The Vagabonds by Nicholas DelBanco Page A

rather
we
who view
them
benignly, said Thomas Edison; the skies do not “look down,” as you would have it, sir, so much as we look up. I hold man to be the measure of all things—or, more particularly, to be he who does the measuring; our Creator’s elsewhere occupied and need not be bothered with plumb line and rule. He does not bring a yardstick to the task.
    Mrs. Dancey appeared—or strove to appear—not to notice, since the irreverence of the great man’s observation, while not a blasphemer’s precisely, might nonetheless have been construed provocative and as a challenge to complacence in his guests. He liked to do this, the inventor, and was forever stirring up the hornet’s nest of piety to discover what might fly out. “God created man in his own image,” Edison was wont to say. “And man, being a gentleman, returned the compliment.”
    The others were well used to this and continued unperturbed. Such a nighttime view, said Burroughs, is not possible in cities, nor will it long adorn the countryside, which too must prove contaminate by coal soot and the detritus of modernity: rust, dust. Or so I fear, the old man said, or so I sometimes think. That clarity of evening light which we thought to be a standard is a standard that our children’s children will not know. The steady hum of engines and—I do not exempt you, Tom—the wire and the wireless will soon enough make silence be but a thing remembered; no true wilderness nor quiet anymore.
    “Or anywhere?” asked Harvey Firestone.
    “Or anywhere,” said Burroughs.
    Now there was silence in the tent. Young Dancey stood before them, his fiddle in one hand, his bow in the other. “Suggestions, gentlemen? Ladies? A particular tune that you’d like us to play?”
    “‘Skip to My Lou,’” said Edison. And then ‘Green Grow the Rushes, Ho!’ I want something lively, not mournful.”
    “I want something
lovely,
” Firestone said, and sighed, and shut his eyes. “A song, Peter? What would you sing?”
    Peter Barclay was Firestone’s man. He had been in the employ of the family since aught-six, a decade since, and traveled everywhere with Firestone—whom he called equally master and friend. The former did the latter service: arranging his clothing and schedule, setting out his refreshments and correspondence, presenting his own person as a kind of shield or buffer between the wealthy Firestone and an importunate world. In consequence he had free access to society, the hurly-burly of companionable encounter, and may better be described as secretary than valet. His was the second opinion his employer sought and valued in matters of horseflesh and commerce and waistcoats and wine. Whether from his naturally gregarious and all-embracing nature, that characteristic wide-ranging American enthusiasm, or whether from the civilizing nurture of his benefactor’s fortune, Barclay combined the oil and water of the well-bred swell and common man, and did so with an effortless insouciance that those without it call “charm.”
    He was well-favored, well-proportioned, a great favorite with the weaker sex,whom he in turn would favor with a democratic inclusiveness, embracing them not so much collectively as turn by turn. There were Mary and Susan and Jane. There were Lisa and Margaret and Kate. There were others whose eyes he remembered, or their teeth and scent and limber limbs, but of whose present whereabouts he had to admit to ignorance, and though he could recall down to the nicest detail the details of their dalliance he was not in full possession of their names. He was, in short, a rake. And that wandering eye of his, once fixed, would gleam with bright persuasiveness and fairly illumine the object it lit on—in this instance, it goes without saying, the Dancey girl, whose glass he filled twice, thrice.
    “A song?” repeated Firestone. “Will you oblige us, friend?”
    “I will,” said Peter. “Yes.”
    Such entertainment, however, although