The Open Road, Part II, Stage I

The Open Road BY JOHN HENRY EVANS, OP THE LATTER-DAY SAINTS UNIVERSITY Part II. — In Which Brocketts Takes the Great Highway and Finds It Beset with Difficulties Stage I. Wherin Brocketts Gets a Job in the Back Alleys of Cellartown.

When Brocketts awoke the next morning, he was at a loss, for a time, to know exactly where he was. For during the night his mind had been going over again the scenes of the last year. At first he entertained grave doubts whether he had opened his eyes in that dismal orphanage at Vinningen, by the camp fire in the land of the shallow waters where was a lonely grave, or on the blind baggage of that flying train with the red hail pelting his face. But the frosty air, that poured in all too plentifully through those cracks, soon removed all question as to his whereabouts. "I'll have them stopped up," he said, meaning the open places, "as soon as I get settled here." Rising from his couch and descending the ladder, he joined the stable boy,who had been some time at work. "What you doin' up so early?" inquired that surprised youngster. '' 'Tain't time for you to get up yet. If I had a chance to lay abed till seven," he went on pessimistically, "you !" bet your bottom dollar, I'd lay there "Not you had such a cold bed as I had last night," if Brocketts answered with truth. And then, "Let me help you curry the horses. I know how." Here was another cause for wonder. Tom stared at his new friend, one hand with the brush unmoving on the horse's neck, the other holding the comb frozen in mid-air. "Say, Brocketts, ?'" what you want to work for when you don't have to Brocketts smiled. "You helped me last night," he said.

500 IMPROVEMENT ERA And truly he had, for the savor of that dust still lingered in Tom's throat. — "Oh, that's different that wasn't work, anyhow. Besides, you was a stranger. You should always help strangers." Brocketts had never heard of our great American, Rip Van Winkle, else he would have understood how it is that a lazy man — and a lazy boy, too, for that matter—can work cheerfully and ungrudgingly for others at no profit to himself, and at the same nine have an "'insuperable aversion" for his own tasks. As for i'eter Klaus, over there in Germany, he was quite another person, though Tom had difficulty in seeing why Brocketts jjut should be anxious to work, yet he had small objection to letting him. So he readily consented to put the curry comb and brush into his friend's hands, and assumed the air of inspector-general. "What you goin' to do today?" Tom asked. "Don't know yet; Mr. Bernstein told me to call on him this morning at seven o'clock and find out. Ihere ought to be plenty of work round a place like this." "Sure, there is," Tom conceded; ''but kids like you an' me don't get —look out, there! Brocketts," he added, breaking off the tail of his sentence, "don't use the comb too low on that hind !" leg, else old Moll'l kick you into the middle of next week The boy changed the comb for the brush accordingly, and proceeded gently to brush Moll's doubtful hind leg. "That depends on the kid, don't it?" Brocketts asked, adopting Tom's vernacular. "I'm going to be the manager of this firm some day, do you believe that?" "Naw, course I don't!" Tom exploded in no uncertain tones. And then he added, incredulously, "Kids don't manage anything." "Course they don't —kids don't," Brocketts corrected; "but men do; and men were kids once, weren't they?" "Sure !" came the acknowledgement. "Well, then!— what's that?" A loud, mournful sound broke the silence. "That's only the seven o'clock whistle." In a jiffy the curry comb and brush were on the floor at Tom's feet, and Brocketts was out at the door in less time than the stable boy's slow understanding could grasp the situation. "Gee! but he's a quick un!" he said to himself, picking up his working tools. "But he'h get tired of going it at that gait. I

THE OPEN ROAD 501 used to do it that way myself." And as there was no one to dispute his word on the point, he went about the unfinished task of brushing down Moll's leg. Meanwhile, the new boy was in the office. "Here I am, Mr. Bernstein. What am I to do today ?" Now, Mr. Bernstein had his own opinion as to how boys should be encouraged. "If you want to unfit a young man for any higher task," he had once said to a father who had asked for a place in the store such as only those could fill who graduated into it, "give him something grand to begin with." "But my boy has natural talent for the place," the man had urged. — "They all have till you try them !" Mr. Bernstein had said. ''The best way to do with your boy — the best thing for him — is to make him start low and climb high. If you start him high, he'll climb down If a boy won't do the meanest work when he ought !

to, then there's no chance that he can do much of the better sort,

when he wants to." On this basis Brocketts was to begin. Brocketts, though, knew nothing of his employer's views on the subject. And so the two went down into the cellar in search of a job. "Walton," said Mr. Bernstein, "find something for this young man to do, will you?" — "Plenty of work, sir plenty of work !" repeated that cheerful soul. Brocketts liked him right off. Walton put his hand gently on the boy's shoulder and pushed him forward. "Oh, Walton," called Mr. Bernstein. Walter turned. "Brocketts lives in the loft of the barn — that old store-room up there, — you know and he wants to fix it up so as to make it a bit comfortable. If you've got anything around here that he can use, let him have it."

