Book: The Crisis, Complete

W >> Winston Churchill >> The Crisis, Complete




However fascinating the subject, I do not propose to make a whole book
about Eliphalet. Yet sidelights on the life of every great man are
interesting. And there are a few incidents in his early career which have
not gotten into the subscription biographical Encyclopaedias. In several
of these volumes, to be sure, we may see steel engravings of him, true
likenesses all. His was the type of face which is the glory of the steel
engraving,--square and solid, as a corner-stone should be. The very
clothes he wore were made for the steel engraving, stiff and wiry in
texture, with sharp angles at the shoulders, and sombre in hue, as befit
such grave creations.

Let us go back to a certain fine morning in the September of the year
1857, when Mr. Hopper had arrived, all unnoticed, at the age of two and
thirty. Industry had told. He was now the manager's assistant; and, be it
said in passing, knew more about the stock than Mr. Hood himself. On this
particular morning, about nine o'clock, he was stacking bolts of woollen
goods near that delectable counter where the Colonel was wont to regale
his principal customers, when a vision appeared in the door. Visions were
rare at Carvel & Company's. This one was followed by an old negress with
leathery wrinkles, whose smile was joy incarnate. They entered the store,
paused at the entrance to the Colonel's private office, and surveyed it
with dismay.

"Clar t' goodness, Miss Jinny, yo' pa ain't heah! An' whah's Ephum, dat
black good-fo'-nuthin'!"

Miracle number one,--Mr. Hopper stopped work and stared. The vision was
searching the store with her eyes, and pouting.

"How mean of Pa!" she exclaimed, "when I took all this trouble to
surprise him, not to be here! Where are they all? Where's Ephum? Where's
Mr. Hood?"

The eyes lighted on Eliphalet. His blood was sluggish, but it could be
made to beat faster. The ladies he had met at Miss Crane's were not of
this description. As he came forward, embarrassment made him shamble, and
for the first time in his life he was angrily conscious of a poor figure.
Her first question dashed out the spark of his zeal.

"Oh," said she, "are you employed here?"

Thoughtless Virginia! You little know the man you have insulted by your
haughty drawl.

"Yes."

Then find Mr. Carvel, won't you, please? And tell him that his daughter
has come from Kentucky, and is waiting for him."

"I callate Mr. Carvel won't be here this morning," said Eliphalet. He
went back to the pile of dry goods, and began to work. But he was unable
to meet the displeasure in her face.

"What is your name?" Miss Carvel demanded.

"Hopper."

"Then, Mr. Hopper, please find Ephum, or Mr. Hood."

Two more bolts were taken off the truck. Out of the corner of his eye he
watched her, and she seemed very tall, like her father. She was taller
than he, in fact.

"I ain't a servant, Miss Carvel," he said, with a meaning glance at the
negress.

"Laws, Miss Jinny," cried she, "I may's 'ell find Ephum. I knows he's
loafin' somewhar hereabouts. An' I ain't seed him dese five month." And
she started for the back of the store.

"Mammy!"

The old woman stopped short. Eliphalet, electrified, looked up and
instantly down again.

"You say you are employed by Mr. Carvel, and refuse to do what I ask?"

"I ain't a servant," Mr. Hopper repeated doggedly. He felt that he was in
the right,--and perhaps he was.

It was at this critical juncture in the proceedings that a young man
stepped lightly into the store behind Miss Jinny. Mr. Hopper's eye was on
him, and had taken in the details of his costume before realizing the
import of his presence. He was perhaps twenty, and wore a coat that
sprung in at the waist, and trousers of a light buff-color that gathered
at the ankle and were very copious above. His features were of the
straight type which has been called from time immemorial patrician. He
had dark hair which escaped in waves from under his hat, and black eyes
that snapped when they perceived Miss Virginia Carvel. At sight of her,
indeed, the gold-headed cane stopped in its gyrations in midair.

"Why, Jinny!" he cried--"Jinny!"

