Doug WaltersBy Doug Walters
First published in August/September, 2008, Volume 5, Issue 3, The Hatchet: Journal of Lizzie Borden Studies.
The Truth Shall Make You Free
Or
The Sniffler’s Confession
I do not often, Reader, have good reason to look much beyond our own humble grounds for things in the way of interesting news—indeed, as friend Porter might express it: “Ye gods, with the Bordens constantly afoot, what more could a feller possibly need in the way of interesting news?!” He did express it that way actually, not long ago during a card game.
Bless his heart, that feller just hasn’t been the same since the hatchet met its marks the summer of 1892.
Now usually I tend to overlook these Porterian segues as best I can, but it is sometimes more than a little difficult, to the point where I’m left thinking I might have better luck keeping the feet clean whilst waltzing blindfolded and barefoot through some well-used Swansea cow pasture.
“You know Porter, if you ever decide to retire from being a famous author, lecturer, and historian, you just might find a new career altogether. You’ve become awfully adept at hogwashing in the last few years.”
The distinguished author and historian turned up his nose at me in disapproval.
“Think of it, Porter: what Mr. Joe Howard did for the bovine community last year at New Bedford—why, you could go him one better and do even greater things for pigs!”
Friend Porter threw down a card and turned his gaze out in the direction of my front windows:
When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st,
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,” – that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
The next instant, he cut loose with what can only be described as a most miserable sneeze. No, bless his heart that feller just hasn’t been the same since the hatchet met its marks the summer of 1892. His resurrection of Mr. John Keats’ scribblings of some threescore and fifteen years now past right here in my front room only served to prove things all the more, you might say.
It came out of nowhere. “Porter, have you been sniffing the cork again, feller?” I inquired, laying a card down between us on the table. “You’re not sounding just right today.”
Now lest you wonder why I asked that, Reader, I’d noticed that his s’s seemed to be suffering the same malady as had Alice Feeney’s during bygone occasions of “bethottedneth.” For the record, the single time in any given year I’ve ever known Ed Porter to tip the jar as it were is during the Christmas holiday season, when he allows himself just enough Madeira to soil the bottom of a pristine glass, and imbibes such within the confines of my own humble abode.
Friend Porter looked at me with watery eyes and shook his head as he removed a large handkerchief from his pocket. As he unfurled it, I jerked my thumb in a more-or-less westerly direction. “Over that way feller if you please. My own humors are in pretty good humor at the moment, and I’d like to keep it that way.”
Porter shook his head again but complied. Had he not been sitting right there (or had I my eyes closed) it would have been quite easy to mistake him for a kettleful of water on the stove for all his hissing, wheezing, and spluttering. That image was a fleeting one, for in the very next instant friend Porter turned aside and cut loose with a sneeze that sounded for all the world like a small herd of elephants, in full charge and at the same time choking to death on six French horns, four trombones, and a clarinet.
“You know feller, if you could somehow manage to tune that, Mr. J. P. Sousa just might find a spot for you in his band.”
“Ho, now aren’t we funny! Keep that up and I’ll breed on you!” Friend Porter punctuated that threat by once again heaving to into that mainsail-sized handkerchief.
“I hab a tode today,” he said as the last echoes of his nasal blast died away.
“Well, I’m right glad you cleared that up, feller; I’d thought maybe it was a dose of the pox put you in this shape.”
He’d been away up to Wutland on business, he said, merrily minding his very own when the malady struck.
“I see. And so it be writ that since there was no room in the inn, the good folks of Rutland did lodge the famous author in a vacant stall of the town’s foremost livery establishment, I suppose?”
“I hab you know dis was a dift from admiring weedahs.” Friend Porter tried his best to puff out his cheeks with a look of pride, but was thwarted thanks to a repeat performance by the aforementioned thundering pachydermal herd, in full gust.
An involuntary tear wound its way down his cheek, followed in close marching order by a sniffle and a snort.
