THE SAGACIOUS WIG.

I.

A wig may be said to have two lives—the one with its own head, the other with its adopted head, or rather the head which adopts it; it has, therefore, a double chance for wisdom, and might be expected to profit accordingly. Generally speaking, this is the case, and wig and wisdom are almost synonymous.

Such wonderful tales had been told in a certain shop, by wigs that came back to be fixed a little, of the glory of their new abodes—wigs shorn from the very dregs of the people—from heads that had never been combed or petted or cared for—from heads houseless and hatless, that had been rained on and hailed on, and now in their second life dwelt in splendor unmitigated—that their discourses fairly curled up tighter every wig in the place. The shop had proved but a stepping-stone to blissful companionship with wits and statesmen; they reposed on the brows of sages and philosophers, shared the applauses of the multitude with popular orators, listened to the eloquence born of champagne and gaslight, and won the smiles and flirted with sweet ladies on Turkish divans and velvet fauteuils; all this and more, the wigs who came back had to relate. No wonder hopes were raised in each that went forth—hopes often delusive.

II.

If the few hairs which made a kind of rim round the head of Martin Tryterlittle had chosen to speak when he first clapped a wig on his bald crown, (bald though not yet old,) they could have told a long story, or rather a succession of many stories, of hope, expectation, and disappointment in the three great walks of life—money-making, love-making, and fame-making. Striving, ever striving, he hardly paused to look back at the profitless path he had trodden. The meeting accidentally with an old school-chum in fine broadcloth, or the ultra urgency of his landlady or some other disagreeable creditor, gave him occasionally more vivid views of things, and at such times he indulged in indignant and certainly very disrespectful language toward mankind in general and some individuals in particular; but generally his mood was patient endurance.

Success in life was an enigma. There was Job Lovemee, who began his career by ridiculously marrying a girl as poor as himself, and blessed since with six children, was getting as rich as a nabob; "while I," said Martin, "with no such drawbacks, am as poor as a church mouse."

It was a pleasant bright spring morning when Martin Tryterlittle suddenly resolved to turn over a new leaf in his book of life and mend its story.

"No wonder I cannot succeed," said he; "look at me!" So, as no one was by, he looked at himself, bit at a time, in the little cracked mirror which adorned his attic lodging-room. As the fortunes of Martin had been gradually sinking in the scale of social existence, he had physically been rising; that is, from occupying the first floor handsomely furnished, as the advertisement set forth, he had ascended to the attic, so nearly unfurnished that a bed, a table, a chair, and a broken mirror comprised its whole inventory.

"Look at me!" said Martin to himself, "threadbare and bald! No wonder I find nothing to do and no one to woo, and stay lagging behind in this march of mankind! I'll buy a wig to-day if I have to sell something to pay for it; for every body can see my head, but nobody—well, I'll button up my coat!"

It was no one's business how it was accomplished, as Martin truly said, but it was done; the wig was bought and paid for, and rested now on his table in happy anticipation of the triumphs of the ensuing day. "No one will know me," said he. "I hardly know myself! O my wig! how happy we shall be; to thee shall I owe friends and fortune!"

It may startle some old-fashioned people to hear me assert that there was a responsive chord in the wig which answered to all this; but those familiar with modern metaphysical speculations will easily credit it. The wig, be it remembered, was once part and parcel of a sentient being; nor have we any reason to suppose that baking and boiling, in the process of wig-making, could in any way touch the spark immortal and invisible which once pervaded it. It is true that counter arguments might be advanced, and so there is no end to controversy; but there is a shorter way—and having demonstrated how the thing might have been, we are satisfied to believe that so it was. Martin felt that his wig understood him. He was no longer alone in the world; companionship is something even with a wig, and he realized it as he laid his purchase carefully on the table and betook himself to his bed.

It was a long night; but day dawned at last, and, in the mean time, the whole future had been mapped out in the mind of Martin Tryterlittle. He rose early, made a careful toilette of such materials as were to be had, and sallied forth in thoughtful mood.

"Fame, wealth, love"—he conned them over in the order of valuation. "Fame (said he) I must first secure, and then I can command my own price in every thing else. Wealth will follow; and as for love, I need not go after that. Lord! there is no end to the love that comes tumbling in upon fame and money!"

C'est le premier pas qui coute—the problem was, how to be famous. There was a military and a civil career. There was invention in all the arts subservient to human needs. Could any wheels anywhere be made to go faster or smoother or with less smashing up? Well, as far as he saw, every thing was as good as it could be. Literature? Ah! that is a long track; besides, publishers are "lions in the way"—they cannot or will not always appreciate merit; fame seldom comes to the scribe till after he is beyond the reach of earthly pain or blame. "No," said Martin, "I must be famous living; what matters it after one is dead?"