Mr. Hopper would have sold his soul to have been in the young man's
polished boots, to have worn his clothes, and to have been able to cry
out to the young lady, "Why, Jinny!"

To Mr. Hopper's surprise, the young lady did not turn around. She stood
perfectly still. But a red flush stole upon her cheek, and laughter was
dancing in her eyes yet she did not move. The young man took a step
forward, and then stood staring at her with such a comical expression of
injury on his face as was too much for Miss Jinny's serenity. She
laughed. That laugh also struck minor chords upon Mr. Hopper's
heart-strings.

But the young gentleman very properly grew angry.

"You've no right to treat me the way you do, Virginia," he cried. "Why
didn't you let me know that you were coming home?" His tone was one of
authority. You didn't come from Kentucky alone!"

"I had plenty of attendance, I assure you," said Miss Carvel. "A
governor, and a senator, and two charming young gentlemen from New
Orleans as far as Cairo, where I found Captain Lige's boat. And Mr.
Brinsmade brought me here to the store. I wanted to surprise Pa," she
continued rapidly, to head off the young gentleman's expostulations. "How
mean of him not to be here!"

"Allow me to escort you home," said he, with ceremony:

"Allow me to decline the honah, Mr. Colfax," she cried, imitating him. "I
intend to wait here until Pa comes in."

Then Eliphalet knew that the young gentleman was Miss Virginia's first
cousin. And it seemed to him that he had heard a rumor, amongst the
clerks in the store; that she was to marry him one day.

"Where is Uncle Comyn?" demanded Mr. Colfax, swinging his cane with
impatience.

Virgina looked hard at Mr. Hopper.

"I don't know," she said.

"Ephum!" shouted Mr. Colfax. "Ephum! Easters where the deuce is that
good-for-nothing husband of yours?"

"I dunno, Marse Clarence. 'Spec he whah he oughtn't ter be."

Mr. Colfax spied the stooping figure of Eliphalet.

"Do you work here?" he demanded.

"I callate."

"What?"

"I callate to," responded Mr. Hopper again, without rising.

"Please find Mr. Hood," directed Mr. Colfax, with a wave of his cane,
"and say that Miss Carvel is here--"

Whereupon Miss Carvel seated herself upon the edge of a bale and giggled,
which did not have a soothing effect upon either of the young men. How
abominably you were wont to behave in those days, Virginia.

"Just say that Mr. Colfax sent you," Clarence continued, with a note of
irritation. "There's a good fellow."

Virginia laughed outright. Her cousin did not deign to look at her. His
temper was slipping its leash.

"I wonder whether you hear me," he remarked.

No answer.

"Colonel Carvel hires you, doesn't he? He pays you wages, and the first
time his daughter comes in here you refuse to do her a favor. By thunder,
I'll see that you are dismissed."

Still Eliphalet gave him no manner of attention, but began marking the
tags at the bottom of the pile.

It was at this unpropitious moment that Colonel Carvel walked into the
store, and his daughter flew into his arms.

"Well, well," he said, kissing her, "thought you'd surprise me, eh,
Jinny?"

"Oh, Pa," she cried, looking reproachfully up at his Face. "You knew
--how mean of you!"

"I've been down on the Louisiana, where some inconsiderate man told me,
or I should not have seen you today. I was off to Alton. But what are
these goings-on?" said the Colonel, staring at young Mr. Colfax, rigid as
one of his own gamecocks. He was standing defiantly over the stooping
figure of the assistant manager.

"Oh," said Virginia, indifferently, "it's only Clarence. He's so
tiresome. He's always wanting to fight with somebody."

"What's the matter, Clarence?" asked the Colonel, with the mild unconcern
which deceived so many of the undiscerning.

"This person, sir, refused to do a favor for your daughter. She told him,
and I told him, to notify Mr. Hood that Miss Carvel was here, and he
refused."

Mr. Hopper continued his occupation, which was absorbing. But he was
listening.

