FELLOW WAYFARERS
With the morn our way still lay among apples and honey, hives and
orchards; a land of prosperous farms, sumptuous rolling downs, rich
woodland, sheep, more pigs, more apple-barrels and velvety sunshine. The
old ruined houses had ceased, and the country had taken on a more
generous, broad-shouldered, deep-bosomed aspect. Nature was preparing for
one of her big Promised Land effects. We were coming to the valley of the
Genesee River. We made a comparison of two kinds of prosperity in the
look of a landscape. Some villages and farms suggest smugness in their
prosperity. They have a model-farm, business-like, well-regulated,
up-to-date, company-financed air, suggesting such modern agricultural
terms as "ensilage," "irrigation" and "fertilizer." Other villages and
farms, while just as well-kept and well-to-do, have, so to say, a
something romantic about their prosperity, a bounteous, ruddy, golden-age
look about them, as though Nature herself had been the farmer and they
had ruddied and ripened out of her own unconscious abundance--the
difference between a row of modern box beehives and the old
thatched-cottage kind. The countryside of the Genesee valley has the
romantic prosperous look. Its farms and villages look like farms and
villages in picture-books, and the country folk we met seemed happy and
gay and kind, such as those one reads of in William Morris's romances of
the golden age. As from time to time we exchanged greetings with them, we
were struck with their comely health and blithe ways--particularly with
their fine teeth, as they laughed us the time of day, or stopped their
wagons to gossip a moment with the two outlandish packmen--the very teeth
one would expect in an apple-country. Perhaps they came of so much sweet
commerce with apples!
The possessor of a particularly fine display hailed us as he drove by in
an empty wagon, at the tail of which trailed a long orchard ladder, and
asked us if we would care for a lift. Now it happened that his
suggestion came like a voice from heaven for poor Colin, one of whose
shoes had been casting a gloom over our spirits for several miles. So we
accepted with alacrity, and, really, riding felt quite good for a
change! Our benefactor was a bronzed, handsome young fellow, just
through Cornell, he told us, and proud of his brave college, as all
Cornell men are. He had chosen apple-farming for his career, and,
naturally, seemed quite happy about it; lived on his farm near by with
his mother and sister, and was at the moment out on the quest of four
apple-packers for his harvesting, these experts being at a premium at
this season. We rattled along gaily in the broad afternoon sunshine,
exchanging various human information, from apple-packing to New York
theatres, after the manner of the companionable soul of man, and I hope
he liked us as well as we liked him.
One piece of information was of particular interest to Colin, the
whereabouts of one "Billy the Cobbler," a character of the neighbourhood,
who would fix Colin's shoe for him, and, incidentally, if he was in the
mood, give us a musical and dramatic entertainment into the bargain.
At length our ways parted, and, with cheery good-byes and good wishes,
our young friend went rattling along, leaving in our hearts a warm
feeling of the brotherhood of man--sometimes. He had let us down close by
the "High Banks," the rumour of which had been in our ears for some
miles, and presently the great effect Nature had been preparing burst on
our gaze with a startling surprise. The peaceful pastoral country was
suddenly cloven in twain by a gigantic chasm, the Genesee River, dizzy
depths below, picturesquely flowing between Grand Cañon rock effects,
shaggy woods clothing the precipitous limestone, and small forests
growing far down in the broad bed of the river, with here and there
checkerboard spaces of cultivated land, gleaming, smooth and green, amid
all the spectacular savageness--soft, cozy spots of verdure nestling
dreamily in the hollow of the giant rocky hand. The road ran close to the
edge of the chasm, and the sublimity was with us, laying its hush upon
us, for the rest of the afternoon. Appropriate to her Jove-like mood,
Nature had planted stern thickets of oak-trees along the rocky edge, and
"the acorns of our lord of Chaonia" crunched beneath our feet as we
walked on.
