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Upon the day following my release, as he had bid me.
I sought Big Kennedy. He was in his barroom, and the hour being mid-morning I was so far lucky as to find him quite alone. He was quick to see me, too, and seemed as full of a pleasant interest in me as though my simple looks were of themselves good news. He did most of the talking, for I sat backward and bashful, the more since I could feel his sharp eyes upon me, taking my measure. Never was I so looked over and so questioned, and not many minutes had come and gone before Big Kennedy knew as much of me and my belongings as did I myself. Mayhap more; for he weighed me in the scales of his experience with all the care of gold, considering meanwhile to what uses I should be put, and how far I might be expected to advance his ends.
One of his words I recall, for it gave me a glow of relief at the time; at that it was no true word. It was when he heard how slightly I had been taught of books.
Never mind, said he, books as often as not get between a partys legs and trip him up. Better know men than books. Theres my library. Here he pointed to a group about a beer table. I can learn more by studyin them than was ever found between the covers of a book, and make more out of it.
Big Kennedy told me I must go to work.
Youve got to work, dye see, said he, if its only to have an excuse for livin.
Then he asked me what I could do. On making nothing clear by my replies for I knew of nothing he descended to particulars.
What do you know of horses? Can you drive one?
My eye brightened; I might be trusted to handle a horse.
An Ill gamble you know your way about the East Side, said he confidently; Ill answer for that. Then getting up he started for the door, for no grass grew between decision and action with Big Kennedy. Come with me, he said.
We had made no mighty journey when we stopped before a grocery. It was a two-store front, and of a prosperous look, with a wealth of vegetables and fruits in crates, and baskets, and barrels, covering half the sidewalk. The proprietor was a rubicund German, who bustled forth at sight of my companion.
How is Mr. Kennedy? This with exuberance. It makes me prout that you pay me a wisit.
Yes? said the other dryly. Then, going directly to the point: Heres a boy Ive brought you, Nick. Let him drive one of your wagons. Give him six dollars a week.
But, Mr. Kennedy, replied the grocer dubiously, looking me over with the tail of his eye, I haf yet no wacancy. My wagons is all full.
Im goin to get him new duds, said Big Kennedy, if thats what youre thinkin about.
Still, the grocer, though not without some show of respectful alarm, insisted on a first position.
If he was so well dressed even as you, Mr. Kennedy, yet I haf no wacancy, said he.
Then make one, responded Big Kennedy coolly. Dismiss one of the boys you have, dye see? At least two who work for you dont belong in my ward. As the other continued doubtful Big Kennedy became sharp. Come, come, come! he cried in a manner peremptory rather than fierce; I cant wait all day. Dont you feed your horses in the street? Dont you obstruct the sidewalks with your stuff? Dont you sell liquor in your rear room without a license? Dont you violate a dozen ordinances? Dont the police stand it an pass you up? An yet you hold me here fiddlin and foolin away time!
Yes, yes, Mr. Kennedy, cried the grocer, who from the first had sought to stem the torrent of the others eloquence, I was only try in to think up wich horse I will let him drive alreatty. Thats honest! sure as my name is Nick Fogel!
Clothed in what was to me the splendors of a king, being indeed a full new suit bought with Big Kennedys money, I began rattling about the streets with a delivery wagon the very next day. As well as I could, I tried to tell my thanks for the clothes.
Thats all right, said Big Kennedy. I owe you that much for havin you chucked into a cell.
While Grocer Fogel might have been a trifle slow in hiring me, once I was engaged he proved amiable enough. I did my work well too, missing few of the customers and losing none of the baskets and sacks. Grocer Fogel was free with his praise and conceded my value. Still, since he instantly built a platform in the street on the strength of my being employed, and so violated a new and further ordinance upon which he for long had had an eye, I have sometimes thought that in forming his opinion of my worth he included this misdemeanor in his calculations. However, I worked with my worthy German four years; laying down the reins of that delivery wagon of my own will at the age of nineteen.
Nor was I without a profit in this trade of delivering potatoes and cabbages and kindred grocery forage. It broadened the frontiers of my acquaintance, and made known to me many of a solvent middle class, and of rather a higher respectability than I might otherwise have met. It served to clean up my manners, if nothing more, and before I was done, that acquaintance became with me an asset of politics.
While I drove wagon for Grocer Fogel, my work of the day was over with six oclock. I had nothing to do with the care of the horses; I threw the reins to a stable hand when at evening I went to the barn, and left for my home without pausing to see the animals out of the straps or their noses into the corn. Now, had I been formed with a genius for it, I might have put in a deal of time at study. But nothing could have been more distant from my taste or habit; neither then nor later did I engage myself in any traffic with books, and throughout my life never opened a half-dozen.
Still, considering those plans I had laid down for myself, and that future of politics to which my ambition began to consider, I cannot say I threw away my leisure. If my nose were not between the pages of a book, my hands were within a pair of boxing gloves, and I, engaged against this or that opponent, was leading or guarding, hitting or stopping, rushing or getting away, and fitting to an utmost hand and foot and eye and muscle for the task of beating a foeman black and blue should the accidents or duties of life place one before me.
And I prospered with my boxing. I think I owned much native stomach for the business, since in my sullen fashion I was as near the touch of true happiness when in the midst of a mill as ever I hope to stand. My heart, and with that word I mean courage, was of fighting sort. While I was exceedingly cautious, my caution was based on courage. Men of this stamp stay until the last and either conquer or fall. There be ones who have courage, but their construction is the other way about. Their courage is based on caution; such if hard bested run away. Should you seek the man who will stand to the work of battle to the dour end, pick him whose caution, coming first in the procession of his nature, is followed by his courage, rather than that one whose caution follows his courage to tap it on the shoulder, preach to it of peril, and counsel flight.
You are not to assume that I went about these boxing gymnastics because of any savageries or blood-hunger dominant in my breast, or was moved solely of that instinct by which the game-cock fights. I went to my fist-studies as the result of thought and calculation. In my slow way I had noted how those henchmen of the inner circle who surrounded Big Kennedy those who were near to him, and upon whom he most relied, were wholly valued by him for the two matters of force of fist and that fidelity which asks no question. Even a thicker intellect than mine would have seen that to succeed as I proposed, I must be the gladiator. Wherefore, I boxed and wrestled and perfected my muscles; also as corollary I avoided drink and tobacco as I would two poisons.