JOHNNY KISHMAN, A GERMAN BOY, GOT OFF HIS BICYCLE
"JOHNNY KISHMAN, A GERMAN BOY, GOT OFF HIS BICYCLE TO FIND OUT WHAT MANNER OF MAN I WAS."
I forebore to have supper at the creditless inn, but as I walked out of the dark town I spied a fire burning on a bit of waste land, and there I boiled my kettle and made coffee. It was an eerie proceeding, and as I sat in the dusk I saw several children come peering at me,hshing the younger ones, and inferring horrible suspicions as to my identity. When I had finished my supper I went down to the beach, and there, on the sand amidst old logs, under a stooping willow tree, I made my bed.
It was a wonderful, placid night after a long, hot day. The smoke-coloured lake was weakly plashing. There was no sign of the past sunset in the west, and smoke seemed to be rising from the darkness of the horizon. The one light on the city pier had its stab of reflection in the water below. Near me, still trees leant over the water. The branches and leaves of the willow under which I slept were delicately figured against the sky as I looked upward, and far away over the lake the faint stars glimmered. The moon stood high in the south, and illumined the surface of the waters and the long coast line of the bay.
When I awoke next morning what a sight! The blue-grey lake so placid, just breathing, that's all, and crimson ripples stealing over it from the illuminated smoky east. It was clear that the smokiness of the horizon came from real smoke—from all the chimneys and stacks of Huron. I saw massed volumes ofit hurrying away from the docks and the works, and standing out on the lake like a great wall. As I lay on my spread on the sand, looking out idly with my cheek on my hand, I saw the sun come sailing through the smoke like a red balloon. No celestial sunrise this, but Nature beautifully thwarted.
I made a fire and cooked my breakfast, and sat on a log enjoying it; and all the while the sun strove to be himself and shine in splendour over the new world, whose beauties he himself had called into being. For a whole hour, though there was not a cloud in the sky or a mist on the lake, he made no more progress than on a foggy January morning in London. He gave no warmth to speak of; he was an immaterial, luminous moon.
But at last he got free, and began to rise indeed, exchanging the ragged crimson reflection in the water for a broad-bladed flashing silver dagger. A great glory grew about him; all the wavelets of the far lake knew him and looked up to him with their tiny faces. His messengers searched the horizon for the shadows of night, for all lingering wraiths and mists, and banished them. The smoky door by which the sun had come out of the east was shut after him. But he shed so much light that you could not see the door any longer.
I went in for a swim, and as I was playing about in the sunlit water the first human messenger of themorning came past me—a fisherman in a tooting, panting motor-boat, dragging fishing-nets after him. He gave me greeting in the water.
Fishing is good here—as a trade. Every day many tons of carp are unloaded. The fish are caught in gill-nets—nets with a mesh from which the fishes are unable to extricate themselves, their gills getting caught. The nets are framed on stakes, floated by corks and steadied by leads. The fishermen leave them standing two or three days, and when the fish are wearied out or dead they haul them in.
This very hot day I marched to an accompaniment of the thunder of the dock-works, and reached Sandusky,—a very large industrial port, the junction of three railways, not a place of much wealth, its population at least half foreign.
I had a shave at a negro barber's, and chatted with the darkie as he brandished the razor.
After the war he and his folks had come north and settled in Michigan. He sent all his children to college. One was earning a hundred and twenty-five dollars a month as music-mistress in Washington.
"They treat you better up here than in the south?" said I.
"Why, yes!"
"And in London better still."
"Oh, I know. My father went to London. He stayed at a big hotel, and there turned up threeSoutherners. They went up to the hotel-keeper and said, 'Look hyar, that coloured feller 'll have to go; we cahn stay here with him!' And the hotel-keeper said, 'If he don't please you,yougo; we won't keep you back.'"
"Very affecting," said I.
"There was a fellah came hyar to play the organ for the Episcopal Church," the negro went on. "He was called Street. The other fellah was only fit to turn the music for him. He had the goods, b'God he had. Tha's what I told them."
With that I got away. Outside the shop a hawker cried out to me:
"Kahm'ere!"
"What d'you want?" said I.
"I've a good safety razor."
"Don't use them."
"A fountain pen to write home to your wife...."
The hawker had many wares.
I spent the night in a saloon at Venice, and watched the rate at which German fishermen can drink beer.
Next morning I walked across Sandusky Bay by the Lake Shore railway-bridge, a mile and a half long—an unpleasant business, watching for the express trains and avoiding being run over. At last I got to Danbury, and could escape from the rails to the cinder-path at the side. The engine-drivers and firemen of the freight trains greeted me as they passed me, andnow and then I was able to offer "Casey Jones" a cup of coffee and exchange gossip.
ERIE SHORE
ERIE SHORE."Amidst old logs, under a stooping willow tree, I made my bed."