"Yes, sir!" And Walton pushed him on. The basement was a large place covering nearly as much ground as the store. It looked very much like a city, with streets and buildings on each side, some high and some low. For Mr. Bernstein was a wholesale merchant as well as a retailer, and large quantities of goods were stowed away here. Then, too, it resembled a city in another respect. The principal thoroughfares were kept clean, but there were some dreadfully dirty back alleys.

502 IMPROVEMENT ERA and dirtiest of these alleyways WalInto one of the darkest ton pushed Brocketta. Refuse had gathered here for months, it would seem. Full boxes, of whatever sort, had fallen apart; and loose paper, straw, and 1 don't know what not, fairly littered the place. It was musty, too, and smelt foul as an old garbage heap.

And all the light there was to work by was a tallow candle. Bttt the boy set to with as much of a will, apparently, as if he had been a bank teller, dealing out bright silver and gold pieces in broad daylight or in the gas glare. Everything that would burn, he took out and burned. He piled up the boxes, full and empty, in orderly -rows. He raked and swept the space clean. "Take your time, my boy," said easy-going Walton, when Brocketts went to him at the end of the job, "take your time; there's plenty of these to keep you going all winter." And Brocketts was set to work in another alley, and then another. The noon hours and the evenings, during those days, he spent in making his room habitable. First he hunted up some heavy burlap that had come in as the wrappings of hams and flitches of bacon. After filling up the spaces between the boards with strips of sacking, he tacked this on the sides and the ceiling, taking care that it should have no wrinkles. Some old wrappings of tea cases he similarly put on the floor to serve as matting. Not only were these crude coverings useful in keeping out the cold, but they added greatly to the appearance of the room. His next task was to get some furniture. Here is where his slender knowledge of carpentering was put to the test. He made a neat-looking bed by placing some wire netting over two scantlings fastened to two boxes and using gunny sacks filled with straw for a mattress. Already he had bedding enough. The Emperor of Germany might have had a softer, and certainly a more elegant bed, but it is extremely doubtful whether he could sleep more soundly than Brocketts on his straw couch. Other articles of furniture were easily supplied. A shallow soap box of tolerable size set on four uprights properly nailed inside the corners, formed a table of which no boy needed to be ashamed. A smaller box made a comfortable seat. There were two of these, one for Tom, when he should come to see him, and one for himself. The cupboard consisted of a third box partitioned crosswise into shelves and nailed to the wall. In the cor-

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THE OPEN ROAD 503 ner opposite the bed was a small washstand of the same simple workmanship. One thing, however, gave a little trouble. What was he going to do for a stove? Now, a stove would be one of the things he could not do without. He had no money with which to buy one, and he could not make it. It was quite possible, though, that a suitable one might be found about the store. He mentioned his difficulty to Walton. "A stove — a stove, did you say?" he inquired. And taking hold of Brocketts' shoulder in his usual manner pushed him alongthrough the streets of the basement, out into the open air, and into a far corner of the stable. There was the very article in question a little dirty, to be sure, but apparently in good condition. "There you are, Brocketts," said Walton, "and plenty of pipes, too. Get Tom to give you a lift with it. My bones are too stiff for that kind of work."

Which Tom generously consented to do. There is a story somewhere about a newly-married man setting up a stove and using forbidden language in the meantime. — There ought to be a story about two boys even though it was — two rather small ones dragging a stove up a long ladder-like stairway into a barn loft, and not swearing— at least, not loud enough to be heard. What tugging and twisting and turning they did At last, by means of a rope, one end of which girdled the !

