United States Military Music—The Roger Williams Park—Indians—Rhode
Island Scenery and Amusements—Yankees—Experiences—A Miner from
California
IN Providence I made friends with a military band conductor. He was a
jolly customer, hard up but good-natured and humorous, a real American
bandmaster of the old convivial school, kind at heart and fond of good
whisky. His greatest virtue was a commonplace one: he would always pay
you back anything he borrowed, but unfortunately he was hard up and
could not do so. He had every excuse for this, for, as elsewhere,
bandsmen, indeed musicians in general, were supposed to be able to live
on melody and royalties that might arrive in some remote future. I
worked for him, borrowed my comrade’s clarionet and secured a position
in the military band. It played in Roger Williams Park, performing on
the usual holidays and on sunshiny evenings.
American conductors believe in vigour and fire when they perform, and
sacrifice artistic pianissimo to force and go: on the march the bands
lift you off your feet through the lilt of the music. The characteristic
go-ahead of the Yankees is finely illustrated by the music they perform,
and the military bands swing the population along as they march down the
streets: men, women and children instinctively fall into line. A
Pied-Piper-of-Hamelin fever seizes hold of the citizens; the whole
population is suddenly on the march as the band goes by. I played in the
band on the Fourth of July, a day celebrated by fireworks and
gun-firing. Americans go mad on that date, wear masks and do other
hideous things; it’s a kind of Guy Fawkes celebration.
The Roger Williams Park is partly wild and partly cultivated, and
artistically laid out with gardens and miniature landscapes that in
summer-time are a paradise of flowers. Various kinds of tropical-looking
trees abound, in scattered clumps that are haunted at sunset with
bright, roving eyes: for springing from bough to bough jump swarms of
big, wild, grey squirrels; their brush tails, a foot long, stick up as
they jump. The children are their boon companions, and come miles with
lumps of cake and bread to feed their tiny, soft playmates; for they are
as tame as white mice, spring down from bough to bough and sneak a
peanut off your hand, turn, brush your face with their tails and are
gone! In a second they are sitting on a skyward twig nibbling away at
your gift, safe against the blue sky. I found a nest of them at
Pawtucket Falls, a wild, beautiful spot near Rhodes. As I was looking at
the fluffy youngsters the mother arrived and, to my astonishment, chased
me away.
At Pawtucket Falls, too, I met a group of travelling Indians, menagerie
people I think, _en route_ for somewhere. Fenimore Cooper and other
Indian tales still interested me, so I talked to them and spoke to “Bull
Face,” a grave-looking chief, tawny and wrinkled with years, and clothed
in a heavy brown blanket which swarmed with fleas. He spoke English as
well as I did; but the South Sea Island breeds are far removed from the
Indian tribes, both by blood and habit. I never sought his tribe again.
I also saw Indians camping at Ochee Springs; real Indians they were,
with squaws attending to their wants as they blinked their eyes and
gazed scornfully on the onlookers. Smoking their calamets, dressed in
tribal fashion, they inspired me with curiosity. I cannot say that the
women were as handsome as I expected, for they had stolid, broad,
reddish-brown faces and expectorated frequently as they sucked clay
pipes. A pretty little papoose tugged at its mother’s breast, and did
not look unlike a South Sea Island baby, excepting that its forehead was
high and receding, and it had an impertinent European look. The women
carry their suckling babes in a basket on their back: when the babe
finishes pulling at the breast it crawls into the basket behind and goes
to sleep until the next meal. I saw the papooses of another tribe too;
the children looked like little wrinkled old men, and you might have
thought that they were small authors sitting on their bundles of
unaccepted manuscript, so worried did they look.
Providence is a spacious city; English towns are in the shade compared
to it, and seem overcrowded and gloomy. The streets are wide; terraced
store buildings on each side tower to the skies. Piazzas shade the
pavements and the citizens from scorching sunlight and rain. America has
built her cities on the improved plans of the Old World, and so has an
advantage over London and our provincial towns. Room to breathe in is
the natural birthright of America. Extensive parks, rushing rivers, and
relics of primeval scenery surround the city, and divide the suburbs for
miles and miles.
No sign of poverty is betrayed by the well-dressed crowds that chatter
cheerfully up and down the main streets; street-arabs are unknown. A
Mile End woman of London town in rags, with bruised nose and eyes,
walking down the street would create a sensation in Providence, and
their weekly papers would devote an article to the distressing incident.
Brilliantly lit saloons shine in the evening streets, and regiments of
laughing youths and girls hurry to the various depots, bound for the
ferry-boats on moonlight trips down the rivers. The bars are closed on
Sunday, but men trust men, and more sly rum is drunk on Sunday than
weekdays. Niggers with ebony faces mingle with the white population,
wearing white collars which support their ears: a shabby nigger has
never been seen in Providence. If you shoot a nigger and do not kill him
you are in danger of getting six months in the State prison for wasting
shot and powder!
Many of the characters you meet in American cities remind you of
Englishmen, but you can never really forget that you are in America. No
true Yankee with self-respect allows you to quash his opinion. Nothing
on earth can beat Providence, Boston, or any state you happen to be in.
They will argue for ever; and if you at length say anything that has
indisputable conviction in it, a true Yankee will squirt a stream of
tobacco juice with the deliberate intention of not missing you.
Things of this kind worry you for a while, but you soon fall into their
ways, and if you are smart can outrival them on their own ground; but
you have got to be smart. To tell the truth, Americans have good reason
to be proud of their states, and really have plenty to blow about.
Literary critics have hinted that Bret Harte discovered his characters
in his own imagination. I can on oath dispute that fact. Grim Mr Billy
Goat Whiskers, who fought in the North and South wars, draws his
munificent pension, chews tobacco and dwells in Providence to-day. You
do not meet him everywhere, but he is to be met.
In the grog saloons old miners from California told me their
experiences, drew from their pockets photographs of gold nuggets and of
gold claims that revealed small white dots in the far background—the
tombstones of men who had thwarted them! They were innocent-looking
enough, these men scarred with wounds, tropic heat and bad rum. They
followed the various occupations that suited aged heroes. One old miner
from Alaska suddenly arrived in Providence quite penniless. His name was
Cargo. Walking down Z—— Street, he spied the name of Cargo over a
sign-writer’s shop, walked straight in, spat on the floor, called the
“boss,” and tried to make him believe he was the ancestor of the family
of Cargo, and the rightful owner of the business. He was immovable. They
expostulated with him; he would not go, so they gave him a job and thus
saved legal proceedings in the High Courts of the state, and the expense
of regiments of lawyers who would dispute the true owner’s claim to his
business.
Providence is full of reminiscent men who tell of adventures that are
wide and wonderful.
If you are disinclined to go to the theatre you can always go into a bar
and in peace and comfort sit within earshot of some grog-nosed hero of
the old school, and find subject matter to outrival the romance of
fiction. You must take good care not to let the old fellow know you are
listening, otherwise he leaves facts alone and, with ill-concealed
pride, makes your blood congeal with vivid descriptions of old days,
murder and despair, or your mouth water for a breath of the fortunes
that knocked around ere you were born.
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