The enormous freight trains told their tale of the internal trade of America; on no other lines of railway in the world could you witness such processions of produce. All sorts of things flew past on these lumberous trains—cars full of hogs with hundreds of motionless black snouts poking between the bars; refrigerator cars full of ham—dead hogs, dripping and slopping water as they went along in the heat, and the sun melted the ice; cars of coal; open cars of bright glistening tin-scraps going to be molten a second time; cars of agricultural machinery; cars laden with gangs of immigrant men being taken to work on a big job by labour contractors; closed cars full of all manner of unrevealed merchandise and machinery. On the cars, the names of the railways of America—Illinois Central, Wabash, Big Four, Lake Shore....
At Gypsum I returned to the highroad, and there once more had an offer of a job from a gang. I was surprised to see boys of thirteen or fourteen hard at work with spade and shovel.
"I see you're working for your living," said I.
"What's the matter with you?"
"I said 'You're working for your living.'"
"Wahn a jahb?"
"No; I'm not looking for one. I'm walking to Chicago."
A contractor came forward, a short Frenchman in waistcoat and shirt-sleeves. His bowler hat was pushed to the back of his head, and his hair poked out from under it over his scarred, perspiring brow. He was not working—only directing.
"What wouldyoube? A sort of tramp?" said he. "I used to have a hobo-station at Toledo. I've seen the shiner[3]line up sixty or seventy of them and send them to work with car fare paid. They'd work half a day and then disappear mysteriously. We have pay-day once in two weeks; but these tramps, many of them educated fellers too, would never work the time through or wait for their pay. Thousands of dollars have been lost by hoboes who gave up their jobs before pay-day."
There was an Englishman from Northampton in the gang, and he testified that America had "England licked ten times over."
There were fat Germans in blouses, moustachioed Italians with black felt hats pulled down over sunburnt, furrowed brows. All the men and the boys were suffering from a sort of "tar blaze" in the face. They were glad to ease up a little to talk to me; but they had a watchful eye on the face of the boss, who besides being contractor was a sort of timekeeper.
The contractor was vexed that I wouldn't take a job. Labour was scarce. He averred that beforeI reached Chicago the farmers would come on to the road and compel me to work on their fields. Trains had been held up before now.
"I thought slavery was abolished?" said I.
The next town on my route was Port Clinton, a bright little city, and in the eyes of at least one of its citizens a very important one. I had a long talk with a chance-met journalist and the keeper of a fruit-shop. The journalist, by way of interviewing me, told me all I wanted to know about the district. Fruit-growing was far in advance here. Perry Camp, the greatest shooting-butts in the world, was near by. The Lake Shore railway was going to spend a million dollars in order to shorten the track a quarter of a mile. The greengrocer told me I had the face of a Scotsman, but spoke English like a Swede—which just shows how badly Americans speak our tongue, and hear it as a rule.
In the course of my interview I confessed that for roadside literature I read the Gospel of St. John and the Book of Revelation, a chapter a day, and when I came to the end of either book I started again. The greengrocer interrupted the journalist, and said:
"When you're tired, you just take out the Bible and read a little, eh, and you get strength and go on? I knew you were that sort when I saw you first coming up the other side of the road, and I said to my friend, 'He reads his Bible.'"
The greengrocer was much edified, and told me that he was the agent for the district of Billy Sunday, the revivalist. Wouldn't I stay and address a mass meeting?
I fought shy of this offer. The journalist looked somewhat sourly at the greengrocer for breaking into his interrogatory. But then a third interrupter appeared, a little boy, who had come to purchase bananas, and he addressed me thus:
"On which side did your family fight in the year 1745? On the side of Prince Charlie? That's the side I'm on."
No descendant of the Pilgrim Fathers he.
On the way out to Lacarne two old fishermen in a cart offered me a ride, and I stepped up.
"What are you, German?" I asked, always on the look-out for the immigrant.
"We are Yankees."
"Your father or grandfather came from Germany?"
"No; we're both Yankees, I tell yer."
"I suppose your ancestors came from England then."
"No; we've always bin 'ere."
They had been out three nights seine-fishing on the lake, were very tired, and rewarded themselves with swigs of rum every now and then, passing the bottle from one to the other and then to me with real but suspicious hospitality. Their families had always been in America. The fact that they came originallyfrom England meant no more to them than Hengist and Horsa does to some of us.
By the way, Hengist and Horsa were a couple of savages, were they not?
The fishermen put me down beside a plantation, which they said was just the place in which to sleep the night. I wasn't sorry to get on to my feet again, and I watched them out of sight,—fat, old, sleepy, hospitable ruffians.
The plantation was a mosquito-infested swamp, and I did not take the fishermen's advice. Myriads of "husky" mosquitoes were in the air, the unpleasanter sort, with feathered antennæ, and whenever I stood still on the road scores of "Canadian soldiers" settled on me, a loathsome but innocuous species of diptera.
I sought shelter of man that night, and through the hospitality of a Slav workman found a place in a freight train—a strange bed that not only allows you to sleep, but takes you a dozen miles farther on in the morning. The engine-driver told me that there was a "whole bunch of tramps" on the train, but that no one ever turned tramps off an empty freight train,—not on the Lake Shore railway at any rate.
