IN WHICH THE LEADING TRADESMEN OF POINTVIEW BECOME A BOARD OF ASSESSORS

The Honorable Socrates Potter was the only “scientific man” in the village of Pointview, Connecticut.  In every point of manhood he was far ahead of his neighbors.  In a way he had outstripped himself, for, while his ideas were highly modern, he clung to the dress and manners that prevailed in his youth.  He wore broadcloth every day, and a choker, and chewed tobacco, and never permitted his work to interfere with the even tenor of his conversation.  He loved the old times and fashions, and had a drawling tongue and often spoke in the dialect of his fathers, loving the sound of it.  His satirical mood was sure to be flavored with clipped words and changed tenses.  The stranger often took him for a “hayseed,” but on further acquaintance opened his mouth in astonishment, for Soc.  Potter, as many called him, was a man of insight and learning and of a quality of wit herein revealed.  He used to call himself “an attorney and peacemaker,” but he was more than that.  He was the attorney and friend of all his clients, and the philosopher of his community.  If one man threatened another with the law in that neighborhood, he was apt to do it in these terms, “We’ll see what Soc.  Potter has to say about that.”

“All right!  We’ll see,” the other would answer, and both parties would be sure to show up at the lawyer’s office.  Then, probably, Socrates would try his famous lock-and-key expedient.  He would sit them down together, lock the door, and say, “Now, boys, I don’t believe in getting twelve men for a job that two can do better,” and generally he would make them agree.

He had an office over the store of Samuel Henshaw, and made a specialty of deeds, titles, epigrams, and witticisms.

He was a bachelor who called now and then at the home of Miss Betsey Smead, a wealthy spinster of Pointview, but nothing had ever come of it.

He sat with his feet on his desk and his mind on the subject of extravagance.  When he was doing business he sat like other men, but when his thought assumed a degree of elevation his feet rose with it.  He began his story by explaining that it was all true but the names.

“This is the balloon age,” said he, with a merry twinkle in his gray eyes.  “The inventor has led us into the skies.  The odor of gasoline is in the path of the eagle.  Our thoughts are between earth and heaven; our prices have followed our aspirations in the upward flight.  Now here is Sam Henshaw.  Sam?  Why, he’s a merchant prince o’ Pointview-grocery business-had a girl-name o’ Lizzie-smart and as purty as a wax doll.  Dan Pettigrew, the noblest flower o’ the young manhood o’ Pointview, fell in love with her.  No wonder.  We were all fond o’ Lizzie.  They were a han’some couple, an’ together about half the time.

“Well, Sam began to aspire, an’ nothing would do for Lizzie but the Smythe school at Hardcastle at seven hundred dollars a year.  So they rigged her up splendid, an’ away she went.  Prom that day she set the pace for this community.  Dan had to keep up with Lizzie, and so his father, Bill Pettigrew, sent him to Harvard.  Other girls started in the race, an’ the first we knew there was a big field in this maiden handicap.

“Well, Sam had been aspirin’ for about three months, when he began to perspire.  The extras up at Hardcastle had exceeded his expectations.  He was goin’ a hot pace to keep up with Lizzie, an’ it looked as if his morals was meltin’ away.

“I was in the northern part o’ the county one day, an’ saw some wonderful, big, red, tasty apples.

“‘What ye doin’ with yer apples?’ says I to the grower.

“’I’ve sent the most of ’em to Samuel Henshaw, o’ Pointview, an’ he’s sold ’em on commission,’ says he.

“’What do ye get for ’em ?’ I asked.

“‘Two dollars an’ ten cents a barrel,’ says he.

“The next time I went into Sam’s store there were the same red apples that came out o’ that orchard in the northern part o’ the county.

“‘How much are these apples?’ I says.

“‘Seven dollars a barrel,’ says Sam.

“‘How is it that you get seven dollars a barrel an’ only return two dollars an’ ten cents to the grower?’ I says.

“Sam stuttered an’ changed color.  I’d been his lawyer for years, an’ I always talked plain to Sam.

“‘Wal, the fact is,’ says he, with a laugh an’ a wink, ’I sold these apples to my clerk.’

“‘Sam, ye’re wastin’ yer talents,’ I says.  ’Go into the railroad business.’

