One violet throbbing star was climbing in the southeast at half-past
four, and the whole flat plain was rich with golden moonlight. Early
rising in order to quicken the furnace and start the matinsong in the
steampipes becomes its own reward when such an orange moon is dropping
down the sky. Even Peg (our most volatile Irish terrier) was plainly
awed by the blaze of pale light, and hopped gingerly down the rimy back
steps. But the cat was unabashed. Cats are born by moonlight and are
leagued with the powers of darkness and mystery. And so Nicholas Vachel
Lindsay (he is named for the daring poet of Illinois) stepped into the
moonshine without a qualm.
There are certain little routine joys known only to the servantless
suburbanite. Every morning the baker leaves a bag of crisp French rolls
on the front porch. Every morning the milkman deposits his little
bottles of milk and cream on the back steps. Every morning the furnace
needs a little grooming, that the cheery thump of rising pressure may
warm the radiators upstairs. Then the big agate kettle must be set over
the blue gas flame, for hot water is needed both for shaving and cocoa.
Our light breakfast takes only a moment to prepare. By the time the Nut
Brown Maid comes singing downstairs, cocoa, rolls, and boiled eggs are
ready in the sunny little dining room, and the Tamperer is bathed and
shaved and telephoning to Central for "the exact time." The 8:13 train
waits for no man, and it is nearly a mile to the station.
But the morning I think of was not a routine morning. On routine
mornings the Tamperer rises at ten minutes to seven, the alarm clock
being set for 6:45: which allows five minutes for drowsy head. The day
in question was early February when snow lay white and powdery on the
ground, and the 6 o'clock train from Marathon had to be caught. There is
an express for Philadelphia that leaves the Pennsylvania Station at 7:30
and this the Tamperer had to take, to make a 10 o'clock appointment in
the Quaker City. That was why the alarm clock rang at half-past four.
I cannot recall a more virginal morning than that snowy twilight before
the dawn. No description that I have ever read--not even the daybreak in
"Prince Otto," or Pippa's dawn boiling in pure gold over the rim of
night--would be just to that exquisite growth of colour in the eastern
sky. The violet star faded to forget-me-not and then to silver and at
last closed his weary eye; the flat Long Island prairie gradually lost
its fairy-tale air of mystery and dream; the close ceiling of the night
receded into infinite space as the sun waved his radiant arms over the
horizon.
But this was after I had left the house. The sun did not raise his head
from the pillow until I was in the train. The Nut Brown Maid was still
nested in her warm white bed as I took her up some tea and toast just
before departing.
The walk to the station, over the crisply frozen snow, was delicious.
Marathon is famous for its avenue of great elms, which were casting deep
blue shadows in the strange light--waning moon and waxing day. The air
was very chill--only just above zero--and the smoking car seemed very
cold and dismal. I huddled my overcoat about me and tried to smoke and
read the paper. But in that stale, fetid odour of last night's tobacco
and this morning's wet arctics the smoker was but a dismal place. The
exaltation of the dawn dropped suddenly into a kind of shivering nausea.
I changed to another car and threw away the war news. Just then the sun
came gloriously over the edge of the fields and set the snow afire. As
we rounded the long curve beyond Woodside I could see the morning light
shining upon the Metropolitan Tower, and when we glided into the
basement of the Pennsylvania Station my heart was already attuned to the
thrill of that glorious place. Perhaps it can never have the fascination
for me that the old dingy London terminals have--King's Cross,
Paddington, or Saint Pancras, with their delicious English bookstalls
and those porters in corduroy--but the Pennsylvania is a wonderful place
after all, a marble palace of romance and a gallant place to roam about.
It seems like a stable without horses, though, for where are the trains?
No chance to ramble about the platforms (as in London) to watch the Duke
of Abercorn or the Lord Claude Hamilton, or other of those green or blue
English locomotives with lordly names, being groomed for the run.
In the early morning the Pennsylvania Station catches in its
high-vaulted roof the first flush of sunlight; and before the flood of
commuters begins to pour in, the famous station cat is generally sitting
by the baggage room shining his morning face. Up at the marble lunch
counters the coloured gentlemen are serving hot cakes and coffee to
stray travellers, and the shops along the Arcade are being swept and
garnished. As I passed through on my way to the Philadelphia train I
was amused by a wicker basket full of Scotch terrier puppies--five or
six of them tumbling over one another in their play and yelping so that
the station rang. "Every little bit yelps" as someone has said. I was
reminded of the last words I ever read in Virgil (the end of the sixth
book of the Aeneid)--_stant litore puppes_, which I always yearned to
translate "a litter of puppies."
My train purred smoothly under the Hudson and under Jersey City as I lit
my cigar and settled comfortably into the green plush. When we emerged
from the tunnel on the other side of the long ridge (which is a
degenerate spur from the Palisades farther north) a crescent of sun was
just fringing the crest with fire. Another moment and we flashed onto
the Hackensack marshes and into the fully minted gold of superb morning.
The day was begun.