 | Poor Little Eddie |  |
3. Part III
We were all genuinely enthusiastic about the merits of those machines. During our freshman year we'd all done our bit of barbering spuds at Mrs. Rariden's
It was a sort of an adaptation of the safety-razor idea. A child, or even a cooking-school graduate, could handle it. It took all the art out of potato-peeling. You just took the instrument in one hand and the spud in the other, and thought about something else for a while. Then you glanced casually down at the spud, and — presto, you found it shaved as smooth as a con man's lip!
We figured on making quite a cleanup out of those vegetable safety-razors. In fact, Dick and I felt that if we were lucky we might make enough to afford a room without Eddie during our senior year. We both of us liked Eddie in a way, but we looked upon him as a sort of youthful frivolity. We felt that the loss of him would add to our dignity, and you know how prospective seniors have to reckon on those things.
But what do the common people care about progress, science, art, political economy? Nothing! That's why they're common. I talked to some of the commonest people during the first week we were on the road with those spud-skinners. Common people? I was just like a candidate to 'em; and all that any of them gave me was a pain!
Pay two bits for a little article absolutely indispensable to the successful conduct of any well-run household? Kick in with the price of a hair-cut for an invention as necessary to the orderly development of culinary science as strangers to Broadway? Part with twenty-five ordinary pennies, five nickels, two dimes and a jitney, the mere fourth part of an insignificant dollar, to save wife or cook from the danger of a lacerated hand and probable death from poisoning thereby?
Common people? Don't argue with me! I know the answer. I proved it to my own disgust. Say, if the fountain of youth was a potato-peeler and Ponce de Leon was the common people, he wouldn't give a worthy young college man a postal-card to write home for money in exchange for a whole gross of them!
Sell Popple's Patent Potato-Peelers? Why, we couldn't trade 'em for their weight in skimmed milk at a dairy-farm! Don't ever tell me farmers are suckers. If they're sea-food, they're crabs. Why, I used every form of argument from pure, cold, business logic to a consumptive cough, and all I got for my work was a variety of negative answers. A farmer can think up more mean ways of saying no than a total abstainer!
Dick and I at least held our own. If we couldn't lift the price of a patent potato-peeler from a wayside farm, we didn't stop off and try to lift the mortgage. Do you know what Eddie did? Just to show you — he let a woman up in northern Massachusetts tell him why she couldn't buy one of his patent potato-peelers to help a poor boy get a college education.
It was a sad story, mates. The year of the big wind it hadn't rained enough, and the year of the big rain there hadn't been any wind. Both years there hadn't been any crops. The only things she'd been able to raise on her little farm were nine kids and one hog. Her husband drank vile liquor and had the rheumatism. He and the hog had both been sick, and the old lady's luck ran true to form. It was the boy that died.
Well, Eddie loaned her his ears, and after she'd poured them full he gave her the ten dollars he had left. Then he hunted Dick and me up, and tried to make us weep with a second-hand version of the story he went broke on. That was Eddie — boob to the bone!
Dick and I had already decided to go to Paskamatqua Beach, a summer resort on the Maine coast about forty miles distant. A college man with a crease in his trousers and no pride can always make some sort of a living at a Maine beach. We had no intention of leaving
"I'm sorry you're broke, Eddie," I told him. "Dick and I would both like to help you out, but neither of us can. We're practically broke, too. We made a mistake in bringing patent potato-peelers with us; what we need is some kind of a scalpel to peel the surrounding farmer away from his money. Dick and I are going to Paskamatqua Beach to make a living. We've only got money enough between us for two tickets, so you see how it is."
"But what am I going to do?" Eddie asked. He spoke in such a pitiful way that I almost felt sorry for him. Eddie could arouse sympathy. "I haven't a cent, and I don't know where I can get one. You won't leave me alone, will you?"
"You might go back to the lady you gave the ten to, and ask her for a job," Dick suggested. "There ought to be some leftovers now that the hog is dead. The prodigal son got by on husks."
"But he had an address to wire to when they disagreed with him," Eddie pointed out. "I haven't."
"Try beating your way to the beach, Eddie," I advised him. "We'll help you. You get on the train with us, and we'll turn two seats together. You scrooch down on the floor between them, and we'll pile our suit-cases around you. Then we'll put our coats over you and take a chance."
"You'll take a chance!" Eddie said. "You! What chance do you take?"
"Why, think of the embarrassment we should suffer if we're found in the company of a hobo," Dick explained. "We're taking all the chances; you're not taking any. You've got nothing to lose. If they catch you, all they can do is to put you off the train. Wherever they dump you, you won't be any worse off than you are here. You can't lose!"
So Eddie got on the train with us and huddled up between the seats. We stacked the suit-cases around him and spread our coats over them.
The other passengers in the car were interested in watching us. One fat, red-faced fellow right across the aisle, with a diamond in his tie the size of an early strawberry, was particularly curious. Dick tapped his forehead, to indicate that our traveling-companion was suffering from an absence of tenants on the upper floor.
Then the conductor came along, and Dick showed him three tickets to Paskamatqua Beach. The conductor looked at Dick, and then at me, and then at the three tickets.
Who's the other ticket for?" he asked.
Dick took the coats off the top of the suit-cases and pointed at poor little Eddie, all doubled up on the floor and looking at the conductor like a rabbit in a trap sizing up a hungry dog. The conductor leaned over and looked down at him.
What's be doing down there on the floor?" he asked.
"He's peculiar," Dick explained. "He likes to ride that way."
"Well, there's no law against it," the conductor admitted; "but if he gets violent I shall hold you two responsible for him!"
Eddie never did have a sense of humor. He couldn't see anything funny in the situation, even after we explained it to him in detail; but I thought the fat, red-faced fellow across the aisle would melt himself laughing. I actually feared for him.
Eddie was mad at all of us, but particularly so at the fat fellow who was having hysterics. The fat fellow saw how Eddie felt about it, and gave him some good advice.
"Don't get mad, my boy," he said in the tone of a man giving a baccalaureate
And just then — whango! The train we were on started an argument over the issue of right of way with another train coming in the opposite direction on the same track.
| Poor Little Eddie | |