MY VOYAGE TO EUROPE
Twenty years ago, and probably at an earlier date still, the traveler
bound for Europe on any of the ships, sailing from Hoboken, might have
seen, had he been curious enough to look about him, a strange collection
of men of all ages, sizes and make-ups, huddled together nights in a
musty cellar only a few steps from the North German Lloyd's docks. And,
had he talked with this uncouth company, he would have learned much
about the ways and means necessary to make big ships go and come on
their ocean voyages.
Somewhat less than twenty years ago, say eighteen, a greasy paper sign
was tacked to the door of the cellar for the benefit of those who might
be looking for the dingy hole. It read: "Internashnul Bankrupp
Klubb--Wellcome!" The words and lettering were the work of an Italian
lad, who had a faculty for seeing the humor in things which made others
cry and sigh. In years that have passed the sign has been blown away,
and a barber to-day holds forth where the "Bankrupps" formerly lodged.
The store above, a general furnishing establishment for emigrants and
immigrants, has also given way to a saloon, I think, and the outfitting
business of former days has developed, in the hands of the old
proprietor's sons, into a general banking and exchange affair near-by
around the corner. The old proprietor has long since been gathered unto
his fathers, I have been told; but the boys possess much of his business
acumen and money-getting propensities and are doing well, preferring,
however, to handle the currencies of the various nations to selling tin
pots, pans, mattresses and shoddy clothing, as did the old man.
Their father was a Hebrew, who may or may not have had a very
interesting history before I met him, but at the time of our
acquaintance he looked so fat and comfortable and money was so plainly
his friend and benefactor that he was a pretty prosaic representative of
his race. I had heard about him in New York, after making unsuccessful
attempts there and in Brooklyn to secure a berth as caretaker on a
Europe-bound cattle-ship.
Eight months of roughing it on the Road had worked many changes in my
temperament, ways of calculating, and general appearance. I was no
longer the youth who had jumped out of that second-story window and made
for parts unknown. Had it been necessary, so tough and hardened had my
physique become, that on arriving in Hoboken, I could have done myself
credit, I think, in getting out of a third-story window. I was thin and
scrawny, to be sure, but such characteristics are most deceiving to the
observer unacquainted with tramp life. They may mean disease, of course,
but more frequently good health, and in my case it was decidedly the
latter. Whatever else hoboing had done or failed to do for me, it had
steeled my muscles, tightened up my nerve, and jostled my self-reliance
into a thoroughly working condition. Many a vacation in recent years, so
far as mere health is concerned, might have been spent with profit on
the Road. But eighteen years ago it was a different matter. _Die Ferne_
as such was at least temporarily under control; I had become tired of
simply drifting, and whether I should find a home abroad or not, the
outlook could hardly be much darker over seas than in my own country. I
had some knowledge of foreign languages, and knew that, at a pinch, I
could retreat to England, or to one of her colonies, if Germany should
prove inhospitable. How to get across was the main problem. The
cattle-ships were over-manned, it seemed, and the prospects of
succeeding as a stowaway were pronounced bad.
I finally heard of the corpulent Hebrew and the "Bankrupps" Club in
Hoboken. A German sailor told me about the place, describing the cellar
as a refuge for "gebusted" Europeans, who were prepared to work their
way back to their old country homes as coal-passers. The sailor said
that any one, European or not, was welcome at the club, provided he
looked able to stand the trip. The Hebrew received two dollars from the
steamship companies for every man he succeeded in shipping.
My first interview with this man, how he lorded it over me and how I
answered him back--these things are as vivid to me to-day as they were
years ago. "Du bist zu schwach" (you are too weak), he told me on
hearing of my desire for a coal trimmer's berth. "Pig mens are necessary
for dat vork," and his large Oriental eyes ran disdainfully over my
shabby appearance.
"Never you mind how _schwach_ I am," I assured him; "that's my look-out.