Colonel Carvel pulled his goatee, and smiled.

"Clarence," said he, "I reckon I can run this establishment without any
help from you and Jinny. I've been at it now for a good many years."

If Mr. Barbo had not been constitutionally unlucky, he might have
perceived Mr. Hopper, before dark that evening, in conversation with Mr.
Hood about a certain customer who lived up town, and presently leave the
store by the side entrance. He walked as rapidly as his legs would carry
him, for they were a trifle short for his body; and in due time, as the
lamps were flickering, he arrived near Colonel Carvel's large double
residence, on Tenth and Locust streets. Then he walked slowly along
Tenth, his eyes lifted to the tall, curtained windows. Now and anon they
scanned passers-by for a chance acquaintance.

Mr. Hopper walked around the block, arriving again opposite the Carvel
house, and beside Mr. Renault's, which was across from it. Eliphalet had
inherited the principle of mathematical chances. It is a fact that the
discreet sometimes take chances. Towards the back of Mr. Renault's
residence, a wide area was sunk to the depth of a tall man, which was
apparently used for the purpose of getting coal and wood into the cellar.
Mr. Hopper swept the neighborhood with a glance. The coast was clear, and
he dropped into the area.

Although the evening was chill, at first Mr. Hopper perspired very
freely. He crouched in the area while the steps of pedestrians beat above
his head, and took no thought but of escape. At last, however, he grew
cooler, removed his hat, and peeped over the stone coping. Colonel
Carvel's house--her house--was now ablaze with lights, and the shades not
yet drawn. There was the dining room, where the negro butler was moving
about the table; and the pantry, where the butler went occasionally; and
the kitchen, with black figures moving about. But upstairs on the two
streets was the sitting room. The straight figure of the Colonel passed
across the light. He held a newspaper in his hand. Suddenly, full in the
window, he stopped and flung away the paper. A graceful shadow slipped
across the wall. Virginia laid her hands on his shoulders, and he stooped
to kiss her. Now they sat between the curtains, she on the arm of his
chair and leaning on him, together looking out of the window.

How long this lasted Mr. Hopper could not say. Even the wise forget
themselves. But all at once a wagon backed and bumped against the curb in
front of him, and Eliphalet's head dropped as if it had been struck by
the wheel. Above him a sash screamed as it opened, and he heard Mr.
Renault's voice say, to some person below:

"Is that you, Capitaine Grant?"

"The same," was the brief reply.

"I am charmed that you have brought the wood. I thought that you had
forgotten me."

"I try to do what I say, Mr. Renault."

"Attendez--wait!" cried Mr. Renault, and closed the window.

Now was Eliphalet's chance to bolt. The perspiration had come again, and
it was cold. But directly the excitable little man, Renault, had appeared
on the pavement above him. He had been running.

"It is a long voyage from Gravois with a load of wood, Capitaine--I am
very grateful."

"Business is business, Mr. Renault," was the self-contained reply.

"Alphonse!" cried Mr. Renault, "Alphonse!" A door opened in the back
wall. "Du vin pour Monsieur le Capitaine."

"Oui, M'sieu."

Eliphalet was too frightened to wonder why this taciturn handler of wood
was called Captain, and treated with such respect.

"Guess I won't take any wine to-night, Mr. Renault," said he. "You go
inside, or you'll take cold."

Mr. Renault protested, asked about all the residents of Gravois way, and
finally obeyed. Eliphalet's heart was in his mouth. A bolder spirit would
have dashed for liberty. Eliphalet did not possess that kind of bravery.
He was waiting for the Captain to turn toward his wagon.

He looked down the area instead, with the light from the street lamp on
his face. Fear etched an ineffaceable portrait of him on Mr. Hopper's
mind, so that he knew him instantly when he saw him years afterward.
Little did he reckon that the fourth time he was to see him this man was
to be President of the United States. He wore a close-cropped beard, an
old blue army overcoat, and his trousers were tucked into a pair of muddy
cowhide boots.

