A Dead One

A Dead One

by

Frank L. Packard

“Entered in 1911 Story Competition. Frank L. Packard, P.O. Box 605, Owen Sound, Ontario, Canada.”

From the Fonds of Frank L. Packard at the Library and Archives Canada. No published source found./drf November 2018. Stillwoods.Blogspot.Ca

In some ways there wasn’t anything out of the ordinary about H. Stebbins, for there are a good many H. Stebbinses helping to crowd the subways and the “L”s in the rush hours; but then again, in some ways, there was.

H. Stebbins was a little old man in black, scrupulously neat, with a grey moustache, a wrinkled face and kindly blue eyes behind steel-rimmed spectacles, whose bald head, with its scanty fringe of encircling white hair, bent assiduously day after day over a ledger in Messrs. Carmichael and Carmichael’s office.

New York is very large and its business houses employ many clerks, but for all that if one is a clerk long enough and whether through choice or circumstance, changes his employer often enough, more or less intimate facts dribble around after him from office to office. H. Stebbins had been a clerk for forty years and he had been in a good many offices. So when he came to Carmichael and Carmichael’s his fellow clerks of a younger generation knew that the reason he wore black was because his wife who had been an invalid about all her life had died a month or so previously, and that he had been getting twenty-five a week at his last place—before he lost it—against the twenty Carmichael and Carmichael paid him.

“Poor beggar,” commented Troop, the order-entry clerk, “he’s a dead one. It’s pretty tough when you get to that stage where you have to hike back to your desk every night to keep up a bad second with your work, to say nothing of the firm not liking that sort of thing, What?”

The office agreed callously. They were counting “raises” ahead not “drops”,—and they hadn’t been working as long as H. Stebbins had.

“Perhaps Troop was less callous than the rest, or perhaps it was because the position of his desk afforded him a better view of the other on a high stool scratching away by the window, or, again, perhaps it was because the old gentleman’s habitual “good morning” had a genuine cheery ring to it; but, for whatever the reason, before a month had gone by he had taken to spending his spare moments unobtrusively acting as a sort of assistant ledger-keeper to H. Stebbins. And that, incidentally, was how, one morning, when the two were checking off statements, he ran across the folder of the National Interment Assurance Society under a pile of invoices on the other’s desk.

“For Heaven’s sake!” Troop exclaimed, picking it up and flipping the pages. “What kind of a thing is that?”

H. Stebbins, with pen poised, looked up over his spectacles.

“I saw the advertisement in a magazine the other day,” said he, “and I sent for it. It’s a new project, I understand though the idea isn’t, for that’s really what the fraternal societies have been doing for a long time. I’m surprised some company hasn’t been organized to make a specialty of it before.”

“Oh!” said Troop. “Well, they know how to get up advertising anyhow. This cut of ‘Our Class A Interment’ is enough to make a man hanker to die just for the sake of the splurge he’d make with an outfit like that.”

“But that,” said H. Stebbins quite seriously, “is a very expensive policy. There are others that are really moderate. You’ll see if you read what they say.”

Troop read. The folder was mostly pictures got up in color and style, but dodging the cuts through the pages there was a little story headed “Death Where Is Thy Sting?” and proving there wasn’t any with an easy quarterly-premium-payment policy in the National Interment Assurance Society to liquidate man’s last debt to his fellow men.

“You see,” said H. Stebbins a little shyly, when Troop had laid the folder down. “that’s a bill we’ve all got to run up sometime, and it would be kind of dishonorable, don’t you think so, if we didn’t have the cash on hand? We—we couldn’t work off any debt then.”

“But, great Scott!” ejaculated Troop. “You—”

“And then,” interposed H. Stebbins, gently parrying the personal equation, “if you have a family it takes the burden, and in thousands of cases it’s a very heavy burden off them. You see, there’s a good many it might appeal to.”

Troop looked at H. Stebbins for an instant a little curiously.

“Yes; I see,” said he quietly, beginning to sort out the invoices again. “I guess it’s a good business proposition, all right.”

As the days went by, H. Stebbins no longer came back to the office after hours; for Troop, by a little extra pressure on himself, aided by a gradually increasing slackness in general business, spent more time at H. Stebbins’ desk. And as he came to know the other better, putting some little touch here and there together, and guessing at more—for the courteous, cheery little old gentleman could rarely be persuaded to speak of himself, and never intimately—Troop grew to like H. Stebbins; while, on his side, H. Stebbins—but that is getting just a trifle ahead of the story.

