Hearts Behind The Order Book

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Title:     Hearts Behind The Order Book
Author: Charles N. Crewdson [More Titles by Crewdson]

With all of his power of enduring disappointment and changing a shadow to a spot of sunshine, there yet come days of loneliness into the life of the commercial traveler--days when he cannot and will not break the spell. There is a sweet enchantment, anyway, about melancholy; 'tis then that the heart yearns for what it knows awaits it. Perhaps the wayfarer has missed his mail; perhaps the wife whom he has not seen for many weeks, writes him now that she suffers because of their separation and how she longs for his return.

I sat one day in a big red rocking chair in the Knutsford Hotel, in Salt Lake. I had been away from home for nearly three months. It was drawing near the end of the season. The bell boys sat with folded hands upon their bench; the telegraph instrument had ceased clicking; the typewriter was still. The only sound heard was the dripping of the water at the drinking fount. The season's rush was over. Nothing moved across the floor except the shadows chasing away the sunshine which streamed at times through the skylight. Half a dozen other wanderers-- all disconsolate--sat facing the big palm in the center of the room. No one spoke a word. Perhaps we were all turning the blue curls of smoke that floated up from our cigars into visions of home.

The first to move was one who had sat for half an hour in deep meditation. He went softly over to the music box near the drinking fount and dropped a nickel into the slot. Then he came back again to his chair and fell into reverie. The tones of the old music box were sweet, like the swelling of rich bells. They pealed through the white corridor "Old Kentucky Home." Every weary wanderer began to hum the air. When the chorus came, one, in a low sweet tenor, sang just audibly:

"Weep no more, my lady,
"Weep no more to-day;
"We will sing one song, for my old Kentucky home,
"For my old Kentucky home far away."

When the music ceased he of meditation went again and dropped in another coin. Out of the magic box came once more sweet strains--this time those of Cayalleria Rusticana, which play so longingly upon the noblest passions of the soul.

The magic box played its entire repertoire, which fitted so well the mood of the disconsolate listeners. The first air was repeated, and the second. This was enough--too much. Quietly the party disbanded, leaving behind only the man of meditation to listen to the dripping of the fount.

Not only are there moments of melancholy on the road, but those of tragedy as well. The field of the traveling man is wide and, while there bloom in it fragrant blossoms and in it there wax luscious fruits, the way is set with many thorns.

During the holidays of 1903 I was in a western city. On one of these days, long to be remembered, I took luncheon with a young man who had married only a few months before. This trip marked his first separation from his wife since their wedding. Every day there came a letter from "Dolly" to "Ned"--some days three. The wife loves her drummer husband; and the most loved and petted of all the women in the world is the wife of the man on the road. When they are apart they long to be together; when they meet they tie again the broken threads of their life-long honeymoon.

As we sat at the table over our coffee a bell boy brought into my friend letter "97" for that trip. His wife numbered her letters. Reading the letter my friend said to me: "Jove, I wish I could be at home in Chicago to-day, or else, like you, have Dolly along with me. Just about now I would be going to the matinee with her. She writes me she is going to get tickets for to-day and take my sister along, as that is the nearest thing to having me. Gee, how I'd love to be with her!"

After luncheon we went to our sample rooms, which adjoined. Late in the afternoon I heard the newsboys calling out: "Extra! Extra! All about the * * *" I know not what. My friend came into my room.

"What is that they are calling out?" he said.

We listened. We heard the words: "All about the Great Chicago Theater Fire."

Three steps at a time we bounded down stairs and bought papers. When my friend saw the head-lines he exclaimed: "Hundreds burned alive in the Iroquois Theater. Good God, man, Dolly went to that theater to- day!"

"Pray God she didn't," said I.

We rushed to the telegraph office and my friend wired to his father: "Is Dolly lost? Wire me all particulars and tell me the truth."

We went to the newspaper office to see the lists of names as they came in over the wire, scanning each new list with horrified anxiety. On one sheet we saw his own family name. The given name was near to, but not exactly, that of his wife.

May a man pray for the death of his near beloved kin--for the death of one he loves much--that she may be spared whom he loves more? Not that, but he will pray that both be spared.

Back to the hotel we ran. No telegram. Back to the newspaper office and back to the hotel again.

A messenger boy put his hand on the hotel door. Three leaps, and my friend snatched the message from the boy. He started to open it. He faltered. He pressed the little yellow envelope to his heart, then handed it to me.

"You open it and pray for me," he said.

The message read: "All our immediate family escaped the horrible disaster. Dolly is alive and thankful. She tried but could not get tickets. Thank God."

All do not escape the calamity of death, however, as did my friend Ned. The business of the man on the road is such that he is ofttimes cut off from his mail and even telegrams for several days at a time. Again, many must be several days away from their homes utterly unable to get back. When death comes then it strikes the hardest blow.

A friend of mine once told me this story:

"I was once opened up in an adjoining room to a clothing man's. When he left home his mother was very low and not expected to live for a great while; but on his trip go he must. He had a large family, and many personal debts. He could not stay at home because no one else could fill his place on the road. The position of a traveling man, I believe, is seldom fully appreciated. It is with the greatest care that, as you know, a wholesale house selects its salesmen for the road. When a good man gets into a position it is very hard--in fact impossible--for him to drop out and let some one else take his place for one trip even. Of course you know there isn't any place that some other man cannot fill, but the other man is usually so situated that either he will not or does not care to make a change.

"My clothing friend was at Seattle on his trip. His home, where his mother lay sick, was in Saint Louis--nearly four days away. The last letter he had received from home told him that his mother was sinking. The same day on which he received this letter a customer came into his room about ten o'clock--and he was a tough customer, too. He found fault with everything and tore up the samples. He was a hard man to deal with. You know how it is when you strike one of these suspicious fellows. He has no confidence in anybody and makes the life of us poor wanderers anything but a joyous one.

"Under the circumstances, of which he said nothing, my clothing friend was not in the best mood. He could not help thinking of home and feeling that he should be there; yet, at the same time, he had a duty to do. He simply must continue the trip. He had just taken on his position with a new firm and needed to show, on this trip, the sort of stuff in him. He had been doing first rate; still, he must keep it up.

"I happened to drop in, as I was not busy for a few minutes, while he was showing goods. I never like to go into a man's sample room while he is waiting on any one. Often a new man on the road gets in the way of doing this and doesn't know any better. Selling a bill of goods, even to an old customer, takes a whole lot of energy. No man likes to be interrupted while he is at it. When it comes to persuading a new man to buy of you, you have, frequently, a hard task. There are many reasons why a customer should not leave his old house. Maybe he is still owing money to the firm he has been dealing with and needs credit. Maybe the salesman for that firm is a personal friend. These are two things hard to overcome--financial obligations and friendship.

"At any rate, my clothing friend was having much difficulty. He was making the best argument he could, telling the customer it mattered not what firm he dealt with, that firm was going to collect a hundred cents on the dollar when his bill was due; and that any firm he dealt with would be under obligations to him for the business he had given to it instead of his being under obligations to the firm. He was also arguing against personal friendship and saying he would very soon find out whether the man he was dealing with was his friend or not if he quit buying goods from him. He was getting down to the hard pan argument that the merchant, under all circumstances, should do his business where he thought he could do it to best advantage to himself.

"The merchant would not start to picking out a line himself, so my friend laid on a table a line of goods and was, as a final struggle, trying to persuade the merchant to buy that selection, a good thing to do. It is often as easy to sell a merchant a whole line of goods as one item. But the merchant said no.

"Just as I started out of the room, in came a bell boy with a telegram. My clothing friend, as he read the message, looked as if he were hitched to an electric wire. He stood shocked--with the telegram in his hand--not saying a word. Then he turned to me, handed me the message and, without speaking, went over, laid down on the bed, and buried his face in a pillow. Poor fellow. I never felt so sorry for anybody in my life! The message told that his mother was dead.

"I asked the stubborn customer to come into the next room, where I showed him the message.

"'After all, a "touch of pity makes the whole world akin",' the merchant said to me:

"'Just tell your friend, when he is in shape again to talk business, that he may send me the line he picked out and that I really like it first rate."

Sometimes the tragedies of the road show a brighter side. Once, an old time Knight of the Grip, said to me, as we rode together:

"Do you know, a touching, yet a happy thing, happened this morning down in Missoula?

"I was standing in my customer's store taking sizes on his stock. I heard the notes of a concertina and soon, going to the front door, I saw a young girl singing in the street. In the street a good looking woman was pulling the bellows of the instrument. Beside her stood two girls--one of ten, another of about fourteen. They took turns at singing--sometimes in the same song.

"All three wore neat black clothes--not a spark of color about them except the sparkling keys of the concertina. They were not common looking, poorly clad, dirty street musicians. They were refined, even beautiful. The little group looked strangely out of place. I said to myself: 'How have these people come to this?'

"How those two girls could sing! Their voices were sweet and full. I quit my business, and a little bunch of us--two more of the boys on the road having joined me--stood on the sidewalk.

"The little girl sang this song," continued my companion, reading from a little printed slip:

"Dark and drear the world has grown as I wan-der all a-lone,
And I hear the breezes sob-bing thro' the pines.
I can scarce hold back my tears, when the southern moon ap-pears,
For 'tis our humble cottage where it shines;
Once again we seem to sit, when the eve-ning lamps are lit,
With our faces turned to-ward the golden west,
When I prayed that you and I ne'er would have to say 'Good-bye,'
But that still to-gether we'd be laid to rest.

"As she sang, a lump kind of crawled up in my throat. None of us spoke.

"She finished this verse and went into the crowd to sell printed copies of their songs, leaving her older sister to take up the chorus. And I'll tell you, it made me feel that my lot was not hard when I saw one of those sweet, modest little girls passing around a cup, her mother playing in the dusty street, and her sister singing,--to just any one that would listen.

"The chorus was too much for me. I bought the songs. Here it is:

CHORUS.

"Dear old girl, the rob-in sings a-bove you,
Dear old girl, it speaks of how I love you,
The blind-ing tears are fall-ing,
As I think of my lost pearl,
And my broken heart is call-ing,
Calling you, dear old girl.

"Just as the older sister finished this chorus and started to roll down the street a little brother, who until now had remained in his baby carriage unnoticed, the younger girl came where we were. I had to throw in a dollar. We all chipped in something. One of the boys put his fingers deep into the cup and let drop a coin. Tears were in his eyes. He went to the hotel without saying a word.

"The little girl went away, but soon she came back and said: 'One of you gentlemen has made a mistake. You aimed, mama says, to give me a nickel, but here is a five-dollar gold piece.'

"'It must be the gentleman who has gone into the hotel,' said I.

"Then I'll go find him,' said the little girl. 'Where is it?'

"Well, sir, what do you suppose happened? The little girl told the man who'd dropped in the five, how her father, who had been well to do, was killed in a mine accident in Colorado and that although he was considerable to the good, creditors just wiped up all he had left his family. The mother--the family was Italian--had taught her children music and they boldly struck out to make their living in the streets. It was the best they could do.

"The man who had put in the five was a jewelry salesman from New York. While out on a trip he had lost his wife and three children in the Slocum disaster. He just sent the whole family,--the mother, the two sisters, and the baby--to New York and told them to go right into his home and live there--that he would see them through.

"I was down at the depot when the family went aboard, and it was beautiful to see the mother take that man's hand in both of hers and the young girls hug him and kiss him like he was their father."

[The end]
Charles N. Crewdson's short story: Hearts Behind The Order Book

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