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ABROAD AT HOME
by
JULIAN STREET
* * * * *
THE NEED OF CHANGE
Fifth Anniversary Edition. Illustrated by James Montgomery Flagg.
Cloth, 50 cents net. Leather, $1.00 net.
PARIS A LA CARTE
"Gastronomic promenades" in Paris. Illustrated by May Wilson
Preston. Cloth, 60 cents net.
WELCOME TO OUR CITY
Mr. Street plays host to the stranger in New York. Illustrated by
James Montgomery Flagg and Wallace Morgan. Cloth, $1.00 net.
SHIP-BORED
Who hasn't been? Illustrated by May Wilson Preston. Cloth, 50 cents
net.
ABROAD AT HOME
Cheerful ramblings and adventures in American cities
and other places. Illustrated by Wallace Morgan. Cloth, $2.50 net.
For Children
THE GOLDFISH
A Christmas story for children between six and sixty.
Colored Illustrations and page Decorations. Cloth, 70 cents net.
* * * * *
[Illustration: The St. Francis at tea-time.--With her hotels San
Francisco is New York, but with her people she is San Francisco--which
comes near being the apotheosis of praise]
ABROAD AT HOME
American Ramblings, Observations, and Adventures of Julian Street
With Pictorial Sidelights by Wallace Morgan
[Illustration]
New York
The Century Co.
1915
Copyright, 1914, by
The Century Co.
Copyright, 1914, by
P. F. Collier & Son, Inc.
Published, November, 1914
TO MY FATHER
the companion of my first railroad journey
The Author takes this opportunity to thank the old friends, and the new
ones, who assisted him in so many ways, upon his travels. Especially, he
makes his affectionate acknowledgment to his wise and kindly companion,
the Illustrator, whose admirable drawings are far from being his only
contribution to this volume.
--J. S.
New York,
October, 1914.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
STEPPING WESTWARD
I STEPPING WESTWARD 3
II BIFURCATED BUFFALO 21
III CLEVELAND CHARACTERISTICS 40
IV MORE CLEVELAND CHARACTERISTICS 48
MICHIGAN MEANDERINGS
V DETROIT THE DYNAMIC 65
VI AUTOMOBILES AND ART 77
VII THE MAECENAS OF THE MOTOR 91
VIII THE CURIOUS CITY OF BATTLE CREEK 105
IX KALAMAZOO 121
X GRAND RAPIDS THE "ELECT" 127
CHICAGO
XI A MIDDLE-WESTERN MIRACLE 139
XII FIELD'S AND THE "TRIBUNE" 150
XIII THE STOCKYARDS 164
XIV THE HONORABLE HINKY DINK 173
XV AN OLYMPIAN PLAN 181
XVI LOOKING BACKWARD 187
"IN MIZZOURA"
XVII SOMNOLENT ST. LOUIS 201
XVIII THE FINER SIDE 221
XIX HANNIBAL AND MARK TWAIN 237
XX PIKE AND POKER 253
XXI OLD RIVER DAYS 267
THE BEGINNING OF THE WEST
XXII KANSAS CITY 275
XXIII ODDS AND ENDS 291
XXIV COLONEL NELSON'S "STAR" 302
XXV KEEPING A PROMISE 313
XXVI THE TAME LION 323
XXVII KANSAS JOURNALISM 337
XXVIII A COLLEGE TOWN 345
XXIX MONOTONY 365
THE MOUNTAINS AND THE COAST
XXX UNDER PIKE'S PEAK 379
XXXI HITTING A HIGH SPOT 400
XXXII COLORADO SPRINGS 417
XXXIII CRIPPLE CREEK 434
XXXIV THE MORMON CAPITAL 439
XXXV THE SMITHS 454
XXXVI PASSING PICTURES 465
XXXVII SAN FRANCISCO 474
XXXVIII "BEFORE THE FIRE" 488
XXXIX AN EXPOSITION AND A "BOOSTER" 498
XL NEW YORK AGAIN 507
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
The St. Francis at tea-time.--With her hotels
San Francisco is New York, but with her people
she is San Francisco--which comes near being FACING
the apotheosis of praise. _Frontispiece_ PAGE
I was moving about my room, my hands full of
hairbrushes and toothbrushes and clothes
brushes and shaving brushes; my head full of
railroad trains, and hills, and plains, and
valleys 5
A dusky redcap took my baggage 12
What scenes these black, pathetic people had
passed through--were passing through! Why did
they not look up in wonderment? 17
We made believe we wanted to go out and
smoke. And as we left our seats she made
believe she didn't know that we were going. 23
The gentleman who favored linen mesh was a
fat, prosperous-looking person, whose
gold-rimmed spectacles reflected flying lights
from out of doors 26
In a few hours there was enough shame around
us to have lasted all the reformers and
muckrakers I know a whole month 32
