THE PEDDLER FIGURE IN TH2 WORK OF HAMLIN GARLAITD

by

PATRICIA EZHLL HENRY, B.A.

A THESIS

IN

ENGLISH

Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Texas Tech University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requironents for

tho Degree of

MASTER or ARTS

Approved

Director

Accepted

^M^y>^^i^^^dJ Dean of the Graduate(/^chool

May, 1971

T3 )97l No.Z]

ACKNOWLEDGMIMT

I am grateful to Dr. Warren S. Walker for hie

direction of tbie thesis.

11

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Pago

ACKNO'A'LEDGMENT ii

CHAPTER

I. A FOLK TYPE REFLECTING MILIEU 1

II. MEN ON THE MOVE 16

III. STROLLING PLAYERS 39

IV. BOOMERS 69

V. A SURRENDER TO ROMANTICISM 98

BIBLIOGRAPHY lO^

iii

CHAPTER I

A FOLK TYPE REFLECTING MILIEU

Charming, cajoling, and bullying a bright path through

Hamlin Garland's earlier fiction, the peddler figure, who

appears as salesman, actor, and profiteer, is a broad folk

type recast in the mold of Garland's milieu. At the author's

hands the peddler, in his several guises, wins admiration for

his ambition and punishment for his deceit. He deals in

glittering illusions as he spreads civilization, for better

or worse, along his route in the level land of the Middle

Border. Then he disappears into the romantic haze of the

mountain country of Garland's later fiction.

Tin peddler or patent medicine faker, froa Doimeast or

the Midwest, the peddler as a type displays distinctive

characteristics. Students of American folklore recognize the

peddler by his unabashed, often ruthless dedication to profit;

by his shrewd wit, his clever masks, and his imperturbability

in business transactions; by his colorful garb and hie

charming ciannor (particularly with his women customers) which

often win him hospitality as well as a sale. Traditioaally,

the peddler cuts short his visit as soon as ho has exhausted

his sales possibilities. Sometiaes he hastens to leave while

his customers are still satisfied; but he is often reliable

and honest, especially if his route is small. If he is sly,

the peddler m:\y seem to keep company with the devil. This

1

means that he might read folks' minds or hypnotize them or

tempt them into Satanic compacts. He might come and go

mysteriously, perhaps in association with creatures like toads,

snakes, cats, and Indians.

Acquisitive, shrewd, adaptable, charming, poscibly

Satanic—these characteristics appear in Garland's versions of

the peddler type. To his large cast of peddlers. Garland

assigns roles also characteristic of the typo. Wares and

services hawked by Garland's peddlers are described by J.R.

Dolan in The Yankee Peddlers of Early America; books, dry

goods, patent medicine, mail delivery, entertainment, news,

religion, and real estate.

Garland, ambitious and adventurous himself, attempted

several of these peddlers' roles. His autobiographies and

diaries reveal a determined man of unusual physical and mental

hardihood. These traits, which sustained him on vairious

peddler routes of his youth, appear in his fictional peddlers.

Toward the close of his life. Garland, having sought

adventure from Mexico to Europe, reminisced: "I have had an

2 exceptionally varied and fortunate experience." Undoubtedly,

he gained much of this experience on his peddler treks.

Taking to the road seemed to Garland a logical start for an

American. He admired James Whitcomb Riley's youthful escapade

^(New York, 196if).

2 Companions on the Trail (New York, 1931), p. k—subsequent

references, Conn.

traveling with "a patent medicine man who needed a painter";

to attract crowds, Riley pretended to be a blind sign painter.

3 G€U*land found the adventure "Western and democratic."

Garland first attempted peddling during an Iowa winter:

Nothing offered and so I turned (as so many young men similarly placed have done), toward a very common yet difficult job. I attempted to take subscriptions for a book.

After a few days' experience in a neighboring town I decided that whatever else I might be fitted for in this world, I was not intended for a book agent.^

Although Garland missed his calling as a book agent, he allows

his fictional peddler, James Hartley in "A Stop-Over at Tyre,"

unqualified success.

Garland eilso failed in his next sales job as a clerk in

his father's little general store on the Dcuvota frontier.

Garland and his brother, Frank, temporarily operated the iso­

lated store in a situation like that of Rob Bailey and Jim

Rivers in The Moccasin Ranch. Of this episode Garland ssiid

that Frank "was a very bad salesman, but I was worse."

If a man wanted to purchase an article and had the money to pay for it, we exchanged commodities right there, but as far as my selling anything—father used to say, "Hamlin couldn't sell gold dollars for ninety cents a piece," and he was right—entirely right.

Hamlin reasoned that he "had nothing of the politician in me, I

seldom inquired after the babies or gossiped with the old women

• RoaOf ide Meetings (New York, 1930) > PP« 228-230—subsequent references, RM«

^A LiSJl 91 ^hl Middle Border (New York, 1917), p. 217--subsequent references, Son.

about their health and housekeeping" (Son, p. Z3S). Meanwhile,

Frank, "much more gallant than I" and an attraction for "all

the school ma'ams of the neighborhood," was playing a true

peddler's part as mail carrier. The description of Frank's

arrival at the general store with the mail is similar to that

of mail carrier Rivers: "The raising of a flag on a high pole

before the door was the signsd for the post which brought the

women pouring in from every direction eager for news of tho

eastern world" (Son, p. 259).

Garland enjoyed a brief career as a traveling actor. With

fellow seminary students he took a play on tour to neighboring

towns of St. Ansgar and Mitchell, Iowa. "We played with

'artistic success'—that is to say, we lost some eighteen

dollars" (Son, p. 180), Undoubtedly a talented entertainer.

Garland proved a success on the lecture stage. During his

dreary Dakota residence, he "dreamed of touring the west as a

lecturer" (Son, p. 219). With Frank as his agent, he gave his

first lecture at Cyone. "We attempted to do that which an

older and fully established lecturer would not have ventured.

We tried to secure an audience with only two days' advance work,

and of course we failed" (Son, p. 220). In later years his

readings and lectures on literature, politics, and the frontier 5

became "a large part of my potboiling activities." Reviewing

a lifetime of platform appearances. Garland wrote, "Many of

these trips were meager in money returns, but they were rich in

5 • My F r i end ly Conto:nporaries (New York, 1932) , p . 7 .

experiences" (Comp., p. 3)•

Garland as a youth shared the exhilaration of the land

boom atmosphere. The sale of his own Dakota homestead helped

finance his initial study in Boston.

"Out there is my share of the government Ismd—and, if I am to carry out my plan of fitting myself for a professor­ship," I argued--"these claims are worth securing. My rights to the public domain are as good as any other man's" (Son, p. Z^3)>

Land was a commodity to Garland, just as to his fictional

boomers.

To a man. Garland's fictional peddlers face situations

peculiar to the author's milieu. Writing effectively, in

Garland's opinion, mesint being "true to yourself, true to your

locality, and true to your time.'' Garland conscientiously

chose American settings for his work. His fictional spokesman,

Albert Seagraves, echoes this idea of environmental influence:

"No other climate, sky, plain, could produce tho same unnamable

weird charm." Seagraves exclaims, "'It is American,'" adding,

"'No other time can match this mellow aiir, this wealth of 7

color, much less the strange social conditions of life.'"

The peddler figure in Garland's fiction is a representative of

this special society.

Garland incorporaten many aspects of milieu into his work,

Crurabling Idols (Cambridge, Mass., I960), p. 30. 7 '"Among the Corn-Rows," Main-Travelled Roads (New York,

195'+), pp. 103-105—subsequent references to this edition, wiiich is tciken from the I89I first edition, M-TG-1.

but his peddlers experience, to varying degrees, five distinct

influences. First, a peddler, moral or immoral, accepts the

responsibility for his ovai success. Headed east or west, he

also shaxes an American fascination with optimism and luck.

Whether or not he has an eye for the beauty of nature, he is

subject to the overwhelming forces of the physical universe

which maiy line his pockets or, like an avenging deity, convict

him of his misdeeds. Even if the peddler lacks a social con­

science, he confronts social problems such as the poverty of

farmers and the oppression of women. Finally, as a repre­

sentative of commercialism and other aspects of civilization,

he contributes to tho disappearance of the frontier.

Personal ambition motivates each of Garland's peddlers.

For many peddlers itineracy was, in Richardson V/right's words, o

"the first step in the amassing of a fortune." Thomas A.

Bledsoe relates this quality of ambition to Garland and his

work: "It is agaiinst the backdrop of tho American Dreajn, of the

right and responsibility of every man to be free, to succeed,

9 that Gsirland's tragedies display themselves." To Garland the

peddler type may have suggested "'the dominant type of man'"

of Garland's own generation, "'the business man.'" Garland,

on tho threshold of his career as fictionist, described this

type as "'irresistible, restless, whose raiment fits him with

Q

Hawkers and Walkers in Early America (Philadelphia, 1927), p. ZZ.

Q

^"Introduction," M-TR-1. p. xxvii.

no lines of grace, an all-conquering, useful man.'" He

estimated the business man's importance: "'Not only does this

man absolutely dominate the business circles of the land, but

his energy and desires react upon other departments.'"

As a boy Garland learned both to admire and to despise

this drive for personal gain. His uncle, Addison Garland, "of

the Yankee merchant type," early opened Hamlin's eyes to tho

material promise of the frontier. "He peered into the years

that were to come and paid little heed to the passing glories

of the plain. He predicted astounding inventions and great

cities" (Son, p. 139). A few years later Hamlin felt drawn to

visiting grain buyers who cheated the local Grange corporation

of "the honest market price" by meeting farmers on their way to

the elevator. "Humorous, self-contained, remorseless in trade,

they were the most delightful companions when off duty" (Son,

pp. 161, 162). His father taught him the distasteful side of

the "spirit of greed." Frontier bound, Richard Garland encoun­

tered this scene at Buffalo, a Great Lakes port: "Like havTks

after stray chicks, or foxes after lame geese, the

ticket-sellers, stage-coach agents, teamsters, hotel-runners,

pickpockets, and gamblers swarmed about each bewildered

new-comer." His stories included an account of a Mississipi i

"The Evolution of American Thought," cited by Eldon Cleon Hill, "A Biographical Study of Hamlin Garland fro-n i860 to i^95," unpubl. diss. (Ohio State University, I9/+O) , p. 236.

• • Trail-Makerr oj; tji !Gid le Border (New York, 1926), p. 67 — subsequent reference.s, T-II.

8

River trip: "The boat was crowded with traders, speculators,

gamblers, money-changers, and missionaries, a motley gang

trailing at tho safe end of an advancing army, many of them

concerned only with plans for making money" (T-M, p. 313).

This greed for success Garland fictionalizes repeatedly

in "commercial travelers—knowing fellows who never forget an

12 acquaintance, nor how to use him." The more admirable

aspects of this trait Garland portrays in hard-working sales­

men such as Hartley; he softens the criminality of Tom Brennan

in A Member of the Third House by praising his determination

to improve his position.

Although an American of Garland's era paved his own way

to success, he sometimes believed himself, says Lars Ahnebrink,

"helpless in the grip of mechanical causes and effects."

In Garland's milieu these "unseeing and insentient powers" of

chance fostered an alluring optimism and a preoccupation with

luck. ^ In an unpublished manuscript, "The Vanished V/orld of

the I iddle Border," Garland describes frontier optimism:

"'Above all, doubt of the future was unknovm. Even if a man

15 were in hard luck it was considered temporary.'" His

•'•A Member o^ he Third House (Chicago, 1892), p. 67— subsequent references, MTH.

- The Be/unnin/Ts of Naturalism in American Fiction (Ca:nbridge, Mass., 1950), p. 7.

^"John Boyle's Conclusion" in "An Unpublished Middle Border Story by Hamlin Garland," ed. Donald Pizer, American T,iterature« XXXI (1959), 62.

• Cited by Hill, "BiOt;raphical Study," p. kZ.

fictional accounts of the settlement of South Dakota portray

"•a saturnalia of faith.'" To Dakota homesteaders, "'Good

luck' was the universal word" (Boomtown, p. 357)• Garland's

peddlers prey upon this optimism. Lsuid agent Rivers squeezes

his territory dry before he deserts the settlers, for whom

hope, by this tim^ is dwindling.

A gambling stresLk runs deep through those luck worshipers.

To young Garland a deck of playing cards suggested "an allur­

ing oriental imaginative quality," hinting "of mad monaurchs,

desperate stakes, and huge sudden rewards" (Son, p. 131)•

Garland compared a grain buyer to a gambler: "I didn't know

that he was a poker player but it amused me to think so" (Son,

p. 162). Many of Garland's characters gamble desperately, but

his peddlers play coolly, backing high stakes with shrewd cal­

culation. Jim Butler, whose game is "buying land at government

price and holding for a rise," attributes his success to

17 "'enterprise, foresight.'"

Garland's peddlers acclimatize themselves to the harsh

physical environment of prairies and plains, a condition of

locale often overpowering to his characters. Ahnebrink says

that, with his contemporaries, Garland interpreted nature as

16 "'The Rise of Boomtown': An Unpublished Daltota Novel by

Haiiilin Garland," ed. Donald Pizer, South rnJcota Historical Collections, XXVIII (1956), 35^—-subsequent references to this novel, Boomtov.Ti.

• ' "Lucretia Burns," Prairie Folks (New York, 1969), p. 101 —subsequent references to this collection, reprinted from tho 1899 edition, PF.

10

18 indifferent to man. Throughout his life Garland considered

the insignificance of man in comparison to the universe. His

comments often reflected the mood of this quotation: "Nature

cares nothing for the individual" (Comp,, p, l^Z), At other

times, however. Garland personified nature's relationship to

man. This figurative tendency appears in an early esray, "The

Evolution of American Thought," in which Garland states that

through wind, cold, heat, and "in a thousand ways not to be

19 enumerated is the hammerer hammered." Garland frequently

describes an environment in which "sky and sod are stern as

God."20

This double view of nature, an inconsistency of which

Garland was probably unaware, affects his fictional peddlers.

With the interpretation of the universe as an avenging deity,

nature pricks the consciences of sensitive peddlers like V/ill

Hannan in "A Branch-Road" and Howard McLane in "Up the Coule"";

a plains blizzard prompts Rivers to moral regeneration. With

the theory of an indifferent universe, nature's unpredictable

calamities and bounties reap benefits for shrev/d landholders

like Butler and Sid Balser.

Garland's era tended to justify the law of the survival

of the fittest in society as well as in nature, according to

• Pe innin/7s, p, 180,

•'• Cited by Hill, "Biographical Study," p. 23 f.

"An Apology," Prairie Songs (Chicago, 1893), P. 57.

11

21 Ahnebrink. Garland appreciated the logic of this social

Darwinism; but he could not forgive "the monstrous injustice

of social creeds" which frustrated America's brighter

promises (Son, p. 31lf). He spent a lifetime crusading for

"the largest opportunity to every human soul," an unorthodox

ZZ believer preaching a doctrine of Christian love.

Garland often involves his peddlers in social problems.

On some peddlers he bestows social consciences. A "free-spoken

drummer" encourages the persecuted Wilson Tuttle to continue

his investigation of railroad corruption: "'I don't live

here anyhow, but damned if I like to see tho whole town

jumpin' on a man's neck, 'specially when I'm dead sure he's

right'" (MTH, p, 117). On other peddlers such as Butler and

Ealser, Garland casts cloalis of villainy so that they r^zy servo

as foils for tho farmers' heroic struggles.

Faring less successfully than the land agents are those

peddlers who confront tho New Woman of the period. Ahnebrink

describes the New Woman in this manner: "She possessed a will

of her own and dominated men instead of being dominated by

2^

them." - The fictional experience of the symbolically emascu­

lated banker, James Sanford, and his liberated wife, Nellie,

in "A 'Good Fellow's' Wife," bears out this description.

21 Beginnings, p. 8.

^^A Dauf hter of the Middle Border (New York, 1921), p, 118 --subsequent references, Dauf hter.

23 • Berinninf B. p. 221,

Humbled to a lesser extent are Hannan and Rivers, who sacri­

fice their independence by running off with married women.

Donald Pizer theorizes that Garland chose the woman's

rigm;s question in order "to develop artistically a 'strong'

contemporary theme within a local-color setting." ^ Garland

also reacted emotionally to the movement. One of many

examples of this is his weeping at a performance of Puccini's

opera, Madama Butterfly, because the heroine is "'the symbol

of woman's Immemorial self-sacrifice'" (Comp.. p. 15)« No

wonder his fiction was influenced by such a scene as that of

a girl hotel manager in "defensive warfare against the

cattlemen, drummers, and miners" in a Colorado town, a

situation which inspired Money Ma;;ic (Comp.. p. 31D*

Although only a few of Garland's peddlers actually

surrender to the New Woman, many run into serious opposition

from representatives of another type, that of the cowboy.

This peddler-cowboy conflict is one way in which Garland

depicts the disappearance of the frontier. Scholars agree

that the peddler, in his various roles, helped to extend

civilization to the borders of settlement. Dolan finds it

"hardly an exaggeration to say that our entire Middle West

and South would have remained regions of thinly settled

backwoodsmen far into the nineteenth century if the lowly

Harnlin Garland' s Early Work and Career (Berkeley, I960), p. 151•

13

peddler had not carried the materials of civilization to the

25 people who lived there." ^ Traditionally, both the cowboy typo

and his ancestor, the frontiersman, are enemies of commer­

cialism. David B. Davis says that the wilderness hunter is

"represented as escaping civilization, turning his back on the

petty materialism of tho world" and that the cowboy, who has

few personal possessions, hates "the grasping Eastern

26

speculator."

The irreconcilability of the peddler and cowboy types is

evident in Garland's autobiographies. His father and maternal

uncles mirrored the qualities of the frontiersman; with this

heroic background Hamlin logically turned in admiration to the

cowboy type. Garland's otherwise adventurous father lacked

"the spirit of daring in business matters" to take a "'chance'"

with his Yankee friend's speculation in lumber (T-M, p. 260).

Young Garland also contrasted "the McClintocks, my hunter

uncles, and Addison Garland," the Yankee merchant "of frail

and bloodless body" (Son, p, 139). His other paternal uncle

failed to "quite measure up to the high standards of David and

William, even though he kept a store and sold candy, for ho

could neither kill a bear, nor play the fiddle, nor shoot a

^Yankee Peddlers, p. 10.

"Ten-Gallon Hero," American Quarterly, VI (Spring 195 ;)» 113, 121.

