It was a momentous1 question. I had gone out into the world to shift for myself, at the age of thirteen (for my father had endorsed2 for friends; and although he left us a sumptuous3 legacy4 of pride in his fine Virginian stock and its national distinction, I presently found that I could not live on that alone without occasional bread to wash it down with). I had gained a livelihood5 in various vocations7, but had not dazzled anybody with my successes; still the list was before me, and the amplest liberty in the matter of choosing, provided I wanted to work—which I did not, after being so wealthy. I had once been a grocery clerk, for one day, but had consumed so much sugar in that time that I was relieved from further duty by the proprietor8; said he wanted me outside, so that he could have my custom. I had studied law an entire week, and then given it up because it was so prosy and tiresome9. I had engaged briefly10 in the study of blacksmithing, but wasted so much time trying to fix the bellows11 so that it would blow itself, that the master turned me adrift in disgrace, and told me I would come to no good. I had been a bookseller’s clerk for awhile, but the customers bothered me so much I could not read with any comfort, and so the proprietor gave me a furlough and forgot to put a limit to it. I had clerked in a drug store part of a summer, but my prescriptions12 were unlucky, and we appeared to sell more stomach pumps than soda13 water. So I had to go.
I had made of myself a tolerable printer, under the impression that I would be another Franklin some day, but somehow had missed the connection thus far. There was no berth14 open in the Esmeralda union, and besides I had always been such a slow compositor that I looked with envy upon the achievements of apprentices15 of two years’ standing16; and when I took a “take,” foremen were in the habit of suggesting that it would be wanted “some time during the year.”
I was a good average St. Louis and New Orleans pilot and by no means ashamed of my abilities in that line; wages were two hundred and fifty dollars a month and no board to pay, and I did long to stand behind a wheel again and never roam any more—but I had been making such an ass17 of myself lately in grandiloquent18 letters home about my blind lead and my European excursion that I did what many and many a poor disappointed miner had done before; said “It is all over with me now, and I will never go back home to be pitied—and snubbed.” I had been a private secretary, a silver miner and a silver mill operative, and amounted to less than nothing in each, and now—
What to do next?
I yielded to Higbie’s appeals and consented to try the mining once more. We climbed far up on the mountain side and went to work on a little rubbishy claim of ours that had a shaft19 on it eight feet deep. Higbie descended20 into it and worked bravely with his pick till he had loosened up a deal of rock and dirt and then I went down with a long-handled shovel21 (the most awkward invention yet contrived22 by man) to throw it out. You must brace23 the shovel forward with the side of your knee till it is full, and then, with a skilful24 toss, throw it backward over your left shoulder. I made the toss, and landed the mess just on the edge of the shaft and it all came back on my head and down the back of my neck. I never said a word, but climbed out and walked home. I inwardly resolved that I would starve before I would make a target of myself and shoot rubbish at it with a long-handled shovel.
I sat down, in the cabin, and gave myself up to solid misery—so to speak. Now in pleasanter days I had amused myself with writing letters to the chief paper of the Territory, the Virginia Daily Territorial25 Enterprise, and had always been surprised when they appeared in print. My good opinion of the editors had steadily26 declined; for it seemed to me that they might have found something better to fill up with than my literature. I had found a letter in the post office as I came home from the hill side, and finally I opened it. Eureka! [I never did know what Eureka meant, but it seems to be as proper a word to heave in as any when no other that sounds pretty offers.] It was a deliberate offer to me of Twenty-Five Dollars a week to come up to Virginia and be city editor of the Enterprise.
I would have challenged the publisher in the “blind lead” days—I wanted to fall down and worship him, now. Twenty-Five Dollars a week—it looked like bloated luxury—a fortune a sinful and lavish27 waste of money. But my transports cooled when I thought of my inexperience and consequent unfitness for the position—and straightway, on top of this, my long array of failures rose up before me. Yet if I refused this place I must presently become dependent upon somebody for my bread, a thing necessarily distasteful to a man who had never experienced such a humiliation28 since he was thirteen years old. Not much to be proud of, since it is so common—but then it was all I had to be proud of. So I was scared into being a city editor. I would have declined, otherwise. Necessity is the mother of “taking chances.” I do not doubt that if, at that time, I had been offered a salary to translate the Talmud from the original Hebrew, I would have accepted—albeit with diffidence and some misgivings—and thrown as much variety into it as I could for the money.