My companion and I made excuses to go
downstairs and wash our hands in the public
washroom, just for the pleasure of doing so
without fear of being attacked by a swarthy
brigand with a brush 35
I was prepared to take the field against all
comers, not only in favor of simplicity, but
in favor of anything and everything which was
favored by my hostess 38
Chamber of Commerce representatives were with
us all the first day and until we went to our
rooms, late at night 43
It is an Elizabethan building, with a heavy
timbered front, suggesting some ancient,
hospitable, London coffee house where wits of
old were used to meet 46
In this charming, homelike old building,
with its grandfather's clock, its Windsor
chairs, and its open wood fires, a visitor
finds it hard to realize that he is in the
"west" 53
Down by the docks we saw gigantic, strange
machines, expressive of Cleveland's lake
commerce--machines for loading and unloading
ships in the space of a few hours 60
In midstream passes a continual parade of
freighters ... and in their swell you may see,
teetering, all kinds of craft, from proud
white yachts to canoes 71
The automobile has not only changed Detroit
from a quiet old town into a rich, active
city, but upon the drowsy romance of the old
days it has superimposed the romance of modern
business 74
Of course there was order in that place, of
course there was system--relentless
system--terrible "efficiency"--but to my mind it
expressed but one thing, and that thing was
delirium 97
Never, since then, have I heard men jeering
over women as they look in dishabille, without
wondering if those same men have ever seen
themselves clearly in the mirrored washroom
of a sleeping car 112
"Can that stuff," admonished Miss Buck in her
easy, offhand manner 117
She was saying to herself (and, unconsciously,
to us, through the window): "If _I_ had played
that hand, I never should have done
it _that_ way!" 124
Rodin's "Thinker" 145
Chicago's skyline from the docks.... A city
which rebuilt itself after the fire; in the
next decade doubled its size; and now has a
population of two million, plus a city of about
the size of San Francisco 160
Two rabbis, old bearded men, performed the
rites with long, slim, shiny blades 177
As I stood there, studying the temperament of
pigs, I saw the butcher looking up at me.... I
have never seen such eyes 192
The bold front of Michigan Avenue along Grant
Park ... great buildings wreathed in whirling
smoke and that allegory of infinity which
confronts one who looks eastward 196
The dilapidation of the quarter has continued
steadily from Dickens's day to this, and the
beauty now to be discovered there is that of
decay and ruin 205
The three used bridges which cross the
Mississippi River at St. Louis are privately
controlled toll bridges 212
The skins are handled in the raw state ... with
the result that the floor of the exchange is
made slippery by animal fats, and that the
olfactory organs encounter smells not to be
matched in any zoo 221
St. Louis needs to be taken by the hand and
led around to some municipal-improvement
tailor, some civic haberdasher 225
We came upon the "Mark Twain House."... And
to think that, wretched as this place was,
the Clemens family were forced to leave it for
a time because they were too poor to live there 240
At one side is an alley running back to the
house of Huckleberry Finn, and in that alley
stood the historic fence which young Sam
Clemens cajoled the other boys into
whitewashing for him 244
Never outside of Brittany and Normandy have
I seen roads so full of animals as those of
Pike County 253
Mr. Roberts is a wonder--nothing less. There's
a book in him, and I hope that somebody will
write it, for I should like to read that book 268
Looking down from Kersey Coates Drive, one
sees ... the appalling web of railroad tracks,
crammed with freight cars, which seen through
a softening haze of smoke, resemble a relief
map--strange, vast and pictorial 289