After a while, sure enough we came upon "Billy the Cobbler," seated at
his bench in a little shop at the beginning of a straggle of houses,
alone, save for his cat, at the sleepy end of afternoon. We had
understood that he had been crippled in some cruel accident of machinery,
and was hampered in the use of his legs. But, unless in a certain
philosophic sweetness on his big, happy face, there was no sign of the
cripple about his burly, broad-shouldered personality. He was evidently
meant to be a giant, and was what one might call the bo'sun type, bluff,
big-voiced and merry, with a boyish laugh, large, twinkling eyes, a
trifle wistful, and the fine teeth of the district.
"Well, boys," said he, looking up from his work with a smile, "and what
can I do for you? Walking, eh?--to New York!" and he whistled, as every
one did when they learned our mysterious business.
Then, taking Colin's shoe in his hand, he commenced to pound upon that
instrument of torture, talking gaily the while. Presently he asked, "Do
you care about music?" and on our eagerly agreeing that we did, "All
right," he said, "we'll close the shop for a few minutes and have some."
Then, moving around on his seat, like some heroic half-figure bust on its
pedestal, he rummaged among the litter of leather and tools at his side,
and produced a guitar from its baize bag, also a mouth organ, which by
some ingenious wire arrangement he fastened around his neck, so that he
might press his lips upon it, leaving his hands free for the guitar.
Then, "Ready?" said he, and, applying himself simultaneously to the
guitar and the harmonica, off he started with a quite electrical gusto
into a spirited fandango that made the little shop dance and rattle with
merriment. You would have said that a whole orchestra was there, such a
volume and variety of musical sound did Billy contrive to evoke from his
two instruments.
"There!" he said, with a humorous chuckle, pushing the harmonica aside
from his mouth, "what do you think of that for an overture?" He had
completely hypnotized us with his infectious high spirits, and we were
able to applaud him sincerely, for this lonely cobbler of shoes was
evidently a natural well of music, and was, besides, no little of an
executant.
"Now I'll give you an imitation of grand opera," he said; and then he
launched into the drollest burlesque of a fashionable tenor and a
prima-donna, as clever as could be. He was evidently a born mime as well
as a musician, and presently delighted us with some farmyard imitations,
and one particularly quaint impersonation, "an old lady singing with
false teeth," sent us into fits of laughter.
"You ought to go into vaudeville," we both said spontaneously, with that
vicious modern instinct to put private gifts to professional uses, and
then Billy, with shy pride, admitted that he did do a little now and
again in a professional way at harvest balls (we thought of Sheldon
Center) and the like.
"Perhaps you might like one of my professional letter-heads," he said,
handing us one apiece. I think probably the reader would like one, too.
You must imagine it in the original, with fancy displayed professional
type, regular "artiste" style, and a portrait of Billy, with his two
instruments, in one corner. And "see thou mock him not," gentle reader!
_King of Them All
BILLY WILLIAMS
THE KING OF ALL IMITATORS
Producing in Rapid Succession
A GRAND REPERTOIRE
of Imitations and Impersonations
Consisting of_:
Minstrel Bands, Circus Bands, Killing
Pigs, Cat Greeting Her Kitten, Barn-Yard
of Hens and Roosters, Opera
Singers with Guitar, Whistling with
Guitar, Old Lady Singing with False
Teeth, Cow and Calf, Harmonica with
the Guitar, Arab Song, Trombone Solo
with the Guitar.
Yes! "See thou mock him not," gentle reader, for Billy is no subject for
any man's condescension. We were in his company scarcely an hour, but we
went away with a great feeling of respect and tenderness for him, and we
hope some day to drop in on him again, and hear his music and his quaint,
manly wisdom.
"All alone in the world, Billy?"
A shade of sadness passed over his face, and was gone again, as he
smilingly answered, stroking the cat that purred and rubbed herself
against his shoulder.
"Just puss and me and the guitar," he said. "The happiest of families.
Ah! Music's a great thing of a lonely evening."
