Part 10

"No, only on the section of the railway; there are six of us. We have charge of this section. Where are you going to? To Chicago? Looking for a job? Going to friends there? Where are you going to sleep? This village is not a good one. _Ne dobry._ If you sleep there, on the seat, up comes the politzman, and he locks you up. So you be three weeks late in getting to Chicago perhaps. Why do you walk? You get on freight train and you be there to-morrow or the day after. You come with me now. I sleep in a closed truck with five mates, four are Magyars, one is a Serb. It's very full up, and I don't know how the Magyars would take it if I brought you in. But I know a good place. A freight train is waiting here all night. There are plenty of places to sleep, and you go on in it to-morrow morning to Toledo."

He showed me an empty truck. I was very much touched, and I thanked him warmly.

"How do you believe," he asked in parting, "are you a Pole or are you Orthodox?"

"Oh," said I, "I'm not Russian, I've only lived some years there. I'm a British subject."

This somewhat perplexed him. But he smiled. "Ah well," said he, "good-bye, _Sbogom_--be with God," and we parted.

A little later he returned and said that if I were lonely and didn't mind a crush, the Magyars would not object to my presence. But by that time I had swept the sawdusty floor of the truck, made a bed, and was nearly asleep. "Thanks, brother," said I, "but I'm quite comfortable now."

The Russians are a peculiarly hospitable people. Their attitude of mind is charitable, and even in commercial America they retain much of the spirit that distinguishes them in Europe. I met a queer old Russian tramp in Eastern Pennsylvania; he exemplified what I mean. He was, however, rather an original.

In a district inhospitable to tramps I obtained my dinner by paying for it. In this way and by these words:

"Can you give me a meal for a quarter?"

"Well, if you've got the coin I reckon we can do that."

I was sitting at a meal of canned beef, beans, and red-currant jelly, sipping from a mug of coffee, in which might possibly be discerned the influence of a spoonful of milk. The farmer was cross-examining me on my business--where had I come from? Was I looking for a job? Was I walking for wager?--when a strange figure appeared at the window, a broad-faced, long-haired, long-bearded tramp in a tattered cloak.

He approached the house, and about ten feet from the window where we were sitting he stood stock-still, leaning on his staff and staring at us.

"A hobo--looks a bit fierce," said the farmer, opening the window. "How do? Wha--yer--want?"

"Give me a piece and a cup o' milk," said the foreigner.

"A Polander," said the farmer. "I guess I turn him over to the missus. Sue, here's a man wants a crust and some sour milk."

"Ee caant 'ave it," cried the farmer's wife.

"No go," said the farmer, and shook his head at the tramp.

The latter did not utter a word of reproach, but what was my astonishment to see him cross himself delicately, and whisper a benediction. A Russian, I surmised.

"It is not over-safe refusing them fellers," said the farmer. "They may burn your barn next night. I reckon Sue might have put him up something. Hear him curse as he went."

The old Russian was going eastward, I westward; but I resolved to turn back, carry him some bread, make some coffee, and exchange those tokens of the heart which are due from one wanderer to another upon the road. I hurried back and overtook him.

The old man was nothing loth to sit on a bank of grass whilst I bought a quart of milk at a farm. "Coffee, uncle," said I. "Russian coffee. Varshaffsky, such as you get at home in Russia, eh?" Uncle smiled incredulously.

"Twigs, uncle, sticks, dry grasses; we must make a fire," said I. Uncle got up and collected a heap of wood. My coffee-pot soon reposed on a cheerful blaze. The creamy milk soon began to effervesce and boil. In went six lumps of sugar and eight spoonfuls of coffee. Uncle recognised he was going to have a good drink when he saw that no water was to be added. It was a pleasure to see him with a mug of it in one hand and a hunk of good white bread in the other.

I learned that my friend was tramping his way to New York. At that city he would buy a ticket to Libau, and from Libau would walk home to his native village, or he would get under a seat in a train. He had come 250 miles of his journey from Minnesota in an empty truck of a freight train; perhaps he would get another good lift before long.

