I have not written much for publication lately, because I did not feel
well, I was fatigued. I took a ride on the cars last week and it shook
me up a good deal.
The train was crowded somewhat, and so I sat in a seat with a woman who
got aboard at Minkin's Siding. I noticed as we pulled out of Minkin's
Siding, that this woman raised the window so that she could bid adieu
to a man in a dyed moustache. I do not know whether he was her dolce
far niente, or her grandson by her second husband. I know that if he had
been a relative of mine, however, I would have cheerfully concealed the
fact.
She waved a little 2x6 handkerchief out of the window, said "good-bye,"
allowed a fresh zephyr from Cape Sabine to come in and play a xylophone
interlude on my spinal column,' and then burst into a paroxysm of damp,
hot tears.
I had to go into another car for a moment, and when I returned a
pugilist from Chicago had my seat. When I travel I am uniformly
courteous, especially to pugilists. A pugilist who has started out as an
obscure boy with no money, no friends, and no one to practice on, except
his wife or his mother, with no capital aside from his bare hands; a man
who has had to fight his way through life, as it were, and yet who has
come out of obscurity and attracted the attention of the authorities,
and won the good will of those with whom he came in contact, will always
find me cordial and pacific. So I allowed this self-made man with the
broad, high, intellectual shoulder blades, to sit in my seat with
his feet on my new and expensive traveling bag, while I sat with the
tear-bedewed memento from Minkin's Siding.
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She sobbed several more times, then hove a sigh that rattled the windows
in the car, and sat up. I asked her if I might sit by her side for a few
miles and share her great sorrow. She looked at me askance. I did not
resent it. She allowed me to take the seat, and I looked at a paper for
a few moments so that she could look me over through the corners of her
eyes.