On a Wednesday, a little over two months after H. Stebbins came to Carmichael and Carmichael’s, the Inter-Borough Trust Company failed, pulling down a string of commercial enterprises in its wake. On Thursday, a national bank suspended. On Friday, two more; and a panic that had been threatening and brewing for a number of weeks settled upon the staggered business community in grim earnest. On Saturday, after paying their clerks, Carmichael and Carmichael closed their doors.

This fell upon their force, naturally, as a shock, but it fell upon Troop, at least, as an unexpected one. Carmichael and Carmichael were regarded as a strong house, and no thought had come to him that they would not weather the present storm as they had weathered others before in the years that were past. Furthermore, it had come at a decidedly inopportune time for him. His face was a little white as he pocketed his pay envelope and turned to clean up his desk. This done, he looked around for the first time for H. Stebbins. H. Stebbins had gone. Troop, with a little pang of regret that he had been too immersed in his own affairs to say good-by to the other, and a little hurt that H. Stebbins hadn’t taken the initiative even if he himself had failed to do so, put on his hat, shook hands with those of his fellow ex-clerks who still remained in the office and entered the elevator.

He stepped out at the street floor, and, with an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of his stomach incident to probable future developments, started along the corridor toward the Broadway entrance of the building. Some one plucked at his sleeve, drawing him aside. It was H. Stebbins.

“I—I am afraid this has been—er—a little awkward for you, Troop,” began the old gentleman diffidently. “I—you’ll not think me intrusive—I couldn’t help noticing upstairs. I—I thought I’d rather speak to you down here.”

Troop shoved out his hand impulsively.

“That’s mighty good of you, H. Stebbins,” he said; then he laughed a little nervously. “I wasn’t looking for it, you see. Never dreamed of it. If I had, I guess I’d have done more paying up and less blowing in lately, that’s all.”

H. Stebbins was wiping his spectacles with his handkerchief, his kindly old face full of sympathetic interest.

“Yes, yes,” said he. “I understand. Debt is a worrying thing, a terrible worrying thing, isn’t it? But then”—smiling—“you mustn’t bother over it more than you can help. We’ll find something else to do by Monday or Tuesday, and in the meantime” —the old gentleman had replaced his spectacles and was tearing off the end of his pay envelope— “I can very comfortably spare a portion of this.”

Troop reached out, took the envelope bodily from H. Stebbins’ hands and tucked it back in the other’s vest pocket.

“There,” said he, “and thanks just the same. It’s not quite so desperate as that.”

“But—but you’re very welcome,” protested the old gentleman. “Indeed you are. And I really can spare it, I really can, Troop. You’d oblige me. I know what a little—or—temporary embarrassment is, and you can pay me back next week when you get another situation.”

“Nope!” said Troop, shaking his head. “It’s clean white of you, H. Stebbins, and if I said what I wanted to I’d slop. I couldn’t think of it; and the possibility of a job next week with things the way they are is too poor security to either lend or borrow money on.”

“Tut,tut,” said H. Stebbins, patting Troop on the shoulder. “You mustn’t look at it that way. I’ve no doubt it will be a little more difficult than usual to find just what we’d like, but there’ll be no trouble in finding something.

“Well, I hope so,” said Troop fervently.

“Oh, we will,” declared H. Stebbins, with cheerful assurance; then briskly, leading the way to the entrance: “I’ve got your address and I shan’t lose sight of you. You are quite sure that you won’t—”

“Quite,” cut in Troop smiling, as he shook the other’s outstretched hand warmly.

“Well then,” said H. Stebbins, “I’ll say good-by for the present. I’ve a little business to do downtown.”

“Good-by then, and good luck,” returned Troop heartily.

He stood for a moment in the doorway watching the little old gentleman out of sight, then he turned and walked slowly up Broadway.

