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With
the
Procession
Introduction by Mark Harris
When old Mr. Marshall finally took to his bed, the household viewed thisaction with more surprise than sympathy, and with more impatience thansurprise. It seemed like the breaking down of a machine whosetrustworthiness had been hitherto infallible; his family were almostforced to the acknowledgement that he was but a mere human being afterall. They had enjoyed a certain intimacy with him, in lengths varyingwith their respective ages, but they had never made a full avowal thathis being rested on any tangible physical basis. Rather had they falleninto the way of considering him as a disembodied intelligence, whose solefunction was to direct the transmutation of values and credits andresources and opportunities into the creature comforts demanded by thestate of life unto which it had please Providence to call them; and theirdismay was now such as might occur at the Mint if the great stamp weresuddenly and of its own accord to cease its coinage of double-eagles andto sink into a silence of supine idleness. His wife and childrenacknowledged, indeed, his head and his hands—those it were impossible tooverlook; but his head stopped with the rim of his collar, while hishands—those long, lean hands, freckled, tufted goldishly between jointsand knuckles—they never followed beyond the plain gilt sleeve-buttons(marked with a Roman M) which secured the overlapping of his cuffs. No,poor old David Marshall was like one of the early Tuscan archangels,whose scattered members are connected by draperies merely, with noacknowledged organism within; nor were his shining qualities fullyrecognized until the resolutions passed by the Association of WholesaleGrocers reached the hands of his bereaved——
But this is no way to begin.
* * * * *
The grimy lattice-work of the drawbridge swung to slowly, the steam-tugblackened the dull air and roiled the turbid water as it dragged itsschooner on towards the lumber-yards of the South Branch, and a long lineof waiting vehicles took up their interrupted course through the smokeand the stench as they filed across the stream into the thick of businessbeyond: first a yellow street-car; then a robust truck laden withrattling sheet-iron, or piled high with fresh wooden pails and willowbaskets; then a junk-cart bearing a pair of dwarfed and bearded Poles,who bumped in unison with the jars of its clattering springs; then,perhaps, a bespattered buggy, with reins jerked by a pair of sinewy andimpatient hands. Then more street-cars; then a butcher's cart loaded withthe carcasses of calves—red, black, piebald—or an express wagon with ayellow cur yelping from its rear; then, it may be, an insolentlyventuresome landau, with crested panel and top-booted coachman. Thendrays and omnibuses and more street-cars; then, presently, somewhere inthe line, between the tail end of one truck and the menacing tongue ofanother, a family carry-all—a carry-all loaded with its family, drivenby a man of all work, drawn by a slight and amiable old mare, andencumbered with luggage which shows the labels of half the hotels ofEurope.
It is a very capable and comprehensive vehicle, as conveyances of thatkind go. It is not new, it is not precisely in the mode; but it showsmaterial and workmanship of the best grade, and it is washed, oiled,polished with scrupulous care. It advances with some deliberation, andone might fancy hearing in the rattle of its tires, or in