Читать книгу The Sunny Side of the Street - Marshall P. Wilder - Страница 7

Table of Contents

My Prophecy to “Major” McKinley.—President McKinley Becomes “One of the Boys” of My Audience; His Attention to His Wife.—How He Won a Vermont City.—A Story of the Spanish War.—My First Meeting With President Harrison.—A Second and More Pleasing One.—A Chance Which I Gladly Lost.—Some of President Harrison’s Stories.—I Led a Parade Given in His Honor.—Vice-Presidents Morton and Hobart.

It had been my good fortune to meet several presidents of the United States, as well as some gentlemen who would have occupied the White House had the president died, and I learned that, in spite of their many torments and tormentors, they all liked to get into the sunshine and that they had done it so much that the sunshine had returned the compliment right heartily, as is its way “in such case made and provided.”

Some years ago while entering a New York hotel to call on Madame Patti I chanced to meet in the corridor William McKinley, who was then governor of Ohio, though his New York acquaintances still called him “Major.” His was one of the big, broad natures that put all of a man’s character in full view, and there was a great lot in McKinley’s face that day,—thoughtfulness, self-reliance, strength, honesty, as well as some qualities that seldom combine in one man—simplicity and shrewdness, modesty and boldness, serious purpose and cheerfulness, that I became quite happy in contemplation of him as a trusty all-around American. He greeted me very cordially and as I was smiling broadly, he asked:

“What pleases you, Marshall?”

“The fact that I am shaking hands with the future president of the United States,” I replied.

Some years afterward, when Mr. McKinley had fulfilled my prophecy, I was the guest of D. A. Loring, at Lake Champlain, and the president and most of his cabinet were at the same hotel. Besides Mr. and Mrs. McKinley there were Vice-President and Mrs. Hobart, Secretary of War Alger and Mrs. Alger, Postmaster General Geary and Mrs. Geary, Cornelius N. Bliss, Secretary of the Interior, and others. Every one at the hotel treated the distinguished guest with the greatest consideration, by letting him entirely alone, so that he got the rest he sorely needed. He walked much about the grounds, enjoying the bracing atmosphere and peaceful, beautiful surroundings.

One day I went into the bowling alley to spend half an hour or more with the boys who set up the pins; boys are always my friends, and I was going to do some card and sleight-of-hand tricks for these little fellows. Just as I had gathered them about me and started to amuse them, Mr. McKinley came to the door and looked in, smiled, came over to us and asked what was going on. I replied:

“Well, Mr. President, I was just doing some tricks to amuse the boys.”

“Then I’m one of the boys,” said the president of the United States. He sat down in the circle and was one of my most attentive auditors. When I had finished he walked apart with me and said:

“Marshall, do you remember meeting me in the Windsor Hotel, New York, and saying you were shaking hands with the future president of the United States?”

“I recall it very distinctly,” I replied.

“I have just been thinking,” he said, “of that—to me, strange prophecy. You must be possessed of some clairvoyant power.” There are some things you can’t tell a man to his face, so I didn’t explain to him that a man with a character like his couldn’t help becoming president, when the whole country had come to know him.

I shall never forget what I saw of his lover-like devotion to his invalid wife, nor her evident gratitude for his every service, nor the sweet solicitude and pride with which she regarded him. One day his brother Abner arrived, went to the portion of the hotel reserved for the president, met Mrs. McKinley and asked:

“Is William in?”

“Yes,” was the reply, “but I shall not let you see him for an hour. He is resting.”

A little incident that was described to me by an eye-witness brought out one of the qualities which endeared President McKinley to his fellow countrymen. While on a brief visit across the lake, in Vermont, he was driving through a small city, followed by a great procession of people who had turned out in his honor. While passing through the main street he noticed an old man seated on the piazza of a modest dwelling, and asked the mayor, who was beside him in the carriage,

“Who is that old gentleman?”