See here! I'll give you two dollars besides what the company gives you,
if you'll get me a berth."
Again the Oriental's eyes rolled, and closed. "Vell," the man returned
at last, "you can sleep downstairs, but I t'ink you are _zu schwach_."
The week spent "downstairs" is perhaps as memorable a week as any in my
existence. Day after day went by, "Pig mens" by the dozen left the
cellar to take their positions, great ships whistled and drew out into
the mighty stream outward bound, my little store of dimes and nickels
grew smaller and smaller--and I was still "downstairs," awaiting my
chance (a hopeless one it seemed) with the other incapables that the
ships' doctors had refused to pass. The Italian lad, with his sweet
tenor voice and sunny temperament, helped to brighten the life in the
daytime and early evening, but the dark hours of the night, full of the
groans and sighs of the old men, trying for berths, were dismal enough.
Nearly every nationality was represented in the cellar during the week I
spent there, but Germans predominated. What tales of woe and distress
these men had to tell! They were all "gebusted," every one of them. A
pawnbroker would probably not have given five dollars for the
possessions of the entire crew.
"Amerika" was the delinquent in each reported case of failure--the men
themselves were cock-sure that they were in no particular to blame for
their defeat and bankruptcy. "I should never have come to this accursed
land," was the claim of practically all of the inmates of the cellar,
except the little Italian. He liked _Neuvo Yorko, malto una citt
bellissima_--but he wanted to see his mother and _Itallia_ once more.
Then he was coming back to _Neuvo Yorko_ to be mayor, perhaps, some day.
The hope that is in Americans was also in him. He believed in it, in
himself and in his mother; why should he not become a good American? Why
not, indeed?
But those poor old men from Norway! Theirs was the saddest plight. "The
boogs" (bugs), one said to me, an ancient creature with sunken eyes and
temples, "they eat down all my farm--all. They come in a day. My
mortgage money due. They take my crops--all I had. No! America no good
for me. I go back see my daughter. Norway better." I wonder where the
poor old soul is, if he be still on earth. Ship after ship went out, but
there was no berth for his withered up body, and after each defeat, he
fell back, sighing, in his corner of the cellar, a picture of
disappointment and chagrin such as I never have seen elsewhere, nor care
to gaze upon again.
Our beds were nothing but newspapers, some yellow, some half so, and
others sedate enough, I make no doubt. We slept, however, quite
oblivious of newspaper policies and editorials. Looking for our meals
and wondering when our berths on the steamers would be ready
constituted our day's work, and left us at night, too tired out to know
or care much whether we were lying on feathers or iron. I have since had
many a restful night in Hoboken, and to induce sleep, even with
mosquitoes as bed-fellows, nothing more has been necessary than to
recall those newspaper nights in the Hebrew's underground refuge. I
trust that he is resting well somewhere.
"Get up, _presto_! We're all going, _presto_!" It was five o'clock on a
cool October morning, and my friend, the little Italian, was tugging
away at my jacket. "Get up, _fratello_," he persisted. "Mucha good
news." The light was struggling in through the cobwebbed windows and
doorway, and the Norwegian was wakefully sighing again. I sat up, rubbed
my eyes, and stared wonderingly at the Italian.
"Where's your good news?" I yawned, and pulled on my jacket.
"Mucha--mucha," he went on. "Policeman, he dead. Eighteen firemen and
passers put hatchet in his head right front here. Blood on the sidewalk.
Firemen and passers are pinched. Ship--she call the _Elbe_--she sail
nine o'clock. The old Jew, he got to ship us. No time to look 'roun'.
Mucha good news, what?"
I was the first to tell the Hebrew of what had happened over night,
emphasizing the necessity of finding coal-passers immediately and the
fact that we were the handiest materials. What a change came over the
man's face! Sleepy wrinkles, indolent eyes, jeweled hands, projecting
paunch were started into wondrous animation.
"You sure?" he asked eagerly.
