A Boast of Malaria

THE CONTRIBUTORS’ CLUB

To come across a stranger who has ALSO had Fever-and-Ague is like meeting a veteran. The reason for it is the one here implied. Of all afflictions it is the one a man has volunteered to take upon himself as a pioneer of civilization. He has fought for the United States; he has trembled for his country; he has pulled her forward in cold sweat, — stowing away every meal with a capsule the size of a cartridge. And surely not least among those in the vanguard of civilization are the ones who have taken their bullets in this wise.

The Fever-and-Ague town took its sufferings in the spirit of a camp in a campaign, the inhabitants keeping up one another’s courage with mutual jibes on their misfortunes. My Indiana village was so heroic of its misery that one half of the populace would smile at the “other half” when it came their day to shake. The mechanic, passing his comrade prostrated in the corner of the locomotive pit, would salute him with a jibe. And the other, lying there with hammer and chisel beside him, and looking up into the concatenation of eccentrics, links and rods, and all the underside iron “innards” of the machine that gets out of order but never gets the AGUE, — he, I say, could not exactly see the joke. But he would see it the next day — when the tables were turned. Such are the horrors of war.

Those of us who were really malaria veterans were Every-Other-Day-Men. Such shivering and chattering of teeth under the weighty blankets as the chill strangely takes its exercise in in a body that is not at all disposed to do such heavy work! Then when the bedclothes — an excellent name for them — are off, what a sweltering in your own tropic nature till the remainder of energy has melted away! And on the next day, how good is beefsteak and gravy! You eat all you have missed — with an extra allowance for the day that is to come. When I was a boy I used to think it would be a fine privilege to have the shaking come with the fever. Our family was fortunate in chancing to be so synchronized that half of us were attacked one day and the other half went into action the next. I knew a freight engineer, a gentle old bachelor, who introduced me to Robinson Crusoe, whose delusions in a fever used to give him visions of hunting, so that, he saw ducks on the ceiling. It was a rare instance of compensation. Although he had been a Maryland Rebel, and although he smoked his meerschaum and told soothing tales of a quiet evening in a way that showed him to be all Equanimity, he would regularly accuse himself, after times of wreck and trouble, of being “chicken - hearted,” blaming it on the over-refining influences of Fever-and-Ague. At one end of the “division” was Chicago, — and from there he brought a wondrous tale of the stage whereon Pinafore was more beautiful than it was over our corner grocery. At the other extreme of the railroad universe was Defiance, the place of many wrecks, — of Death that was more than once visited home upon our village. It seemed that the vengeance of Heaven was attracted to it because of its boastful name. If there be anything in this philosophy, I am of the opinion that it was because of the meek and gentle guise in which “Hank” took his bravery forth under Heaven that Fate let him off with only the maiming of a thumb.

Meeting a Fever-and-Ague man you know at once how to take him, — in the spirit of a soldier. After a mere perfunctory inquiry as to where he saw service you smile and tell a funny story. Each malaria district has resolved its misery into a popular humor. In Michigan they contemplated running sawmills with Fever-and-Ague power; in Arkansaw the indolent native sees that it can be used to shake fruit off the orchard tree; in Indiana they do not prevaricate, but simply aver that the chickens have it and fall off the fence with their shaking. As for me, I cannot claim to have been more than a drummer boy when I followed my father to the front, but I shook regularly. I remember that in the days of the Hayes election the small boys had a campaign marching club of which I was the drummer. One night we marched by torchlight to the neighboring town, where there was to be speaking in the schoolhouse. I was seized with a chill as I led them on. I could take oath that my hands kept up a tattoo on the drum without the least effort on my part. I knew a boy who could shake more pennies out of his bank at such a time than he otherwise could,— another instance of compensation. This I aver. But, as Xavier de Maistre says, “I know the gratuitous protestations will appear suspicious to the eyes of some; but I also know that suspicious people will not read this.”

Notwithstanding the honors of the malady I could wish that the reader’s childhood had nothing whatever to do with a tamarack swamp and its proverbial “bottomless lake.” Many of these bottomless lakes have now been drained. In Michigan they offered a promising activity to the Dutchman and his windmill. The place of awful mystery became a celery farm. My bottomless lake, with its quaking bogs, its gold-striped watersnakes, its reptilian choirs, and gaudy unnamable things,has been emptied, — and, no doubt, turned to some useful purpose. They do not have malaria there now. We had it all. Looking back upon it, one whose body was dedicated to the work, who wrestled with the millions of microbes till he tired them out and then put in an uninterrupted day of advancing the outposts, cannot but feel patronizing and paternal to such a community, — a seer of ancient history. It is as if one had come up through things Eocene and Pliocene; as if he had taken hold of an age reptilian and carboniferous, and overhauled it into a post-office address.

I have spoken of the over-refining tendencies of Fever-and-Ague. It is in the supine hour or two of convalescence that one feels the spiritual attunement of mere soul-existence, the springtime pleasant laziness and poetic rumor of things. That which the critics call a poet’s “sensorium ”— “ adumbration ”— “ spirituality” rather than spiritualism — I know what all these things mean. The “ dæmonic’ — it means the croaking swamp at eventide. That refinement which is sensitiveness; that laziness which is the working time of the poet, — Fever-and-Ague puts one through the experience, and then lets him go scot-free without insisting that it shall be constitutional. I can see in it literary raisons d’être, affecting localities into occasional verse, — verse of the simple and homely rather than the dæmonic or swamp variety. The dæmonic is too common and all-about, — one would not court it in verse. But the experiences are there full-rounded. And when the malaria is gone, when the mind can turn to it all in retrospect, there are moonlight memories of the tamarack that ought to make a well of dæmonic undefiled.

In these days of organization I expect to see some one start the Fever-and-Ague Association. The Hay-Fever Association, I understand, has been of great pleasure and social profit. But why this particular affliction should have moved its devotees to seek one another out I do not understand, except there be a sentimental suggestion in its tears. I do not doubt that a man who has to mingle with the world in this weepy way would often be tempted to turn his tears into a plausible channel, saying he was glad to meet you or sorry to hear of your misfortune,— as when we sometimes turn a sneeze into an exclamation. From this might come the banding together, at the time of their affliction, of those Brothers among whom a tear would never be inopportune. To be sure it has aristocratic advantages over Fever-and-Ague, implying the annual pilgrimage to the Thousand Isles. But the Feverand-Ague Association could boast a more democratic and heroic basis. In time, seeing that it is passing into history and its survivors are bound to be fewer, it would become more exclusive. And I here mention myself, if it is necessary for some one to accept office, as probably being best fitted for Grand Keeper of the Pill and Capsule. I fought malaria until I had to be sent away on furlough; I there shook harder, for it seems that the microbes are themselves not enjoying full health in the malaria country, and come to greater life when taken on a journey; I had to come back wasted with the campaign; I have an honorable record. Notwithstanding, I am now an able-bodied survivor in vigorous activity, and, in fact, have even aspired to be an Atlantean. I bespeak the ballots of all such.