The Genius (36 page)

He learned now that men rose as early as four o'clock in the
morning to buy a newspaper and ran quickly to the address mentioned
in order to get the place at the head of the line, thus getting the
first consideration as an applicant. He learned that some other
men, such as waiters, cooks, hotel employees and so on, frequently
stayed up all night in order to buy a paper at two in the morning,
winter or summer, rain or snow, heat or cold, and hurry to the
promising addresses they might find. He learned that the crowds of
applicants were apt to become surly or sarcastic or contentious as
their individual chances were jeopardized by ever-increasing
numbers. And all this was going on all the time, in winter or
summer, heat or cold, rain or snow. Pretending interest as a
spectator, he would sometimes stand and watch, hearing the ribald
jests, the slurs cast upon life, fortune, individuals in particular
and in general by those who were wearily or hopelessly waiting. It
was a horrible picture to him in his present condition. It was like
the grinding of the millstones, upper and nether. These were the
chaff. He was a part of the chaff at present, or in danger of
becoming so. Life was winnowing him out. He might go down, down,
and there might never be an opportunity for him to rise any
more.

Few, if any of us, understand thoroughly the nature of the
unconscious stratification which takes place in life, the layers
and types and classes into which it assorts itself and the barriers
which these offer to a free migration of individuals from one class
to another. We take on so naturally the material habiliments of our
temperaments, necessities and opportunities. Priests, doctors,
lawyers, merchants, appear to be born with their particular mental
attitude and likewise the clerk, the ditch-digger, the janitor.
They have their codes, their guilds and their class feelings. And
while they may be spiritually closely related, they are physically
far apart. Eugene, after hunting for a place for a month, knew a
great deal more about this stratification than he had ever dreamed
of knowing. He found that he was naturally barred by temperament
from some things, from others by strength and weight, or rather the
lack of them; from others, by inexperience; from others, by age;
and so on. And those who were different from him in any or all of
these respects were inclined to look at him askance. "You are not
as we are," their eyes seemed to say; "why do you come here?"

One day he approached a gang of men who were waiting outside a
car barn and sought to find out where the registration office was.
He did not lay off his natural manner of superiority—could not, but
asked a man near him if he knew. It had taken all his courage to do
this.

"He wouldn't be after lookin' fer a place as a conductor now,
would he?" he heard someone say within his hearing. For some reason
this remark took all his courage away. He went up the wooden stairs
to the little office where the application blanks were handed out,
but did not even have the courage to apply for one. He pretended to
be looking for someone and went out again. Later, before a drygoods
superintendent's office, he heard a youth remark, "Look what wants
to be a clerk." It froze him.

It is a question how long this aimless, nervous wandering would
have continued if it had not been for the accidental recollection
of an experience which a fellow artist once related to him of a
writer who had found himself nervously depressed and who, by
application to the president of a railroad, had secured as a
courtesy to the profession which he represented so ably a position
as an apprentice in a surveying corps, being given transportation
to a distant section of the country and employed at a laborer's
wages until he was well. Eugene now thought of this as quite an
idea for himself. Why it had not occurred to him before he did not
know. He could apply as an artist—his appearance would bear him
out, and being able to speak from the vantage point of personal
ability temporarily embarrassed by ill health, his chances of
getting something would be so much better. It would not be the same
as a position which he had secured for himself without fear or
favor, but it would be a position, different from farming with
Angela's father because it would command a salary.

This idea of appealing to the president of one of the great
railroads that entered New York was not so difficult to execute.
Eugene dressed himself very carefully the next morning, and going
to the office of the company in Forty-second Street, consulted the
list of officers posted in one of the halls, and finding the
president to be on the third floor, ascended. He discovered, after
compelling himself by sheer will power to enter, that this
so-called office was a mere anteroom to a force of assistants
serving the president, and that no one could see him except by
appointment.

"You might see his secretary if he isn't busy," suggested the
clerk who handled his card gingerly.

Eugene was for the moment undetermined what to do but decided
that maybe the secretary could help him. He asked that his card
might be taken to him and that no explanation be demanded of him
except by the secretary in person. The latter came out after a
while, an under secretary of perhaps twenty-eight years of age,
short and stout. He was bland and apparently good natured.

"What is it I can do for you?" he asked.

Eugene had been formulating his request in his mind—some method
of putting it briefly and simply.

"I came up to see Mr. Wilson," he said, "to see if he would not
send me out as a day-laborer of some kind in connection with some
department of the road. I am an artist by profession and I am
suffering from neurasthenia. All the doctors I have consulted have
recommended that I get a simple, manual position of some kind and
work at it until I am well. I know of an instance in which Mr.
Wilson, assisted, in this way, Mr. Savin the author, and I thought
he might be willing to interest himself in my case."

At the sound of Henry Savin's name the under-secretary pricked
up his ears. He had, fortunately, read one of his books, and this
together with Eugene's knowledge of the case, his personal
appearance, a certain ring of sincerity in what he was saying,
caused him to be momentarily interested.