When I "dropped" from the freighter I found myself at Elliston, and commenced there a day of delicious tramping. The opal dawn gave birth to a great white horse of cloud, and out of the cloud camea strong fresh breeze, having health and happiness on its wings. A quiet Sunday. I reached Toledo this day—and parted company with Erie Shore—great, busy, happy, prosperous Toledo. It was strange to exchange the country for the town; to come out of the green, fresh, silent landscape into the close, stifling, bustling town, full of promenaders talking and laughing among themselves vociferously.
As I came into the city the day-excursion boat was just about to start on the return journey to Detroit. Excursionists were flocking together to the quay, a great spectacle to a Briton. All the men were carrying their coats in their arms, many had their collars off and the neckbands of their shirts turned down, bunches of carnations on their naked chests; many were without waistcoats, and had tickets with the name of their town pinned to their fancy-coloured shirts; the red, perspiring, glistening faces of many of them suggested an over-confidence in beer as a quencher of thirst. The women carried parasols of coloured paper. They were all in white, and were so thinly clad that you asked yourself why they were so thin. But despite all precautions the sun had marked everybody, but marked them kindly.
Suddenly a bell was rung on the steamer, and a little man came forward and announced in broken English:
"Somebody wan' to come on the boat; the time is supp."
FOOTNOTE:[3]Policemen.
[3]Policemen.
[3]Policemen.
Even Americans of the highest culture and of Boston families speak English differently from any people in the old country. The difference may not be obvious to all, but it is there, and it is a thing to rejoice in, not to be sorry for. The American nation is different from the British, has different history and a different hope; it has a different soul, therefore its expression should be different. The American face as a type is different; it would be folly to correct the words of the mouth by Oxford, or Eton, or Granville Barker's theatre, or the cultured Aberdonian, or any other criterion. The use of American expressions of quite moderate tone amounts to a breach of good taste in many British drawing-rooms; and if you tell a story in which American conversation is repeated with the accent imitated, you can feel the temperature going down as you proceed; that is, if you are not merely making fun of the Americans. Making fun of any foreign people is always tolerable to the British; a truly national and insular trait. The literary world and the working men and women ofBritain can enter into the American spirit, and even imitate it upon occasion; but that is only the misfortune of our populace, who ought to be finding national expression in journalism and music-hall songs and dancing, and who are merely going off the lines by imitating a foreign country. It is loss to Britain that the Americans speak a comprehensible dialect of our tongue, and that the journalist of Fleet Street, when he is hard-up for wit, should take scissors and paste and snip out stories from American papers; or that commercialentrepreneursshould bring to the British public things thought to be sure of success because they have succeeded in America—"Within the Law," "I Should Worry," "Hullo Ragtime!" and the rest. The people who are surest in instinct, though they are sympathetic to a brother-people, hate the importation of foreign uglinesses, and the substitution of foreign for local talent.
The American language is chiefly distinguished from the British by its emphatic expressive character. Britain, as I have said, lives in a tradition; America in a passion. We are laconic, accidental, inarticulate; our duty is plain, and we do it without words. But the American is affirmative, emphatic, striving; he has to find out what he's going to do next, and he has got to use strong words. Britain also is the place of an acknowledged Caste system; but America is the place of equal citizens, and many Americanexpressions are watchdogs of freedom and instruments of mockery, which reduce to a common dimension any people who may give themselves airs.
The subtler difference is that of rhythm. American blood flows in a differenttempo, and her hopes keep different measure.
* * * * * * *
Americans commonly tell us that theirs is the language of Shakespeare and Shakespearian England, and that they have in America the "well of English undefiled." But if they have any purely European English in that country it must be a curiosity. Shakespeare was a lingual junction, but we've both gone on a long way since then, and in our triangle the line subtending the Shakespearian angle gets longer and longer. O. Henry makes a character in one of his stories write a telegram in American phraseology, so that it shall be quite unintelligible to people who only know English:
His nibs skedaddled yesterday per jack-rabbit line with all the coin in the kitty and the bundle of muslin he's spoony about. The boodle is six figures short. Our crowd in good shape, but we need the spondulicks. You collar it. The main guy and the dry goods are headed for the briny. You know what to do.—Bob.
His nibs skedaddled yesterday per jack-rabbit line with all the coin in the kitty and the bundle of muslin he's spoony about. The boodle is six figures short. Our crowd in good shape, but we need the spondulicks. You collar it. The main guy and the dry goods are headed for the briny. You know what to do.—Bob.
This is not Shakespearian English, but of course it is not Shakespearian American. The worst ofthe contemporary language of America is that it is in the act of changing its skin. It is difficult to say what is permanent and what is merely eruptive and dropping. Such expressions as those italicised in the following examples are hardly permanent:
"One, two, three,cut it outand work for Socialism.""I should worryand get thin as a lamp-post so that tramps should come and lean against me.""Him with the polished dome.""She hadn't been here two days before I saw her kissing the boss. Well, said I,that's going some.""This is Number Nine of the Ibsen,highbrowseries.""Do you get me?""I'llput you wise.""And how is youryoke-mate?""He thinks too much of himself:too much breathed on by girls.""A low lot ofwops and hunkies:white trash.""Poor negroes;coloured trash.""She isone good-looker.""She isone sweetie.""My! You havea flossy hat."But I suppose "He is a white man" is permanent, and "Buy a postcard, it'llonly set you back a nickel.""She began to lay down the law:thus and so.""Nowbeat it!""Roosevelt went ranching, that's how he got sohusky.""Is it far? It is onlya little ways.""Did theyfeed that to you?""When he started he was in a poor way, and carried in his hay in his arms, but now he is quitehealed."
