And I sank to sleep and to dreams, in which Jimmie Elkins, the Empress, Sir John, Alice, and myself acted in a spectacular drama, like that at McVicker’s. And yet there are those who say there is nothing in dreams!
CHAPTER III.
Reminiscentially Autobiographical.
This Jimmie Elkins was several years older than I; but that did not prevent us, as boys, from being fast friends. At seventeen he had a coterie of followers among the smaller fry of ten and twelve, his tastes clinging long to the things of boyhood. He and I played together, after the darkening of his lip suggested the razor, and when the youths of his age were most of them acquiring top buggies, and thinking of the long Sunday-night drives with their girls. Jim preferred the boys, and the trade of the fisher and huntsman.
Why, in spite of parental opposition, I loved Jimmie, is not hard to guess. He had an odd and freakish humor, and talked more of Indian-fighting, filibustering in gold-bearing regions, and of moving accidents by flood and field, than of crops, live-stock, or bowery dances. He liked me just as did the older men who sent me to the National Convention,—in spite of my youth. He was a ne’er-do-weel, said my father, but I snared gophers and hunted and fished with him, and we loved each other as brothers seldom do.
At last, I began teaching school, and working my way to a better education than our local standard accepted as either useful or necessary, and Jim and I drifted apart. He had always kept up a voluminous correspondence with that class of advertisers whose black-letter “Agents Wanted” is so attractive to the farmer-boy; and he was usually agent for some of their wares. Finally, I heard of him as a canvasser for a book sold by subscription,—a “Veterinarians’ Guide,” I believe it was,—and report said that he was “making money.” Again I learned that he had established a publishing business of some kind; and, later, that reverses had forced him to discontinue it,—the old farmer who told me said he had “failed up.” Then I heard no more of him until that night of the convention, when I had the adventure with the Empress and Sir John, all unknown to them; and Jim made the ineffectual attempt to find me. His family had left the old neighborhood, and so had mine; and the chances of our ever meeting seemed very slight. In fact it was some years later and after many of the brave dreams of the youthful publicist had passed away, that I casually stumbled upon him in the smoking-room of a parlor-car, coming out of Chicago.
I did not know him at first. He came forward, and, extending his hand, said, “How are you, Al?” and paused, holding the hand I gave him, evidently expecting to enjoy a period of perplexity on my part. But with one good look in his eyes I knew him. I made him sit down by me, and for half an hour we were too much engrossed in reminiscences to ask after such small matters as business, residence, and general welfare.
“Where all have you been, Jim, and what have you been doing, since you followed off the ‘Veterinarians’ Guide,’ and I lost you?” I inquired at last.