Part 8

Suddenly a brilliant spectacle caught our eyes. Coming out from wooded land, the train sped along a level stretch and we fed our looks on the Fata Morgana of a large city. The size, brilliancy of illumination and distance from New York left no doubt in our minds that we were not far from Philadelphia, and had we known how to pray, we would surely have done so. I have never regretted the experience, still have no wild desire to repeat it. There are more easily obtainable joys in life than the riding on the bumpers of a freight train on a chilly May morning.

It was not long before we were slinking along Market street in Philadelphia. After fortifying ourselves against the bad consequences of our benumbing voyage by sampling some "speak-easy" whiskey, we visited "Dirty Mag's" famous all-night restaurant on Sixth street and feasted on steak-pie and coffee, with crullers included. The bill amounted to ten cents.

We were so tired out by our traveling that it was out of the question to continue our journey. Down on Calomel street we found a resting-place for our weary and frozen bones at fifteen cents per couch. It was almost noon before we woke from our sleep and held a conference. At its termination we hied ourselves to the nearby grocery store and spent almost the entire remainder of our depleted treasury in buying provisions for our trip into the wilds of Pennsylvania. After that, with a last parting drink, we turned our backs on Philadelphia and set boldly out to win our fortunes.

Just as the suburbs had been reached by us we were reminded by our stomachs that we had forgotten to breakfast. An inviting tree stood nearby, a brook, as clear as crystal, was rippling past our feet, and the place seemed to be made for a picnic ground. The enjoyment of the meal was marred by the thought that now we would have no lunch or dinner.

"What's the use of worrying about that now? Besides, we won't have to carry so much," was Casey's way of consoling us.

We rose and began our tramp in earnest. For hours we walked, giving little attention to the things about us and only holding desultory conversation. Not one of us knew the route to the "strawberry country," and we were often obliged to ask people whom we met for directions. We had little luck in this. Most of the people addressed by us would quickly button their coats and hurry on without heeding us. Others would barely stop and throw us such a small scrap of information that, instead of enlightening us, they only bewildered us the more. At last, Casey got tired of this way of securing information and burst upon us with his latest and brightest inspiration.

"It's no use of asking any o' these men. Most o' them are hayseeds and been to New York and have been buncoed. They can see in a minute that we're from New York and ain't going to take no chances with us. It's different with women. They're always nice and gentle and, especially, when they get spoken to the way I know how to talk to them. Leave this to me. Don't ask any more men. Wait till we meet some women, and then I'll ask them, and then you'll be surprised in the difference."

Casey, who had given voice to this speech with properly inflated chest, proved himself to be a true prophet. We found there was a difference in the way in which men and women received our approach.

Before long, we saw two women with baskets coming our way.

"Now, you fellows want to keep a little behind, and watch me how I do this," was Casey's final instruction.

Giving his clothes a quick brushing with his hands and setting his hat jauntily over his ear, Casey went toward his fate with a grace all his own.

Dempsey and I could not hear the first passage of words, but it was hardly necessary, as the effects of it were immediately visible.

One woman proceeded to pummel Casey with her umbrella, while the other was trying to fit her market-basket on his head. When they saw Dempsey and me come running to the rescue, they left Casey and took it on a run across the fields, but they took good care to shout back to us that they would have the sheriff or constable after us.

"For heaven's sake, what did you say to those women?" I asked Casey, after I had pulled the basket from his head.

"What did I say to them? They ain't civilized, and it don't make no difference what a fellow says to them kind o' people. I spoke to them like a regular dude. This is what I said: 'Ain't this a fine morning, girls. We're strangers here and didn't like this country very much until it was our good fortune to see you, who are sweeter than any sugar, and now we'd like to stay here if you will tell us the road to where the strawberries grow and where there are as many girls as beautiful as yourselves!' And the minute I said that they soaked me."

We consoled Casey and resumed our tramp.

It was now late in the afternoon and I determined that we should know something about our whereabouts. I stopped the very next man we met in such a way that he could not get away from us.

After assuring him that we had no intention of robbing him, I insisted on getting correct information.

Can you imagine our feelings when he told us that we had spent our time and energy in describing circles around Philadelphia, without getting away from it?

Dempsey and Casey made no attempt to hide their chagrin. The blow was too crushing. I, also, felt fearfully discouraged, but did not want to give in.

"There is no use in going back. We're here now, and must go on. If we go back to Philadelphia, we might as well go back to New York. We're in the country now, and we might as well stay here. I don't care what you fellows do, I'm going to go ahead."

The last sentence was a fearful bluff. Had Dempsey and Casey decided to return to New York, I would have joined them on the spot. Fortunately, they adopted my way of looking at it, and we once more pursued our sorry pilgrimage.

