Benjamin Banneker

“ But at last the work was completed, and raised the admiration for Banneker to quite a high pitch among his few neighbors.
The making of the clock proved to be of great importance in assisting the young man to fulfil his destiny. It attracted the attention of the Ellicott family, who had just begun a settlement at Ellicott's Mills. They were well-educated men, with much mechanical knowledge, and some of them Quakers. They sought out the ingenious negro, and he could not have fallen into better hands. It was in 1787 that Benjamin received from Mr. ”

“ Sir,
--I thank you sincerely for your letter of the 19th instant and for the Almanac it contained. No body wishes more than I do to see such proofs as you exhibit, that nature has given to our black brethren, talents equal to those of the other colors of men, and that the appearance of a want of them is owing merely to the degraded condition of their existence, both in Africa & America. ”

“ I could stand anything except the charge that I’ve lost my naturalness and become conventional.”
“You’re like the man who could resist anything except temptation, my dear: you can stand anything except criticism,” returned Banneker with a smile so friendly that there was no sting in the words. “You’ve never had enough of that. You’re the spoiled pet of the critics.”
“Not of this new one of yours. He’s worse than Gurney. Who is he and where does he come from?”
“An inconsiderable hamlet known as Chicago. Name, Allan Haslett. ”

“ Banneker must have admitted that to himself. Too much a man of the world in many strata not to be adjustable to any of them, nevertheless he felt more attuned to and at one with his environment amidst the suave formalism of Sherry’s than in the more uneasy and precarious elegancies of an East-Side Tammany Association promenade and ball.
Some of the youngsters of The Ledger said that he was climbing.
He was not climbing. To climb one must be conscious of an ascent to be surmounted. Banneker was serenely unaware of anything above him, in that sense. ”

“ What?”
“We’re a pariah caste, Edmonds, we reporters. People look down on us.”
“Oh, that be damned! You can’t afford to be swayed by the ignorance or snobbery of outsiders. Play the game straight, and let the rest go.”
“But we are, aren’t we?” persisted Banneker.
“What! Pariahs?” The look which the old-timer bent upon the rising star of the business had in it a quality of brooding and affection. “Son, you’re too young to have come properly to that frame of mind. That comes later. With the dregs of disillusion after the sparkle has died out.” ”

“ Banneker sat silent so long that his host began: “Perhaps I shouldn’t have asked that—”
“I’m going to tell you exactly what occurred,” said Banneker quietly, and outlined the episode of the editorial, suppressing, however, Marrineal’s covert threat as to Io and The Searchlight. “And I haven’t resigned. So you see what manner of man I am,” he concluded defiantly.
“You mean a coward? I don’t think it.”
“I wish I were sure!” burst out Banneker.
“Ah? That’s hard, when the soul doesn’t know itself. Is it money?” The crisp, clear voice had softened to a great kindliness. ”

“ Twice the telegraph instrument broke in on him; but these matters claimed only the outer shell; the soul of the man was concerned with committing its impressions of other souls to the secrecy of white paper, destined to personal and inviolable archives.
Some one entered the waiting-room. There was a tap on his door. Raising his head impatiently, Banneker saw, through the window already dimming with the gathering dusk, a large roan horse, droopy and disconsolate in the downpour. He jumped up and threw open his retreat. A tall woman, slipping out of a streaming poncho, entered. ”

“ The diagnosis of the satyr-like mathematician had been accurate. That same method whereby the tyrants of Rome had sought to beguile the restless and unthinking multitude, Banneker adopted to capture and lead the sensation-avid metropolitan public through his newspaper. As a facture, a creation made to the mind of the creator, The Patriot was Banneker’s own. True, Marrineal reserved full control. ”

“ Although Banneker had by this time begun to ingratiate himself into the favor of the very best element in his community solely through his demonstration of mental superiority, he did not permit his unusual popularity and his love of study to render him any less helpful to his father in the cultivation of the farm. He proved himself to be just as industrious in farming as he was diligent in studying. ”

