American Adventures Part 23

THE PRISONER--No, suh, Jedge. That's right.

THE JUDGE--Where you from? You're from No'th Ca'lina, ain't you?

THE PRISONER--Yas, suh, Jedge.

THE JUDGE--Six months!

(A great laugh rises from the courtroom at this. On inquiry we learn that the "joke" depends upon the judge's well-known aversion for negroes from North Carolina.)

Only recently I have heard Walter C. Kelly as "The Virginia Judge." Save for a certain gentle side which Mr. Kelly indicates, and of which I saw no signs in Judge Crutchfield, I should say that, even though Judge Crutchfield is not his model, the suggestion of him is strongly there.

Two of Mr. Kelly's "cases" are particularly reminiscent of the Richmond Police Court. One is as follows:

THE JUDGE--First case--Sadie Anderson.

THE PRISONER--Ya.s.sir! That's me!

THE JUDGE--Thirty days in jail. That's me! Next case.

The other:

THE JUDGE--What's your name?

THE PRISONER--Sam Williams.

THE JUDGE--How old are you, Sam?

THE PRISONER--Just twenty-four.

THE JUDGE--You'll be just twenty-five when you get out. Next case!

CHAPTER XXIV

NORFOLK AND ITS NEIGHBORHOOD

Just as New York looks newer than Boston, but is actually older, Norfolk looks newer than Richmond. Business and population grow in Richmond, but you do not feel them growing as you do in Norfolk. You feel that Richmond business men already have money, whereas in Norfolk there is less old wealth and a great deal more scrambling for new dollars. Also you feel that law and order count for more in Richmond than in Norfolk, and that the strict prohibition law which not long ago became effective in Virginia will be more easily enforced in the capital than in the seaport. Norfolk, in short, likes the things New York likes. It likes tall office buildings, and it dotes on the signs of commercial activity by day and social activity by night. Furthermore, from the tops of some of the high buildings the place actually looks like a miniature New York: the Elizabeth River masquerading as the East River; Portsmouth, with its navy yard, pretending to be Brooklyn, while some old-time New York ferryboats, running between the two cities, a.s.sist in completing the illusion. In the neighboring city of Newport News, Norfolk has its equivalent for Jersey City and Hoboken, while Willoughby Spit protrudes into Hampton Roads like Sandy Hook reduced to miniature.

The princ.i.p.al shopping streets of Norfolk and Richmond are as unlike as possible. Broad Street, Richmond, is very wide, and is never overcrowded, whereas Granby Street, Norfolk (advertised by local enthusiasts as "the livest street in Virginia," and appropriately spanned, at close intervals, by arches of incandescent lights), is none too wide for the traffic it carries, with the result that, during the afternoon and evening, it is truly very much alive. To look upon it at the crowded hours is to get a suggestion of a much larger city than Norfolk actually is--a suggestion which is in part accounted for by the fact that Norfolk's spending population, drawn from surrounding towns and cities, is much greater than the number of its inhabitants.

Norfolk's extraordinary growth in the last two or three decades may be traced to several causes: to the fertility of the soil of the surrounding region, which, intensively cultivated, produces rich market-garden crops, making Norfolk a great s.h.i.+pping point for "truck"; to the development of the trade in peanuts, which are grown in large quant.i.ties in this corner of Virginia; to a great trade in oysters and other sea-food, and to the continually increasing importance of the Norfolk navy yard.

In connection with the navy Norfolk has always figured prominently, Hampton Roads having been a favorite naval rendezvous since the early days of the American fleet. Now, however, it is announced that the cry of our navy for a real naval base--something we have never had, though all other important navies have them, Britain alone having three--has been heard in Was.h.i.+ngton, and that Norfolk has been selected as the site for a base. This is an important event not only for the Virginia seaport, but for the United States.

Farmers who think they are in a poor business will do well to investigate Norfolk's recent history. The "trucking" industry of Norfolk is said to amount in the aggregate to twelve or fourteen million dollars annually, and many fortunes have been made from it. The pioneer "trucker" of the region was Mr. Richard c.o.x. A good many years ago Mr.

c.o.x employed a German boy, a blacksmith by trade, named Henry Kern. Kern finally branched out for himself. When, in 1915, he died, his real estate holdings in Norfolk and Portsmouth were valued at two million dollars, all of which had been made from garden truck. He was but one of a considerable cla.s.s of wealthy men whose fortunes have sprung from the same source.

Many of the truck farms have access to the water. The farmers bring their produce to the city in their own boats, giving the port a picturesque note. At Norfolk it is transferred to steamers which carry it to New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Providence, Baltimore and Was.h.i.+ngton. Lately a considerable amount of truck has been s.h.i.+pped west by rail, as well.