Colonel Nelson is a "character." Even if he
didn't own the "Star," ... he would be a
"character."... I have called him a volcano;
he is more like one than any other man I have
ever met 304
Mr. Fish informed me that the waters of
Excelsior Springs resemble the waters of
Homburg, the favorite watering place of the
late King Edward--or, rather, I think he put
it the other way round 322
We strolled in the direction of the old house,
that house of tragedy in which the family lived
in the troublous times.... It was there that
the Pinkertons threw the bomb 328
It was Frank James.... He looks more like a
prosperous farmer or the president of a rural
bank than like a bandit. In his manner
there is a strong note of the showman 335
The campus seems to have "just
growed."... Nevertheless, there is a sort of
homely charm about the place, with its
unimposing, helter-skelter piles of brick and
stone 353
Even at sea the great bowl of the sky had
never looked to me so vast 368
The little towns of western Kansas are far
apart and have, like the surrounding scenery,
an air of sadness and desolation 373
In the lobby of the Brown Palace Hotel we saw
several old fellows, sitting about, looking
neither prosperous nor busy, but always
talking mines. A kind word, or even a pleasant
glance, is enough to set them off 380
"Ain't Nature wonderful!" 405
I was by this time very definitely aware that
I had my fill of winter motoring in the
mountains. The mere reluctance I felt as we
began to climb had now developed into a
passionate desire to desist 412
The homes of Colorado Springs really explain
the place and the society is as cosmopolitan
as the architecture 417
On the road to Cripple Creek we were always
turning, always turning upward 432
We were invited to meet the President of the
Mormon Church and some members of his family
at the Beehive House, his official residence 452
The Lion House--a large adobe building in
which formerly resided the rank and file of
Brigham Young's wives 461
The Cliff House has a Sorrento setting and
hectic turkey-trotting nights 468
The Salt-water pool, Olympic Club, San Francisco 477
The switchboard of the Chinatown telephone
exchange is set in a shrine and the operators
are dressed in Chinese silks 496
We believed we had encountered every kind of
"booster" that creeps, crawls, walks, crows,
cries, bellows, barks or brays, but it remained
for the Exposition to show us a new specimen 504
New York--Everyone is in a hurry. Everyone is
dodging everyone else. Everyone is trying to
keep his knees from being knocked by
swift-passing suitcases 513
STEPPING WESTWARD
ABROAD AT HOME
CHAPTER I
STEPPING WESTWARD
"_What, you are stepping westward?_"--"_Yea._"
--'Twould be a wildish destiny,
If we, who thus together roam
In a strange Land, and far from home,
Were in this place the guests of Chance:
Yet who would stop or fear to advance,
Though home or shelter he had none,
With such a sky to lead him on?
--WORDSWORTH.
For some time I have desired to travel over the United States--to ramble
and observe and seek adventure here, at home, not as a tourist with a
short vacation and a round-trip ticket, but as a kind of privateer with
a roving commission. The more I have contemplated the possibility the
more it has engaged me. For we Americans, though we are the most
restless race in the world, with the possible exception of the Bedouins,
almost never permit ourselves to travel, either at home or abroad, as
the "guests of Chance." We always go from one place to another with a
definite purpose. We never amble. On the boat, going to Europe, we talk
of leisurely trips away from the "beaten track," but we never take them.
After we land we rush about obsessed by "sights," seeing with the eyes
of guides and thinking the "canned" thoughts of guidebooks.
In order to accomplish such a trip as I had thought of I was even
willing to write about it afterward. Therefore I went to see a publisher
and suggested that he send me out upon my travels.
