CHAPTER XV.
THE HOTEL DE LOG.
Ben and the Evangelist broke out in a roar of laughter, that caused one of the sleepers to awake and murmur a protest, and the proprietor of the "Hotel" to request them to suppress their hilarity lest they disturb some of the sleepers on the ground floor.
So our travellers bottled up their mirth and proceeded to make themselves at home, by taking a sleep that their exhausted natures loudly demanded. Having secured apartments near the fire, they scraped away such articles as encumbered the ground, and gathering together some leaves and branches for beds, were soon lost in a sound slumber.
The proprietor of the Hotel de Log was quite a character. He was a professional tramp and journeyman painter, who, being of a sociable turn of mind, had found congenial pastime in establishing and maintaining this popular resort. Originally he had camped on the spot alone, lame with a foot sore from the effects of travel. Passing tramps had been attracted to his camp-fire, and in their stories of the foot path and tales of adventures he had found the true pleasure that his nature craved. From tramp to tramp, along the line of track, the word had passed where good camping ground was to be found, and the Hotel de Log never lacked guests. Hotel keeping became a mania with the painter-tramp. He secured an old cow bell and regularly visited all freight trains—those being the vehicles generally patronized by his customers—and invited members of the fraternity who were intending to stop off down to his mansion on the sunny side of the grey sycamore. He was a harmless, good-natured little fellow, and liked by the respectable community residing in the vicinity; for, to an extent, he controlled the disorderly vagabond element that gathered about him. The citizens gave him such scraps of food as they could spare, and his boarders went out on "cadjing" pilgrimages, and returned well ladened. He was generous to a fault, and had a kind, gentle hand for the wounded and afflicted among his guests. The one great luxury of his life, was the occasional indulgence in a quiet, solemn drunk, during which he would sit nodding by the brook, and holding pleasant converse with its laughing waters.
Who knows but the little man was filling the very spot the Creator had moulded him for. If nothing is made in vain, why should this little painter-tramp have been?
Heaven only knows where he now is. But it is safe to venture the suggestion that if his cow bell is rusting in the grass grown court yard of his hotel, and the thrush sings undisturbed upon its walls of sycamore, there are other bells in distant lands that will welcome the poor little painter to a mansion paved with gold and glittering with precious stones. A mansion like his quaint Hotel de Log—not made by human hands.
Better, perhaps, apply for admission at the gates of that Great Hostelry, bearing with you the odor of kind deeds and the sanctity of a generous heart, than with all the pretentions of a successful life and most respectable burial, supplemented by a shaft of marble that shall hand your virtues to posterity in as cold and useless a shape as they existed while you were alive.
When Ben awoke the sun had passed meridian. The Evangelist still slept, and around the fire lounged two tramps with wounds upon their legs caused by unattended bruises received in boarding trains. The rest of the guests had flown.
Ben felt much refreshed by his slumber. One of the invalids asked for tobacco and he gave them both a generous supply. In return they spread before him the contents of the larder, consisting of bread, newly dug potatoes, roasting ears, and a jug of cider. The proprietor, he was informed, had departed early in the forenoon to attend a neighboring carpet beating, to which he had been invited. When the Evangelist awoke he also partook of like fare. At his suggestion, Ben boiled some water in an iron pot, and with a wash tub—improvised out of half a barrel—they washed their undergarments by the brook, and spread them in the sun to dry.
One of the invalids suggested if they were "crumbie" they had best give their clothes a "dry wash," and further explained that a dry wash consisted in spreading their garments over a village of ant hills, and allowing those useful little scavengers to go through them and carry off the parasites, both full grown and in protoplasm. Fortunately the "dry wash" had not yet become a necessity with either.
Being informed that a water tank, conveniently situated for "jumping" trains, was located some seven miles to the west, our two travellers left the Hotel de Log late in the afternoon—before the proprietor returned—and started for it.
The night that followed was an active and eventful one. The two were repeatedly put off of trains, and after having tried bumpers, pilots, ladders and roofs—during which they managed to travel some forty miles—they at last, about midnight, seated themselves upon the front platform of the lightning express baggage car, and made fifty miles without a stop. But, unfortunately, when they attempted to renew their place, the train side tracked, and they were discovered. An exciting chase between the tramps and several road officials followed, but eluding their pursuers, and convinced that it was impracticable to board a train at that depot, they took to the road and walked several miles until they came to an inviting haystack, when both lay down and slept.