"One, two, three,cut it outand work for Socialism."
"I should worryand get thin as a lamp-post so that tramps should come and lean against me."
"Him with the polished dome."
"She hadn't been here two days before I saw her kissing the boss. Well, said I,that's going some."
"This is Number Nine of the Ibsen,highbrowseries."
"Do you get me?"
"I'llput you wise."
"And how is youryoke-mate?"
"He thinks too much of himself:too much breathed on by girls."
"A low lot ofwops and hunkies:white trash."
"Poor negroes;coloured trash."
"She isone good-looker."
"She isone sweetie."
"My! You havea flossy hat."
But I suppose "He is a white man" is permanent, and "Buy a postcard, it'llonly set you back a nickel."
"She began to lay down the law:thus and so."
"Nowbeat it!"
"Roosevelt went ranching, that's how he got sohusky."
"Is it far? It is onlya little ways."
"Did theyfeed that to you?"
"When he started he was in a poor way, and carried in his hay in his arms, but now he is quitehealed."
But the difference in speech is too widespread and too subtle to be truly indicated by this collection of examples, and the real vital growth of the language is independent of the flaming reds and yellows of falling leaves. In the course of conversation with Americans you hear plenty of turns of expression that are unfamiliar, and that are not merely the originality of the person talking. Thus in:
"How do they get on now they are married?""Oh, she has him feeding out of her hand,"
"How do they get on now they are married?"
"Oh, she has him feeding out of her hand,"
though the answer is clear it owes its form to the American atmosphere.
Or, again in:
"I suppose she's sad now he's gone?""Oh! He wasn't a pile of beans to her, believe me,"
"I suppose she's sad now he's gone?"
"Oh! He wasn't a pile of beans to her, believe me,"
you feel the manner of speech belongs to the new American language. The following parody of President Wilson's way of speaking is also an example of the atmosphere of the American language:
So far as the prognosticationary and symptomatic problemaciousness of your inquiry is concerned it appears to me that while the trusts should be regulated with the most unrelentful and absquatulatory rigorosity, yet on the other hand their feelings should not be lacerated by rambunktions and obfusticationary harshness. Do you bite that off?
So far as the prognosticationary and symptomatic problemaciousness of your inquiry is concerned it appears to me that while the trusts should be regulated with the most unrelentful and absquatulatory rigorosity, yet on the other hand their feelings should not be lacerated by rambunktions and obfusticationary harshness. Do you bite that off?
Punchwould have no stomach for such Rabelaisian vigour.
But wherever you go, not only in the cities, but in the little towns, you hear things never heard in Britain. I go into a country bakery, and whilst I ask for bread at one counter I hear behind me at the other:
"Kendy, ma-ma, kendy!"
"Cut it out, Kenneth."
"Kendy, kendy, kendy!"
"Oh, Kenneth, cut it out!" Or, as I sit on a bank, a girl of twelve and her little baby sister come toddling up the road. The little one loses her slipper, and the elder cries out:
"Slipper off again! Ethel, perish!"
America must necessarily develop away from us at an ever-increasing rate. Influenced as she is by Jews, Negroes, Germans, Slavs, more and more foreign constructions will creep into the language,—such things as "I should worry," derived from Russian-Jewish girl strikers. "She ast me for a nickel," said a Jew-girl to me of a passing beggar. "I should give her a nickel, let her work for it same as other people!" TheI shouldsof the Jew can pass into the language of the Americans, and be understood from New York to San Francisco; but such expressions make no progress in Great Britain, though brought over there, just because we have not the big Jewish factor that the Americans have.
To-day the influence that has come to most fruition is that of the negro. The negro's way of speakinghas become the way of most ordinary Americans, but that influence is passing, and in ten or twenty years the Americans will be speaking very differently from what they are now. The foreigner will have modified much of the language and many of the rhythms of speech. America will have less self-consciousness then. She will not be exploiting the immigrant, but will be subject to a very powerful influence from the immigrants. No one will then be so cheap as the poor immigrant is to-day. Much mean nomenclature will have disappeared from the language, many cheap expressions, much mockery; on the other hand, there will be a great gain in dignity, in richness, in tenderness.
I have come to that portion of my journeying and of my story where all day, every evening, and all night long I was conscious of the odour of mown clover, of fields of ambrosia.
I was tramping along the border of Northern Ohio and Southern Michigan, from Toledo to Angola, Indiana. I was entering the rich West. The fields were vast and square, the road was long and flat, and straight and quiet, the June haze hung over luxuriant meadows, and there was a wonderful silence and ripening peace over the country.