“Well, I understand that part of it, Porter—but these admirers, are we talking about horses or humans, feller?”
Now it should be noted that in all likelihood we were talking about some species of admirer anyway, for neatly embroidered upon the soiled and somewhat sogged-out elephantine swatch were the words Richardson & Richardson, Livery Stables, Boarding, and Sales. This establishment is apparently located at 32-34 Center Street in Rutland, Vermont.
“What in the world did you find so attractive up to Rutland this time of year anyway, Porter? Their weather up that way is usually the same as what we get here.”
Friend Porter again heaved a mighty sneeze into the cloth, muttered something about business as best I could tell and groaned as he wiped his nose. He had business in the town of Rutland, Vermont at least three and sometimes four times in any given year, and had for nearly as long as I’d known him. I’d thought it odd initially, but given events which have transpired occasionally since that first Thursday in August 1892, it is sufficient to say that I’ve seen worse things in the way of oddity from Friend Porter.
“I wondered why Mr. George Buffinton was so good-humored recently,” I said. “I’ll bet it was because you were out of his hair awhile.”
Porter harrumphed at me beneath eyes that resembled those of a foundling pup and then dissolved into yet another fit of sneezing.
“Give me that thing if you will feller,” I said when he’d finished—“a dry end of it, thank you very kindly. I’ll take care of it and get you a fresh cloth.”
Porter eyed me warily but handed the swatch over just the same.
“I’ll be back in two shakes, feller. Your memento will be perfectly safe,” I said. “In the meantime, I’ll fetch you something that might take care of that beast on your back there.”
Taking the proffered end of the cloth betwixt thumb and forefinger, I headed back toward the kitchen, dropped it into a potful of water on the stove, and pulled out a clean cloth from the linen drawer. Pocketing the clean linen, I hauled out the bottle of Madeira along with two cups and headed back in the direction of the sniffling scribbler.
“Here you are, Porter,” I said, handing over the clean linen. “See if that one’s not just a bit better. Your fancy bit of monogrammed sailcloth was getting to be something of a mess. I dropped it into a pot of boiling water on the stove; that should help some anyway.”
Porter eyed my kitchen entry somewhat anxiously. “Now feller, ease yourself,” I said, following his gaze. “The linen you came with is right back there in yonder pot, and will be there just the same when you’re ready to leave. You really should be more attentive to that little memento. The blasted thing fairly squealed in agony when I dropped it into the pot.”
Porter nodded with a sigh, but then caught sight of the Madeira and cups I’d set down upon the table. His eyes took on as much of a devilish twinkle as his present condition would allow. As it was he passed, although barely. Intermittent lachrymal flow did about as much for that devilish twinkle as a springtime downpour does for a long-stemmed match fully aflame.
“I shouldn’t give you a drop of this, feller” I said, splashing Madeira into a cup and sliding it toward Porter. “The fact that you’re spouting Keats at such hour as this for no reason which a man might be justly paid—well, as I said, it suggests among other things that you’ve already taken at least a few laps around Brother Barleycorn’s swimming pool.”
Porter glared at me—briefly. His distaste was summarily snuffed out in the next instant as the aforementioned marauding band of musically-inclined wildlife returned and took up its instruments for another serenade.
“Ye gods, feller,” I said. “Throw off the mantle of temperance and drink that down if you will. It’s off your usual schedule I know, but any help where it might be found is what I say about the matter.”
Friend Porter nodded, then squeezed his eyes shut and emptied the cup straightaway in one swallow, quivering slightly as he did so. Noting some slight improvement in his former condition, I refilled Porter’s cup and my own, then returned the bottle of Madeira to its usual place.
I returned to find Porter in a much gentler condition. The sneezing rampages had largely ceased, although his nose was still pretty badly plugged. He sipped rather tenderly at the contents of his cup I noticed. It seemed to allay his wheezing a fair bit also.