"Absolutely. The men are all arrested."
"Ah, ha!" and the jeweled hands rubbed each other appreciatively. "Very
goot! Now comes your _Gelegenhei_--that is goot. I see about things
quick," and he waddled over to the North German Lloyd docks to assure
himself that the news was correct--that the Italian had not made a
mistake on account of using some dime novels for a pillow the night
before. Thirty-six dollars were his if he could find the requisite
number of men--a good wage for his time and labor.
"Ya, ya," he chuckled, a half-hour later, when I saw him again. "This
time you go, _ganz sicher_. You a very lucky boy. Tell the others to
stick in the cellar; I must not lose them."
At eight o'clock he appeared among us to select the most serviceable
looking men. Again the poor old Norwegian was counted out--"_zu
schwach_," the Hebrew thundered in reply to the man's entreaties to be
taken, and once more he slunk away to his corner, weeping. There were
still others who failed to come up to the Hebrew's standard of fitness,
but no case was so pitiful as that of the Norwegian.
Eighteen men, some expert firemen found elsewhere, and the rest green
coal-passers like myself, were finally chosen, lined up in the street,
counted for the twentieth time, it seemed, by the Hebrew's mathematical
sons, and then marched in single file across the street and down the
dock to the _Elbe's_ gang-plank, where the ship's doctor awaited us. The
stoke-room was so short-handed that the man was forced to accept all of
us, something that he certainly would not have done had there been a
larger collection of men to choose from. He smiled significantly when he
let me pass, and I was reminded of what a saloonkeeper had said to me
earlier in the morning. I had gone to his place for breakfast, and he
asked me whether I was looking for a job. I said that I was, explaining
how long we all had waited for opportunities to ship.
"You goin' as a passer?" he exclaimed. "Why, boy, they'll bury you at
sea, sure. You can't stand the work. Just wait and see," he warned, as
if waiting, seeing and sea-burial were necessary to substantiate his
words.
"Stay here with me," he went on, "and I'll give you a job."
"Doing what?"
"Oh, cleaning up and learning the business."
I thanked him for his kindness, but insisted that I was going to ship.
"Well, when they're tossing you overboard, don't blame me," he
requested, replenishing my soup-plate as if it were the last "filler-in"
I should ever have on land. When we were all in line, and marching to
the ship, he waved me an _adios_ with a beer towel from his doorway, and
reminded me not to forget what he had said.
As in earlier days, when attending college and living in the lawyer's
home, a lawyer's career had been ruthlessly thrown aside, I was now
perhaps throwing away a wonderful chance to become a saloonkeeper--a
great fat brewer, even, who could tell? Thus it is that opportunities
come and go. I might now be living in ease and luxury in a mosquitoless
palace on the Hoboken Heights. As it is, I am a poor struggler
still--but for the time being unmolested by mosquitoes, thank heaven.
Many and many times after our good ship had put to sea, and we had all
been initiated in our work, I remembered my friend, the saloonkeeper,
and temporarily regretted that I had not thrown my lot with his concern.
Now, I know that it was all for the best that the coal-passer's job was
preferred. Only the other day I learned with regret that the
saloonkeeper became insane not so very long after I had known him, his
monomania being sidewalks. They say he got so bad that he thought the
ceiling of his saloon was a sidewalk, and it was when he tried to use
the ceiling as a sidewalk for his empty beer kegs that he was pronounced
incurably out of order.
Once assigned to our different bunks on the _Elbe_, one of the head
firemen told us off to our different watches. An officer, passing at
this time, remarked that the head fireman had "a rum lot" of trimmers to
handle.
"Ach Gott!" the latter returned jovially. "The heat will sweat 'em into
shape. I know the kind."
No doubt he did, but I recall some men, nevertheless, that the heat
failed to sweat into shape, or into anything else worth while. They were
born laggards and sneaks, throwing all the work they could shirk on
others who were honestly trying to do their best. It is trite enough to
say that such human beings are found everywhere, but they certainly
ought to be barred from the fire-room of an ocean liner.
