we had all looked forward to it and made our arrangements accordingly.
The engine, however, which had been put on somewhere during the night,
had "given out," and we were not only some hours late, but were no
longer able to keep steadily even the snail's pace at which we had been
crawling all night. The final stop came on a long upgrade in a stretch
of broken country sparsely settled, and though once heavily wooded, now
almost denuded. Here the engine, after a last futile, gasping effort,
finally gave up, and the engineer descended for the dozenth time to see
"what he could do about it." To make matters worse, the water in our
car had given out, and though we had been passing streams a little
before, there was no water in sight where we stopped. It soon became
known that we should have to wait until a brakeman could walk to the
nearest telegraph station, miles off, and have another engine despatched
to our aid from a town thirty or more miles away. So long as there had
been hope of keeping on, however faint, there had been measurable
content, and the grumbling which had been heard at intervals all the
latter part of the night had been sporadic and subdued; but now, when
the last hope was gone, and it was known that we were at last "stuck"
for good, there was an outbreak of ill-humor from the men, though the
women in the car still kept silent, partly subdued by their dishevelled
condition and partly because they were content for once, while listening
to the men. Now and then a man who had been forward would come back into
the car, and address someone present, or speak to the entire car, and in
the silence that fell every one listened until he had delivered himself.
But no one had yet given a satisfactory explanation of the delay.
At last, a man who sat near me gave an explanation. "The engine lost
time because it had too heavy a load. It's a heavy train, anyway, and
they put a private car on and the engine could not pull it, that's all
that's the matter." He spoke with the finality of a judge, and sat back
in his seat, and we all knew that he had hit the mark, and given the
true cause. Henceforward he was regarded with respect. He really knew
things. I insensibly took note of him. He was a middle-sized,
plain-looking man with bright eyes and a firm mouth. Whether by a
coincidence or not, just at that moment something appeared to have given
way in the car: babies began to cry; children to fret, and the elders to
fume and grumble. In a short time every one in the car was abusing the
railroad and its management. Their inconsiderateness, their indifference
to the comfort of their passengers.
"They pay no more attention to us and take no more care of us than if we
were so many cattle," growled a man. "I couldn't get a single berth last
night." He was a big, sour-looking fellow, who wore patent-leather shoes
on his large feet, and a silk hat, now much rubbed--and a dirty silk
handkerchief was tucked in his soiled collar, and in his soiled shirt
front showed a supposititious diamond. He was, as I learned later, named
Wringman, and was a labor-leader of some note.
"Not as much as of cattle--for, at least, they water them," said
another, "they care nothing about our comfort."
"Unless they ride in a Pullman," interjected the man near me, who had
explained the situation.
The woman with the five children suddenly turned. "And that's true,
too," she said, with a glance of appreciation at him and a sudden flash
of hate at the big man with the diamond. Off and on all night the
children had, between naps, begged for water, and the mother had trudged
back and forth with the patience of an Egyptian water-carrier, but now
the water had given out, and the younger ones had been whimpering
because they were hungry.
I went forward, and about the engine, where I stood for a time, looking
on while we waited, I heard further criticism of the road, but along a
different line, from the trainmen:
"Well, I'll have to stand it," said one of them, the engineer, a man
past middle-age. "No more strikes for me. That one on the C. B. and B.
D. taught me a lesson. I was pretty well fixed then--had a nice house
and lot 'most paid for in the Building Company, and the furniture all
paid for, except a few instalments, and it all went. I thought we'd 'a'
starved that winter--and my wife's been sick ever since."
"I know," said his friend, "but if they cut down we've got to fight. I'm
willin' to starve to beat 'em."
"You may be; but you ain't got little children and a sick wife."
A little later I saw the flashily dressed man with the dirty
handkerchief talking to him, and insisting that they should fight the
company: "We'll bring 'em to their knees," he said, with many oaths. The
engineer kept silence, the younger man assented warmly.