I argued that Englishmen, from Dickens to Arnold Bennett, had "done"
America; likewise Frenchmen and Germans. And we have traveled over there
and written about them. But Americans who travel at home to write (or,
as in my case, write to travel) almost always go in search of some
specific thing: to find corruption and expose it, to visit certain
places and describe them in detail, or to catch, exclusively, the comic
side. For my part, I did not wish to go in search of anything specific.
I merely wished to take things as they might come. And--speaking of
taking things--I wished, above all else, to take a good companion, and I
had him all picked out: a man whose drawings I admire almost as much as
I admire his disposition; the one being who might endure my presence for
some months, sharing with me his joys and sorrows and collars and
cigars, and yet remain on speaking terms with me.
The publisher agreed to all. Then I told my New York friends that I was
going.
[Illustration: I was moving about my room, my hands full of hairbrushes
and toothbrushes and clothesbrushes and shaving brushes; my head full of
railroad trains, and hills, and plains, and valleys]
They were incredulous. That is the New York attitude of mind. Your
"typical New Yorker" really thinks that any man who leaves Manhattan
Island for any destination other than Europe or Palm Beach must be
either a fool who leaves voluntarily or a criminal taken off by force.
For the picturesque criminal he may be sorry, but for the fool he has
scant pity.
* * * * *
At a farewell party which they gave us on the night before we left, one
of my friends spoke, in an emotional moment, of accompanying us as far
as Buffalo. He spoke of it as one might speak of going up to Baffin Land
to see a friend off for the Pole.
I welcomed the proposal and assured him of safe conduct to that point in
the "interior." I even showed him Buffalo upon the map. But the sight of
that wide-flung chart of the United States seemed only to alarm him.
After regarding it with a solemn and uneasy eye he shook his head and
talked long and seriously of his responsibilities as a family man--of
his duty to his wife and his limousine and his elevator boys.
It was midnight when good-bys were said and my companion and I returned
to our respective homes to pack. There were many things to be put into
trunks and bags. A clock struck three as my weary head struck the
pillow. I closed my eyes. Then when, as it seemed to me, I was barely
dozing off there came a knocking at my bedroom door.
"What is it?"
"Six o'clock," replied the voice of our trusty Hannah.
As I arose I knew the feelings of a man condemned to death who hears the
warden's voice in the chilly dawn: "Come! It is the fatal hour!"
When, fifteen minutes later, doubting Hannah (who knows my habits in
these early morning matters) knocked again, I was moving about my room,
my hands full of hairbrushes and toothbrushes and clothes brushes and
shaving brushes; my head full of railroad trains, and hills, and plains
and valleys, and snow-capped mountain peaks, and smoking cities and
smoking-cars, and people I had never seen.
The breakfast table, shining with electric light, had a night-time
aspect which made eggs and coffee seem bizarre. I do not like to
breakfast by electric light, and I had done so seldom until then; but
since that time I have done it often--sometimes to catch the early
morning train, sometimes to catch the early morning man.
Beside my plate I found a telegram. I ripped the envelope and read this
final punctuation-markless message from a literary friend:
_you are going to discover the united states dont be afraid to say
so_
That is an awful thing to tell a man in the very early morning before
breakfast. In my mind I answered with the cry: "But I _am_ afraid to say
so!"
And now, months later, I am still afraid to say so, because, despite a
certain truth the statement may contain, it seems to me to sound
ridiculous, and ponderous, and solemn with an asinine solemnity.
It spoiled my last meal at home--that well-meant telegram.
I had not swallowed my second cup of coffee when, from her switchboard,
a dozen floors below, the operator telephoned to say my taxi had
arrived; whereupon I left the table, said good-by to those I should miss
most of all, took up my suit case and departed.
Beside the curb there stood an unhappy-looking taxicab, shivering as
with malaria, but the driver showed a face of brazen cheerfulness which,
considering the hour and the circumstances, seemed almost indecent. I
could not bear his smile. Hastily I blotted him from view beneath a pile
of baggage.