1^

gun—much less turn handsprings or tame a wild horse" (Son,

p. 21). Garland was pleased by the favorable contrast of his

father with the grain-buyers. "Among these men my father moved

as an equal, notwithstanding the fact of his country training

and prejudices" (Son, p. 162),

All of his life Garland lamented the vanishing of the

frontier, no longer "untouched by greed's all desolating

27 hands." Constance Rourke says that to many Americans the

Indian, as well as the cowboy, symbolizes "a desire to return

28 to the primitive life of the wilderness." Garland, too,

sympathized v/ith the Indian, a victim of "the ruthless creed

of the land-seeker" and the "shameless greed" of civilization

(Daughter, p. if3). Much of Garland's fiction deplores this

situation: "'"The Injun has it—let's take it away from him"

29

seems to be the universal cry.'" ^ So, Garland adds the red

man to the cowboy as a victim of civilization, a possible illus­

tration of Warren S, V/alker's theory that the frontiersman was

"sacrificed on the same altar of Progress vdth the red man' s

way of life," the former serving "as a partial atonement" for 50

the injustices suffered by the latter.-^

' "Home from v;ild Meadows," Prairie Songs, p. 100.

American Hui.aor (New York, 1931), P. 115.

^The Captain of the Gray-Horse Troop (New York, 1901), p. 110.

^ "Buckskin West: Lcathorstocking at High Noon," riow York Folklore Quarterly, XXIV (June 1968), 91.

15

Peddler-cowboy confrontations in Garland's fiction include

several minor incidents such as V/ill Kendall's temporary victory

over Anson V/ood and Bert Gearheart in A Little Norsk, Of

greater significance is the showdown between Rivers and Bailey

in The Moccasin Ranch. In the short story, "Drifting Crane,"

both frontiersman and Indian chief fall under the wheels of

Balser's campaign for railroad land settlement.

Garland's peddlers, patterned after the folk type but

rounded into more realistic characters by influences of

milieu, may be grouped into three categories. Traveling

salesmen, young and single men on the move, set high sights in

order to achieve self-made success. Other travelers, strolling

players such as preachers and shov.inen, entertain customers

even while cheating them. Finally, older salesmen, boomers,

settle in communities only as long as they can profit from

hopes of prosperity.

CHAPTER II

MEN ON THE MOVE

In an assortment of particularly personable young traveling

salesmen. Garland emphasizes tho peddler's drive for self-made

success. He defends this motive in a description of book agent

Jim Hartley: "Like most men in America, and especially Western

men, he still clung to the idea that a man was entirely respon­

sible for his success or failure in life." Peddling goods

and charm for entirely selfish ends are Will Kendall in A Little

Norsk and the Dodd's Family Bitters man in "Uncle Ethan

Ripley," both shallow characterizations. More fully developed

portraits are those of Claude Williams in "The Creamery Man,"

Hartley in "A Stop-Over at Tyre," Herman Allen in "A Preacher's

Love Story," and V/ill Hannan in "A Branch-Road"—peddlers who

trado upon personal magnetism to achieve a responsible success

closely aligned with standards of respectability in Garland's

milieu.

Garland* s admiration for the peddler's ambition obviously

dominates the short story "A Stop-Over at Tyre," in which

Hartley* s business drive saves him from the monotonous poverty

facing his self-sacrificing friend, Albert Lohr. Garland

V/ayside Covrtchips (New York, 1897), p. 165—subsequent references, WC.

16

17

suggests his fondness for the character. Hartley, in an undated

letter to Richard V/atson Gilder, editor of Century, which pub-

2

lished the story in 1897 as "A Girl of Modern Tyre," "'The

character of Hartley—which my brother counts one of my best,'"

is one of "'certain subtleties of treatment,'" the opposite

of Lohr, whose character discloses "'a common case of western

ambition'"; one out of twenty companions of Garland's youth,

"'fellows of equal or greater powers of grappling and holding,'"

settled for "'the all-pervading poverty and barrenness of

western life,'"-^ Certainly, Hartley grapples, holds, and

lifts himself to a brighter life.

While praising Hartley's capacity for success. Garland

chooses for this fictional young man a less than reputable

trade. In A Son of the Middle Border, he recalled a follow

boarder in his Osage, Iowa, seminary days, "that criminally

well dressed young book agent (with whom v/e had very little

in common)," who perhaps wickedly charmed Garland's friend,

Cora (Son, p, 178). "The traveling man vanished, and coon

after she too disappeared" (Son, p. 180), This shady reputa­

tion haunts "A Stop-Over at Tyre," A jealous beau inquires,

"•Out till twelve o'clock with this book agent?'" with a

"derisive inflection" on "book agent" (\VC, p, 129). Lohr,

^Garland first sent this story to Gilder in 1890, according to Jean Holloway in HcXinlln Garland (Austin, I960), p, 52.

^Cited by Hill, "Biographical Study," p, 117.

18

more sensitive than Hartley, introduces himself with an apology

for his job: '"A book agent is the next thing to a burglar'"

(WC, p. 112).

Book agents have already duped Hartley's prospective cus­

tomers, who have, according to the livery man, "'jest been

worked one o' the goldingedest schemes you ever see!'" (WC,

p. 115). For ten dollars each, Tyre residents subscribed to

a civic history containing their individual photographs. The

delivered histories revealed cloudy pictures and inaccurate

captions. Meanwhile, the two traveling salesmen, having

"'roped in every man in this town,'" had disappeared. Hartley

admits with a grin, "'I know the scheme'" (WC, p, 116). But

he insists on honesty in covering his route in the small com­

munity, and he overcomes the book agent's reputation.

Hartley sells a reputable product. Unlike Lohr, Hartley

proudly enters new sales territory: "'My name is Hartley,

book agent: Blaine's "Twenty Years," plain cloth, sprinkled

edges, three dollars; half calf, three fifty'" (WC, p. 11/f).^

His pride in his wares prompts him to repay favors with copies.

In another undated letter to Gilder, Garland calls this "'a

delicious bit—Hartley' s giving such a book to Mrs. Welsh—and

^Twenty Years of Congress: From Lincoln to Garfield ?/ith a Review of the Events V/hich Led to the Political Revolution of 1860, published in two volumes in l88/f and 1856 and written by James Gillespie Blaine, an American statesman and the Republican candidate in tho controversial Presidential campaign of l88if.

19

proposing a morocco copy of same for MaudI'" Gilder had

pointed out that Blaine* s name suggested controversy; but

Gairland argues, "'It wants to be a book that some people

wouldnt /siCj touch with tongs.'""^ Hartley's first goal upon

arriving in Tyre is "'to find a boarding place where we can

work in a couple o' books on the bill'" (WC, p. 108), a plan

which he alters slightly, leaving the book to tip his land­

lady. "'I'm going to just quietly leave a book on her center

table. I don't know as it'll interest her much, but it'll

show we appreciate the grub, and so on'" (WC, p. 157)» He

suggests that Lohr similarly thank the landlady's daughter.

"She's introduced you to some first-rate sales; now, if you want 'o leave her a little something, make it a morocco copy, and charge it to the firm."

Albert knew that he meant well, but he couldn't somehow, help saying ironically:

"Thanlcs; but I guess one copy of Blaine's 'Twenty Years' will be enough in the house" (WC, p. 158).

Hartley, "a tall, alert, handsome fellow nearly thirty

years of ago," is an instinctive traveling man (WC, p. 108).

The coming of spring reminds him that his business in Tyre is

finished. "'Some ways I alv/ays get restless when those warm

days begin. Want 'o be moving some way'" (V/C, p. 156). His

shrewd sales technique also appears almost innate. A man of

the times, he takes advantage of both railroad and telegraph.

When he meets Lohr's train in Tyre, he explains.

^Cited by Hill, "Biographical Study," p. 117.

20

"I got wind of another fellow going to work this county for a *Life of Logan,' and thinks I, 'By jinks! I'd better drop in ahead of him with Blaine's "Twenty Years."' I telegraphed f'r territory, got it, and telegraphed to stop you" (WC, p. 108).

Hartley, who adapts "the persuasive music of tho book

agent' s in his fine voice" (WC, p. llif), tries to teach Lohr

the "'savvy*" of the peddler (WC, p. 122). Lohr protests,

"I can't sell books if they don't want 'em." "Yes, yeh can. That's the trade" (WC, p, 121).

Hartley recounts a successful technique which he calls "'freez­

ing out'": "'I just said, "Old man, I'll camp right down with

you here till you fork over," and he did'" (WC, p. 165). He

also devises a Satanic compact for the clergy, a discount.

"'If you can get a few of these leaders of the flock, the rest

will follow like lambs to the slaughter'" (WC, p, 122). Another

"'great scheme'" is that of socializing (WC, p. 127):

"Take some girls. I'm going to take neighbor Picket's daughter; she's homely as a hedge fence, but I'll take her —great scheme I"

"Hartley, you're an infernal fraud!"

"Nothing of the kind—I'm business" (WC, p. 125).

With this strategy—honest, persistent, friendly, and

slirhtly Sativiic—Hartley and Lohr win the community' s business. : /eryone declared there had never been such book agents -in the toy/n: such gentlemanly fellov/s, they didn't press eMyhody to buy; they didn't rush about £Uid "poke their noses vliere i"hoy were not wanted." They were more like merchants v/ith books to sell (WC, p. 128).

Thit; respcctoble ambition, combined with a dependence on luck

rjiu -in attiludo of brotherly love, fits Hartley, a well-defined

peddler type, into Garland's milieu.

21

For instance, Hartley, a gambler, launches his Tyre cam­

paign by correctly predicting '''a big strike'" (WC, p. 156),

an expression associated with sudden financial success in

Garland's time. He takes advantage of chance by playing

Lohr's accident as "'the biggest piece o' luck'" in winning

friends for the team (WC, p. 150). A gambler's term expresses

his disappointment in Lohr's decision to remain in Tyre to

marry instead of continuing either in college or in tho book

agent business: "'Why, old man, I'd bet on you'" (WC, p.

166).

One of Hartley's more likeable qualities is his sympathy

for Lohr, an example of brotherly love. He sings "a comic

song" to entertain his bedfast friend and bathes "the wounded

boy's face and hands as tenderly as a woman" (WC, p, 1 5)«

Although Hartley, like most peddlers, is a ladies' man, he

reacts in horror to Lohr's engagement. Ho would "'like to see

the girl I wouldn't call pretty, right to her face'"; but

women's rights, for Hartley, do not necessarily extend to mar­

riage (WC, p. 11^). In typically finance-oriented terms, but

with a sympathetic "tremor in his voice," he says, "'Say, you

can't afford to do this; it's too much to pay'" (WC, p. 166).

A paragraph added to the story in its initial publication

explains that Albert, becoming a school principal held "prisoner"

by his family, dreams of "the great splendid world, which ho

^Mitford Mathews, A Diction.-ry o^ Anericanisms, 2nd ed.; 1956.

ZZ

realizes at times is sweeping by him." Not a dreamer but a

doer is Hartley. Facing life's hard realities but maintaining

a basic humanity. Hartley embodies the American success story

as Garland sees it.

Garland similarly characterizes Herman Allen, the engaging,

irreverent insurance salesman who reforms his hometown's reli­

gion in "A Preacher's Love Story," first appearing in 1895 as

"An Evangel in Cyene." Like Hartley, Allen reveals a sympa­

thetic, serious nature, one which encourages a happy outcome

in this short story.

This "handsome young fellow of twenty-three or four" (WC,

p. 6) with his "bold and keen look" (WC, p. 13) is "evidently

a great favo.rite." He responds to a welcome at one of his

regular boarding houses with, "'Girls, if you'll let me sit

down, I'll take one on each knee'" (WC, p. 11). When ho

entertains at the parlor organ, girls crowd around him to

sing. Part of Herman's conversational art is his clever

assumption of dialects. Twice he uses this talent, a peddler

trait, to help his shattered minister friend, V/allace Stacoy.

One "hearty humorous greeting" which seems "to do the sick man

good" is this passage: "'Want some breakfast? Make it buck?'

he said, in Chicago restaurant slang. 'White wings—sunny—

one up coff" (WC, p. W7) • Encouraging Stacey to take an

independent stand in order to save his intof rity, Herman assumes

' Century, LIII (January 1897), ^23.

Z l

"the attitude of a Bowery tough." "'Say—look here! If you

want 'o set dis community by de ears agin, you do dat ting-

see? You play dat confidence game and dey'll rat ye—see?'"

(WC, p. 51).

Garland tempers Allen's obvious peddler characteristics

with influences from his milieu. He refines this peddler's

charm for women by Herman's touching defense of his fiancee,

a city working girl, "as if combating Isicl a prejudice" (WC,

p. if3). Allen, only "nominally" a traveling salesman, aspires

to playing with chance on the Wheat Exchange. "'That's whore

you get life!'" (WC, p. 13) His first deal on the exchange

costs him his college education and his father's good will.

"'Fact is, he thinks it's gambling, and I don't argue with

him!'" (WC, p. 8) Most important to this story are Allen's

expressions of brotherly love. Initially as a prank, ho sets

Stacey, a Baptist, in tho midst of a strife-ridden Methodist

church. To atone for the collapse of the earnest Stacey,

Herman chances "the electrical suggestion" that the commu­

nity rebuild the church as evidence of good faith in Stacey

(WC, p. ^8). Allen, this lighthearted peddler, restores both

friend and community to health—a task he could not handle if

his personality were not strengthened by virtues from Garland's

milieu.

Claude Williams travels the road to success by a different

route, that of marriage. In "The Creamery Man," a short story

first published in 1897, Garland immediately introduces V/illiams

2if

as a peddler type:

The tin-pedler has gone out of the West. Amiable gossip and sharp trader that he was, his visits one© brought a sharp business grapple to the farmer' s wife suid dau.jhters, after which, as the man of trade was repacking his unsold wares, a moment of cheerful talk often took place. It was his cue, if he chanced to be a tactful pedler, to drop all atteinpts at sale and become distinctly human and neighborly.

His calls were not always well received, but they were at their best pleasant breaks of a monotonous round of duties. But he is no longer a familiar spot on the land­scape. He has passed into the limbo of the things no longer necessary. His red wagon may be rumbling and rattling through some newer region, but the "Coolly Country" knows him no more. «

"The creamery man" has taken his place.

Williams, the creamery man in Molasses Gap, offers a sim­

ilar style of salesmanship. His product is himself. He hopes

"to be married soon"—and married well (M-TR-2, p, 222).

"Particularly good-looking and amusing" (M-TR-2, p, 221) in

red tie and green suspenders, V/illiaras is "av/are of his good

looks" and considers "himself very learned in women's ways, by

reason of two years' driving the creamery wagon" (M-TR-2, pp.

ZZZ^ZZ3), Even on washdays women exchan^^e "much banter" with

Williams (M-TR-2, p. 222), "the daily bulletin of the Gap"

(M-TR-2, p, 22^), No female "sourness" can "stand against

such sweetness and drollery" (M-TR-2, p. 228), To tovm girls

from the Siding, Williams again displays an "easy gallantry"

(M-^H-2, p. 2i+0).

Ainbitious, Williams would win Lucinda Kennedy, whose father

^Hiin-Tr--.veiled Roads (New York, 1899), P. 221 —r.ubscquent references, r!-Ti ~2.

Z"?

owns "one of the finest farms in the Coolly." Mrs. Kennedy,

not rating Williams "a suitable match," calls her daughter

away from "lingering too long v.lth the creamery man" (M-TR-2,

p. 223)* Mrs. Kennedy "v/ouldn't trust him 'fur's you can fling

a yearlin' bull by the tail'" (M-TR-2, p. 222). V/ith serious

intentions, W illiams calls on Lucinda in a "newly painted buggy

flashing in the sun, and the extra dozen ivory rings he had

purchased for his harnesses," this creamery man's substitute

for the tin peddler' s bright wagon. In Lucinda's demeaning

greeting, "'If hero isn't that creamery man!,'" lies "the

answer to Claude's question" (M-TR-2, p, 239). Always using

"his self-sufficient head" (M-TR-2, p. ZlW), Williams retires

"with dignity and in good order" to win another heiress, Nina,

in the same day (M-TR-2, p. 2^2). In this way the shrewd

peddler decides that he may "safely throw up the creamery job

and become the boss of the farm" (M-TR-2, p, 2/+3).

An amusing exchange in this story further characterizes

Williams as a peddler folk type, Richard M. Dorson describes

the peddler as a swindler of pompous, obtuse Dutchmen who Q

speal in thick-tongued dialect.^ Nina's offended German

mother literally attacks V/illiams and then collapses. When

he revives her with a bucket of water, she gasps, "'Ich bin

ertrinken!'" Williams asks, "'What does she say—she's been

^Ameriran Folklore (Chicago, 1959), P. 6.

26

drinkin*?" Nina answers, "'No, no—she thinks she is trounod'"

(M-TR-2. p. 236).

In the American way Williams gambles for success. He is

"too keen not to see his chaince" to ask Mrs. Kennedy for the

hand of her daughter (M-TR-2. p. 227). When she reminds him

of his lowly position, he replies, "'That's where you tal e

your inning, sure'" (M-TR-2, p. 228), Although Garland played

baseball, he may have used "inning" in the sense of having

luck in money matters, a common expression since i860.

Williams confidently predicts "'a strike one of these days'";

and he hints that he has "'invested in a gold mine'" (M-TR-2.

p. ZZ8),

Despite Y.illiams' efforts to better his position through

a woman, his basic sympathy for womankind, another evidence

of milieu, causes him to repeat statements like these: "'I

don't believe in v/omen workin' in the fields'" (M-TR-2, p.

223); "*I hate to see a woman go around looking as if her

clothes would drop off if it rained on her'" (M-TR-2, p. 222+);

and "'A woman's business ain't to work out in the hot sun'"

(M-TR-2, pp, 229-230), His concern encourages Nina, already

taken by his "ease, lightness, and color," to break av.ay from

disfiguring farm work to become a prettier, more suitable

bride (M-TR-2, pp. 225-226).

These proofs of Garland's milieu—ambition, hopeful

• Eric Partridre, A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional E:i/7li3h, 6th ed.; 1967.

Z7

gsunbling for success, and sympathy for women's rights—save

Williams from emerging as a flat peddler type such as the

salesman of Dodd's Family Bitters, the only one of Garland's

peddlers totally uninvolved with the environmental conditions

affecting the others.

