1370 
The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
November IS, 1022 
HOPE FARM NOTES 
“Mordecai” 
Part II. 
T was hardly settled in bed once more 
before some new visitor caffle groping up 
the stairs. It was the landlord, or. rath¬ 
er. tlie husband of the landlady. The two 
characters are essentially different ju bus¬ 
iness standing. This rnan. a fieriuau, 
stood, a very forlorn figure, with a pillow 
under one arm and a blanket under the 
other. It seemed that he had listened to 
a very emphatic Caudle lecture from his 
wife, until he had reached the limit, so 
lie retired in as good order as possible to 
the attic, lie crawled into one of the 
other beds, where he lay on his back with 
wide-open, sleepless eyes, staring at the 
• •eiling. There is a well-known line de¬ 
scribing the mental condition of a woman 
scorned. Here was a man not only 
scorned but evidently kicked out of bed. 
and bis silent contemplation of the raft¬ 
ers seemed to me worse than the fury 
which the poet tells of. In the course of 
the .year we have many letters .about fam¬ 
ily troubles—some of them sad, others 
more or less comical. Women write how 
they are often abused and ordered about 
b\ their husbands. As I read such letters, 
in *pito of feeling the sympathy which 1 
know these women need, my mind goes 
back to that forlorn Herman—a hen¬ 
pecked man if there ever was a hen. 
I could not sleet), and in spite of all I 
could do to divert my mind. 1 fell to 
considering the “ha’nt" which was sup¬ 
posed to have its headquarters somewhere 
about this silent old house. As viewed 
from the front window, it seemed an ideal 
night for a “haunt” to be abroad. The 
yard or lawn was flooded with that pecu¬ 
liarly bright moonlight which is found 
only in tie- South. The trees and shrubs 
cast dark shadows, and strange, dim 
creatures seemed to run from one to an¬ 
other. I saw a man go creeping jmn 
the shadow under one tree, ami soon he 
crawled, flat on his face, across the moon¬ 
light toward the shelter of the little house 
back from the gate. It rurned out to be a 
colored mail trying to get to rhe henhouse, 
but in that silence. and in the magic of 
that moonlight, it was a fearsome thing. 
And then, in the road- just outside the 
fence. I saw distinctly a bent and crouch¬ 
ing form gliding through the shadow of 
a hedge which screened the lawn. < >f 
course, I never did believe in “haunts,” 
yer when suddenly there came a flash be¬ 
hind the hedge and no sound of pifctol or 
gun. I shall be obliged to confess tlml for 
a brief moment I had my doubts. I was 
not asleep when this happened. I was 
wide awake. I knew there was a Hash 
of light behind that hedge, that a bent fig¬ 
ure passed through the moonlight and 
tlmr there was no noise of a report. 
***** 
No. this is not a story of murder or 
ghosts—it's a plain rude of a moonlight 
night. As I watched, a man came out 
of the shadow of the hedge and entered 
the gate. I saw that he carried a pack 
on his back : a heavy puck which made 
him stoop, lie stopped by the gate, and 
there was another flash of light. Ii was 
no “haunt.” but a pack peddler trying to 
light his pipe while lie bent beneath the 
burden «>f bis pack. He walked straight 
up to the door and knocked. The hus¬ 
band of the landlady., with Something that 
I took to be profanity in Herman, rolled 
out of bed. draped his blanket around 
him. picked up a stick and went down to 
tin door. But the new-comer was no 
robber, just u weary man after a night’* 
lodging, and after some bargaining tlm 
Herman brought him hack and pointed to 
the vacant bed. But the peddler was not 
disposed to sleep. He lit the tamp and 
'in down by the table ami began studying 
a hater which he pulled from hi< pocket. 
The landlady’s husband seemed to feel 
that this interfered with his study of the 
rafters, so with another outburst in Her¬ 
man, he gathered his pillow and blanket 
and went hack downstairs. I hope tin* 
lecturer had ended her remarks, and that 
slo accepted this return a> evidence of a 
repentant husband. As for me. I was 
jiisf dropping Off into a doze when some¬ 
one spook my arm and I opened my eyes 
to find the pack peddler looking down at 
me. I will confess to feeling something 
of a tin-ill as I looked at him. His face 
was eager, and lie had great black eyes, 
which somehow showed a bright polish or 
gleam in the lamplight. 
“Say, mine friend, I borrow your ink 
and pen! Is it so?” 
"Take ir and drink it if you want to,” 
I told him, for no one wants to be roused 
for any such foolish question. But the 
man still stood looking at me. lit pointed 
with his thumb hack at the table. 
"Say. mine friend. I ask you some¬ 
thing. Will you get up and read me my 
letter and help me?” 
If such an expression had been cur¬ 
rent in the language at that rime I should 
have said “Han you heat it?” As it was. 