“Well, are we feeling better, old Porter? You certainly look to be so, anyway. The ladies may have their business, weeping and wailing about the ‘Demon rum,’ but you this very day, Porter my good feller, are an example, I should think, of the evils of strict temperance. A medicinal nip or two now and then never hurts anyone. Here’s to you, feller!” I raised my cup in a gesture of salute.
Porter just snorted at me and swallowed a bit more of the Madeira in an apparent effort to head off another bout of sneezing. He sniffled and braced himself, but then relaxed again when the feeling had passed.
“Now then Porter, what’s ailing you besides the cold? You’ve never but once before mentioned the name John Keats that I recall, and that was only in response to a challenge, what was it—two years back?” Porter the card sharp had found his pockets sorely lacking one afternoon after a game. I was ready to give up the ten cent fare that would get him home, but decided to make him work for it a bit. “Finish this line, my good feller”:
Give me women, wine, and snuff
Until I cry out “hold, enough!”
Well, Porter looked at me wide-eyed, mopped his brow and called me a filthy beast for dragging literature into the mix and spoiling an otherwise wonderful day of card play—strange ideas that feller had, when wonderful day of card play meant no more than empty pockets or purse where shortly before there’d been plenty apocket to get him home again.
Friend Porter scarleted and muttered something unintelligible, which is just as well. If my hearing was correct, the remark amounted to an ancient Scottish expletive. He suddenly brightened and began to recite:
Give me women, wine, and snuff
Until I cry out “hold, enough!”
Here Porter did pause long enough to look at me, a wolfish twinkle of victory in his eye.
You may do so sans objection
Till the day of resurrection:
For, bless my beard, they aye shall be
My beloved Trinity.
“Excellent, feller!” I said, and within a few minutes he left, an unfamiliar jingling in his pockets until he hopped the horse car up the way.
Now don’t misunderstand me, Reader. Plagued by whatever faults or foibles as he is occasionally, Mr. Edwin H. Porter the noted scribbler-about-town, lecturer, and historian is neither fool nor fop when it comes to education.
Why, only last year at New Bedford when the Borden matter was just barely out of the legal starting gate at court in New Bedford, Porter proved himself an educated feller. The instance to which I refer occurred upon the 5th day of June, in the very court that would see Miss Lizzie Borden tried for the crimes alleged. Before jury selection opened, Mr. Justice Mason briefly outlined the process by which jurors would be selected, not long into his remarks invoking the name of the presiding judge in the cause of the Commonwealth v. John Webster, which came before the highest court of the Commonwealth now more than two-score years ago.
Mr. Justice Mason had barely gotten out the name of the presiding judge in Webster when Porter nudged me in the ribs. “Well, here we go—the circus train has got underway at last. Old Melville, may the Lord bless and keep his soul, would surely be proud to hear the name of Lem Shaw mentioned.
“I’m glad there were none present who answered to the names ‘Peleg Boomer’ or ‘Samuel Enderby’ when the role was called—I’d have laughed and walked out the door never to return.”
“Hush up, feller,” I said. “I’m trying to listen to this.”
Porter grinned at me. “What do you wager the ballot box is scrimshaw?”
“Don’t make me get the harpoon, feller. If I have to do that, you can wager it will certainly have your name on it. Now hush up!”
No, to imply that friend Porter is lacking in education by any measure would be unjust and a misrepresentation. It is, however, enough to say that Mr. John Keats is not one whose work he often quotes.
“C’mon now, feller let’s have it. You simply cannot go about dropping Keatsian tidbits in a feller’s abode like that and expect to pass unmolested. It’s a bit like trying to sneak a skunk into one of those fancy cat shows they sometimes have up to Boston, and get away with it; no matter how hard you try, no matter how careful you might be, the secret will out.”
Porter looked at me anew with those eyes of a foundling pup. “I never did thank you. I’m sorry I missed the New Year celebration but I was…unavoidably detained on my way over here that evening.”
