“Why don’t you slide in by the frowzy blonde?” asked Sanford of Roark, who backed himself up against a seat in the first-class car, as the train came down the mountain.
“She’s like a snow peak,” said Roark. “I passed and looked longingly, but you should have seen the icy stare she handed me.”
“Yes, but when the train is crowded, as it is, she is not entitled to a whole seat,” responded Sanford. “You would be justified in scrouging in.”
“It is no question of my right,” said Roark, “but those frigid eyes took the nerve out of me. I think she’s been in cold storage.
“In beating about the country, old fellow, I have become somewhat of a physiognomist.The woman or man who holds an entire seat, in a crowded car, does so by force. Take the blonde there, why, you could not any more approach her than you could a bull dog nibbling on a bone.
“If I am one of many who occupy seats in a car and a stranger asks me if I will share with him I feel complimented. The person asked to share a seat with me, by me, should feel honored, for I do not sit down by any old scrub if I can avoid it, and I usually can. One day, not long ago, I saw a little girl on a car, unattended, go to a gentleman whom she had never seen before and take a seat by him. I did not know the man, but had admired his kind, gentle face, and the child had picked him as a safe companion.
“What a handsome compliment! I would give my fortune for that man’s countenance. Mark Twain is credited with saying that, in passing, a dog will lick the hand of an honest man, but will growl at a scoundrel.
“Instinct tells us.
“Of course, I should like to have thatseat—any seat—but the young woman does not want to share it. I shall stand.”
The Shoofly was full to overflowing that day, but the blonde, with the wealth of hair, such as it was, and the drowsy look, traveled unmolested. Somewhere, while crossing the foothills, she lifted her feet to the seat, let her head down upon the aisle-arm, and slept. The engine blew, the wheels squeaked, and babies cried, but she knew it not; she was making up for lost time.
“She’s dead to the world now,” said Sanford joyfully.
“Yes,” declared Roark, “and if she doesn’t mind some of that hair will drop to the floor. I have been watching it shake as the car rocks on.”
“I should laugh if it would,” declared Sanford.
At that juncture the upper end of a long, yellow curl broke from its mooring, fell back and began to fly with the winds.
“Look at that,” said Roark.
The curl whirled around a time or two and fell to the floor.
The train moved on, crossing rough places in the road, and the sleeping head went up and down. A second curl—what is known as a Minerva knot—began to loosen in the east and the west.
“It’s a landslide this time,” said Sanford.
“It looks that way,” Roark acquiesced.
“But I shall not complain, no matter what comes.”
“I wish that lady would wake up,” said a female voice across the aisle. “I fear her hair will lose its Grecian effect. But I will not arouse her; it might make her mad.”
“I believe, without being able to say positively, Charlie, that she has on fluffy ruffers,” said Roark, laughing.
“I have studied the combination and I can’t quite unlock it,” said Sanford, “but I think she has what they call a transformation pompadour, with coronet braid, zephyr curls, all of which is covered with a bunch of real Grecian curls, but I must admit that I am not much on diagnosing a case like this.”
“Make way, for the earth is giving,” said a citizen who had just arrived.
A section of hair, shaped like a shovel, such as the farmers use for bursting out middles, or to go with a sweep, gave way and fell, inside up.
“That’s a loller-perlooler,” said Roark. “I wonder if we could get a basket to put it in?”
The rain of ornaments had started. Everybody was expectant. Rats, rolls, puffs, curls and knots were loosening. A bundle of wire, something akin to a small mouse trap, came with the hair.
“Nope, it’s the Wire Trust in disguise,” declared Roark.
“Hold your tongue! It’s a summer hotel,” said the newcomer, who had become thoroughly interested, as a bit of hair, done up in fine silk, fell out. “Rats, rat traps and mosquito nets.”
The lady began to wiggle.
“Carry me away,” said Roark.
“It’s to the Land of Nod for me,” exclaimed Sanford.
“The baggage room for me,” said the third observer.
Ten more rats, six rolls, two curls and a small knot were the last to go down. Piled on the floor, in the shape of a cone, was a peck measure full of all sorts of hair dressing. Yellow prevailed, but there was anything from a drab to a chemical blonde.
The owner, one time possessor, waked in the course of time, and, on feeling curious about the head, ran her hand back to see if she had lost anything.
“What about that?” said she to herself, realizing the extent of her loss.
“Ghnarr!” snorted Sanford, snoring.
“Whee-oo!” retorted Roark, who had fallen suddenly asleep in a seat, just captured.
“I am so thankful that everybody is asleep,” said the blonde, aside. “What a disgrace?”
“Spoo-it!” snored Sanford.
Bit by bit, piece by piece, the dislocated charms were picked up and shoved into a traveling bag, and the young woman retiredto the toilet room, from which she emerged an hour later, looking as pert and as grand as ever, just as if nothing unusual had happened, every rat, or curl, in its place.
