The Booming of Acre Hill by John Kendrick Bangs
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John Kendrick Bangs >> The Booming of Acre Hill
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11 THE BOOMING OF ACRE HILL
AND OTHER REMINISCENCES OF URBAN AND SUBURBAN LIFE
[Illustration: "I'll Never, Never, Never, So Long As I Live"]
The Booming of Acre Hill
By
John Kendrick Bangs
Illustrations
By C. Dana Gibson
Published 1902 in New York and London
TO
WILLIAM LIVERMORE KINGMAN
WITH AFFECTIONATE REGARDS
These stories by Mr. Bangs have appeared
from time to time in _The Ladies Home Journal, The Woman's Home
Companion_, and the various publications of Messrs. HARPER & BROTHERS.
CONTENTS
THE BOOMING OF ACRE HILL
THE STRANGE MISADVENTURES OF AN ORGAN
THE PLOT THAT FAILED
THE BASE INGRATITUDE OF BARKIS, M.D.
THE UTILITARIAN MR. CARRAWAY
THE BOOK SALES OF MR. PETERS
THE VALOR OF BRINLEY
WILKINS
THE MAYOR'S LAMPS
THE BALANCE OF POWER
JARLEY'S EXPERIMENT
JARLEY'S THANKSGIVING
HARRY AND MAUDE AND I--ALSO JAMES
AN AFFINITIVE ROMANCE:
I. MR. AUGUSTUS RICHARDS'S IDEAL
II. MISS HENDERSON'S STANDARD
III. A GLANCE AT MISS FLORA HENDERSON HERSELF
IV. A BRIEF GLIMPSE OF MR. AUGUSTUS RICHARDS
V. CONCLUSION
MRS. UPTON'S DEVICE:
I. THE RESOLVE
II. A SUCCESSFUL CASE
III. A SET-BACK
IV. THE DEVICE
ILLUSTRATIONS
"I'LL NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, SO LONG AS I LIVE"
DURING THE INTERMEZZO
THE BOOMING OF ACRE HILL
Acre Hill ten years ago was as void of houses as the primeval forest.
Indeed, in many ways it suggested the primeval forest. Then the Acre
Hill Land Improvement Company sprang up in a night, and before the
bewildered owners of its lovely solitudes and restful glades, who had
been paying taxes on their property for many years, quite grasped the
situation they found that they had sold out, and that their old-time
paradise was as surely lost to them as was Eden to Adam and Eve.
To-day Acre Hill is gridironed with macadamized streets that are lined
with houses of an architecture of various degrees of badness. Where
birds once sang, and squirrels gambolled, and stray foxes lurked, the
morning hours are made musical by the voices of milkmen, and the
squirrels have given place to children and nurse-maids. Where sturdy
oaks stood like sentinels guarding the forest folk from intrusion from
the outside world now stand tall wooden poles with glaring white
electric lights streaming from their tops. And the soughing of the winds
in the trees has given place to the clang of the bounding trolley. All
this is the work of the Acre Hill Land Improvement Company.
Yet if, as I have said, the Acre Hill Land Improvement Company sprang up
in a night, it passed many sleepless nights before it received the
rewards which come to him who destroys Nature. And when I speak of a
corporation passing sleepless nights I do so advisedly, for at the
beginning of its career the Acre Hill Land Improvement Company consisted
of one man--a mild-mannered man who had previously labored in similar
enterprises, and whose name was called blessed in a thousand
uncomfortable houses in uncomfortable suburbs elsewhere, that, like Acre
Hill, had once been garden spots, but had been "improved." Even a
professional improver of land finds sleep difficult to woo at the
beginning of such an enterprise. In the first instance, when one buys
land, giving a mortgage in full payment therefor, with the land as
security, one appears to have assumed a moderately heavy burden. Then,
when to this one adds the enormous expense of cutting streets through
the most beautiful of the sylvan glades, the building of sewers, and the
erection of sample houses, to say nothing of the strain upon the
intellect in the selection of names for the streets and lanes and
circles that spring into being, one cannot but wonder how the master
mind behind it all manages to survive.