Now, we were sure of penetrating right into the heart of the country and evidences of it were not lacking. Suburban villas grew fewer and fewer and we had to walk for a considerable distance before we passed another farmhouse. With our inborn stubbornness we kept plodding on, until our legs almost refused to obey.

It was the hour in which evening unwittingly yields supremacy to night. We felt it, as was proven by Casey in answer to Dempsey's question in regard to the time.

"Well, when it looks like this they always begin to light up in Callahan's, and that's about seven o'clock."

Again we were silent and tramped and tramped. Dempsey was the next to speak.

"Say, fellows, I ain't seen any strawberries yet. And even if we were to see any now, we couldn't go to work at them this evening, it being so late now, and I think the best thing we can do is to sit down some place and take a rest."

Only a few more steps and we saw a spot, which by you, would have been called a dell. We called it nothing, just saw the soft grass and, with one accord, sank down on it.

The tone of evening now rang unmistakably clear. Evening and its partner, the gloaming, were at the last and best moment of their supremacy. Too short, by far, are evenings in the country, those short brief hours of nature's neutral state, before retiring to its well-earned rest. But that I only feel now, and did not then.

Remember! this was my first night in God's country. Like thousands of others who live and die in the southeast corner of Manhattan--along the Bowery--I had never had a sight of nature. I could not have told a daisy from a rose; or a crow from a robin. All that I write here are the impressions that linger in my mind of this, my first night with nature.

It was one grand moment in our lives, yet we did not feel it. Hold, I am wrong! We did feel it, perhaps subconsciously, but feel it we did. Our kind is not given to much talking while doing anything of import. Then our energies are in our task, no matter how dirty that may be. As soon as we rest, we change, and the silent drudge becomes a veritable magpie. We three were resting as, like three daisies in the wilderness, we sat in our dell, but there was something all about and around us that stopped our flow of talk from loosening itself.

We sat and stared, and the most insignificant changes in the tranquil scene before us left their unrecognized, yet deep impressions on us. And looking back through all the years passed since then, I see it all still before me, though I cannot attempt to picture it to you.

From where we sat it looked before us like the setting for a glorious play. On both sides, small sketches of woodland interjected just far enough to serve as the wings on the stage. Back of it, there was a grand, majestic last drop, a range of hills, running unbrokenly from where to where we could see. The cast, the actors of the play were supplied by all the many living things about us and, above it all, like the last curtain, hung the forerunners of the coming night.

It was no tumultuous melodrama, no rollicking farce, it was a pastoral play so successful, so wisely composed and staged that from its first night it has been enacted every night through all the ages. No wonder that with so many rehearsals the scene, as we saw it, was played with perfection.

Out from a loophole in the sky, a bird came flying toward us with unfaltering swing. Night after night it had flown the same course, night after night it had the same role, that of bringing their share to the young striplings in the nest above our heads. Along the road came a creaking, lumbering farm-wagon. The farmer looked at us with suspicion, still, gave us a "good evening, boys." I do not know if we returned his greeting or not.

It was quiet, so quiet, that the many little noises, made by unseen beings, pealed like tornadoes of sound. The snatch of laughter, coming from the tree-encircled farm-house behind us, was as the laughter of a multitude; the chirrup of that homeward bound bird was as a lofty, airy chorus; the croaking of the frog was as a grunting wail from many, many, who never get above the very ground. While we had sat staring holes into the air before us, evening had flown, and night, a gallant victor, had unrolled the standard of the stars. I know I cannot tell you my impressions, but even had I the gift and genius of a hundred of our greatest writers, I could not convey to you what a picture that night, my first night in God's country, left with me. It seemed to me that all and everything, before becoming wrapped in slumber, gave one praise-offering to Above. The corn of the field and the poor lowly flower by the roadside and even the tiny blade of grass, they all were straightened by one last, upward tremor before relaxing to their drooping doze. The birds of the air and the beasts of the ground, all sounded their evening song. With some it was a thrill of sweetest divine melody, with others it was but a grunt, but it all seemed like a thanksgiving for having lived and worked a day made by the Creator of all.

And from beneath all this, the silent attitude of prayer and the intoned evening hymn of creatures rose onward, upward, like an anthem to the sky, where brilliant orbs and shining, milky veils were interwoven in a web of glory, and peeping over the tops of hours into the birthing cradle of another day. It is a witching hour, this hour, when stars and nature in unison sing their evening song.

Where nature is grandest, man most likes to profane it.

The sublime, sweet spell held us enthralled. Not a word had been spoken by us. How long we had sat there we did not know. How much longer we would have sat there is a matter of unprofitable conjecture. As if turned loose from the regions of the arch-fiend, with howling screech, with snorting, rumbling, rattling, a train, looking like a string of toy-cars in the distance, clattered along the range of hills, the last drop of our scene. Spitting fire before it, leaving white streamers behind it, the iron disrespecter of nature's sanctity rushed into the very heart of the hills and took the haze of idealism with it.