With a jerk we started. Few other vehicles disputed our right to the
whole width of Seventy-second Street as we skimmed eastward. Farewell, O
Central Park! Farewell, O Plaza! And you, Fifth Avenue, empty, gray,
deserted now; so soon to flash with fascinating traffic. Farewell!
Farewell!
Presently, in that cavern in which vehicles stop beneath the overhanging
cliffs of the Grand Central Station, we drew up. A dusky redcap took my
baggage. I alighted and, passing through glass doors, gazed down on the
vast concourse. Far up in the lofty spaces of the room there seemed to
hang a haze, through which--from that amazing and audacious ceiling,
painted like the heavens--there twinkled, feebly, morning stars of
gold. Through three arched windows, towering to the height of six-story
buildings, the eastern light streamed softly in, combining with the
spaciousness around me, and the blue above, to fill me with a curious
sense of paradox: a feeling that I was indoors yet out of doors.
The glass dials of the four-faced clock, crowning the information bureau
at the center of the concourse, glowed with electric light, yellow and
sickly by contrast with the day which poured in through those windows.
Such stupendous windows! Gargantuan spider webs whose threads were
massive bars of steel. And suddenly I saw the spider! He emerged from
one side, passed nimbly through the center of the web, disappeared,
emerged again, crossed the second web and the third in the same way, and
was gone--a two-legged spider, walking importantly and carrying papers
in his hand. Then another spider came, and still another, each black
against the light, each on a different level. For those windows are, in
reality, more than windows. They are double walls of glass, supporting
floors of glass--layer upon layer of crystal corridor, suspended in the
air as by genii out of the Arabian Nights. And through these corridors
pass clerks who never dream that they are princes in the modern kind of
fairy tale.
As yet the torrent of commuters had not begun to pour through the vast
place. The floor lay bare and tawny like the bed of some dry river
waiting for the melting of the mountain snows. Across the river bed
there came a herd of cattle--Italian immigrants, dark-eyed, dumb,
patient, uncomprehending. Two weeks ago they had left Naples, with
plumed Vesuvius looming to the left; yesterday they had come to Ellis
Island; last night they had slept on station benches; to-day they were
departing; to-morrow or the next day they would reach their destination
in the West. Suddenly there came to me from nowhere, but with a
poignance that seemed to make it new, the platitudinous thought that
life is at once the commonest and strangest of experiences. What scenes
these black, pathetic people had passed through--were passing through!
Why did they not look up in wonderment? Why were their bovine eyes
gazing blankly ahead of them at nothing? What had dazed them so--the
bigness of the world? Yet, after all, why should they understand? What
American can understand Italian railway stations? They have always
seemed to me to express a sort of mild insanity. But the Grand Central
terminal I fancy I do understand. It seems to me to be much more than a
successful station. In its stupefying size, its brilliant
utilitarianism, and, most of all, in its mildly vulgar grandeur, it
seems to me to express, exactly, the city to which it is a gate. That is
something every terminal should do unless, as in the case of the
Pennsylvania terminal in New York, it expresses something finer. The
Grand Central Station _is_ New York, but that classic marvel over there
on Seventh Avenue is more: it is something for New York to live up to.
* * * * *
When I had bought my ticket and moved along to count my change there
came up to the ticket window a big man in a big ulster who asked in a
big voice for a ticket to Grand Rapids. As he stood there I was
conscious of a most un-New-York-like wish to say to him: "After a while
I'm going to Grand Rapids, too!" And I think that, had I said it, he
would have told me that Grand Rapids was "_some town_" and asked me to
come in and see him, when I got there,--"at the plant," I think he would
have said.
As I crossed the marble floor to take the train I caught sight of my
traveling companion leaning rigidly against the wall beside the gate. He
did not see me. Reaching his side, I greeted him.
He showed no signs of life. I felt as though I had addressed a waxwork
figure.
