of 
 the hill. 
 
 "All the people were out to extend a warm 
 welcome and as he passed by them he had to 
 greet each of them from the center of the crowd 
 of children. When Father stopped the chil- 
 dren stopped, and when he crossed the street 
 and came close enough for us to appreciate 
 the situation, it was a sight to behold. 
 
 "Each child seemed to think he should have 
 the privilege of being as near to Father as 
 possible. A number of them were holding 
 him by the hands. Others satisfied themselves 
 by catching hold of his coat and trousers. It 
 was laughable, as Father Coifey rarely found 
 himself in a predicament where he was unable 
 to help himself. But this time he was 
 swamped.
 
 212 A Sea Change 
 
 "Walking was difficult and it is no wonder 
 that his face was as rosy as an apple. By pa- 
 tiently picking his way step by step, he finally 
 reached the convent and the first words the 
 Sisters heard him say were: 
 
 " 'My God, this is worse than the war!' 
 
 "In order to free himself from the children 
 he came up the convent steps, looked out at 
 the children and at the people and thanked 
 them for their kindness to him. 
 
 " 'To-morrow,' he said, 'we'll have a grand 
 reunion and I'll tell you all about everything.' 
 
 "Then he said to the children, 'Children, I 
 have been free for two months and I think you 
 ought to have a day. You're free now for the 
 rest of the day. Beat it right away.' ' 
 
 Amid shrill and merry shouts, the children 
 "beat it."
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 .TRADE TILL I COME 
 
 fTlHERE is no man, perhaps, taking him as 
 JL a class, who is more thoroughly uncon- 
 scious of the good he does, than the parish 
 priest. There is a supernatural reason for 
 this and a natural. For the priest believes 
 that as a messenger of God's Gospel and a dis- 
 penser of God's grace through the Sacra- 
 ments, he is merely an instrument in the Divine 
 hands and, therefore, he rightly attributes all 
 ultimate work to God. "I plant," he says 
 with St. Paul, "Apollo waters, but God gives 
 the increase." Always present to his mind, 
 too, are the words of Christ "Without Me, 
 you can do nothing." These words hold for 
 every human being, it is true, but the priest, 
 like Paul, takes them to himself in a special 
 manner as a particular warning against the 
 possible temptation of attributing to himself 
 any of the final results of his high ministry. 
 
 From a natural standpoint, also, there is a 
 reason for his unconsciousness of doing great 
 
 213
 
 214 Trade Till I Come 
 
 good. The priest does not see his work. He 
 does indeed build churches and schools; but 
 should you make comment upon this, he will 
 tell you that it is the Sisters who are doing the 
 good, under God, in the school, and that God, 
 too, is fashioning the souls in the church. As 
 for the buildings themselves, they are simply 
 the shells within which the work is done. 
 "Anyone can build," he will say. 
 
 He moves about among his people, indeed, 
 and cares for them day after day ; but when the 
 very last touch is given that the priest knows 
 means the life of the soul, it is invisible to him 
 and he knows that touch has not been his own. 
 So he goes ahead with his steady routine, 
 busied, as far as his immediate natural view 
 carries him, with the little things. A line 
 added here, a corner rounded off there, like 
 Michael Angelo with his statue. Only, the 
 priest sees not that line nor that rounded cor- 
 ner, nor can he step back at any time and con- 
 template with satisfaction the finished work. 
 He may have a general sense that things go 
 well in the parish, that Mr. Brown or Mrs. 
 Black is doing better now than formerly, that 
 Billy and Margaret are improving and give 
 promise of growing into fine manhood or 
 womanhood; but at best the vision is vague,
 
 Trade Till I Come 215 
 
 misted over with uncertainty to the natural 
 sight, and clear only to the eye of faith. 
 
 The parish priest has not the natural ad- 
 vantage of knowing just how his work is going. 
 He cannot tap the fruit to see its ripeness. 
 He has no gauge to measure accurately the 
 contents of a soul; no speedometer to register 
 its actual forward movement. He plants, he 
 waters, but the increase he must perforce leave 
 
 with God. 
 
