I resolved to plead with E—— and A—— when I saw them.
He was sitting in a big armchair facing a rear window, and now he took my hand again and held it. Soon I felt hot tears on it.
“Pop,” I said, pulling his head against me and smoothing it, “you mustn’t cry. Things aren’t so bad as all that. The children are all right. We’ll probably be able to do better and more for you than we’ve ever done.”
“I know, I know,” he said after a little while, overcoming his emotion, “but I’m getting so old, and I don’t sleep much any more—just an hour or two. I lie there and think. In the morning I get up at four sometimes and make my coffee. Then the days are so long.”
I cried too. The long days ... the fading interests ... Mother gone and the family broken up....
“I know,” I said. “I haven’t acted just right—none of us have. I’ll write you from now on when I’m away, and send you some money once in a while. I’m going to get you a big overcoat for next winter. And now I want you to come over with me to the Fair. I’ve tickets, and you’ll enjoy it. I’m a press representative now, a traveling correspondent. I’ll show you everything.”
After due persuasion he got his hat and stick and came with me. We took a car and an elevated road, which finally landed us at the gate, and then, for as long as his strength would endure, we wandered about looking at the enormous buildings, the great Ferris Wheel, the caravels Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria in which Columbus sailed to America, the convent of La Rabida (which, because it related to the Trappists, fascinated him), and finally the German Village on the Midway, as German and ordentlich as ever a German would wish, where we had coffee and little German cakes with caraway seeds on them and some pot cheese with red pepper and onions. He was so interested and amused by the vast spectacle that he could do little save exclaim: “By crackie!” “This is now beautiful!” or “That is now wonderful!” In the German village he fell into a conversation with a buxom German frau who had a stand there and who hailed from some part of Germany about which he seemed to know, and then all was well indeed. It was long before I could get him away. These delightful visits were repeated only about four times during my stay of two weeks, when he admitted that it was tiring and he had seen enough.
Another morning when I had not too much to do I looked up my brother E——, who was driving a laundry wagon somewhere on the south side, and got him to come out evenings and Sundays, as well as A——, who was connected with an electric plant as assistant of some kind. I recall now, with an odd feeling as to the significance of relationship and family ties generally, how keenly important his and E——’s interests were to me then and how I suffered because I thought they were not getting along as well as they should. Looking in a shoe window in Pittsburgh a year or two later, I actually choked with emotion because I thought that maybe E—— did not earn enough to keep himself looking well. A—— always seemed more or less thwarted in his ambitions, and whenever I saw him I felt sad because, like so many millions of others in this grinding world, he had never had a real chance. Life is so casual, and luck comes to many who sleep and flies from those who try. I always felt that under more advantageous circumstances A—— would have done well. He was so wise, if slightly cynical, full of a laughing humor. His taste for literature and artistic things in general was high, although entirely untrained. Like myself he had a turn for the problems of nature, constantly wondering as to the why of this or that and seeking the answer in a broader knowledge. But long hours of work and poor pay seemed to handicap him in his search. I was sad beyond words about his condition, and urged him to come to St. Louis and try his luck there, which he subsequently did.
Another thing I did was to visit the old Globe office in Fifth Avenue downtown, only to find things in a bad way there. Although Brady, Hutchinson and Dunlap were still there the paper was not paying, was, in fact, in danger of immediate collapse. John B. MacDonald, its financial backer or angel, having lost a fortune in trying to make it pay and win an election with it, was about ready to quit and the paper was on its last legs. Could I get them jobs in St. Louis? Maxwell had gone to the Tribune and was now a successful copy-reader there.... In my new summer suit and straw hat and with my various credentials, I felt myself to be quite a personage. How much better I had done than these men who had been in the business longer than I had! Certainly I would see what I could do. They must write me. They could find me now at such-and-such a hotel.
The sweets of success!