“That is Mr. Philip, father of Captain Philip, of the battleship Texas,” was the reply.

“I thought that must be he,” said the president. “Will you kindly stop the carriage?”

The carriage stopped and so did the mile or more of procession, while the president jumped out, unassisted, ran up the steps, grasped the hand of the astonished and delighted old man, and said:

“Mr. Philip, I want to congratulate you on having such a son as Captain Philip, and I feel that the thanks of the nation are due you for having given the world such a brave, patriotic man.”

The old man, tremulous with gratification, could scarcely find words with which to thank the head of the nation for his appreciative attention, but the president’s simple, friendly manner quickly put him at his ease and the two men chatted freely for several minutes, the president evidently enjoying it keenly. Then after a hearty invitation to visit him at the White House, Mr. McKinley got into his carriage and the procession again started.

Mention of the Texas recalls a visit I made to her when she was at the New York Navy Yard for repairs, after the fight with Cervera’s fleet, in which the Texas was the principal American sufferer. A young officer took me about the ship, showed me her honorable wounds, repeated Captain Philip’s historic remark, made after the battle,—“Don’t cheer, boys; the poor fellows are dying,” and told me the following story:

One of our Irish sailors was very active in saving the Spaniards in the water, throwing them ropes, boxes and everything floatable he could find. But there was one Spaniard who missed everything that was thrown him. Just before the battle we had had religious service and the altar was still on deck, so our Irishman grabbed it, heaved it overboard and yelled:

“There, ye haythen! If that won’t save ye, nothin’ ever will.”

While Mr. Harrison was president I became pleasantly acquainted with his son Russell, who, having read of President Cleveland’s very kind treatment of me when I went to him with a letter of introduction from Henry Ward Beecher, wanted me to meet his father and gave me a letter to that effect. My visit to the White House was quite impressive—to me. Soon after I reached Chamberlain’s, at Washington, a messenger arrived and informed me that the President had received my letter of introduction and desired me to call the next morning at ten o’clock, which I did.

After passing the sentinels at the door I was taken into the room of Mr. Private Secretary “Lije” Halford, who greeted me cordially and said: “Mr. Wilder, the president will see you.” I was ushered into Mr. Harrison’s presence, and the following conversation ensued:

“Mr. President, this is Mr. Wilder.”

“How do you do, Mr. Wilder?”

“How do you do, Mr. President?”

A profound silence followed; it seemed to me to be several minutes long; then I said:

“Good-day, Mr. President.”

“Good-day, Mr. Wilder.”

After leaving the room I turned to Mr. Halford, raised my coat-tails and asked:

“Won’t you please kick me?”

Of course I had to refer to the incident in my monologue that season, for it isn’t every day that a professional entertainer is invited to call at the White House. But I did not care to tell exactly what occurred, so I adopted an old minstrel joke and said:

“I called on the president the other day. I walked in, in a familiar way, and said, ‘How do you do, Mr. President?’ He said, ‘Sir, I cannot place you.’ ‘Well,’ I replied, ‘that’s what I’m here for.’”

I afterward heard that President Harrison was very cold and lacked cordiality; still later I discovered, with my own eyes and ears, that he had a kind heart and genial nature. One summer while I was at Saratoga I was asked by Mr. W. J. Arkell to Mount McGregor, to meet President Harrison at dinner and to become a member of a fishing party. The occasion was the president’s birthday, and the invitation was the more welcome when I learned that a list of the people at the Saratoga hotels had been shown the president, who had himself selected the guests for his birthday celebration. At Mount McGregor I found, as one always finds, wherever the President of the United States is staying a few days, thirty or forty newspaper correspondents, all of whom I knew and most of whom professed to doubt my ability to make the president laugh. This did not worry me, for I don’t love trouble enough to look ahead for it, and dinner time, when the laughing was to begin, was a few hours distant.