I gut up. There seemed nothing else to 
do. for here was a simple, kindly man, 
evidently in trouble. The night was cool, 
and I wrapped a quilt around me and 
sat at the table, where, by the dim lamp 
light. I read the letter while the pack 
peddler sar with his bead bent forward 
and his bright eyes fixed on me. 
T pamim remember just how the letter 
ran. .Toe Solomon told me he bad carried 
it fur several days, waiting to find some¬ 
one who could be* trusted to read it for 
him. It was from a man telling doe that 
bis father was dead and his mother need¬ 
ed help, < Mu* sentence yarn like this: 
“Your mother she say ‘be a good boy, 
Joseph, and do good business,’ ” 
The pathos of it cniuc to me in that 
dim, lonely room. This unlearned man, 
obliged to go ro strangers to learn of the 
things which to us seem to belong to the 
very innermost privacy of the soul. 
Then I wrote a letter in reply, dictated 
by .Toe. and such a letter as it was—from 
a homesick man in a lonely country, en¬ 
gaged in a despised and risky business. 
But not a word of trouble did Joe send. 
You would have thought him on the top 
wave of prosperity. 
"Tell her I send her”—but there liis 
caution mastered him—"well. I think 
over what 1 send later,” 
And so at midnight, in that home of 
the “haunts.” I sal there writing a let¬ 
ter for this unlearned peddler. lie 
watched me as my pen scratched over the 
paper. 
"Say, I'll tell you what. Could I write 
like that I would make my independent, 
fortune. I’d own the biggest store in 
New York.” 
“But you ran learn if you want to.” 
"You think so? Could l believe that 
I would have new life.” 
"t >f course you can, if you only think 
so. I can write, but you see I lack your 
business sense. If 1 had that, I too, 
could make a fortune.” 
***** 
That man was about my age. Here 
was 1. with :i college education only 
starting at the long grind of making a 
living out of what 1 had learned, lleie 
was Joe Solomon, unable to read and 
write, yet well along the way toward a 
little store of his own. \Ve sat tin re 
for hours and talked it over, lie carried 
that heavy pack all day out among the 
farmers, selling handkerchiefs and knives 
and trinkets at five times their value. 
His legs were bent and his hack was 
bowed, yet day after day In* toiled on un¬ 
til he could have and borrow enough to 
start a little store of his own. 
"I wait till they sell their cotton. 
Then I get at them before some other.” 
It was the old. old plan—as old as the 
world—of living nu the farmer, as all bus¬ 
iness has ever done. Indeed, the farmer 
feeds and clothes them all. Some men. 
like Joe, get close to the farm and take 
the money from his own hand, others 
sit hack and take their share in tolls and 
useless charges. It all comes out of the 
sweat and strain of the farmer—even to 
the diamond ou my lady’s breast. 
"I suppose you have your fun. too?” 
"Fun? Wluit you call this?” Joe 
hared his leg and showed groat red scars 
running up to his knee and above. 
“Fun? Those marks are by teeth of 
dogs. They never fade out. These farm¬ 
ers. they set dogs on me, and then stand 
back and laugh.” 
1 could picture it as lie told (lie story 
that night—a little man. bent with a 
heavy pack, hurrying as best lie could 
down a country mad. with a pack of 
dogs yelping and nipping at him as he 
ran. a group of men laughing at the baited 
fugitive as lie staggered on. 
"Some day 1 get those farmers. I wait 
my time. 1 make them pay for that. I 
never forget while these scars last.” And 
Joe’s face was not pleasant to see as lie 
talked. 
♦ ♦ * * * 
The next morning Joe was on his way 
early. I saw him moving off into tho 
country with the heavy pack on his hack, 
and those crooked little logs shuffling on. 
I had walked a little distance with him, 
find when we parted he let his pack to 
the ground for a moment. 
“Yuu think I learn to read and writ* 
like you?" 
“I know you can learn. You will find 
it easy if you stick to it.” 
"If I do that some day I own the big¬ 
gest store in New York." 
That was nearly 10 years ago, and I 
have not seen Joe Solomon since, unless 
—hut the girls say that is impossible. 
Still, foolish as ir may he, whenever I 
think of "the big boss." shuffling along 
with bowed shoulders through that great 
store. 1 recall that chapter and verse 
from Father: 
"Yet nil this arailrth me nothing, so 
long ns l see Mordecai the Jem sitting at 
the king's gate.*' 
If von cure for uiy own opinion. 1 will 
say that if someone were privileged to 
(Mill oil' the stockings worn by "the big 
boss,” I expect they would find several 
red scars on those crooked legs. Further¬ 
more. I shall noi wonder if most of us 
have a Mordecai sitting by the kiug’s 
gate in our own lives. U. w. c. 
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