Swiftly but silently the man reached down and hauled Eliphalet to the
sidewalk by the nape of the neck.

"What were you doing there?" demanded he of the blue overcoat, sternly.

Eliphalet did not answer. With one frantic wrench he freed himself, and
ran down Locust Street. At the corner, turning fearfully, he perceived
the man in the overcoat calmly preparing to unload his wood.




CHAPTER III

THE UNATTAINABLE SIMPLICITY

To Mr. Hopper the being caught was the unpardonable crime. And indeed,
with many of us, it is humiliation and not conscience which makes the
sting. He walked out to the end of the city's growth westward, where the
new houses were going up. He had reflected coolly on consequences, and
found there were none to speak of. Many a moralist, Mr. Davitt included,
would have shaken his head at this. Miss Crane's whole Puritan household
would have raised their hands in horror at such a doctrine.

Some novelists I know of, who are in reality celebrated surgeons in
disguise, would have shown a good part of Mr. Eliphalet Hopper's mental
insides in as many words as I have taken to chronicle his arrival in St.
Louis. They invite us to attend a clinic, and the horrible skill with
which they wield the scalpel holds us spellbound. For God has made all of
us, rogue and saint, burglar and burgomaster, marvellously alike. We read
a patent medicine circular and shudder with seven diseases. We peruse one
of Mr. So and So's intellectual tonics and are sure we are complicated
scandals, fearfully and wonderfully made.

Alas, I have neither the skill nor the scalpel to show the diseases of
Mr. Hopper's mind; if, indeed, he had any. Conscience, when contracted,
is just as troublesome as croup. Mr. Hopper was thoroughly healthy. He
had ambition, as I have said. But he was not morbidly sensitive. He was
calm enough when he got back to the boarding-house, which he found in as
high a pitch of excitement as New Englanders ever reach.

And over what?

Over the prospective arrival that evening of the Brices, mother and son,
from Boston. Miss Crane had received the message in the morning.
Palpitating with the news; she had hurried rustling to Mrs. Abner Reed,
with the paper in her hand.

"I guess you don't mean Mrs. Appleton Brice," said Mrs. Reed.

"That's just who I mean," answered Miss Crane, triumphantly,--nay,
aggressively.

Mrs. Abner shook her curls in a way that made people overwhelm her with
proofs.

"Mirandy, you're cracked," said she. "Ain't you never been to Boston?"

Miss Crane bridled. This was an uncalled-for insult.

"I guess I visited down Boston-way oftener than you, Eliza Reed. You
never had any clothes."

Mrs. Reed's strength was her imperturbability.

"And you never set eyes on the Brice house, opposite the Common, with the
swelled front? I'd like to find out where you were a-visitin'. And you've
never heard tell of the Brice homestead, at Westbury, that was Colonel
Wilton Brice's, who fought in the Revolution? I'm astonished at you,
Mirandy. When I used to be at the Dales', in Mount Vernon Street, in
thirty-seven, Mrs. Charles Atterbury Brice used to come there in her
carriage, a-callin'. She was Appleton's mother. Severe! Save us,"
exclaimed Mrs. Reed, "but she was stiff as starched crepe. His father was
minister to France. The Brices were in the India trade, and they had
money enough to buy the whole of St. Louis."

Miss Crane rattled the letter in her hand. She brought forth her
reserves.

"Yes, and Appleton Brice lost it all, in the panic. And then he died, and
left the widow and son without a cent."

Mrs. Reed took off her spectacles.

"I want to know!" she exclaimed. "The durned fool! Well, Appleton Brice
didn't have the family brains, ands he was kind of soft-hearted. I've
heard Mehitabel Dale say that." She paused to reflect. "So they're coming
here?" she added. "I wonder why."

Miss Crane's triumph was not over.

"Because Silas Whipple was some kin to Appleton Brice, and he has offered
the boy a place in his law office."

Miss Reed laid down her knitting.

