University of Virginia Library

19. CHAPTER XIX.
A SOLDIER OF FORTUNE.

“Mexico? Molino del Rey? Resaca de la Palma?”

“Resaca de la Tombs!”

Leaving his reputation to take care of itself, since, as
is not seldom the case, he knew nothing of its being in
debate, the herb-doctor, wandering to wardsthe forward
part of the boat, had there espied a singular character in a
grimy old regimental coat, a countenance at once grim
and wizened, interwoven paralyzed legs, stiff as icicles,
suspended between rude crutches, while the whole
rigid body, like a ship's long barometer on gimbals,
swung to and fro, mechanically faithful to the motion
of the boat. Looking downward while he swung, the
cripple seemed in a brown study.

As moved by the sight, and conjecturing that here
was some battered hero from the Mexican battle-fields,
the herb-doctor had sympathetically accosted him as
above, and received the above rather dubious reply. As,
with a half moody, half surly sort of air that reply was
given, the cripple, by a voluntary jerk, nervously increased
his swing (his custom when seized by emotion), so that

one would have thought some squall had suddenly rolled
the boat and with it the barometer.

“Tombs? my friend,” exclaimed the herb-doctor in
mild surprise. “You have not descended to the dead,
have you? I had imagined you a scarred campaigner,
one of the noble children of war, for your dear country
a glorious sufferer. But you are Lazarus, it seems.”

“Yes, he who had sores.”

“Ah, the other Lazarus. But I never knew that
either of them was in the army,” glancing at the dilapidated
regimentals.

“That will do now. Jokes enough.”

“Friend,” said the other reproachfully, “you think
amiss. On principle, I greet unfortunates with some
pleasant remark, the better to call off their thoughts
from their troubles. The physician who is at once wise
and humane seldom unreservedly sympathizes with his
patient. But come, I am a herb-doctor, and also a natural
bone-setter. I may be sanguine, but I think I
can do something for you. You look up now. Give me
your story. Ere I undertake a cure, I require a full account
of the case.”

“You can't help me,” returned the cripple gruffly.
“Go away.”

“You seem sadly destitute of—”

“No I ain't destitute; to-day, at least, I can pay my
way.”

“The Natural Bone-setter is happy, indeed, to hear
that. But you were premature. I was deploring your
destitution, not of cash, but of confidence. You think

the Natural Bone-setter can't help you. Well, suppose
he can't, have you any objection to telling him your
story. You, my friend, have, in a signal way, experienced
adversity. Tell me, then, for my private good,
how, without aid from the noble cripple, Epictetus, you
have arrived at his heroic sang-froid in misfortune.”

At these words the cripple fixed upon the speaker the
hard ironic eye of one toughened and defiant in misery,
and, in the end, grinned upon him with his unshaven face
like an ogre.

“Come, come, be sociable—be human, my friend.
Don't make that face; it distresses me.”

“I suppose,” with a sneer, “you are the man I've
long heard of—The Happy Man.”

“Happy? my friend. Yes, at least I ought to be.
My conscience is peaceful. I have confidence in everybody.
I have confidence that, in my humble profession,
I do some little good to the world. Yes, I think that,
without presumption, I may venture to assent to the
proposition that I am the Happy Man—the Happy Bone-setter.”

“Then you shall hear my story. Many a month I
have longed to get hold of the Happy Man, drill him,
drop the powder, and leave him to explode at his
leisure.”

“What a demoniac unfortunate,” exclaimed the herb-doctor
retreating. “Regular infernal machine!”

“Look ye,” cried the other, stumping after him, and
with his horny hand catching him by a horn button, “my
name is Thomas Fry. Until my—”

—“Any relation of Mrs. Fry?” interrupted the other.
“I still correspond with that excellent lady on the subject
of prisons. Tell me, are you anyway connected
with my Mrs. Fry?”

“Blister Mrs. Fry! What do them sentimental souls
know of prisons or any other black fact? I'll tell ye
a story of prisons. Ha, ha!”