In this story, "Uncle Ethan Ripley," published in 1891

as "Uncle Ripley's Speculation," the peddler's bright appearance

and pleasant manner immediately captivate Uncle Ethan, his

prospective customer. The peddler, "well pleased with himself,"

wears "a blue shirt, with gay-colored armlets just above the

elbows." Uncle Ethan likes the way he "'sets in the corner

o' the seat, much as to say, "Jump in—cheaper t' ride 'n to

y/alk"*'- (M-TR-2, p. 283). He "pleasantly" convers s with the

old man about potato bugs and politics (!I-TR-2, p. 28^); and,

although he seems "unusually loath to attend to business," ho

knows the right moment to assume "his working manner." "'No

trouble to show goods, as the fellah says,'" he assures Uncle

Ethan as he displays the impressive labol listing several

hundred diseases (M-TR-2, p. 285).

The peddler ensnares his customer with Satanic power.

Early in their conversation he plays upon Uncle Ethan's

"childish pride" in his new barn and hints that it would bo

"•a lovely place for a sign'" (?I-TR-2, p. 285). Extending; a

devil's compact later, he offers, "'Say I'll tell yeh what

I'll do,'" and hypnotically, "in a waraily generous tone"

28

(M-TR-2. p. 286), with "a confidential purring sound," he

promises Uncle Ethan twenty-five bottles of bitters to sell

"to his neighbors" if Uncle Ethan will surrender the side of

his barn for advertising space. The peddler now has his cus­

tomer in his control. "Just what the man said after that

Uncle Ethan didn't follow." The salesman, in the peddler tra­

dition, manages a free lunch served by Uncle Ethan; he oats

"with an exaggeratedly dainty action of his fingers, seated

meanwhile on the staging v;hich Uncle Ripley had helped him

build" (M-TR-2, p. 287). Devil imagery lingers after this

peddler's visit. Tormented by the sign which disfigures his

barn. Uncle Ethan envisions the peddler appearing "in some

mysterious way" so that ho can "savagoly" prevent the removal

of the letters "vrriggling across the side of the barn like boa

constrictors hung on rails" (M-TR-2. p. 293).

Tho peddler's simple and effective role in this story

enables Garland to present an exaimple of human understanding,

a tender moment between Uncle Ethan and M s wife. A "'light-

nin'-rod man'" has previously duped Uncle Ethan, and a book

agent has talked Mrs. Ripley into a Bible which she does not

really want (M-TR-2, p. 290). The couple's recognition of a

mutual susceptibility to peddlers' wiles warms thi^ story with

a universal truth not dependent upon milieu. Thus, the Dodd'T

Family Bitters man, unhampered by cnvironLiontal stresses, nood

concern himself only with making a successful deal.

29

Another peddler of unrelieved villainy. Will Kendall, pro­

vides a contrast to wholesomeness in A Little Norsk, a novel­

ette written in 1888. Kendall treads heavily upon women's

rights and is put in his place by two characters of the cowboy

type. Among Garland's peddlers Kendall is tho only loser.

A typical peddler figure, this "oily little clerk,"^^ a

traveling buyer for his father's dry goods store, has "the

manners of a dry-goods clerk," an uncomplimentary description

on Garland's part (Norsk, p. 128). An entry in Garland's

1887 notebook resembles the fictional situation between

Kendall and the novel's heroine. Flask.

A young couple got on the train. Ho was a country dandy. Wore a high hat, faultless coat, daintily twisted mustache. She was young, good and true. A peculiar complexion which might be called a masked pink. Pearly teeth and a tender and trusting smile. He might have been a village drug clerk.12

Kendall, "dudish in manner and dress," and wearing "tho

latest designs," concentrates on financial success (Norsk, p.

128). Trying "his best to please" Flask's frontiersmen

guardians, Anson Wood and Bert Gearheart, when they call on

him, Kendall chirps "away brightly upon all kinds of things,

ending up by telling them his business plans." His visitors

from the plains marvel at the town's trees, but Kendall relates

his Wisconsin community to his own business. "'O.ie o' the best

^ A Little Norsk (New York, 1892), p. li+1 —subsequent references, Norsk.

^^Cited by Hill, "Biographical Study," p. 276.

30

cities on the river. Couldn't be a better place for a busi­

ness stajid, don't you see'" (Norsk, p. 129),

This ambition is his only positive reaction to Garland's

milieu. In gauibling for success, Kendall plays clumsily. The

sheriff announces that Kendall has "purchased goods on credit

and gambled the money away." Kendall can only leave town and

1 3

hope for "another show," a betting term (Norsk, p, H 9 ) .

A ladies' man like most peddlers, he easily wins Flask for a

wife. But he draws scorn when he deserts Flask during

childbirth. "'I never could stand a sick-room,'" he explains

to Anson, a faithful sentry outside Flask's door (Norsk, p.

IZfif). The nurse thinks Kendall "'don't amount to much'"

(Norsk, p, 137); and Flask taiies Kendall's baby daughter from

his arms vdth "a jealous fro\7n" (Norsk, p, lif5). V/anted by

the sheriff, Kendall hides but writes Flask to "rent tho

house, sell the furniture on the sly, and come back here," a

disgraceful offer which Flask, now under the care of tho

reliable Anson, refuses (Norsk, p. 1if9). Kendall loses

everything when, characteristically in the company of "two

young ladies," he skates into an airhole and drov/ns (Norsk, p. 151).

Insignificant in either personal worth or evil inten­

tions, Kendall nevertheless laanages to harrass Bert and

1 ''>

^Mathe-js, Dictj.onary.

31

Anson, He stands no chance against this square-dealing

co\7boy type. Perhaps Garland's scornful and merciless treat­

ment of Kendall results from the author's admiration of these

two heroes. A letter to Gilder reveals Garland's satisfaction

with the story and with Bert and Anson:

"I can read it again and again and enjoy it as if it were written by someone else, Mrs, Heme [Katharine Heme, an actress and close friend] read it and was delighted with it—never tires of speaking of the men—'great simple types.' " H

True cowboy figures, Anson and Bert are bachelors with no

family ties, quiet but "'dangerous'" when aroused (Norsk, p.

53), and intent upon "'doin' the square thing'" for their

ward (Norsk, p. 78).

Setting these cowboys in his milieu, Garland portrays them

as seeing "something peculiarly sacred in the form of a

womajn" (Norsk, p. 29). For Flask's sake they give up swear­

ing, attend church socials, and permit her marriage to

Kendall, whom they immediately recognize as "'some slick

little dry-goods clerk or druggist'" (Norsk, p. 92). They

have already punished a dry goods clerk who insults Flask;

Jack Rivers, "lately from the East" and v/earing a "moustache

curled upward like the whiskers of a cat" (Norsk, pp.

48-^9), yells "with fright and pain" after experiencing their

wrath (Norsk, p. 53). Anson "inwardly" despises Kendall, "the

little man" (Norsk, p. 129), and tells him face-to-face,

^Cited by Holloway, Ilainlin Garland, pp. /|8-2j9.

32

"•We don't hitch first rate—at least, I don't'" (Norsk, p.

1/f5). Bert crushes "the young bridegroom's hand in his brown

palm, just to see him cringe" and comments, "'He can't abuse

her, that's one good thing about the whelp'" (Norsk, pp.

128-129)* Bert wonders about Flask's '"leaving us for a thing

like that'" (Norsk, p. 12/f). After studying the wedding pho­

tograph, Anson cuts "the husband off" and tosses that part of

the portrait into the fire. "'That fellow gives me the aguo,'"

he mutters (Norsk, p. 133).

This peddler-woman-cov/boy triangle repeats itself in The

Moccasin Ranch, a skillful novelette in which both cowboy and

peddler figures, more deeply involved in Garland's milieu, react

with substantial motivation. The result is a draw, a more

satisfying conclusion than that of A Little Norsk.

The most complex characterization in this group of men on

the move is that of Will Hannan in "A Branch-Road," I89I. Not

merely a caricature of charming selfishness like Claude

Williams or of inept evil like Will Kendall, Hannan matures

from a sullen, oversensitive country boy to a philosophical,

magnetic man of the world. Hannan, a traveling man selling

a dream, is deeply immersed in Garland's milieu.

He is "'handsome'" (M-TR-1, p, 3^) vd.th a "sunny smile"

(M-TR-1, p. if8). His exact occupation is not clear. After he

leaves tho farm, Hannan works in "the Southwest" (M-TR-I, p.

2/f); but he says he is "'from the East'" (M-TR-1, p. 29).

33

He owns "'third interest in a rancho'" and boasts "'a standing

offer to go back on the Santa Fee road as a conductor'"

(M-TR-1. pp. if3-Zfif). Making a visit typical of a peddler,

Hannan stays in town briefly but successfully.

His characterization reflects strong devil associations.

He first appears in the story with "a fork on his shoulder"

(M-TR-1, p. 1); and, in defense of Agnes' honor, he threatens

an adversary with "his fork," a tool of the devil (M-TR-1. p.

15 12). ^ He is "powerless to exorcise" his "terrible passion"

of jealousy (M-TR-1. p. 13). With a "demon" rising in him

(M-TR-1. p. 16), he works in tho field "like a fiend." "To

save his soul from hell-flames," he cannot reconcile himself

to Agnes (M-TR-1, p. H ) . Ho leaves her with a curse. "'If

you want to go to hell with Ed Kinney, you can'" (M-TR-1. p.

23). When he returns seven years later, Agnes has "mot her

punishment" (M-TR-1. p. 31); she is "'in hell'" (M-TR-1. p.

H ) ; Kinney has "'made life a hell for her'" (M-TR-1, p. 28).

Hannan seeks forgiveness for his "'cussed pride'" (M-TR-1. p.

kZ)i '"For God's sake forgive me!'" (M-TR-1, p. ifl); "»F»r

God's sake, don't think of it again'" (M-TR-1, p. kZ).

Other incidents suggest the devil in Hannan. When a young

farmer turns the conversation to Hannan's past, Hannan myste­

riously closes their talk. Kinney notices that "'the flies

^^Maria Leach, ed., Funk and Wa/Tnall' s Standard Dictionary of Folklore. Mythology, and Legend, Vol, II, 19^9.

3

are devilish thick'" when Hannan eats at the Kinney table

(M-TR-1, p, 38). He comments on Hannan's financial success,

"'The devul y' say!'" Ed's father speculates, '"They say it

didn't come lawful'" (M-TR-1, p, 39). Hannan employs Satanic

strategy in selling his dream of freedom to Agnes. "Something

hypnotic, dominating in his voice and eyes" (M-TR-1, p. ZfZf)

tempts her to lose "the threads of right and wrong" in the

"vast power in tho new and thrilling words her deliverer spoke"

(M-TR-1. p. if6). "Something irresistible" (M-TR-1, p. ^S) in

Hannan denies her '"time to think'" (M-TR-1, p. 1^7),

However, Hannan's motivation is "no passion of an ignoble

sort, only a passion of pity and remorse" (M-TR-1, p. if5).

Agnes is the victim of a husband v/hose "'whole idea of women

is that they are created for his pleasure and to keep house'"

(M-TR-1, p, /+Zf). Only by fleeing with Hannan can Agnes find

"'right or justice'": "'They'd say—the liberal ones—stay

and get a divorce; but how do you know we can get one after

you've been dragged through the mud of a trial? We can get

one as well in some other state'" (M-TR-1. p. Zf6), This

woman about to leave her husband is entitled to his child,

according to Hannan: '"V/hy, certainly! to the mother belongs

tho child'" (M-TR-1. p. l\8).

Freeing Agnes from an unhappy marriage, a protest against

the oppression of women, proves only one of Hannan's connections

with Garland's milieu. Hannan's life turns by chance, no ho

makes good use of his luck. A wagon accidcut chanties the course

35

of his life. "Searching for a lost axle-burr is like fishing:

the searcher expects each moment to find it" (M-TR-1, p. 21).

As a result of this gamble with time, Hannan discards all of

his plans and chooses a new path to success. Ed's father sus­

pects Hannan to be a gambler by trade. The old man says,

"'He plays cards, and every cent is bloody'" (M-TR-1, p. 30).

Although not a professional gambler, Hannan shows concern

about omens. Ho returns homo after seven years, usually con-•\c.

sidered a lucky period of time, " but "a symbol of his wasted,

ruined life" to him (M-TR-1. p. 31). On his first day home,

ho wishes the young farmer, "'Good luck!'" (M-TR-1, p. 25).

Then he sees "something prophetic" in the appearance of "a

water-snake" (M-TR-1, p, 26); and he Lurns av/ay the call of

a whippoorwill with "'"don't whip poor Will"'" (M-TR-1. p.

31). Both of these animals portend bad luck, ' Finally,

gambler that he is, Hannan promises Agnes, "'There's a chance

for life yet'" (M-TR-1, p. kk)•

The single character exerting control on Hannan is David

McTurg, who appears in Garland's fiction as the counterpart

of his uncle David McClintock, easily recognized as one of the

16 Gertrude Jobes, A Dictionary of Hytholo' y, Folklore and

^ l' Jr-§» Vol. II, 1962, 17 'Mai'jorie Tallman, Dictionary of American Folklore, 1959.

In A Member of _Uie Third House, Garland mention 3 tho "whippoorwill's infinitely pathetic note" (p. 200).

36

18 frontiersman type. True to the code of the square-shooter,

McTurg stays his hand when Hannan wields the pitchfork. He

says, '"Stand up for your girl always, but don't use a fork'"

(M-TR-1. p, 12).

Hannan's sensitivity to nature marks him as one of few

exceptions among Garland's peddlers. In Hannan's youth

"great fleets of clouds" lure him "to some land of love and

plenty" away from the pathos of farm life and to his self-made

success (M-TR-1, p. 6). Seven years later the same "measure­

less spaces of sky" and "majesty of space" convict him with

"a strange sadness and despair," "a vague feeling of the

mystery and elusiveness of human life" (M-TR-1, pp, 27, 29).

In atonement, he flings open the door of Agnes' wretched

homo and calls her out "'into the sunshine of a bettor life'"

(M-TR-1. p, k7).

An analysis of these men on the move shows that only tho

characterization of Hannan achieves literary merit. One

reason for the excellence of his portrayal may be the combi­

nation of the peddler's more unsavory methods of operation

with understandable motivations arising through environmental

factors.

All of the six characters qualify as the peddler type.

18 In Garland's Wisconsin and Iowa fiction, William and

David McTur 'j are counterparts of William and David McClintock, v7hom he consistently portrays as "veritable Leatherstockincs" (Son, p. 18),

37

Each is personable and persuasive, and each stays on the move.

Each is young, but Hannan matures during the story's time

span. Each is single; Kendall becomes a loner when he

deserts Flask; and both Williams and Hannan plan unethical

marriages—Vcilliams for money and Hannan through divorce. To

each, money dominates other considerations: Allen sacrifices

his father's regard in order to gamble in stocks; Hartley

esteems earning power higher than family life; the Dodd's

Family Bitters man sacrifices ethics for advertising; Kendall's

mind runs in financial directions even during the holy times of

marriage and birth; Hannan tempts Agnes from her poverty to

his wealth. Staying honest on a small route, Williams wins

friends, and Hartley, new customers; Kendall, clearly a thief,

merits punishment; Hannan, suspected of dishonesty in the

wide area he has covered, evinces actual thievery in stealing

Agnes. Something of the devil appears in the Dodd's Family

Bitters man and in Hannan in their hypnotic powers and in some

of the imagery associated v/ith them.

Measured by the standards of Garland's milieu, Hannan fits

all conditions. Self-made success lures each of the peddlers;

all except the Dodd's Family Bitters man obviously gamble for

it. Nature touches only Hannan with the realization of nan's

insignificance. Poverty evokes sympathetic concern from

Hartley and Hannan; both escape from it, and Hannan lifts

Agnes from her miserable station. V/oraen' s rights earn tho

defense of Allen, Williams, and Hannan, who actually defies

38

convention. The disappearance of the frontier is evident in

these peddlers' products, which represent civilization and

progress. Hartley convinces farmers that they need a

two-volume history in their frontier homes; Allen challenges

a sniping community to build a church; a peddler tempts

Uncle Ethan with the illusion that he can earn money by

selling instead of by farming; Kendall wins Flask with his

city manners; Williams and Hannan offer their women lives

free from drudgery.

Interestingly, the most obvious peddler caricature, the

Dodd's Family Bitters man, and the finest portrayed character,

Hannan, figure in the best stories. The flat character of the

medicine dealer triggers the action in a tignciy efficient

short story which concentrates on one trait shared by two O'her

characters. Hannan's complicated personality, on the other

hand, dominates "A Branch-Road," a story long enough to

detail incidents and emotions v/hich motivate Hannan.

CHAPTER III

STROLLING PLAYERS

Masking unscrupulous ambition with artful illusion are

those peddlers whom Garland characterizes as actors. Their

ranks include not only professional showmen such as Howard

McLane in "Up tho Coule'," but also a preacher in "The Test of

Elder Pill," and a politician, Tom Brennan in A Member of the

Third House. The peddlers in this group cautiously wend

paths through Garland's milieu. Concern for social problems

changes their courses; credit usually covers their high

stakes; the peaceful backdrop of nature contrasts unfavor­

ably with their hectic perforrasinces; foils suggestive of the

cowboy type often unmask them. But because these peddler-actors

touch the frontier with semblances of beauty. Garland forgives

them much. Only when they criminally cheat do they merit

punishment at Garland's hands.

Traits peculiar to the tradition of the traveling actor

enhance these characterizations. As they strolled across tho

American frontier, traveling actors left behind a colorful

train of anecdotes, many of which Constance Rourke relates in

The Roots of American Culture. Elegant and impressive even

offstage, they provided entertainment, but not necessarily art.

Although they often ran up debts and skipped tovm to avoid

payment, they gambled on success with "tho luck of adventurers"

39

and with "the Utopian enthusiasm, the usual daring of people

of the theater faced with new countries and new frontiers."

Their make-believe also cloaked them with suggestions of black

2

magic in the eyes of their unsophisticated audiences.

One of these players, Junius Brutus Booth, "a strange,

moody, marvellous, almost legendary character," markedly

impressed Richard Garland (T-M, p, /f3). Hamlin's inherited

interest in the actor extended to Booth's son, Edwin, the

subject of an intensive study made by Hsimlin during his Boston

education. Edwin's "magical interpretations" aroused in Hamlin

"a secret ambition to read as he read, to make the dead lines

of print glow with color and throb with music" (Son, p, 22^).

