CHAPTER I.

HAD THERE BEEN WISDOM THERE?

We lived in South Brooklyn, near to old No. 13, the Degraw Street Public

School. To that I was sent, and there got all the education I was ever

fated to have at any school, except the school of life and experience.

I attended for some years, and even now I cannot recall without a smile

the absurd incompetency of every one connected with the institution and

their utter ignorance of the art of imparting knowledge to children.

At home I had picked up that grand art of reading, and went to school to

learn the other two R's, with any trifle that I might come across

floating around promiscuously.

I certainly hope our much-lauded public schools are conducted on better

lines now than then; if not, they are frauds from the foundation. The

instruction in No. 13 was so lax and radically bad that the whole

governing body and the principal ought to have been sent to the

penitentiary on the charge of false pretense for drawing their salaries

and giving nothing in return. And yet I remember when examination day

came, instead of the committee investigating the progress of the pupils,

it usually turned into a mere hallelujah chorus upon our "grand public

school system."

Here is a remarkable fact: I seldom missed a promotion and passed from

grade to grade until within two years I found myself in Junior "A," the

next to the highest class in the school, just as ignorant as my

classmates, and that is saying much.

It was all very pitiful. My blood boils even now when I think of the

traitors chosen and paid to see me fully equipped and armed to begin the

battle of life who left me with phantom weapons which would shiver into

fragments at the first shock of conflict.

I left Junior A of old No. 13, with its algebra, logic, philosophy

(heaven save the word!) and advanced grammar, unable to write a

grammatical sentence. I had been taught spelling out of an expositor--a

sort of pocket dictionary containing about fifteen hundred words. Most

of these, with their definitions, parrotlike, I had learned to spell,

but never once in all my school experience had I been taught the

derivation of a single word. Indeed, I took it for granted that in the

good old days Adam had invented the words much as he named the animals,

and, of course, supposed that he spoke good English. The knowledge of

history I gained at No. 13 was strictly limited and exceedingly

primitive. I knew the Jews in the old days were a bad lot. That Brutus

had slain Caesar. That the Mayflower had landed our fathers on Plymouth

Rock. That wicked George III. was a tyrant, and that the boys in Boston

had thrown a tea-kettle at his head. I knew all about our George and the

cherry tree, and there my historical knowledge ended.

So here I was launched out in the world a model scholar! Stamped as

proficient in grammar, history, logic, philosophy and arithmetic, but

yet in useful knowledge a barbarian, unable to spell or even write a

grammatical letter and unversed in the ways of the world--a world, too,

where I would be cast entirely upon my own resources.

My home life was happy. My father had lost his grip on the world, but

his faith in the Unseen remained. My mother, caring little for this

life, lived in and for the spiritual. To her heaven was a place as much

as the country village where she was born. She was never tired of

talking to us children about its golden streets and the rest there after

the toils and pains of life. But, boylike, we discounted all she said,

and felt we wanted some of this world before we knocked at the gates of

the next.

We loved our mother, but her soul was too gentle to keep in restraint

hot, fiery youths like my brothers and myself. On the whole we were good

boys, and I suppose caused her no more pain than the average youngsters.

Perhaps the keynote of her character can best be found in the following

incident, if that which was of daily occurrence could be called an

incident:

Every night of my life in those days she would come to my bed to pray

over me, ever saying, as she kissed me or clasped my hand: "My son,

remember if you were to pass your whole life here in poverty and

hardship it would not much matter so long as you attain to the Heavenly

Rest." This teaching would have been well had she only taught me some

worldly wisdom with it, but that all-essential knowledge was kept from

me, I being left to learn the ways of man in that terrible school of

experience. The consequence being that when after some months I was

launched out in life I was a ripe and apt victim to be caught in the

world's huge snare. In fact, had my parents designed me to become a

traveler in the Primrose Way they could not have educated me to better

purpose.

Save when in the school I had never been permitted to associate with

other boys, but was kept in the house, and up to my sixteenth year

hardly dreamed there was evil in the world. I was told much about the

"wicked," but thought that meant those who smoked tobacco or drank

whisky. I hardly thought any women came under that category, but if any,

then it must mean those who came around selling apples and oranges. The

reader will see that when once away from the shelter of home, in

threading the world's devious ways, I would be crossing the roaring

torrent "on the perilous footing of a spear," all but certain to fall

into the flood beneath.

During my last year at school and for a long time after leaving it, my

father and mother were never tired of talking about my good education.

Possibly they were not very good judges, but I am confident that they,

after all, did not realize the importance of a boy being well equipped

in that regard. Their thoughts and minds were so bent on the other

world, and things unseen bulked so hugely on their mental vision, that

there was small space left for things of this earth. They, good, simple

souls, were made for and ought to have lived in the Golden Age, when all

men were brave and all women true, where neighborly eyes reflected the

love and faith within; but in our utilitarian days they were sadly out

of place, and little wonder if they had lost their way in this world.

In their intense longing for the life beyond the grave, their passionate

desire to walk the streets of gold, they, by their actions, seemed to

forget that we were on this earth, and that we were here with many sharp

reminders of the fact.

The same guilelessness was manifested in their choice of our home

reading. The books I was allowed access to in the house were "The Life

of King David," "The History of Jerusalem," "Baxter's Saints' Rest,"

"The Immortal Dreamer's Pilgrim" and Fox's "Book of Martyrs." His first

martyr is Stephen, and such was my gross ignorance of history that I

always supposed Stephen had been martyred by the Church of Rome. Here

was mental food for a boy who had his own way to make in the world.

[Illustration: A HOME CHRISTMAS DINNER VS. IN A CELL. "WHERE IS OUR

WANDERING BOY TO-NIGHT?"]

Craving other mental food than "The Life of David," I used to club

pennies with a chum and buy that delectable sheet, "Ned Buntline's Own,"

then in fear and trembling would creep to an upper room and read "The

Haunted House" or "The Ghost of Castle Ivy" until my hair stood on end

in a sort of ecstatic horror; or the stirring adventures of "Jack the

Rover" or "Pirate Chief" until my brain took fire and a mighty impulse

stirred every fibre impelling me to follow in their footsteps.

I had remained idly at home for some six months after my release from

school, when one night my father returned from New York and said: "My

son, I have found a situation for you." That was delightful news, and

when I went to bed that night I was too excited to sleep.

The future was full of color, red and purple, of course. Happily for me

the future in all its black misery was hidden behind those gilded

clouds.

So now at sixteen I was about to sail out of harbor, and how equipped!

Absolutely without education, void of worldly wisdom, and in my boyish

brain dividing the world into two sections. In one was King David

slaying the Phillistines or dancing before the Ark. In the other was

Jack the Rover and the Pirate Chief. How easy to guess the rest! Yet I

was not a bad boy--far from it. I only needed wise guidance and good

companionship, and as the ignorance and crudity of my character dropped

off, the innate virtue--mine by lawful heritage--would have been

developed. But pitchforked into the wild whirl of Wall street and its

fast set of gilded youth, the gates of the Primrose Way to destruction

were held wide open to my eager feet.