waist of the litle heater and the other of which was held tight in Tom's and Brocketts' hands, the obstinate stove was safely lodged on the tea-matting of the new room. ought to give enough heat now !" observed the sage "It Tom with a contemptuous look at the stove. But we know you — and I — that stoves don't give out heat in exact proportion to the bother they cost to set them up, else most of them would be red hot all the time. And Brocketts said something to this effect. 'There's a trifling thing vou ain't considered, Brocketts," Tom reflected patronizingly, while the two surveyed the situation. "What's that?" "Why, there ain't no place for the smoke to go out of!" And sure enough there wasn't. There w?s nc chimney in the barn, as there ought to be. But the spirit of necessity soon

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504 IMPROVEMENT ERA overcame the difficulty. was trifling, as Tom had said. The It boys cut a hole at the proper distance from the stove, covered the edges with tin, and inserted the pipe into it. Then, by means of a long ladder, they added another elbow and several joints of pipe on the outside, to direct the smoke upward past the high gable. "Gee! Brocketts, you've got a dandy place!" Tom commented when every thing was finished. "Now, don't you think I'll ever be manager here?" Brocketts asked, smiling. "Naw!" exclaimed the skeptical Tom. He could not make sure whether Brocketts was not joking about some day being manager of the Bernstein firm. "The best thing, though, about this stove," Brocketts went on, "is that I can have a warm dinner whenever I want it, and a lot of different kinds." ''Why, you don't mean to do your eatin' up here?" "Course I do. Where else could I?" "What you been eatin' anyhow?" "Oh, crackers and cheese and bread and molasses and things like that mostly — all cold. But now I can have warm milk whenever I want to, and fry eggs or meat. See?" Tom not only saw, but stared. All this work of house cleaning, however, was not done in one day merely. It took several noons and evenings of Brocketts' time, helped magnanimously by the stable boy. But when it was done, there grew out of their toil a place in which anybody might be glad to live. Meantime, Brocketts continued his work in the dark alleyways of the cellar town. Of the first wages he received, which was at the week's end, he invested part in a pair of overalls and a checked jumper. And so he began to look respectable again.

Stage II. In Which Brocketts Keeps a Sharp Lookout for Red Headed People, and Changes His Mind. Tom and Brocketts were in the parlor, as they had come to call the cozy apartment in the barn loft. Brocketts was eating his supper, Tom was sitting by the stove. Between them was the table, A cheerful fire sent out a glow into the little room, and

THE OPEN ROAD 505 into their hearts as well, through the abundant isinglass so common in heaters of those days ; and this glow was increased, in the room at least, by the uncertain flicker that came from a candle with a long snuff that bent over darkly like a weeping willow. Often lately the boys had sat thus of an evening. For Tom had to stay at the stables for some time after the store closed, and he preferred to sit with Brocketts rather than remain alone in the comfortless box of a room which had been set apart in one corner of the barn for the keeper of the horses.

"Tom," said the other, "I've been wanting to ask you a question for a long time." This was only the second week of Brocketts' employment with Mr. Bernstein.

"All right, sir," invited that happy-go-lucky person, "fire away But Brocketts did not fire away. The fact is, he seemed to have some reluctance about broaching the matter. He broke off a piece of soda biscuit, which he had baked that morning in a tin plate on the stove top, and nibbled away at it leisurely. Tom looked into the fire ready for the question. "Are there any 'Mormons' in this town?" It was out at last.

Tom looked one of his most vacant stares at Brocketts, endeavoring to make out whether he was joking or not. Brocketts was eternally saying things that you could take two or three ways. He could not decide in this case. So he only dodged. ''This ain't a town!" he said. "Well, what is it then?" "It's a city —Great Salt Lake City!" This was drawled out with labored emphasis. "Oh !" Brocketts said. "But you haven't answered my question." If there had been anything like a decent light in the room, what is to appear in this chapter might be left out— which proves that people may come to grief through not having enough light on a subject. For, in that event, Brocketts could have watched Tom's face and divined the situation. But as there was only a dim candle burning that night, I am compelled to go on with this part of my story. "Why, yes!" Tom answered at last, "there's a few of 'em here. What d'you want to know for?"

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506 IMPROVEMENT ERA You see, Tom was walking on thin ice, so to speak. He was not sure he understood Brocketts, and so he would draw him out a little. "I've heard lots about the 'Mormons,' and I thought I'd like to see one if I could without too much risk." Tom peered again into the other's face, looked once more at the fire, and slapped his leg resoundingly, a broad grin across his countenance. "What's the matter, Tom?" demanded Brocketts, thinking his visitor had suddenly lost his wits. But Tom hadn't — he had only just found them. !" "And so you've heard a good deal about the 'Mormons' Tom repeated, with surprising non-committal. "What did you hear, anyway?" "A whole lot." And Brocketts related all he had heard on the way from New York to Omaha and at Omaha the underground — passages, the alleged murdering proclivities of the people, and their strange ways of living.