“Hope he’s got something to fall back on,” he said to himself, “for I’m afraid it’s going to be pretty hard digging for H. Stebbins in the job line, God bless his game old heart! But in the meantime, Tommy Troop, you’ve a trouble or two of your own, and a flint-hearted old landlady behind a ‘please remit; past due’ bill for thirty dollars with fifteen plunks in your pocket to square the account will be enough to keep you guessing on your own hook for a while. And,” Troop confided to himself, as he dove into a subway entrance, “she’ll drop like a trip hammer if she’s seen the afternoon editions with Carmichael and Carmichael’s failure—and I’ll bet she has!”

She had. Troop was made painfully aware of that fact before he had much more than got his pass key back in his pocket after letting himself into his boarding house. But Troop was not without diplomacy. He compromised with ten dollars down and a reference to his wardrobe and belongings in the hall room, second floor back, in event of his inability to secure another job during the coming week. It was the best he could do; and thought it gave him a presentiment that his personal effects were in jeopardy, it like wise gave him a week’s board and five dollars in his pocket to come and go on.

For the first few days of the next week Troop applied for a job hopefully, after that doggedly—and a job was not. In all New York, it seemed, there was no such thing. In office after office it was the same—they were letting clerks go, not hiring them.

Things commenced to look a little serious for Troop. He began the second week without any permanent address, three dollars and eighty cents of the five left in his pocket, and his trunk reposing in the basement of his erstwhile home in the custody of Mrs. Jones pending redemption in better times.

But Troop was to become still more insolvent before he realised on assets he had not taken into account; and he was to be yet more sorely tried to put from him the thought of his ancestral cottage in the little town in Idaho, where, likewise, money was exceeding scarce. Of H. Stebbins he had neither seen nor heard anything.

Three dollars and eighty cents is not a large stake, and the revenue from it as a principal on which to lodge and eat has its limitations; though, for all that, it is wonderful how far three dollars and eighty cents will go if one is domestic economist enough to subsist on certain food, and sleep in a certain unpretentious hostelry on East Broadway, where accommodations of a sort may be obtained for a dime a night. Troop, with three nickels left, went into the Monday beginning the fourth week since Carmichael and Carmichael had failed before he got a job—and it was not clerking. He was given a pick and a number, and his status was that of a laborer engaged in the task of pulling down a condemned building on the East side at a wage of one dollar and a quarter a day— and he was very grateful.

But Dame Fortune, in her perverse mood, was not even then through with Troop. He worked one day, and only one—and the greater part of that with his handkerchief wrapped around his right hand, having inaugurated his new career by gouging the palm of it on a rusty nail that stuck out from an old partition. That night he lay awake from the pain that crept steadily up his forearm; and in the morning, instead of falling into line for his time-check at the tool chest, he fell into line at the outdoor department of the nearest hospital.

“Septic,” pronounced the doctor brusquely, and without further ado cut half a dozen little furrows with his lance all over Troop’s hand.

“How—how long,” inquired Troop hesitatingly as the bandages went on, for the words came hard, “how long will it take before I can use it again?”

The young intern looked at him sharply. “A week if you’re dead lucky and take care of yourself. Need it in your business, eh? Pretty tough?”

“Kind of,” said Troop, with a wan smile.

“Well, we’ll do the best we can for you. Come in to-morrow morning and have it dressed.”

“Thank you,” said Troop. And he went out.

A week if you’re dead lucky! The phrase set itself with dismal insistence to the tempo of his paces as he went along. He was heading back for the scene of his labors of the day before. Once there, he approached the foreman with some reluctance. That individual barely heard him out.

“I’ve nothin’ to do with it. Come Saturday, which is pay day, an’ yoz’ll get yer toime,” said he, and terminated the brief interview by leaving Troop standing alone on the sidewalk.

For the rest of that morning Troop wandered aimlessly, sick, tired, desperate. He was up against it—up against it hard.

At noontime he sat down on a bench in Union Square. Here it was at least warm and bright, for, though late in the fall, there had been no snow and the midday sun took the chilliness from the air. Weak and fogged out from the miles he had covered, Troop dozed uneasily through the better part of the afternoon. It was already growing dusk when he was aroused by some one coughing and shaking his shoulder. H. Stebbins was standing before him.

“Well, well, well” exclaimed the old gentleman delightedly. “This is good fortune. I’d about given up hope of seeing you again, Troop. I went up to your boarding house last week, and the landlady said you had—or—left and could give me no information about where you had gone.”