But the Acre Hill Land Improvement Company did survive, and Dumfries
Corners watched its progress with much interest. Regrets were expressed
when some historic knoll was levelled in order to provide a nice flat
space for a public square. Youngsters who had bagged many a partridge on
Acre Hill felt like weeping when one stretch of bush after another was
cut ruthlessly away in order that a pretentious-looking structure, the
new home of the Acre Hill Country Club, might be erected. Lovers sighed
when certain noble old oaks fraught with sentimental associations fell
before the un-sentimental axes of the Improvement Company; and
numberless young Waltons muttered imprecations upon the corporation that
filled in with stone and ashes the dear old pond that once gave forth
fish in great abundance, and through earthen pipes diverted the running
brook, that hitherto had kept it full, into a brand-new sewer.
These lovers of nature could not understand the great need of our
constantly growing population for uncomfortable houses in inconvenient
suburbs, and in their failure to comprehend they became cavilers. But
others--those who admire the genius which enables a man to make
unproductive land productive, who hail as benefactor one who supplants a
profitless oak of a thousand years' standing with a thriving
butcher-shop--these people understood what was being done for Dumfries
Corners, but wondered how the venture was to be made profitable. There
were already more vacant houses in Dumfries Corners than could be
rented, more butcher-shops than could be supported, more clubs than
could be run without a deficit. But the Acre Hill Land Improvement
Company went on, and within three years paradise had become earth, and
the mild-mannered and exceedingly amiable gentleman who had replaced the
homes of the birds with some fifteen or twenty houses for small
families could look about him and see greater results than ever greeted
the eyes of Romulus in the days of the great Rome Land Improvement
Company.
Most wonderful of all, he was still solvent! But a city is not a city,
nor, in its own degree, a suburb a suburb, without inhabitants; and
while to a mind like that back of the Acre Hill Land Improvement Company
it is seemingly a moderately easy task to lay out a suburb in so far as
its exterior appointments are concerned, the rub comes in the getting of
citizens. A Standard Oil magnate can build a city if he is willing to
spend the money, but all the powers of heaven and earth combined cannot
manufacture offhand a citizenship. In an emergency of this nature most
land improvement companies would have issued pretty little pamphlets,
gotten up in exquisite taste, full of beautiful pictures and bubbling
over with enthusiastic text, all based upon possibilities rather than
upon realities. But the Acre Hill Land Improvement Company was sincere
and honest. It believed in advertising what it had; it believed in
dilating somewhat on the possibilities, but it was too honest to claim
for itself virtues it did not possess.
So it tried different methods. The Acre Hill Country Club was the first
of these, and a good idea it was. It was successful from the start,
socially. Great numbers attended the entertainments and dances, although
these were rather poorly conducted. Still, the Country Club was a grand
success. It gave much and received nothing. Dumfries Corners, reluctant
to approve of anything, approved of it.
But no lots were sold! The Acre Hill Land Improvement Company was
willing to make itself popular--very willing. Didn't mind giving
Dumfries Corners people free entertainment, but--lots didn't sell. What
is the use of paying the expenses of a club if lots don't sell? This was
a new problem for the company to consider. There were sixteen houses
ready for occupancy, and consuming interest at a terrible rate, but no
one came to look at them. Acre Hill was a charming spot, no doubt, but
for some unknown reason or other it failed to take hold of the popular
fancy, despite the attractions of the club.
Suddenly the head of the institution had an idea. In the great
metropolis there was an impecunious and popular member of Uppertendom
whose name had been appearing in the society journals with great
frequency for years. He formerly had been prosperous, but now he was
down financially; yet society still received and liked him, for he had
many good points and was fundamentally what the world calls a good
fellow.
"Why not send for Jocular Jimson Jones?" suggested the head and leading
spirit of the Improvement Company. "We can offer him one of our
cottages, and pay his debts if he has any, if he will live here and give
us the benefit of his social prestige."
The suggestion was received with enthusiasm. Mr. Jones was summoned,
came and inspected the cottage, and declined. He really couldn't, you
know. Of course he was down, but not quite down to the level of a
cottage of that particular kind. He still had plenty of friends whom he
could visit and who would be charmed to entertain him in the style to
which he was accustomed. Why, therefore, should he do this thing, and
bring himself down to the level of the ordinary commuter? No, indeed.
Not he! The Directors saw the point, and next offered him--and this time
he accepted--the free use of the residence of one of the officers of the
company, a really handsome, pretentious structure, with a commanding
view, stable, green-houses, graceful lawns, and all other appurtenances
of a well-appointed country seat. In addition to the furnishing of the
house in proper taste, they put coal in the cellar and fly-screens in
the windows. They filled the residence with servants, and indorsed the
young person at the grocer's and butcher's. They bought him a surrey and
a depot wagon. They bought him horses and they stocked him well with
fine cigars. They paid his tailor's bills, and sundry other pressing
monetary affairs were funded. In fact, the Acre Hill Land Improvement
Company set Jocular Jimson Jones up and then gave him _carte blanche_ to
entertain; and inasmuch as Jocular had a genius for entertaining, it
is hardly necessary to say that he availed himself of his opportunity.
