THE EARLY BIRDS AND THE WORM
In the enormous barn of the railroad station stood many strings of
cars, as if a gigantic young Gulliver stabled his toys there and
invisibly amused himself; now whisking this one away, now backing that
other in.
Some of the trains were noble equipages, fitted to glide across the
whole map with cargoes of Lilliputian millionaires and their
Lilliputian ladies. Others were humble and shabby linked-up
day-coaches and dingy smoking-cars, packed with workers, like ants.
Cars are mere vehicles, but locomotives have souls. The express
engines roll in or stalk out with grandeur and ease. They are like
emperors. They seem to look with scorn at the suburban engines
snorting and grunting and shaking the arched roof with their plebeian
choo-choo as they puff from shop to cottage and back.
The trainmen take their cue from the behavior of their locomotives.
The conductor of a transcontinental nods to the conductor of a
shuttle-train with less cordiality than to a brakeman of his own. The
engineers of the limiteds look like senators in overalls. They are
far-traveled men, leading a mighty life of adventure. They are pilots
of land-ships across land-oceans. They have a right to a certain
condescension of manner.
But no one feels or shows so much arrogance as the sleeping car
porters. They cannot pronounce "supercilious," but they can be it.
Their disdain for the entire crew of any train that carries merely
day-coaches or half-baked chair-cars, is expressed as only a darkey in
a uniform can express disdain for poor white trash.
Of all the haughty porters that ever curled a lip, the haughtiest by
far was the dusky attendant in the San Francisco sleeper on the
Trans-American Limited. His was the train of trains in that whole
system. His car the car of cars. His passengers the surpassengers of
all.
His train stood now waiting to set forth upon a voyage of two thousand
miles, a journey across seven imperial States, a journey that should
end only at that marge where the continent dips and vanishes under the
breakers of the Pacific Ocean.
At the head of his car, with his little box-step waiting for the foot
of the first arrival, the porter stood, his head swelling under his
cap, his breast swelling beneath his blue blouse, with its brass
buttons like reflections of his own eyes. His name was Ellsworth
Jefferson, but he was called anything from "Poarr-turr" to "Pawtah,"
and he usually did not come when he was called.
To-night he was wondering perhaps what passengers, with what
dispositions, would fall to his lot. Perhaps he was wondering what his
Chicago sweetheart would be doing in the eight days before his return.
Perhaps he was wondering what his San Francisco sweetheart had been
doing in the five days since he left her, and how she would pass the
three days that must intervene before he reached her again.
He had Othello's ebon color. Did he have Othello's green eye?
Whatever his thoughts, he chatted gaily enough with his neighbor and
colleague of the Portland sleeper.
Suddenly he stopped in the midst of a soaring chuckle.
"Lordy, man, looky what's a-comin'!"
The Portland porter turned to gaze.
"I got my fingers crossed."
"I hope you git him."
"I hope I don't."
"He'll work you hard and cuss you out, and he won't give you even a
Much Obliged."
"That's right. He ain't got a usher to carry his things. And he's got
enough to fill a van."
The oncomer was plainly of English origin. It takes all sorts of
people to make up the British Empire, and there is no sort
lacking--glorious or pretty, or sour or sweet. But this was the type
of English globe-trotter that makes himself as unpopular among
foreigners as he is among his own people. He is almost as unendurable
as the Americans abroad who twang their banjo brag through Europe, and
berate France and Italy for their innocence of buckwheat cakes.
The two porters regarded Mr. Harold Wedgewood with dread, as he bore
down on them. He was almost lost in the plethora of his own luggage.
He asked for the San Francisco sleeper, and the Portland porter had to
turn away to smother his gurgling relief.
Ellsworth Jefferson's heart sank. He made a feeble effort at
self-protection. The Pullman conductor not being present at the
moment, he inquired:
"Have you got yo' ticket?"
"Of cawse."
"Could I see it?"
"Of cawse not. Too much trouble to fish it out."
The porter was fading. "Do you remember yo' numba?"
"Of cawse. Take these." He began to pile things on the porter like a
mountain unloading an avalanche. The porter stumbled as he clambered
up the steps, and squeezed through the strait path of the corridor
into the slender aisle. He turned again and again to question the
invader, but he was motioned and bunted down the car, till he was
halted with a "This will do."
The Englishman selected section three for his own. The porter
ventured: "Are you sho' this is yo' numba?"
"Of cawse I'm shaw. How dare you question my----"
"I wasn't questionin' you, boss, I was just astin' you."
He resigned himself to the despot, and began to transfer his burdens
to the seat. But he did nothing to the satisfaction of the Englishman.
Everything must be placed otherwise; the catch-all here, the
portmanteau there, the Gladstone there, the golfsticks there, the
greatcoat there, the raincoat there. The porter was puffing like a
donkey-engine, and mutiny was growing in his heart. His last
commission was the hanging up of the bowler hat.
He stood on the arm of the seat to reach the high hook. From here he
paused to glare down with an attempt at irony.
"Is they anything else?"
"No. You may get down."
The magnificent patronage of this wilted the porter completely. He
returned to the lower level, and shuffled along the aisle in a trance.