“Well, you missed a fine soirée there feller, and that’s the truth,” I said. “We had some of the finest food you’ll ever put to your lips thanks to Alice Feeney. The Dohertys arrived late but at least were here. It turned up to be a smaller crowd than expected.
This I will tell you, Porter my good feller: until fair late of that evening, I was more than ready to leave a boot imprint on that sorry backside of yours. Luckily for said sorry backside, Pat Doherty filled me in on your situation when he arrived. It was handled privately feller, betwixt the Captain and me, so that no one else knew.”
Porter nodded, stifling a sniffle.
“Stand up here a minute, feller,” I said, looking him over carefully. Porter stood up without difficulty. “The bottle of Madeira is—well, you know where it is feller. If you’ll get it, I’ll pour us another nip.”
“I’m the sick one, and sent to fetch the bottle?” Porter snorted at that, but just the same headed for the spot where I keep the bottle of Madeira. I noted as he did so that his step was actually somewhat improved compared to what it had been when he arrived.
“Why thank you my good feller,” I said upon his return as he handed over the bottle. “You may sit.” He did so as I poured out two more splashes of Madeira into our cups.
Porter resumed his seat and with some mental effort began recounting his activities of early evening, the final hours of the old year 1893.
“You’d said to arrive at 6:00 or thereabouts in the evening if I remember correctly. I only missed that by ten or so minutes if good intentions mean anything.” Here friend Porter paused and sipped at his cup. “The revelers were out in force as you may remember.”
“They were, yes indeed. Seamus Feeney and I had a personal encounter with one such reveler,” I said, recounting our experience out in the yard when the G.A.R. band took a notion to strike up Garryowen. “Think what you will of Alice Feeney, Porter, but this much I will say: if that girl had been with the 7th Cavalry Regiment back in ’76, the ‘Boy General’ just might be around today. I don’t doubt for a minute that Alice would have personally whipped every last one of the opposing force.”
“Well, you fared better than I did, and that’s the truth,” Porter said, laughing somewhat darkly. “I’d have made it just fine had I took a slightly different route to get here.”
“You didn’t use the horse car then?”
“No, I didn’t. Had I started from home I would have, but the object of my tardiness put me near enough by here to make a comfortable walk.”
I nodded, looked expectantly at Porter.
“The most I can tell you offhand is that there were a number of them—four or five. They stopped me just over there a ways,” he said, gesturing out my front window. “I paused, thought I’d wish them a good holiday and luck for the new year . . .”
Porter looked into my eyes. “They had no interest at all in my good wishes. The next thing I knew, one of them cried out ‘Well, if it isn’t Mr. Porter of the Globe.’ From her tone, you might have thought I’d killed her favorite kitten. Then one of their number grabbed my legs . . .” Porter paused, sniffled and sipped a bit more Madeira to steady himself.
“The man who picked him up said he looked as though he had been literally scared out of his mind —had a wild look of terror in his eyes,” Captain Pat Doherty told me months ago on the very night in question. That same look, an almost otherworldly terror, returned to Ed Porter’s eyes as he sat in the front room of my own humble abode sipping at a cup of Madeira.
“Porter, are you trying to say that you got yourself whipped right there in the public street, is that it?” Friend Porter nodded, wiped his nose and heaved a heavy sigh.
“Well, feller, who was . . . ?”
“If anyone would know this it’d be you,” he said. “Do you recollect at the New Bedford trial, there was a gaggle of females outdoors most days at court standing steadfast in defense of Miss Lizzie Borden?”
“Well, Porter there were a great many folks out there most days as you may recall.”
“No, I know that. I’m trying to think here, please bear with me. The folks I’m thinking of were a local bunch for the most part, but with one or two more besides. They all wore white if I recall, and carried all-weather bumbershoots to ward off rain or sun.”
“All right, Porter; I’m following you now. I remember them I think—the Sisters of Seraphim they called themselves.”
Porter nodded.