The herb-doctor shrank, and with reason, the laugh
being strangely startling.

“Positively, my friend,” said he, “you must stop
that; I can't stand that; no more of that. I hope I
have the milk of kindness, but your thunder will soon
turn it.”

“Hold, I haven't come to the milk-turning part yet.
My name is Thomas Fry. Until my twenty-third year
I went by the nickname of Happy Tom—happy—ha,
ha! They called me Happy Tom, d'ye see? because I was
so good-natured and laughing all the time, just as I am
now—ha, ha!”

Upon this the herb-doctor would, perhaps, have run,
but once more the hyæna clawed him. Presently,
sobering down, he continued:

“Well, I was born in New York, and there I lived a
steady, hard-working man, a cooper by trade. One
evening I went to a political meeting in the Park—for
you must know, I was in those days a great patriot. As
bad luck would have it, there was trouble near, between
a gentleman who had been drinking wine, and a pavior
who was sober. The pavior chewed tobacco, and the
gentleman said it was beastly in him, and pushed him,

wanting to have his place. The pavior chewed on and
pushed back. Well, the gentleman carried a swordcane,
and presently the pavior was down—skewered.”

“How was that?”

“Why you see the pavior undertook something above
his strength.”

“The other must have been a Samson then. `Strong
as a pavior,' is a proverb.”

“So it is, and the gentleman was in body a rather
weakly man, but, for all that, I say again, the pavior
undertook something above his strength.”

“What are you talking about? He tried to maintain
his rights, didn't he?”

“Yes; but, for all that, I say again, he undertook
something above his strength.”

“I don't understand you. But go on.”

“Along with the gentleman, I, with other witnesses,
was taken to the Tombs. There was an examination,
and, to appear at the trial, the gentleman and witnesses
all gave bail—I mean all but me.”

“And why didn't you?”

“Couldn't get it.”

“Steady, hard-working cooper like you; what was
the reason you couldn't get bail?”

“Steady, hard-working cooper hadn't no friends.
Well, souse I went into a wet cell, like a canal-boat
splashing into the lock; locked up in pickle, d'ye see?
against the time of the trial.”

“But what had you done?”

“Why, I hadn't got any friends, I tell ye. A worse
crime than murder, as ye'll see afore long.”

“Murder? Did the wounded man die?”

“Died the third night.”

“Then the gentleman's bail didn't help him. Imprisoned
now, wasn't he?”

“Had too many friends. No, it was I that was
imprisoned.—But I was going on: They let me walk
about the corridor by day; but at night I must into lock.
There the wet and the damp struck into my bones. They
doctored me, but no use. When the trial came, I was
boosted up and said my say.”

“And what was that?”

“My say was that I saw the steel go in, and saw it
sticking in.”

“And that hung the gentleman.”

“Hung him with a gold chain! His friends called a
meeting in the Park, and presented him with a gold
watch and chain upon his acquittal.”

“Acquittal?”

“Didn't I say he had friends?”

There was a pause, broken at last by the herb-doctor's
saying: “Well, there is a bright side to everything.
If this speak prosaically for justice, it speaks romantically
for friendship! But go on, my fine fellow.”

“My say being said, they told me I might go. I said
I could not without help. So the constables helped me,
asking where would I go? I told them back to the
`Tombs.' I knew no other place. `But where are your
friends?' said they. `I have none.' So they put me