Ben had now passed through the states of New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Ohio, and was on the border of Indiana. He had travelled over seven hundred miles in six days, and St. Louis was within a little more than three hundred more in a bee line, but nearer five hundred by the route and in the manner he was compelled to go. So far his success had been encouraging. Should it continue he felt confident of accomplishing his task. Those six days had accomplished a wonderful change in him. He was ragged and dirty, and no longer cared for appearances. He was now an expert in stealing rides. There was a bold, lawless, vagabond feeling gaining an ascendancy over him. He was fast losing the self respect that cares for the opinions of others. His stomach had accustomed itself to the newregime. He ate voraciously when he could obtain food in plenty, and found himself fasting an entire twenty-four hours without any very disagreeable sensations. He was no longer afraid to ask for food, nor ashamed of being ordered roughly from a train or its vicinity. He cared nothing about the stares with which he was greeted; an Ishmaelitish feeling was growing upon him—and he did not care to repress it. In fact Ben had become atramp.
His new companion, the Evangelist, was a sociable, easy-going, good-natured fellow. He had traits that were peculiar. Differing from the majority of tramps, he never uttered an oath. "I promised my dear, good mother, when a child, that I would not swear, and I never have," he said.
His love and respect for his mother's memory was something sublime, amid his rags and degradation. He never spoke disrespectfully of her sex, nor would he allow others to. He mentioned her often in the most devoted manner, and it was easy to be seen that she was the idol of his life. Though a cynic and a skeptic he once said to Ben:
"Were I positive that there was no hereafter, I would school myself to think otherwise. For of what use would life be to me did I not have the hope of again being by the side of her who has gone before me?" And on another occasion he said:
"I like free-thinkers well enough, and freedom of thought. I would not that any one should be bound down to the slavery of creed or dogma. Nor do I believe that any one poor, weak piece of human clay has a right to dictate the road to immortality, or sit in judgment on a fellow being. But he who wrecks a comforting belief or destroys a solacing faith, ruins that which he cannot replace. He takes away a happiness and offers nothing in return. It is a despicable act. A man had better let the creed or faith of his neighbor alone."
Horton had no aims, no ambitions, no aspirations. His was a harmless, purposeless life. An inoffensive vagabond who first excited your contempt, and then won your pity. His mother had been left a widow, in poverty, when he was a babe, and with her needle, supported herself and child. All his mother's hopes were centered in him; all his childish love in her. She struggled hard to give him a fair education, and the happiest moment of her life was when her boy entered a theological seminary. Up to that time Horton had been a more than usually bright and promising boy. Whatever he did was done "for mother's sake," and all his air-castles were occupied by her. While he was at the seminary she died, and he never recovered from the blow. A dull, dead apathy to all about him was succeeded by a mild cynicism and a sad rebellion against the justice of Providence; which latter caused his speedy expulsion from the theological school, about which he cared nothing, however.
"Why could not my mother have been left to me?" he would say. "Had not sorrows, toils and trials enough been heaped upon her dear head, but that just as I was becoming a value and a consolation to her she must be taken from me and I from her?"
When told that "the Lord chasteneth those he loveth," he would bitterly exclaim:
"Then I want nothing to do with such a God! It is man's God. Created by himself, and like himself, a thing of fury and vengeance! No, no, no. Him who lights the stars in the sky, and in whose hand this world is a mite so small that his Almighty eye alone can see it, is not the base, slaughter-thirsty creation poor, weak mortals attempt to depict in words that flavor of the dust of earth and thoughts that cannot go beyond the grave!"
It was probably a lack of discretion on his part, and a pernicious habit of speaking out his thoughts, that brought Horton into disrepute with respectable people when he chanced to stop among them. For men and women do not like to have people—especially poor and dependent people—set up in the thinking business for themselves, while so much labor and money has been expended to have their thinking done for them; it looks presumptuous and ungrateful.
The Evangelist had an old silver watch that had belonged to his father. It had been the family time piece of the little home formed by his adored mother and himself, and through all the vicissitudes of his rambling life he had managed to retain it. It was the connecting link between himself and a past respectability.
Ben had taken a great liking to the fellow, and often spoke to him seriously about reforming his vagabond career, and becoming a decent member of society. But Horton's sophistry was too much for him.
"Drones are not the worst inhabitants of this great hive, called the world," he would say laughingly. "Drones are consumers, and the more consumers and fewer producers, the better times are. This country was never so busy at work as when it had a million of non-productive men in the field, to take care of. As a vagabond, I support others by compelling others to support me."
Ben's words evidently at times had some effect on him, however, and set him to doing much quiet thinking.