I went back to my car. Presently matters grew so bad in the car that my
sympathies for the children were aroused, and I determined to see if I
could not ameliorate the conditions somewhat. I went back to the Pullman
car to see if there was any chance of buying some food: but the haggard
looking porter said there was nothing on the car. "They usually go in to
breakfast," he explained. My only chance would be the private car
behind. So, after I had been forward and ascertained that we would not
get away for at least an hour more, I went back and offered to look
after the older children of the little family. "I am going to take my
dog for a run; I'll take the little folks too." The mother with a baby
in her arms and a child, hardly more than a baby, tugging at her, looked
unutterably tired, and was most grateful to me. I took the older
children and went down the bank, and turning back, began to pick the
straggling wild flowers beside the track. As we passed the private car,
the door opened, and the cook tossed a waiterful of scraps out on the
ground on which both Dixie and the children threw themselves. But,
though there was plenty of bread, it had all been ruined by being in the
slop-water; so Dixie was soon left in undisturbed possession.
A little beyond the end of the train we came on a young girl engaged in
the same occupation as ourselves. Her back was toward us, but her figure
was straight and supple, and her motions easy and full of spring. The
sight of the young lady so fresh and cool, with the morning sun shining
on a thick coil of shining hair, quite revived me. I drew near to get a
good look at her and also to be within shot of a chance to speak to her
should opportunity offer. If I were a novelist trying to describe her I
should say that she was standing just at the foot of a bank with a clump
of green bushes behind her, her arms full of flowers which she had
gathered. For all these were there, and might have been created there
for her, so harmonious were they with the fresh young face above them
and the pliant form which clasped them. I might further have likened her
to Proserpine with her young arms full of blossoms from Sicilian meads;
for she resembled her in other ways than in embracing flowers and
breathing fragrance as she stood in the morning light. But truth to
tell, it was only later that I thought of these. The first impression I
received, as it will be the last, was of her eyes. Dimples, and
snow-white teeth; changing expression where light and shadow played,
with every varying feeling, and where color came and went like roses
thrown on lilies, and lilies on roses, all came to me later on. But that
was in another phase. Her eyes were what I saw at first, and never since
have I seen the morning or the evening star swimming in rosy light but
they have come back to me. I remember I wore a blue suit and had on an
old yachting cap, which I had gotten once when on a short cruise with a
friend. I was feeling quite pleased with myself. She suddenly turned.
"Are you the brakeman?"
"No, I am not." I could scarcely help laughing at my sudden fall. "But
perhaps I can serve you?" I added.
"Oh! I beg pardon! No, I thank you. I only wanted to ask--However, it is
nothing."
Dix had, on being let out, and satisfying himself that I was coming
along, made a wild dash down the bank and alongside the train, and now
on his return rush, catching sight of the young lady in her fresh frock,
without waiting for the formality of an introduction, he made a dash
for her and sprang up on her as if he had known her all his life. I
called to him, but it was too late, and before I could stop him, he was
up telling her what after my first look at her I should have liked to
tell her myself: what a sweet charming creature we thought her.
Dixie had no scruples of false pride inculcated by a foolish convention
of so-called society. He liked her and said so, and she liked him for
it, while I was glad to shine for a moment in the reflected glory of
being his master.
"What a fine dog!" she exclaimed as she patted him, addressing the
children, who, with soiled clothes and tousled heads, were gazing at the
spick-and-span apparition in open-mouthed wonder. "How I envy you such a
dog."
"He ain't ours, he belongs to him," said the child, pointing to me, as I
stooped at a little distance pretending to pull blossoms while I
listened.
"Oh! Who is he? Is he your father?" My face was averted.
"Oh! no. We don't know who he is; he just took us so."
"Took you so?"
"You see," explained the next older one, "our mother, she's got the baby
and Janet, and the gentleman, he said he would take us and get some wild
flowers, because we hadn't had any breakfast, and that dog"--But the dog
was forgotten on the instant.
"Have not had any breakfast!" exclaimed the young lady with
astonishment.
"No; you see, we had some bread last night, but that's given out. _She_
ate the last piece last night--" (she pointed at the smallest
child)--"and we were so hungry; she cried, and Mamma cried, and that
gentleman----"
By this time I had turned and I now stepped forward. I confess, that as
I turned, wrath was in my heart, but at sight of that horrified face, in
its sympathy, my anger died away.