During that first summer at Acre Hill Mr. Jones had the best time of his
life. His days were what the vulgar term "all velvet." His new residence
was so superb that it restored his credit in the metropolis, and city
"swells," to whom he was under social obligation, went home, after
having been paid in kind, wondering if Jocular Jimson Jones had
unearthed somewhere a recently deceased rich uncle. He gave suppers of
most lavish sort. He had vaudeville shows at the club-house, with talent
made up of the most exclusive young men and women of the city. The
Amateur Thespians of the Borough of Manhattan gave a whole series of
performances at the club during the autumn, and by slow degrees the
society papers began to take notice. Acre Hill began to be known as "a
favorite resort of the 400." Nay, even the sacred 150 had penetrated to
its very core, wonderingly, however, for none knew how Jocular Jimson
Jones could do it. Still, they never declined an invitation. As a
natural result the market for Acre Hill lots grew active. The sixteen
cottages were sold, and the purchasers found themselves right in the
swim. It was the easiest thing in the world to get into society if you
only knew how. Jocular Jimson Jones was a fine, approachable, neighborly
person, and at the Country Club dances was quite as attentive to the
hitherto unknown Mrs. Scraggs as he was to Mrs. John Jacob Wintergreen,
the acknowledged leader of the 400. Mrs. Wintergreen, too, was not
unapproachable. She talked pleasantly during a musicale at the
club-house with Mr. Scraggs, and said she hoped some day to have the
pleasure of meeting Mrs. Scraggs; and when Scraggs, in response, said he
would go and get her she most amiably begged him not to leave her alone.
Months went by, and where sixteen empty houses had been, there were now
sixty all occupied, and lots were going like hot cakes. Tuxedo was in
the shade. Lenox was dying. Newport was dead. Society flocked to Acre
Hill and hobnobbed with Acre Hillians. Acre Hillians became somewhat
proud of themselves, and rather took to looking down upon Dumfries
Corners people. Dumfries Corners people were nice, and all that, but
not particularly interesting in the sense that "our set," with Jocular
Jimson Jones at the head of it, was interesting.
Then came the County Ball. This Jocular engineered himself, and the
names of the lady patrons were selected from the oldest and the newest
on the list. Mrs. Wintergreen's name led, of course, but Mrs. Scraggs'
name was there too, sandwiched in between those of Mrs. Van
Cortlandtuyvel and Mrs. Gardenior, of Gardenior's Island, representing
two families which would carry social weight either in Boston or the
"other side of Market Street." There were four exalted names from the
city, one from Dumfries Corners, and seven from Acre Hill.
Then more lots sold, and still more, and then, alas, came the end!
Jocular Jimson Jones was too successful.
After two years of glory the social light of Acre Hill went out. The
Acre Hill Land Improvement Company retired from the business. All its
lots were sold, and, of course, there was no further need for the
services of Jocular Jimson Jones. His efforts were crowned with success.
His mission was accomplished, but he moved away--I think regretfully,
for, after all, he had found the Acre Hill people a most likable
lot--but it was inevitable that, there being no more fish to catch, the
anglers needed no bait, and Jocular Jimson had to go. Where he has gone
to there is no one who knows. He has disappeared wholly, even in the
metropolis, and, most unfortunately for Acre Hill, with Jocular Jimson
Jones have departed also all its social glories. None of the elect come
to its dances any more. The amateur thespians of the exclusive set no
longer play on the stage of its club-house, and it was only last week
that Mrs. John Jacob Wintergreen passed Mr. Scraggs on the street with a
cold glare of unrecognition.
Possibly when Acre Hill reads this it will understand, possibly not.
Dumfries Corners people understood it right along, but then they always
were a most suspicious lot, and fond of an amusing spectacle that cost
them nothing.