We all went by carriage to a stream about five miles away and all helped fill the president’s basket with fish,—for which he got full credit, in the next day’s newspapers. My own contributions were few and small, for I never was a good fisherman. So I was grateful when Russell Harrison took me to a little pool where he was sure we would have great luck. But not a bite did either of us get. Then I recalled something that a veteran fisherman played on me when I was too young to be suspicious; it was to beat the water to attract the attention of the fish. Russell kindly assisted me at beating the water, but the fish beat us both by keeping away.

When we got back to the hotel and to the banquet it was announced that there were to be no speeches, but the president would make a few remarks and I would be called on for a few stories. Consequently I had no mind or appetite for dinner, for most of the guests were newspaper men who had been surfeited with stories ever since they entered the business, and the most important listener would be the president, who the boys had said I couldn’t make laugh.

I was still mentally searching my repertoire, although I had already selected a lot of richness, when the president arose and made some general remarks. But it was impossible for him to forget that at this same place—Mount McGregor, Ex-President Grant breathed his last, so Mr. Harrison’s concluding remarks were on the line that any other whole-hearted American would have struck in similar circumstances. As I am a whole-hearted American myself, they struck me just where I live, and I am not ashamed to confess that they knocked me out.

So, when I was called upon, I declined to respond. Several friends came to my chair and whispered: “Go ahead, Marsh.” “Don’t lose the chance of your life; don’t you know whatever is said at this dinner will be telegraphed all over the United States?” But I held my tongue—or it held itself. There is a place for every thing; a table at which the President of the United States had just been talking most feelingly of the pathetic passing of another president was no place for a joke—much less for a budget of jokes, so instead of making the president laugh I allowed the newspaper men to have the laugh on me. In the circumstances they were welcome to it.

“I allowed the newspaper men to have a laugh on me.”

Nevertheless I succeeded, for the president succeeded in breaking the strain upon him, and later in the day at his own cottage he transfixed me with a merry twinkle of his eye and said:

“Marshall, what’s this story you’ve been telling about your visit to the White House?”

I saw I was in for it, so I repeated the minstrel joke, already recorded. He laughed so heartily that there wasn’t enough unbroken ice between us to hold up a dancing mosquito, so I made bold to tell him that some men insisted that he did not appreciate humor. Then he laughed again; I wish I could have photographed that laugh, for there was enough worldly wisdom in it to lessen the number of cranks and office seekers at the White House for years to come. But I hadn’t much time to think about it, for we began swapping yarns and kept at it so long that I suddenly reminded myself, with a sense of guilt, that I was robbing the ruler of the greatest nation on earth of some of his invaluable time. Never mind about my own stories that evening, but here is one that President Harrison told me, to illustrate the skill of some men in talking their way out of a tight place.

There was a man in Indiana who had a way of taking his own advice, though he generally had to do things afterward to get even with himself. He was a hog dealer, and one season he drove a lot of hogs to Indianapolis, about a hundred miles distant, though he could get nearly as good a price at a town much nearer home. Arrived at Indianapolis, he learned that prices had gone down, so he held on for a rise, but when offered a good price he stood out for more, and insisted that if he did not get it he would drive the hogs back home, which he finally did, and sold them for less than was offered him in the city. When one of his friends asked him why he had acted so unwisely he replied:

“I wanted to get even with them city hog-buyers.”

“But did you?”

“Well, they didn’t get my hogs.”

“But what did you get out of the transaction?”

“Get? Why, bless your thick skull, I got the society of the hogs all the way back home.”

I had long been puzzled as to the origin of the word “jay,” as applied to “easy marks” among countrymen, and I told the president so. He modestly admitted that I had come to the right shop for information; then he told me this story:

“Winter was coming on and a blue jay made up his mind that he would prepare for it. He found a vacant hut with a knot-hole in the roof, and he said to himself, ‘Here’s a good place to store my winter supplies,’ so he began to collect provender. His acquaintances who passed by saw what he was doing; then they laughed and took a rest, for they knew how to get in by the side door. Whenever he dropped a nut or a bit of meat through the knot-hole they would hop in below and gobble it. So, Marshall, next time you hear any one called a ‘jay’ I’m sure you’ll know what it means.”

