Letters from a Son to His Self-Made Father / Being the Replies to Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son

by Charles Eustace Merriman

I merely mention this anecdote as evidence that a man cannot always be judged by what appear to be his deeds, as you seem to think, and that the devil often gives him a side wallop when he's engaged in perfectly innocent recreation.

Thanks to your kind little remembrance I shall be able to be officially introduced to Milligan on the 15th. I note that, through your customary forethought, the check is just sufficient to land me in Chicago with eleven cents in my pocket, provided I practice strict economy en route. Permit me to compliment you on being the most skillful promoter of labor any son ever had.

I have racked my brain in vain to think what I could have said in the letter of the Fourth of July to arouse your encomiums. Your assertion that it "said more to the number of words" than any letter you ever received from me suggests that it was brief. As it was written on the Fourth, a day that, as a good American, I always celebrate, its brevity may be accounted for. The same explanation, however, will scarcely answer for the condensed power of expression you note.

By the way, Poindexter isn't going to marry old Conway's widow, spite her millions. I quizzed him about it and he finally put me wise. "Yes, I could have married her," he said. "In fact, we agreed, but I squirmed out of it. The truth is I proposed by mail—I didn't have the nerve to do it face to face—and she accepted me on a postal card. Her evident economy was a bit too much for me."

I've done a lot of thinking (this word is not written very plainly, but it is thinking and nothing else) since I have been in the woods. Billy says I only think I'm thinking, but he's a cynic. There's been little to do but think. The hunting is worse than the fishing and the only thing I've bagged is my trousers. The sum total of my thoughts seems to be a few resolutions. Although I know resolutions are not ripe till Jan. 1, I've had time to make them here and I'll have plenty of chance to get accustomed to them before I write them down in the Russia leather diary that I know you will be glad to include among my Christmas gifts.

My resolutions may not be original, they may not even be good ones, but such as they are I am going to write them out for you, for you have often told me that it was every man's duty to himself to set himself a goal and mark out the course by which to reach it. For this and a perfect wealth of other advice I can never thank you enough. Perhaps, however, the knowledge that I am really taking life seriously, as shown by my resolutions, will be some recompense to you for the midnight oil you have burned in the coinage of succinct sayings and meaty metaphors. (I flatter myself that is pretty well expressed, although my English professor would object, as he often did, to my employment of trade terms as illustrations and similes.)

The stain on this sheet of paper is due to Poindexter, who shied a slice of fat pork at my head while I was writing. That was yesterday and he absolutely refused to let me finish my letter. He said a man who couldn't find anything better to do in the woods than write was several unpleasant sounding things. As he emphasized his remarks by war-whoops, Comanche dances and the beating together of tin plates, I was forced to forsake my literary pursuits till this morning. Billy is asleep. He absolutely refused to rise without a pick-me-up and, as our canoe was upset last night, we lost all our camp utensils, including that indispensable adjunct to camp life, the pick-me-up.