"Save us!" she said. "This is a day of wonders, Mirandy. Now Lord help
the boy if he's gain' to work for the Judge."

"The Judge has a soft heart, if he is crabbed," declared the spinster.
"I've heard say of a good bit of charity he's done. He's a soft heart."

"Soft as a green quince!" said Mrs. Abner, scornfully. "How many friends
has he?"

"Those he has are warm enough," Miss Crane retorted. "Look at Colonel
Carvel, who has him to dinner every Sunday."

"That's plain as your nose, Mirandy Crane. They both like quarrellin'
better than anything in this world."

"Well," said Miss Crane, "I must go make ready for the Brices."

Such was the importance of the occasion, however, that she could not
resist calling at Mrs. Merrill's room, and she knocked at Mrs. Chandler's
door to tell that lady and her daughter.

No Burke has as yet arisen in this country of ours to write a Peerage.
Fame awaits him. Indeed, it was even then awaiting him, at the time of
the panic of 1857. With what infinite pains were the pedigree and
possessions of the Brice family pieced together that day by the scattered
residents from Puritan-land in the City of St. Louis. And few buildings
would have borne the wear and tear of many house-cleanings of the kind
Miss Crane indulged in throughout the morning and afternoon.

Mr. Eliphalet Hopper, on his return from business, was met on the steps
and requested to wear his Sunday clothes. Like the good republican that
he was, Mr. Hopper refused. He had ascertained that the golden charm
which made the Brices worthy of tribute had been lost. Commercial
supremacy,--that was Mr. Hopper's creed. Family is a good thing, but of
what use is a crest without the panels on which to paint it? Can a
diamond brooch shine on a calico gown? Mr. Hopper deemed church the place
for worship. He likewise had his own idol in his closet.

Eliphalet at Willesden had heard a great deal of Boston airs and graces
and intellectuality, of the favored few of that city who lived in
mysterious houses, and who crossed the sea in ships. He pictured Mrs.
Brice asking for a spoon, and young Stephen sniffing at Mrs. Crane's
boarding-house. And he resolved with democratic spirit that he would
teach Stephen a lesson, if opportunity offered. His own discrepancy
between the real and the imagined was no greater than that of the rest of
his fellow-boarders.

Barring Eliphalet, there was a dress parade that evening,--silks and
bombazines and broadcloths, and Miss Crane's special preserves on the
tea-table. Alas, that most of the deserved honors of this world should
fall upon barren ground!

The quality which baffled Mr. Hopper, and some other boarders, was
simplicity. None save the truly great possess it (but this is not
generally known). Mrs. Brice was so natural, that first evening at tea,
that all were disappointed. The hero upon the reviewing stand with the
halo of the Unknown behind his head is one thing; the lady of Family who
sits beside you at a boarding-house and discusses the weather and the
journey is quite another. They were prepared to hear Mrs. Brice rail at
the dirt of St. Louis and the crudity of the West. They pictured her
referring with sighs to her Connections, and bewailing that Stephen could
not have finished his course at Harvard.

She did nothing of the sort.

The first shock was so great that Mrs. Abner Reed cried in the privacy of
her chamber, and the Widow Crane confessed her disappointment to the
confiding ear of her bosom friend, Mrs. Merrill. Not many years later a
man named Grant was to be in Springfield, with a carpet bag, despised as
a vagabond. A very homely man named Lincoln went to Cincinnati to try a
case before the Supreme Court, and was snubbed by a man named Stanton.

When we meet the truly great, several things may happen. In the first
place, we begin to believe in their luck, or fate, or whatever we choose
to call it, and to curse our own. We begin to respect ourselves the more,
and to realize that they are merely clay like us, that we are great men
without Opportunity. Sometimes, if we live long enough near the Great, we
begin to have misgivings. Then there is hope for us.

