And his heart was filled with thankfulness that he had selected the career of a soldier and that there never could be any doubt of his usefulness to the world. The only other occupants of the omnibus were two men--one of them a commercial traveler, and the other an aged resident of s...o...b..rgh who had been at the county town for the day, as Sam gathered from their conversation.
"I don"t suppose that the war has caused much excitement at s...o...b..rgh?"
asked Sam at last, introducing the subject uppermost in his mind.
"It ain"t jest what it was when I went to the war," said the old man; "but there is a deal o" talk about it, and all the young men are wanting to go."
"Are they?" cried Sam, in delight. "And did you serve in the war? How very interesting! Did you offer your life for your country without hope of reward?"
"That"s just what I did, young man, and if you doubt it, here"s my pension that I drew to-day in town, twelve dollars a month, and they"ve paid it now these thirty-four years."
"That"s a pretty soft thing," said the commercial man. "Better"n selling fountain-pens in the backwoods."
"A soft thing!" cried the old man, "I ought to have twice as much.
There"s Abe Tucker gets fifteen dollars because he caught cold on picket duty, and I get a beggarly twelve."
"Were you severely wounded?" asked Sam.
"Well, no-o-o, not exactly, tho I might just as well "a" been. I was down bad with the measles. This is an ongrateful country. Here it is only thirty-five years after the war, and they"re only paying a hundred and forty millions a year to only a million pensioners. It"s a beggarly shame!"
"Were there that many men in the war?" asked the traveler.
"Pretty near it, I reckon. But p"r"aps in thirty-five years there"d be a natural increase. Think of it, a million men throwing away their lives for a nothing like that! I jest tell our young fellers that they"d better stay at home. Why, we"ve had to fight for what we"ve got.
You wouldn"t think it, but we"ve had to pa.s.s around the hat, and shove it hard under the nose of Congress, too, just as if we were beggars and frauds, and as if we hadn"t sacrificed everything for our country!"
"It"s an outrage," cried Sam sympathetically. "But I hope you won"t keep the young men from going. I"m going soon, and perhaps the country will be more generous in future."
"Take my advice, young man, and whenever anything happens to you while you"re away, take down the names of the witnesses and keep their affidavits. Then you"ll be all ready to get your pension as soon as you come back. It took me three years to straighten out mine. Then I got the back pay, of course, but I ought to have had it before. I"ve got a claim in now for eight dollars more a month running all the way back.
It amounts to over three thousand dollars, and I ought to have it."
"Was that for the measles, too?" asked the stranger.
The old man glared at his interrogator, but did not deign to reply.
"Our Congressman, old Jinks, has my claim," he said, turning to Sam.
"But he doesn"t seem to be able to do anything with it."
"He"s my uncle," said Sam, fearing that he might hear something against his worthy relative.
"So you"re George Jinks" nephew, are you? Are you goin" to be a captain? Do tell! I read about it in the s...o...b..rgh _Herald_ last week.
I"m real glad to see you. You"re the first officer I"ve seen in ten years except the recruiting officer last week."
"Did they have a recruiting officer here, in s...o...b..rgh?" asked Sam.
"Yes, they did, and there was thirteen fellers wanted to go, but he only took five of "em, and they hain"t gone yet. The rest was too short or too fat or too thin or something."
"Didn"t any more men want to go than that?"
"No," said the old man. "They all want to wear soldier-clothes, but they don"t all want to go fighting. They"ve got up a militia battalion for them now, and "most everybody in town"s got a uniform. I hadn"t seen a uniform in the county before in I don"t know how long--except firemen, I should say."
"I"m so glad they"ve got them now," cried Sam. "Doesn"t it improve the looks of the place? It"s so much more homelike and-d-d glorious, don"t you think so?"
The old man had no opportunity to reply, as the "bus now drew up at the front door of the princ.i.p.al hotel. The commercial traveler got out first and went into the house; the old man followed, and turning to Sam as he pa.s.sed him, he said with a glance at the vanishing stranger:
"He"s a copperhead, that feller."