“She was quite right,” responded Troop grimly. “I left.”

“Yes,” said H. Stebbins, polishing his spectacles; “I fully intended to go up the first week, but I wasn’t feeling very well.”

He adjusted his glasses well below the bridge of his nose and scrutinized Troop over the rims. His eyes fastened on the bandage.

“Why—why, you’ve been hurt!” he ejaculated. “Tell me how that happened; and tell me, too, how you’ve made out!”

Troop told him —he was too profoundly miserable to do anything else, and pride fell before a yearning to unburden himself to a friendly ear.

“Dear me,” said the old gentleman, with ready sympathy, “you’ve —you’ve been very unfortunate, Troop, very unfortunate.”

“You don’t mean to say you’ve struck anything!” Troop burst out.

“Well, no; not as yet,” responded H. Stebbins, smiling. “That is, nothing but a slight cold”—as he coughed again, “My experience has been similar, quite similar to yours so far, but I’ve no doubt that to-morrow or the next day will bring better results. In the meanwhile, of course, you’ll come right along with me. I’ve a good room that will be just right for us both.”

Troop shook his head, though it called upon the last of his self-reliance to refuse. “No, H. Stebbins, I’m not going to sponge on you. I guess you’ve got enough to do to—”

“Tut, tut, tut,” interposed H. Stebbins. “What do you know of my affairs, young man! You are going to come until your hand is better at any rate, and I won’t listen to anything else. Why, my gracious, Troop, it would be—be—preposterous. I won’t listen to it.”

“H. Stebbins,” said Troop, choking, “you—”

“Not a word!” admonished the old gentleman. “Not a word. It will be a real pleasure to have you.”

“You’re sure,” said Troop hesitatingly, “quite sure that it’s all right, that—that you can afford it?”

“Now, see here, Troop,” commanded H. Stebbins, shaking his finger, “you just get right up and come along.”

For a moment Troop still held back; then, yielding, he got up—and swayed a little weakly. He had refrained from spending the nickel left from the previous night’s hotel bill, and the pain in his hand seemed now to have infected his side.

“Bless me!’ exclaimed H. Stebbins, in consternation, “Why this will never do, Troop.” He tucked Troop’s left arm through his own. “It’s—it’s quite a little way. Do you think you can manage it?”

“Oh, yes,” said Troop, recovering himself. “I’ll manage it, all right. I was just dizzy for a minute, that’s all.”

H. Stebbins, chatting constantly the while, as though anxious to keep Troop’s attention engaged, and punctuating his words with an occasional cough, led the way down Broadway, turned east at Astor Place, struck onto the Bowery, and, after traversing several blocks, turned into a side street and mounted the steps of a dingy tenement house. Troop, vaguely conscious of surprise at the destination, followed up two flights of stairs and into a scantily furnished back room. Then he turned suddenly on the other. H. Stebbins had closed the door, and was leaning his back against it.

“Look here, H. Stebbins”’ Troop cried reproachfully, “this isn’t fair. You said —“

“Of course, I did,” chuckled the old gentleman; then earnestly, diving into his pocket and producing several bills: “You see it’s all right. I’ve got enough to got along with. I’ve no doubt but that to-morrow I’ll have a position, and in a day or so you’ll be well again and then we’ll laugh at it all. Now just lie down on the bed, Troop, and I’ll get some supper ready. You’ll offend me seriously if you say another word.”

That night came the first snow storm of the season, which, turning by morning into a drizzling rain, covered the streets of the city like a shroud with slush. Troop, when he awoke, found H. Stebbins astir over a battered two-burner oil stove, and the aroma of coffee in the room.

“Better this morning?” inquired the old gentleman.

“Yes,” said Troop. “I certainly am. Rotten day, isn’t it?”

“Why,” said H. Stebbins, “I was thinking that perhaps it was really a blessing. You see, there have been a great many applicants for positions lately and they’ve rather crowded the offices. It’s possible some of them may stay indoors to-day.”

“And you’d better be one of them,” advised Troop seriously. “That cold of yours is bad enough as it is. You coughed a lot last night. Cut it out for to-day, H. Stebbins.”

H. Stebbins shook his head. “I’m all right,” said he cheerfully. “And, do you know, I’ve a presentiment something is going to turn up.”

