The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-01-10
THE DRUMMER, THE BADGELESS
 HERO OF PR0SPERITY'S ARMY
By WILL I. STEPHAN.


 "oh, yes. Here's one from the House We'll I'll just see if I'm still with them"
 There is an under side to this stand ard drummer's jokes. an under side that has a bit of pathos and a bit of reflected injustice in 1t It struck me for the first time in a fried egg hotel in West Alabama. It is 6 prairie country over there. When a man takes a cross country. drive in wet weather half the time he Is riding and half the time he Is helping the driver prize the buggy out of the mud witn n fence rail, and then taking the fence rail to beat the caked mud of the wheels. For when a couple of sturdy horses, all sweat and steamy, no mat ter how cold the day Is, the buggy hasn't gone many miles before the wheels look like the sclid wheels of l Roman chariot
 It Is a nerve racking ride--this go- ing across the prairie country in wet weather. Every moment you are look ing for another deep hole In the mud. when the whole business Is going to stop and the fence rail will have to -ome into use again. This particular drummer had had twenty miles of 1t that day. It was one or those nasty November days-with the air moist and loiteringiy penetrating. His driver vas a big negro fresh from the stables.
 He had had customers to see, along the road And in all probability one of them belonged to the village skin Hint class, the n an with the narrow, jaundiced soul. who feels called upon to browbeat anybody who may be so unfortunate as to have 10 look to him Or a favor. It is quite natural for the rural skin-flint to look upon drummer who wants to sell him a bill of goods as man suing Tor his favor and therefore man who can be safely bully-ragged.
 All For His House.
 The manly man with line Of sam pies. feels a .nauseated contempt Tor the petty meanness he Is more or less forced 10 endure from the rural Shy locks. He wouldn't endure 1t a mo- ment except for the interest of his House His House Is paramount in his thoughts. His deepst loyalty Is given to his House, else he Is no true man.
 So he only argues convncingly az le may when the Country Shylock sets n to saying sharp and untrue things If his goods. He tries 10 rebut. but always respectfully mean and mali ,ious attacks upon his House and his goods. He may know that the man be- fore him Is lying: he may know that the man before him was guilty of g cheap attempt to swindie his House on the last bill of goods, but he mustn't show 1t and he must treat the man be- fore him as If his shrunken soul was the upright Asoul of a gentleman.
 And now for the good of his House, he bears patiently the stings and stabs of a man for whom he has an unspeak- able contempt, thing he would never do, If he had nothing except himself and his own self respect to consider.
 Having spent a sickening hour in pickering. the travelling man repacks his samples ad again takes the dirty and disag agreeable road with his odorous companion on the narrow seat beside him. In time, after the winter night has fallen. an icy rain sets in-after two hours of jerking, splashing and laundering he comes to the little fried egg hotel. He hobbies in, his joints stiff and sore. from ten hours of cold damp and cramped riding. At his knees his clothes are wet through, the rain has beaten through the hood of the buggy and q tiny stream of ice water has been running down his col lar, from behind his ear.
 The landlord has been in bed q good hour and the two or three sticks of st0vewood in the fireplace of the 'hotei office," save the mark, have burned into a ueap OL cneeTleSB aSHeS. UlTIy, smoky kerosene lamp Is on a wooden table and beside 1t dog -eared account book Is doing duty as register. There are shavings. tobacco spit and pipe ashes all over the floor.
 But jaunty to the last, the half frozen, rain soaked one goes over to the man tie and picks up the slender pile of let ters which represents the hotel mail. Over on the other side of the hearth there Is a fellow sufferer. companion victim sitting in a cane bottom chair with his ankles crossed in front of the cheerless ashes. He had gotten In a little earlier. but he was holding back as reluctantly and as long as he could from the terrors of that icy wooden cell up stairs. with the ridged and fur rowed bed In time the two victims would each be consigned to ice cold dlscomforts of that wooden dungeon.
 "Get Business Letter"
 The new comgr runs through the let ters and picks out one with a type written address and the imprint of the House on It. "oh. yes, here's one from the House." he says. I'll open 1t to see If I'm still with them"
 An old joke, and it reflects some rathos and some injustice.
 And what does he get? What does he get at the end of such a day and at the beginning of such a night A