Hundreds of acres of ground in the vicinity of the city are under gla.s.s and large crops of winter vegetables are raised. Kale and spinach are being grown and harvested throughout the cold months; strawberries, potatoes, beans, peas, cuc.u.mbers, cabbage, lettuce and other vegetables follow through the spring and summer, running on into the fall, when the corn crop becomes important. Corn is raised chiefly by the peanut farmer, whose peanuts grow between his corn-rows.

While the banks are "carrying" the peanut farmers, pending their fall harvest, the activities of the "truckers" are at their height, so that the money loaned to one cla.s.s of agriculturist is replaced by the deposits of the other cla.s.s; and by the same token, of course, the peanut farmers are depositing money in the banks when the "truckers"

want to borrow. This situation, one judges, is not found objectionable by Norfolk and Portsmouth bankers, and I have been told that, as a corollary, these banks have never been forced, even in times of dire panic, to issue clearing house certificates, but have always paid cash.

Norfolk has grown so fast and has so rapidly replaced the old with the new, that the visitor must keep his eyes open if he would not miss entirely such lovely souvenirs of an earlier and easier life, as still remain. Who would imagine, seeing it to-day, that busy Granby Street had ever been a street of fine residences? Yet a very few years have pa.s.sed since the old Newton, Tazwell, d.i.c.kson and Taylor residences surrendered to advancing commerce and gave place to stores and office buildings--the two last mentioned having been replaced by the d.i.c.kson Building and the Taylor Building, erected less than fifteen years ago.

Freemason Street is the highway which, more than any other, tells of olden times. For though the downtown end of this lovely old thoroughfare has lapsed into decay, many beautiful mansions, dating from long ago, are to be seen a few blocks out from the busier portion of the city.

Among these should be mentioned the Whittle house, the H.N. Castle house, and particularly the exquisite ivy-covered residence of Mr.

Barton Myers, at the corner of Bank Street. The city of Norfolk ought, I think, to attempt to acquire this house and preserve it (using it perhaps as a memorial museum to contain historical relics) to show what has been, in Norfolk, as against what is, and to preach a silent sermon on the high estate of beauty from which a fine old city may fall, in the name of progress and commercial growth.

To the credit of Norfolk be it said that old St. Paul's Church, with its picturesque churchyard and tombs, is excellently cared for and properly valued as a pre-Revolutionary relic. The church was built in 1730, and was struck by a British cannon-ball when Lord Dunmore bombarded the place in 1776. Baedeker tells me, however, that the cannon-ball now resting in the indentation in the wall of the church is "not the original."

When I say that St. Paul's is properly valued I mean that many citizens told my companion and me to be sure to visit. I observe, however--and I take it as a sign of the times in Norfolk--that an extensive, well-printed and much ill.u.s.trated book on Norfolk, issued by the Chamber of Commerce, contains pictures of banks, docks, breweries, mills, office buildings, truck farms, peanut farms, battles.h.i.+ps, clubhouses, hotels, hospitals, factories, and innumerable new residences, but no picture of the church, or of the lovely old homes of Freemason Street. Nor do I find in the booklet any mention of the history of the city or the surrounding region--although that region includes places of the greatest beauty and interest: among them the glorious old manor houses of the James River; the ancient and charming town of Williamsburg, second capital of the Virginia colony, and seat of William and Mary College, the oldest college in the United States excepting Harvard; Yorktown, "Waterloo of the Revolution"; many important battlefields of the Civil War; Hampton Inst.i.tute, the famous negro industrial school at Hampton, nearby; the lovely stretch of water on which the _Monitor_ met the _Merrimac_[3]; the site of the first English settlement in America at Jamestown, and, for mystery and desolation, the Dismal Swamp with Lake Drummond at its heart. But then, I suppose it is natural that the Chamber of Commerce mind should thrust aside such things in favor of the mighty "goober," which is a thing of to-day, a thing for which Norfolk is said to be the greatest of all markets. For is not history dead, and is not the man who made a fortune out of a device for sh.e.l.ling peanuts without causing the nuts to drop in two, still living?

[3] The _Merrimac_, originally a Federal vessel of wooden construction, was sunk by the Union forces when they abandoned Norfolk. A Confederate captain, John M. Brooke, raised her, equipped her with a ram, and covered her with boiler plate and railroad rails. She is called the first ironclad. While she was being reconstructed John Ericsson was building his _Monitor_ in New York. The turret was first used on this vessel. It is worth noting that at the time of the engagement between these two s.h.i.+ps the _Monitor_ was not the property of the Federal Government, but belonged to C.S. Bushnell, of New Haven, who built her at his own expense, in spite of the opposition of the Navy Department of that day. The Government paid for her long after the fight. It should also be noted that the _Merrimac_ did not fight under that name, but as a Confederate s.h.i.+p had been rechristened _Virginia_. The patriotic action of Mr. Bushnell is recalled by the fact that, only recently, Mr.

