stating that it was
"impossible to print his lecture in full, as the type-cases had run out
of capital I's." But it was the other sketch which settled Goodman's
decision. It was also a burlesque report, this time of a Fourth-of-July
oration. It opened, "I was sired by the Great American Eagle and foaled
by a continental dam." This was followed by a string of stock patriotic
phrases absurdly arranged. But it was the opening itself that won
Goodman's heart.
"That is the sort of thing we want," he said. "Write to him, Barstow,
and ask him if he wants to come up here."
Barstow wrote, offering twenty-five dollars a week, a tempting sum. This
was at the end of July, 1862.
In 'Roughing It' we are led to believe that the author regarded this as
a gift from heaven and accepted it straightaway. As a matter of fact,
he fasted and prayed a good while over the "call." To Orion he wrote
Barstow has offered me the post as local reporter for the Enterprise at
$25 a week, and I have written him that I will let him know next mail,
if possible.
There was no desperate eagerness, you see, to break into literature,
even under those urgent conditions. It meant the surrender of all hope
in the mines, the confession of another failure. On August 7th he wrote
again to Orion. He had written to Barstow, he said, asking when they
thought he might be needed. He was playing for time to consider.
Now, I shall leave at midnight to-night, alone and on foot, for a walk
of 60 or 70 miles through a totally uninhabited country, and it is
barely possible that mail facilities may prove infernally "slow." But do
you write Barstow that I have left here for a week or so, and in case he
should want me, he must write me here, or let me know through you.
So he had gone into the wilderness to fight out his battle alone. But
eight days later, when he had returned, there was still no decision. In
a letter to Pamela of this date he refers playfully to the discomforts
of his cabin and mentions a hope that he will spend the winter in
San Francisco; but there is no reference in it to any newspaper
prospects--nor to the mines, for that matter. Phillips, Howland, and
Higbie would seem to have given up by this time, and he was camping with
Dan Twing and a dog, a combination amusingly described. It is a pleasant
enough letter, but the note of discouragement creeps in:
I did think for a while of going home this fall--but when I found
that that was, and
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