"There is no position in connection with any clerical work which
the president could give you, I am sure," he replied. "All of these
things are subject to a system of promotion. It might be that he
could place you with one of the construction gangs in one of the
departments under a foreman. I don't know. It's very hard work,
though. He might consider your case." He smiled commiseratingly. "I
question whether you're strong enough to do anything of that sort.
It takes a pretty good man to wield a pick or a shovel."

"I don't think I had better worry about that now," replied
Eugene in return, smiling wearily. "I'll take the work and see if
it won't help me. I think I need it badly enough."

He was afraid the under-secretary would repent of his suggestion
and refuse him entirely.

"Can you wait a little while?" asked the latter curiously. He
had the idea that Eugene was someone of importance, for he had
suggested as a parting argument that he could give a number of
exceptional references.

"Certainly," said Eugene, and the secretary went his way, coming
back in half an hour to hand him an enveloped letter.

"We have the idea," he said quite frankly waiving any suggestion
of the president's influence in the matter and speaking for himself
and the secretary-in-chief, with whom he had agreed that Eugene
ought to be assisted, "that you had best apply to the engineering
department. Mr. Hobsen, the chief-engineer, can arrange for you.
This letter I think will get you what you want."

Eugene's heart bounded. He looked at the superscription and saw
it addressed to Mr. Woodruff Hobsen, Chief Engineer, and putting it
in his pocket without stopping to read it, but thanking the
under-secretary profusely, went out. In the hall at a safe distance
he stopped and opened it, finding that it spoke of him familiarly
as "Mr. Eugene Witla, an artist, temporarily incapacitated by
neurasthenia," and went on to say that he was "desirous of being
appointed to some manual toil in some construction corps. The
president's office recommends this request to your favor."

When he read this he knew it meant a position. It roused curious
feelings as to the nature and value of stratification. As a laborer
he was nothing: as an artist he could get a position as a laborer.
After all, his ability as an artist was worth something. It
obtained him this refuge. He hugged it joyously, and a few moments
later handed it to an under-secretary in the Chief-Engineer's
office. Without being seen by anyone in authority he was in return
given a letter to Mr. William Haverford, "Engineer of Maintenance
of Way," a pale, anæmic gentleman of perhaps forty years of age,
who, as Eugene learned from him when he was eventually ushered into
his presence a half hour later, was a captain of thirteen thousand
men. The latter read the letter from the Engineer's office
curiously. He was struck by Eugene's odd mission and his appearance
as a man. Artists were queer. This was like one. Eugene reminded
him of himself a little in his appearance.

"An artist," he said interestedly. "So you want to work as a day
laborer?" He fixed Eugene with clear, coal-black eyes looking out
of a long, pear-shaped face. Eugene noticed that his hands were
long and thin and white and that his high, pale forehead was
crowned by a mop of black hair.

"Neurasthenia. I've heard a great deal about that of late, but
have never been troubled that way myself. I find that I derive
considerable benefit when I am nervous from the use of a rubber
exerciser. You have seen them perhaps?"

"Yes," Eugene replied, "I have. My case is much too grave for
that, I think. I have traveled a great deal. But it doesn't seem to
do me any good. I want work at something manual, I fancy—something
at which I have to work. Exercise in a room would not help me. I
think I need a complete change of environment. I will be much
obliged if you will place me in some capacity."

"Well, this will very likely be it," suggested Mr. Haverford
blandly. "Working as a day-laborer will certainly not strike you as
play. To tell you the truth, I don't think you can stand it." He
reached for a glass-framed map showing the various divisions of the
railroad stretching from New England to Chicago and St. Louis, and
observed quietly. "I could send you to a great many places,
Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio, Michigan, Canada." His finger roved
idly about. "I have thirteen thousand men in my department and they
are scattered far and wide."

Eugene marveled. Such a position! Such authority! This pale,
dark man sitting as an engineer at a switch board directing so
large a machine.

"You have a large force," he said simply. Mr. Haverford smiled
wanly.

"I think, if you will take my advice, you will not go in a
construction corps right away. You can hardly do manual labor.
There is a little carpenter shop which we have at Speonk, not very
far outside the city, which I should think would answer your needs
admirably. A little creek joins the Hudson there and it's out on a
point of land, the shop is. It's summer now, and to put you in a
broiling sun with a gang of Italians would be a little rough. Take
my advice and go here. It will be hard enough. After you are broken
in and you think you want a change I can easily arrange it for you.
The money may not make so much difference to you but you may as
well have it. It will be fifteen cents an hour. I will give you a
letter to Mr. Litlebrown, our division engineer, and he will see
that you are properly provided for."

Eugene bowed. Inwardly he smiled at the thought that the money
would not be acceptable to him. Anything would be acceptable.
Perhaps this would be best. It was near the city. The description
of the little carpenter shop out on the neck of land appealed to
him. It was, as he found when he looked at the map of the immediate
division to which this belonged, almost within the city limits. He
could live in New York—the upper portion of it anyhow.

Again there was a letter, this time to Mr. Henry C. Litlebrown,
a tall, meditative, philosophic man whom Eugene found two days
later in the division offices at Yonkers, who in turn wrote a
letter to Mr. Joseph Brooks, Superintendent of Buildings, at Mott
Haven, whose secretary finally gave Eugene a letter to Mr. Jack
Stix, foreman carpenter at Speonk. This letter, when presented on a
bright Friday afternoon, brought him the advice to come Monday at
seven A. M., and so Eugene saw a career as a day laborer stretching
very conspicuously before him.