The spell was broken, and we were not long in getting back to terra firma.

"Say," remarked Casey very pensively, "ain't it very quiet here?"

"Well, I should say so," hastened Dempsey to corroborate him. "It's so quiet you couldn't sleep here if you wanted to. This ain't no place for us. Let's go."

We started ahead and tumbled along the country road. All directions, as to our route, were, for the present, forgotten. We only had one purpose now, to get away from the haunting quiet. With every step our nerves became more unstrung. A rabbit scooted across the road and made us grasp each other's arms. The faint rustle of the leaves sent shivers down our backs.

Out in the open, we felt the hazy, vapory night air enshroud us, which showed every object in ghost-like mold. A dog barked far away, then it howled, and I can swear to it, we trembled.

It was not physical fear. It was the weirdness of the unaccustomed that played havoc with our reasoning powers. Some may doubt all this and mention as proof the "hoboing" tramps, who spend their most pleasing and profitable period of vagrancy in their country. I am not prepared to discuss this at all, but am quite sure that every tramp, at the beginning of his career as such, was similarly impressed on his first night in the country, provided he had not found shelter in a barn or haystack or had not been born and lived in the country before.

We, we were city bred to the bone, and noise was essential to us as ozone is to the country lad. He cannot sleep with noise,--we could not sleep without it.

Our musings--we had not spoken for a long time--were interrupted by Dempsey, who had fallen over a rail, which he had not noticed in the shadowy Darkness. Yes, it was a full-fledged railroad track and, for some obscure reason, it seemed to possess a great deal of fascination for us. We were apparently not able to get away from it. We stood and looked at it as if we had never seen a railroad track before.

This lasted until the ever-ready Casey interpreted our feelings.

"I wonder if this is the Pennsylvania railroad?"

That started a chorus of "wonders."

"I wonder which end of this runs into New York;" "I wonder how far we are from New York;" "I wonder if we could get to New York from here;" "I wonder how long it takes to get to New York from here;" "I wonder if there is a station near here."

How it happened, whether any one proposed it, or how we got there I do not know, but I do know that, quite unexpectedly, we found ourselves at a little wayside station, with a lot of milk cans on its platform. There is no mistaking the fact that we were entirely unbalanced mentally, and it was a good thing for the crew of the freight train, which rolled in to unload and load milk cans, that they were an easy-going crowd of men. We made no pretense of hiding ourselves, but climbed boldly on to the cars and would have committed murder had they attempted to put us off. The spectre of the stillness had taken possession of our brains, and we wanted to flee from it as from a plague.

Again the long, cold journey, and, then, at last, a great white sheen of shining lustre in the heavens told us that we were home once more to the city of our birth, of which we were so proud.

But could she be proud of us?

The rest of the night, or rather the beginning of the day, was spent in chairs in Callahan's back-room, which seemed like paradise to us after our "fierce" experience in the country. After a nap, I went to look for my Bill, who greeted me as if I had left him alone as long as I did on our previous separation, and then again settled down to grace Callahan's dive with my presence.

In a day our country trip was forgotten, and I felt quite resigned at taking up my career where I had dropped it. There was little hope of things in divedom brightening up for some time to come and I was perfectly willing to resume playing the gentleman of leisure, who makes his fluctuating living at the expense of his fellow men.

But the days in the old life were numbered. Only a short space of time more, and I was to be taken from the cesspool by one whom God must have sent solely for this end. Why this was and why I was chosen, neither you or I can answer, but it is enough for me to know that, even were every miracle of old found to be a fraud or sacrilege, the existence of one great, mighty, living God would be proven to me beyond the slimmest shadow of doubt by the miracle he performed on me by His sweetest prophet.

Lord my master, here I thank Thee, not only for having permitted me to live the life of purity and cleanliness, but also for having had me come from out and through the life of the most miserable and sinful. Mysterious are Your ways and Your purposes are not for us to know, but I have suffered, learned and prayed, and I know You will not let it be without avail. And if naught else I can do, give that for her sake, I shall always live in the way she wanted me to live and that was in Your way, God.

*THE FRONTIER OF THE NEWER LIFE.*

*CHAPTER XII.*

*THE FRONTIER OF THE NEWER LIFE.*

Returned to New York from my Philadelphia trip, I immediately fell back into my old ways, which meant for the time being I established myself again as an ornament in and in front of Mike Callahan's dive in Chatham Square. Things in our line of business were growing quieter every day and no one seemed to know when this drought in the former land of plenty would cease.