This inspiration provided Garland with the topic for his first

successful lecture in Boston. Richard also reraciabered a play

about California gold-seekers which "brought his longing for

adventure to the point of action," that of pioneering in Wis­

consin (T-M, p. 50). Hamlin shared his father's emotional

response to the theater. In his semiautobiographical Boy Life

on tho Prairie, Garland relates young Lincoln Stewart's

reaction to a production of a traveling company. During the

play the boy is "literally all eyes and ears," and after the

performance he v/aUcs "almost mechanically, scarcely feeling

\port Washington, N,Y. , 19^2), pp. 13^, 103-lOZf.

2 Rourke, American Humor, p. 112.

ifl

the sidewalk, his thoughts still dwelling on the lady and the

play."^

Garland ranks patent medicine vendors as artists. "The

medicine they peddled was of doubtful service, but the songs

they sang, the story they suggested were of priceless value

to us who came from the monotony of the farm" (Son, p, l if).

Three engaging fakers appear in A Son of the Middle Border,

At the Osage fair "'Doctor' Lightner, vending his 'Magic

Oil,*" is "a handsome fellow" who wears "an immense white hat"

and a "splendid gray suit and spotless linen," a contrast to

the "rustic and graceless" attire of the crowd (Son, p. 1^2).

"Strange new songs" performed by Doctor Lightner's "'troupe'"

set young Hamlin "dreaming," "It was art to rae. It gave me

something I had never knovm" (Son, p, 143). Garland again

chooses "art" to describe the "first splendid singer" he

heard, one of a patent medicine troupe playing in Ramsey,

Iowa. Garland and a young woman friend attend "the singing

of the 'troupe'" as they might a play (Son, p, 203). Less

artistic is the entertaining but dishonest game of "a

smooth-handed faker who is selling prize boxes of soap" in

Osage on a Saturday night.

-^(Lincoln, 1961), p. 163—subsequent references to this edition, v/hich is a reproduction of tae 1899 first edition, will be BL.

kZ

"Now, gentlemen," he says, "if you will hand me a dollar I will give you a sample package of soap to examine, after­wards if you don't want the soap, return it to me, and I'll return your dollar." He repeats this several times, returning the dollars faithfully, then slightly varies his invitation by saying, "so that I can return your dollars."

No one appears to observe this significant change, and as he has hitherto returned the dollars precisely accord­ing to promise, he now proceeds to his harvest. Having all his boxes out he abruptly closes the lid of his box and calmly remarks, "I said, * so that I can return your dollars,' I didn't say I would. Gentlemen, I have the dollars and you have the experience."

The marshall arrests tho peddler; and Garland comments, "I

rejoice in his punishment" (Son, pp, l/f9, I50).

Garland* s single fictional medicine man appears in A Spoil

of Office at the beginning and the close of Bradley Talcott*s

term as congressman. In this novel, so concerned ¥/ith oratory

and its effects on central characters, the -'rather aristo­

cratic" peddler chants in a "sing-song," "'Doc-tor Ferguson's

selly-brated, double X, Philadelphia cough-drops, for coughs

and colds, sore throat or hoarseness; five cents a pack­

age.'"^

The circus, which always steals the scene in Garland's

fiction, provided another of his youthful contacts with

actors. His earliest reading included one of several

"well-springs of joy," The Life oj; P.T, Barnun. (Son, pp.

102-103), Rourke places Earnum "with other scattered

showmon and the race of Yankee peddlers and a few revivalists"

whose self-made success offered evidence "of the American

^(Boston, 1892), p, 329.

43

genius." In Garland's stories both Lincoln Stewart and Rose

Dutcher idolize circus performers who, although godlike and

unapproachable, lure the country children to the city. But

Garland describes these idols from afar; the circus people

whom he approaches more closely are the promoters. Shoulder

to shoulder with the dusty crowds, these peddlers, like the

great Barnura himself, market illusion in a hard, realistic

manner.

One of them, the circus "'advance man*" earns Garland's

"tribute" for flinging "his highly colored posters over the

fence" and thereby bringing "these marvels to my eyes"

(Son, p. 116). On his 1887 return to Osage from Boston,

Garlaind attended a circus; and in a subsequent article,

"The Professor at the Circus," he reminisces, "Do you remember

how we carried the gorgeous show-bill out into the field and

pored over its unparalleled magnificence of promises?" His

most significant use of the advance man is in Boy Life on the

Prairie. "From the moment the advance man flung a handful of

gorgeous bills over the corn-field fence, to the golden

morning of the glorious day, the boys speculated and argued

and dreamed" (BL, p. Z3Z), Only Lincoln's friend, whose

characterization definitely suggests the cov/boy type, questions

^Trumpets o>f Jubilee (New York, 1927), PP. 387, 369.

^Cited by Hill, "Biographical Study," p. 78.

44

7 the advance man's integrity.' "From the height of his great

experience. Ranee said: 'No-circus is ever as good as its

bills. If it is half as good, we ought to be satisfied'"

(BL, p. 233).

With the arrival of the circus come promoters of a differ­

ent kind, sideshow ticket sellers. This description in Boy

Life on the Prairie qualifies them as peddlers—fascinating,

shrewd, acquisitive:

On a stool before each door stood alert and brazen-voiced young men, stern, contemptuous, and alien of face, declar­ing tho virtues of each show, and inviting the people to enter. Lincoln could have listened to these people all day, so fascinated was he by their faces, so different from those he knew. They were so wise and self-contained, and certain of themselves, these men. To them the noise, the crowd, the confusion were parts of ordinary, daily life.

In this passage Garland records their spiel, "monotonous,

penetrating, clanging utterances," which, however resembling

"a rusty bell," sells their products:

"Still a half an hour to see the wonder of the world, Madame Ogoleda, the snake woman. V/alk in—walk in; only a dime to see this wondrous woman and her monstrous serpent. The Bible story related. The woman and the snake. Only a dime apiece."

"He is! He i^!" called another. "The fattest boy in the world. He weighs four hundred and eighty pounds. See him eat his dinner. Only a dime to see the fat boy eat a whole ham!"

7 ^Ranee's characterization is based on Burton Babcock,

Garland's boyhood friend, a frontiersman throughout his life. Ranee is strong in combat, shy of girls and learning, an expert hunter and horseman, and the last of the boys to store his saddle.

45

"Professor Henry, court v/izard of Beelzebub himself. Come in and see the great and marvellous man. You can see a glutton eat any day, but this is your only chance to see the magician of Mahomet. The Magi of tho East! The King of Conjurors!" called a third (BL, p. 233).

At this moment in Boy Life on the Prairie, Sheriff Jim

Moriarty trios to put circus promoters in their place.

Moriarty, embodying many characteristics of the cowboy type,

is a "powerfully built man with a stern and handsome face," 0

"'the best man in the country, bar none.'" Moriarty collars

"a wiry, slick-looking fellow," a "'thimble-rigger,'" operat­

ing an old game which Partridge defines as a sharping trick Q

involving three thimbles and a pea.^ A ticket seller squares

off to defend his crooked friend, but Moriarty knocks him

"flat on the ground" to a chorus of cheers (BL, pp. 239>

240). Later Moriarty interrupts the circus performance when

he steps into tho ring to arrest a clown. "'No three-card

monte man can play in this county while I'm sheriff" (BL,

p. 249). "Monte," another betting game, is played with

cards. The clown throws "a somersault, intending to strike

the Sheriff in the breast with his feet," but Moriarty evades

him "with a lightning-swift movement" (BL, p. 247).

Lincoln, enraptured by the clown, the ticket sellers, and

Moriarty, onetime leader of an outlaw band, plays a heroic ro.Te as lawman in "The Wapseypinnicon Tiger."

^Dictionary of Slang.

Mathews, Dictionary of Americanisms.

46

all the circus marvels, views this triumph of cowboy over

peddler as "a thing to bo condemned, for it interrupted the

circus, which they had all gone to see" (BL, p. 250). Garland

generalizes this protest in A Son of the Middle Border. "To

rob mo of my memories of the circus would leave mo as poor as

those to whom life was a drab and hopeless round of toil"

(Son, p. 116). To peddle entertainmont is to bestow a bless­

ing.

Garland's most important portrayal of an actor is that of

Howard McLane in "Up the Coule." Cast in Garland's milieu,

this self-advancing entertainer assumes a neglected role, that

of his brother's keeper. V/hon Howard returns to his home town

after a ten-year absence, the folk im.mediately identify him as

a peddler. "'Looks like a drummer'" (M-TR-1, p, 51), "'a

lightnin*-rod peddler, or somethin* o* that kind*" (M-TR-1.

p. 53). William McTurg, consistently characterized by Garland

as one of the cowboy type, recognizes Howard for what he is.

McTurg asks, "'You're a show feller now? B'long to a troupe?'"

(M-TR-1. p. 55).

Howard impresses his former neighbors, oven "'dogs and

kittens,*" with a peddler*s charm (M-TR-1, p. 61). "A goodly

figure of a man," he is "portly, erect, handsomely dressed,

^William McTurg, tho counterpart of Garland's frontiereman uncle, William McClintock, is described in this story as "a soft-voiced giant," "as erect as an Indiai" (M-TR-1, p. 52). See fa. 18, chapter 2,

47

and with something unusually winning in his brown mustache and

blue eyes" (M-TR-1. p. 51). He seems "incredibly elegant and

handsome to them all, v;ith his rich, soft clothing, his spot­

less linen, and his exquisite enunciation and ease of speech.

He had always been 'smooth-spoken,* and he had become

'elegantly persuasive'" (M-TR-1, p, 60). Howard is a true man

of business. Calling upon a German family in order to buy the

former McLsuie farm, he accepts cake and milk and converses

pleasantly until "ready for business" (M-TR-1. p. 74).

An actor even offstage, Howard plans a performance for his

homecoming. He intends "such a happy evening of it, such a

tender reunion" (M-TR-1, p, 64); but his brother. Grant,

resents his attempts "'to play big gun,'" an expression which 12

means to assume the role of a person of note (M-TR-1, p. 7^)*

Howard recovers, however, to breakfast "with the manner, as

he himself saw, of the returned captain in the ivar-dramas of

the day" (M-TR-1, p, 66). Howard keys himself to the reaction

of his audience. He tries to talk to his old friends about

their affairs, but they insist on hearing his stories of the

East; and Howard feels "deep down in the hearts of these

people a melancholy which was expressed only elusively with

little tones or sighs" (M-TR-1, p. 86), The intuitive response of the actor motivates Howard's

IP Partridge, Dictionary of Slang,

48

attempt to fulfill himself in a new role as he relieves his

family's poverty, "A sort of dumb despair" in his mother

shocks Howard (M-TR-1. p. 58), In a neighbor he sees that

"like the smile of the slave, this cheerfulness was

self-defence; deep dov/n was another self" (M-TR-1. p. 86).

He recognizes the hopelessness v/hich his brother faces, with

"'no chance of his ever being different'" (M-TR-1. p. 92).

Neither hopeless nor helpless, Howard has "kept and made

use of his luck" (M-TR-1, p. 56). Explaining his role as

theatrical producer, Howard says, "'The dramatic business is

a good deal like gambling—you take your chances'" (M-TR-1, p.

62). Sometimes Howard's success results from his "crowding

out some other poor fellow's hope" (M-TR-1, p. 73); but he

keeps '"looking ahead to making a big hit and getting a barrel

of money—just as the old miners used to hope and watch'"

(M-TR-1, p. 98). When rejected by Grant, Howard confidently

determines, "'I'll make the best of it'" (M-TR-1, p. 90). As

the older brother, Howard has "the best chance" to leave the

farm for an education, a fictional situation which parallels

Garland's experience (M- TR-l, p, 99). Franklin Garland writes

that while Hamlin attended Cedar Valley Seminary, '"I v/as at

home doing the chores aiad keeping up the farm work on the

assumption that I was to have my chance when he had finished.

9

13 but my chance never came.'" Hamlin helped his brother in

several ways, but Howard waits too long. Grant says,

"'Money can't give me a chance now'" (M-TR-1, p. 101).

Howard insists, "'Circumstances made me and crushed you.

That's all there is about that. Luck made me and cheated

you'" (M-TR-1. p. 99).

Hov/ard is sensitive to nature, as well as to audiences and

to luck. With a theatrical gesture of appreciation, he takes

off his hat to "the majestic amphitheatre of green wooded hills

that circled the horizon" (M-TR-1. p. 50). Under "the

inexorable spaces of the sky, a deep distaste of his own

life" prods his conscience (M-TR-1, p. 90), while the ominous

"whippoorwill called occasionally" (M-TR-1, p. 89)• This

reckoning resembles that experienced by Y/ill Hannan when he

determines to right Agnes' seven years of misery.

Charming, lucky, sensitive, Howard attempts to sell himself

in two roles, that of big city success and that of homo town

philanthropist. If the shov/ he puts on is an illusion, it

provides at least temporary hope and cheer. The reality of

Howard's position, that ho is too late to redeem his neglect,

provides a masterly touch in tho characterization of this

peddler.

^^etter to Hill dated July 18, 1940; cited in "Biographical Study," p. Z^.

50

Another species of strolling player is the religious

evangelist. Garland creates a corps of these traveling

brethren, who, in varying degrees, are as ambitious as

peddlers, as fascinating as actors, and as wicked as de.nons.

Garland sympathizes with them only v/hen they repent their

deceptions.

Traveling evangelists exact a substantial share of

colorful lore in the history of the frontier. B.A, Botkin

sees the evangelist Johnny Appleseed as part mystical Saint

Francis, part ingenuous Yankee peddler, "the primitive

Christian in him merged with the footloose type of hero."

Dolan properly describes these itinerant men of God as

peddlers, selling preaching and other services; their

15 visits provided major social events. Rourke suggests that

these revivalists "belonged to the theater" because of their

orgiastic rituals. "Comedy was enacted there, a rude and

violent form of the divine comedy."

Garland, not an orthodox believer, early perceived the

opportunistic as well as the theatrical in these men. His

maternal grandfather, devoted to "'matters of the spirit'"

(T-M, p. 194), alv;ays welcomed "'the traveling brotner.'"

^ A Treasury of Argerican Fol/.lore (::ev; York, 1944) i P. ZyC

^^Yankee Peddlers, pp. 211, 217.

^Americon Ku-or, pp. I3I, 1;.2.

51

"His was an open house to all who came along the road, and the

fervid chantings, the impassioned prayers of these meetings

lent a singular air of unreality to the business of cooking

or plowing in the field" (Son, pp, 15-16). On one occasion,

other family members held "frank resentment" toward "'the

stranger elder.'" Two sons slept on the floor to give "'the

old fraud'" a bed; a daughter, accusing him of "'just sponging

his board,*" complained, "'But Pap couldn't or wouldn't see

into his game. Night after night that beggar sat around

arguing and chawing his cud, getting ready for another meal'"

(T-M, p. 194). Young Garland's immediate family attended

religious services partly because "it was our theater" (Son,

p. 82), An older Garland observed "religious meetings merely

17

to study the oratory."

At least once a preacher (just as the actor, Edv/in Booth)

inspired a dream which came true for Garland. During

Garland's homesteading days in Dal ota, "a chance visitor, a

young clergyman from Portland, Maine," filled Garland with the

idea of studying in Boston—a dream which Garland made a

reality within two months (Son, p, 265). Many years later

Garland again met this preacher, James W. Bashford, who had

become a Methodist bishop, "He is a rather disappointing

^'^Conversation v/ith Hill; cited in "Biographical Study," p, ZZ,

52 V

character to mo now. Essentially fine, he is so given to the

18 cant terms of his religion that he repels me," Garland's

fictional preachers mirror many of these personal attitudes.

Although Garland does not define the elder in "Aidgewise

Feelin's" (a story published in 1896) as a traveling brother,

he does delineate him as "a jaded actor" (PF, p, 219).

Conducting a funeral as "a sombre, dramatic entertainment"

(PF, p. 222), the elder understands that his "audience"

expects "the pleasure of weeping"; and when his first remarks

draw "a sparse tear or two," he is "encouraged as if by

slight applause" (PF, p, 220), This preacher also plays

upon the gambling instinct of his congregation by promising,

in return for good works, "a life of eternal rest (the

allurement of all hard-working humanity)" (PF, p. 221),

A traveling brother is Wallace Stacey in "A Preacher's

Love Story." An idealist, he fits Dolan*s description of

preachers who replaced formal training with enthusiasm and who 1Q

sacrificed personal comfort. ^ Although Stacey arrives in a

co.n:nunity to stage a "wondrously dramatic" revival, he is too

sincere to be typecast as an actor, as a shrewd peddler of

religion, and certainly not as a devil (WC, p. 33).

In two other stories, "The Test of Elder Pill," 1891, and

"A Day of Grace," 1895, Garland creates preachers adept at all

18 My Friendly Contemporaries, p. 154.

^ Yanlvee Peddlers, p. 216.

three roles. Satanic associations with preachers stand on an

autobiographical basis. The neighborhood in Boy Life on the

Prairie has "been darkened and made austere by the work of an

'evangelist,' who came preaching the wickedness of the natural

man and the imminence of death" (BL, p. 381). In A Son of the

Middle Border, the "sudden fury" of an Iowa revival prompts

visions "of lakes of burning brimstone and ages of endless

torment." In a "crowded little schoolroom, smothering hot and

reeking with lamp smoke," family and friends appear as "spectral

shadows, figures encountered in the phantasmagoria of

disordered sleep," A "shouting, hysterical, ungrammatical"

evangelist has transposed the familiar into "another world"

(Son, pp, 82, 83).

In "A Day of Grace," this hellish nightmare sets the scene

in an evangelist's tent, where country folk flock as to "a

circus" (PF, p. 69). The preacher, his eyes always "cool and

calculating" (PF, p. 75), is another "jaded actor rising at

applause." He plays upon his audience's "deep of barbaric

emotion" (PF, p. 73), thus drawing a succession of devilish

responses: a "doaoniacal chorus" (PF, p. 74), cnakeliko

"hoarse hisses" (PF, p, 75), and screams of "panther-like

ferocity" (PF, p. 77) and of the "savagery of a mountain

lion" (PF, p, 7Z). During this "'cursed foolishness'" (PF,

p. 71), the preacher's "barbaric walk" resembles "a Sioux in

54

the war dance," He screams as if "defying hell's legions,"

and his gaze upon one woman induces a seizure (PF, p. 7Z) •

Another woman reveals "hell horror frozen" on her face (PF,

p. 74). To a young girl he threatens, "'You are going to

hell.'" Her suitor cries, "'God damn ye,'" and tears "her

tormentor from her arm" (PF, p. 76). "'I'd smash hell out o'

you for a leather cent,'" the young man says (PF, p. 77).