Sanford, Roark and their new friend, the man who arrived late, disputed over recent baseball scores.
Jan Pier, the little Frenchman, who came here several months ago from Norfolk, is going back to the Atlantic coast, where he can hear the roar of the mighty waters as they break upon the American shores, and see the ships as they come and go.
One morning, about ninety days ago, as I approached the square, on East Trade, I beheld a shock-headed boy, bowing low shining a shoe. Beneath the auburn locks shone the skin of an Anglo-Saxon.
“A white shoe-shine?” said I to Chris Karnazes, the fruit dealer, at the Central Hotel corner.
“Yes,” answered Chris, joyfully and proudly.
“Me brought him to work here.”
“What is his name?”
“Jan.”
It was a beautiful Sunday—fair, cooland bracing, and everybody save Jan Pier and two colored associates had on their holiday clothes. Chris wore a clean shirt, white collar and red tie. It was his day off, but Jan, the newcomer, the boy of seventeen, with thick brown hair, and big brownish eyes, bent to his labors, side by side with negro lads, in tattered togs. Not a word did the Frenchman utter, nor a time lift his face, but slaved on and on, hour after hour, polishing shoes, and taking in nickels.
“Have a shine,” said Chris to me.
I mounted the stand. Jan Pier, without looking up, ran his rag across my shoe.
“Where are you from, young fellow?” I asked.
No answer; not even a grunt.
“Where, boy, is your home?”
Chris spoke to him in Greek.
“France,” said Jan, looking up into my eyes.
“Where did he come from, Chris?”
“Norfolk.”
That was the first time I saw Jan Pier.
A Frenchman—an auburn-haired Frenchman—withbright eyes, working for a Greek and with an Afro-American shoeblack!
How could it be?
A week later, Jan Pier, with downcast look, soiled clothes, and tear-stained cheeks, came to me, silently begging.
“What is the matter?” I asked.
“Me no work; no mon; no friends.”
I pitied Jan, but what could I do. The next day the Greek at the corner gave him work. I asked a negro boy why Jan left Chris, and he answered: “Jan knock down, Chris say.”
I had Jan shine my shoes every time they needed it. I wrote a story about him, and advertised his business, hoping that it might prosper. But Jan flourished not. Once more he loafed the streets penniless, hungry, friendless, and far, far from home and loved ones.
“Jan, where did you come from?”
“Norfolk.”
“Before that?”
“Greece.”
“Before that, even?”
“France.”
“When did you leave France?”
“I was twelve years old.”
“Did you run away?”
“Yes.”
“Where did you go?”
“To Turkey.”
“How did you get to this country?”
“On a big ship.”
“Were you a stowaway?”
“I helped the seamen.”
That is the story of Jan Pier. He ran away from home, when a small boy, went to Turkey, learned Greek, and four years later shipped for America, and landed at Norfolk. In the course of a short time he drifted to Charlotte, where he has been very unhappy, nobody to talk with, no kind friend to help him, and no wise hand to guide him. His energy, courage, and stout heart and body have kept him going. But, now, alas, he is tired of the struggle among strangers, who do not understand his language, and will go back to Norfolk, and, perhaps, home. A generous-hearted Greek, of one of the Greekrestaurants, is getting up a purse to defray his railroad fare to the Virginia city.
Soon the little outcast will say “adieu.”
When Jan came to me the second time, with the woe-begone look, I took him to Buster Brown, the mailing clerk, and recommended him for a newsboy. Buster ran his cruel eye over him and asked, in Pilot Mountain vernacular: “Have you ever harpooned the public in any way?”
“A coup sur,” said Jan.
“What’s that you’ve handed me?” asked Buster.
“‘Surely,’ he means,” said I.
“What is he?”
“French.”
“Will you accept me as a friend?” asked Buster, proud to have a real Frenchman for an employé.
“A bras ouverts,” was the reply.
“Come again,” said the Pilot Mountain man.
“He says ‘with open arms’ he will be your friend.”
“Good, I gad.”
“Coute qu’il coute,” declared Jan, smiling.
“The devil abit,” said Dick Allen, who had just come up, “and what is it he says?”
“He has sworn to be Buster’s friend ‘Let it cost what it may.’”
“A beau jeu, beau retour (one good turn deserves another).”
Buster and Jan, the one six-feet-five, erect, weighing 260, and the other, four-feet-one, stocky, and stooped, ambled off toward the press room.
“That pile of old papers, under the table, will be your bed, Monsieur Jan Pier,” said Buster. “Your drawing room and all. The spigot will be your wash basin, and any old issue ofThe ObserverorChronicle, your towel. May you prosper.”
Jan Pier stirred the enmity of the native newsboys, some of whom hammered him the next morning when out of sight of the shop force. Although dejected and sad, the Frenchman sold every paper he took out. Offering one to a traveling man, who was climbing in a hack at the Selwyn, he imaginedthat his offer had been accepted, and ran to the station, four blocks away, keeping close in the wake of the hustling horse. Seeing what the boy had done the salesman said: “I will take two.” Jan was delighted.
