THE MARCH TO FORT DUQUESNE.
The train man was as good as his word. Ere they climbed the mountains
to the pretty town of Alatoona, that sits perched like a crow's nest,
on the summit of the Alleghanies, he transferred Ben to another car.
And when they reached Alatoona, and the train changed crews, he not
only gave him into the care of another brakeman of the new crew, but,
as the train would stop there half an hour, he took him to his own home
and made him eat a substantial meal.
Daylight was fading out of the west when the train drew out of
Alatoona. The car with the barrels in had been left, and our hero was
now safely stowed in one loaded with pig iron that had been brought
off of the Williamsburg branch. Darkness prevented the traveller
from viewing the glorious mountain scenery, in the train's descent
from the hills. The great Horse Shoe Bend, with its panoramic views
of mountains, woodlands, and valleys; the old grade on the opposite
mountains, where--in times of yore--they sailed canal boats over the
hills on rails, and deposited them safely in their native elements on
the western slope, together with the many enchanting scenes this road
runs through, were all lost to him. Nor did he see Johnstown, with its
great Cambria Iron and Steel Works, the largest in the world (and a
popular resort of hundreds of tramps who journey that way and toast
their sides among its many fires and furnaces). Nor could he view the
noisy little Conemaugh, that led the rail road along its bank to the
foot hills below. We say Ben saw none of these, for, in the first place
it was night, and in the second, his patron--the new brakeman--had
shut him up in the car, and told him to keep the doors and end gates
closed, both as a matter of protection from the prying eyes of road
officials, and to prevent a horde of impecunious travellers--like
Ben--from entering. The last was by no means visionary advice, for at
nearly every station and side track the doors and windows were tried by
tramps, who had awaited the shades of night to aid them in "jumping" a
train.
Ben, still somewhat weak from his recent adventure, yet feeling in
a peaceful state of mind from the assurance of his ride and the
beneficial effect of the hearty supper he had made at the home of the
hospitable brakeman in Alatoona, dozed on the pig iron. His bed was
a hard one, to be sure; but when one side was dented so as to be no
longer endured (which occurred every little while) he turned over on
another; and by so revolving discovered the important fact that a man
is in possession of four sides with which he may lie on the hardest of
beds in comparative comfort by judiciously using them in rotation.
That is continually turning from left to right or right to left, as the
case may be, so that when No. 1 is worn out No. 4 will be fresh, and
ready for use.
When they arrived in the outskirts of the city of Pittsburg, the
brakeman appeared at the end gate and told Ben he had best disembark at
East Liberty and walk into the city, to avoid being seen by watchmen at
the lower yards. Cleveland thanked him for the ride, and, as the train
slacked up, dismounted to find himself in the suburbs of the Smoky
City, in the grey of the dawn.
"Good enough," said he, stretching himself, and rubbing his stiffened
limbs; "good enough. Three days gone and I have made over four hundred
and fifty miles. If I can keep up this rate of travel I will win my
wager and have time to spare."
As he walked toward the heart of the city, he met several knights
of the foot-path who had rolled out of lumber yards and from about
the furnaces of iron mills. These informed him that Pittsburg was
considered an excellent tramp town by the fraternity. Indeed the
generous citizens had established a home for them on Duquesne Way,
where they were both lodged and fed in gorgeous style. But, he was
told, breakfast would be over before he could reach the "home," and as
the tramps did not dine until six P.M., and guests were not allowed to
remain in the _salon_ during the day time, our traveller reflected that
it would do him no good to visit the institution until hospitalities
opened. As he still felt too weak for the road, he resolved to spend
the day in fasting and viewing the iron industries for which the city
is famous. He strolled around among these and chatting with the hands
was told that the good town's glory was departing from out its hands.
Years ago, before it became a great iron mart, the city had been the
most extensive shipping point in the _then_ "Great West." Steamboats
crowded one another at its levees, and the manufacturers of the east
were continually departing down the Ohio, for the southern and western
countries, in vast quantities. Then came the era of rail roads and
the rapid settlement of the far west, and Fort Duquesne, as a great
shipping point, ceased to exist. But when this industry was wrested
from it, the brave old town adopted another. The transportation center
of vast coal fields and iron deposits, she soon became a manufacturing
hive, unequalled on the continent, and for many years upheld the
reputation of the Birmingham of America.
But there came a change.
Capital ripped open the bowels of Mother Earth, and stole the ores
with which the good dame was pregnant, in other and newer localities,
far away. Iron works shot up their tall chimnies all over the west; at
Cleveland, Columbus, Chicago, Joliet, Indianapolis, Terra Haute, St.
Louis and elsewhere. As a consequence the good town found its second
sceptre taken away, and the grip it had held upon the Great West, so
long and well, Ben found had dwindled down to its coal fleets, which,
with the vast natural resources of Pittsburg's water-ways, it is never
likely to be deprived of. All this he heard, and much more. He learned
that the city had a magnificent debt--that was a thing of beauty and
apparently a joy forever. No one appeared to know just how much it
was, but all agreed that it was ahead, per capita, of any other city
in the Union--and this was a source of much honest pride. For though
the city's commerce and manufactures might be stolen from it by western
upstarts, they could not take its debt.
Ben discovered more real courtesy and kindness toward poverty in
Pittsburg, than in any other town he visited during his tramp. The
inhabitants were sociable, generous and unpretending.
While our friend was standing in the doorway of a mill, observing the
men draw out the glowing, cherry-red bars from the rolls, and listening
to the "bloom" snap and crackle, like a roll of musketry, in the jaws
of the squeezer, he heard a little exclamation in a female voice. It
was simply "Oh, my!" but it sent a thrill through every nerve in his
body, for it was the voice of her he nightly met in his dreams. He
dared not look up, but stood there, _feeling_ her presence, and with
the music of her voice ringing in his ears, waiting to hear her speak
again.
But the "Oh, my!" was not repeated, as she of the grey, glorious eyes
had only made the exclamation while passing in company with an elderly
gentleman, and observing the glowing "bloom" pass into the squeezer.
When Ben looked up, they were no where to be seen.
"Well," he muttered, "what is to be, will be. Tommy said they were
going to St. Louis, and I may see her there. In my present condition
it would do me but little good to meet her, anyway, I presume. I'm a
tramp! Actually and professionally, a _tramp_, and I begin to look
and feel like one. Should I lose my wager, I may adopt the business
permanently," and he laughed not altogether well pleased with himself.