The beauty of nature calms the effect of this preacher's

hell. As the young people arrive at the camp meeting, they

hear "the wild shouts of the far-off preacher, echoing through

the cool green arches of the splendid grove" (PF, p. 70),

After they leave the meeting, "out under the cool, lofty

oaks, the outcry was more inexpressibly hellish" (PF, p, 77).

In the beauty of the night on their quiet ride home, they

escape the preacher's terrifying illusion. "Hell was very

far av/ay, and Heaven was very near" (PF, p. 78).

The schoolhouse hell of Garland's childhood appears even

more vividly in "The Test of Elder Pill." Andrew Pill,

Garland's most extensively portrayed preacher, clearly reflects

tho peddler-actor type, and his characterization expands

through his reactions to Garland's milieu.

Former "dry-good merchant and travelling salesman," Pill

employs peddler's wiles (PF, p, 55). He quickly arrangor to

board with the testy farmer, William Bacon. "'Costs more to

go to heaven than to hell. You'll think so after I board with

55

you a week,*" "Superbly proportioned" with twinkling blue eyes

in a "shrewd face" (PF, p. 31), he easily charms Bacon and his

family with a "free and easy style" (PF, p, 30). He tells

them, '"There are preachers, and then again preachers. I*m

one o* the t* other kind'" (PF, p. 33), and proves it by asking

for "'a chaw t'baccer*" (PF, p. 30), spinning fascinating

yarns, talking about "fatting hogs" and "raising clover," and

betting the hired man that he "*can down you threo out of

five'" in a wrestling match (PF, p. 34), A ladies' man, ho

is discovered "in the creamery" with Bacon's pretty niece

^ELf P» 32), Later he puts on an apron to help milk the cows

and finds time for "a masterly game of croquet with Eldora"

(PF, p, 35). Pill knows when to approach his business of

religion. Although he throws off a few "perfunctory" scrip­

tures (PF, p. 31), he does "not trench on religious matters

at all" (PF, p. 34) until breakfast when, "in an imperious

tone," he calls for family prayer (PF, p. 35). After his

personal crisis in the story. Pill resigns his ministry and,

in keeping v/ith his peddler inclinations, goes "into trade

v/ith a friend" (PF, p. 61).

As soon as Pill steps behind a pulpit to sell reli£;lon, he

displays his talent as an actor. Douglas Radbourn, Garland's

spokesman in several stories, criticizes one of Pill's

performances, "'Pill knew he v/as acting a part. I don't mean

that he meant to deceive, but he got excited, and his

56

audience responded as an audience does to an actor of the first

class*" (PF, p. 49). When Pill begins to doubt his calling,

he recognizes in "a very effective oratorical scene" led by

another elder "a burlesque of himself" (PF, pp. 59, 60). An

additional trait which Pill shares with the strolling player

is that of borrowing money. His debtors are members of his

congregation who, when ho deserts his pulpit, suspect him of

having "'skipped to get rid o* his debts'" (PF, p. 53).

Garland connects Pill with obvious devil imagery. In his

first conversation with Bacon, Pill confesses, "'I believe in

preachers havin' a little of the flesh and the devil '" (PF,

p, 32). V/hen Pill claims that Bacon has promised to attend

services, Bacon retorts, "'The—devil—I did'*" (PF, p, 36)

Pill suggests Satanic power when ho turns down an offer to read

the Bible. "'I spend more time reading men*" (PF, p. 32).

His preaching style relates him to animals associated with

demons. For instance, his eyes glow at sinners with "cat-like

ferocity" (PF, p. 45), and he approaches hecklers "like a

tiger creeping upon a foe" (PF, p, 40). Pill, earlier

described as "thev/ed like a Chippewa" (PF, p. 31), reminds

Radbourn of another devil-like association, that of an

Indian "'medicine man'" (PF, p, 45) leading a "'barbaric

powwow'" (PF, p, 49). Finally, Pill's congregation accuses

him of being "scaly" (PF, p. 53), a term which suggests a

make but which may be a variation of "scaler," defined by

37 s.

0

Partridge as one who decamps with his mates' share of the

loot.20

Pill conducts services in a schoolhouse "known as 'Hell's

Corners'" (PF, p. 36), where discussions of "'hell'" wax

"hot as the stove" (PF, p. 51). In the "gas and smoke" of the

kerosene lamps (PF, p. 50), Pill's preaching casts "a gloom"

which spreads throughout the community (PF, p. 42). Foaming

at the mouth, his eyes reflecting "flames" (PF, p. 45), Pill

calls upon "'hell's devouring flame,'" '"the flaming forge of

hell,'" "'outer darkness.*" Bacon exorcises this horror with

a "dry, drawling, utterly matter-of-fact" joke (PF, p. 46).

•"I ain't goin* to be yanked into heaven when I c'n slide

into hell'" (PF, p. 47). His spell brok n. Pill, like the

devil hi.nself, disappears.

At this point, Pill undergoes a spiritual transformation.

Again, nature acts as an agent of conviction for a peddler.

His horse takes a wrong turn; and Pill finds himself under

"the glittering, infinite sky of winter midnight," which

"soared, passionless, yet accusing." Pill shudders at the

memory of the schoolhouse with its "gases from the lamps, tho

roar of the stove" (PF, p. 33)• Radbourn sets him on a new

road of brotherly love, "'an earnest morality in place of an

antiquated terrorism'" (PF, p. 58). Pill reforms but with

^^Dictionary of Slang.

58

typical shrewdness borrows "*two hundred*" from Radbourn to

clear up his debts (PF, p. 50). Responses to nature and to

his fellow man, two elements of Garland's milieu, turn Pill

from his deceptive peddler traits. He therefore earns the

right to a fresh start.

Garland's most charming strolling player is Tom Brennan,

the Irish politician in A Member of the Third House, published

in 1892. Actually the villain of the novel, Brennan, like

Andrew Pill, escapes utter defeat. The effective portrayal

of Brennan balances unsavory characteristics of the peddler

type with positive reactions to Garlsoid's milieu. 21

Brennan, a lobbyist in an unidentified state capital,

is an extremely personable peddler of political influence.

"A smiling, handsome man of about thirty," who dresses "in a

neat youthful suit" (MTH, p, 22), Brennan manages to appear

"as fresh as the rose he wore in his coat" even at the

congressional investigation of his bribery (MTH, p. 139).

Brennan adeptly employs such social graces as singiuij, playing

the banjo, and mending toys. He throws "aside his cynicism

and his plans for control of men and money" (MTH, p. 75) to

win "the good will" (MTH, p. 76) of everyone including his

prime enomy, the crusading congressman, Wilson Tuttle, who

^^Garland later revealed that he based this story on an investigation by "tho legislature in Boston" (RM, p. 84).

59

"'can't help liking the man'" (MTH, p, 70).

A clever peddler, Brennan assumes mauiy roles. The term,

"third house," originally meant a burlesque organization of

hangers-on, and Brennan stars in this political mockery as

22 ho trades entertainment and money for votes. His basic

characterization resembles that of an American stage type,

"Mose," popular in the middle of the nineteenth century.

Rourke defines this Irish, urban type as "impudent, full of

racy and belligerent opinion," a description that could be

23 applied to Brennan as he weaves his illusions. Brennan

frequently slips into a dialect, "a touch of his Irish

blarnoy," when he is most intent upon making a deal.

Tempting the alcoholic Senator Ward with whiskey, Brennan

says, "»0h it*s quite like watther. Senator'" (MTH, p. 52),

And playing a '"role of lover'" with Helen Davis, his boss's

daughter (r tTH, p. 81), he explains, '"I make a verrtue of

necessity. That's the way I cover me defats'" (MTH, p, 84).

Not only dialect, but other theatrical effects come easily

to Brennan. When Tuttle accuses railway magnate Davis

before his daughter, Brennan steps "with studied effect to

the side of Davis," "'a theatrical, shameless bid*" to

Tuttle (MTH, p, 100) but a "'chance for a coup de theatre' J t i

^^Mathews, D i c t i o n a r y of Americanisms.

^ A m e r i c a n Humor, p , 139,

60

to Brennan (MTH, p. 101),

Brennan effects his escape through a disguise, the climax

of a series of masquerades. His bribery unmasked at Tuttle's

investigation, Brennan must flee the city. "Safe from

espionage" in "dark" and "characterless" clothes (MTH, p.

219), he visits a female friend who supplies "»a razor, some

advice, a priest's cloak and hat and a safe messenger boy

and some money'" (MTH, p. 220). Masquerading as a priest,

Brennan obeys "an irresistible desire to take a turn around

Newspaper Corner," where he is well known, "a distinct

theatrical impulse to try the effect of this disguise, in

which he took delight" (Mra, p. 223). He calls on Davis, who

does not immediately recognize him, and urges him to join the

escape. Impressing the horror of imprisonment upon Davis,

"he acted this, in his fervor so vividly that Davis groaned"

(MTH. p. 235).

The fact that the novel was first written as a play may

have influenced the dramatic imagery which extends from

Brennan's characterization to the description of the hearing.

Another influence may have been Garland's own opinion of

courtroom activities. After serving as a juror. Garland

wrote on November 3, 1921, this opinion of law procedure:

"'Much of it is farcical and some of it corrupt.'" ^ The

Sty Friendly Contemporaries, p. 368.

61

laughter of Brennan's cohorts transforms the hall outside the

committee room to "the lobby of a theater" (MTH, p. 139).

The hearing, "that most dramatic of all things in real life,

a trial of justice" (MTH, p. 143), comes to order as "•Tuttle*s

little farce-comedy*" (MTH, p. 128). Helen applauds "as if

it were a play" (MTH, p. 161); and Brennan's clever parries

raise "laughter and applause" (MTH, p. 154). Senator Ward's

confession sends "a strange sweet shudder" over the room

"like that produced by a tense moment on the stage" (MTH, p.

172). Before accusing Davis, Ward pauses "with the orator's

instinctive knowledge of how to use a great dramatic moment"

(MTH, p. 175). The Senator's avowed purpose in confessing is

to save the hearing from being a "'farce'" (MTH, p, 178), and

the next day the setting, cleared of Brennan*s control, is no

longer that of "the lobby of a variety show" (MTH, p. 196).

The devil, as well as the actor, surfaces in Brennan*s

characterization, "'He's a real villain, and not a stage

caricature. One of these laughing, handsome, successful,

ingratiating, soulless—*" (MTH, p. 19). Words fail Tuttle.

Brennan, to his enemies, is a "'cussed mother's son,'" one of

'"Hell's spawn'" (MTH, p. 185). A turn-of-the-century

Mephistopheles, Brennan "'clasps hands on an infamous bargain

with the same smile and cordial word he'd use in extending

a cigarcase'" (MTH, p. 70). With Tuttle he struggles for the

62

souls of both Senator Ward and Davis.

Brennan nearly wins "Ward when he extends a drink "close to

his face, as if to make the sight and smell irresistible" (MTH,

p, 52), and when he offers to marry the senator's daughter and

to pay the senator's debts. "'Why don't you let rae step in

here and help you out?'" (MTH, p, 55) Tuttle, however, per­

suades the old man to confess his bribe.

The battle over Davis is much easier for Brennan because

Davis has already founded his railroad "upon a vested wrong"

(MTH, p. 200), a monopoly that is '"reaching like a devilfish

into every man's pocket'" (MTH, pp. 137-138). Brennan*s

"'saturnalia of bribery"' (Mra, p. 17) quickly expands among

congressmen because, as Davis knows, "'it's the cursed

condition of things—that infernal band of highwaymen up there'"

(MTH, p, 209), that "nest of rats" (MTH, p, 132). Brennan warns

DaVis that failure to lobby would mal e business as "'dead as

the gates of Gehenna,'" a Biblical description of hell (MTH,

p. 38). "Like most men of his type," Davis has "lived such a

life of material activity and narrowness that his hours of

reckoning with himself had been few and short" (MTH, p. 200),

Tuttle, the conscience of the people, arouses Davis. Tuttle's

investigation, which Davis believes vdll "'raise the devil'"

(HTH, p. 9), dips Davis into "*a bath of flame'" (MTH, p. 95).

After the exposure Brennan, like a gleeful Mephistopheles

tempting FaUst to more adventures, urges Davis to flee from

63

prison, which "'would be simply hell'" (MTH, p. 233). But

Davis, suffering from conscience, is already "hemmed in by a

burning forest" (MTH, p. 237). Just before he puts a gun to

his temple, Davis even hears "a fire-bell striking solemnly"

(MTH, p, 238).

Garland provides a hellish climate for Brennan*s activities.

The novel begins on "a phenomenally hot day in June" during

a summer in which many characters complain about the heat

(MTH, p. 7). Tuttle senses "a crisis approaching in his life,

like the thunderstorm which the usual smothering heat pre­

dicted in the weather" (MTH, p, 13), The investigation unfolds

while "the burning light of the morning sun" boats upon the

committee room (MTH, p. 143),

Wily, shrev/d, adaptable, and Satanic though he is, Brennan

strongly reflects Garland's environment. Women sway him; a

foil representing the cowboy type temporarily defeats him;

and his ambition, backed by his gambler's nature, saves him.

Like most peddlers, Brennan has "'a singular fascination

for the average woman'" (MTH, p, 19). Although Mrs. Wsord

finds him "'too oily and good-natured'" (MTH, p. 122), her

daughter and Helen see "something very engaging about his

frank face and pleasant brown eyes" (MTH, pp. 26-27). But tho

company "of these clean, unsrairched women souls" pricks his

conscience so that ho tells himself, '"The trouble is a

man can't always say v/hat he will do and v/hat he won't

64

do. Success demands a good deal of a man'" (MTH, p. 29).

Swayed but not conquered by sympathy with womankind, Brennan

plans to marry Helen to improve his social position; after

his defeat he suggests that she join him in his escape—moves

similar to Claude V/illiams' marrying the rich farmer's daughter

and Will Kendall* s asking Flask to go into hiding with him.

Tuttle resolves to rescue Helen from "that man's reckless and

insinuating grace" (MTH, p. 86). In the f.?xe of Tuttle's

"'grit and honesty'" (tv/o of several traits which the modest

individualist Tuttle shares with those members of the cowboy

type), even a sophisticated peddler like Brennan can hardly

hold his ov/n (MTH, p. 95).

Brennan's most redeeming virtue is his determination to

lift himself to success, "He was something more than handsome:

there was character in his strong, strai(:;ht nose, in his

resolute yet merry brown eyes" (MTH, p. 77). This determina­

tion molds him into "a product of our society" (MTH, p. 48),

an illustration of "the necessity a poor Irish boy is under,

to be smart and shifty, in order to succeed" (MTH, p. 49).

Davis erroneously believes, '"Tom knows his place'" (MTH, p.

35), But Brennan aims tov/ard the positions of "'general

superintendent of this road and son-in-law'" to Davis (MTH,

p. 62), His philosophy is this: "'I'm a gutter-snipe, but

I don't want it rubbed in'"; '"the gutter-snipe must rise'"

(MTU, p, 60). Tuttle adnits, "'I never could have succeeded

65

as Brennan has, alone, unaided, uneducated. He'll go to the

top'" (MTH. p. 71). On his way up Brennan becomes "'a type

of modern business man, whose ideas of right and wrong are

atrophied for lack of use'" (MTH, P. 87).

Brennan gambles ruthlessly and confidently for success,

playing for "'big stakes'" (MTH. p, 46). He sets up his

bribes as bets. To a congressman he says, "'I'll bet you

five hundred dollars apiece we lose our charter'" (MTH. p. 23),

To pay off the bets, Brennan deposits the money with a

bartender; then Brennan "'is able to slip up to the bar with

a senator: "Sam, I've just lost a bet of two thousand dollars

to this gentleman"'" (MTH, p, 17). In one incident a

legislator thinks Brennan is joking. "'As I?' he said with

the Irish inflection. 'Here's a hundred dollars that says

not'" (MTH, p. 24). Brennan's quick recovery after the

investigation—his peddler's response to the lure of better

regions—reflects his gambling streak, his "confidence in

himself and in fate."

Brennan had tho temperament of the gambler, who is able to play with impassive face whether he loses or wins. When luck is against him he stops, goes on a journey, or does some penance, and resumes play again when he thinks luck is appeased, without bitterness and without losing faith in himself or in his God, The possibility of defeat had been taken into account, Brennan, having played with luck on his side so long, did not consider everything lost because the tide now seemed to set the other way.

In the novel's last scene, Brennan, feeling "'like ne?/,'" sails

away toward brighter prospects (MTH, p. 216). The ship's

66

captain comments on the voyage, '"Beats railroading these days,

eh?'" Brennan answers, "'You bet your life!'" (MTH, p. 239)

In this group of strolling players, three fully rounded

characters deserve analysis: Tom Brennan, Andrew Pill, and

Howard McLane. A more thoughtful and complex portrayal calls

McLane center stage as the most impressive and the single

tragic figure of the group.

Each of the three players proves himself one of the peddler

type. Each is young and especially agreeable in appearsuice and

manner. Both McLane and Pill reside in areas other than the

communities in which they perform; Brennan moves from his

home territory as soon as his welcome wears thin. McLane

and Brennan are unhampered by wives; Pill mentions a family

which does not appear in tho story and which, in his opinion,

is "'too much of a family, in fact—that is, I think so

sometimes when I'm pinched'" (PF, p. 34). Each man's fate is

influenced by money: Pill's habit of borrowing alters his

standing on his small route; Brennan's bribery, which corrupts

a state, cancels his engagement in that area; McLane's desire

for life's luxuries estranges him from his family. Only

McLane lacks the devil associations, which could be considered

too obvious in tho portrayals of Pill and Brennan.

Each of the peddlers dons a mask to sell illusion. Pill

plays the part of evangelist to call up thrilling visions of

hell. Brennan assumes a false good will to spread lavish

67

entertainment more costly than his audiences realize. McLane

alternately wears the masks of cultured gentlemen and of

prodigal son, roles which fail to convince either his brother

or himself. Each illusion represents a hard reality fostered

by advancing civilization, a paradox which Garland presents

through all of his peddlers. Pill's religion preys upon lonely

settlers. Brennan's bribery corrupts an expanding government.