The next morning, when we all met on the president’s special train en route to Saratoga, my newspaper friends twitted me anew on not having made the president laugh, but I said: “Now, boys, you wait.” Then I was so impudent as to approach the president and say:

“Mr. President, I am very glad to have had you with me on this fishing trip, and I hope whenever you want to go off on a similar affair you will let me know it. At the foot of the mountain a band of music and escort of troops are waiting for me, and in the hurry I may not be able to say good-bye to you, so I say it now.” But not one eyelash of the president quivered as he shook hands with me and replied: “Glad to have met you, Mr. Wilder,” so the newspaper boys certainly did have the laugh on me.

But the day was still young. Arrived at the Saratoga depot, all hurried into carriages. Waiting until all were seated and started in procession, I found an open landau and gave the driver the name of my hotel. “All right, Mr. Wilder,” was the reply, which did not startle me, for I am pretty well known in Saratoga by the cabbies—and the police. I said:

“Make a short cut, get out of the crowd and get me to the hotel as soon as possible, so I may avoid the parade.” He endeavored to get out, but he got in; and in trying to extricate himself he succeeded in driving through the band and past the troops and finally beside the carriages of the president and his guests. I took advantage of the occasion; as I passed the president I stood up (though it made little difference whether I sat or stood, for not much of me was visible over the top of the carriage door) and I bowed my prettiest. The president raised his hat, as did the other guests, and I led that procession down Saratoga’s Broadway, the sidewalks of which were crowded with New York and Brooklyn people who knew me and to whom I bowed, right and left, to the end of the route, where one of the newspaper men said:

“Marsh usually gets there.”

In Mr. McKinley’s first term I fell in conversation at a hotel with a gentleman of manner so genial that I never forgot him. We exchanged a lot of stories, at which I got more than I gave, but suddenly the gentleman said:

“I can see, Mr. Wilder, that you don’t recognize me.”

“Well, really, I don’t,” I replied, with an apologetic laugh. “You must pardon me; I meet so many. May I ask your name?”

“Certainly. It is Garret A. Hobart.”

“The Vice-president of the United States! Well, that isn’t anything against you”—for I had to say something, to keep from collapsing. He seemed greatly amused, and I could not help wondering if in any other country of the world a high official of the government could be picked up in a hotel corridor, be chatted with, then be compelled to introduce himself, and throughout all conduct himself as if he were no one in particular.

Levi P. Morton, ex-vice-president, has been out of politics for some years, yet he is remembered as a man who could tell good stories to illustrate his points. Here is one of them:

“The General doubled on his tracks.”

“Not far from my country place is a farmer noted for his fine, large cattle. People come from everywhere to look at his Durhams and Alderneys, but they have to be careful how they venture into the pastures, for some of the bulls are ferocious. A certain major-general, who was very proud of his title, was visiting near by, and one day while walking he cut across the fields to shorten distance. Before he knew of his danger a big bull, bellowing and with tossing head, began to chase him. The general was a swift runner, and made good time, but the animal too was lively, so when the general reached a fence he dared not stop to climb for the bull was near enough to—well, help him. The general doubled on his tracks several times, but the bull kept dangerously near. Suddenly a gate offered a chance to shut off pursuit. Near the gate stood the farmer, who had been viewing the chase; the panting general turned on him fiercely and asked, between gasps:

“‘Sir—sir—did you—see your bull chasing—me?’

“‘Ya-as,’ drawled the farmer.

“‘Is that all you have to say, sir? Do you know whom that bull was chasing?’

“‘You, I guess.’

“‘But do you know who I am, sir? I am General Blank.’”

“‘Wa-all, why didn’t you tell that to the bull?’”