With the Procession

With the Procession, by Henry B.
Fuller

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Title: With the Procession
Author: Henry B. Fuller

Release Date: September, 2005 [EBook #8891] [Yes, we are more than
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HENRY B. FULLER
With
the
Procession
Introduction by Mark Harris

I
When old Mr. Marshall finally took to his bed, the household viewed
this action with more surprise than sympathy, and with more
impatience than surprise. It seemed like the breaking down of a
machine whose trustworthiness had been hitherto infallible; his family
were almost forced to the acknowledgement that he was but a mere
human being after all. They had enjoyed a certain intimacy with him, in
lengths varying with their respective ages, but they had never made a

full avowal that his being rested on any tangible physical basis. Rather
had they fallen into the way of considering him as a disembodied
intelligence, whose sole function was to direct the transmutation of
values and credits and resources and opportunities into the creature
comforts demanded by the state of life unto which it had please
Providence to call them; and their dismay was now such as might occur
at the Mint if the great stamp were suddenly and of its own accord to
cease its coinage of double-eagles and to sink into a silence of supine
idleness. His wife and children acknowledged, indeed, his head and his
hands--those it were impossible to overlook; but his head stopped with
the rim of his collar, while his hands--those long, lean hands, freckled,
tufted goldishly between joints and knuckles--they never followed
beyond the plain gilt sleeve-buttons (marked with a Roman M) which
secured the overlapping of his cuffs. No, poor old David Marshall was
like one of the early Tuscan archangels, whose scattered members are
connected by draperies merely, with no acknowledged organism within;
nor were his shining qualities fully recognized until the resolutions
passed by the Association of Wholesale Grocers reached the hands of
his bereaved---
But this is no way to begin.
* * * * *
The grimy lattice-work of the drawbridge swung to slowly, the
steam-tug blackened the dull air and roiled the turbid water as it
dragged its schooner on towards the lumber-yards of the South Branch,
and a long line of waiting vehicles took up their interrupted course
through the smoke and the stench as they filed across the stream into
the thick of business beyond: first a yellow street-car; then a robust
truck laden with rattling sheet-iron, or piled high with fresh wooden
pails and willow baskets; then a junk-cart bearing a pair of dwarfed and
bearded Poles, who bumped in unison with the jars of its clattering
springs; then, perhaps, a bespattered buggy, with reins jerked by a pair
of sinewy and impatient hands. Then more street-cars; then a butcher's
cart loaded with the carcasses of calves--red, black, piebald--or an
express wagon with a yellow cur yelping from its rear; then, it may be,

an insolently venturesome landau, with crested panel and top-booted
coachman. Then drays and omnibuses and more street-cars; then,
presently, somewhere in the line, between the tail end of one truck and
the menacing tongue of another, a family carry-all--a carry-all loaded
with its family, driven by a man of all work, drawn by a slight and
amiable old mare, and encumbered with luggage which shows the
labels of half the hotels of Europe.
It is a very capable and comprehensive vehicle, as conveyances of that
kind go. It is not new, it is not precisely in the mode; but it shows
material and workmanship of the best grade, and it is washed, oiled,