McLane's prosperity feeds upon the failures of other men in

an increasingly competitive society.

Of the three players McLane differs most sharply in response

to Garland's milieu. Only McLane and Pill attempt solutions

to social problems. Pill through Christian morality and McLane '

through brotherly love. The overpowering aspect of nature

convicts both of these men of their pettiness; weather concerns

Brennan only by providing a hellish climate for his devilish

activities. Making the most of luck are McLane and Brennan,

with Brennan proving the more ruthless gambler.

The drive for self-made success, so important in Garland's

milieu, is strong in all three men, but Garland uses this

quality most effectively in his characterization of McLane,

In the category of strolling players, this type of ambition

is less admirable than it is in the ^rouo of men on the move.

In the latter ambition usually signifies perseverance and

strength of character; in the former this quality sugsosts

a disregard for the rights of others. Pill and Brennan gain

68

through fraud. Although Garland furnishes motivations of

poverty and, in Pill's case, self-deception, he does not

allow these characters to escape punishment. They are

restrained and redirected by outside forces, the ridicule

of a farmer and the dedication of a legislator, respectively.

But McLane's aiabition, also motivated by poverty, burdens him

with a guilt which Garland refuses to absolve. This unrelieved

guilt, which changes the course of McLane's life, supplies an

inner motivation much more effective, a punishment much more

enduring than that of the other two men.

McLane, like Will Hannan in "A Branch-Road," realistically

reflects the problems of Garland's environment; and, like

Hannan, McLane emerges as the most complex personality in his

category. Both McLane and Hannan figure in novelettes (a form

in which Garland proved himself highly competent) collected

in Garland's first and most acclaimed work, Main-Travelled

Roads,

CHAPTER IV

BOOMERS

While Garland admires young traveling salesmen for their

respectable ambition and colorful strolling entertainers for

their welcome intrusions, ho deals more sternly with another

class of peddler, that of the boomer. In Garland's time

"boomer" comprised three definitions: an enthusiastic

supporter of a project, a participant in a land rush, and a

migratory workman. Garland mercilessly convicts "selfish,

monopolistic liars," boomers such as Jim Butler and Sid

Balser, but as a realist, he permits them to escape punish­

ment (Son, p. 353). He effects a more sympathetic portrayal

of another boomer, Major Mullins, who shows humanitarian con­

cern for fellow settlers. As a romantic, Garland permits

James Sanford and Jim Rivers redemption through the love of

good women.

Each of these fictional boomers fits the definition of tho

peddler folk type. In booming settlement they scout "for that

great migration westward," one of the contributions made by

2 the peddler, according to Wright. All except Sanford, a

banker, sell land, "a commodity peddled on paper instead of 3

in wagons," explains Frank Kramer in Voices in the Valley.

1 2 Mathews, Dictionary. Hawkers and Walkers, p. Z7. ^(Madison, 1964), p. 90.

69

70

Dolan records that "from tho ranks of peddlers, tho school of

future magnates," ambitious men joined railroad corporations

in order to promote homesteading.^ Both Balser and Mullins

boom settlements located on railroad-owned land.

Of the peddler's personality traits, that of the Satanic

emerges as the most vivid in the group of boomers. Kramer says

that the folk "channelled their ills into a being endowed with

malevolent intent, into a devil in three persons—the rail­

roads, combinations jcorporations], and banks."

An Interesting aspect of devil symbolism is the boomers'

distribution of tempting circulars. These "flaming advertise­

ments," designed to draw prospective settlers west, are

reminiscent of the bright circus bills flung to the farmers

by advance men in other Garland stories. Similar propaganda

lured Garland's father to the first of several westward

migrations.

Posters, pamphlets, gazetteers describing the beauties and the wealth of the new lands west of Lake Michigan, met them at Albany. Letters from Milwaukee, printed in the papers, contained this question, "Why groan and sweat at heaving rocks in tho East, when you can raise forty bushels of wheat to the acre in Wisconsin on land without a stone?"

To this the editors replied, making common cause against those v;ho would depopulate the East to build up the West. "Don't be fooled by statements of land specu­lators," they warned. But the movers only smiled (T-M. pp. 60-61).

^Yankee Peddlers, p. 247. ^Voices, p. 80.

"john Boyle's Conclusion," p. 70.

71

Garland describes another campaign of this type in his first

novel, The Rise and Fall of Boomtown. in which the setting is

South Dakota, Richard Garland's final western location.

Premonitions of the boom begsui to be detected by the sharp-eyed investigator. Papers in the East and especially in Chicago began to spesik of the extreme desirability of land in the southern part of the valley of the sleepy James, of the promising outlook for that section and especially Boomtown. Huge circulars began to appear in every part of the United States £ind Canada—nay, even England was permitted to look upon the rainbow tints of those seductive circulars! (Boomtown, p. 356)

Through one of these circulars Jason Edwards falls into the

clutches of Balser. Mullins puts his newspaper to the same

deceptive use.

Like Garland's other versions of the peddler type, the

boomer group reacts to the milieu of the author. In this

collection of fictional characters, a spirit of greed shadows

the American dream of self-made success. Cap Burden, a Dal ota

speculator turned innkeeper, who charges "rates v/hich made the

land-seekers gasp," voices the boomers' ambition in this

statement: "'I'm not out here f'r my health"' (Norsk, p.

44). Boomers, cool gamblers themselves, play upon the falsely

inspired optimism of the frontier; they always win. They

also manage to profit from the unpredictable whims of nature;

only Rivers yields to tjie conscience-convicting force of the

elements. Boomers gain from society's helpless victims-

poor farmers, lonely women, defeated Indians. More than any

other group of peddlers, the boomer category contributes to

7Z

the destruction of the frontier, a crux of milieu illustrated

by several boomer-cowboy confrontations.

According to Garland, Major Mullins and Judge Sid Balser

are the fictional counterparts of two Dakota residents, a 7

"*newspaper boomer*" and a judge.' A Garland biography records

a situation parallel to that faced by Mullins and Balser in

The Rise of Boomtown.

In real life there was a Major V/illiam Moore and a Judge James Barnes, who with L.G. "Ordway" Johnson comprised a trio of promoters seeking to mad e Ordway the capital of Dakota Territory. After thousands of dollars had been spent in laying out the proposed capital city, Bismark was selected instead.8

Much less of a scoundrel than Balser is Major Mullins, the

statistic-quoting editor of tho Spike. Some of his character­

istics match those of tho basic peddler typo. Ho fits Dolan's

description of one kind of peddler, tho itinerant printer, "a

man of some learning who would someday settle down to become

the editor of a country paper."^ Just as the regular peddler

often reached his frontier customers before their first

harvest, the Major runs advertisements of "stores not yet

built, anvils not yet on the ground, and hotels not designed."

With cunning sales technique he prints advertisements "not

" Pizer, "An Unpublished Dakota Novel," p. 362.

"Federal V/riters' Project, Works Progress Administration, Hcimlin Garland Memorial, American Guide Series (Mitchell, S.D. ,

1939), p. 18.

^Yankee Peddlers, p. 209.

73

ordered by the men themselves"; but he promises "there would

not be any charge if they wished to remove them at any time

within four weeks or till he had a paying order for the

space." Like the peddler who knew all the regional news, the

Major "skillfully worked in almost all the names of those

present on the site of Boomtown and vicinity—all he could

get note of" (Boomtown, p, 362). His first edition sells out

on tho day of publication. "Because of a lean purse"

(Boomtown, p. 363), tho Major arrives in Boomtown with a

peddler's acquisitive disposition, and on his second day as a

resident, begins "to pick type with practiced skill from boxes

set up against the clapboarding" in his open-air shop

(Boomtown, p. 375). With his young assistant, Seagraves, tho

Major extends his business interests to "a tree claim"

(timber claim) (Boomtov/n, p, 375). He projects a Boomtown

population of "fifty thousand inhabitants" and reasons in this

manner: '"Moral, buy town lots and freeze onto your claim'"

(Boomtov/n, p, 364).

In this v;ay the Major becomes a boomer, one of many "bankers

and land sharks" who sv/arm "like flies around an overturned

sugar cask," "thick as crows around a slaughter pen" ('r ooratown,

p, 382). These sinister connotations throv/ a Satanic light

on the Major. To his enemies he seems one of "'a nest of

thieves and land sharks who want the earth,'" a "'chin-v/acker'"

74 •-

(Boomtown. p. 384). Even his friend, Seagraves, associates

him with the rascal Balser. In "Among the Corn-Rows," Rob

Rodomaker asks Seagraves,

"Judge still lyin*?" "Still at it." "Major Mullens §1^ still swearin' to it?" "You hit it like a mallet. Railroad schemes are

thicker *n prairie-chickons" (M-TR-1. p. 102).

The Major certainly schemes to attract the railroad to

Boomtown. He prints a deceptive "spider map," showing

Boomtown as the logical central location for all railroad

lines, which are represented as the spider's legs. An editor

in a rival town refers to the map as "a graphic representation

of the pot-bellied old spider and his den in the office at

the Spike" (Boomtown, p. 366).

In Jason Edwards Garland records the only physical

description of the Major, "a tall and dignified man, with

flowing whiskers and clear brown eyes, now sad and thought­

ful." This appearance does not coincide with the usual

brilliance of the peddler, a typo whose acquisitive and shrewd

characteristics fit the Major very well.

Garland's milieu involves the Major in several significant

ways. He takes advantage of the town's "most astonishing

breadth of faith and fervor," and he gambles as well. He is

^^Partridge defines "chin wag" as a synonym for easy talk and "whacker" as a lie; Dictionary of Slang.

^^(New York, 1897), p. 191—subsequent references, J^.

73

inspired—in fact, intoxicated—with the false but alluring

optimism of the frontier. "'To them that hath shall be given

is the law of the growth in towns'" proves his philosophy as

he invests his own money in the future of Boomtown (Boomtovm,

p. 385). With a series of gambling expressions, the editor

of the Belleplain Argus accuses the Major "and a *lot of other

skins*" of "'letting the people in' for their little piles"

(Boomtown. p, 366). In his dictionary, Americanisms, John

S. Farmer quotes an I888 edition of the Florida Times Union

which refers to a "'professional boomer'" who plays a

"'skin game'" of deception in real estate; a "skin," explains

12

Farmer, is a sharper. Mathews defines "skin card game" as

one in which players have little chance of v/inning and "pile"

as a slang expression for a gambler's stake. For the term, 14 "let in," Partridge lists t£ victimize. ^ V/hen the Major

loses his gamble to bring tho railway to Boomtown, he says,

"'We're euchred on this deal'" (Boomtown, p. 38I). In Garland's

15 time "euchred" meant swindled, probably in a card game. - The

Major immediately risks another stake when he says, "»V/e

stand as good chance as anybody'" of securing the land office

^^(London, 1889). ^^Dictionary.

^Dictionary of Slang.

^^Mathews, Dictionary.

76

(Boomtown. p. 38I). The Major wins both the land office and

the county seat for Boomtown.

The Major turns the indifference of nature to his own

advantage. Through its apparent bounty he booms the town.

Although his professional motto is, "'Tell it as it is, Sea­

graves, and it'll be read,'" he biases the truth (Boomtown,

p. 352). From his first editorial to his subsequent articles

and frequent streetside tirades, he boasts of "the unexampled

fertility of the farming land and the cheapness with which it

could be cultivated"; of the "best land God's sun ever shone

upon"; of "the climate and its remarkable curative pov/ers";

of "the ozone in the fresh western breezes" (Boomtown, pp.

360, 361). He ignores a prolonged drouth "until forced" to

report it. Then, "in true newspaper style," he emphasizes the

territory's average rainfall, which compares favorably with

that of other v/estern states. "On numberless other occasions,"

he points out the "six successive crops in the lower part of

the territory" (Boomtown, p, 387). The Major denies eastern

papers' "false and malicious reports of grasshoppers, cyclones,

and such like things" (Boomtown, p. 360).

His newspaper heralds civilization on the frontier. Its

name, the Spike, suggests the ever-expanding railroad lines.

Seagraves explains the importance of the Spike.

A western city without a paper is nonexistent, a monstros­ity, a contradiction in terms. Hence it v;as in effect a

77

natal day for Boomtown when the Major and myself "struck the town" and opened shop.

Because the Spike is the "voice, soul, and personality" of

Boomtown (jBoonrtown* PP. 357, 358), it reflects greed as well

as hope and symbolizes the boomers* exploitation of the

frontier with its "fabulous, mythic, hopeful" promise (JE, p.

vi).

Social problems concern the Major, One of these ills is

the power of the railroad, which Garland connects with devil

imagery. The Major prophesies the ruin of Boomtown if the

railroad bypasses the town for Belleplain. He says, "*The

devilish road would do it at tho drop of a hat if it meant

more money*" (Boomtown. p. 380). Belleplain farmers grade the

road "as a bonus" to the railway; and Seagraves comments, "The

very devil was to pay" (Boomtown. p. 381).

The Major's community involvement is not entirely selfish.

Pizer finds that in the second part of the novel, finished in

1888 and available only in manuscript form, "Major Mullins,

who has forsworn booming," joins a single tax crusade in order

l6 to defend the farmers against monopolists. In his only

appearance in Jason Edwards, the Major reveals his sensitivity

resultant from the boomers' vices. In this scene he helps an

insane immigrant, "*a product of our civilization,'" who

babbles this version of the boomers* promises: '"Ay dam

^^Early Work, p. 48.

78

reich, yo' bait yo'! Ay go Chicago, Ay buy more horses—ay

gaet money'" (JE, pp, I92, 193).

With no sense of concern for his fellow man, Boomtown's

Judge Sid Balser emerges in unrelieved, although somewhat

humorous villainy in Garland's Dakota fiction. Balser arrives

in the territory with this single purpose: "'I sell'" (JE,

p. 130). He approaches his customers with this common sense

doctrine: "'You can take your choice, go thirty miles from

a railroad and get government land, or give me ten dollars an

acre for my land'" (JE, p. 101). Nothing compares to holding

"'the money end of a mortgage*" for the Judge "'except holding

two'" (JE, p, 110). Like Mullins, Balser booms business. In

Belleplain on a Saturday night, he talks "expansively to a

crowd of 'leading citizens' about a scheme to establish a

horse-car line between Boomtown and Belleplain," Bert

Gearheart, a representative of the cowboy typo, recognizes

and despises Balser as one of the area's speculators. He

complains, "»They talk about building up the country—they who

are a rope and a grindstone around the necks of the rest of

us, who do the work.'"

But the "placid Judge" never loses his peddler's imperturb­

ability. "Accustomed" to insults, ho gives "no heed" to

Bert (Norsk, pp. 98, 99). The Judge reads aloud a vituperative

anti-Boomtown editorial, and the printed words provide a "very

marked" contrast with the Judge's lazy voice" (JE, p. 110).

79

During a destructive hail storm, the Judge smokes "calmly" (JE,

p. 175). He is aloof even from one of the New Woman type,

Alice Edwards. Her impassioned plea for her ruined father

gains only the Judge's "elaborate courtesy" and "bland smile"

(JE, pp. 159, 161). A single incident snaps the Judge into

"great excitement," the sight of a "tenderfoot" approaching

his office (JE, p, 113),

'"Only one o* the Judge*s little tricks to rope in

tenderfeet*" involves a stunt with a dummy telephone (JE, pp.

127-128). Seeing the approach of a prospective customer

(actually nev;spaperman James Reeves pretending to be an English

greenhorn), Balser seizes the telephone and shams a brisk

business. Reeves mentions his timber claim, which, as the

Judge explains, "'is not a claim with trees on it, but a claim

on which the government wants trees put'" (JE, p. 123). Then,

"with a fine assumption of friendly concern," the Judge offers,

"'Now, see me get you out of this scrape'" (JE, p. 125). Reeves

reveals his own deception. "'I see that you are all a set o'

boomers, and flourish at the expense of the real workers of

this territory,'" An onlooker agrees v/ith Reeves while "the

Judge took his hat said slipped out" (JE, p. 126).

Balser is definitely in league with the devil. The Rise

of Boomtown, Part One, concludes with a review of the activities

of its citizens, of whom '"Judge Balser during the year just

passing had fallen into evil odor'" (Roomtov/n, p, 388), His

80

enemies call him '"a scoundrel, a blow-hard,'" ' who '"would

down his best lover for a pewter cent'" (Norsk, p. 98). In

Jason " dwards the hell and devil imagery so obvious in the

first of the novel, set in city slums, extends to the plains

during the second half of the story and surrounds Balser in

particular. He is as "'cool as a toad in a cellar, and har­

vests his interest as slick's a cat can lick her ear'" (JE,

p. 110), One of his friends says, "'Come Judge, you infernal

old land-shark, let us be getting home before the lightning

strikes you and injures me*" (JE, p. I6I). Reeves, shocked by

the hell-like existence of the Edwards fajaily in this

"infernal country," says, "'1*11 smash the next boomer that

says land to me—free land! If this is free land, what in the

devil—'" (JE, p. 145). Tempting settlers, the Judge, with

bankers and landholders, signs "a defiant article directed

at the Eastern press, denying the poverty of the West'"

(JE, p. I3O).

Garland makes amusing use of devil imagery through the

jests of a farmer, Happy Elliott. To Happy the Judge always

looks "'like a red-headed, slick-bellied ol' spider waitin'

f'r flies,'" Elliott's idea of bliss is spending eternity in

heaven "'an' bein* able to let down chunks of ice at a thousand

dollars a pound to cool the judge below,*" Happy enjoys

thinking "*o* the judge up to his neck in brimstone an' prayin*

" Mathews in his Dictionary defines "blo//-hard" as a blustering bra£ arjb, an appropriate description of a boo:.or.

81

f'r ice.'" Happy sings this song:

There's a boomin' ol' boomer On the lake below,

Oh, how I long to see that day; Up to his neck in the brimstone flood.

Oh, how I long to see!

Happy's friends join in with, "'Judgment, judgment, judgment

day is a sailin' around'" (JE, p. 110).^^

Balser shares the optimistic gambling outlook of Garland's

milieu. He is "confident" of his own risks in Boomtown. He

justifies his landgrabbing with, "'First man on tho spot rakes

the persimmons'" (JE, p. 101). This expression, used at

19

gambling tables, means that the winner pockets the bets.