Tom said not a word. Brocketts stuck the prong of his fork deep into the sardine box and brought out a tiny fish, held it an instant suspended above his open mouth, and bit off small pieces till it was gone. Then he said "I think I could tell a 'Mormon' if I should see one. They're between a Nigger and an Indian in color, old Palmer told me. Palmer, he was a trapper in the West years ago, and he saw three 'Mormons' once. Still I can't exactly imagine what they look like, though I've seen plenty of Niggers and Indians. But I think I could tell one, though." "Could you, now?" said Tom. "I'll bet you couldn't!" "Maybe I couldn't, after all," Brocketts backed down. "I wouldn't bet on it. But I'd like to try. You say there are some 'Mormons' here?" "A few." "Well, what're they doing here?" — "Not much of anything just now at least some of them." Brocketts had noticed an absence of Tom's usual talkativeness and the general vagueness of his answer, but he attributed it to Tom's not knowing much about the subject. He doubted whether Tom had ever seen a "Mormon," and so he put the question straight to him.

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THE OPEN ROAD 607 Tom declared most emphatically that he had seen more than one. As, however, he did not name any exact number a thing — he would have done, his friend thought, if he had seen more than one — Brockett laid the whole statement to Tom's natural tendency to brag. "These 'Mormons' in Salt Lake —how many are there here?" Brocketts asked, breaking off his first thought to put a specific question. "I don't know exactly." There was that indefiniteness again "There's more than a dozen, I should say." "And they're not dangerous, then, are they?" "No, touched one's coat once when he was passing." 1 You did !" Here was a thing to glory in, if it was true. "I'll take you to see one to-morrow. There's two working in this very store." This was a piece of news, to be sure. Already Brocketts" eyes were eager for the sight. -., "Say, about this Utah, where the 'Mormons' live —how far is it from here?" Tom wheeled round on his box and nearly keeled off. Either Brocketts was a downright fool or a mighty clever joker. The suspicion crept over Tom that his Eastern friend was guying him. But the whole thing looked so serious that he answered gravely "Well, I don't know exactly, but it ain't so very far away." "A hundred miles?" "About, though some of it's farther than that." "It must be a big town, then?" Town What was this boy thinking about, anyway. Was he !

altogether da. But he must keep up the thing now. And so Tom said 'Very ; contains more people than Salt Lake." The next clay at noon the two boys might have been seen walking gingerly through the back way into the store. "You see them men over there by the end of that counter?" Brocketts nodded. "Well, one of them's a 'Mormon.' Guess which." There was not any of the three with a complexion between that of Negro and Indian. On the contrary, their skin was as white as his own. Brocketts admitted his failure. !" "You see that one with fiery red hair? That's him

508 IMPROVEMENT ERA And poor duped Brocketts feasted his eyes. Now, there are red-haired people and red-haired people, as everybody knows. Some have a dark redness about their topknots that might be taken, at a distance, to be nothing less than brown. Then there are those with a light redness at which you could warm your hands. And there are all the shades between. The hair that Brocketts was now looking at was the kind that would touch off a match. He had never seen anything quite like this before. !" "And I thought the 'Mormons' were a very dark people he said with some tinge of disappointment in his voice. !" "You see they ain't, though "Yes. And he came from Utah?" "Guess he did." "Wonder how many he killed before he came to Salt Lake?" "Oh, he's too young," Tom explained. "Come on, and I'll show you an old 'un." The boys were in the clothing department. They went now to the grocery department. Here was a man with as red a head as the first, but well along in years.

"Bet he's got away with his share!" commented Brocketts, not intending to infer cannibalistic propensities in him of the light hair. "Sure but you can't tell how many. He dassen't kill any- !

body now, though, cause they'd have him in jail." "Wonder what tamed him?" Brocketts asked. But Tom had no information on this point. All this set Brocketts' curiosity on edge —and his fear as well. And so there were actually "Mormons" in Salt Lake, and he had seen some. How the boys at the Orphanage would envy him the sight. But then at the Orphanage, he recollected, the "Mormons" had never been heard of. Anyhow, he had not heard of them. Like everybody else who hears a thing for the first time he fairly ached to tell somebody else of his strange experience. But he had to be content with keeping things to himself. He ruminated over the matter of the "Mormons," at night and in the daytime. He could scarcely get the thing out of his head. And often, during the next few days, he might have been seen, whenever the opportunity presented, making his way into the Store where the fiery-haired persons were serving customers,