One evening, as the red sun sank into night-darkened mist, I talked with an old farmer, who was smoking his pipe at his gate.
"I came along this same road like you, with a bundle on my back, forty years ago," said he, "and I took work on a farm; then I rented a farm. Many's the lad I've seen go past of an evening. And one or two have stopped here and worked some days, for the matter of that."
THE SOWER
THE SOWER.
The farmer had left England when he was astripling, and I tried to talk to him of the old country, but he was not really interested. He did not want to go back.
That is the Colonial feeling.
Strange to plough all day, or sow or reap, and in the evening to return to the quiet, solitary house of wood beside the great red-painted barn and not want England or Europe, not be interested in it, not want anything more than you've got; to have the sun go down red and whisper nought, and the stars come up and the moon, and yet not yearn; to work, to eat, to market; to have children growing about you ripening in so many years, and corn springing up in the fields ripening in so many weeks; births, marriages, deaths, sowings, harvests....
There is all the pathos of man's life in it.
I slept that night in the dry wayside hay, under the broad sky and the misty golden moon. It was a quiet night, warm and gentle. Earth held the wanderer in her cradle and rocked him to sleep.
They are kind people about here. Next morning as I sat by my fire a woman sent her son out to me with a quart of milk and a bag of cookies. And milk is a much commercialised business on this western road,—the electric freight train carries nearly all the milk away in churns to Toledo. It was a very welcome talkative boy who brought out the milk. His father rented one-third of a section (213 acres),but was now laid up with pneumonia. As a consequence of the father's illness the young children had to work very hard in the fields. And there was a sick cow on the farm—sick through eating rank clover. And the boy himself had had scarlet fever in the spring. The serving-girl had had to go away "to have her little baby," and the one that came in her place brought the fever.
"What's your name?" said I.
"Charles."
Cheerful little Charles. He had much responsibility on his shoulders.
There were some big farms along the road, and near Metamora I had the privilege of seeing a dozen cows milked simultaneously by a petrol engine, rubber tubes being fixed to their teats and the milk pumped out. It was astonishing, the matter-of-fact way in which the latest invention was applied to farm life.
"It's rather ugly," said I.
"Well, what are you to do when labour is so scarce?" was the reply.
Land is rich here, but labour is scarce. I fell in with a garrulous farmer who told me that land now sold at 150 dollars (£30) the acre, and that in a few years it would rise to 250 dollars. The days of large farmers were over. All the big ranches were being sold up, and the farmers were taking holdings that they could farm themselves without help. Labourwas expensive, owing to the high wages paid in the towns for industrial work; even at two and a half dollars (ten shillings) a day it was difficult to get a decent gang to do the work in the harvest season. You could do better with a small piece of land. Fields here were forty and fifty acres, and the steam plough was not used. In the old days land was dirt cheap, and you could buy vast tracts of it; there were no taxes, no extra expenses, and you just went in to raise tremendous crops and make a big scoop. To-day things were different. To work on a large scale a horde of labourers was necessary. But now the Socialists were stopping the flow of immigrants into the country. Socialists said that it was too difficult to organise newcomers. The newcomers behaved like blacklegs, strike-breakers, all the first year of their stay in America. They didn't know the language, were very poor, suspected their brother workmen of jealousy, and just took any wage offered them. The Socialists wanted to keep the price of labour up, and my farmer friend bore them a grudge because it was difficult to develop the land unless the price was reduced.
A little later, outside Fred M'Gurer's farm, the jovial farmer himself came and squatted beside the fire and chatted of affairs. He had insured his house for 1000 dollars, but it would take 1800 dollars to rebuild it. "I think it's only fair to take some of therisk myself," said he; "and if the place burns down the company will know I didn't set it alight o' purpose."
Fifty-eight years old is Fred M'Gurer, and his son is now coming to live and work with him altogether, after seven years spent wintering in the city and summering in the country. Irish once, and of an Irish family—but they go to no church. The old man feels that he is a Christian all the same, and will get to heaven at last, because he "deals square with his fellow-men."
Fred and his son work the farm all by themselves, outside labour is so expensive. The beet-fields take all the immigrants. Did I see the red waggons as I came along, full of Flemish and Russians living by beet-picking on the beetroot farms near by?
I saw them.
"America is a high hill for them that don't speak the language," said Fred. But he said that because he likes talking himself, and can't imagine himself in a land where he could not hold converse. The immigrants manage very well without the language, and scale the hill, and rake in the dollars easily. Perhaps they do not glean much of the American ideal, and the hope of the American nation. But I suppose Fred did not mean that.
I had a pleasant talk with a successful German farmer, who took me in a cart from Pioneer to Grizier, through comparatively poor country. He hadpossessed a farm of five acres in Germany, but there each acre had been worth between 450 and 500 dollars. When he came to Grizier land was selling at 25 dollars an acre, and he was able to buy fifty acres of it and to bring up his family in health and plenty. His farm was now worth more than 5000 dollars.