The "little shop" in question was located in the most charming
manner possible. If it had been set as a stage scene for his
especial artistic benefit it could not have been better. On a point
of land between the river and the main line of the railroad and a
little creek, which was east of the railroad and which the latter
crossed on a trestle to get back to the mainland again, it stood, a
long, low two-storey structure, green as to its roof, red as to its
body, full of windows which commanded picturesque views of passing
yachts and steamers and little launches and row-boats anchored
safely in the waters of the cove which the creek formed. There was
a veritable song of labor which arose from this shop, for it was
filled with planes, lathes and wood-turning instruments of various
kinds, to say nothing of a great group of carpenters who could make
desks, chairs, tables, in short, office furniture of various kinds,
and who kept the company's needs of these fittings for its depots
and offices well supplied. Each carpenter had a bench before a
window on the second floor, and in the centre were the few
necessary machines they were always using, small jig, cross cut,
band and rip saws, a plane, and four or five lathes. On the ground
floor was the engine room, the blacksmith's shop, the giant plane,
the great jig and cross cut saws, and the store room and supply
closets. Out in the yard were piles of lumber, with tracks in
between, and twice every day a local freight called "The Dinky"
stopped to switch in or take out loaded cars of lumber or finished
furniture and supplies. Eugene, as he approached on the day he
presented his letter, stopped to admire the neatness of the low
board fence which surrounded it all, the beauty of the water, the
droning sweetness of the saws.

"Why, the work here couldn't be very hard," he thought. He saw
carpenters looking out of the upper windows, and a couple of men in
brown overalls and jumpers unloading a car. They were carrying
great three-by-six joists on their shoulders. Would he be asked to
do anything like that. He scarcely thought so. Mr. Haverford had
distinctly indicated in his letter to Mr. Litlebrown that he was to
be built up by degrees. Carrying great joists did not appeal to him
as the right way, but he presented his letter. He had previously
looked about on the high ground which lay to the back of the river
and which commanded this point of land, to see if he could find a
place to board and lodge, but had seen nothing. The section was
very exclusive, occupied by suburban New Yorkers of wealth, and
they were not interested in the proposition which he had formulated
in his own mind, namely his temporary reception somewhere as a
paying guest. He had visions of a comfortable home somewhere now
with nice people, for strangely enough the securing of this very
minor position had impressed him as the beginning of the end of his
bad luck. He was probably going to get well now, in the course of
time. If he could only live with some nice family for the summer.
In the fall if he were improving, and he thought he might be,
Angela could come on. It might be that one of the dealers, Pottle
Frères or Jacob Bergman or Henry LaRue would have sold a picture.
One hundred and fifty or two hundred dollars joined to his salary
would go a long way towards making their living moderately
comfortable. Besides Angela's taste and economy, coupled with his
own art judgment, could make any little place look respectable and
attractive.

The problem of finding a room was not so easy. He followed the
track south to a settlement which was visible from the shop windows
a quarter of a mile away, and finding nothing which suited his
taste as to location, returned to Speonk proper and followed the
little creek inland half a mile. This adventure delighted him for
it revealed a semi-circle of charming cottages ranged upon a hill
slope which had for its footstool the little silvery-bosomed
stream. Between the stream and the hill slope ran a semi-circular
road and above that another road. Eugene could see at a glance that
here was middle class prosperity, smooth lawns, bright awnings,
flower pots of blue and yellow and green upon the porches,
doorsteps and verandas. An auto standing in front of one house
indicated a certain familiarity with the ways of the rich, and a
summer road house, situated at the intersection of a road leading
out from New York and the little stream where it was crossed by a
bridge, indicated that the charms of this village were not unknown
to those who came touring and seeking for pleasure. The road house
itself was hung with awnings and one dining balcony out over the
water. Eugene's desire was fixed on this village at once. He wanted
to live here—anywhere in it. He walked about under the cool shade
of the trees looking at first one door yard and then another
wishing that he might introduce himself by letter and be received.
They ought to welcome an artist of his ability and refinement and
would, he thought, if they knew. His working in a furniture factory
or for the railroad as a day laborer for his health simply added to
his picturesque character. In his wanderings he finally came upon a
Methodist church quaintly built of red brick and grey stone
trimmings, and the sight of its tall, stained glass windows and
square fortress-like bell-tower gave him an idea. Why not appeal to
the minister? He could explain to him what he wanted, show him his
credentials—for he had with him old letters from editors,
publishers and art houses—and give him a clear understanding as to
why he wanted to come here at all. His ill health and distinction
ought to appeal to this man, and he would probably direct him to
some one who would gladly have him. At five in the afternoon he
knocked at the door and was received in the pastor's study—a large
still room in which a few flies were buzzing in the shaded light.
In a few moments the minister himself came in—a tall, grey-headed
man, severely simple in his attire and with the easy air of one who
is used to public address. He was about to ask what he could do for
him when Eugene began with his explanation.