The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1878-03-21
CONCERNING A CERTAIN PRODI.
GAL.

CONCERNING A CERTAIN PRODI.
GAL.
THE first time encountered the late
Noah Babbitt. journeyman printer. he
struck me. as they say on the frontier,
for a loan of two dollars. 1t was in the
sanctum of the Commonwealth news
paper at Topeka. He had drifted in
from his habitual wanderings only the
day before. and been put on as a
SUBJ with the customary promise of
regular cases. as soon as a vacancy
should occur. This particular night he
was not AZ work: and after the last of
the loafers had gone, and while l sat
running my pencil over Il delayed proof
hurriedly. and veXed with the heat and
the buzzinS of insects about the lamp
shade-it was fervid August night.
remember. with not air enough to dis
tnrb the exchanges lying loosely in the
open window-he tapped me Familiarity
on the shoulder and said:
Cap. that leader of yours yesterday
on the labor question was an awful good
thing; you sounded the keynote, and l
want to congratulate you.'
Thereupon we shook hands with eX-
travagant warmth. though with a reser-
walton of mutual distrust, think, and
then we fell to talking on variety of
topics, ranging from pauperism to the
doctrine of the atonement, in that can
did, positive and encyclopedia, but
picturesque and superficial, style COM
mon to newspaper offices the world
over. SO much did the fellow interest
me. that, weary as | was with the
nights work, found myself, after two
hours, still patiently listening to him,
as the town clock struck four in the
morning. In spite of my first instinct
i've misgivings, he made me like him.
He seemed so frank and self-contident,
so obscrv ant, SO quick-wittcd and SO
hcroically cOntented: and then, did he
not fill every lull in the conversation with
a tlattering reference to my editorials?
All. right well he knew, the calculating
wretch, that he, too. had sounded a
keynote with that Introductory con-
graduation! But it was not until after
we had finished our talk, and l was
making ready to leave him, tina: he
asked mel hardly know how, it was
done SO dexterously-to favor him with
Il couple of dollars, till Saturday."
OF course he got it, though l needed
net he told that with the borrowing
printer, It'll Saturday." is measure
of time that spans eternity; and then
he walked with me, arm-in-arm, to the
Old Crow Saloon, where he would not
permit me to avoid joining him in a
glass of ale, and as 1 turned to go,
saw him hand my two-dollar bill over
the bar with an air of complacence
that really touched me like a personal
kindness.
After this we were frequently togeth-
er, and came to be quite cordial, not to
say confidential, in our relations. Every
night, almost, when was waiting for
the cabalistic ''3O'' that ended the tele-
graphic news report, or after the final
proofs had been corrected and the COM
positors had "pasted their strings" he
would come slipping into my room with
that soft, considerable tread peculiar to
printers when entering an editorial
sanctum, and we would talk there all
alone as at our first meeting. or, if the
weather was pleasant, would 60 forth
into the night and walk the broad,
smooth streets till the moon went down.
My friend was confirmed "banner-
ite," as the printers term ia care
less, shiftless. strolling vagabond, here
to-day and there tomorrow, without
home or kindred, and treating life as a
farce full of amusing checks and bal
ances, with death closing it all, at last,
in kind Of unguesscd conundrum.
He had walked thousands of miles over
the country. He always walked when
he travelled. II get sea-sick on the
cars he said to me once, with a grim
smile; and then he added, slowly and
in shrinking tone, "makes my feet
sore to ride, too" During the previous
year he had "made the tour of Cana
da,' as he phrased it; thence to Bos-
ton, New York, Charleston, New Or
leans, and up the Mississippi to St.
Louis, and then across Illinois and
Iowa, and finally to Topeka. He had
not worked over q week in any one
place, nor rode q mile on the whole
journey. "A hankerin' for scenery.n
was the reason he gave me for this ex-
tended ramble. And surely he had not
been blind to the shifting delights of
sky and sea and shadowing forest which
had opened out before him like an un-
rolling picture. Nor had he failed.
vagabond as he was, to note the pc
culiar and varying traits of the differ
ent peoples among whom his travels
had led him; for he had keen insight,
and detected a flaw or foible of char
acter as if it had been bourgeois let
ter in line of nonpareil. He
was better than . book to me,
since he read himself and turned
his own leaves; and l grew to
look forward all the day to his coming
nightly visit with impatient earerness'
No doubt he lied to me many times and
scandalously, for he was mortal and
not wholly without egotism; but he did
it, when he deemed it advisable. in
such q large, overcoming, cliff.like
way that it was almost as good "a the
truth. Where there is much to inter-
est, says some generous philosopher.
there must yet be something to pardon.
Why the boys. in the office called
him "Old NOAH" I could never. quite
make out. Perhaps it was because he
had travelled so far and seen so much
that his life seemed to them to have
been projected forward, somehow.
faster and farther than the years
counted. Or, it may have been that
his supreme indifference to all tho alert