I slept on an old waggon in a wheat-field near Grizier; but about midnight it began to rain, and I was obliged to seek shelter in a crazy, doorless, windowless cottage, and there I sat all next day and slept all the next night whilst the elements raged. In the cottage were two chairs, a home-made table, and a broken bedstead. I cooked my meals on the rainy threshold. The refuge was shared by a great big bumble bee, two red-admirals, a brown squirrel, and two robins.
The second morning was Sunday, radiant, fresh, and green. The road was soft but clean, with yielding cakes of mud; the grass was fresh, for every blade had been washed on Saturday; the wild strawberry was a brighter ruby; on spread bushes the wild rose was in bloom; there were sun-browned country girls upon the road, who were shy but might be spoken to; the odour of clover was purer, the hay-fields had round shoulders after the storm, and you'd think cows had been lying down where the wind had laid the tussocks low. The sun shone as if it had forgotten it had shone before, and was doing it for the first time. To-day it became evident that the grain was ripening; the appletrees in fantastic shapes were knee-deep in yellowing corn. The little oak trees by the side of the road presented foliage, every leaf of which looked as if it had been carefully polished.
In America wild strawberries are three on a stalk, which causes a pleasant profusion....
I got a whole loaf of home-made bread given me at Cooney ..., and a quart of milk at "Fertile Valley Farm." ...
Only at sunset did I strike the main Angola Road, and off that road I made my bed in a wheat-field and fell asleep, watching the bearded ears disproportionately magnified and black in the flame of the crimson sky. Next day, when I awoke, life was just creeping into the blue-green night, a soft radiance as of rose petals was in the East, and a breeze was wandering like a rat among the stalks of the wheat. I fell asleep again, and when I reopened my eyes it was bright morning.
The Sunday gave way to the week-day. There is nothing happening on the roads on the Sunday; the tramp is left with Nature, but directly Monday comes the work and life of the people reveal themselves, and adventures are more frequent.
THE STORE ON WHEELS
THE STORE ON WHEELS.
My first visitor this Monday was a man of business. As I was making my tea he came up towards me driving two lean horses and a great black oblong box on wheels. At the farm where I had drawn water for my kettle he pulled up and dismounted. A girlwho had seen him from a window of the farmhouse came tripping to meet him. He exchanged some words with her, and then from the far side of his hearse-like cart he produced a black chest, out of which he pulled a pair of boots. The young lady then hopped back to the house to try them on. Satisfied as to her purchase she took in addition a pound of tea and a packet of sugar. The cart was a moving store: here were all manner of things for sale. But the storekeeper received no money; all his debts were paid in eggs. One side of the hearse was full of merchandise, the other contained nested boxes and crates for the accommodation of hundreds of dozens of eggs.
The storeman gave me a lift and explained to me his business. He possessed a cold-storage establishment in the city; he credited the farm people with sixteen cents (eightpence) for every dozen eggs they gave him, then he stored them in his freezing-house till autumn, when they could be thrown on the market at twenty-five to thirty cents the dozen.
He was a great believer in cold storage. "Meat," said he, "is tenderer when it has been frozen some weeks."
Business in eggs used to be better. Now the State set a limit on the time you could keep them in cold storage. Sometimes he had to sell out at a loss. The hope was to keep all the farm produce till there was a real scarcity and prices went high. Then it would be possible to make a small fortune.
"But I'm tired of this business," said the storeman, "I'd like to give it up and buy land."
We lumbered along the road and stopped at each farmhouse. Sometimes we sold articles, but whether we sold anything or not we always took a few dozen eggs; every farmer was in business with my man and used him as a sort of egg-bank. Even if they were not in debt to him they were glad to hand over their eggs and be credited with the corresponding amount of money. We took four or five dozen eggs at least at every farm, and sometimes as many as twenty and thirty dozen. The storeman left behind an empty crate at each farm, so that it might be filled for him next time he came along, and he took aboard the crate already filled. In exchange he sold kerchiefs, boots, corsets, cloth, brooms, brushes, coffee, corn-flake, wire-gauze to keep out mosquitoes, etc. At the end of his round he would have got rid of almost all his merchandise and have filled both sides of the hearse with eggs. He took home upon occasion as many as five hundred dozen eggs!
A cheerful American with a word of news, a titbit of gossip, and the top of the morning for all the country women. He was eagerly awaited, and children at farm-gates descried him a long way off and ran in to tell their mothers. Even the babies were excited at his approach, for they knew he carried a supply of candy. At each farm where there was a baby thestoreman left a little bag of candy. He knew the value of good-will.
"It's a good business," said he; "no expense of keeping a shop, double profit,—profit on the goods and profit on the eggs; it pays all right. But I'm tired of it, and I think I shall give it up and buy land." To several of his customers who asked after his business he replied in the same terms. He was getting tired of it, and was thinking of buying land. When I took a photograph of his cart and himself he said he would be very glad to have a copy, just to remind him of old days—for he was thinking of giving it up, etc.