"Good morning," I repeated, calling him by name.
"I've just finished packing," he said. "I never got to bed at all."
At that moment a most attractive person put in an appearance. She was
followed by a redcap carrying a lovely little Russia leather bag. A few
years before I should have called a bag like that a dressing case, but
watching that young woman as she tripped along with steps restricted by
the slimness of her narrow satin skirt, it occurred to me that modes in
baggage may have changed like those in woman's dress and that her
little leather case might be a modern kind of wardrobe trunk.
My companion took no notice of this agitating presence.
"Look!" I whispered. "_She_ is going, too."
Stiffly he turned his head.
"The pretty girl," he remarked, with sad philosophy, "is always in the
other car. That's life."
"No," I demurred. "It's only early morning stuff."
And I was right, for presently, in the parlor car, we found our seats
across the aisle from hers.
Before the train moved out a boy came through with books and magazines,
proclaiming loudly the "last call for reading matter."
I think the radiant being believed him, for she bought a magazine--a
magazine of pretty girls and piffle: just the sort we knew she'd buy. As
for my companion and me, we made no purchases, not crediting the
statement that it was really the "last call." But I am impelled to add
that having, later, visited certain book stores of Buffalo, Cleveland,
and Detroit, I now see truth in what the boy said.
For a time my companion and I sat and tried to make believe we didn't
know that some one was across the aisle. And she sat there and played
with pages and made believe she didn't know we made believe. When that
had gone on for a time and our train was slipping silently along beside
the Hudson, we felt we couldn't stand it any longer, so we made believe
we wanted to go out and smoke. And as we left our seats she made believe
she didn't know that we were going.
Four men were seated in the smoking room. Two were discussing the merits
of flannel versus linen mesh for winter underwear. The gentleman who
favored linen mesh was a fat, prosperous-looking person, whose
gold-rimmed spectacles reflected flying lights from out of doors.
"If you'll wear linen," he declared with deep conviction--"and it wants
to be a union suit, too--you'll never go back to shirt and drawers
again. I'll guarantee that!" The other promised to try it. Presently I
noticed that the first speaker had somehow gotten all the way from linen
union suits to Portland, Me., on a hot Sunday afternoon. He said it was
the hottest day last year, and gave the date and temperatures at certain
hours. He mentioned his wife's weight, details of how she suffered from
the heat, the amount of flesh she lost, the name of the steamer on which
they finally escaped from Portland to New York, the time of leaving and
arrival, and many other little things.
I left him on the dock in New York. A friend (name and occupation given)
had met him with a touring car (make and horsepower specified). What
happened after that I do not know, save that it was nothing of
importance. Important things don't happen to a man like that.
[Illustration: A dusky redcap took my baggage]
Two other men of somewhat Oriental aspect were seated on the leather
sofa talking the unintelligible jargon of the factory. But, presently,
emerged an anecdote.
"I was going through our sorting room a while back," said the one
nearest the window, "and I happened to take notice of one of the girls.
I hadn't seen her before. She was a new hand--a mighty pretty girl, with
a nice, round figure and a fine head of hair. She kept herself neater
than most of them girls do. I says to myself: 'Why, if you was to take
that girl and dress her up and give her a little education you wouldn't
be ashamed to take her anywheres.' Well, I went over to her table and I
says: 'Look at here, little girl; you got a fine head of hair and you'd
ought to take care of it. Why don't you wear a cap in here in all this
dust?' It tickled her to death to be noticed like that. And, sure
enough, she did get a cap. I says to her: 'That's the dope, little girl.
Take care of your looks. You'll only be young and pretty like this once,
you know.' So one thing led to another, and one day, a while later, she
come up to the office to see about her time slip or something, and I
jollied her a little. I seen she was a pretty smart kid at that, so--"
At that point he lowered his voice to a whisper, and leaned over so that
his thick, smiling lips were close to his companion's ear. The motion of
the train caused their hat brims to interfere. Disturbed by this, the
raconteur removed his derby. His head was absolutely bald.