My "watches," four hours long, began at eight in the morning and at four
in the afternoon; the rest of the time was my own, excepting when it was
my turn to carry water and help clean up the mess-room.
The first descent into the fire-room is unforgettable. Although hell as
a domicile had long since been given up by me as a mere theological
contrivance, useful to keep people guessing, but otherwise an imposition
on a sane person's intelligence and not worth considering in the general
scheme of things, going down that series of ladders into the bowels of
the old _Elbe_, the heat seemingly jumping ten degrees a ladder, gave my
cock-sure disposal of hell a severe jolt. I thought of General Sherman's
oft-quoted remark about war, and wondered whether he had ever tested his
faith in the same by later investigations in a liner's stoke-room.
Indeed, I thought of everything, it seemed, that spelled hellish things.
At last the final ladder was reached, and we were at the bottom--the
bottom of everything was the thought in more minds than one that
afternoon. The head fireman of our watch immediately called my attention
to a poker, easily an inch and a half thick and twenty to thirty feet
long. "Yours!" he screamed. "Yours!" and he threw open one of the ash
doors of a furnace pantomiming what I was to do with the poker. I dove
for it madly, just barely raised it from the floor, and got it started
into the ashes--and then dropped none too neatly on top of it. "Hurry
up, you sow-pig," the fireman yelled, and I struggled again with the
terrible poker, finally managing to rake out the ashes. Then came "ash
heave," the _Elbe_ having the old bucket system for the job. Great metal
pails were let down to us from above through a ventilator. The pails
filled, they were hauled up again, dumped and then sent down for another
filling. On one occasion a pail broke loose from the chain, and came
crashing down the ventilator under which I was having an airing. For
some reason I did not hear the pail, and the fireman had barely time to
shove me out of danger when the bucket fell to the floor with a
sickening thud. If we had ever met--but what's the use of "if-ing" any
more than "perhapsing"? It was simply a clear case of deferred
"cashing-in."
The ashes out and up, we trimmers were divided into shovelers and
carriers. Sometimes I was a carrier and had to haul baskets of coal to
the firemen--"trimming" the coal consists, so far as I ever found out,
in merely dumping the basketfuls conveniently for the firemen; and
sometimes I was a shoveler, my duties then consisting of filling the
baskets for the passers. Every bit of it, passing and shoveling, was
honest, hard work. Shirking was severely reprimanded, but, as I have
said, there were a few who did just as little as they could, although
they were far better fitted for the work than I was, for instance. Once
our "boss" decided that I was moving too slowly. He found me struggling
with a full basket, in the alleyway between the hot boilers. "Further
with the coals," he cried; "further!" accompanying the command with what
he termed a "swat" on my head with his sweat-rag. I was tired out,
mentally and physically, my head was dizzy, and my legs wobbled. For one
very short second, after the fireman had hit me, I came very near losing
control of myself, and doing something very reckless. That sweat-rag
"swat" had aroused whatever was left in me of manhood, honor and pride,
and I looked the fireman in the eye with murder in my own. He turned,
and I was just about to reach for a large piece of coal and let him have
it, when such vestiges of common-sense as were left to me asserted
themselves; and I remembered what treatment was accorded mutinous acts
on the high seas. Without doubt I should have been put in irons, and
further trouble might have awaited me in Germany. I dropped the piece of
coal and proceeded on my way, a coward, it seemed, and I felt like one.
But it was better for the time being to put up with such feelings,
galling though they were, than to be shut up and thrown into irons. I
must blame my tramp life, if blame be necessary in the premises, for
having often pocketed my pride on more or less similar occasions, when
an overwhelming defeat stared me in the face had I taken the offensive.
About the middle of each watch "refreshments" were served in the shape
of gin. A huge bottle, sometimes a pail, was passed around, and each
man, fireman as well as trimmer, was expected to take his full share.
