John Hickey: Coachman
“This is to certify that the bearer, John Hickey, five years in my employ, is as honest a man as ever strode a horse.
“(Signed), McDowell, General.”
The bearer, John Hickey, stood tall, straight and uncovered before me, while I read the above recommendation. There were several others, but I never looked at them. I knew something of “McDowell, General,” in California, and I was persuaded that a man who served him for five years possessed something more than “honesty” in the outfit of his virtues.
But he had, in my opinion, received a still better recommendation at the very moment of his coming into our lives, on that bright summer morning. I had been sitting on the front porch with a dog on each side of me—that being my usual allowance. Both these dogs—Maida and Sancho—yearned with a great yearning to exterminate the whole race of organ-grinders. They also had a profound dislike for that rather large body of men and women who move back and forth on the earth’s surface carrying bundles. Therein lay their only fault; otherwise, they were good, honest, self-respecting dogs. And it must be admitted that this peculiarity of theirs helped to keep things lively about the place and our blood in quick circulation. Therefore, when John Hickey entered the gates, carrying an unusually large valise, there was a roar and a rush before I could form one word of command or entreaty. The blazing eyes and white, uncovered fangs of the dogs told so plainly of their fell intention of reducing him and his valise to a condition resembling desiccated codfish, that anyone might have been frightened. But before they reached him I heard a calm voice, and an unmistakable Irish one, saying: “Well, well! What is it now? What is it?”
Lightning could not have stopped them quicker. Their heads lowered, their tails sagged down in a shamed sort of a way. They stretched their heads out and sniffed him a moment. Then, with a wild yelp of joy, Sancho, with slavering jaws, bounded at his breast, striking staggering blows by way of welcome, while Maida, the fierce, was standing erect on hind legs at his side, kissing his protesting hands, and digging with both great paws in his side. At last they subsided a little. He stood, showing the traces of their rapturous welcome, while they sat at his feet, and looking into his face, told him, with shining, loving eyes and excited beating of their tails, that he was the very fellow they had been searching forever since the seal of their puppyhood’s blindness had fallen from their foolish, blue eyes.
During the lull the man produced his little packet of recommendations and passed them to me. My husband, returning at that moment, engaged him in a conversation consisting mainly of questions and answers, and that gave me a chance to look at “the bearer, John Hickey.” The only Irish thing about him was his voice. He was tall, square of shoulder, flat of back, clear-skinned and ruddy, with good features, keen, light-blue eyes, and brown hair, which he wore in an odd way, parted down the back of his head, and brushed forward and upward toward his ears, which gave him a peculiarly cocky and alert air. There was something in the carriage of his head, the turning out of his feet, the hang of his arms and the position of his hands, when he stood at “attention,” that said, as plain as words could say, “Soldier, yes; ‘ex,’ if you like, but soldier all the same.” I thought that then; I knew it by night.
I was just going to put a question to him when the sunlight played him a trick and betrayed his poor, little secret to me. In vain, then, the upright pose, the cocky air, and jaunty manner! It must have been some hours since he had shaved—he wore no hair upon his face, and as he stood there the sun shone full upon him, revealing on cheek, and chin, and upper lip, the glittering frost of age, and he stood revealed, an old man.
I felt touched by the bold bluff he was making against Time, and I wished to give him a trial. Therefore, I looked steadily at my lord and master, and, using that great, unwritten language understood and used by every husband and wife on the top of the earth, I signified my desire for him to engage John Hickey, and he, being a man of intelligence and a husband in good standing, replied by the same means: “All right! but I’m afraid he is a bit elderly. Still, if you wish it!” And he told John to come with him and he would show him his quarters and settle about wages, etc. The words were scarcely out of his lips before the dogs were up and leading the way, with waving tails and many backward turnings of their heads. I think I have said the day was very hot, and as the two men stepped from the lawn to the carriage-drive, my husband, finding his hat oppressive, removed it and held it in his hand. Thus it happened that he walked with bared head at John Hickey’s side, while he escorted him to his new home. It was a trivial thing to notice, yet there came a time when it was sharply recalled to me.