* * * * *
Well, I am not sure that I should have liked to hear the rest. I shifted
my attention back to the apostle of the linen union suit, who had talked
on, unremittingly. His conversation had, at least, the merit of entire
frankness. He was a man with nothing to conceal.
"Yes, sir!" I heard him declare, "every time you get on to a railroad
train you take your life in your hands. That's a positive fact. I was
reading it up just the other day. We had almost sixteen thousand
accidents to trains in this country last year. A hundred and thirty-nine
passengers killed and between nine and ten thousand injured. That's not
counting employees, either--just passengers like us." He emphasized his
statements by waving a fat forefinger beneath the listener's nose, and I
noticed that the latter seemed to wish to draw his head back out of
range, as though in momentary fear of a collision.
For my part, I did not care for these statistics. They were not pleasant
to the ears of one on the first leg of a long railroad journey. I rose,
aimed the end of my cigar at the convenient nickel-plated receptacle
provided for that purpose by the thoughtful Pullman Company, missed it,
and retired from the smoking room. Or, rather, I emerged and went to
luncheon.
Our charming neighbor of the parlor car was already in the diner. She
finished luncheon before we did, and, passing by our table as she left,
held her chin well up and kept her eyes ahead with a precision almost
military--almost, but not quite. Try as she would, she was unable to
control a slight but infinitely gratifying flicker of the eyelids, in
which nature triumphed over training and femininity defeated feministic
theory.
A little later, on our way back to the smoking room, we saw her seated,
as before, behind the sheltering ramparts of her magazine. This time it
pleased our fancy to take the austere military cue from her. So we filed
by in step, as stiff as any guardsmen on parade before a princess seated
on a green plush throne. Resolutely she kept her eyes upon the page. We
might have thought she had not noticed us at all but for a single sign.
She uncrossed her knees as we passed by.
In the smoking room we entered conversation with a young man who was
sitting by the window. He proved to be a civil engineer from Buffalo. He
had lived in Buffalo eight years, he said, without having visited
Niagara Falls. ("I've been meaning to go, but I've kept putting it
off.") But in New York he had taken time to go to Bedloe Island and
ascend the Statue of Liberty. ("It's awfully hot in there.") Though my
companion and myself had lived in New York for many years, neither of us
had been to Bedloe Island. But both of us had visited the Falls. The
absurd humanness of this was amusing to us all; to my companion and me
it was encouraging as well, for it seemed to give us ground for hope
that, in our visits to strange places, we might see things which the
people living in those places fail to see.
When, after finishing our smoke, we went back to our seats, the being
across the way began to make believe to read again. But now and then,
when some one passed, she would look up and make believe she wished to
see who it might be. And always, after doing so, she let her eyes trail
casually in our direction ere they sought the page again. And always we
were thankful.
As the train slowed down for Rochester we saw her rise and get into her
slinky little coat. The porter came and took her Russia leather bag.
Meanwhile we hoped she would be generous enough to look once more before
she left the car. Only once more!
But she would not. I think she had a feeling that frivolity should cease
at Rochester; for Rochester, we somehow sensed, was home to her. At all
events she simply turned and undulated from the car.
That was too much! Enough of make-believe! With one accord we swung our
chairs to face the window. As she appeared upon the platform our noses
almost touched the windowpane and our eyes sent forth forlorn appeals.
She knew that we were there, yet she walked by without so much as
glancing at us.
We saw a lean old man trot up to her, throw one arm about her shoulders,
and kiss her warmly on the cheek. Her father--there was no mistaking
that. They stood there for a moment on the platform talking eagerly; and
as they talked they turned a little bit, so that we saw her smiling up
at him.
[Illustration: What scenes these black, pathetic people had passed
through--were passing through! Why did they not look up in wonderment?]