During the short respite there was the faintest possible semblance of
joviality among the men. Scrappy conversations were heard, and
occasionally a laugh--a hoarse, vulgar, coal-dust laugh might be
distinguished from the general noise. Our watch was composed of as rough
a set of men as I have ever worked with. Every move they made was
accompanied with a curse, and the firemen, stripped to the waist and the
perspiration running off them, looked like horrible demons, at times,
when they tended their fires. Yet when the "watch" was over with and the
men had cleaned up, many of them showed gentler traits of character
which redeemed much of their roughness when below.
The call to go up the ladders was the sweetest sound I heard throughout
the trip. First, the men to relieve us would come clattering down, and
soon after we were free to go back to daylight and fresh air again.
There was generally a shout of gladness on such occasions, the firemen
being quite as happy as the inexperienced trimmers. My little Italian
friend used to sing "Santa Lucia" on nearly every climb bathwards and
bunkwards. A wash-down awaited all of us at the top, and soon after a
sumptuous meal, in quantity and wholesomeness certainly as good as
anything given the saloon passengers. The head fireman insisted on our
eating all that we could. He wanted able-bodied, well-nourished trimmers
on his staff, and I, at least, often had to eat more than I wanted, or
really needed.
One day I decided to try to escape a watch. The night before I had
hardly slept at all, my eyes were painfully sore from cinders getting
into them, and I was generally pretty well used up. Other men had been
relieved of duty at different times, and it seemed to me that my turn
was due. I went to the doctor.
"Well?" he said in English. I dwelt mainly on my sore eyes, telling him
how the heat inflamed them.
"Let me see them," and he threw back the lids in turn, washing out each
eye as if it had been a marble-top table.
"How about them now?" he questioned, after throwing away the blackened
cloth. It would have paid to tell him that they were better if only to
keep him from going at them again.
"Oh, but my lame back!" I replied, glad to shift the doctor's attention
in that direction. The worst he could do to my back was to put a plaster
on it, I reasoned, and this would almost certainly relieve me of one
watch at least.
"Don't stoop so much," was all he would recommend. "What else?"
"Well, Doctor," I pursued, "I'm sick, sick all over. I need at least one
watch to rest up in."
The good man became facetious.
"Why, we're all sick," he laughed. "The captain, the first officer, the
cook, and what not. We're terribly short-handed. If you don't keep your
watches the ship simply won't go, and heaven knows when we'll see
Bremerhaven."
I smiled a very sickly smile, and retired. If the old _Elbe_ was so hard
up for propulsion power that my weak services were unequivocally
necessary, then of course I must do my utmost to save the lives,
perhaps, of the precious freight in the cabins--but, oh! how I wished
that I had remained in Hoboken and become a saloonkeeper, anything in
fact but a coal-passer.
The first glimpse we had of land may have been a lovelier sight to some
of the cabin passengers than it was to us trimmers, but it hardly seems
possible. My companions told me that the rocks and cliffs, barely
visible, on our left, were England, the home of my ancestors, but this
fact did not interest me one-half so much as the far more important fact
that they represented _terra firma_. I wanted to put my feet on land
again, even in Turkey if necessary. Coal-passing, bunker life, hot
fires, and clanging ash buckets had cured me for the time being at least
of all sea-going propensities in a professional capacity. A flattering
offer to command a great liner would hardly have tempted me just then.
Indeed, tramp life, with all its drawbacks, seemed a summer pastime
compared with bunker life.
The twelfth day out, I think it was, we "made" Bremerhaven, where the
good ship was to have a rest, and the men who had shipped in Hoboken
were to be paid off. The long voyage was over, I had finished my last
"watch" below, and was free to mingle with the steerage passengers on
deck and view the new country I had traveled so far to see. My clothes
were the same that I had gone on board with in Hoboken--a fairly
respectable outfit then, but now sadly in need of cleaning and repair.