It is interesting to observe the commercialisation that goes on in the country in America. Not only does the egg-bank and travelling store come round, but the cream-vans come also and buy up all the cream, and the baker comes from the bread factory and dumps, twice or three times a week, huge baskets of damp, tasteless loaves, all wrapped in grease-paper. Not many people bake their own bread—they save time and take this astonishing substitute. Then travellers in coffee have exploited special brands—"Euclid Coffee," "Primus Coffee," "Old Reliable," and the like, done up in pound packets. Rural Americans do not realise that good coffee is coffee and no more.
No one had a quart of milk to spare on the road toAngola, so I hit on a plan which I recommend to others in like circumstances. I went to a farmhouse and asked for a cupful of milk to have with my coffee; I got it easily and freely. The farmer was rather touched. But as you cannot make decent coffee with one cupful of milk I went to another farm and begged another cupful, and then to another. I was able to make a good pot of coffee, despite the scarcity of milk.
Whilst I was having lunch, I had an interesting talk with an ancient man who was mowing grass at the side of the road.
"You look like Father Time," said I.
"Well, I've mown a good many days," he replied. "I shall soon die now. There's no strength in me; my day is over."
"Have you enjoyed life?" I asked.
"Yes, I have," he replied, his face lighting up.
"Do you work your farm yourself?"
"No! My son works it; he is twenty-two. Yes, I married late. Thirty-two years I wandered as you are doing. I've been in thirty states. I was ten years on the Lakes, a sailor."
"Ever across the Atlantic?"
"Never on the big waters."
"And how do you think America is going on?"
I HAD AN INTERESTING TALK WITH AN ANCIENT MAN BY THE SIDE OF THE ROAD
"I HAD AN INTERESTING TALK WITH AN ANCIENT MAN BY THE SIDE OF THE ROAD."
"I think she is going bad. The new generation is weak. There'll soon be no old farmer stock. Theold folk work, but the children go to school. My father was an old Connecticut Yankee—a republican—so am I; but the party has broken up, the country's going wild."
The old man had a dog "Colonel," named after Colonel Somebody, who was his father's Squire in Connecticut.
"A fine dog," said I.
"More helpful than a boy," said the old farmer. "He can drive the hog home straight, and he always helps me up when I tumble down. I'm weak now—have had two strokes, and after the last I was just like a baby. I can't mow properly—no strength to move anything. Often I fall of a heap, and Colonel runs in and gets under my stomach with his head and raises me. A 'cute dog...."
A pleasant vision of not unhappy age!
I passed through Angola—a neat little city round about a shoppy square; a quiet market-place functionising the agricultural country round about. I had dinner at one of several restaurants, and had three quick-lunch courses brought to me at once—an array of nine or ten plates on a little grey stone table—not very appetising.
There were three or four country loungers at the ice-cream bar of the establishment, and a negro was sitting at another table with a tall glass and a straw and a "soda." At my side was what I took to be apiano—very dusty, and with the keyboard out of sight. Suddenly, without any warning, it jumped into music, and thumped out a cake-walk in its interior. It was as if a lot of niggers were doing the dance in an empty room.
I paid no attention, facially. Alas! we are quite familiar with such marvels, with all that can be shown. We raise no eyebrow. But bring in an aboriginal Chinee and sit him there where I was, and start this box a-going, and he'd jump out of his wits. How was it started? Some one went softly across the room and put a cent in a slot—that's all. Is it not maddening to be uninterested, unthrilled? None of us paid any attention. The loungers gossiped with the ice-cream girl, the nigger drew up his soda, I strove with my hard roast beef.
* * * * * * *
St. John's Eve! Unusual things might be expected to happen this night. I had lived with the growing summer, had caught in my hands one evening not long since a large dusky lovely emperor-moth, and had received an invitation from fairyland. The strange thing was that as I tramped out of Angola on the Lagrange Road, it did not occur to me what day it was. Only in the middle of the night did I reflect—there is something unusual astir, something is happening all about me, this is no ordinary night.And only in the morning did I realise it had been St. John's Eve.
I slept by an orchard on a hill. Below me was a little lake, on the right a straw stack, on the left an apple tree, over me a plum tree with wee plums. All night long little apples fell from their weak stalks, the frogs sang—now solos, now choruses, the mosquitoes hummed in the plum tree. On the surface of the little lake little lights appeared and disappeared as the wandering fireflies carried messages from reed to reed. Processions of clouds stole over the starry sky, and I thought of rain, but the whole night was hot and odorous and full of dreams.
I did not awake next morning till it was bright day. Between me and the straw stack there was a fluttering and squawking of young birds being taught to fly by their mother. Every time a young bird alighted after a little flutter, it always fell on its nose. My attention was divided between the birds and a big bee, who thought I had made my bed over his nest. What a distressing way the bumble-bee has of losing himself and thinking you are to blame!
I tramped to the reedy lake of Whip-poor-Will. The wind blew now hot from the sun's mouth, now cold from a cloud's shoulder. The question was, Would the Midsummer day turn to heat or come to rain? It turned to heat. What a day of happiness I spent on the sandy ups and downs of country roads!After weeks among plains, I was glad of a countryside that had corners again. I was among "dear little lakes," the children of the great lakes—in the nursery.