Mrs. Brice, with her simple black gowns, quiet manner, and serene face,
with her interest in others and none in herself, had a wonderful effect
upon the boarders. They were nearly all prepared to be humble. They grew
arrogant and pretentious. They asked Mrs. Brice if she knew this and that
person of consequence in Boston, with whom they claimed relationship or
intimacy. Her answers were amiable and self-contained.

But what shall we say of Stephen Brice? Let us confess at once that it is
he who is the hero of this story, and not Eliphalet Hopper. It would be
so easy to paint Stephen in shining colors, and to make him a first-class
prig (the horror of all novelists), that we must begin with the
drawbacks. First and worst, it must be confessed that Stephen had at that
time what has been called "the Boston manner." This was not Stephen's
fault, but Boston's. Young Mr. Brice possessed that wonderful power of
expressing distance in other terms besides ells and furlongs,--and yet
he was simple enough with it all.

Many a furtive stare he drew from the table that evening. There were one
or two of discernment present, and they noted that his were the generous
features of a marked man,--if he chose to become marked. He inherited his
mother's look; hers was the face of a strong woman, wide of sympathy,
broad of experience, showing peace of mind amid troubles--the touch of
femininity was there to soften it.

Her son had the air of the college-bred. In these surroundings he escaped
arrogance by the wonderful kindliness of his eye, which lighted when his
mother spoke to him. But he was not at home at Miss Crane's table, and he
made no attempt to appear at his ease.

This was an unexpected pleasure for Mr. Eliphalet Hopper. Let it not be
thought that he was the only one at that table to indulge in a little
secret rejoicing. But it was a peculiar satisfaction to him to reflect
that these people, who had held up their heads for so many generations,
were humbled at last. To be humbled meant, in Mr. Hopper's philosophy, to
lose one's money. It was thus he gauged the importance of his
acquaintances; it was thus he hoped some day to be gauged. And he trusted
and believed that the time would come when he could give his fillip to
the upper rim of fortune's wheel, and send it spinning downward.

Mr. Hopper was drinking his tea and silently forming an estimate. He
concluded that young Brice was not the type to acquire the money which
his father had lost. And he reflected that Stephen must feel as strange
in St. Louis as a cod might amongst the cat-fish in the Mississippi. So
the assistant manager of Carvel & Company resolved to indulge in the
pleasure of patronizing the Bostonian.

"Callatin' to go to work?" he asked him, as the boarders walked into the
best room.

"Yes," replied Stephen, taken aback. And it may be said here that, if Mr.
Hopper underestimated him, certainly he underestimated Mr. Hopper.

"It ain't easy to get a job this Fall," said Eliphalet, "St. Louis houses
have felt the panic."

"I am sorry to hear that."

"What business was you callatin' to grapple with?"

"Law," said Stephen.

"Gosh!" exclaimed Mr. Hopper, "I want to know." In reality he was a bit
chagrined, having pictured with some pleasure the Boston aristocrat going
from store to store for a situation. "You didn't come here figurin' on
makin' a pile, I guess."

"A what?"

"A pile."

Stephen looked down and over Mr. Hopper attentively. He took in the
blocky shoulders and the square head, and he pictured the little eyes at
a vanishing-point in lines of a bargain. Then humor blessed humor--came
to his rescue. He had entered the race in the West, where all start
equal. He had come here, like this man who was succeeding, to make his
living. Would he succeed?

Mr. Hopper drew something out of his pocket, eyed Miss Crane, and bit off
a corner.

"What office was you going into?" he asked genially. Mr. Brice decided to
answer that.

"Judge Whipple's--unless he has changed his mind." Eliphalet gave him a
look more eloquent than words.

"Know the Judge?"

Silent laughter.

"If all the Fourth of Julys we've had was piled into one," said Mr.
Hopper, slowly and with conviction, "they wouldn't be a circumstance to
Silas Whipple when he gets mad. My boss, Colonel Carvel, is the only man
in town who'll stand up to him. I've seen 'em begin a quarrel in the
store and carry it all the way up the street. I callate you won't stay
with him a great while."

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