THE STRANGE MISADVENTURES OF AN ORGAN
Carson was a philosopher, and on the whole it was a great blessing that
he was so. No man needed to be possessor of a philosophical temperament
more than he, for, in addition to being a resident of Dumfries Corners,
Carson had other troubles which, to an excitable nature, would have made
life a prolonged period of misery. He was the sort of a man to whom
irritating misfortunes of the mosquito order have a way of coming. To
some of us it seemed as if a spiteful Nature took pleasure in pelting
Carson with petty annoyances, none of them large enough to excite
compassion, many of them of a sort to provoke a quiet smile. Of all the
dogs in the neighborhood it was always his dog that got run into the
pound, although it was equally true that Carson's dog was one of the few
that were properly licensed. If he bought a new horse something would
happen to it before a week had elapsed; and how his coachman once ripped
off the top of his depot wagon by driving it under a loose telephone
wire is still one of the stories of the vicinity in which he lives.
Anything out of the way in the shape of trouble seemed to choose the
Carson household for experimental purposes. He was the medium by which
new varieties of irritations were introduced to an ungrateful world, but
such was his nature that, given the companionship of Herbert Spencer and
a cigar, he could be absolutely counted on not to murmur.
This disposition to accept the trials and tribulations which came upon
him without a passionate outburst was not by any means due to
amiability. Carson was of too strong a character to be continually
amiable. He merely exercised his philosophy in meeting trouble. He
boiled within, but presented a calm, unruffled front to the world,
simply because to do otherwise would involve an expenditure of nervous
force which he did not consider to be worth while.
I can never forget the sense of admiring regard which I experienced
when in Genoa, while he and I were about to enter our banker's together,
he slipped upon a bit of banana peeling, bruising his knee and
destroying his trouser leg. I should have indulged in profane allusions
to the person who had thoughtlessly thrown the peeling upon the ground
if by some mischance the accident had happened to me. Carson, however,
did nothing of the sort, but treated me to a forcible abstract
consideration of the unthinking habits of the masses.
The unknown individual who was responsible for the accident did not
enter into the question; no one was consigned to everlasting torture in
the deepest depths of purgatory; a calm, dispassionate presentation of
an abstraction was all that greeted my ears. The practice of
thoughtlessness was condemned as a thing entirely apart from the
practitioner, and as a tendency needing correction. Inwardly, I know he
swore; outwardly, he was as serene as though nothing untoward had
happened to him. It was then that I came to admire Carson. Before that
he had my affectionate regard in fullest measure, but now admiration
for his deeper qualities set in, and it has in no sense diminished as
time has passed. Once, and once only, have I known him to depart from
his philosophical demeanor, and that one departure was, I think,
justified by the situation, since it was the culminating point of a
series of aggravations, to fail to yield to which would have required a
more than human strength.
The incident to which I refer was in connection with a fine organ, which
at large expense Carson had had built in his house, for, like all
philosophers, Carson has a great fondness for music, and is himself a
musician of no mean capacity. I have known him to sit down under a
parlor-lamp and read over the score of the "Meistersinger" just as
easily as you or I would peruse one of the lighter novels of the day.
This was one of his refuges. When his spirit was subjected to an extreme
tension he relieved his soul by flying to the composers; to use his own
very bad joke, when he was in need of composure he sought out the
"composures." As time progressed, however, and the petty annoyances grew
more numerous, the merely intellectual pleasure of the writings of
Wagner and Handel and Mozart possibly failed to suffice, and an organ
was contracted for.
"I enjoy reading the music," said he as we sat and talked over his plan,
"but sometimes--very often, in fact--I feel as if something ought to
shriek, and I'm going to have an organ of my own to do it for me."
So, as I have said, the organ was contracted for, was built, and an
additional series of trials began. Upon a very important occasion the
organ declined to shriek, although every effort to persuade it to
perform the functions for which it was designed was made. Forty or fifty
very charming people were gathered together to be introduced to the
virtues of the new instrument--for Carson was not the kind of man to
keep to himself the good things which came into his life; he shared all
his blessings, while keeping his woes to himself; a well-known virtuoso
was retained to set forth the possibilities of the acquisition, and all
was going as "merry as a marriage bell" when suddenly there came a
wheeze, and the fingers of the well-known virtuoso were powerless to
elicit the harmonious shrieks which all had come to hear.
It was a sad moment, but Carson was equal to the occasion.
"Something's out of gear," he said, with a laugh due rather to his
philosophical nature than to mirth. "I'm afraid we'll have to finish on
the piano."
* * * * *
And so we did, and a delightful evening we had of it, although many of
us went home wondering what on earth was the matter with the organ.
A few days later I met Carson on the train and the mystery was solved.
