Читать книгу Harper's Young People, January 11, 1881 - Various - Страница 2

BY HARRIET PRESCOTT SPOFFORD

A lad who visits the city of Washington for the first time, and looks down from the galleries of the House of Representatives or of the Senate on the busy scene below, will be sure to find his eye attracted by groups of bright-looking and neatly dressed boys moving hither and thither about the floor, speaking familiarly with this and that great man, or amusing themselves on the steps of the Vice-President's or of the Speaker's platform, and he will perhaps regard these boys with something like envy – all the more when told that they receive about two dollars and seventy-five cents a day, during the sessions of Congress, to pay them for having such a good time.

Possibly our lad would not regard the picture as so pleasant if he knew how burdensome are the duties of these boys, and how exceedingly well they earn the money paid them. There are nearly thirty of them attached to the House, and half as many to the Senate. Their ages run from nine years upward, some numbering twice as many summers; and it is not by any means the oldest who are the brightest and the most favored. They are of respectable families; some of them are nephews of Members of Congress – a Member once, indeed, had such questionable taste as to procure the appointment of his own son; and some of them have been known in after-years to become Members themselves. The recently chosen Senator from Maryland is doubtless proud to remember that he himself was once a page. Although in two or three instances these boys have been elected to their places, instead of appointed, they are usually appointed by the Sergeant-at-Arms – of course on the recommendation and through the influence of the Congressmen – and they are under his control. The old custom of appointing only orphan boys is no longer adhered to. The boy who fell over the balustrade, and was made a page by special resolution of the Senate, is a very exceptional case – probably his favorite song thereafter was, "Such a getting up stairs I ne'er did see."

The pages wear no uniform, or regulation clothes, or badges of any sort. They are required to present themselves for work at nine o'clock in the morning, although Congress does not meet till twelve, and they are not dismissed until adjournment for the day takes place. They put the desks of the Members in order, file for each the bills and papers which are strewn about in confusion, then go to the Document-rooms and work there, helping to put affairs in shape; and they present themselves at twelve in the great chambers of legislation to answer the clapping of the Members' and Senators' hands, and attend to their countless wants. Now they are sent hunting for some book that is needed, for some man, now for a glass of water, now they take messages from one Member to another at a distance, from one House to the other, and sometimes to ladies in the gallery; they fetch a cup of tea into the Cloak-room; fetch the hat and stick out of it; they distribute mail by the armful; they struggle into sight, behind piles of palm-leaf fans big as they are themselves, which are soon cooling the hot air, if it be a late session; and during the nights preceding the close of the session they do not know what sleep is, but are worn out with running and waiting. Thus it will be seen that they are on their feet with but very little intermission, running and tumbling over each other in their eagerness to please; but they seem happy and good-natured through it all, and when they do sit down it is on the steps of the presiding officer's desk, where they are usually tickling or punching or teasing each other as if they had nothing else to do, and were passing away the time.

Sometimes during a recess of Congress you may come upon them in a lower room, assembled in a body, a mimic Senate, one of them in the chair, and another making a speech, and Mr. Blaine and Mr. Conkling and Mr. Bayard and the rest are being imitated to the life. It is in some contrast to these gay rogues that one sees a crippled and dwarfed little hunchback outside the Hall of Representatives, opening and shutting a door for the passer in hopes of the coppers or the nickel that may be tossed him, although he does not beg. At night a little goat carriage comes for him, and he drives off.

The pages whom we have described do not leave the Capitol during the hours of their service, and carry no messages beyond the doors. For outside work there are three riding pages, who are furnished with horses, and who go to the various Departments, the Executive Mansion, or on other of the outside errands of the legislators. And theirs is not exactly the pleasant horseback riding that looks so attractive, but, on the contrary, it is hard and weary work, cold in the winter, and burning under a fierce sun in the summer, leaving them meanwhile as badly off as John Gilpin.

