TRAVELING COMPANIONS.
ABOUT the middle of July, I resolved to return to Philadelphia before
completing my tour; and one evening I took an express train for
Pittsburg, via the Pittsburg, Fort Wayne and Chicago Railroad. The train
was not crowded, and each passenger in the car I was in had a whole seat
to himself.
We had traveled about a hundred miles, and were rolling across the State
of Indiana, in the darkness of night, when two persons got on at a
station, somewhere, came to the middle of the car, and one took a seat
beside me, while the other sat immediately in front. I glanced casually
at my companion, and had not the slightest difficulty in making out that
he was a sharper.
“This is a fine evening,” he said to me, politely, as the train
thundered onward.
“Very,” I replied.
Let it be borne in mind, however, that he had no special reason for
stating, nor I for agreeing, that it was a “fine evening.” On the
contrary, it was dark and cloudy, and looked like rain.
“How far are you going?” he asked.
“To Philadelphia,” I frankly replied.
“Ah? So am I.”
“Do you live there?” I queried.
“No; but I have an uncle there—a merchant——”
“What street?” I asked, pertly.
“Why—I—O, yes! Market street.” He then changed the subject, and said: “I
see you have lost a leg.”
“Yes,” I assented.
“In the war, I suppose?”
“Yes.”
“Ah!” he pursued, with earnestness, “many noble youths have made this
sacrifice for their country, and I hope they will never be forgotten.”
“I hope so, truly,” I replied.
“I know,” he went on, “that you must find it very inconvenient
traveling, in your condition—especially when it comes to changing cars,
and the like—and I was going to suggest that I would remain with you
till we reach Philadelphia, and render you any assistance——”
“Thank you,” I interrupted. “The truth is, I used to get around very
clumsily, when I had two feet to take care of; but now, having got rid
of one of the encumbrances, I get about astonishingly well. If you knew
how convenient it is to have but one leg to take care of, you wouldn’t
retain both yours a week. You’d have one of them sawed off, sir. You
would indeed.”
Mr. Sharper began to see that I wasn’t his man, and he presently got up
and took a seat just in front of his pal. On the same seat was a young
man who evidently had not made a regular business of traveling, and with
him Mr. Sharper struck up an animated conversation, soon gaining his
confidence. By and by, he introduced a very curious puzzle, with two
cups and ivory balls, which he said he had bought that day from an
Italian peddler with one eye, who had lost a brother and two wives in a
storm at sea, on his way to this country. I was not near enough to see
the exact construction of the cups and balls; but it was not long before
he got up a bet about them, with the green traveler. His confederate,
sitting on the seat between him and me, still pretending to be a
stranger to him, made a sham bet of thirty dollars, and the other man on
the same seat—also a man who had never been sharpened on the grindstone
of experience—bet fifteen dollars. The money was put up in the hands of
a passenger, and, of course, Sharper won. He and his confederate got off
at the next station, each about twenty dollars “in;” leaving a couple of
foolish passengers so much poorer, and, it is to be hoped, so much
wiser.
Reader, in your travels, beware of friendly strangers. John Smith always
bewares of ’em, and it pays.
A description of a forty hours’ ride by railroad, would prove as
tiresome to the reader as the ride always does to me. It is a delightful
thing, in fine weather, to take a ride of fifty or a hundred miles on a
train; to see the fields, and houses, and gardens, and barns, and woods,
and fences flying past you, and to feel that lightning would get tired
before it could catch you: but when you have to ride a thousand miles,
as I have often done, the thing becomes frightfully monotonous, and is
any thing but a pastime.
Especially when night comes does the ride grow tiresome. As for
sleeping-cars, I have long since vetoed _them_, as far as I am
concerned. I decide that they are a nuisance, and I believe the majority
of travelers will ratify and endorse my decision—and thus render it
legal. I never slept in one yet, that I did not suffer all the time,
either from heat or cold. Such a thing as an even or moderate
temperature, I never experienced in a sleeping-car. Then the space! To
be stuffed, as tight as the wad in a pop-gun, into a narrow cell, which
they honor with the appellation of “berth,” a cell so narrow as to evoke
unpleasant contemplations of the anticipated long and narrow home we
must all go to; so narrow and contracted that you haven’t room for your
elbows; so narrow that you can’t turn over without getting out upon the
floor for the purpose; so narrow and close that, as you lie on your
back, you are afraid to wink, lest you should scrape your eyelids
against the ceiling above you and break the lashes off: to be crammed
into a place like this, I say, with an implied promise of repose, is the
opposite extreme of extraordinary felicity!
However, occupying a seat in a car, for a whole night, is no delicacy,
either; although I prefer it to the “berth.” How frequently one consults
his time-piece on such an occasion! I look at my watch, and find it,
say, twelve o’clock, P. M. Then I recline on my seat and try to steal a
little sleep. At first, I feel quite comfortable, and fancy I can sleep
in that position for several hours. But scarcely have I time to draw a
breath, before I find that my head does not rest quite comfortably
against the window-sill or the back of the seat; I move it slightly;
then I find that my arm is going asleep; I move it; then my ankle is
twisted; I move it; then I find that my whole body is out of shape; I
move, turn round and lie with my head the other way; then I close my
eyes, and doze; I wake, presently, with a start; find my nose itching,
and my leg asleep and beginning to tingle as though ten million insects
were swarming in it; I then rub my eyes, think an hour has passed, look
at my watch, and find it thirteen minutes after eleven. Find I made a
mistake of an hour when I looked the other time.
At last, the night has dragged itself away; and, O, how welcome are the
tips of morning’s “rosy wings,” as they flutter upon the horizon among
the hills or over the plains! How welcome are the gray streaks that play
in the east, ushering glorious morning upon the skies! How welcome the
green fields again, as the curtain of the gloomy night is lifted from
the face of Nature! I involuntarily exclaim with Shakspeare:
“Look what streaks
Do lace the severing clouds in yonder East!
Night’s candles are put out; and jocund day
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain top.”