 
 
 The professor can quiz his class and ascer- 
 tain just how each individual has seized his 
 lectures; the speaker, by his visible sway over 
 his hearers, the artist through his critics, the 
 man of business from his cash box can esti- 
 mate, each one, his location as accurately as the 
 sailor finds his latitude and longitude. With 
 the parish priest it is not so. He is so close 
 to his work that he cannot see it in perspective 
 and the key to its real progress is held in an- 
 other world. 
 
 An observant outsider can value the parish 
 priest's total work much better, even though 
 he cannot see the multitude of infinitesimal 
 touches that brought that total into being. As 
 a missionary who has moved about for some 
 years in this particular field of parishes, I con- 
 sider myself exceptionally fortunate in having
 
 216 Trade Till I Come 
 
 been able to get at least a bird's-eye view of 
 this wonderful work of the parish priest. The 
 persistent leavening vitality of the Catholic 
 Church, as witnessed in this medium, came to 
 me as a revelation. I had the belief before 
 this, of course, that such was the fact; but it 
 was something almost in the abstract, a mere 
 adumbration of the reality that rose before me 
 with the vision of the actual work. 
 
 The contrast between a district that has its 
 priest and one that has not, is as sharp as the 
 difference between black and white. To re- 
 turn to a parish after some years and to note 
 the steadily higher tides of grace flooding that 
 little world of souls, forces one to cry out, 
 "This is, indeed, the great work of the Cath- 
 olic Church! This is the great answer to the 
 apostolic call, 'Go forth and teach all nations, 
 baptizing them in the name of the Father and 
 of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.' ' 
 
 Yet if one were to ask any priest what he is 
 doing, he would answer, "Planting, watering; 
 'things of the common hour/ ' 
 
 Father Coifey was such a priest. We have 
 looked closely enough upon his life to see a 
 man of unwavering faith, of supreme unselfish- 
 ness, of universal appeal, of resolute buoyancy 
 and a penetrating intelligence, devoting the
 
 Trade Till I Come 217 
 
 best that was in him to an uninterrupted suc- 
 cession of little things. He had no desire for 
 notoriety, for change, for prominent position. 
 Because he felt that God had already put him 
 in what He judged was the most prominent 
 position possible in the world of men close to 
 human souls. He never showed the least 
 yearning for anything else except this work of 
 the Good Shepherd; and when we come to 
 think of it, the noblest action of the good shep- 
 herd in the parable, was that little thing of 
 going after the lost sheep. 
 
 We have not wished, therefore, to present 
 Father Coffey as a man apart from the body 
 of the priesthood. He was unique, it is true, 
 and decidedly individual. But every man is 
 this, though it may not always be caught at 
 first glance. The essential work that Father 
 Coffey did is the work of all priests, each one 
 approaching it in his own fashion, each one 
 differing in personal gifts and opportunities 
 but all with a like devotion to the cause and a 
 like capacity for sacrifice. For they are all 
 modeled on the Great High Priest, Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
 "Were I permitted to use but a single word 
 in defining Father Coffey's character," says 
 Father Powers in his In Memoriam, "I would
 
 218 Trade Till I Come 
 
 say that he was priestly, which means that 
 should duty call him to face danger, he would 
 not turn on his heel to save his life." 
 
 That is the sum of Father Coffey's life. It 
 was his sole aim, his only ambition, to be like 
 Christ, and it is the sole ambition of every good 
 priest as well. 
 
 No matter where he was, or what doing, this 
 sense of priestliness in Father Coffey was 
 never missed by any who had dealings with 
 him, whether they were Catholics or not. 
 When his people lost him, they mourned for 
 him as a dear friend but especially as their 
 priest. 
 
 They were soon to lose him. Contrary to 
 all appearances, Father Coffey's health had 
 never been robust. We can recall how in his 
 home letters from college, he used to mention 
 his headaches. He never made a specialty of 
 health talk, regarding it as a rather self-cen- 
 tered subject, and it played no part in his con- 
 versations with his friends. He suffered much 
 more, however, than any one of them suspected. 
 His stomach, too, gave him much trouble; 
 though with his perennial sunniness of temper, 
 he concealed all dangerous symptoms from 
 those about him until the end. 
 