into a hand-barrow with an awning to it, and wheeled
me down to the dock and on board a boat, and away to
Blackwell's Island to the Corporation Hospital. There
I got worse—got pretty much as you see me now.
Couldn't cure me. After three years, I grew sick of
lying in a grated iron bed alongside of groaning thieves
and mouldering burglars. They gave me five silver dollars,
and these crutches, and I hobbled off. I had an
only brother who went to Indiana, years ago. I begged
about, to make up a sum to go to him; got to
Indiana at last, and they directed me to his grave. It
was on a great plain, in a log-church yard with a stump
fence, the old gray roots sticking all ways like moose-antlers.
The bier, set over the grave, it being the last
dug, was of green hickory; bark on, and green twigs
sprouting from it. Some one had planted a bunch of violets
on the mound, but it was a poor soil (always choose
the poorest soils for grave-yards), and they were all dried
to tinder. I was going to sit and rest myself on the bier
and think about my brother in heaven, but the bier
broke down, the legs being only tacked. So, after
driving some hogs out of the yard that were rooting
there, I came away, and, not to make too long a story
of it, here I am, drifting down stream like any other bit
of wreck.”

The herb-doctor was silent for a time, buried in
thought. At last, raising his head, he said: “I have
considered your whole story, my friend, and strove to
consider it in the light of a commentary on what I
believe to be the system of things; but it so jars with all,

is so incompatible with all, that you must pardon me,
if I honestly tell you, I cannot believe it.”

“That don't surprise me.”

“How?”

“Hardly anybody believes my story, and so to most
I tell a different one.”

“How, again?”

“Wait here a bit and I'll show ye.”

With that, taking off his rag of a cap, and arranging
his tattered regimentals the best he could, off he went
stumping among the passengers in an adjoining part of
the deck, saying with a jovial kind of air: “Sir, a
shilling for Happy Tom, who fought at Buena Vista.
Lady, something for General Scott's soldier, crippled in
both pins at glorious Contreras.”

Now, it so chanced that, unbeknown to the cripple, a
prim-looking stranger had overheard part of his story.
Beholding him, then, on his present begging adventure,
this person, turning to the herb-doctor, indignantly said:
“Is it not too bad, sir, that yonder rascal should lie
so?”

“Charity never faileth, my good sir,” was the reply.
“The vice of this unfortunate is pardonable. Consider,
he lies not out of wantonness.”

“Not out of wantonness. I never heard more wanton
lies. In one breath to tell you what would appear to
be his true story, and, in the next, away and falsify it.”

“For all that, I repeat he lies not out of wantonness.
A ripe philosopher, turned out of the great Sorbonne of
hard times, he thinks that woes, when told to strangers

for money, are best sugared. Though the inglorious
lock-jaw of his knee-pans in a wet dungeon is a far
more pitiable ill than to have been crippled at glorious
Contreras, yet he is of opinion that this lighter and
false ill shall attract, while the heavier and real one
might repel.”

“Nonsense; he belongs to the Devil's regiment; and
I have a great mind to expose him.”

“Shame upon you. Dare to expose that poor unfortunate,
and by heaven—don't you do it, sir.”

Noting something in his manner, the other thought it
more prudent to retire than retort. By-and-by, the
cripple came back, and with glee, having reaped a pretty
good harvest.

“There,” he laughed, “you know now what sort of
soldier I am.”

“Aye, one that fights not the stupid Mexican, but a
foe worthy your tactics—Fortune!”

“Hi, hi!” clamored the cripple, like a fellow in the
pit of a sixpenny theatre, then said, “don't know much
what you meant, but it went off well.”

This over, his countenance capriciously put on a
morose ogreness. To kindly questions he gave no kindly
answers. Unhandsome notions were thrown out
about “free Ameriky,” as he sarcastically called his country.
These seemed to disturb and pain the herb-doctor,
who, after an interval of thoughtfulness, gravely addressed
him in these words:

“You, my worthy friend, to my concern, have reflected
upon the government under which you live and suffer.

