American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1878-03-02
CONCERNING A CERTAIN PRODIGAL

ID .-A "a - -
[Capt. Henry King, in Scribner's for March. I
The first time encountered the late
Noah Babbitt, journeyman printer, he
struck me, ashley say on the frontier,
sanctum os the Commonwealth newspa-
per at Topeka. He had drifted in from
his. habitual wanderings only the day
before, and been put on. as a sub, -
with the customary promise of "regu-
lar cases" as 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 a delayed proof
hurriedly, and vexed with the heat and
the buzzing of insects about the lamp
shade-it was 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 yester-
day on the labor question was an awful
good thing: you sounded the keynote,
and want to congratulate you.n
ThereupoA we shook hands with ex-
travagant warmth, though with reser-
walton of mutual distrust, 1 think, and
then we fell to talking on a 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 rs was with the nights
work, found myself, after two hours,
still patiently listening to him, as the
town clock struck in the morning. In
spite of my first instructive misgivings,
he made me like him. q He seemed so
frank and self-confident, SO observant,
so quick witted, and so heroicalIy con
tented; and then, did he not fill every
d lull in the conversation with fatter-
ing reference to my editorials? All,
: right we'll he knew, the calculating
wretch, that he, too, had sounded a key
note with that introductory congratula-
lion But it was not until after we had
finished our talk, and 1 was making
> readystO leave him, that he asked me-
I hardly know how, it was done SO dex-
terously-te favor him with a sscouple
'lof dollars, till Saturday" OF course he
got it, though l needed not to be told
I, that with the borrowing printer, till
Saturday'';ii 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 that we were frequently togeth-
err. and came to be quite cordial, not to
say confidential, in our relations. Every
night, almost, when l was waiting for
the cabaGstic 50 30 - 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, considerate tread pc
culiar to printers when entering an edi-
torial sanctum, and we would talk there
all alone as at our first meeting, 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 a confirmed s.bannerite, -
as the printers term it-a careless, shift
less, strolling vagabond, here to-day
and there tomorrow, without home or
kindred, and treating life as farce full
of amusing checks and balances, with |
death closing it all, at last, in a kind of |
unguessed conundrum. He had walked |
thousands of miles over the country. He |
always walked when he travelled 81
get sea-sick on the cars,'' he said to me
once, with grim smile; and then lie
added, slowly and in a shrinking tone,
g. makes my feet sore to ride, too.''
During the previous year he had ''made
the tour of Canada" as he phrased it;
thence to Boston, New York, Charles
ton, New Orleans, land up the Mississippi
to ST. Louis, and then across Illinois and
Iowa, and finally to Topeka. He had
not worked over a week in any one