Then, to our infinite delight, we noticed that her eyes were slipping,
slipping. First they slipped down to her father's necktie. Then sidewise
to his shoulder, where they fluttered for an instant, while she tried to
get them under control. But they weren't the kind of eyes which are
amenable. They got away from her and, with a sudden leap, flashed up at
us across her father's shoulder! The minx! She even flung a smile! It
was just a little smile--not one of her best--merely the fragment of a
smile, not good enough for father, but too good to throw away.
Well--it was not thrown away. For it told us that she knew our lives had
been made brighter by her presence--and that she didn't mind a bit.
* * * * *
Pushing on toward Buffalo as night was falling, my companion and I
discussed the fellow travelers who had most engaged our notice: the
young engineer from Buffalo, keen and alive, with a quick eye for the
funny side of things; the hairless amorist; the genial bore, whose wife
(we told ourselves) got very tired of him sometimes, but loved him just
because he was so good; the pretty girl, who couldn't make her eyes
behave because she was a pretty girl. We guessed what kind of house each
one resided in, the kind of furniture they had, the kind of pictures on
the walls, the kind of books they read--or didn't read. And I believed
that we guessed right. Did we not even know what sort of underwear
encased the ample figure of the man with the amazing memory of
unessential things? And, while touching on this somewhat delicate
subject, were we not aware that if the alluring being who left the
train, and us, at Rochester possessed the once-so-necessary garment
called a petticoat, that petticoat was hanging in her closet?
All this I mention because the thought occurred to me then (and it has
kept recurring since) that places, no less than persons, have characters
and traits and habits of their own. Just as there are colorless people
there are colorless communities. There are communities which are strong,
self-confident, aggressive; others lazy and inert. There are cities
which are cultivated; others which crave "culture" but take "culturine"
(like some one drinking from the wrong bottle); and still others almost
unaware, as yet, that esthetic things exist. Some cities seem to fairly
smile at you; others are glum and worried like men who are ill, or
oppressed with business troubles. And there are dowdy cities and
fashionable cities--the latter resembling one another as fashionable
women do. Some cities seem to have an active sense of duty, others not.
And almost all cities, like almost all people, appear to be capable
alike of baseness and nobility. Some cities are rich and proud like
self-made millionaires; others, by comparison, are poor. But let me
digress here to say that, though I have heard mention of "hard times" at
certain points along my way, I don't believe our modern generation knows
what hard times really are. To most Americans the term appears to
signify that life is hard indeed on him who has no motor car or who
goes without champagne at dinner.
* * * * *
My contacts with many places and persons I shall mention in the
following chapters have, of necessity, been brief. I have hardly more
than glimpsed them as I glimpsed those fellow travelers on the train.
Therefore I shall merely try to give you some impressions, from a sort
of mental sketchbook, of the things which I have seen and done and
heard. There is one point in particular about that sketchbook: in it I
have reserved the right to set down only what I pleased. It has been
hard to do that sometimes. People have pulled me this way and that,
telling me what to see and what not to see, what to write and what to
leave out. I have been urged, for instance, to write about the varied
industries of Cleveland, the parks of Milwaukee, and the enormous red
apples of Louisiana, Mo. I may come to the apples later on, for I ate a
number of them and enjoyed them; but the varied industries of Cleveland
and the Milwaukee parks I did not eat.
I claim the further right to ignore, when I desire to, the most
important things, or to dwell with loving pen upon the unimportant.
Indeed, I reserve all rights--even to the right to be perverse.
Thus I shall mention things which people told me not to mention: the
droll Detroit Art Museum; the comic chimney rising from the center of a
Grand Rapids park; horrendous scenes in the Chicago stockyards; the
Free Bridge, standing useless over the river at St. Louis for want of
an approach; the "wettest block"--a block full of saloons, which marks
the dead line between "wet" Kansas City, Mo., and "dry" Kansas City,
Kas. (I never heard about that block until a stranger wrote and told me
not to mention it.)
As for statistics, though I have been loaded with them to the point of
purchasing another trunk, I intend to use them as sparingly as possible.
And every time I use them I shall groan.