“ To have a public that will follow you even part way—”
“Follow me? Bless you; they don’t know me except as a lot of print that they occasionally read. I’m as anonymous as an editorial writer. And that’s the most anonymous thing there is.”
“That doesn’t suit me at all,” declared Banneker. “If I have got anything in me—and I think I have—I don’t want it to make a noise like a part of a big machine. I’d rather make a small noise of my own.”
“Buy a paper, then. Or write fluffy criticisms about art or theaters. Or get into the magazine field. You can write; O Lord! yes, you can write. ”

“ It isn’t as sporty as all that.” He rose to shake hands with a short, angular young man, dressed to a perfection as accurate as Banneker’s own, and excelling him in one distinctive touch, a coat-flower of gold-and-white such as no other in New York could wear, since only in one conservatory was that special orchid successfully grown. By it Banneker recognized Poultney Masters, Jr., the son and heir of the tyrannous old financier who had for years bullied and browbeaten New York to his wayward old heart’s content. ”

“ Akely sighed again, gave Banneker a glance which proclaimed an utter lack of interest, and plunged his shears into the editorial vitals of the Springfield Republican. Tommy Burt led the surprised Banneker away.
“Dried up, played out, and given a measly thirty-five a week as hopper-feeder for the editorial room,” he announced. “And he was the star man of his time.”
“That’s pretty rotten treatment for him, then,” said Banneker indignantly.
“Not a bit of it. He isn’t worth what he gets. Most offices would have chucked him out on the street.” ”

“ For another, that you’ve got the broadest door to society open to you, if Junior follows up his hint about the yacht.”
“I haven’t the time,” returned Banneker with honest indifference. He sipped his coffee thoughtfully. “Cressey,” he said, “if I had a newspaper of my own in New York, do you know what I’d do with it?”
“Make money.”
“I hope so. But whether I did or not, I’d set out to puncture that bubble of the Masters power and supremacy. It isn’t right for any man to have that power just through money. It isn’t American.” ”

“ The smoke of his minute pipe went up, tenuous and graceful, incense devoted to the unseen God behind the strangely patterned curtain of print; to Baal who was perhaps even then grinning down upon his unsuspecting worshipers.
But Banneker, moving purposefully amidst that vast phantasmagoria of pulsing print, wherein all was magnified, distorted, perverted to the claims of a gross and rabid public appetite, dreamed his pure, untainted dream; the conception of his newspaper as a voice potent enough to reach and move all; dominant enough to impose its underlying ideal ”

“ If you want confirmation, why not write Miss Van Arsdale yourself?”
“No; I hardly think I’ll do that.... Now as to that gray you rode, I’ve got a chance to trade him.” And the talk became all of horse, which is exclusive and rejective of other interests, even of women.
Going back in the train, Banneker reviewed the crowding events of the day. At the bottom of his thoughts lay a residue, acid and stinging, the shame of the errand which had taken him to The Retreat, and which the memory of what was no less than a personal triumph could not submerge. ”

“ We’ll make it a fifty thousand guarantee, if you say so. And, as for your editorial policy—well, I’ll take a chance on your seeing reason. After all, there’s plenty of earth to prance on without always treading on people’s toes.... Well, don’t decide now. Take your time to it.” He rose and went to the door. There he turned, flapping the loose imitations in his hands.
“Banneker,” he said chuckling, “aren’t they really dam’ good!” and vanished.
In that moment Banneker felt a surge of the first real liking he had ever known for his employer. Marrineal had been purely human for a flash. ”

“ She was in two minds about calling off the projected walk. As he set aside his half-emptied cup of coffee—not even tactful enough to finish it out of compliment to her brew—Banneker said:
“Up beyond the turn yonder the right-of-way crosses an arroyo. I want to take a look at it. We can cut through the woods to get there. Are you good for three miles?”
“For a hundred!” cried Io. ”