He overlooks natural disasters and emphasizes the region's

bounties. To the Judge the storm v/hich destroys Edwards' farm

is "'a little severe, of course—grain blown down a little here

and there. Every State in the Union liable to such. Damage

merely nominal—wind'11 lift it during the day.'" This

attitude, another character explains, is '"just the same tone,

you see, that these reports of the prosperity of the West have

when issued by land-holders and mortgage companies'" (JE, pp. 188-189).

The meter of this song matches that of a camp meeting hymn, "Judgment Day Is Rolling Around," quoted by Vance Randolph in Ozark Follcson/rs, IV (Columbia, Mo,, 1950), p. 22. The words to the first verse are, "Got a good old moth-er in the heaven, my Lord,/ How I long to go there too;/ Got a good old moth-er in the heav-en, my Lord,/ Oh how I long to go./ Judg-ment, judg-ment,/ Oh, how I long to go!"

^^Mathews, Dictionary.

82

In their exploitation of the frontier, boomers such as

Balser profit not only from tho farmer but also from the

20 displaced Indian, condemned "to a racial death." Along the

frontier "speculators and not home-builders" stake claims in

order "to drive out and destroy the primitive people who held,

but could not use, the land" (J^M, p. 225).

Garland illustrates this deception in a short story,

"Drifting Crane," published in 1890. In this work Henry Wilson,

a former frontiersman, is one of the earliest settlors in the

James Valley. With misgivings Chief Drifting Crane permits

Wilson's residence in Indian hunting ground. Then Balser sweeps

into the valley with "the advance surveying party for a great

Northern railroad" and envisions "'a to'/m of four thousand

inhabitants in this valley before snow flies'" (PF, p. 142).

Balser and other boomers fill newspapers with stories of

"the wonderful resources of the Jim Valley" and "of the

successful venture of the lonely settler Wilson" (PF, pp. 142,

143). Although V/ilson reads with pleasure these accounts of

his bravery, he senses tho tragedy confronting the Indian.

He says, "'It ain't no use, Drifting Crane; it's £0_t to be.

You an* I can't help n'r hinder it'" (PF, p. 146). He directs

the blame tov/ard the boomers. "'There's land enough for us

^^"Rushing Eagle," Prairie Songs, p. 105.

83

all, or ought to be*" (PF, p. 147).

The speculator is a traditional enemy of men like Wilson,

frontiersmen who turn to the soil for a living, men such as

Garland*s father. When a man of this type buys a mortgaged

farm, he loses his characteristic independence.

To him the word "mortgage" had a sinister connotation. It was a monster which fed on the flesh of the poor. It was a writing which put a farmer into the hands of a relentless town-dweller (T-M. p, 299).

This conflict between frontiersman and speculator Garland

illustrates in "The Return of the Private," a short story

written in 1890. Garland retells this episode from his father's

life in A Son of the Middle Border and Trail-Makers of the

Middle Border, The fictional Civil War veteran Edward Smith,

having served his country in "the Eagle Brigade able to 'whip

its weight in wild-cats,'" returns home for his "herculean

struggle" with his farm's "insatiate mortgage" (M-TR-1, p...

140), "his daily running fight with nature and against the

injustice of his fellov/men," his losing gamble with the land

speculator (M-TR-1, p, 152),

Garland's most bitter portrayal of the land speculator is

that of Jim Butler in "Under the Lion's Paw," a widely read

short story which first appeared in 1889. The author draws

Butler as an acquisitive peddler capitalizing on aspects of

Garland's milieu. Butler's character has no redeeming quali­

ties.

Butler comes to Rock River, Iowa, in order to sell gro­

ceries; but when he sells a lot for four times its cost, he

turns to real estate. "From that time forward he believed in

land speculation as the surest way of getting rich" (M-TR-1.

pp. 159-160). Since his sales territory is small, he stays

honest. His interest rates and foreclosures are legal. He

explains away a swindle: "*It's the law. The reg'lar thing.

Everybody does it'" (M-TR-1. p, 169). To the farmers strug­

gling under his mortgages or his rental rates, he says, "'All

I'm after is the int'rest on my money—that's all.'" "Indeed,

he had the name of being one of the * easiest* men in town"

(M-TR-1. p. 160).

Butler plays with the future of Tim Haskins, one of his

tenants and the central character in the story, as Mephistoph­

eles plays with Faust's soul. Garland introduces Butler as

a Satanic figure, "'lyin' again'" spinning fish yarns,

declining "»a religious idee*" to do a full day*s work (M-TR-1.

p, 168), and bearing a "curse" pronounced by the former tenant

of the farm which Haskins rents (M-TR-1. p, l6l). Suggestions

of the devil continue to haunt Butler. He spends a year in

the East with his brother-in-law, a Congressional represen­

tative; politics usually bear evil associations in Garland's

works. Dorson traces a popular Negro and Pennsylvania Dutch

tale about tho devil's mumbling to keep from dropping the soul

85

PI

which he carries in his mouth. Butler, about to trap Haskins

in the final scene, mumbles, "'»M, yes; 'm, yes'" and

"'Um—h'm! I see, I see'" (M-TR-1. pp. 166, 167). Tempting

Haskins into a new contract, he pours grains of wheat through

his hands and hums with "an accommodating air of waiting."

His advice to Haskins is, '"llever trust anybody, my friend'"

(M-TR-1. p. 169). Haskins, turning on Butler like an "aveng­

ing demon" with a pitchfork, calls him a '"black-hearted

houn'!'" (M-TR-1. p, 170),

At this point in the story, Haskins, who has "worked like

a fiend" on Butler' s farm, co.'npletes a Faustian cycle of

discontent, pact, prosperity, and reckoning. Like Faust,

Haskins escapes eternal damnation through the intervention of

angels. The Councils, who refuse payment for their help to

Haskins because their "'religion ain't run on such business

principles*" (M-TR-1, p, 163), are among the '"people in this

world who are good enough t' be angels, an' only haff t* die

to _be angels*" (M-TR-1 , p. 159). Just as Haskins is condemn­

ing himself to hell by assaulting Butler, he sees "the

sun-bright head of his baby girl"; and the sight of this

angel stays his hand (M-TR-1, p, 170).

Reacting to Garland's milieu, Butler profits ruthlessly

from the poverty of the farmer. He also reaps benefits from

American Folklore, p. 32.

86

both a natural calamity, the grasshopper plague which initially

impoverishes Haskins, and a bounty of nature, Haskins' wheat

crops. As a speculator Butler gambles with his customers.

He offers his debtors "'a good chance'" to become tenants on

their own farms (M-TR-1. p, 160). His rental farms seem '"a

good chance'" to Haskins (K-TR-l. p, 159); all he needs is

"'half a show,'" a betting term (M-TR-1. p. 162),^^ When

Haskins asks Butler for "'a reasonable show'" in purchasing

the land, Butler, reckoning the improvements made by Haskins

himself, doubles the farm's original price (M-TR-1, p. 167)*

Haskins sees "no path out," no future on which to gsunble

(M-TR-1. p, 169).

In a lighter vein another short story, "A 'Good Fellow's'

Wife," produces a much more complex and likeable boomer, James

Sanford.^-^ A newcomer to Bluff Siding, Sanford sells his

product, trust in his bank, through his own charm, betrays his

friends because of his gambling streak, wins protection from

a member of the cowboy type, and repents through the influence

of one of the New Women.

Sanford tries a peddler's tricks to convince citizens to

invest in his bank. First, he impresses upon them his "good

^^Mathews, Dictionary.

^^This story was originally submitted to Century in 1893, according to Holloway in Hamlin Garland, p. 143.

87

fellow" image. "A smallish man," wearing "a derby hat and a

neat suit" (M-TR-2. p. 330), he reveals "no bad habits beyond

smoking." The townspeople find him "genial, companionable,

and especi6Q.ly ready to help v/hen sickness came" (M-TR-2, p.

331). Soon, James and Nellie, his wife, are "the head and

front of all good works and the provoking cause of most of the

fun" in the community (M-TR-2, p. 334). To prospective

investors Sanford appears "as solid as an oak," Next, he

maneuvers shrewdly to introduce his "scheme" for opening a

bank. He appoints Line, a nephew of ox-sheriff Andrew McPhail,

as his clerk, "a capital move," since everyone knows Line and

trusts McPhail (M-TR-2, p. 330). McPhail assures his friends,

"'Line's there, an' he knows the bank an' books, an' just how

things stand*" (M-TR-2, p. 331). Then, Sanford works for the

prosperity of the town, v/hich wakes "up to something of a

boom," For instance, he trios "heroically to get tho location

of a plow factory at Bluff Siding." Citizens believe that "all

this improvement unquestionably" dates from the opening of tho

bank (M-TR-2. p. 333).

Not everyone trusts Sanford, and suspicions intensify

unfavorable characteristics associated with the peddler type,

A townsman says, "'He's too slick to have much business in

hill. That waxed mustache gives »ia away"' (M-TR-2, p. 328),

Old Mrs, Bingham comments, "'I knowed a man back in New York

that curled his mustaches just that way, an' ho wa'n't no

83

earthly good'" (M-TR-2, p. 331). She knows Sanford is '"a

scallywag'" by "'the way *e walks * long the sidewalk.*" Perhaps

she can "* smell he's a thief" (M-TR-2. p. 332). When he

returns finally to repay the money he has stolen, Sanford

displays an overbearing egotism, a touch of the elegant actor

before his hostile audience. The townspeople see him "'cuttin'

a swell'" in his plug hat (M-TR-2. p. 370). He meets his

creditors "with a dramatic whang of a leathern wallet down

into his palm," a "superb stroke" of theater (M-TR-2, p, 374).

Although Garland does not portray Sanford as being as evil

as Butler or Balser, he does relate him figuratively to the

devil. On the evening before Sanford admits his deception,

he sits "by the smouldering coal-fire, in the growing dark­

ness" with "something impressive in his attitude" (M-TR-2, p.

340), At home he sits by the parlor "coal-stove" (M-TR-2. p,

341). Just before he returns to the bank to disclose his

theft, he shivers by the fire and stirs "the stove as if he

thought the room was cold'" (M-TR-2, p. 348). In the bank he

does not "build a fire" although he shivers again in the

"cold and damp" (M-TR-2, p. 350). His defeat has drained

him of warmth and "strength," so that he is no longer a

confident figure; he lies helpless in bed while his wife

faces a mob of depositors (M-TR-2, p. 359). Twice he tells

Line, "'Business has gone to the devil'" (M-TR-2, p. 350).

89

Line replies, '"Well, this is a of a note!'"^^ Line adds,

"'There'll be the devil to pay in this burg before two hours'"

(M-TR-2. p. 352).

Actually, Sanford never intends theft. "'I ain*t quite

up to that.'" He is, rather, "boyish, impulsive, and lacking

in judgment and strength of character" (M-TR-2, p. 344).

Sanford, reflecting Garland's milieu, is a gambler. With his

stolen money he speculates "'on the growth'" of another town,

makes "'a strike,'" and then goes "'in on a copper mine'"

which fails. To Sanford this gamble is a crime only '"because

I've lost. If I'd'a won it, it »ud * a* been financial shrewd­

ness!*" (M-TR-2. p. 344) Gambling images describe Sanford*s

repayment to tho townspeople. One friend regrets having all

"*my pile*" in the bank (M-TR-2. p. 354). McPhail quiets a

surly mob with this reasoning: "'I want the feller to live

and have a chance to pay it back. Killin* 'im is a dead

loss'" (M-TR-2. p. 360).^ One of the banlt's debtors, "having

had a 'streak o' luck,'" sends Sanford enough for a small

payment on Sanford*s own debt (M-TR-2, p. 366), Sanford

then guarantees, "'If you'll only give us a chance, we'll

clear this thing up!'" He believes, "'We'll win yet*"

^^Partridge in Dictionary of Slang fills the blank with hell. "A hell of a" means very much of a and "note," state of affairs,

^An unfortunate state for a boomer would be that of "dead loss," which moans lacking!; pronnccts; Partridge, Dicti onary of Slang.

90

(M-TR-2. p, 367). He does win. The copper mine makes a strike,

and Sanford can repay his creditors. A subsequent conversation

with his wife summarizes Sanford's gambling attitude in his

business deals.

"There's one thing I don*t like, Jim, and that's the way that money comes. You didn't—you didn't really earn it."

"Oh, don't v/orry yourself about that. That's tho way things go. It's just luck."

"Well, I can't see it just that way. It seems to rae just—like gambling. You win, but—but somebody else must lose,"

"Oh well, look a-here; if you go to lookin' too sharp into things like that, you'll find a good •eal of any business like gamblin* (M-TR-2. p, 373).

Garland creates two boomers who are reformed through

women, Sanford and Jim Rivers, Both of these characters also

confront representatives of the cowboy typo. McPhail

definitely fits into the latter category. "His great arms"

suggest "irresistible strength and resolution"; he awes the

mob "v/ith the look in his eyes"; he appears as "eui angel of

God to the wife and mother" (M-TR-2. p. 359). This cowboy and

peddler disagree early in the story. Sanford challenges

McPhail's conviction that Bluff Siding will not boom. This

is a fictional representation of commercialism defying the

wholesomeness of frontier life. Sanford convinces McPhail,

who becomes his first customer. When Sanford repays McPhail

at the end of the story, Sanford's tone is "actually patron­

izing" (M-TR-2. p. 374).

Although he outv/its cowboys and simple folk, Sanford

91

suffers at the hands of a woman. Nellie Sanford bests her

husband. "A farmer's daughter, the bank clerk had seemed to

her the equal of any gentleman in the world" during their

courtship days (M::TR-2, p, 346). When she sees him defeated,

"she loved and pitied him, but she no longer looked up to him"

(M-TR-2, p. 365). Before their financial trouble, Nellie

discourages Sanford's gambling urge when his eye roves to the

quick booms of other towns. "'Build up your business here, Jim,

and don't worry about what good chances there are somewhere

else*" (M-TR-2, p, 334). She also denies him his peddler's

instinct to travel to better territory when he fails in Bluff

Siding. Instead, she puts her own plan into action. Leaving

her husband at home with their children, Nellie opens a shop;

she has always been discontented with housework.

Nellie wins the town's respect and the special admiration

of visiting drummers, "keen-eyed young fellows" who "spread

her fame all up and down the road." V/ith them she achieves

a "reserved camaraderie," similar to her new relationship with

her husband after he clears his debt (M-TR-2, p. 370). Jim's

newly acquired money makes him feel "more worthy of her" and

"almost as gay as a lover" (M-TR-2, p. 372). He admires her

"smileless conversation with a drummer"; but, at the same

time, he is puzzled by "the peculiar effect his wife's manner

had upon him" (M-TR-2. p. 373). Nellie knows that she is now

"his equal—in some ways his superior" (M-TR-2, pp. 375-376).

92

Her final gesture illustrates their new relationship. "'Lot's

begin again, as equal partners.' She held out her hand, as

one man to another." Sanford, clever boomer and successful

gambler, "wonderingly" takes her hand (M-TR-2. pp. 376, 377).

He is a changed man.

A more detailed and realistic characterization is that of

Jim Rivers in The Moccasin Ranch, a short novel published

serially in 1394. Like a peddler. Rivers stays on the move.

A Boomtown lawyer and land agent, he also operates an isolated

grocery store and post office with his partner, Rob Bailey.

Rivers moves to better prospects after he decides, '"There's

no big thing here for anybody—nothing for the land-agent

26 now.'" He says, '"I reckon I've squeezed all the juice out

of this lemon*" (MR, p. 95).

This ambitious peddler particularly appeals to lonely

women settlers, a characteristic important to the plot of the

novel. Ho is "'a great favorite with tho women, always

27

gassin'—*" (MR, p. 7). As mail carrier, he fares "like a

pasha attended by the flower of his harem," v/hich is composed

of the young women who transform mail day into a social at the

grocery store (MR, p, 36). As he arrives vrith the mail, he

26 The Moccasin Ranch (New York, 1909), P. 98—subsequent

r e f e rences , MR. 27

'^Partridge def ines the verb "gas" as ta lk i d l y ; Dictionary of Slang.

93

jokes, "'There's a letter for every girl in tho crowd, I know,

for I wrote 'em'" (MR, p, 51). Rivers accepts this attention

"with shameless egotism" (MR, p. 36), Bailey, a shy man who

leaves social responsibilities to Rivers, says, "'Rivers would

shine up to a seventy-year-oid Sioux squaw if she was the only

woman handy, but ho don't mean anything by it—it's just his

way. He's one o' the best-hearted feelers that ever lived.>

Others took a less favorable view of the land-agent, and refused

to trust him" (MR, p, 14).

A settler who puts too much trust in Rivers is Willard

Burke, who loses his wife, Blanche, to Rivers. At their first

meeting when Bailey and Rivers escort the Burkes to their claim,

Blanche demurs about riding alone with Rivers and about sleeping

behind a calico curtain in the same room with the men; her

husband argues against her good sense. Blanche often cooks

for newly arrived settlers when they rest at tho store; and

Rivers "boldly" jests to Burke, '"I'm going to carry your cook

av/ay*" while "Burke* s simple, good face glowed with enjoyment

of the fun" (MR, p, 27). Eventually, Rivers can count Burke

"*out of the running now*" for Blanche (MR, p. 95).

The New Woman, the climate, and "the sturdy plainsman"

Bailey overcome the pettiness in Rivers' character (MR, p.

134). Neither Rivers* "flattery" nor his "dimples" impresses

Estello Clayton, a strong, independent homesteader, the

embodiment of the New Woman, She accepts Rivers* company

94

but sets "well-defined bounds to her friendship" (MR, p. 38).

Rivers tries to convince her that "'It doesn't matter much what

you do out here'"; but she replies, "'Oh, yes it does. Some

things are wrong anywhere; but there are other things which

people think are wrong that are only unusual'" (MR, p. 39).

The "unusual" in her conduct includes her fending for herself

on tho frontier. She withstands Rivers' wiles just as cheer­

fully as she weathers the summer storm which sends Blanche into

hysteria. Blanche does not represent the New Woman; however,

she faces a situation which illustrates the helplessness of

most women in Garland's milieu. Blanche has never experienced

"anything like this swift and smiling" attention paid her by

Rivers (MR, p, 18). Pregnant and lonely, she agrees to leave

with Rivers, who is humane enough to recognize her plight and

who certainly does not find it "pleasant to think of her grow­

ing sad" (MR, p. 41).

