Poor White
CHAPTER I Hugh McVey was born in a little hole of a town stuck on a mud bank on the western shore of the Mississippi River in the State of Missouri. It was a miserable place in which to be born. With the exception of a narrow strip of black mud along the river, the land for ten miles back from the town--called in derision by river men "Mudcat Landing"--was almost entirely worthless and unproductive. The soil, yellow, shallow and stony, was tilled, in Hugh's time, by a race of long gaunt men who seemed as exhausted and no-account as the land on which they lived. They were chronically discouraged, and the merchants and artisans of the town were in the same state. The merchants, who ran their stores--poor tumble-down ramshackle affairs--on the credit system, could not get pay for the goods they handed out over their counters and the artisans, the shoemakers, carpenters and harnessmakers, could not get pay for the work they did. Only the town's two saloons prospered. The saloon keepers sold their wares for cash and, as the men of the town and the farmers who drove into town felt that without drink life was unbearable, cash always could be found for the purpose of getting drunk.
fortune. It was the annual income at four per cent on over seventy
thousand dollars, the monthly income on eight hundred and forty thousand
dollars, the weekly income on over three million. For seven days then he
could squander the revenue of a princely estate.
As a matter of fact his position was even more remarkable; he was as
wealthy--so far as his own capacity for pleasure went--as though the
possessor of thirty million. This because of his limitations; he was
barred from travel; barred from the purchase of future holdings; barred
from everything by this time restriction save what he could absorb within
seven days through his five senses. Being an intelligent man of decent
morals and no bad habits, he was also restrained from license and the
gross extravagance accompanying it. But within his own world, there was
not a desire which need remain unsatisfied.
Back again in his room he summoned his landlady.
"I am going away," he informed her briefly. "I sha'n't leave any address
and I 'm going to take with me only the few things I can pack into a
dress-suit case. I 'll give you the rest."
The woman--she had become rather fond of the quiet, gentle third story
front--looked up sympathetically.
"Have you had bad news?"
CHAPTER I Hugh McVey was born in a little hole of a town stuck on a mud bank on the western shore of the Mississippi River in the State of Missouri. It was a miserable place in which to be born. With the exception of a narrow strip of black mud along the river, the land for ten miles back from the town--called in derision by river men "Mudcat Landing"--was almost entirely worthless and unproductive. The soil, yellow, shallow and stony, was tilled, in Hugh's time, by a race of long gaunt men who seemed as exhausted and no-account as the land on which they lived. They were chronically discouraged, and the merchants and artisans of the town were in the same state. The merchants, who ran their stores--poor tumble-down ramshackle affairs--on the credit system, could not get pay for the goods they handed out over their counters and the artisans, the shoemakers, carpenters and harnessmakers, could not get pay for the work they did. Only the town's two saloons prospered. The saloon keepers sold their wares for cash and, as the men of the town and the farmers who drove into town felt that without drink life was unbearable, cash always could be found for the purpose of getting drunk.