The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1878-03-23
CONCERNING A CERTAIN PRODIGAL.

The first time | encountered the late
Noah Babbitt, journeyman printer, he
struck me, as they say on the frontier,
for loan of two dollars. 1t was in the
Sanctum of the Commonwealth newspa-
per at Topeka. He had drifted in from
his habitual wanderings only the day
before, and been put on as ''sub.,''
with the customary promise of "regu-
lar cases" us soon as a vacancy should
occur. This particular night he was
not at work; and after the last of the
loafers had gone, and while sat run
ming my pencil over delayed proof
hurriedly, and veXed with the heat and
the buzzing of insects about the lamp
shade it was a fervid August night, /
remember, with not air enough to dis
turb 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 | want to congratulate you"
Thereupon we shook hands with ex-
travagant warmth, though with 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 pict-
uresque and superficial, style common
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 instructive misgiv-
ings he made me like him. He seemed
so frank and self-confident, so observ.
ant, so quick-witted, and so heroically
contented; and then, did he not fill
every lull in the conversation with q
tiattering reference to my editorials?
All, right well he knew, the calculating
wretch, that he had sounded a keynote
with that Introductory congratulatiOn!
But it was not until after we had fin
ished our talk, and was making ready
to leave him, that he asked mel hard
lY know how, it was done so deXterous-
ly-to favor him with ''couple of dol
lars, till Saturday. OF course he cot
it, though | needed not to be told that,
with the borrowing printer, 6 till Satur-
day is a measure of time that spans
eternity; and then he walked with me,
arm-in-arm, to the Old Grow saloon,
where he would not permit ME to avoid
Joining him in glass of ale, and as |
turned to go l 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 to-
gether, and came to be quite cordial,
not to say confidential, in our relations.
Every night, almost, when | was wait
ING for the cabalistic "30' that ended
the telegraphic news report, or after
the final proofs had been corrected and
the compositors had '.pasted their
strings" he would come slipping into
my room with that soft, considerable
tread peculiar to printers when enter
ing an editorial sanctum, and we would
talk there all alone as at our first meet
ing, or, if the weather was pleasant,
would go forth into the night and walk
the broad, smooth streets till the moon
went down. My friend was confirmed
bannerite," as the printers term it-a
careless, shiftless, strolling vagabond,
here to-day and there tomorrow, with
out home or kindred, and treating life
as farce full of amusing checks and
balances, with death closing it all, at
last, in kind of unguessed conundrum.
He had walked thousands of miles over
the country He always walked when
he travelled. ~ get sea-sick on the
cars" he said to me once, with grim
smile; and then he added, slowly and in
shrinking tone, 'makes my feet sore
to ride, too" During the previous
yearhe had "made the tour of Canada"
as he phrased it; thence to Boston, New
York, Charleston, New Orleans, and up
the Mississippi to st. Louis, and then
across Illinois and iowa, and finally to
Topeka. He had not worked over
week in any one place, nor rode a mile
on the whole journey. GA hankerin'
for scenery" was the reason he gave
me for this extended 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 unrolling picture.
Nor had he failed, vagabond as he was,
to note the peculiar and varying traits
of the different peoples among whom
his travels had led him; for he had a
keen insight, and detected flaw or
foible of character as if it had been a
bourgeois letter in a line of nom
pareil. He was better than a book to
me, since he read himself and turned
his own leaves; and grew to
look forward all the day to his coming
nightly visit with impatient eagerness.
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 large, overcoming, clif-like way
that it was almost as good as the truth.
Where there is much to interest, says
some generous philosopher, there must
yet be something to pardon.
Why the boys in the Office called him
cold Noah" | 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