Now Reader, as you are undoubtedly aware, seraphim is a word that dates back to the most ancient of times and refers to the highest class of angels. The Old Testament, sixth chapter of the book of Isaiah, describes them thus:
1: In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple.
2: Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly.
3: And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory.
4: And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke.
5: Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts.
6: Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar:
7: And he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged.
Now the Sisters of Seraphim, as you might suppose, are something entirely different. Sisters of Seraphim is what they call themselves, but they are little more than one of the many groups today engaged in feminine promotion, you might say.
The only difference betwixt them and the others (Mrs. Livermore being an example which comes to mind at present) is this, so far as I can see: Mary Livermore unfailingly takes the high road. She presents herself as no more than what she is—a fine and worthy example of a woman deserving of full recognition.
The Sisters of Seraphim by contrast, take the low road at every opportunity. Their aim is to appear worthy of the full recognition, which Mrs. Livermore and others like old ‘Mother’ Bickerdyke truly deserve—by doing absolutely nothing at all. The Seraphims in their local incarnation are nothing more than a group of opportunistic, mean-spirited militants unworthy of the time of day—much less any higher considerations.
I’d happily see Alice Feeney elected Governor before I’d give the Seraphims a blessed thing, and that’s the truth of the matter.
The Sisters of Seraphim is what they call themselves. Trial watchers however, had another name for them altogether: Miss Borden’s Beneficent Biddies.
It’s odd, really: publicity hounds these folks are, yet they shun or openly scorn any honest, earnest attempts to give them publicity. Mr. Joe Howard, the writer feller, even leaves them be these days. He encountered one of their number upon a trial afternoon during a recess, out front of the courthouse there at New Bedford. Mr. Howard approached one of the Seraphims, a female of perhaps threescore years or just shy of that, and the two chatted briefly beneath the shade of the lady’s bumbershoot.
“Well now young man, I ask what you would do?” Mr. Joe Howard said to me when that day’s session concluded. “I thought I might do them a service somehow. But the woman said ‘Leave me be this instant, sir, else I will personally clean that disused belfry clock of yours but good.’ She tapped her forehead and winked at me.”
“Well, since you put it that way feller, I would have left the bunch alone too, I think.”
Mr. Joe Howard also mentioned that this local band of Seraphims favors such things as public beatings of journalists who are (in their opinion) useless and irresponsible. He shuddered as he said it.
I never gave it much thought, but Mr. Joe Howard’s encounter with the Seraphims might well explain why he took a sudden interest in distressed heifers during a murder trial!
“Porter, just a minute there feller,” I said, raising my hand. “Are you telling me that it was these Sisters of Seraphim put you out of commission the past New Years Eve?”
Friend Porter nodded, but then turned away as his face went scarlet. “I didn’t know myself again for two days afterward. One of that merry little band took a swing at my head with her blasted bumbershoot. Fancy thing it was, with a marble-inlaid handle.”
“Porter, you’ll excuse me, feller. It’s not that I don’t believe you, but this is a bit difficult to put together all at once.”
It was exactly that, although within a moment or two things started to make very good sense—in fact, Porter’s accounting fit in near perfectly with the intelligence I received from Captain Doherty upon the 31st day of December, 1893.
“Porter, do you remember anything at all after—?”
“No. I remember just what I told you a bit earlier. I was on my way over here and ran upon the Seraphims. One of them cried out ‘Well, if it isn’t Mr. Porter of the Globe.’ I may have gotten the word Happy out before they started in, but I can’t be sure of that at all.”
“Did anyone ever tell you anything afterward?”
“Not really. The only thing I know for sure is that they kept me at the Taunton hospital until the second of January.” Waking in the middle of the night to find oneself tied sturdily to the bed in an unfamiliar place does not a thing for the sense of well-being, he said.
“Well, Porter it would appear that you’ve had no better luck with Miss Lizzie Borden than you’ve had on the lecture circuit.”
Porter looked at me with a whatever do you mean? sort of look.
