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'Charge It': Keeping Up With Harry, a fiction by Irving Bacheller |
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Chapter 16. Which Presents An Incident In Our Campaign Against New New England |
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_ CHAPTER XVI. WHICH PRESENTS AN INCIDENT IN OUR CAMPAIGN AGAINST NEW NEW ENGLAND "We had some adventures in new New England which ought to be set down. Here's one of them. "The old village of Trent lies back in the hills, a little journey from Pointview, on the shores of a pleasant river. To the unknowing traveler, who approaches from either hilltop, it has a peaceful and inviting look. But the rutted, rocky road begins at once to excite suspicion. A bad road is an indication and a producer of degeneracy in man and beast. It tends to profanity, and if it went far would probably lead to hell. Trent itself is one of the little modern hells of New England. There are the venerable and neatly fashioned houses of the old-time Yankee--the peaked roofs and gables, the columns, the cozy verandas, the garden spaces. But the old-time Yankees are gone. The well-kept gardens are no more. Many of the houses are going to ruin. One is an Italian tenement. The others are inhabited by coachmen, chauffeurs, gardeners, mill-hands, and degenerate Yankees. The inn is a mere barroom. Sounds of revelry and the odor of stale beer come out of it. In front are teams of burden, abandoned, for a time, by their drivers, and sundry human signs of decay loafing in the shadow of the old lindens. Among them are the seedy remnants of a once noble race. They are fettered by 'rheumatiz' and the disordered liver. They move like boats dragging their anchors. To make life tolerable their imaginations need assistance. They are like the Flub Dubs of lost Atlantis. Each imagines himself the greatest man in the village. They talk in loud words. They quarrel and fight over the crown. So it has been a brawling, besotted community. "Trent's leading citizen is a Yankee politician who owns most of its real estate and derives a profit from its lawless traffic. Trent has been his enterprise. "Knowles went over there one day to conduct a funeral, which was interrupted by a dog-fight under the coffin and nearly broken up by a row over two dollars which had been found in a pocket of the dead man. "We opened a club-house next to the hotel, and began a campaign for the regeneration of Trent. Soon we discovered that its one officer was unwilling to arrest offenders against law and order. We had him removed and a new man put in his place. This man was set upon and severely beaten, and lost interest in the good work. Then Harry applied for the job and got it. He took with him a force of husky young men--mostly college boys. The first day on duty he arrested in the street a drunken man who carried in his hands a small sack of potatoes. The latter whistled for help, and the enemies of law and order swarmed out of their haunts. Harry had become an expert ball pitcher, noted for speed and accuracy. He floored his man and took possession of the potatoes, with which he proceeded to defend himself. Only two balls were pitched, but they held the enemy in check until Harry's deputies had rushed out of the club-house. A flying wedge scattered the crowd. No further violence was needed. The ruffians saw that he meant business and had the nerve and muscle to carry it through, and nothing more was necessary--just then. "They took the drunken man to the lock-up, and came back and got a bartender, and led him in the same path. Harry has the situation well in hand, and is the most popular man in our community. Every day we have items to put to his credit, and nothing to charge against his reputation. There's something going on at the club every evening, and the rooms are crowded. Those men who had sat day by day brawling under the lindens now spend most of their leisure in the reading and card rooms. Peace reigns in Trent. Such is the power of united benevolence working with the strong hand and the courageous spirit." _ |
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