My face and hands were dark and grimy, although they had been given
numberless washings; it was simply impossible to get all of the coal
dust out of them. Indeed, it was days before my hands looked normal
again.
The head fireman saw me on the deck, and came up to me. His whole manner
had changed. His duty was over, the great ship was in the harbor, and he
could afford to unbend a little.
"Not dressed yet to go ashore?" he said in a friendly manner, his eyes
running hurriedly over my clothes. "We'll dock soon, and you want to be
ready."
"These are all the shore clothes or any other kind that I've got," I
replied, and for aught I could see just then they were all that I was
going to have for some time to come.
"I'm too big, or you could have some of mine," the fireman assured me,
the obvious sincerity of his offer making me quite forget the "swat" he
had given me in the fire-room. We shook hands, congratulated each other
on having done his part to help bring the ship into port, and then
separated, five minutes and a kindly manner on the part of the fireman
having been quite sufficient to scatter forever, I trust, all the
murderous thoughts of revenge I had been a week and more storing up
against him. Such has been the fate of nearly all of my revengeful
intentions in life. Either they have consumed themselves with their own
intense warmth, or a few words of reconciliation have cooled them down
until they have become flabby and useless.
It was a very different line of coal-passers that marched from the
_Elbe_ to the _Seemann's Amt_ in Bremerhaven to be paid off, from the
one that had formed in front of the Hebrew's store in Hoboken. Our hard
and miserable task was behind us, money was "in sight," and the majority
of the men were at home again. We received seventeen marks and fifty
pfennigs apiece for the trip, four dollars and a fraction in American
currency. We bade one another good-by over some _krugs_ of beer, and
singly and in groups went our different ways. I waved a final _adios_ to
the _Elbe_, and joined two firemen, who spoke English and had offered to
see me off for Berlin, my next destination.
I learned in their company something that life in sailor's quarters and
homes later on has confirmed in every particular--_i.e._, seafaring men,
when bidding one another good-by after a voyage together, should each
take absolutely different directions on separating, eschewing all group
gatherings and "one last drink" sociability. But one might as well
preach theosophy to baboons, as to try to teach this doctrine to men who
"go down to the sea in ships." Indeed, it is a thankless job to attempt
to teach the latter anything until they have squandered a part of their
money, only too frequently all of it, on a drunk. It was thus in
Bremerhaven in my day, and I make no doubt that it is the same to-day
wherever there are ports and paid-off seafaring men--in Calcutta,
Singapore, 'Frisco, New York, or where you will. And why not? Is the
coal-passer's life to be spent entirely in the bunkers? What is more
natural than that when ashore he should try to forget some of the hard
knocks, sweat and dust in the stoke-room, in a carousal in the open?
What, indeed, has all the turmoil below been suffered for if not to
allow such indulgence on land? The moralist, the economist, the
Sabbatarian doubtless have their individual answers to these queries.
All I know about the questions and my relation to them at the time of
leaving the _Elbe_ in Bremerhaven is that, my ticket for Berlin secured
and two spare marks slyly hidden away in case of an emergency, prudence,
temperance and economy were utterly disregarded. I sang, laughed and
feasted with my friends to the limit of my financial and physical
capacity, and I cannot recall having enjoyed a more righteous "good"
time on a dollar and a half in all my life. So, hard though the voyage
had been, I blessed the _Elbe_ for the pleasure she had guided me to.
Poor old ship! I was in Rome when she went down in the North Sea. I was
reading the "bulletins" in front of the English book-store in the Piazza
di Spagne. Suddenly my eyes spied the dispatch about the _Elbe_. "Down!"