“Sam was kind o’ shamefaced.

“’It costs so much to live I have to make a decent profit somewhere,’ says he.  ’If you had a daughter to educate, you’d know the reason.’

“I bought a bill o’ goods, an’ noticed that ham an’ butter were up two cents a pound, an’ flour four cents a sack, an’ other things in proportion.  I didn’t say a word, but I see that Sam proposed to tax the community for the education o’ that Lizzie girl.  Folks began to complain, but the tax on each wasn’t heavy, an’ a good many people owed Sam an’ wasn’t in shape to quit him.  Then Sam had the best store in the village, an’ everybody was kind o’ proud of it.  So we stood this assessment o’ Sam’s, an’ by a general tax paid for the education o’ Lizzie.  She made friends, an’ sailed around in automobiles, an’ spent a part o’ the Christmas holidays with the daughter o’ Mr. Beverly Gottrich on Fifth Avenue, an’ young Beverly Gottrich brought her home in his big red runabout.  Oh, that was a great day in Pointview!-that red-runabout day of our history when the pitcher was broken at the fountain and they that looked out of the windows trembled.

“Dan Pettigrew was home from Harvard for the holidays, an’ he an’ Lizzie met at a church party.  They held their heads very high, an’ seemed to despise each other an’ everybody else.  Word went around that it was all off between ’em.  It seems that they had riz-not risen, but riz-far above each other.

“Now it often happens that when the young ascend the tower o’ their aspirations an’ look down upon the earth its average inhabitant seems no larger to them than a red ant.  Sometimes there’s nobody in sight-that is, no real body-nothin’ but clouds an’ rainbows an’ kings an’ queens an’ their families.  Now Lizzie an’ Dan were both up in their towers an’ lookin’ down, an’ that was probably the reason they didn’t see each other.

“Right away a war began between the rival houses o’ Henshaw an’ Pettigrew.  The first we knew Sam was buildin’ a new house with a tower on it-by jingo!-an’ hardwood finish inside an’ half an acre in the dooryard.  The tower was for Lizzie.  It signalized her rise in the community.  It put her one flight above anybody in Pointview.

“As the house rose, up went Sam’s prices again.  I went over to the store an’ bought a week’s provisions, an’ when I got the bill I see that he’d taxed me twenty-nine cents for his improvements.

“I met one o’ my friends, an’ I says to him, ‘Wal,’ I says, ’Sam is goin’ to make us pay for his new house an’ lot.  Sam’s ham an’ flour have jumped again.  As an assessor Sam is likely to make his mark.’

“‘Wal, what do ye expect?’ says he.  ’Lizzie is in high society, an’ he’s got to keep up with her.  Lizzie must have a home proper to one o’ her station.  Don’t be hard on Sam.’

“‘I ain’t,’ I says.  ’But Sam’s house ought to be proper to his station instead o’ hers.’

“I had just sat down in my office when Bill Pettigrew came in-Sam’s great rival in the grocery an’ aspiration business.  He’d bought a new automobile, an’ wanted me to draw a mortgage on his house an’ lot for two thousand dollars.

“‘You’d better go slow,’ I says.  ’It looks like bad business to mortgage your home for an automobile.’

“‘It’s for the benefit o’ my customers,’ says he.

“’Something purty for ’em to look at?’ I asked.

“‘It will quicken deliveries,’ says he.

“‘You can’t afford it,’ I says.

“‘Yes, I can,’ says he.  ‘I’ve put up prices twenty per cent., an’ it ain’t agoin’ to bother me to pay for it.’

“‘Oh, then your customers are goin’ to pay for it!’ I says, ‘an’ you’re only a guarantor.’

“‘I wouldn’t put it that way,’ says he.  ’It costs more to live these days.  Everything is goin’ up.’

“‘Includin’ taxes,’ I says to Bill, an’ went to work an’ drew his mortgage for him, an’ he got his automobile.

“I’d intended to take my trade to his store, but when I saw that he planned to tax the community for his luxuries I changed my mind and went over to Eph Hill’s.  He kept the only other decent grocery store in the village.  His prices were just about on a level with the others.

“‘How do you explain it that prices have gone up so?’ I asked.