Unable to talk and tell his troubles, surrounded by hostile youngsters, and contending with prospective customers made life one long, desperate fight for the Frenchman. The climax came one night, when he slumbered in his corner beneath the table in the press room, and a loafer, a town lad, slept above him. Somebody, on mischief bent, turned the hose on the shaver on the top berth, and the water poured down on Jan.
That was the straw that broke the camel’s back—the fighting word had passed, and the pent-up dander of the bushy red head was at last aroused. As the intruding chap fell off of his perch Jan nailed him, believing that he had wet him, and such a fight as was never witnessed inThe Observerbuilding before followed.
Round and round the diminutive pugilists went until Jan showed signs of the savage,and onlookers interfered to prevent murder. The devil in Jan was in tumult and he fought like a Spartan.
After that the boys—the paper sellers—left Jan alone.
Now, Jan is going to leave us. His friends will chip in and help him on the way.
He will be missed in circles where his auburn hair has become familiar. Jan, industrious, capable, and good-natured, but unfamiliar with the ways of this country, deserves credit for being as good as he is.
Some day Jan Pier may wander back again.
“Dere’s one thing dat I can’t understan’,” said William Gorrell, the doorkeeper at the Southern Manufacturers’ Club. “Yes, sir, an’ it’s puzzled me er whole heap.”
“What is that, William?” I inquired.
“How come you don’t hear ’bout no nigger havin’ dese new fangle diseases—dis here bell-aker an’ ’penderseetis.”
“Bell-aker?” I asked.
“Yes, sir, dis misery dat comes fum eatin’ corn. How come no nigger don’t have it? Dere ain’t nobudy whut eats more corn bread an’ mush dan er sho’ ’nuff nigger. Up home—dat’s in Greensboro—de niggers say:
“‘Down de country de nigger say he loves mush,
“‘Up de country de nigger say for God’s sake hush!’
William.
William.
“Haf’ de niggers in dis country’s beenraised on mush, an’ corn dodger, an’ I ain’t never seed one die wid bell-aker.”
“You mean pellagra?”
“I don’t know whut you call it.”
“I dismiss the pellagra, for I don’t know anything about it, but there’s nothing strange about the negro not having appendicitis, William,” said I. “You know what the vermiform appendix is, don’t you?”
“No, sir, ’ceptin’ dat it’s somefin’ dat you gut an’ don’t need, an’ it can’t stay in yer when it gets hot.”
“You know about Darwin’s theory of evolution?”
“No, sir, to tell you de truf, I ain’t seed Mr. Dargin in almos’ er year.”
“I don’t mean Jim Dargin, the traveling man, but Dr. Darwin, the great scientist, a learned man of the last century who contended that we all came from monkeys. You have heard of that theory?”
“Yes, sir, I’se heard it said dat we come fum monkeys, but I ain’t believin’ everything dat I hears.”
William cocked one eye up a little andprepared to listen. He did not catch on to the word “evolution,” but when I said that Mr. Darwin was the man that believed that a man came from a monkey he understood. He had heard of that claim.
“You have heard that, then, William?” I continued.
“Whut, boss, dat er man come fum er monkey?”
“Yes.”
“Yes, sir, but I ain’t put no faith in it.”
“Well, I do, William; I believe that Darwin was right, and I have come to this belief since I parted with my appendix.”
“Don’t tell me, boss!”
“It is this way about your appendix,” I declared, “the man who is fartherest removed from the monkey has the smallest appendix and is most liable to have the appendicitis, and the closest, has the largest. As one becomes more civilized his appendix decreases. The doctors, on making the incision in my abdomen, found that I had a very small appendix, so small, in fact, that it became stopped and inflamed.
“I should say that if your friend, Rastus Johnsing, over there, were opened it would be discovered that his vermiform appendix is as large as my arm and as long as a rolling pin. Your appendix, or that of any ordinary, dark-hued negro, is about the size of a common guano horn.”
“Humph! My Gawd! How come?”
“How come? Because your race is not more than 200 years from the monkey. I would not be surprised if your great-great grandfather did not run wild in the forests of Africa, living off of bugs and other insects. You know, as I sit back there at my desk every day and watch you climb over this grill and brush off the dust, I feel sorry for you. You like to climb—so does anyone not far from the monkey. In the course of 2,000 years the negro will begin to have appendicitis, long after the white people lose theirs.”
“Hold on, boss! How long did you say it would be?”
“About 2,000 years, I should say.”
“Humph! I’ll be gone den. What you say makes me feel good. I ain’t haf’ asmuch interested in de race as I is in William Gorrell, an’ his pickininnies. Ef mer ’pendix is as big as er guano sack it ain’t nobudy’s bizness but mine.”
END