Where is your patriotism? Where your gratitude?
True, the charitable may find something in your case,
as you put it, partly to account for such reflections as
coming from you. Still, be the facts how they may,
your reflections are none the less unwarrantable. Grant,
for the moment, that your experiences are as you give
them; in which case I would admit that government
might be thought to have more or less to do with what
seems undesirable in them. But it is never to be forgotten
that human government, being subordinate to the
divine, must needs, therefore, in its degree, partake of
the characteristics of the divine. That is, while in general
efficacious to happiness, the world's law may yet, in
some cases, have, to the eye of reason, an unequal operation,
just as, in the same imperfect view, some inequalities
may appear in the operations of heaven's law;
nevertheless, to one who has a right confidence, final
benignity is, in every instance, as sure with the one law
as the other. I expound the point at some length,
because these are the considerations, my poor fellow,
which, weighed as they merit, will enable you to sustain
with unimpaired trust the apparent calamities which
are yours.”

“What do you talk your hog-latin to me for?” cried
the cripple, who, throughout the address, betrayed the
most illiterate obduracy; and, with an incensed look,
anew he swung himself.

Glancing another way till the spasm passed, the
other continued:

“Charity marvels not that you should be somewhat

hard of conviction, my friend, since you, doubltess,
believe yourself hardly dealt by; but forget not that
those who are loved are chastened.”

“Mustn't chasten them too much, though, and too
long, because their skin and heart get hard, and feel
neither pain nor tickle.”

“To mere reason, your case looks something piteous,
I grant. But never despond; many things—the
choicest—yet remain. You breathe this bounteous air,
are warmed by this gracious sun, and, though poor and
friendless, indeed, nor so agile as in your youth, yet, how
sweet to roam, day by day, through the groves, plucking
the bright mosses and flowers, till forlornness itself
becomes a hilarity, and, in your innocent independence,
you skip for joy.”

“Fine skipping with these 'ere horse-posts—ha ha!”

“Pardon; I forgot the crutches. My mind, figuring
you after receiving the benefit of my art, overlooked
you as you stand before me.”

“Your art? You call yourself a bone-setter—a natural
bone-setter, do ye? Go, bone-set the crooked world,
and then come bone-set crooked me.”

“Truly, my honest friend, I thank you for again recalling
me to my original object. Let me examine you,”
bending down; “ah, I see, I see; much such a case as the
negro's. Did you see him? Oh no, you came aboard
since. Well, his case was a little something like yours.
I prescribed for him, and I shouldn't wonder at all if, in
a very short time, he were able to walk almost as well
as myself. Now, have you no confidence in my art?”

“Ha, ha!”

The herb-doctor averted himself; but, the wild laugh
dying away, resumed:

“I will not force confidence on you. Still, I would
fain do the friendly thing by you. Here, take this box;
just rub that liniment on the joints night and morning.
Take it. Nothing to pay. God bless you. Good-bye.”

“Stay,” pausing in his swing, not untouched by so
unexpected an act; “stay—thank'ee—but will this
really do me good? Honor bright, now; will it? Don't
deceive a poor fellow,” with changed mien and glistening
eye.

“Try it. Good-bye.”

“Stay, stay! Sure it will do me good?”

“Possibly, possibly; no harm in trying. Good-bye.”

“Stay, stay; give me three more boxes, and here's
the money.

“My friend,” returning towards him with a sadly
pleased sort of air, “I rejoice in the birth of your confidence
and hopefulness. Believe me that, like your
crutches, confidence and hopefulness will long support
a man when his own legs will not. Stick to confidence
and hopefulness, then, since how mad for the cripple to
throw his crutches away. You ask for three more boxes
of my liniment. Luckily, I have just that number remaining.
Here they are. I sell them at half-a-dollar
apiece. But I shall take nothing from you. There;
God bless you again; good-bye.”

“Stay,” in a convulsed voice, and rocking himself,
“stay, stay! You have made a better man of me. You
have borne with me like a good Christian, and talked to
me like one, and all that is enough without making me
a present of these boxes. Here is the money. I won't
take nay. There, there; and may Almighty goodness
go with you.”

As the herb-doctor withdrew, the cripple gradually
subsided from his hard rocking into a gentle oscillation.
It expressed, perhaps, the soothed mood of his
reverie.