I came to Flint, and met the "pike road" from Detroit to Chicago. Flint has a large general store and a barber's shop. I bought three oranges out of the refrigerator of the store, and, to make them last longer, half a pound of honey-cakes.
At noon I made my mid-day fire in the bed of a dried-up rivulet. The weather was almost too hot for tending a fire; tawny spots appeared on my wrists, and, viewing my face in the metal back of my soapbox, I was startled to see the fire in my eyebrows and cheeks. But with the heat there was a wind, and in the afternoon great cumuli grew up in the sky, and it was possible to think the earth was a ship and the clouds the billows which we were rolling over. Up hill and down dale, round corners, by snug farms with green and crimson cherry orchards, over hills where miles of corn were blanching and waving! I came to Brushy Prairie and camped for the night in an angle of the road beside the village cemetery.
I read and wrote, mended my clothes, cleaned my pack of waste dust, collected hay to make a bed. Many carts came past, and the people in them hailed me with facetious remarks. After I had lain down one old village wife came to see if I were sick and wanted medicine. It was strange to lie by thecemetery and hear a party of girls go by in a buggy, singing, "When the roll is called up yonder, I'll be there."
I lay and watched the sky, scanning the clouds for a certitude of a dry night. A great war was going on between the forces of the clear sky and of the clouds. There was a party of skirmishers advancing from the south-west. There was a long array of clouds in the north and in the south, and the main army lay heavy and invincible in the north-west. But the clear sky scattered the enemy wherever it encountered them, and even forced the main army to take up a new position. The camp of the clouds was made far away, and lights came out in their leaguer.
The night became silent and brilliant and perfect, and I lay with my eyes open, and did not look, but just saw....
I slept. Whilst my eyes were closed there was a great night attack, and when I woke again I found the armies of the clear sky completely routed. There was a shower of rain, and I jumped up and tripped along to the church. The door was open. I struck a match and saw all the pews and prayer-books and hymn-sheets, and away in the shadows the platform and the pulpit.
But the shower ceased. I reflected that if heavy rain came on I could easily come into shelter, so I returned to my hay-spread, and lay down again and watched the renewed battle in the sky.
A desperate rally! One star, two stars were shining, and round about them a great stand was being made. They fought lustily. They seemed to be gaining ground. Yes. Three, four, five stars showed, six.... I fell asleep again, knowing that the side I favoured would win. When I wakened next it was to greet the great General coming from the east in all his war-paint, and hung all over with silver medals. A glorious day followed.
I spent a morning by the clear St. Joseph River. On the road to Middlebury wild raspberries abounded. I could have picked a pound or so of berries along the road. Raspberry bushes occur in many places, but I've seen few raspberries hitherto. That is because the great friends of the raspberries live so near—human boys and girls—and they are always taking the raspberries to school, to church, to the corn-field. If they are going home they insist on taking the little raspberries home too, to the distress of fathers and mothers sometimes, for the raspberries know how to disagree with the children upon occasion, especially the young ones.
There were not many farm-houses about here, but at one of them I was given a pot full of ripe cherries, and made a "smash" of them, and ate them with milk and sugar.
A motorist took me along a dozen miles in a bouncing, petrol-spurting runabout car, a Dutchman, whopaid me the compliment of saying I spoke very grammatically for a foreigner.
There was a thundershower in the afternoon. In the evening I obtained permission to sleep in a barn, and the farmer talked to me as I lay in the straw. There had been a runaway team the day before, and his neighbour's bay mare had twenty-four stitches in her now, and he didn't reckon she'd be much more good.
A waggoner taking fowls and dairy produce to sell at restaurants and quick-lunch shops took me into Elkhart next morning. Elkhart is a large city, with many car factories and buggy factories, and by comparison with the country round is very foreign, full of Italians, Poles, and Jews. It is a well-built, handsome city, with much promise for the future.
As I stepped out on the Shipshewaka Road I saw by a notice that a prize was being offered for the most popular woman and the homeliest man. What a contrast this implies to the life of the East. Here is a land where women are public, and where nobility in a man is best expressed by being handy about the house.
I tramped along the north side of St. Joseph's River, through beautiful country under delightful conditions. The cornfields had turned red-gold, the grass was all in flower, and little brown fluffy bees considered it the best time of summer. What a sun there was,what a breeze! I found the "Bachelor's Retreat" on the St. Joseph's River, two boat-houses, a stairway through the forest banks, and a little wooden pier stretching out into the pleasant water—a good place for a swim!
Just before Mishewaka I met old Samuel Judie, seventy-six years of age, lying on a bank with a stick in his hand, tending the cows of his own farm and philosophising on life.
"It's a marvellous thing that the sun stands still and the earth goes round it," said he. "A marvellous thing that there are stars. They find out how to make automobiles, and they find out lots of things about the stars, but the human race won't ever know out the facts."
To most of the remarks I made Mr. Judie answered "Shah."
"England has fifty million people."
"Oh, shah!"
"London is twenty miles broad and twenty miles long."
"Oh, shah!"
"There are plenty of farms of only ten acres."
"Oh, shah!"
He grumbled a great deal at the automobiles.