G.o.dfrey L. Cabot, of Boston, has agreed to furnish funds to build the torpedoplane designed by Admiral Fiske as a weapon wherewith to attack the German fleet within its defenses at Kiel.

And yet the modernness on which Norfolk so evidently prides herself is not something to be lightly valued. Fine schools, fine churches and miles of pleasant, recently built homes are things for any American city to rejoice in. Therefore Norfolk rejoices in Ghent, her chief modern residence district, which is penetrated by arms of the Elizabeth River, so that many of the houses in this part of the city look out upon pretty lagoons, dotted over with all manner of pleasure craft. Less than twenty years ago, the whole of what is now Ghent was a farm, and there are other suburban settlements, such as Edgewater, Larchmont, Winona and Lochhaven, out in the direction of Hampton Roads, which have grown up in the last six or eight years. The Country Club of Norfolk, with a very pleasing club-house on the water, and an eighteen-hole golf course, is at Lochhaven, and the new naval base is, I believe, to be located somewhat farther out, on the site of the Jamestown Exposition.

Norfolk is well provided with nearby seaside recreation places, of which probably the most attractive is Virginia Beach, facing the ocean. Ocean View, so called, is on Chesapeake Bay, and there are summer cottage colonies at Willoughby Spit and Cape Henry. On the bay side of Cape Henry is Lynnhaven Inlet connecting Lynnhaven Bay and River with Chesapeake Bay. From Lynnhaven Bay come the famous oysters of that name, now to be had in most of the large cities of the East, but which seemed to me to taste a little better at the Virginia Club, in Norfolk, than oysters ever tasted anywhere. Perhaps that was because they were real Lynnhavens, just as the Virginia Club's Smithfield ham is real Smithfield ham from the little town of Smithfield, Virginia, a few miles distant. On the bank of the Lynnhaven River is situated the Old Donation farm with a ruined church, and an ancient dwelling house which was used as the first courthouse in Princess Anne County; and not far distant from this place is Witch Duck Point, where Grace Sherwood, after having been three times tried, and finally convicted as a witch, was thrown into the river.

The several waterside places I have mentioned are more or less local in character, but there is nothing local about Fortress Monroe, on Old Point Comfort, just across Hampton Roads, which has for many years been one of the most beautiful and highly individualized idling places on the Atlantic Coast.

The old moated fortress, the interior of which is more like some lovely garden of the last century than a military post, remains an important coast artillery station, and is a no less lovely spot now than when our grandparents went there on their wedding journeys, stopping at the old Hygiea Hotel, long since gone the way of old hotels.

The huge Chamberlin Hotel, however, remains apparently unchanged, and is to-day as s.p.a.cious, comfortable and homelike as when our fathers and mothers, or perhaps we ourselves, stopped there years ago. The Chamberlin, indeed, seems to have the gift of perennial youth. I remember a ball which was given there in honor of Admiral Sampson and the officers of his fleet, after the Spanish War. The ballroom was so full of naval and military uniforms that I, in my somber civilian clothing, felt wan and lonely. Most of the evening I pa.s.sed in modest retirement, looking out upon the brilliant scene from behind a potted palm. And yet, when my companion and I, now in our dotage, recently visited the Chamberlin, there stood the same potted palm in the same place. Or if it was not the same, it was one exactly like it.

The Chamberlin is of course a great headquarters for army and navy people, and we observed, moreover, that honeymooning couples continue to infest it--for Fortress Monroe has long ranked with Was.h.i.+ngton and Niagara Falls as a scene to be visited upon the wedding journey.

There they all were, as of old: the young husband scowling behind his newspaper and pretending to read and not to be thinking of his pretty little wife across the breakfast table; the fat blonde bride being continually photographed by her adoring mate--now leaning against a pile on the pier, now seated on a wall, with her feet crossed, now standing under a live-oak within the fortress; also there was the inevitable young pair who simply couldn't keep their hands off from each other; we came upon them constantly--in the sun-parlor, where she would be seated on the arm of his chair, running her hand through his hair; wandering in the eventide along the sh.o.r.e, with arms about each other, or going in to meals, she leading him down the long corridor by his "ickle finger".

I recall that it was as we were going back to Norfolk from Old Point Comfort, having dinner on a most excellent large steamer, running to Norfolk and Cape Charles, that my companion remarked to me, out of a clear sky, that he had made up his mind, once for all, that, come what might, he would never, never, never get married. No, never!

CHAPTER XXV

COLONEL TAYLOR AND GENERAL LEE

Forth from its scabbard all in vain Bright flashed the sword of Lee; 'Tis shrouded now in its sheath again, It sleeps the sleep of our n.o.ble slain, Defeated, yet without a stain, Proudly and peacefully.

--ABRAM J. RYAN.