"Oh! and to think what I wasted! How did it happen?"
"The train was late and they had expected to get in to breakfast, but
the engine gave out," I explained.
"And they have not had any breakfast?"
"No one on the train."
"You see," chimed in the oldest girl, glad to be able to add
information, "the train's heavy anyway, and they put a private car on,
and it was more than the engine could pull, that's all that's the
matter."
The young lady turned to me:
"Do you mean that our car has caused all this trouble?"
I nodded. "I don't know about 'all,' but it helped."
"You poor little dears!" she said, rushing to the children, "come with
me." And, taking the youngest child by the hand, she hurried to the rear
steps of the car, with the others close behind, while Dixie, who
appeared to know what was in store, walked close beside her knee, as
much as to say, "Don't leave me out."
As the train stood on an embankment, the step was too high for her to
climb up, so I offered to put the children up on the top step for her.
Then came the difficulty of her getting up herself. She called the
porter, but the door was shut and there was no answer.
"Let me help you up, too," I said. "Here, you can reach the rail, and
step in my hand and spring up. I can help you perfectly well--as though
you were mounting a horse," I added, seeing her hesitate. And, without
giving her time to think, I stooped and lifted her to the step. As she
sprang up, the door opened, and a portly lady, richly dressed and with
several diamond rings on, came out on the platform. She gazed on the
little group with astonishment.
"Why, Eleanor, what is this? Who are these?"
"They are some poor children, Aunt, who have had no breakfast, and I am
going to give them some."
"Why, they can't come in here, my dear. Those dirty little brats come in
our car! It is impossible, my dear."
"Oh, no, it is not, Aunty," said the young girl with a laugh, "they have
had no breakfast."
"Give them food, my dear, if you please, but I beg you not to bring them
into this car. Look how dirty they are! Why, they might give us all some
terrible disease!"
But Miss Eleanor had closed her ears to the plump lady's expostulations,
and was arranging with a surly servant for something to eat for the
children. And just then the question of their invasion of the car was
settled by the train's starting. I undertook to run forward alongside
the car, but seeing an open ravine ahead spanned by a trestle, and that
the train was quickening its speed, I caught Dixie and threw him up on
the rear platform, and then swung myself up after him. The rear door was
still unlocked, so I opened it to pass through the car. Just inside, the
elderly lady was sitting back in an arm-chair with a novel in her lap,
though she was engaged at the moment in softly polishing her nails. She
stopped long enough to raise her jewelled lorgnette, and take a shot at
me through it:
"Are you the brakeman?" she called.
"No, Madame," I said grimly, thinking, "Well, I must have a brakeman's
air to-day."
"Oh! Will you ring that bell?"
"Certainly." I rang and, passing on, was met by the porter coming to
answer the bell.
"This is a private car," he said shortly, blocking my way.
"I know it." I looked him in the eye.
"You can't go th'oo this car."
"Oh! yes, I can. I have got to go through it. Move out of my way."
My tone and manner impressed him sufficiently, and he surlily moved
aside, muttering to himself; and I passed on, just conscious that the
stout lady had posted herself at the opening of the passage-way behind,
and had beckoned to the porter, who sprang toward her with alacrity. As
I passed through the open saloon, the young lady was engaged in
supplying my little charges with large plates of bread and butter, while
a grinning cook, in his white apron and cap, was bringing a yet further
supply. She turned and smiled to me as I passed.
"Won't you have something, too? It is a very poor apology for a
breakfast; for we had finished and cleared away, but if----"
"These little tots don't appear to think so," I said, my ill-humor
evaporating under her smile.
"Well, won't you have something?"
I declined this in my best Chesterfieldian manner, alleging that I must
go ahead and tell their mother what a good fairy they had found.
"Oh! it is nothing. To think of these poor little things being kept
without breakfast all morning. My father will be very much disturbed to
find that this car has caused the delay."