 The last letter I received from him was
 
 Trade Till I Come 219 
 
 written about a month before his death. 
 Though the shadow was hanging over him 
 then, there was apparently not a cloud in the 
 sky. 
 
 He wrote it during Christmas week, just af- 
 ter his parish had presented him with an auto- 
 mobile, planned by them as a "surprise" gift, 
 but which we can see from the letter, they 
 failed to keep hidden from him. 
 
 The name "Billy" in the address is a rem- 
 iniscence of the mission given in his parish 
 three years before, which coincided with a re- 
 vival given in Steubenville by Evangelist Sun- 
 day. Father Coffey playfully transferred the 
 name to me. It was his fashion among his 
 friends to re-baptize them with whimsical 
 names, as a mark of his humorous affection. 
 
 THIBET, December 27, 1915. 
 My Dear Billy: 
 
 It is very late but I must get a Christmas 
 letter to you, or be ashamed of myself for a 
 long time. Your card, your letter and your 
 book came. Thanks for all, the book espe- 
 cially. It is so fascinating and so practical 
 that I shall read it to the upper grades in the 
 school and then place it in the school library. 
 
 Well, that dinner at Father Kenny's. I
 
 220 Trade Till I Come 
 
 looked forward to the affair with much pleas- 
 ure and was certain I'd be there; but the awful 
 cold I contracted in September was at its 
 worst about that time, and though I had hoped 
 till the last that I might take a chance, yet the 
 view of all that was to come on me at Christ- 
 mas compelled me to give up the idea, and I 
 was a boor the whole day and all the rest of 
 the week because I did not get to ParnelTs 
 Pink Tea. 
 
 The upon whom I relied for a man at 
 
 Christmas, failed me at the last moment. I 
 suppose the fault was mine. I thought they 
 knew I wanted a man, and, not hearing from 
 me till too late, they supposed I had engaged 
 someone else so I had to face the job alone, 
 and, believe me, I was a sick boy. 
 
 I got through all right and after it had the 
 pleasantest Christmas that ever arrived in my 
 variegated career. I had Father Dooley and 
 my cousin, Jim Coffey, now a newspaper man, 
 for dinner and it was the most delightful party 
 imaginable. 
 
 After dinner Dooley donated his Primitive 
 Hand to Coffey, assumed yours, and I insisted 
 on keeping my artistic manipulator in spite of 
 every protest from the parties to the second 
 part.
 
 Trade Till I Come 221 
 
 That seance lasted from two-thirty to three- 
 thirty and at four I was called over to the 
 school to be "surprised." The auto was there, 
 a seven passenger Studebaker! So was a 
 delegation of about a hundred, in the midst of 
 a blinding snow storm. They came from 
 Steubenville and Mingo and were composed 
 of Jews, Gentiles, pagans, besides my parish 
 of Slavs, Hungarians, and descendants of 
 Brian Boru, who will always be found some- 
 where near the priest. 
 
 The gathering was genuinely cosmopolitan. 
 Father Dooley made the speech of presenta- 
 tion. I made one in response and before the 
 cigars were passed the cigars were gifts to 
 me from misguided friends and whilst the 
 enthusiasm was at its highest point, I ap- 
 pointed a committee to be augmented ad in- 
 definitum, to supply me with gasoline and tires 
 for one year. Rejoicing they fell for it. So 
 the car is a free will gift for a whole year. 
 Wasn't that clever for a poor simple thing like 
 me? O Billy, would that I had your brass! 
 
 After that, away we went for a spin over 
 the hills and into the beautiful valleys of this 
 beautiful Ohio country. The snow had 
 stopped and we had fine roads for the first trip, 
 anyway.
 
 222 Trade Till I Come 
 
 Besides giving me the auto and supporting 
 it for a year, Santa was most generous so 
 generous that I shall leave for Florida, on a 
 free trip as soon as I can go after the feast of 
 St. Agnes. That will freshen me up for my 
 work wonderfully. 
 
 Joking aside, all I can say is, these people 
 are too good to me. I would not change them 
 for any people I know. I am perfectly con- 
 tented in Mingo and if I leave Mingo, it will 
 be for the grave. 
 