I went up to Virginia and entered upon my new vocation6. I was a rusty29 looking city editor, I am free to confess—coatless, slouch hat, blue woolen30 shirt, pantaloons stuffed into boot-tops, whiskered half down to the waist, and the universal navy revolver slung31 to my belt. But I secured a more Christian32 costume and discarded the revolver.
I had never had occasion to kill anybody, nor ever felt a desire to do so, but had worn the thing in deference33 to popular sentiment, and in order that I might not, by its absence, be offensively conspicuous34, and a subject of remark. But the other editors, and all the printers, carried revolvers. I asked the chief editor and proprietor (Mr. Goodman, I will call him, since it describes him as well as any name could do) for some instructions with regard to my duties, and he told me to go all over town and ask all sorts of people all sorts of questions, make notes of the information gained, and write them out for publication. And he added:
“Never say ‘We learn’ so-and-so, or ‘It is reported,’ or ‘It is rumored,’ or ‘We understand’ so-and-so, but go to headquarters and get the absolute facts, and then speak out and say ‘It is so-and-so.’ Otherwise, people will not put confidence in your news. Unassailable certainly is the thing that gives a newspaper the firmest and most valuable reputation.”
It was the whole thing in a nut-shell; and to this day when I find a reporter commencing his article with “We understand,” I gather a suspicion that he has not taken as much pains to inform himself as he ought to have done. I moralize well, but I did not always practise well when I was a city editor; I let fancy get the upper hand of fact too often when there was a dearth35 of news. I can never forget my first day’s experience as a reporter. I wandered about town questioning everybody, boring everybody, and finding out that nobody knew anything. At the end of five hours my notebook was still barren. I spoke36 to Mr. Goodman. He said:
“Dan used to make a good thing out of the hay wagons38 in a dry time when there were no fires or inquests. Are there no hay wagons in from the Truckee? If there are, you might speak of the renewed activity and all that sort of thing, in the hay business, you know.
“It isn’t sensational39 or exciting, but it fills up and looks business like.”
I canvassed40 the city again and found one wretched old hay truck dragging in from the country. But I made affluent41 use of it. I multiplied it by sixteen, brought it into town from sixteen different directions, made sixteen separate items out of it, and got up such another sweat about hay as Virginia City had never seen in the world before.
This was encouraging. Two nonpareil columns had to be filled, and I was getting along. Presently, when things began to look dismal42 again, a desperado killed a man in a saloon and joy returned once more. I never was so glad over any mere43 trifle before in my life. I said to the murderer:
“Sir, you are a stranger to me, but you have done me a kindness this day which I can never forget. If whole years of gratitude44 can be to you any slight compensation, they shall be yours. I was in trouble and you have relieved me nobly and at a time when all seemed dark and drear. Count me your friend from this time forth45, for I am not a man to forget a favor.”
If I did not really say that to him I at least felt a sort of itching46 desire to do it. I wrote up the murder with a hungry attention to details, and when it was finished experienced but one regret—namely, that they had not hanged my benefactor47 on the spot, so that I could work him up too.
Next I discovered some emigrant48 wagons going into camp on the plaza49 and found that they had lately come through the hostile Indian country and had fared rather roughly. I made the best of the item that the circumstances permitted, and felt that if I were not confined within rigid50 limits by the presence of the reporters of the other papers I could add particulars that would make the article much more interesting. However, I found one wagon37 that was going on to California, and made some judicious51 inquiries52 of the proprietor. When I learned, through his short and surly answers to my cross-questioning, that he was certainly going on and would not be in the city next day to make trouble, I got ahead of the other papers, for I took down his list of names and added his party to the killed and wounded. Having more scope here, I put this wagon through an Indian fight that to this day has no parallel in history.
My two columns were filled. When I read them over in the morning I felt that I had found my legitimate53 occupation at last. I reasoned within myself that news, and stirring news, too, was what a paper needed, and I felt that I was peculiarly endowed with the ability to furnish it. Mr. Goodman said that I was as good a reporter as Dan. I desired no higher commendation. With encouragement like that, I felt that I could take my pen and murder all the immigrants on the plains if need be and the interests of the paper demanded it.