“‘Why, they say it’s due to an overproduction o’ gold,’ says he.

“‘Looks to me like an overproduction of argument,’ I says.  ’The old Earth keeps shellin’ out more gold ev’ry year, an’ the more she takes out o’ her pockets the more I have to take out o’ mine.’

“Wal, o’ course I had to keep in line, so I put up the prices o’ my work a little to be in fashion.  Everybody kicked good an’ plenty, an’ nobody worse’n Sam an’ Bill an’ Ephraim, but I told ’em how I’d read that there was so much gold in the world it kind o’ set me hankerin’.

“Ye know I had ten acres o’ worn-out land in the edge o’ the village, an’ while others bought automobiles an’ such luxuries I invested in fertilizers an’ hired a young man out of an agricultural school an’ went to farmin’.  Within a year I was raisin’ all the meat an’ milk an’ vegetables that I needed, an’ sellin’ as much ag’in to my neighbors.

“Well, Pointview under Lizzie was like Rome under Theodora.  The immorals o’ the people throve an’ grew.  As prices went up decency went down, an’ wisdom rose in value like meat an’ flour.  Seemed so everybody that had a dollar in the bank an’ some that didn’t bought automobiles.  They kept me busy drawin’ contracts an’ deeds an’ mortgages an’ searchin’ titles, an’ o’ course I prospered.  More than half the population converted property into cash an’ cash into folly-automobiles, piano-players, foreign tours, vocal music, modern languages, an’ the aspirations of other people.  They were puffin’ it on each other.  Every man had a deep scheme for makin’ the other fellow pay for his fun.  Reminds me o’ that verse from Zechariah, ’I will show them no mercy, saith the Lord, but I will deliver every man into the hand of his neighbor.’  Now the baron business has generally been lucrative, but here in Pointview there was too much competition.  We were all barons.  Everybody was taxin’ everybody else for his luxuries, an’ nobody could save a cent-nobody but me an’ Eph Hill.  He didn’t buy any automobiles or build a new house or send his girl to the seminary.  He kept both feet on the ground, but he put up his prices along with the rest.  By-an’-by Eph had a mortgage on about half the houses in the village.  That showed what was the matter with the other men.

“The merchants all got liver-comlaint.  There were twenty men that I used to see walkin’ home to their dinner every day or down to the postoffice every evenin’.  But they didn’t walk any more.  They scud along in their automobiles at twenty miles an hour, with the whole family around ’em.  They looked as if they thought that now at last they were keepin’ up with Lizzie.  Their homes were empty most o’ the time.  The reading-lamp was never lighted.  There was no season o’ social converse.  Every merchant but Eph Hill grew fat an’ round, an’ complained of indigestion an’ sick-headache.  Sam looked like a moored balloon.  Seemed so their morals grew fat an’ flabby an’ shif’less an’ in need of exercise.  Their morals travelled too, but they travelled from mouth to mouth, as ye might say, an’ very fast.  More’n half of ’em give up church an’ went off on the country roads every Sunday.  All along the pike from Pointview to Jerusalem Corners ye could see where they’d laid humbly on their backs in the dust, prayin’ to a new god an’ tryin’ to soften his heart with oil or open the gates o’ mercy with a monkey-wrench.

“Bill came into my shop one day an’ looked as if he hadn’t a friend in the world.  He wanted to borrow some money.

“‘Money!’ I says.  ‘What makes ye think I’ve got money?’

“‘Because ye ain’t got any automobile,’ he says, laughin’.

“‘No,’ I says.  ‘You bought one, an’ that was all I could afford,’

“It never touched him.  He went on as dry as a duck in a shower.  ‘You’re one o’ the few sensible men in this village.  You live within yer means, an’ you ought to have money if ye ain’t.’

“‘I’ve got a little, but I don’t see why you should have it,’ I says.  ‘You want me to do all the savin’ for both of us.’

“‘It costs so much to live I can’t save a cent,’ he says.  ’You know I’ve got a boy in college, an’ it costs fearful.  I told my boy the other day how I worked my way through school an’ lived on a dollar a week in a little room an’ did my own washin’.  He says to me, “Well, Governor, you forget that I have a social position to maintain."’