But H. Stebbins’ presentiment when night-time came remained only a presentiment. Troop, a little more observant now from less pain and a cheering report from the doctor when his hand was dressed, caught the drawn look, the pallor, in H. Stebbins’ face, the shorter, slightly faltering step with which the other entered the room, the weakness of voice in the old fellow’s cheery greeting.

“You’re done up, H. Stebbins,” he said, in alarm.

“Not a bit of it,” asserted the old gentleman stoutly. “Not a bit of it. A little tired and a little wet. I’ll be fit as a fiddle to-morrow.”

“Anything turn up?” inquired Troop, after a pause.

H. Stebbins coughed, “Well no, not to-day,” he admitted; “but I’ve heard of one or two things for to-morrow that look promising.”

To-morrow! Troop was beginning to understand. How many years had it been ‘to-morrow,’ he wondered. He looked at the smile on the kindly face and swallowed hard. “That’s good,” he said quickly.

“Yes,” agreed H. Stebbins. “Business generally is looking brighter. How about your hand?”

“Better,” replied Troop. “The doc says I ought to be able to use it the first of the week. Hang it, H. Stebbins”—as a fit of coughing seized the old gentlemen—“seriously now, you’ve got to look after yourself. You ought never to have gone out to-day.”

“Tut, tut,” chided H. Stebbins reassuringly. “Now, don’t you worry about me, Troop. I’ll be as spry as a cricket in the morning.”

But in the morning H. Stebbins was far from spry. That day dragged through with Troop beside the bedside—and neither spoke much.

“I think,” said Troop, late in the afternoon, “I’ll get a doctor.”

H. Stebbins reached out, plucked at Troop’s sleeve and held him back, “Please don’t, Troop,” said he. ‘‘I—I—we—”

“You mean on account of money?” demanded Troop bluntly.

“Well, you see,” said H. Stebbins, trying to smile, “there isn’t enough for—”

Troop turned away his head quickly. “I ought to have known it,” he said bitterly, “and I’m—I’m living on you.”

“Troop, Troop,” pleaded the old fellow, catching and patting Troop’s hand, “you mustn’t say that, don’t say that. Why—why, I owe you more than any one else in the world, my boy, don’t you see?”

Troop faced him wonderingly. “No,” he said. “And I’ve had it on my tongue to ask you why you’ve done this for me a half a dozen times. Tell me why.”

H. Stebbins looked at Troop a moment, then slowly shook his head, “Not now,’ he said. “Perhaps I will if—if—perhaps I will some other time.”

That was Thursday afternoon. At midnight, Troop, in spite of protests and appeals, went for a doctor. H. Stebbins had double pneumonia, and the doctor shook his head.

On Saturday, Troop augmented the old gentleman’s now almost empty purse with the dollar twenty-five coming to him, and at the some time, his hand heeling rapidly, he took occasion to secure the promise of getting back on the job the first of the week.

Saturday night H. Stebbins grew worse, Sunday passed; and at dawn on Monday Troop held the hand of a dying man.

“It’s—it’s time for your medicine, H. Stebbins,” he said huskily.

H. Stebbins smiled weakly and shook his head. “No, Troop,” he whispered; “it’s too late. I’m going. You’ve been very good to me.”

“I?” said Troop. “Oh, no, H. Stebbins.”

“Very good to me, very good,” repeated H. Stebbins. “And I’m so grateful. I wish you know that. I’d feel easier.”

“But—”

H. Stebbins raised himself on his elbow. “Listen, Troop, listen”—his voice seemed to strengthen—“you helped me out of debt—out of debt for the first time in nearly forty years. God bless you again and again for it. I—I—Mr. Carmichael told me that unless I could get my—my work done in—in office hours they did not want me. And—and, you see, there was still a little to pay then. The things in the flat when poor Janet died didn’t quite make it up, not quite. I—I couldn’t tell you before, Troop, but—but it—it isn’t intruding myself now, is it, because—because I—I—”

Troop’s eyes were full and he couldn’t speak. He tried to lay H. Stebbins back on the bed.