"Not if he is like his sister," I thought to myself, but I only bowed,
and said, "I will come back in a little while, and get them for their
mother." To which she replied that she would send them to their mother
by the porter, thereby cutting off a chance which I had promised myself
of possibly getting another glimpse of her. But the sight of myself at
this moment in a mirror hastened my departure. A large smudge of black
was across my face, evidently from a hand of one of the children. The
prints of the fingers in black were plain on my cheek, while a broad
smear ran across my nose. No wonder they thought me a brakeman.
As I reached the front door of the car I found it locked and I could not
open it. At the same moment the porter appeared behind me.
"Ef you'll git out of my way, I'll open it," he said in a tone so
insolent that my gorge rose.
I stood aside and, still muttering to himself, he unlocked the door, and
with his hand on the knob, stood aside for me to pass. As I passed I
turned to look for Dixie, who was following me, and I caught the words,
"I'se tired o' po' white folks and dogs in my car." At the same moment
Dixie passed and he gave him a kick, which drew a little yelp of
surprise from him. My blood suddenly boiled. The door was still open
and, quick as light, I caught the porter by the collar and with a yank
jerked him out on the platform. The door slammed to as he came, and I
had him to myself. With my hand still on his throat I gave him a shake
that made his teeth rattle.
"You black scoundrel," I said furiously. "I have a good mind to fling
you off this train, and break your neck." The negro's face was ashy.
"Indeed, boss," he said, "I didn' mean no harm in the world by what I
said. If I had known you was one of dese gentlemens, I'd 'a' never said
a word; nor suh, that I wouldn'. An' I wouldn' 'a' tetched your dorg for
nuthin', no suh."
"Well, I'll teach you something," I said. "I'll teach you to keep a
civil tongue in your head, at least."
"Yes, suh, yes, suh," he said, "I always is, I always tries to be, I
just didn't know; nor suh, I axes your pardon. I didn' mean nuthin' in
the worl'."
"Now go in there and learn to behave yourself in the future," I said.
"Yes, suh, I will." And, with another bow, and a side look at Dix, who
was now growling ominously, he let himself in at the door and I passed
on forward.
IX
I PITCH MY TENT
When, a little later, my small charges were brought back to their mother
(to whom I had explained their absence), it was by the young lady
herself, and I never saw a more grateful picture than that young girl,
in her fresh travelling costume, convoying those children down the car
aisle. Her greeting of the tired mother was a refreshment, and a minute
after she had gone the mother offered me a part of a substantial supply
of sandwiches which she had brought her, so that I found myself not
quite so much in sympathy as before with the criticism of the road that
was now being freely bandied about the car, and which appeared to have
made all the passengers as one.
Not long after this we dropped the private car at a station and
proceeded on without it. We had, however, not gone far when we stopped
and were run into a siding and again waited, and after a time, a train
whizzed by us--a special train with but two private cars on it. It was
going at a clipping rate, but it did not run so fast that we did not
recognize the private car we had dropped some way back, and it soon
became known throughout our train that we had been side-tracked to let a
special with private cars have the right-of-way. I confess that my
gorge rose at this, and when the man in front of me declared that we
were the most patient people on earth to give public franchises, pay for
travelling on trains run by virtue of them, and then stand being shoved
aside and inconvenienced out of all reason to allow a lot of bloated
dead-heads to go ahead of us in their special trains, I chimed in with
him heartily.
"Well, the road belongs to them, don't it?" inquired a thin man with a
wheezing voice. "That was Canter's private train, and he took on the
Argand car at that station back there."
"'They own the road!' How do they own it? How did they get it?" demanded
the first speaker warmly.
"Why, you know how they got it. They got it in the panic--that is, they
got the controlling interest."
"Yes, and then ran the stock down till they had got control and then
reorganized and cut out those that wouldn't sell--or couldn't--the
widows and orphans and infants--that's the way they got it."
"Well, the court upheld it?"
"Yes, under the law they had had made themselves to suit themselves. You
know how 'twas! You were there when 'twas done and saw how they flung
their money around--or rather the Argand money--for I don't believe
Canter and his set own the stock at all. I'll bet a thousand dollars
that every share is up as collateral in old Argand's bank."
"Oh! Well, it's all the same thing. They stand in together. They run the
bank--the bank lends money; they buy the stock and put it up for the
loan, and then run the road."