“‘He’s right,’ I says.  ’You can’t expect him to belong to the varsity crew an’ the Dickey an’ the Hasty-Puddin’ Club an’ dress an’ behave like the son of an ordinary grocer in Pointview, Connecticut.  Ye can’t live on nuts an’ raisins an’ be decent in such a position.  Looks to me as if it would require the combined incomes o’ the grocer an’ his lawyer to maintain it.  His position is likely to be hard on your disposition.  He’s tryin’ to keep up with Lizzie-that’s what’s the matter,’

“For a moment Bill looked like a lost dog.  I told him how Grant an’ Thomas stood on a hilltop one day an’ saw their men bein’ mowed down like grass, an’ by-an’-by Thomas says to Grant, ’Wal, General, we’ll have to move back a little; it’s too hot for the boys here.’

“‘I’m afraid your boy’s position is kind of uncomf’table,’ I says.

“‘I’ll win out,’ he says.  ‘My boy will marry an’ settle down in a year or so, then he’ll begin to help me.’

“‘But you may be killed off before then,’ I says.

“’If my friends ‘ll stand by me I’ll pull through,’ says he.

“‘But your friends have their own families to stand by,’ I says.

“‘Look here, Mr. Potter,’ says he.  ’You’ve no such expense as I have.  You’re able to help me, an’ you ought to.  I’ve got a note comin’ due tomorrow an’ no money to pay it with.’

“‘Renew it an’ then retrench,’ I says.  ‘Cut down your expenses an’ your prices.’

“‘Can’t,’ says he.  ’It costs too much to live.  What ‘ll I do ?’

“‘You ought to die,’ I says, very mad.

“‘I can’t,’ says he.

“‘Why not?’

“‘It costs so much to die,’ he says.  ‘Why, it takes a thousan’ dollars to give a man a decent funeral these days.’

“‘Wal,’ I says, ’a man that can’t afford either to live or die excites my sympathy an’ my caution.  You’ve taxed the community for yer luxuries, an’ now ye want to tax me for yer notes.  It’s unjust discrimination.  It gives me a kind of a lonesome feelin’.  You tell your boy Dan to come an’ see me.  He needs advice more than you need money, an’ I’ve got a full line of it.’

“Bill went away richer by a check for a few hundred dollars.  Oh, I always know when I’m losin’ money!  I’m not like other citizens o’ Pointview.

“Dan came to see me the next Saturday night.  He was a big, blue-eyed, handsome, good-natured boy, an’ dressed like the son of a millionaire.  I brought him here to the office, an’ he sat down beside me.

“‘Dan,’ I says, ‘what are your plans for the future?’

“‘I mean to be a lawyer,’ says he.

“‘Quit it,’ I says.

“‘Why?’ says he.

“’There are too many lawyers.  We don’t need any more.  They’re devourin’ our substance.’

“‘What do you suggest?’

“’Be a real man.  We’re on the verge of a social revolution.  Boys have been leaving the farms an’ going into the cities to be grand folks.  The result is we have too many grand folks an’ too few real folks.  The tide has turned.  Get aboard.’

“‘I don’t understand you.’

“‘America needs wheat an’ corn an’ potatoes more than it needs arguments an’ theories.’

“‘Would you have me be a farmer?’ he asked, in surprise.

“‘A farmer!’ I says.  ’It’s a new business-an exact science these days.  Think o’ the high prices an’ the cheap land with its productiveness more than doubled by modern methods.  The country is longing for big, brainy men to work its idle land.  Soon we shall not produce enough for our own needs.’

“‘But I’m too well educated to be a farmer,’ says he.

“‘Pardon me,’ I says.  ’The land ’ll soak up all the education you’ve got an’ yell for more.  Its great need is education.  We’ve been sending the smart boys to the city an’ keeping the fools on the farm.  We’ve put everything on the farm but brains.  That’s what’s the matter with the farm.’

“‘But farming isn’t dignified,’ says Dan.

“‘Pardon me ag’in,’ says I.  ’It’s more dignified to search for the secrets o’ God in the soil than to grope for the secrets o’ Satan in a lawsuit.  Any fool can learn Blackstone an’ Kent an’ Greenleaf, but the book o’ law that’s writ in the soil is only for keen eyes.’