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THE OPEN ROAD 509 Once he saw a red-haired woman come into the place and purchase a long butcher knife, of which she felt the edge. He told this circumstance to Tom the next day. "Did the 'Mormon' women kill people, too?" he wanted to know. ''Sure !" was the stable-boy's answer "The women's worse ;

than the men. You don't expect to be killed by a woman, till you — know better and then it's too late. Look out for the women every time." Three times Brocketts was on the point of mentioning the He must have matter to Mr. Walton and talking it over with him. lots of good stories about the "Mormons" — maybe had had some hair-breadth escapes himself. But Brocketts thought better of it and said nothing to him about the episode. Not because he had the least suspicion that Mr. Walton was a "Mormon." Bald on the top, Mr. Walton had only a fringe of hair round the lower part of his head. But that was gray and not red. So there could be no doubt about his religion. But Brocketts did make up his mind not to go out on the streets any more at night. A few evenings after this he was siting at supper in his room. Tom came in. "Well, how's tricks ?" inquired the stable-boy. Brocketts said nothing. Tom took his seat as usual before the fire. "What's the matter?" he said, "Sick?" — "You're a skunk, Tom a mean skunk !" was the answer. "A skunk Well, now, I didn't know that." !

"Well, you are, just the same And I've got a good notion to !

pound you into a mummy." "If you kin, you ought to say!" Tom retorted. "I feel mad enough to, anyhow." "And what do you want to pound me for? What have I been doing to you?" !" "You've told me a lot of lies about your own people This was what Tom had been expecting ever since that other night. The only wonder about it was, that Brocketts hadn't found out the truth sooner. But he was fortified for the blow,

for he said in great astonishment "What, me?" "Yes, you!"

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"And just what lie did I tell you?" Tom demanded. "You told me the 'Mormons' were all red-headed." "I showed you a 'Mormon' that was red-headed! That's all."

"But how did I get the idea that all the 'Mormons' were red-headed?" "Where yon got the idea that Utah was a town, I guess, and where you got the idea that Utah was somewhere else! You can't point out a single lie I told you." "Maybe that's so in one way," admitted Brocketts, "but you lied just the same!" "I guess that's so, too," Tom conceded. "How could a feller help it, though ? I never got a chance like that before." "It was a good one on me, sure! What did you think of me, anyway — that I was a fool?"

Once I thought you was guying me, "Well, I didn't know. but I changed my mind when you was so glad I was goin' to show you a 'Mormon.' I was goin' to tell you the straight of it some day. How did you catch on, anyhow?"

"I talked the matter over with Dudley Brown last night, and he told me the truth, instead of lying." "Dudley's a fine fellow," Tom conciliated. "He's got a good education." "He told me all about the 'Mormons'. Salt Lake's in Utah, and this whole country was settled by the Latter-day Saints. I always thought the 'Mormons' were wicked and had underground passages where they dropped folks they wanted to get rid of. What a fool I was!" ''How on earth did you get such notions? I never heard of them before." "I got 'em from people who said they knew," returned Brocketts. "But, it seems, they either didn't know or they lied. Dudlev says they sometimes lie about the 'Mormons,' mostly for money. He told me he had an aunt that had to take off her bonnet in the train once to prove that she hadn't any horns I think !

it's downright wicked for people to lie about others like that. Now,

I heard the most dreadful things about Brigham Young, and Dudley says they're all lies! Say, did you ever see Brigham Young?" "Hundreds of times. I'll take you to the tabernacle some

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Sunday so's you c'n hear him preach. What religion do you bolong to, Brocketts ?" "Catholic. I guess there aren't any Catholics in Salt Lake, are there?" "I've not heard of Catholics here. There must be some, though, 'cause there's Methodists and Baptists and Lutherans and Presbyterians ; and so there must be Catholics. But you'd better go toour church, it's better'n any of the others. I don't know as much about it as I mean to some day, but Dudley knows. You talk with him." Brocketts promised, and the two separated for the nightTom glad that the thing had not resulted worse for him, for he expected I don't know what to happen when the secret transpired, Brocketts rather surprised that his anger could be so easily be appeased. But repentance in the other fellow always took him off his guard, anyway.

(To be Continued)