He went on toward the bar-room door, but called back as he went:
"If you get lonesome over at Jinks", come in here in the evening. Ask for me; my name"s Reddy."
Sam did not get out of the omnibus, but told the driver to take him to Congressman Jinks"; and on they went, first to the right and then to the left along the wide and gently winding streets, which would have been well shaded with maples if the yellow leaves had not already begun to fall. They drove in at last through a gate in a wooden fence and round a semi-circular lawn to the front of a comfortable frame house, and in a few moments he was received with open arms by his relations.
Congressman Jinks was a widower and had several children, all of whom, however, were away at school except his eldest daughter, a young lady of Sam"s age, and his youngest, a girl of seven. The former, Mary, was a tall damsel with fair hair and a decidedly attractive manner. Mr.
Jinks reminded Sam of his father with the added elegancies of many years" life at the Capital.
"Well, Samuel, I am glad to see you at last. We know all about you, and we"re expecting great things from you," he cried out in a hearty voice.
Sam felt at home at once.
"Come, Mary, show your cousin his room. Here, give me your grip. Yes, you must let me carry it. Now get ready for supper as soon as you can.
It"s all ready whenever you are."
After supper they all sat round a wood fire, for it was a little chilly in the evening now. Mr. Jinks had his little girl in his lap, and they talked over family history and the events of the day. Sam asked who Mr.
Reddy was whom he had met in the train.
"Oh! you mean old Reddy. Was he drunk? No? That"s odd."
"He"d been away for the day drawing his pension," said Sam.
"Of course," said Mr. Jinks. "I might have known it. That is his one sober day in the month. He sobers up to go to town, but he"ll make up for lost time to-night. That twelve dollars will last just a week, and it all goes into the bar-room till. He"s been that way ever since I was a boy, tho they say he was a steady enough young fellow before he went to the war. It"s a curious coincidence, but there are two or three old rum-soaked war veterans like that hanging round every tavern in the country, and I"d like to know how much pension money goes that way.
It"s a great system tho, that pension system. I see something of it in Whoppington when I"m attending Congress. It distributes the money of the country and circulates it among the people. I like to see the amount increase every year. It"s a healthy sign. I"m trying to get some more for Reddy. It helps the county just that much. Swan, the hotel man, spends it here. I believe in protecting home industries and fostering our home market. I wish you could have heard my speech on the war-tax bill--it covered that point. My, how this war is costing, tho!
A million dollars a day! But it"s well worth it. The more money we spend and the higher the taxes, the more circulation there is. You ought to see how things are booming at Whoppington. I"m sorry you couldn"t come to see me there, but I had to be here this week looking after election matters in my district. In Whoppington all the hotels are full of contractors and men looking for commissions in the army, and promoters and investors, all with an eye to the Cubapines. You can just see how the war has brought prosperity!"
"I should have liked to see Whoppington very much," said Sam, "but I suppose I must wait till I come back. It must be very different from other cities. You must feel there as if you were at the center of things--at the very mainspring of all our life, I mean."
"You"ve hit the nail on the head," said his uncle. "Whoppington holds up all the rest of the country. There is the Government that makes everything go. There"s no business there to speak of; no manufacturing, no agriculture in the country round--nothing to distract your attention but the power of the Administration that lies behind all the rest.
Just think what this country would be without Whoppington! Just imagine the capital city sinking into the ground and what would we all do? Even here at s...o...b..rgh what would be left for us?"
"Wouldn"t we have breakfast to-morrow morning, papa?" asked the little girl in his lap.
"Er-er-well, perhaps we might have breakfast----"
"Wouldn"t we have clothes, papa?"
"Perhaps we might have--but no, we couldn"t either; it"s the tariff that gives us our clothes by keeping all foreign clothes out of the country, and then we shouldn"t have er-er----"
"It would upset the post-office," suggested Sam, coming to the rescue.
"Yes, to be sure, that is what I meant. It would cause a serious delay in the mails, that"s certain."