“Let me finish, Troop”—H. Stebbins was patting Troop’s hand again. “We tried, Janet and I, all the years, and it grieved her so that we had illness, We hoped some day we’d—we’d be out of debt, but she wasn’t spared. I guess God knew best. But, oh, Troop”—H. Stebbins’ eyes brightened and his face lighted up—“the day Carmichael and Carmichael failed was a very wonderful day. I had only eight dollars left to pay, just eight dollars—and the rest, out of the twenty, you know, was really mine- —really mine, and—and—I haven’t owed any since—don’t—owe—a—soul—on—earth—a—cent—” He was growing weak, and this time offered no protest as Troop laid him back.

He lay with his eyes closed for a few minutes, then he reached out his hand, and his voice was full of sudden fear.

“Troop, Troop, is there enough to pay the doctor and medicine and—”

“Yes, H. Stebbins,” said Troop steadily.

After a long while H. Stebbins spoke again. Troop could barely catch the whispered words.

“I’m—I’m glad—glad—to go. It has been—very—hard—and—” The gentle soul of H. Stebbins had passed away.

Troop rose slowly from the bedside, and, walking to the window, stared numbly out into the wretched, courtyard. Women were calling raucously to each other from window to window in foreign tongues, for the day had come; coarse wash flapped on countless lines before his blurred eyes; in the alleyway half-clad children played—and it seemed to Troop, somehow incongruous that nothing of it all was changed from the day before.

He turned back into the room, and walked across it to H. Stebbins’ trunk in the corner. Perhaps, amongst the effects, he would find the address of some relative or friend. He lifted the lid. On the bottom were a few pawn tickets, dated the previous week, and a sealed envelope—that, was all. The envelope bore an inscription in the old gentleman’s handwriting, Troop choked as he read the words: “H. Stebbins’ Estate.” He opened it—it was a policy in the National Interment Assurance Society.

For a long time Troop stood there staring at it, but he no longer saw it through the mist before his eyes. His mind was back again to the time when he had first seen H. Stebbins. He had called him a “dead one” then, one of life’s failures—called him that out of the strength, the buoyancy, the half pitying, half impatient optimism of youth. One of life’s failures! Perhaps. Twenty, forty, sixty years of failure then, but twenty, forty, sixty years of unfaltering courage, of cheery, simple faith, of sterling, yes—Troop smiled sadly—almost quixotic honesty; playing life’s game in the humble sphere, the lowly place he filled, playing it even there against odds, against a woman’s sickness that ate ever into slender means, whimpering never, hoping, striving always, a brave, unconquered soul. For a week, two weeks, Troop had tasted of misfortune. It came home to him now, helping him in its grim contrast to understand—a week, two weeks, against many years! He raised his head and looked toward the bed. A failure! Who should say, who stamp the epitaph. “I don’t owe a soul on earth a cent,” as failure? Who should say? There was no mourning crowd, no funeral pomp or ceremony, no grand and solemn strain of requiem to mark the passing of the great—it was only H. Stebbins that was dead.

Troop dashed his bandaged hand across his eyes, thrust the envelope into his pocket, crossed the room again, took his hat from its nail, lingered a moment in the doorway to look at the still, silent form and went out.

It was still early, but it was a long way downtown to the address of the National Interment Assurance Society, and by the time he reached the big office building it was after nine o’clock. Here, a search amongst the names on the directory just inside the door failed to discover the one he sought. Puzzled, he walked down the corridor to the superintendent’s office.

“I’m looking for this company,” he said, holding out the envelope to the man at the desk. “I can’t find it on your directory, so I suppose they’ve moved. Can you give me their address?”

“His address, you mean,” said the superintendent with a grim smile. “I don’t know the number of his cell, but you’ll find him over at the Tombs temporarily till he moves into more permanent quarters further up the river.”

“What—what do you mean?” stammered Troop.

“Bunco game!” replied the superintendent. “It was a good one, too, I guess, while it lasted—you’re about the two hundred and fifteenth that’s been in here since the district attorney dropped on him like a ton of brick last week.”

Troop’s face whitened.

“You mean,” he cried hoarsely, “that—that it’s all a swindle?”

“That’s what.”

For a moment Troop stood irresolute, then he turned to the door.

“My God!” he muttered dully. “To the grave—right to the grave.”

“What did you say;” inquired the superintendent.

“Nothing,” said Troop, as he went out. “I’m very much obliged to you. Good morning.”

The End.

[5000 words]