He was quickly recalled by a sharp:
"Pawtah!"
"Yassah!"
"What time does this bally train start?"
"Ten-thutty, sah."
"But it's only ten now."
"Yassah. It'll be ten-thutty a little later."
"Do you mean to tell me that I've got to sit hyah for half an
hour--just waitin'?"
The porter essayed another bit of irony:
"Well," he drawled, "I might tell the conducta you're ready. And mebbe
he'd start the train. But the time-table says ten-thutty."
He watched the effect of his satire, but it fell back unheeded from
the granite dome of the Englishman, whose only comment was:
"Oh, never mind. I'll wait."
The porter cast his eyes up in despair, and turned away, once more to
be recalled.
"Oh, pawtah!"
"Yassah!"
"I think we'll put on my slippahs."
"Will we?"
"You might hand me that large bag. No, stupid, the othah one. You
might open it. No, its in the othah one. Ah, that's it. You may set it
down."
Mr. Wedgewood brought forth a soft cap and a pair of red slippers. The
porter made another effort to escape, his thoughts as black as his
face. Again the relentless recall:
"Oh, pawtah, I think we'll unbutton my boots."
He was too weak to murmur "Yassah." He simply fell on one knee and got
to work.
There was a witness to his helpless rage--a newcomer, the American
counterpart of the Englishman in all that makes travel difficult for
the fellow travelers. Ira Lathrop was zealous to resent anything short
of perfection, quick and loud of complaint, apparently impossible to
please.
In everything else he was the opposite of the Englishman. He was
burly, middle-aged, rough, careless in attire, careless of speech--as
uncouth and savage as one can well be who is plainly a man of means.
It was not enough that a freeborn Afro-American should be caught
kneeling to an Englishman. But when he had escaped this penance, and
advanced hospitably to the newcomer, he must be greeted with a snarl.
"Say, are you the porter of this car, or that man's nurse?"
"I can't tell yet. What's yo' numba, please?"
The answer was the ticket. The porter screwed up his eyes to read the
pencilled scrawl.
"Numba se'm. Heah she is, boss."
"Right next to a lot of women, I'll bet. Couldn't you put me in the
men's end of the car?"
"Not ve'y well, suh. I reckon the cah is done sold out."
With a growl of rage, Ira Lathrop slammed into the seat his entire
hand baggage, one ancient and rusty valise.
The porter gazed upon him with increased depression. The passenger
list had opened inauspiciously with two of the worst types of
travelers the Anglo-Saxon race has developed.
But their anger was not their worst trait in the porter's eyes. He
was, in a limited way, an expert in human character.
When you meet a stranger you reveal your own character in what you ask
about his. With some, the first question is, "Who are his people?"
With others, "What has he achieved?" With others, "How much is he
worth?" Each gauges his cordiality according to his estimate.
The porter was not curious on any of these points. He showed a
democratic indifference to them. His one vital inquiry was:
"How much will he tip?"
His inspection of his first two charges promised small returns. He
buttoned up his cordiality, and determined to waste upon them the
irreducible minimum of attention.
It would take at least a bridal couple to restore the balance. But
bridal couples in their first bloom rarely fell to the lot of that
porter, for what bridal couple wants to lock itself in with a crowd
of passengers for the first seventy-two hours of wedded bliss?
The porter banished the hope as a vanity. Little he knew how eagerly
the young castaways from that wrecked taxicab desired to be a bridal
couple, and to catch this train.
But the Englishman was restive again:
"Pawtah! I say, pawtah!"
"Yassah!"
"What time are we due in San Francisco?"
"San Francisco? San Francisco? We are doo thah the evenin' of the
fo'th day. This bein' Monday, that ought to bring us in abote Thuzzday
evenin'."
The Yankee felt called upon to check the foreign usurper.
"Porrterr!"
"Yassah!"
"Don't let that fellow monopolize you. He probably won't tip you at
all."
The porter grew confidential:
"Oh, I know his kind, sah. They don't tip you for what you do do, but
they're ready letter writers to the Sooperintendent for what you don't
do."
"Pawtah! I say, pawtah!"
"Here, porrterr."
The porter tried to imitate the Irish bird, and be in two places at
once. The American had a coin in his hand. The porter caught the
gleam of it, and flitted thither. The Yankee growled:
"Don't forget that I'm on the train, and when we get to 'Frisco there
may be something more."
The porter had the coin in his hand. Its heft was light. He sighed: "I
hope so."
The Englishman was craning his head around owlishly to ask:
"I say, pawtah, does this train ever get wrecked?"
"Well, it hasn't yet," and he murmured to the Yankee, "but I has
hopes."
The Englishman's voice was querulous again.
"I say, pawtah, open a window, will you? The air is ghastly,
abso-ripping-lutely ghastly."
The Yankee growled:
"No wonder we had the Revolutionary War!"
Then he took from his pocket an envelope addressed to Ira Lathrop &
Co., and from the envelope he took a contract, and studied it grimly.
The envelope bore a Chinese stamp.
The porter, as he struggled with an obstinate window, wondered what
sort of passenger fate would send him next.