The Wolfs Long Howl | Page 4

do what
could be done that day to better his fortunes.
Then came work--hard and exceedingly fruitless work--in looking for
something to do. Then Nature began paying attention to George Henry
Harrison personally, in a manner which, however flattering in a general
way, did not impress him pleasantly. His breakfast had been a failure,
and now he was as hungry as the leaner of the two bears of Palestine
which tore forty-two children who made faces at Elisha. He thought
first of a free-lunch saloon, but he had an objection to using the fork
just laid down by another man. He became less squeamish later. He
was resolved to feast, and that the banquet should be great. He entered
a popular down-town place and squandered twenty-five cents on a
single meal. The restaurant was scrupulously clean, the steak was good,
the potatoes were mealy, the coffee wasn't bad, and there were hot

biscuits and butter. How the man ate! The difference between fifteen
and twenty-five cents is vast when purchasing a meal in a great city.
George Henry was reasonably content when he rose from the table. He
decided that his self-imposed task was at least endurable. He had
counted on every contingency. Instinctively, after paying for his food,
he strolled toward the cigar-stand. Half-way there he checked himself,
appalled. Cigars had not been included in the estimate of his daily
needs. Cigars he recognized as a luxury. He left the place, determined
but physically unhappy. The real test was to come.
The smoking habit affects different men in different ways. To some
tobacco is a stimulant, to others a narcotic. The first class can abandon
tobacco more easily than can the second. The man to whom tobacco is
a stimulant becomes sleepy and dull when he ceases its use, and days
ensue before he brightens up on a normal plane. To the one who finds it
a narcotic, the abandonment of tobacco means inviting the height of all
nervousness. To George Henry tobacco had been a narcotic, and now
his nerves were set on edge. He had pluck, though, and irritable and
suffering, endured as well as he could. At length came, as will come
eventually in the case of every healthy man persisting in self-denial,
surcease of much sorrow over tobacco, but in the interval George
Henry had a residence in purgatory, rent free.
And so--these incidents are but illustrative--the man forced himself into
a more or less philosophical acceptance of the new life to which
necessity had driven him. If he did not learn to like it, he at least
learned to accept its deprivations without a constant grimace.
But more than mere physical self-denial is demanded of the man on the
down grade. The plans of his intellect a failure, he turns finally to the
selling of the labor of his body. This selling of labor may seem an easy
thing, but it is not so to the man with neither training nor skill in
manual labor of any sort. George Henry soon learned this lesson, and
his heart sank within him. He had reached the end of things. He had
tried to borrow what he needed, and failed. His economies had but
extended his lease of tolerable life.
Shabby and hungry, he sought a "job" at anything, avoiding all

acquaintances, for his pride would not allow him to make this sort of an
appeal to them. Daily he looked among strangers for work. He found
none. It was a time of business and industrial depression, and laborers
were idle by thousands. He envied the men working on the streets
relaying the pavements. They had at least a pittance, and something to
do to distract their minds.
Weeks and months went by. George Henry now lived and slept in his
little office, the rent of which he had paid some months in advance
before the storms of poverty began to beat upon him. Here, when not
making spasmodic excursions in search of work, he dreamed and
brooded. He wondered why men came into the feverish, uncertain life
of great cities, anyhow. He thought of the peace of the country, where
he was born; of the hollyhocks and humming-birds, of the brightness
and freedom from care which was the lot of human beings there. They
had few luxuries or keen enjoyments, but as a reward for labor--the
labor always at hand--they had at least a certainty of food and shelter.
There came upon him a great craving to get into the world of nature
and out of all that was cankering about him, but with the longing came
also the remembrance that even in the blessed home of his youth there
was no place now for him.
One day, after what seemed ages of this kind of life, a