“Oh Porter, don’t even try that look. I know all about your brush with disaster at the Hartford Lyceum—the Wesson feller, the putrid flying fruit, all of it. Deny it as you please, but I read the Hartford Courant occasionally myself; and unfortunately for a certain author-turned-historian-turned lecturer-about-town, Wish McGillicuddy was also at the Lyceum that evening. He let the puss out of the pouch in the next day’s Courant.”
“I didn’t see him there,” Porter said. “I thought he’d retired, or found other business anyway.”
“Well, now let’s be sensible about things here, feller: on the night in question you were doing your level best to avoid flying fruits and vegetables, so it makes perfect sense that you might well have overlooked Wish McGillicuddy.”
I reached into a drawer and pulled out the Courant piece that Mr. Wish McGillicuddy had written. “It’s right here, Porter.”
Now Reader, perhaps you may recollect the gentleman of whom I speak—or at the very least his published accounting of the night in question. Mr. Aloysius Lysander McGillicuddy—known informally to friends and readers as Wish—was until just a few years ago known throughout the region as one of the finest newspaper fellers in the business of “hard news.” What Ed Porter is to Mr. George Buffinton, Fall River and its environs, Mr. Wish McGillicuddy was to several editors in numerous venues.
It would be unfair to say that Porter is jealous of Mr. Wish McGillicuddy or his abilities, but it is entirely fair to say that they were in former times in direct competition occasionally—or were until Mr. Wish McGillicuddy became involved in something of a scandal a few years ago. McGillicuddy was not involved directly in it but rather indirectly—something along the lines of an observer-turned-unwilling-participant.
It happened along about springtime of 1891. McGillicuddy was working for a newspaper in Plymouth County. As Wish himself later said: “We’d got wind from some reliable source that a certain official of the city of Brockton had a lady-friend he’d become rather fond of, shall we say.
“Now, of course ordinarily such a thing might be written up on almost any of the society pages. Indeed it might well have been— except that the gentleman in question had a perfectly lovely wife, two young children and a miniaturized beagle pup who waited faithfully at home for him each night. It oughtn’t take anything more than good Yankee sense to see the problem there.”
Owing to a desire for the utmost secrecy and discretion, that certain official of the city of Brockton decided that the best course of action involved occasionally removing himself and this aforementioned lady-friend from Brockton and Plymouth County altogether. After some discussion and deliberation amongst themselves, the two selected the Mellen House at Fall River as the venue-most-likely, you might say.
Mr. Aloysius Lysander McGillicuddy, every bit the intrepid and resourceful bringer of news that is Ed Porter, ultimately got himself caught up in what we here locally would call a McHenry, gone bad. Through a friendly contact at the Mellen House, he obtained entry into the room the official of the city of Brockton would occupy with the aforementioned lady-friend-other-than-his-wife.
Surveying the room, McGillicuddy picked out the most discreet position from which he might indirectly observe, taking notice of any activities that might develop. He slid himself (notebook, pencils and all) beneath the double bed and waited. The Brockton city official and his lady entered the room about twenty minutes later.
“It really was the most god-awful and embarrassing place to be,” he later said. “The one bit of good luck I had, the two of them after a while were making enough noise that they didn’t notice me there at all. I’ve never heard such caterwauling in all my life!”
But alas, as it does to the luckiest schoolchildren everywhere, the light of discovery did dawn very soon that day in the Mellen House.
“The trysting bed apparently didn’t care much for the situation either I suppose. Because all of asudden (clearly audible over the amorous sounds above) I heard first a small sigh, thence a cracking sound followed in close order by a deafening squeak. The foot of the bed was giving way. The Brockton city official hollered out, the lady-friend who was not his wife screamed, and the very bands of Hades did strike up all at once it seemed.
“I had both of them beat for yellin’ though after just a few seconds, because the full weight of the portside after-end of the bed (official, lady-friend and all) came down right on top of my left leg.”