"The trouble was with the water-pipes," he explained. "They were put in
wrong, and the location of the house is such that every time Colonel
Hawkins, on the other side of the street, takes a bath, all the water
that flows down the hill is diverted into his tub."
I tried not to laugh.
"You'll have to enter into an agreement with the Colonel," I said. "Make
him promise not to bathe between certain hours."
"That's a good idea," said Carson, smiling, "but after all I guess I'd
better change the pipes. Heaven forbid that in days like these I should
seek to let any personal gratification stand between another man and the
rare virtue of cleanliness."
Several weeks went by, and men were busily employed in seeing that the
water supply needed for a proper running of the organ came direct from
the mains, instead of coming from a pipe of limited capacity used in
common by a half dozen or more residents of a neighboring side street.
Somewhere about the end of the fourth week Carson invited me to dinner.
The organ was all right again, he said. The water supply was sufficient,
and if I cared to I might dine with him, and afterward spend an evening
sitting upon the organ bench while Carson himself manipulated the keys.
I naturally accepted the invitation, since, in addition to his other
delightful qualities, Carson is a past grand-master in the art of giving
dinners. He is a man with a taste, and a dinner good enough for him is a
thing to arouse the envy of the gods. Furthermore, as I have already
said, he is a musician of no mean order, and I know of no greater
pleasure than that of sitting by his side while he "potters through a
score," as he puts it. But there was a disappointment in store for us. I
called at the appointed hour and found the household more or less in
consternation. The cook had left, and a dinner of "cold things"
confronted us.
"She couldn't stand the organ," explained Carson. "She said it got on to
her nerves--'rumblin' like.'"
I gazed upon him in silent sympathy as we dined on cold roast beef,
stuffed olives, and ice cream.
"This is serious," my host observed as we sat over our coffee and cigars
after the repast. "That woman was the only decent cook we've managed to
secure in seven years, and, by Jingo, the minute she gets on to my taste
the organ gets on to her nerves and she departs!"
"One must eat," I observed.
"That's just it," said Carson. "If it comes to a question of cook or
organ the organ will have to go. She was right about it, though. The
organ does rumble like the dickens. Some of the bass notes make the
house buzz like an ocean-steamer blowing off steam." It was a
picturesque description, for I had noticed at times that when the organ
was being made to shriek fortissimo every bit of panelling in the house
seemed to rattle, and if a huge boiler of some sort suffering from
internal disturbance had been growling down in the cellar, the result
would have been quite similar.
"It may work out all right in time," Carson said. "The thing is new yet,
and you can't expect it to be mellow all at once. What I'm afraid of,
apart from the inability of our cook to stand the racket, is that this
quivering will structurally weaken the house. What do you think?"
"Oh, I don't know," I said. "Some of the wainscot panels rattle a bit,
but I imagine the house will stand it unless you go in too much for
Wagner. 'Tannhaeuser' or 'Siegfried' might shake a few beams loose, but
lighter music, I think, can be indulged in with impunity."
Time did not serve, as Carson had hoped, to mellow things. Indeed, the
succeeding weeks brought more trouble, and most of it came through the
organ. Some of the rattling panels, in spite of every effort to make
them fast, rattled the more. One night when the servants were alone in
the house, of its own volition the organ sent forth, to break the still
hours, a blood-curdling basso-profundo groan that suggested ghosts to
their superstitious minds. The housemaid came to regard the instrument
as something uncanny, and, even as the cook had done before her, shook
the dust of the house of Carson from her feet.
Then a rat crawled into one of the pipes--Carson was unable to ascertain
which--and died there, with results that baffle description. I doubt if
Wagner himself could have expressed the situation in his most inspired
moments. Still Carson was philosophical.
"I'll play a requiem to the rodent," he said, "that will make him turn
over in his grave, wherever that interesting spot may be."
This he did, and the effect was superb, and no doubt the deceased did
turn over in his grave, for the improvisation called into play every
pipe on the whole instrument. However, I could see that this constant
pelting at the hands of an unkind fate through the medium of his most
cherished possession was having its effect upon Carson's hitherto
impregnable philosophy. When he spoke of the organ it was with a tone of
suppressed irritation which boded ill, and finally I was not surprised
to hear that he had offered to give the organ away.
"After all," he said, "I made a mistake--flying so high. A man doesn't
want a church-organ in his house any more than he wants an elephant for
a lap-dog. I've offered it to the Unitarian Church."
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