Letters from a Son to His Self-Made Father. Charles Eustace Merriman

or about that date. You will. I have no desire to walk to Chicago, and my general mode of life trends toward Pullmans rather than freight cars. Ad interim, as we used to say in our debating societies, I think I shall run down to one of those jaw-twisting lakes in Maine to get some of New York soaked out of my system before dropping in on you. Billy Poindexter, a classmate of mine, has a camp there, and he writes me that hornpouts are biting like sixty, and mosquitoes like seventy. But I don't mind that, for I believe a little blood-letting will do me good after my stay here.

      I like New York, even if it is a bit commonplace and straight-laced compared with Chicago. They are great on Sunday observance in this town, and I find I am gathering a little of the same spirit myself. For instance, at an auditorium called the Haymarket, there is always a devotional service very early on Sunday mornings. I attended yesterday, and was much attracted by the ceremonies and the music. You would be surprised to see the number of ladies who are willing to be absent from their comfortable homes at such an inconvenient hour.

      Say what you will, father, New York is a hospitable place. Although an utter stranger, I was invited the other night to the house of Mr. Canfield, a very wealthy gentleman who lives in great style. Mr. Canfield is well known as a philosopher who devotes a great deal of his time to the working out of the laws of chance and sequence. Beautiful experiments are made at his home every evening before a number of invited guests, among whom are some of the most prominent men in the city. It seems that it is the custom to have the youngest and least known guest contribute largely for the evening's entertainment, so naturally I went pretty deep into my available funds. I think I have just about enough to settle my hotel bill and buy my transportation to Lake Moose-something-or-other. It will be quite necessary that I hear from you at that point, and to the point, if you don't want me to become a lumberman or a Maine guide.

      By the way, I've been observant and I've discovered something, though you'll doubtless not credit it. I see at last how so many dunderheads marry pretty girls. Two of them—pretty girls, not dunderheads—were talking at the next table to me the other day.

      "So she's going to marry Dick Rogers, is she?" said one. "Poor thing! He's awfully flat."

      "Well," replied her companion, "he's got a steam yacht, an auto, a string of saddle horses and his own golf links."

      "Ah, I see," murmured her companion, "a flat with all the modern improvements." Not bad for a New York girl, is it?

      Your affectionate son,

       P.

      P.S. I met Colonel Blough the other evening and he invited me to sit in at a poker game. Of course I refused. He was surprised, said he supposed it ran in the family, and related the details of a little business transaction he and some other gentlemen had with you when you were last in New York. I hope mother is well. I am very anxious to see her. I think you'd be in line for repute as a philanthropist if you would send me a check for a hundred.

      LETTER NO. V.

LETTER No. V.

       Table of Contents

      Pierrepont goes fishing and writes his father

       some of his experiences, not all of which,

       however, seem directly identified

       with the piscatorial art.

      Lake Moose, etc., Me., July 11, 189—

      Dear Dad:

      Here I am in a little hut by the water, writing on the bottom of a canned meat box—not our label, for I gave Billy a bit of wholesome advice as to packing foods, which he accepted on the ground that mine was expert testimony—a tallow candle flickering at my side, and the hoarse booming of bullfrogs outside furnishing an obligato to my thoughts. One particular bullfrog who resides here can make more noise than any Texas steer that ever struck Chicago. It isn't always the biggest animal that can make the loudest rumpus, as I sometimes fear you think. I simply mention this in passing that you may see that all the Graham philosophy isn't on one side of the house.

      As a spot for rest this place has even Harvard skinned to death. It is so quiet here—when the frogs are out of action—that you can hear the march of time. Besides Billy Poindexter and our guide, Pete Sanderson, I don't believe there's another human being within a hundred miles. It's a great change from the Waldorf-Astoria, where you couldn't walk into the bar without getting another man's breath. The commissary department is different, too. The canned goods Billy bought are as bad as yours, dad, upon my soul, while as for fish, there's nothing come to the surface yet but hornpouts, and they'll do for just about once.

      We have fried salt pork for a change and Pete makes biscuits that would make excellent adjuncts to deep sea fishing tackle. Altogether, this is great preparation for the packing-house, for I shall be so hungry by July 15 that I'll do anything to get a square meal. By the way, you haven't said anything on the subject of board—whether I could live at home on a complimentary meal ticket or be landed in a boarding-house and made to pay. I am going to write to Ma on this subject, for I think she is a good deal stronger on the fatted calf business than you.

      I think you would like to meet Pete Sanderson, for he's a veteran of the Civil War with a pension for complete disability, which he was awarded a little while ago. There isn't anything the matter with Pete except a few little scars, which he came by in a curious manner. It seems that he was examined by the pension board down at Bangor a few weeks back for complete paralysis. His home doctor swore that Pete couldn't move nor feel, and two strapping sons brought him to the office in their arms.

      The other doctors punched and pounded him nearly to a jelly, but Pete never yipped. As a last resort they jabbed him with pins in a dozen different places, yet he didn't budge. Complete paralysis, they declared, but they didn't know that Pete had been stuffed so full of opium that he couldn't see nor feel, either. But he says he helped just as hard to save the nation as any one else, and ought to be recognized. At any rate his case is quite as worthy as that of the man who visited a Washington pension agency and sought government aid on the ground that he had contracted gout from high living, due to his profits on army contracts.

      Pete is a great hand to spring stories of the war on us, and some of them are pretty good. One he tells about the chaplain of the —— Mass., when that regiment was lying on the Rappahannock or Chickahominy, or some other river during the summer of '62. It seems that the chaplain was acting as postmaster for the men, and had been much bothered by requests for the mail, which had got tangled up with the Rebs somewhere. One hot afternoon he allowed to himself that he'd like a good snooze free from interruption, so he affixed to the front of his tent a placard that read thus: