Watch Yourself Go By

by Al. G. Field

"A man so various, that he seemed to be
Not one, but all mankind's epitome;
Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong
Was everything by starts, and nothing long;
But, in the course of one revolving moon,
Was chemist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon."

The only aim Palmer seemed to have in life was to create the impression that he might have been worse. Store clerk, school teacher, politician, preacher, scene painter, amateur showman; such were the pursuits he had been engaged in, not successful in any of them. Abusive of all, save that one he was engaged in, blaming the world for his failures. He respected no man or woman. He approached no man save with a selfish motive; could he but injure those with whom he dealt he was happy, though he did not profit thereby. Yet he did not so speak, but all his actions conveyed this impression of the man to Alfred. And thus his character was impressed on the boy's intuitive mind as strongly as were the scenes on the canvas of the panorama.

Palmer

The wife was only another of that type of woman who has blasted a life, one full of hope, by clinging to a man who was unworthy of one day of her life. It was a pathetic spectacle to see the faded wife standing helpless in the shadow of her husband's selfishness, having sacrificed youth, beauty and everything that woman holds dear. It did not matter to Palmer that she was once a school teacher, more than a fair musician, courted by numbers who could have made her useful to society and happy in her life. It did not matter to Palmer that she had burned up much of her attractiveness over the cooking stove; that she lost more of it at the washtub; in caring for and rearing the children that had unfortunately come to them. The slaving she had gone through in all their married life to help her husband to get on in the world was all lost upon the selfish man who never gave a thought to her sufferings. He actually treated her if as she had been the cause of his failures, and seemed ashamed of her when younger and more attractive women were near.

Her two children, somewhere in Missouri in the keeping of her mother, seemed her only hope in life and the only time the poor crushed soul evidenced interest in anything was when tidings came from the children or she could prevail upon their thankless father to send them a little money. The mother's wardrobe was scanty that the darlings of her heart might be better clad.

Aunt Susan wore a sun-bonnet almost continuously that she might better keep in place mustard plasters and horse radish leaves to relieve the neuralgia pains. Alfred presumed that Mrs. Palmer was similarly affected since she always wore a sun-bonnet. That was before they left Palmer's house. Afterwards he became convinced that the woman wore the sun-bonnet to conceal the lines of sorrow in her once fine face.

Rev. Gideon was the last of the trio whom Alfred figured out. He had married Palmer's sister. They went to a foreign country as missionaries; Gideon's health gave way under the tropical climate. He returned to this country and had since made his home with the Palmers. But little was learned of the wife. She still lived, and if remittances were not forthcoming, Gideon was on the rack. In fact, each one of her complaining letters made Gideon turn more yellow in color, sit up later and get up earlier than usual, no matter how poor Gideon suffered. If he was ailing and Palmer noticed it, he would sneer and jerk out: "Huh! Got a letter from Sis, did you? S'pose she wants you to go back to China. Say Gideon, that must have been a hell of a job to instill the gospel into heathen when you can't make an impression upon those who understand what you say. It must have been discouraging to waste your eloquence upon those copper-colored thieves. There's many a game to catch suckers in this world but that foreign mission play is the rawest ever sprung. Say, Gideon, how much did you get? So much for each sinner saved or did you lump the job?"

Under such cynicism Gideon would turn about and walk off as though nothing had been said to him. Palmer took an especial delight in teasing Gideon as to his mission labors. Gideon never deigned to notice the ridicule of Palmer, at least in words. Yet there was one thing that impressed Alfred. Palmer always deferred to Gideon in any business proposition under consideration; he would bluster and rave a little but always in the end gave in to Gideon's judgment.

In addition to the receipts that came to him from the exhibition of the panorama, Palmer had a large, framed, steel plate engraving of John Bunyan which he sold while soliciting subscriptions for several religious publications. He worked diligently. He never desisted when he once went after preacher, deacon or the entire congregation, and he generally sold what he offered or secured their names to one of his numerous subscription lists.