 This is all the news for you, Billy. The oil 
 or gas well is still in the hands of St. Rita and 
 the Little Flower. Next week must decide. 
 
 Come with me and Father Dooley and Cof- 
 fey on an auto tour next summer. It will cost 
 you nothing. Atlantic City, Long Beach, 
 Massachusetts and Vermont is the outline at 
 present. Come ! 
 
 Adieu, dear Father. 
 
 Fraternally yours, 
 DANIEL ALBERT. 
 
 Father Coff ey hardly ever used the automo- 
 bile and never took the trip to Florida. In a 
 few weeks he was destined to leave Mingo, as 
 he said, "for the grave."
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 THE LAST ROAD 
 
 "fTlHERE are some occurrences to which 
 JL it is hard to become reconciled and 
 against which our hearts continue to protest. 
 Father Coffey's death is one of these. So 
 kind, so gentle, so full of life and energy, it 
 is hard to think of him as one who is no more 
 among the living. Having always given 
 pleasure to his friends and never pain, the 
 thought that death was near him, never entered 
 our mind. Master as he was of laughter, of 
 cheerfulness and mirth, one could scarcely 
 think of death while in his presence, much less 
 associate it with his engaging personality. 
 
 "And still it is true that he is with us no 
 longer. It is true that this genial, whole- 
 souled priest of God, whom everyone knew 
 and loved, is a memory, instead of a presence. 
 But what a memory! A memory around 
 which profusely cluster the endearing qualities 
 of his richly-gifted soul. A memory bright 
 
 223
 
 224 The Last Road 
 
 with sunshine and musical laughter and rich 
 with deeds of kindness." 
 
 These words of Father Powers in his In 
 Memoriam eloquently reveal to us the sorrow 
 and the consternation and the sense of loss of 
 every heart that knew Father Coffey, when 
 they heard the news of his sudden death. 
 
 The end came more swiftly than these words 
 which tell of it. There was no preliminary 
 symptom, no immediate warning. 
 
 On February 4, 1916, Father Coffey was, as 
 usual, about his parish, attending to all his 
 work. In the afternoon of that day, Father 
 Dooley, one of Father Coffey's most intimate 
 friends, called from Steubenville for a short 
 visit. At its close, Father Coffey accom- 
 panied him down the hill to the street car, chat- 
 ting pleasantly all the way. At the post- 
 office corner, they waited together for the car 
 which presently came along. They said good- 
 by, and Father Dooley moved into the street 
 toward the car. As he was about to step 
 aboard, he turned for a last greeting to his 
 friend, who had been standing on the curb. 
 He did not see Father Coffey. He looked 
 again and then saw that Father Coffey had 
 fallen to the sidewalk. Father Dooley hurried 
 back and perceived at once that it was the end.
 
 The Last Road 225 
 
 He tried to talk to Father Coffey but there 
 was no answer. He gave the last absolution 
 and said the prayers for the dying. In a mo- 
 ment Father Coffey died. 
 
 He had said his daily Mass that morning 
 and perhaps, if the choice were given him, he 
 would have chosen the manner of death that 
 God had decreed for him to fall and die under 
 the cross. He died among the people he loved 
 most, with one of his best friends near him, 
 with a priestly hand to bless him as he went. 
 And his last action was the characteristic one 
 of courteous hospitality. 
 
 The lines of the poet, Lionel Johnson, might 
 have been written of Father Coffey : 
 
 As one of us, he wrought 
 Things of the common hour: 
 Whence was the charmed soul brought, 
 That gave each act such power; 
 The natural beauty of a flower? 
 
 Magnificence and grace, 
 
 Excellent courtesy; 
 
 A brightness on the face, 
 
 Airs of high memory; 
 
 Whence came all these to such as he? 
 
 No man less proud than he, 
 Nor cared for homage less; 
 Only, he could not be
 
 226 The Last Road 
 
 Far off from happiness ; 
 Nature was bound to his success. 
 
 Weary, the cares, the jars, 
 
 The lets, of every day ; 
 
 But the heavens filled with stars, 
 
 Chanced he upon the way : 
 
 And where he stayed, all joy would stay. 
 
 THE END 
 
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