Many of these youths are appointed because there is some great need in their families, or have been some pitiable circumstances in their history. This curly-headed little fellow is the only support of a mother and younger brothers and sisters; there is one who takes care of a paralyzed father, the only relative he has in the world, going home, after his hard work, to make life as pleasant as he can for him who can never do any more work; here is another whose little house is kept for him by a child-sister, who looks for his step at night with solicitude. Most of them have somebody besides themselves to take a share of their earnings.

Beyond their regular pay, there are various perquisites and fees which swell their income considerably. Thus they may often be seen slipping an open book, with a bit of blotting-paper, under the nose of some Member who is sitting at his desk: it is an album for somebody who wants the signatures of all these statesmen, which the statesmen kindly give, but which nevertheless are not always easy to obtain, owing to the difficulty of finding individuals in their seats, as all of the Congressmen are by no means in constant attendance, many of them being busy in committee-rooms, or lounging in cloak-rooms, or lunching, or following the bent of their inclinations in other ways, and seldom coming in after roll-call, save to hear a heralded speech, or to vote on measures with which they are already familiar either from the reading of the daily journal of proceedings, or in the committee-room, or by the word of mouth of others. For every album that they thus fill with signatures the boys receive ten dollars from the eager visitor of the Capitol, and they fill a good many during the year.

In another way they also sometimes earn an additional penny. For after any gentleman on the floor has made a particularly strong speech, the Members on his side of the question are wont to subscribe for the printing of thousands of copies of the speech, to be sent broadcast into their districts; the pages therefore go about with subscription papers, and they are allowed two dollars for every thousand of the speeches that are taken.

If the boys of whom we are speaking are very bright, they are apt to be spoiled, as in such case the Members and Senators take pleasure in indulging them to some degree. But there are not many, it may be imagined, who are thus injured. Some of them, indeed, are as careless as the blowing wind; these have no awe or reverence in their compositions: the great men with whom they are brought into contact are not great men to them, but simply folks who send them on errands, and the directions given them go in one ear and out the other – as we all know never happens with boys anywhere else. One little chap, dispatched to the Document-room for the "Fortification Bill," asks for the "Mortification Bill"; another, sent for the "Census," asks for the "Ascension Bill"; still another, insisting on the "Compulsive Capacity Bill," and returning without it, is told that he was sent for nothing of the kind, but for that on "compulsory pilotage," whereupon he presently comes back to say that there isn't any bill on "pulsive politics." The same youngster asked the Document Clerks for the "Bill for the Suppression of Supreme Literature." A little "compulsive capacity" would have been good for this urchin, were it to be obtained as easily as was thought by that gentleman whose daughter lacked capacity, as her teacher said. "Get it, madam," said he – "get it; she shall want for nothing that money can buy her." To the same class with these scatter-brained urchins belonged the little fellow who once brought into the Congressional Library a note signed by one of the most powerful "Sons of Thunder" in the Senate, and which we begged the librarian's pardon for reading as it lay a moment on the desk beside us: "William H. Turner wants The Headless Horseman; or, The Scalp-Hunter. I ask that he may have it under the rules of the Library."

But to offset such idle fellows as the reader of The Headless Horseman– who certainly could do no better than hunt for a "scalp," and a head with it, too – there are other pages who make it their business to understand their duties thoroughly, and two or three who even go so far as to read for themselves every bill that is introduced, to follow its fortunes, to be able to tell the person that asks just where it is in its progress to passage or defeat, and who can always be relied on by any Member who has been absent or out of the way to let him know exactly what has been done and said in the mean time, and how the vote stands on this question or the other. It would be no wonder if boys of this sort should be indulged; and there is little danger of spoiling such good material. These boys are learning the business of legislating, and if they wish, will, in their turn, come back some day to make the laws.

But careless or faithful, their bright faces and light ways are a pleasant sight to see in all the throng of bustling, noisy men; and as one looks at them slipping about on their countless errands, one feels as if the boys themselves bore some small part in the work of governing the country.