“ Justifiable, too, I should say, as politics go. I doubt whether Laird would do it of his own motion; he plays a higher game than that. But it isn’t strictly within his province either to effect or prevent. Anyhow, it’s going to be done.”
“If he wants to fight us—” began Banneker with gloom in his eyes.
“He doesn’t want to fight anybody,” cut in the expert. “He wants to be mayor and run the city for what seems to him the city’s best good. If he thought Marrineal would carry on his work as mayor, I doubt if he’d oppose him. But our shrewd old friend, Enderby, isn’t of that mind. ”

“ But there is about a man, singly and selflessly intent upon his job in hand, an inner potency impossible to obstruct. Banneker recognized it; inwardly admitted, too, the unsoundness of the swift, protective rage rising within, himself.
“I don’t propose to make trouble for you or to have trouble with you,” said the reporter evenly. “But I’m going to Miss Van Arsdale’s unless I’m shot on the way there.”
“That’s all right,” returned the agent, mastering himself. “I beg your pardon for threatening you. But you’ll have to find your own way. Will you put up here for the night, again?” ”

“ Once embarked upon this primrose path, which is always an imperceptible but easy down-slope, Io went farther than she had intended. “Why not?” she challenged.
“Brass buttons,” said Banneker concisely.
She flushed angrily. “You can be rather a beast, can’t you!”
“A beast? Just for reminding you that the Atkinson and St. Philip station-agent at Manzanita does not include in his official duties that of presuming to fall in love with chance passengers who happen to be more or less in his care.” ”

“ Banneker was annoyed at himself for flushing. “They disseminate news. We’ve got to have news, to carry on the world. Only a small fraction of it is—well, malodorous. Would you destroy the whole system because of one flaw? You’re not fair.”
“Fair? Of course I’m not. How should I be? No; I would not destroy the system. Merely deodorize it a bit. But I suppose the public likes the odors. It sniffs ’em up like—like Cyrano in the bake-shop. A marvelous institution, the public which you and I serve. Have you ever thought of magazine work, Mr. Banneker?” ”

“ It’s an off day and we probably won’t have two full teams. Let me rig you out, and you try it.”
Banneker shook his head. “I’m here on business. I’m a reporter with a story to get.”
“All right; it’s up to a reporter to stick until he gets his news,” agreed the other. “You dismiss your taxi, and stay out here and dine, and I’ll run you back to town myself. And at nine o’clock I’ll answer your question and answer it straight.”
Banneker, gazing longingly at the bright turf of the field, accepted.
Polo is to The Retreat what golf is to the average country club. ”

“ Betty Raleigh, looking up from a seat where she sat talking to a squat and sensual-looking man, a dweller in the high places and cool serenities of advanced mathematics whom jocular-minded Nature had misdowered with the face of a satyr, interposed the suave candor of her voice. “I actually lick my lips over your editorials even where I least agree with them. But the rest of the paper—Oh, dear! It screeches.”
“Modern life is such a din that one has to screech to be heard above it,” said Banneker pleasantly. ”

“ Furthermore, through his Western associations he had an opportunity to pick up two half-broken polo ponies at bargain prices. He had practically decided to buy them. Their keep would be a serious item. He must have more money. How to get it? Harder work was the obvious answer. Labor had no terrors for Banneker. Mentally he was a hardened athlete, always in training. Being wise and self-protective, he did no writing on his day off. ”

“ There were sounds which suggested a row at the station-door, but the agent, called at that moment to the wire, could not investigate. The train came and went, and he saw nothing more of the ex-railroader from the West.
Although Mr. Horace Vanney smiled pleasantly enough when Banneker presented himself at the office to make his report, the nature of the smile suggested a background more uncertain.
“Well, what have you found, my boy?” the financier began.
“A good many things that ought to be changed,” answered Banneker bluntly.
“Quite probably. No institution is perfect.” ”

“ And because news always must and will stir hostility, the attitude of a public, any part of which may be its next innocent (or guilty) victim, is instinctively inimical. Another angle of the pariahdom of those who deal in day-to-day history, for Banneker to ponder.
Feeling a strong desire to get away from the troublous environment of print, Banneker was glad to avail himself of Densmore’s invitation to come to The Retreat on the following Monday and try his hand at polo again. This time he played much better, his mallet work in particular being more reliable. ”