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1
momentous
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| adj.重要的，重大的 | |
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endorsed
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| vt.& vi.endorse的过去式或过去分词形式v.赞同( endorse的过去式和过去分词 )；在（尤指支票的）背面签字；在（文件的）背面写评论；在广告上说本人使用并赞同某产品 | |
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sumptuous
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| adj.豪华的，奢侈的，华丽的 | |
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legacy
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| n.遗产，遗赠；先人(或过去)留下的东西 | |
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livelihood
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| n.生计，谋生之道 | |
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vocation
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| n.职业，行业 | |
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vocations
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| n.（认为特别适合自己的）职业( vocation的名词复数 )；使命；神召；（认为某种工作或生活方式特别适合自己的）信心 | |
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proprietor
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| n.所有人；业主；经营者 | |
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tiresome
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| adj.令人疲劳的，令人厌倦的 | |
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briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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bellows
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| n.风箱；发出吼叫声，咆哮（尤指因痛苦）( bellow的名词复数 )；（愤怒地）说出（某事），大叫v.发出吼叫声，咆哮（尤指因痛苦）( bellow的第三人称单数 )；（愤怒地）说出（某事），大叫 | |
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prescriptions
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| 药( prescription的名词复数 )； 处方； 开处方； 计划 | |
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soda
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| n.苏打水；汽水 | |
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berth
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| n.卧铺，停泊地，锚位；v.使停泊 | |
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apprentices
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| 学徒，徒弟( apprentice的名词复数 ) | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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ass
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| n.驴；傻瓜，蠢笨的人 | |
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grandiloquent
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| adj.夸张的 | |
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shaft
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| n.(工具的)柄，杆状物 | |
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descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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shovel
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| n.铁锨，铲子，一铲之量；v.铲，铲出 | |
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contrived
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| adj.不自然的，做作的；虚构的 | |
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brace
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| n. 支柱,曲柄,大括号; v. 绷紧,顶住,(为困难或坏事)做准备 | |
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skilful
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| (=skillful)adj.灵巧的，熟练的 | |
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territorial
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| adj.领土的，领地的 | |
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steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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lavish
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| adj.无节制的；浪费的；vt.慷慨地给予，挥霍 | |
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humiliation
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| n.羞辱 | |
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rusty
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| adj.生锈的；锈色的；荒废了的 | |
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woolen
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| adj.羊毛(制)的；毛纺的 | |
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slung
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| 抛( sling的过去式和过去分词 )； 吊挂； 遣送； 押往 | |
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Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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deference
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| n.尊重，顺从；敬意 | |
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conspicuous
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| adj.明眼的，惹人注目的；炫耀的，摆阔气的 | |
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dearth
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| n.缺乏，粮食不足，饥谨 | |
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36
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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wagon
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| n.四轮马车，手推车，面包车；无盖运货列车 | |
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38
wagons
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| n.四轮的运货马车( wagon的名词复数 )；铁路货车；小手推车 | |
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39
sensational
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| adj.使人感动的，非常好的，轰动的，耸人听闻的 | |
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40
canvassed
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| v.（在政治方面）游说( canvass的过去式和过去分词 )；调查（如选举前选民的）意见；为讨论而提出（意见等）；详细检查 | |
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41
affluent
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| adj.富裕的，富有的，丰富的，富饶的 | |
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42
dismal
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| adj.阴沉的，凄凉的，令人忧郁的，差劲的 | |
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43
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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44
gratitude
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| adj.感激，感谢 | |
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45
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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46
itching
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| adj.贪得的，痒的，渴望的v.发痒( itch的现在分词 ) | |
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47
benefactor
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| n. 恩人，行善的人，捐助人 | |
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48
emigrant
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| adj.移居的，移民的；n.移居外国的人，移民 | |
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49
plaza
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| n.广场，市场 | |
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50
rigid
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| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
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51
judicious
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| adj.明智的，明断的，能作出明智决定的 | |
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52
inquiries
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| n.调查( inquiry的名词复数 )；疑问；探究；打听 | |
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53
legitimate
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| adj.合法的，合理的，合乎逻辑的；v.使合法 | |
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