Our temporary occupation during this lull was to "lay for" easy things and suckers. But even they seemed to grow fewer and, at last, we were reduced to a state of desperation. Then, when hunger and an unquenchable thirst were less and less satisfied, some of the gang overcame their inborn cowardice and turned "crooked." One, two and three would go on secret expeditions and return either with money or easily disposable goods, or would not return at all, at least, not for a long time. The gang could well afford to stand these occasional vacancies in the membership, as more than fifty constituted it and more and more were constantly joining it.

I am not making an untruthful statement and do not wish to tax your belief unduly when I tell you that I did not take active part in these "crooked" doings. My list of misdeeds is so full that one more or less would make but small difference therein, and I have no cause to tell you a lie.

Had it been necessary for me to turn "crooked" I would have surely done so, but it was not necessary.

I was the recognized leader of our gang, and leaders of or in anything always have certain prerogatives. Out of every expedition I received a small share. I was "staked" is the proper expression. The return I made for the "stake" was small enough.

In case one or more of the men were locked up in the city prison, I, not officially known to the police, had to visit them and act as go-between to lawyers and their "outside" friends. Were any barroom growls between one of the men and outsiders started I had to throw myself--regardless of the merits of the fight--into the mixup to end it quickly in favor of my brother in loaferdom.

Not having to go on any of the mentioned expeditions, I had all my time to myself and hardly ever left Callahan's. In truth, I was in a fair way of becoming one of the monarchs of the Bowery, having, so far, been only one of the knight errants of that locality. It was the beginning of Summer, and excepting when business of a liquid or financial nature called me inside, I could have always been seen on my keg at the curb, flanked and surrounded by a galaxy, whose very faces made men, respectable men, clasp their hands over their watches and pocketbooks.

I remember, how once a "sport" hung up a prize for the "homeliest mug" in Callahan's, and a hurried ballot awarded me the prize. However, there were extenuating circumstances, which I do not care to recite, the whole matter being one not very interesting to me.

Hanging around the dives all day we "regulars" often found the time hang heavy on our hands. To help us over these periods of ennui we invented a gentle form of sport. The sidewalk was very wide, the traffic was heavy, the police, for reasons of policy, absolutely blind to our doings, what more did we need? From our kegs we looked, like the gallery of the play, at the passing show, and frequently became so interested in the ever-playing drama that we took part in it ourselves.

Is there more manly, noble sport than for the many, with stamping horses and yelping, snarling dogs, to throw themselves on to the death-scared, fright-unwitted fox and tear him to his end, after having him partly finished by hoof beat and dog bite? Of course not. Were it unmanly, unwomanly, ignoble sport, our "better, upper" classes, our social leaders, would not enjoy it. We, of Chatham Square, aped our models in the higher circles, and, not having a fox in our collection of rare animals, chose the passing pedestrians as the objects of our sport.

Our imitation of our "betters" was fairly correct. If only one or two were on the kegs passers-by would not be molested; but when the gang was there in force, then woe to the unoffending man or woman, whose way led by us.

To be exact, our "sport" consisted of insults of various kinds to pedestrians. Old people--and especially old women--received the most of our playful attention. They were our favorite victims, as they were less likely to resent our brutishness. It brings a flush to my face when I think of our beastly cowardice. There is more manliness in one mongrel cur than there was in that whole gang of ours!

And in that sport I was the acknowledged leader.

There were many variations to our game. We would quickly put our feet between those of men and women passing by, would "trip them up" and send them sprawling to the pavement; we would throw rotten fruit and decayed vegetables at them; would deliberately run into them and upset their balance and, besides all this, would shower avalanches of filthy expressions on them. Why didn't they resent it? Because people who were obliged to pass there did not do it from choice, but because they were obliged to do so, and knew the calibre of our tribe. They knew that, like the rooster taken away from his dung-heap, singly and on different ground from our own, we were crawling, cowardly caricatures of men, and only brave when we could throw ourselves on One in mass.

Yet, withal, even loafers can be saved from their mockery of an existence, but different means from the stereotyped ones of the present day must be employed. Where is the harvest of the many millions sown on the East Side? The time, the day, the hour is ripe for a Messiah to the slums who will have much piety, more manhood and, most of all, common sense. Bring less talk and more muscle; less hymns and more work, and there will be an echo to your labor in every lane and alley.

My loaferish career ran along so evenly that I could not imagine such a thing as a break in it. Without a moment's warning, in the most ordinary way, the message from across the frontier of decency was brought to me by one whom I cannot call otherwise than one of God's own angels.

It had been a most quiet day. In the early forenoon "Skinny" McCarthy, one of my intimate pals, had informed me that "something would be doing" that day. I gave him my rogue's blessing and sped him on his way.