And a sense of the brave loneliness of Billy's days swept over me as we
shook his strong hand, and he gave us a cheery godspeed on our way. I am
convinced that Billy could earn quite a salary on the vaudeville stage;
but--no! he is better where he is, sitting there at his bench, with his
black cat and his guitar and his singing, manly soul.
The twilight was rapidly thickening as we left Billy, once more bent over
his work, and, the fear of "supper-time" in our hearts, we pushed on at
extra speed toward our night's lodging at Mount Morris. The oak-trees
gloomed denser on our right as we plowed along a villainously sandy road.
Labourers homing from the day's work greeted us now and again in the
dimness, and presently one of these, plodding up behind us, broke forth
into conversation:
"Ben-a carry pack-a lik-a dat-a--forty-two months--army--ol-a country,"
said the voice out of the darkness.
It was an Italian labourer on his way to supper, interested in our
knapsacks.
"You're an Italian?"
"Me come from Pal-aer-mo."
The little chap was evidently in a talkative mood, and I nudged Colin to
do the honours of the conversation.
"Pal-aer-mo? Indeed!" said Colin. "Fine city, I guess."
"Been-a Pal-aer-mo?" asked the Italian eagerly. Colin couldn't say
that he had.
"Great city, Pal-aer-mo," continued our friend, "great theatre--cost
sixteen million dollars."
There is nothing like a walking-trip for gathering information of
this kind.
The Italian went on to explain that this country was a poor substitute
for the "ol-a country."
"This country--rough country. In this country me do rough-a work," he
explained apologetically; "in Pal-aer-mo do polit-a work."
And he accentuated his statement by a vicious side spit upon the
American soil.
It transpired that the "polit-a work" on which he had been engaged in
Pal-aer-mo had been waiting in a restaurant.
And so the poor soul chattered on, touching, not unintelligently, in his
absurd English, on American politics, capital and labour, the rich and
the poor. The hard lot of the poor man in America, and--"Pal-aer-mo,"
made the recurring burden of his talk, through which, a pathetic
undertone, came to us a sense of the native poetry of his race.
Did he ever expect to return to Palermo? we asked him as we parted. "Ah!
many a night me dream of Pal-aer-mo," he called back, as, striking into a
by-path, he disappeared in the darkness.
And then we came to a great iron bridge, sternly silhouetted in the
sunset. On either side rose cliffs of darkness, and beneath, like sheets
of cold moonlight, flowed the Genesee, a Dantesque effect of jet and
silver, Stygian in its intensity and indescribably mournful. The banks of
Acheron can not be more wildly _funèbre_, and it was companionable to
hear Colin's voice mimicking out of the darkness:
"In this country me do rough-a work. In Pal-aer-mo do polit-a work!"
"Poor chap!" I said, after a pause, thinking of our friend from
Pal-aer-mo. "Do you know Hafiz, Colin?" I continued. "There is an ode of
his that came back to me as our poor Italian was talking. I think I will
say it to you. It is just the time and place for it."
"Do," said Colin. And then I repeated:
_"At sunset, when the eyes of exiles fill,
And distance makes a desert of the heart,
And all the lonely world grows lonelier still,
I with the other exiles go apart,
And offer up the stranger's evening prayer.
My body shakes with weeping as I pray,
Thinking on all I love that are not there,
So desolately absent far away--
My Love and Friend, and my own land and home.
O aching emptiness of evening skies!
O foolish heart, what tempted thee to roam
So far away from the Beloved's eyes!
To the Beloved's country I belong--
I am a stranger in this foreign place;
Strange are its streets, and strange to me its tongue;
Strange to the stranger each familiar face.
'Tis not my city! Take me by the hand,
Divine protector of the lonely ones,
And lead me back to the Beloved's land--
Back to my friends and my companions
O wind that blows from Shiraz, bring to me
A little dust from my Beloved's street;
Send Hafiz something, love, that comes from thee,
Touched by thy hand, or trodden by thy feet."_
"My! but that makes one feel lonesome," was Colin's comment. "I wonder if
there will be any mail from the folk at Mount Morris."