Looking down the new road that leads up to the church and my own humble
home, my wife and I saw a strange man approaching. We thought he was
deformed at first glance, for he seemed to be out of proportion in many
ways. As he drew nearer the window we noticed that he wore three or more
coats, and the same number of inseparable pants—at least each pair was
inseparable.
At the church he hesitated, glancing at the parsonage, and then back to
our back door. He was rather an old man, past sixty, judging from his
hair and whiskers. At last he decided to try our house.
I did not ask him, but I suspect that he mistook our house for the
Methodist parsonage, since the church and our house are painted the same
colors. I went to the door myself, and when he asked, “Could you give a
hungry man something to eat?” I replied by inviting him inside and giving
him a chair.
“Traveling?” I inquired, not from idle curiosity, but to start a
conversation and make the stranger feel that I took an interest in him.
“A little,” he replied, “I came down from Erie last night on a freight
train, and I ’most froze to death. No work up that way, except in the
coke regions, and there they have Poles and Slavs and Finlanders and
Hitalians and niggers.”