"What is all this jabber about?" thought the wig; "surely my master has so many ways before him he cannot tell which to choose; but so jauntily I sit on his brow, he cannot fail of success whichever he takes."

This cogitating mood brought them step by step to a corner—one of those comers peculiar to great cities; where, while down one wide avenue the mighty human tide goes rushing and roaring, the narrow side street, like a little sluggish stream with scarce a perceptible ripple, joins it and empties its trifle into it. At this moment the usual tide in the great thoroughfare was swollen to a torrent; in plain words, at the corner Martin encountered a mighty mob. Hark! what a rabble shout! pell-mell—something had happened. Somebody had sinned, and very vindictive seemed the sufferers. Martin was caught in the current and twirled into their midst. Then was heard, "Oh! the man had a wig on!"—"wig!" "man!" "man!" "wig!" It went from mouth to mouth. Well, here was a man with a wig on in their midst; this must be he. The logic was conclusive; so Martin was seized and hurried along.

"What have I done?" cried he.

"Oh! yes, you know what you've done; and we know what you've done," shouted a dozen tongues. So, pinioned close, he was borne onward to the halls of justice, or injustice, as the case might be.

"Well, well!" thought the wig; "I little expected to get in such a fix with my gentleman, or I should have clinched his bald pate till he would have been glad to leave me for some other customer. It is disgraceful!"

"It's villainous! it's outrageous!" roared Martin.

"Shut up!" said a looker-on.

Now came a medley of questions and cross-questions, and ejaculations, and assertions, and confirmations, and contradictions, and, in short, the usual path of law and order was trodden over, till they settled down to unanimity on one point: the evil deed, whatever it was, (and very few seemed to know exactly what it was,) had been done by a man in a wig; but then it was a yellow-white, frowsy, sunburnt sort of a wig. Who could ever suspect that mass of dark, glossy curls of concealing a rogue? No one. So Martin was dismissed with the galling consciousness that for the great wrong done him there was no redress. A great wrong, too, he felt it; for what was he henceforth? Why, the very boys in the street would point to him as "the one wot was took up." He shrank from being seen; he had been too famous already.

He turned his steps homeward to collect his thoughts and rearrange his dress.

"This comes of a wig," said he; "a wig is deception, deception is rascality. A man guilty of one deception must not take it in dudgeon that he is suspected of another. I scorn fame! I go for money; and money shall make me famous. I began at the wrong end."

"Yes," (chimed in the wig,) "we'll be rich and loved; and the rest is all bosh."

It took Martin Tryterlittle a long time to put himself again in presentable order; one more such adventure, and he would be obliged to cease intercourse with that portion of creation who walk in sunlight, and join the human owls who, from choice or necessity, fly only by night. Their ways are not so widely different as a casual observer might suppose. Money is dear to both, and both are fond of taking short roads to it. Only in one thing they differ vastly—the day-worker sighs and seeks for notoriety, and often fails to obtain it; the night-prowlers have it thrust upon them, though they shun it. Martin had shared their hapless luck, and his ideas were changed; henceforth he scorned fame in all its phases, and exalted that other idol—money.

III.

A second time day-dawn called up Martin and his wig for new projects. It was a glorious morning. There was something exhilarating in that yellow flood of light which promised success. It was so cosmopolitan—that sunlight! It gave to all things such a gloss of delicate beauty. First, it just touched with gold the spires, and tallest trees and chimney-tops; then it slid down the house-side to peep in my lady's chamber; then it poured a glow all over the pavement, and made merry and warm all the little things, animate and inanimate, which but for that would have been dark and cold. Into this atmosphere of joyousness walked forth now Martin Tryterlittle to find something to do, some fellow-creature with a want unfilled.

It is surprising that any one ever begins to do any thing in this world, where every avenue to success is crowded, every necessity supplied, and every evil surrounded by a belt of antidotes; it takes immense penetration to discover where there is left any thing to be done.

"I must find a want," said he. And he turned to that dragon ever watchful of human interests—a newspaper. The wanted there were many—workers for metals, accountants for wealth, delvers for the riches of earth; but all these anticipated a certain previous training. Wanted, a teacher. "That's it," said Martin. "I think I am fitted for that." So he moved on to the field of action—the institute.

The building was easily found—a large brick pile surrounded by grass, or rather, what would have been grass had juvenile footsteps permitted. To point the searcher for knowledge to the proper entrance, its name was displayed there in conspicuous letters.

The master was not so accessible; and he sat a long time in the parlor with several other visitors, and listened to the tinkling of sundry little bells, and saw passing in the distance sundry little processions armed with books and slates, until they were all properly impressed with an idea of the extent of the establishment and the awful responsibility of conducting it. At length, slowly and with dignity, entered Mr. Pushem.