Rivers, the land peddler who does not "'lose his bearings'"

on the plain in the summer, falters in a blizzard and seeks

shelter from the wrath of nature, which acts as an avenging

deity in this work (MR, p, 7). From the first of the novel.

Rivers responds sensitively to nature, a characteristic

unusual in Garland's peddlers. When Estelle and her sister

admire the awe-inspiring Dakota sky, "Rivers, awkward and

constrained, respected their emotion" (MR, p, 40). He chows

Blanche a sunrise, "causing her to see the wonder and tho

95

beauty of this now world" (MR, p, 17), in protecting the

store from the summer storm, he v/illingly does "battle,

absorbing and exalting" (MR, p. 53).

Ready to move to better prospects. Rivers admits, "'This

climate is a little boisterous for me"' (MR, p, 95). But he

is "defiant of the cold" into which he carries Blanche,

defiant tov/ard the approaching storm and toward accepted moral

standards (MR, p, 92). The storm isolates Bailey, Rivers, and

Blanche in the store for three days, during which Rivers

experiences a symbolic resurrection of human dignity. Nature

serves "to cut off the little cabin from the rest of the world

and to dv/arf all human action like tho sea. It made social

conventions of no value, and narrowed the questions of

morality to the relationship of these three human souls" (MR,

p. 129), Upon Rivers the storm heaps the full "burden of his

guilt" (MR, p. 126), Realizing that his unborn child might

prematurely "enter a world of storm," he puts "his merry, care­

less young manhood behind him." With his new "sense of duty,"

he vows to Blanche, '"May God strike me dead if I don't make

you happy!'" (MR, p. 127)

Bailey also helps to convict Rivers. Although Bailey

remains Rivers' "chum" (MR, p. 108), he has suspected from

tho beginning of the settlement that Rivers has been "too well

attended" by community females (MR, p. 36). He has "secretly

resented Rivers' attention" to Estelle (MR, p. 37). Wlien he

96 V

surprises Rivers and Blanche at the store, Bailey "can't

exactly justify this trade" (MR, p, I32), His righteous

confrontation of Rivers involves the peddler in devil images.

Rivers rages Satanically, "the spirit of blasphemy burning in

his eyes" for "'the accursed country'" (MR, p. 123). He

faces Bailey with drawn gun and "hell" gleaming in his eyes.

"Like a tiger intercepted in his leap upon his prey," Rivers

is "savage." Bailey, quiet, resolute, but "equally forceful,"

challenges his friend to shoot him, '"if you want to go to

hell'" (MR, p, 105). Rivers turns away, "cursing his luck"

(MR, p. 106). But after the storm. Rivers says, "brokenly,"

"'Rob, old man, you've done me good—you always have done me

good"' (MR, p. 134).

Bailey, the frontiersman, represents Garland's distrust

of the opportunistic nature of the peddler, whom Garland often

characterizes as one of the demoralizing agents of civili­

zation. Rivers plans to run away v/ith another man's wife,

while Bailey worries about her dishonor. Rivers cheerfully

deserts the community which he has boomed for his own prosper­

ity, while Bailey continues to farm his claim and to operate

hi;: ho. pitable store, Bailey and the storm only temporarily

. lay Rivei-s. Even though the peddler awakens to his guilt and

rr ::>onsibility, ho rides away with both the woman and his

fi.ioi.cial profit. This realistic conclusion contributes to

the .artistry of the novel.

97

Among the group of boomers, Jim Rivers emerges as the most

fully realized character. Judge Balser and, to a great extent,

Major Mullins appear as one-sided villains in stage melodrama.

In fact. Garland first wrote Jason Edwards in dramatic form;

it appeared in I89O as Under the V/heel. Jim Butler, a perfect

foil for the protagonist in "IJndor the Lion's Paw," also

reveals only an evil nature. James Sanford, a more fully

rounded character, figures in a romantic comedy which lacks

the stature of some of Garland's work.

Rivers shares several qualities with Will Hannan, traveling

man, and Howard McLane, strolling player, other successfully

characterized peddlers. Garland's milieu completely involves

all three of these characters. Each profits from his ambitious

nature. Like Hannan and McLane, Rivers re-evaluates his

personal worth in comparison to tho wonders of the universe.

Few of Garland's peddlers change their natures for any reason;

but each of these peddlers experiences guilt about his own

oppression of a weaker person, and this guilt motivates his

action in the story. Rivers' participation in the destruction

of the frontier distinguishes him from Hannan and McLane and

points toward Garland's increased preoccupation with this

subject. Finally, all three characters appear in Garland's

earlier work and in his most successful literary form, that

of the short novel.

CHAPTER V

A SURRENDER TO ROMANTICISM

Before he yields ground to more romantic characters in

Rocky Mountain settings, the peddler figure earns a share of

the critical praise afforded Garland's earlier and more

realistic work. W.D. Howolls was among the first of many

critics to "own we enjoyed the level footing more and got our

breath better in the lower altitude" of the plains and

prairies in Garland's early work. In an introduction to the

1899 edition of Main-Travelled Roads, this gentle and percep­

tive friend wrote.

These stories are full of tho bitter and burning dust, the foul and trampled slush, of the common avenues of life, the life of the men who hopelessly and cheerlessly make the wealth that enriches the alien and the idler, and impoverishes the producer (M-TR-2. p, 4),

The peddler figure effectively steps into this "alien" group.

As a folk type the peddler enhances tho local color effect

of Garland* s Midwest fiction. Pizer says that such "common"

situations as "the clever salesman and the gullible old man"

in "Uncle Ethan Ripley" provide "artistic renderings of the

anecdotal store of American country people." Pizer believes

that stories such as "The Creamery Man" are "expert and convinc­

ing and convey an excellent sense of country people's values

^"Preface," They o^ the High Trails (New York, 1916), p. xi,

98

99

and ways of life." Ima H, Herron places "small tov/n drummers"

among Garland's most "especially true to life" characters,^

Carl Van Doren interprets the theme of those stories as

illustrating that "the pressure of life is simply too heavy

to be borne except by the ruthless or the crafty,"^ adjectives

descriptive of the peddler typo.

As a representative of Garland's milieu, tho peddler empha­

sizes conditions peculiar to the American scene—a dream of

self-made success, a gambler's optimism, a dual attitude

toward nature as both indifferent and vengeful, an involvement

in social problems, and an awareness of the disappearance of

the frontier.

Howells sees the American quality of eunbitioa particularly

well portrayed in Howard McLane's success story, which "most

pitilessly of all accuses our vaunted conditions, wherein

every man has the chance to rise above his brother" (M-TR-2,

p, 5). Herron says that "the gambling spirit of the frontiers­

man," an attitude both shared suid preyed upon by Garland's

5 peddlers, is "revitalized" in these middle border stories.'

According to Bledsoe, Garland proves that nature's "arbitrary

^Early Work, pp. 76, 160.

^The Small Town in American Literature (Durham, N.C., 1939), p. 225.

^"Contemporary American Novelists: XI, Hamlin Garland," The Nation, CXIII (November 23, 1921), 596.

^Small Town, p, 26.

100

cataclysms" often benefit villains such as Jim Butler and Sid

Balser.

The social problems which concerned Garland before 1897

also involve his peddlers, B.O, Flower, the crusading editor

of The Arena, admired Main-Travelled Roads and Jason Edwards

because they presented "powerful and moving pictures of the

grim and often tragic conditions of farm life in America in

the nineties." Boomers such as Butler and Balser provide

perfect foils for this presentation. A Member of the Third

House with its actor-politician, Tom Brennan, was, to Flower,

"a virile and absorbingly interesting story dealing with the

corruption of a State Legislature by a public-service corpo­

ration and was the pioneer of a host of similar novels."

The struggle for women's rights is the only social issue

which overpowers Garland* s peddlers. Originally, Garland

intended to end A Little Norsk with Flask*s divorcing the

traveling salesman, Kendall, a radical idea at that time.

Gilder, a more conservative editor than Flower, suggested

that Kendall bo disposed of by a fatal accident. Garland

also thrusts Jim Rivers into what Pizer describes as "an

artificial, though forceful, crisis" in The Moccasin Ranch

"introduction," Main-Travelled Roads, p. xxv.

7 Progressive Men, V/omen and Movements of tjie Past

Twenty-Five Years (Boston. 1914), PP. 153, 154.

101

in order to dramatize a woman* s rights theme.

As embodiments of some aspects of civilization. Garland's

peddlers often contribute to the disappearance of the frontier.

Van Doren says that Garland's early stories study the progress

of the frontier "in the lives of its victims," including "the

tenant caught in a trap by his landlord" and "the brother

neglected until his courage has died."^ In these fictional

situations Herron recognizes a skillful interpretation of "the

old struggle between provincial and cosmopolite," Zona Gale

points out that Garland himself was "tho provincial who goes

into the world and makes it his own,"

In Garland's time young men who previously might have

followed the peddler route flocked instead to the cities in

order to satisfy their ambition and thirst for adventure.

Garland saw thousands of young men drav/n \}y "tho centralizing

force of Manhattan" even as ho had been lured to Boston and

Chicago (Comp,, p. 188). But Garland preferred to trace

his characters in the lesser migration, that to the West.

He turned to the victories of brave rangers and Indian agents

(variations of the frontiersman type) and of self-reliant and

moral women, romantic characters who triumph over the evils

^Early Work, pp. 102, 153-154. "Ha.ilin Garland," p, 596.

^^Small Town, p. 223.

^^"National Epics of the Border," Th£ Y^le Review, XI (July ZZ, 1922), 852.

102

of civilization, which became increasingly distasteful to

Garland.

The peddler type infrequently appears in Garland's

post-1897 fiction. Traveling salesiaen, men on the move, color

few of Garland's Rocky Mountain scenes with their wit and

charm. "Passing drummers for shoes and sugar" sometimes cross

12

tho paths of more important characters. Bertha Haney, the

girl hotel clerk in a Colorado mining town, stands "behind the

counter defending herself against the lovemaking of the bummers

and drummers among her patrons" (MM, p. 185). In Hesper the

heroine's fellow diners in a westbound train are "salesmen

going over to Philadelphia or out to Chicago, and they all ate

long and with every evidence of enjoyment."

In "The Leaser" a successful miner, "a rough and ready

American," amuses himself by assuming a drummer's disguise

when he returns to his former home in Michigan, ^ As he relates

the story, he rents '"a red-cushioned automobile'" and intro­

duces himself. "'"I see you have no lightnin'-rods?" I

says. "In this day and age of the world you can't afford to

go v/ithout lightnin'-rods."'" His old friend is not duped but

continues '"a-joshin'.'" "'"I thought you was a cream-separator

^^Money Magic (New York, 1907), p. 2—subsequent references,

^^(New York, 1903), P. 8.

^^They of the High Trails, p. 237.

103 •r

man. Are lightnin' rods comin' into style again?'"" The

miner answers,

"'These kind I sell,'" I says, 'are the kind that catch and store the electricity in a tank do .ra cellar. Durin' a thunder-storm you can save up enough to rock the baby and run the churn for a week or tv/o.'"

'"I want 'o know,' he says. 'Well, we 'ain't got a baby and no churn—but mebbe it would run a cream-sepa­rator?'"

"'Sure it would.'"'-^

Jim Matteson, another rough Colorado miner in Her Moun­

tain Lover, carries an American distrust of peddlers to

London, whore Matteson himself is peddling shares in a mine.

In London Jim recognizes "American salesmen" among "every

other conceivable sort of adventurer from the Old World and

the New." A newspaperman friend consoles Jim for his lack of

success. "'You see, the British public has been worked by so

many sharp sports, they won't listen to a man with a good

thing.'" One of his prospective customers, an anglicized

American from Cohoes, New York, v/orks in London as "tho agent

for a Chicago woolen firm," This "brisk little man" is so

"offensively stiff" to Jim that the miner reacts violently.

The Yankee traveling salesman pales when Jim says, "'I certain

sure didn't come over here to have the lines drawn on rae by

17 a mongril dude from Cohoes.»"

^^Ibid., pp. 246-247. ^^(New York, 1901), pp. 114, II8,

'^Ibid,, pp. 76-77.

104

In the autobiographical The Trail of tlie Gold-Seekers.

Garland depicts two traveling salesmen. The appearances of

each of these men reflect the historical fate of the peddler

in America. Wright says that the immigrating Gorman Jew

helped to displace the typical Yankee peddler,^^ Tho first

salesman whom Garland meets on the trail to the Klondike in

1897 is a harelipped German. Most of Garland's other peddlers,

in both fiction and autobiography, are handsome Americans,

usually of the Anglo-Saxon stock, which the author admired.

This German does not share the respectability of most of

Garland's other men on the move. Garland describes him in

this way: "Herr Dippy was not a Washington Irving sort of

Dutchman; ho conformed rather to tho modern New York trades­

man. He was small, candid, and smooth, very smooth of

speech." With his "most seductive gentleness of voice,"

he sells Garland and his cov/boy partner. Burton, what tho two

experienced trailers believe is a "'nice little pony, round

and fat and gentle.'" With a peddler's alacrity "Mr, Dippy

took the twenty-five dollars eagerly and vanished into

1Q

obscurity," leaving his customers "a new type of mean pony."

The second peddler whom Garland meets on the Klondike

trail exemplifies Garland's admiration of native American

18 Hawkers and Walkers, p. 91,

^ (Nev/ York, 1899), pp. 37-38, 41-

105

persistence, the motive which drove aging peddlers to new

fields of opportunity. Although starving, the solitary

traveler is "exceedingly chipper and jocular" and brings

news of "the outfits behind us." He trades entertainment

for a meal. "As he warmed up on coffee and beans, he

became very amusing." In spite of his rags, he is "neat,"

and his red-bearded face reveals "a certain delicacy of

physique." Along the trail he mends his clothes expertly and

manages to kill small game. A former salesman ('"peddlin*

then in eastern Oregon'"), he optimistically gambles on a new

start in the gold country. "'Isn't it lucky I caught you just

here?"* he asks Garland, who privately believes that "no

perfectly reasonable man v/ould ever tal o such frightful

chances as this absurd little ass set his face to without

fear." With "his cheery smile and unshrinking cheek," the

onetime peddler plans "'to rustle enough grub out of all these

outfits to last me,*" Garland can "not withstand such prattle"

and helps the loner. By necessity this clever peddler has

turned to new opportunity and has become "a strongly accen-

20 tuated type of the goldseeker—insanely persistent,"

Unfortunately, these two new variations of the peddler

type, the European immigrant and the American salesman willing

to change as tho country changes, rate few key places in

Garland's fiction. At least one fictional example of the

^^Ibid., pp. 164-166.

106

persistent peddler grov.-n old is "'just plain Sam W. Smith,'"

who narrates the short story, "A Tale of a Tenderfoot."

Smith, "the big drummer who dominated the smoking compartment

of the Pullman," nostalgically dwells upon his adventurous

youth.

"There* s only one country more wonderful than the future, and that*s the past. Now, you think I'm a sober, common­place citizen of Kansas, and I am, but I have a past. I wish I was as sure of my future as I am of my past."

Smith recalls driving a mail route in Oklahoma. Frightened

out of his senses by cold, wolves, and Indians, he wanders

afoot for five days. "'But I hung on to my mail sack!'"^'

Several strolling players win parts in Garland's later

work. Pew play strong roles, and none has the driving

ambition of Tom Brennan or tho tragic sense of guilt of

Howard McLane, earlier characters in this category.

Garland's only important addition to his cast of

strolling players is an actor, Charles Haney. Briefly

appearing in Money Magic. Haney exhibits traits typical of

the traveling actor. "Not only an actor out of an

engagement, but flat broke," ho arrives at the Colorado home

^^The Saturday Evening Post, CLXXIV (August 24, 1901), 8-9.

22 Psychic mediums figure in some of the fiction of this

period. Wright lists spiritualists among historical varia­tions of the peddler type (Hawkers and V/alk or s, p, 187), but Garland usually characterizes them as dedicated and unselfish, hardly disposed to trade entertainment for worldly goods.

107

of his brother, the crippled gambler. Mart, with "the air of

a regular boarder" (^, p. 62). "On the strength of his name,"

he buys a new wardrobe on credit and although offstage,

"strutted and plumed himself like a turkey-cock," He pays for

his keep by reminiscing with his invalid brother, "his most

ingratiating role, and he played it * to the limit*" (MM, p.

63). Failing to charm his independent young sister-in-law,

he creeps away, "flabby and faltering," lacking the confi­

dence of Garland's stronger strolling players (MM, p. 72).

Garland maintains his distrust of the itinerant preacher.

Black Mose, the outlaw in The Eagle' s Heart, says of his

minister father, "'I wish he'd stop preaching and go to work 23

at something,'" -^ Anthony Clarke, the preacher who resigns

his pulpit to travel vrith a medium in The Tyranny of the

Dark, reflects both theatrical and devil imagery. His manner

is "as portentous as that of a tragedian," and he is a

"fanatic devil." But his "troubled, unresting soul" leads

him to suicide,^ The evangels in Garland's first stories

always found moro gainful solutions to their problems.

Garland's romances are not innocent of boomers, who crowd

towns in mountain settings. One example is the sheriff, an

incidental character in "The Forest Ranger." When he surveys

a glorious morning panoreima, he comments to tourists, "like

^^(New York, 1900), p. 69.

^^(New York, 1905), PP. 27, 119, 245-

108

the good boomer that he was," "'Oh, we have plenty of mornings 25

like this.*" Focusing his social reform zeal upon cattle

barons and mining monopolists. Garland, through one of his

forest ranger heroes, admits that '"the townsite boomer at

least believes in progress.*"^^ Perhaps this is partial

justification for the misdeeds of those likeable boomers.

Major Mullins and James Sanford.

None of the peddlers in this period conforms entirely to

the folk image of the type, and not one is sufficiently

developed to show significant involvement in Garland*s

milieu. The peddler represents a certain aspect of milieu

which the author chose eventually to ignore in his fiction.

This unpleasant truth, so apparent in Garland' s early work,

is that simbitious men, capable of making their ov/n luck and

of turning even accidents of the physical universe to their

own advantage, very often achieve their goals and best more

wholesome characters in the process.

In portraying the peddler of American folk tradition,

sending him down colorful middle border roads, and blocking

his path with obstacles typical of the era. Garland came

very close to selling his ovm brand of realism to his literary

customers.

^^They of tjhe High Trails, p. 336.

Cavanagh, Forest Ranger (New York, 1910), p. 47

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