I muttered aloud, and people standing near looked at me as if, perhaps,
I had lost a friend in the mishap. I had, indeed. In dire time of need,
perhaps at _the_ turning point in my life, one road leading I knew not
where, the other, as it proved and as I hoped, to a home and decent
living--on such an occasion--that creaking, tired out ship bore me
safely out of trouble to a welcome port across the sea. If this is not
friendship, if it be strange that I looked solemn and reminiscent in
front of that bulletin board, then I know not what kind deeds and
grateful remembrance thereof mean.
* * * * *
The journey to Berlin was a sorry undertaking. I started tired, my
ticket read fourth-class, there were several confusing changes, and, for
most of the journey, I was wedged in among a crowd of burly and scented
Poles. Ordinarily, on a respectable train and with a third-class ticket,
the journey from Bremen is about six hours. On my train it took close to
sixteen, if not eighteen hours. A more humble home-coming could hardly
be imagined, and I wasted no mental efforts in trying to increase the
humility by imagining anything. At Celli there was some diversion in
waiting an hour or two, and in listening to the gabble of a little
Jewish tramp bound for Nürnberg. He had just come from America, he
claimed, by way of England, having been boosted out of that country and
across the North Sea by some alleged philanthropic agency, anxious
apparently to relieve Great Britain of anything likely to increase the
income tax. He was traveling afoot, and was full of the usual list of
turnpike ghost-stories and "hand-outs." I told him some of my story to
explain why I looked so dirty.
"They won't let you into Berlin," he declared, "looking like that. Can't
you clean up some?" I tried once again, at a pump, to get rid of the
steamer dust and grime, but this effort left no marked improvement in my
appearance. Pretty soon the time for my train drew near, and then the
little wanderer displayed himself in his true colors.
"You're'n American," he said, "so'm I. Can't you help me out a
little--five cents'll do?"
Everything that begs and cringes in any nationality that I have ever
known was present in that miserable boy's manner and voice. But he was a
wanderer like myself, and I had a twenty-pfennig piece that I could just
barely spare. He saw me feel in my pocket and hesitate. "For the sake of
America," he whined, and foolish sentimentalist that I was, I gave him
the money, although he already had more than I did. He said that the
five cents was necessary to complete his evening fund for supper and
lodging. I refer to this lad because he is typical of so many would-be
Americans in distress, and on account of his utter lack of Road
fellowship in bothering me--poorer than he was--when a complete townful
of Germans was staring him in the face. The _international_ Road is
shamefully disgraced by these unscrupulous vagabonds.
My arrival in Berlin at one o'clock in the morning, dirty, clothes
frayed and torn, and my exchequer so low that I could not afford even a
"groschen" (two and a half cents) for a street-car ride, was sorrier, if
that be possible than had been the journey from Bremen. One thing I had
carefully preserved, however, my mother's address. Asking and feeling my
way, laughed at by night street hawks and workmen, and watched
suspiciously by policemen, I finally found the house. It was two o'clock
in the morning now.
The _portier_ answered my ring at the street door. I told him a tale
such as he had probably never heard before nor will ever hear again, but
my success was probably due more to my obvious foreign nationality than
to the story. He knew that my people were foreigners, and he knew so
little else of any account, as I learned later, that, in spite of my
looks, he doubtless reasoned that Americans are permitted all kinds of
eccentricities, and that I was what I claimed to be: a ship's engineer
on short shore-leave with his luggage lost in transit. A lame "ghost
story" at best, no matter how well delivered, but it won in my case.
"Well, I'll go up with you and see what the madame says," he finally
declared, and up we marched, the good man looking at me furtively under
his brows every now and then, evidently wondering whether or not he was
making an awful mistake. My mother answered our ring.
"Who is there?" she asked in German, accustomed to the nocturnal calls
of the telegraph messengers. I forgot my grammar, my looks, everything
in fact except that on the other side of that door was one human being
most likely to give me a night's lodging and to forgive.
"It's me!" I replied in English. The door opened, the _portier_ was
given his fee, and I entered a home which, next to the old brown house
in our Middle West, has done more to make home seem worth while than any
other that I have known.