"A teacher, you want?" modestly inquired Martin.

"Yes, sir," was the laconic reply; and a little silence ensued.

"For what, sir?" again modestly asked Martin.

"Well, sir, for several things; in fact, sir, for most any thing."

So, as Martin announced himself au fait on all subjects, and the salary, without decided specification, was declared by the dignified principal to be unquestionably liberal, and the duties could not well be defined until he entered upon them; and as the only positive point was that he was to be niggard never in either time or labor, for the reason that time and labor were dust in the balance compared with the progress of immortal minds, the applicant was regularly enlisted under the banner of the Institute. He was to pay his board and lodging of course, said Mr. Pushem; and, of course, Martin did not expect to board and lodge without pay, though he had some remembrance of having done so occasionally; and so the matter was settled, and he returned home.

It took him small time to pack his bundle. His trunk had been detained a long time ago by a savage old dame for rent; and, knowing that the same gulf yawned ever for all succeeding trunks, he had never replaced it. So, packing his little bundle, I say, and leaving a kind message for his landlady with a fellow-lodger, to the purport that he would come back and pay her as soon as he could, he vanished from his old abode as effectually as if he had gone to another planet.

Loving parents tell us there is nothing so delightful as watching the daily progress of children in learning the alphabet of life. Not that villainous regiment called A B C, which merits execration as the first herald of toil and sorrow to the infantile heart, but that beautiful alphabet of rosy hues and rainbow colors, stamped on leaf, and flower, and fruit, and wave, and hill-side, and which, in conning over, the little eye learns to see, and the ear to hear; and the touch refines itself, and fragrance grows to be an idea; and the little gourmand makes its first essay in luxurious living on peaches and berries. Every little incident here is delightful. But not so pleasant is it to note the later wanderings of human beings in quest of that vague thing—a living. The traveller on the highway of life has grown weary now, and stumbles and plunges ankle-deep in all things disagreeable. He has heard the bird of promise sing so falsely, he knows how little the song is worth—he has grown sad while growing wise; and thus plodded on Martin Tryterlittle.

Some months had passed now since the roof of the institute first sheltered him; and the bread and bones and watery tea of the institute first nourished him; and the boys harassed him, and made fun of him; and twigged his wig, and put nettles in his bed in more than a metaphorical sense. His master had kept him like a toad under a harrow, (to use an inelegant but expressive phrase,) always doing, never done; the salary was yet unsettled, and the duties undefined, when one night the wig claimed a hearing.

"I am growing shabby," said the wig, "and you are no richer."

Not that these words were uttered in an audible tone, but the thought passed to Martin and was comprehended.

"You are growing shabby," sighed Martin, ruthfully gazing, "and I am no richer."

"O master mine!" quoth the wig, "do you see how you are walking on? You are growing poorer, not richer! What is to you all the glory of this concern, when you own not even a nail in the wall? You are just the stone they step on who mount up over you. What do you get for it? O master mine! you are an ass to stay!"

Martin was not inaccessible to reason; he was impressed daily more and more with the good sense of his old friend Horace.

"Et genus et virtus, nisi cum re, vilior algâ est."[168]

His rusty garments and diminished bundle told him that the wig spoke truth, and he prepared, not for a hegira, but for an official resignation. It took no long time for this, and his little hard bed in its windy corner was left empty the very next night. The boys felt that a great source of amusement had departed, and sincerely regretted his loss; and Mr. Pushem, after due astonishment at such blindness to advantages, disbursed to him the smallest possible sum as balance due, and advertised for another teacher.

O gold, gold! Slave of the dark and dirty mine! what need to record how often thou didst beckon on luckless Martin Tryterlittle, only to flit from him further than ever? What matters how he slept in back offices and front basements, dreaming of mines somewhere at the antipodes, of which he was to have such a glittering slice—or of lovely landscapes away off in the vast wilderness of which he would one day be landed proprietor?—that is, as soon as he could persuade certain people into certain projects which seemed in theory mighty attractive, but proved in practice to have no attractions whatever—suffice to say that at last, quite desponding, he invested most part of his few remaining coin in the prepayment of an attic, and seated himself sadly at its window.

"I shall never be rich," quoth he; "fame and fortune!—well, let them go." His heart threw a sigh to the other one of the trio, and the wig took it up. "I was born for love," said the wig; "the first sweet words I remember came from the rosy lips of our pretty shop-girl, What a love of a wig! I have never yet had a fair chance in life. What care those bankers and old money-scrapers for good looks? They are all gray and bald and wrinkled before their time. Put me on my own field, master, and SEE what I can do!"