“‘I want a business that fits a gentleman,’ says Dan.

“‘An’ the future farmer can be as much of a gentleman as God ’ll let him,’ says I.  ’He’ll have as many servants as his talents can employ.  His income will exceed the earnings o’ forty lawyers taken as they average.  His position will be like that o’ the rich planter before the war.’

“‘Well, how shall I go about it?’ he says, half convinced.

“‘First stop tryin’ to keep up with Lizzie,’ says I.  ’The way to beat Lizzie is to go toward the other end o’ the road.  Ye see, you’ve dragged yer father into the race, an’ he’s about winded.  Turn around an’ let Lizzie try to keep up with you.  Second, change yer base.  Go to a school of agriculture an’ learn the business just as you’d go to a school o’ law or medicine.  Begin modest.  Live within yer means.  If you do right I’ll buy you all the land ye want an’ start ye goin’.’

“When he left I knew that I’d won my case.  In a week or so he sent me a letter saying that he’d decided to take my advice.

“He came to see me often after that.  The first we knew he was goin’ with Marie Benson.  Marie had a reputation for good sense, but right away she began to take after Lizzie, an’ struck a tolerably good pace.  Went to New York to study music an’ perfect herself in French.

“I declare it seemed as if about every girl in the village was tryin’ to be a kind of a princess with a full-jewelled brain.  Girls who didn’t know an adjective from an adverb an’ would have been stuck by a simple sum in algebra could converse in French an’ sing in Italian.  Not one in ten was willin’, if she knew how, to sweep a floor or cook a square meal.  Their souls were above it.  Their feet were in Pointview an’ their heads in Dreamland.  They talked o’ the doin’s o’ the Four Hundred an’ the successes o’ Lizzie.  They trilled an’ warbled; they pounded the family piano; they golfed an’ motored an’ whisted; they engaged in the titivation of toy dogs an’ the cultivation o’ general debility; they ate caramels an’ chocolates enough to fill up a well; they complained; they dreamed o’ sunbursts an’ tiaras while their papas worried about notes an’ bills; they lay on downy beds of ease with the last best seller, an’ followed the fortunes of the bold youth until he found his treasure at last in the unhidden chest of the heroine; they created what we are pleased to call the servant problem, which is really the drone problem, caused by the added number who toil not, but have to be toiled for; they grew in fat an’ folly.  Some were both ox-eyed an’ peroxide.  Homeliness was to them the only misfortune, fat the only burden, and pimples the great enemy of woman.

“Now the organs of the human body are just as shiftless as the one that owns ’em.  The systems o’ these fair ladies couldn’t do their own work.  The physician an’ the surgeon were added to the list o’ their servants, an’ became as necessary as the cook an’ the chambermaid.  But they were keeping up with Lizzie.  Poor things!  They weren’t so much to blame.  They thought their fathers were rich, an’ their fathers enjoyed an’ clung to that reputation.  They hid their poverty an’ flaunted the flag of opulence.

“It costs money, big money an’ more, to produce a generation of invalids.  The fathers o’ Pointview had paid for it with sweat an’ toil an’ broken health an’ borrowed money an’ the usual tax added to the price o’ their goods or their labor.  Then one night the cashier o’ the First National Bank blew out his brains.  We found that he had stolen eighteen thousand dollars in the effort to keep up.  That was a lesson to the Lizzie-chasers!  Why, sir, we found that each of his older girls had diamond rings an’ could sing in three languages, an’ a boy was in college.  Poor man! he didn’t steal for his own pleasure.  Everything went at auction-house, grounds, rings, automobile.  Another man was caught sellin’ under weight with fixed scales, an’ went to prison.  Henry Brown failed, an’ we found that he had borrowed five hundred dollars from John Bass, an’ at the same time John Bass had borrowed six hundred from Tom Rogers, an’ Rogers had borrowed seven hundred an’ fifty from Sam Henshaw, an’ Henshaw had borrowed the same amount from Percival Smith, an’ Smith had got it from me.  The chain broke, the note structure fell like a house o’ cards, an’ I was the only loser-think o’ that.  There were five capitalists an’ only one man with real money.