"And us," chipped in the other; for they had now gotten into a high
good-humor with each other--"they get our franchises and our money, and
then side-track us without breakfast while they go sailing by--in cars
that they call theirs, but which we pay for. I do think we are the
biggest fools!"
"That's Socialistic!" said his friend again. "You've been reading that
fellow's articles in the Sunday papers. What's his name?"
"No, I've been thinking. I don't care what it is, it's the truth, and
I'm tired of it."
"They say he's a Jew," interrupted the former.
"I don't care what he is, it's the truth," asserted the other doggedly.
"Well, I rather think it is," agreed his friend; "but then, I'm hungry,
and there isn't even any water on the car."
"And they guzzle champagne!" sneered the other, "which we pay for," he
added.
"You're a stockholder?"
"Yes, in a small way; but I might as well own stock in a paving-company
to Hell. My father helped to build this road and used to take great
pride in it. They used to give the stockholders then a free ride once a
year to the annual meeting, and it made them all feel as if they owned
the road."
"But now they give free passes not to the stockholders, but to the
legislators and the judges."
"It pays better," said his friend, and they both laughed. It appeared,
indeed, rather a good joke to them--or, at least, there was nothing
which they could do about it, so they might as well take it
good-humoredly.
By this time I had learned that my neighbor with the five children was
the wife of a man named McNeil, who was a journeyman machinist, but had
been thrown out of work by a strike in another city, and, after waiting
around for months, had gone North to find employment, and having at last
gotten it, had now sent for them to come on. She had not seen him for
months, and she was looking forward to it now with a happiness that was
quite touching. Even the discomforts of the night could not dull her joy
in the anticipation of meeting her husband--and she constantly
enheartened her droopy little brood with the prospect of soon seeing
their "dear Daddy."
Finally after midday we arrived.
I shall never forget the sight and smells of that station, if I live to
be a thousand years old. It seemed to me a sort of temporary
resting-place for lost souls--and I was one of them. Had Dante known it,
he must have pictured it, with its reek and grime. The procession of
tired, bedraggled travellers that streamed in through the black gateways
to meet worn watchers with wan smiles on their tired faces, or to look
anxiously and in vain for friends who had not come, or else who had come
and gone. And outside the roar of the grimy current that swept through
the black street.
I had no one to look for; so, after helping my neighbor and her
frowsy little brood off, I sauntered along with Dix at my heel,
feeling about as lonely as a man can feel on this populated earth.
After gazing about and refusing sternly to meet the eye of any of
the numerous cabmen who wildly waved their whips toward me, shouting:
"Kebsuh--kebsuh--keb--keb--keb?" with wearying iteration, I had about
made up my mind to take the least noisy of them, when I became conscious
that my fellow-traveller, Mrs. McNeil with her little clan, was passing
out of the station unescorted and was looking about in a sort of lost
way. On my speaking to her, her face brightened for a moment, but
clouded again instantly, as she said, "Oh! sir, he's gone! He came to
meet me this morning; but the train was late and he couldn't wait or
he'd lose his job, so he had to go, and the kind man at the gate told me
he left the message for me. But however shall I get there with all the
children, for I haven't a cent left!"
The tears welled up in her eyes as she came to her sad little
confession. And I said, "Oh! Well, I think we can manage it somehow. You
have his address?"
"Oh! yes, sir, I have it here," and she pulled out an empty little
pocket-book from the breast of her worn frock, and while she gave the
baby to the eldest girl to hold, tremblingly opened the purse. In it was
only a crumpled letter and, besides this, a key--these were all. She
opened the letter tenderly and handed it to me. I read the address and
fastened it in my memory.
"Now," I said, "we'll straighten this out directly." I turned and called
a hackman. "I want a carriage."
There was a rush, but I was firm and insisted on a hack. However, as
none was to be had, I was fain to content myself with a one-horse cab of
much greater age than dimension.
Bundling them in and directing the driver to go around and get the trunk
from the baggage-room, I mounted beside him and took Dix between my feet
and one of the children in my arms, and thus made my entry into the city
of my future home. My loneliness had somehow disappeared.