Perhaps this prompted Martin to lean further out of his window, and thus give his wig the full benefit of sunlight and the chance of making acquaintances; at least he did so; and doing so, he glanced across the street to a window nearly as high as his own, and saw there—what? Why, two bright eyes looking intently at him! He drew back; for Martin was diffident with the fair sex, and being, besides, innately a gentleman, it did not occur to him to embarrass the damsel with a rude stare. So he retreated; and the bright eyes also retreated and what was worse than all, a little, plump, white hand came out and closed the shutters.

Nothing more was seen all day; but he had ample occupation in conjecturing who it could be. No toil-worn seamstress ever had such a laughing glance and such a plump little hand; no, it was evidently a maiden quite above care for the morrow. Most anxiously he awaited the following morning, when about the same hour—that is, early day—could he believe his senses?—again the shutter was opened, and the bright eyes glanced up at him as if they too remembered. The little fairy was evidently a household fairy engaged in some fairy-like duties about the chamber, and ever and anon, as these brought her near the window, she glanced up at Martin.

That any loving and lovable woman should bestow a thought on him was a leaf of paradise painted in dreams sometimes on the far-off days to come, when he should be rich and renowned; but that such bright, happy eyes should seek and rest on poor Martin Tryterlittle was hardly credible; as soon would he have expected Luna to step down from her orbit, peep into his attic, and say, "Good evening to you, Martin;" but so it was.

"It is my doing," said the wig; "all mine!"

One day was the story of the next, and the next, and several more beyond. It is surprising how much may be learned of the inhabitants of a house from its exterior. As the beatific vision lasted but a short time each morning, a long day and night was left him to study its surroundings, and in a brief space of time he read the whole plain as a book. It was a handsome mansion, and a private one. There was a sensible housekeeping mistress there; for the railings were black and the knocker bright, and the steps were clean and the housemaids tidy; even the pavements were a pattern to the neighbors. There were order and industry throughout the establishment, evidently. All this and more besides he deciphered by processes whose intricate premises laughed to scorn quadratic equations, and yet he was never tired.

Martin had done, here and there and everywhere in his lifetime, a deal more head-work than he had ever been paid for, rather by compulsion; but now he labored con amore on the loveliest subject life affords; and so far from wearying him, his wits grew brighter, his ideas received a new impetus, and, strange to say, the beneficial influence extended to his purse.

"I must have some honest occupation now," cried he; "it will never do to introduce myself as lounger in an attic window!" Yes! he really dreamed of an introduction.

"Let me see," (and he picked up his old dragon friend the newspaper;) "wants, wants—small salary, etc.; well, I will try." So he speedily bargained himself away to—no matter what, so it was honest, and went to work with a good-will.

It was pleasant, too, (strange he had never thought of it before;) it was pleasant to have a defined place among his fellow-mortals, and to feel that he could not now, as heretofore, be blown away on some windy day, and no one miss him.

Great changes are not wrought in a day. It took him some time to straighten out his line of existence and untie all the knots he had always been tying in it; to settle up scores with the past, and open accounts with the future—but it was all accomplished; and see now the life of Martin Tryterlittle.

He rose betimes, drank an elixir from those bright eyes perfectly intoxicating, and speeded to business. At eventide—where think you he spent his evenings? Why, in the back-parlor of that same handsome mansion, with little household fairy at his side, and papa smiling approval. He was no longer threadbare and shabby, and the only bit of deception about him—his wig—had been long ago confessed and forgiven.

"I'm a deal better than any hair that ever grew on any man's head," said the wig; "for if you live to be a hundred years old, I shall never be bald or gray."

"You will never be bald or gray," said Martin.

"It will never be bald or gray," laughed the little fairy.

On a certain evening about a year after this, Martin and his wig sat down for the last time to their dual converse; the next day a little lady was to be admitted, and the partnership would be a trio. Martin reclined on a sofa in his own domicil this night, and looked on a soft, bright carpet. His purse had filled up; nor was he unknown to fame—at least to a holy fame born of benevolence, which in after years lighted up many a desolated heart and hearth, and carved his name on structures where the homeless were sheltered and the hungry fed.

"Master mine," said the wig, "we mistook our track. Human life was not bestowed for the hoarding up of money—or men would have been all born with pockets; nor yet for a chase after fame. There are innate, loftier, and purer aspirations to be satisfied—the living soul craves something to love, and craves to be loved; and like sunshine to earth, that brings forth golden grain and sweet flowers, so pure love, the household sunshine, calls out wealth of thought and energy of action; and so comes fame, and so comes money!"

"Just so," said Martin; "you talk like a book!"