Now as you might suppose Reader, the official of the city of Brockton formed up for immediate retreat, the lady-friend-not-his-wife close behind. McGilicuddy, bless his heart divided his time betwixt alternately hollerin’ for help and cussin’ himself, the Brockton city official, the lady-friend-not-his-wife, the source of the story to start with, and the editor of the newspaper by whom he was employed.
Well, they hauled McGillicuddy out of the Mellon House (he was chewing on a water-soaked towel to keep himself from screaming and thus making the situation far worse than it was already), took him straight to the nearest hospital, where physicians were able to detect that his left leg and ankle were broken in at least three places.
Owing to limited equipment, however, they were unable to treat these injuries properly.
So Wish was sent up to Boston to the Massachusetts General Hospital. He left the city of Fall River with a vow never to return for any reason. It seems that one of the physicians who examined McGillicuddy at Fall River had an odd turn of humor about him, said there was really nothing much to do but get the bone saw and be done with the matter.
You’ll pardon me for saying so I hope, Reader, but when Mr. Aloysius Lysander McGillicuddy heard the words bone saw he went into immediate action, raising all manner of unshirted hell. He grabbed that doctor feller by the collar of his fine white coat and yanked him downward so that he was bent over the bed, his own face within inches of McGillicuddy’s.
In pain and sweating buckets by that time, he said, “I want to see Dr. John W. Coughlin—now, please. I don’t care where he is. If you enjoy being a doctor as much as he enjoys being mayor of this pest hole, you’ll get him over here.”
Mayor Dr. John W. Coughlin was located in good and due time, and McGillicuddy’s message relayed.
“I simply informed the Mayor when he arrived,” as McGillicuddy later said, “that if he let one of those boneheaded butchers come near my leg with a saw, I would do everything in my power to see that he was never again elected to any public office, anywhere. I told him it wouldn’t matter if he were the favored veterinarian to Mr. Grover Cleveland’s beloved billy goat Peter—if they took off my leg, I’d personally see him finished with politics.”
After a thorough examination of McGillicuddy’s injured leg, the mayor Dr. John W. Coughlin declared amputation too extreme and arranged to send him up to Boston to the Massachusetts General Hospital.
Mr. Aloysius Lysander McGillicuddy was indeed able to keep that leg as things worked out, although three surgical procedures were required to assure that. He spent the next sixteen months shuttling between surgical procedures and recuperative therapies. He was two days past the second surgical procedure on the morning of August 4, 1892.
The bills for these treatments were duly forwarded to that certain official in Brockton, who promptly paid them on pain of exposure.
As you might expect, Reader, Mr. Aloysius Lysander McGillicuddy’s experience at Fall River caused him to re-evaluate his vocational choice. He’s still the same newspaper feller as he ever was, but has merely shifted his focus, as it were. He’s made quite a name for himself writing feature stories, but with a more relevant, newsier angle. Mr. Joe Howard could take a lesson from him it seems to me.
By the time he covered Mr. Edwin H. Porter’s epic Lyceum appearance, McGillicuddy had finished his surgical cycle and was able to get around quite well, only occasionally using a walking stick.
“Porter, my good feller,” I said, as I sipped away the last bit of Madeira in my cup, “were I in your shoes I’d not rest a minute until I saw every last one of those Sisters of Seraphim locked up on charges of assault and criminal mischief.”
“Would you have said the same thing to McGillicuddy? Does personal embarrassment mean nothing at all to you?”
“Porter, these are two different instances altogether feller. What makes them different is that at the time you were stomped over by that gaggle of biddies, yours was the mantel of private citizen making his way to a place of merriment and celebration.”
Friend Porter harrumphed at me, emptied his cup of Madeira and waited. When the expected sneeze failed to show itself, he grinned and heaved a sigh of relief.
“Oh, don’t forget your fancy bit of sailcloth, Porter,” I said.
Keats was right after all:
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,” – that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
I’m glad Porter finally told it. I suspect he is, too.
