Many were the predictions of brother
reporters and friends that he would starve in the great city. It
was a struggle. He knew no one, had letters to no one, but that
was rather as he wished it than otherwise. He liked to test his
own fitness. It meant risk, but he knew his own capabilities and
believed in his own resourcefulness. He had thoroughly convinced
himself that the men who achieve are those who do what other men
are afraid to do. The difficulty would be to get an opening. That
done, he had no fear of what would follow.
He began his quest with a capital of less than five dollars. There
were many disappointments, much weariness, and a long fast which
came near to persuading him that his friends' predictions were
perhaps about to be fulfilled. _But he got his opening._
Staggering with weakness, he had lived for two days in momentary
dread of arrest for drunkenness. Then just when it seemed that he
could go no farther, a former acquaintance from the West, of whose
presence in the city he was aware, met him. Among the first
questions was: "Do you need money?" and forthwith a generous
fifteen dollars was placed in his hand. That day one of his
special stories was accepted, and only a few days later he was
taken on the staff of the _Daily News_, where soon the best
assignments of the paper were given him.
Do you know why you are getting the best work to do here?" asked
one of the new friends.
"Why?"
"It's because you're _white_."
This position he retained until May of the following year, meantime
contributing to the editorial page of _The Saturday Evening Post_.
Then an attack of typhoid lost him his position; but he had made
loyal friends, who delighted to come to his aid. Something of the
quality of his own loyalty is expressed in an entry in his diary
shortly after leaving the hospital. "Many good lessons in human
nature. Learned much about who are the real friends, who may be
trusted _to a finish_, who are not _quitters_, but it shall not be
written." During the period of his convalescence which he spent
among the Shawangunk Mountains of Sullivan County, New York, he
decided that if it were possible he would not go back to newspaper
work. A friend had sent him a letter of introduction to the editor
of _Outing_, which in August he presented, and was asked to bring
in an article on the preservation of the Adirondack Park as a
national playground. The article proved acceptable, and
thenceforth most of his work was done for that magazine.
In September he wrote his friend, Mr. James A. Leroy.
"MY DEAR JIM, - I think that regardless of your frightful neglect I
shall be obliged to write you another note expressing sense of
under-obligationness to you for that letter. It is the best thing
I've run up against so to speak. As a result of it I am to have
the pleasure of hastening Detroitward. There I shall register at
the House. I shall sit in the window with my feet higher than my
head, and wear a one-hundred-and-fifty-dollar-a-week air of
nonchalance. When the festive Detroit reporter shys past looking
hungrily at the cafe, I'll look at my watch with a wonder-if-it's-
time-to-dress-for-dinner air and fill his soul with envy. This has
been the dream that has haunted me ever since those childhood days
when you and I ate at Spaghetti's and then went to the House to
talk it over. I shall carry out the dire scheme and then - well,
then, if Fate says for me to hustle across the Great Divide, I'll
go with the feeling that life has not been in vain."
Later, January 14th of the following year, to the same friend who
was then in Manila as secretary to Dean Worcester.
"You may think it wondrous strange that I should be here in Canada
in mid-winter when I could as well be south. There is a mystery,
and since you are on the other side of the world I don't mind
telling. I am here on a filibustering expedition. I made a firm
resolution some months ago that a certain portion of Canada should
be annexed to the United States. I am here fostering annexation
sentiment, and have succeeded so well that the consent is
unanimous, and the annexation will occur just as soon as L. H.,
junior, is able to pay board for two, which will probably be a
matter of a few weeks. So don't be surprised if you receive a
square envelope containing an announcement which reads something
like this:
Mr. and Mrs. ______
of Bewdley, Ontario,
announce the ________ of their daughter
___________
to
MR. LEONIDAS HUBBARD, JR.
On his return to New York, a short time later, he was assigned a
trip through the Southern States. Hence a telegram, on January
29th, to a quiet Canadian town. On January 31st a quiet wedding in
a little church in New York, and then five months in the mountains
of Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and among the forests and
cotton plantations of Mississippi.
Besides the work done for the magazine on this trip, he gave the
_Atlantic Monthly_ two articles, "The Moonshiner at Home," and
"Barataria: The Ruins of a Pirate Kingdom."
During the fall, winter and early spring, our home was in
Wurtsboro, Sullivan County, New York, a quaint old village in the
beautiful Mamakating valley.