"Why are you going home? Can't you find work?"

"Going to pray," said he. "I am going to my village to see my father's grave, and then to a monastery. I would finish my years in Russia and be buried in Russian ground."

"I suppose you didn't take root here; American life doesn't suit you? Didn't you like Americans?"

"Well, I lived with other fellows from our village, and we succeeded sufficiently well. Some seasons we gained a lot of money. But I never felt quite at home. We reckoned we would build a church after a while--a high wooden one that one could see from the wheat-fields when we were at work. But my friend turned evangelical; he became a sort of molokan, and one by one all the other fellows joined him and they went to meetings. I was the only one who remained orthodox. They reckoned I got drunk because I was orthodox; but I reckon I got drunk because they were evangelicals--because they had all deserted me, and I was lonely. It's hard on a man to be all alone."

"And why did you leave, uncle? What determined you to go?"

"I'll tell you. I had a strange dream. I saw my father, who is, as you know, dead long since and in his grave, and I saw a figure of St. Serge--St. Serge was his angel--and both lifted their arms and pointed to the East. I knew it was the East because there was a great red sunset behind them, and they pointed right away from it, in the other direction. When I wakened up I remembered this, and it made a great impression on me. I told Basil, my friend, who worked with me lumbering, and he laughed. 'But,' I said, 'that's not the thing to laugh at.' At last I decided to start for home. The idea that I might die in America and be buried there was always pricking me. I am not American. The American God won't take me when I die. Some of the fellows are going to take out their papers, because a Jew came round pestering them with books to learn English and prepare for examination, saying they ought to make themselves citizens; but that is not for me. I am Russian. Mother Russia! she is mine. They may keep you down and oppress you there, but the land is holy, and men are brothers.

"When I started home I was surprised that so many farmers said 'No,' when I wanted to sleep in their barns. I even got angry and shouted at them. But as I went further I got patient, and came to pray to God every day and often, to give me my bread and bring me safely to Russia. Then I got peace, and never was afraid or angry, reckoning that even if I did die in America I should be dying on the way home, and my face would be turned towards Russia. I reckon that if I die my soul will get there just the same."

"It's not often that in Russia, when a man is refused bread, he says, 'Glory be to God!'" said I, recalling how the tramp had crossed himself after the farmer's refusal.

"No; not often. I thought out that for myself. At first I was silent when people turned me away. I gave thanks only when they took me in. But after a while my silence seemed a sort of impatience and angriness. So I recollected God even then, and crossed myself. A tramp has no ikons, so he needs all sorts of things to remind him."

The poor exile had told his story, and looked at me with dim, affectionate eyes. He held my hand tightly in his as we said, "Good-bye"; he going eastward, I westward.

That was a way of living in the fear of God. That old man had real hospitality in his soul.

But in depicting the American farmer and storekeeper it would be unfair to characterise him as an inhospitable person. He is a great deal more hospitable than his actions would suggest. He is a kindly being. He has love towards his neighbour, and is more inclined to say "Yes" to the wanderer than "No." But he has often been victimised. He has been robbed, assaulted, insulted, his property has been damaged, barns set on fire, his crops in part destroyed by wilfully malicious vagabonds. The behaviour of the tramp is often a sort of petty anarchism; he has suffered in the heartless commercial machine, has got out of it only by luck, and his hand is against every man. He has cast over honour, principle, and conscience, and is able to gloat secretly over every little cynical act or meanness perpetrated at the expense of the good-natured but established farmer.

America has more tramps than any other country except Russia, and it would have more than Russia but for the fact that there are often about a million pilgrim-tramps on the Russian roads. The Russian tramp is, moreover, a gentle creature; the American is often a foul-mouthed hooligan.

In several little districts that I passed through I was questioned by the farmers as to whether I belonged to a gang of tramps who had been lurking in the neighbourhood for weeks. A tramp was evidently regarded as an enemy of society. Whenever I remarked on the inhospitality of the people a rueful expression came over the farmer's face, and he would begin to tell me that the old days were gone, money was tighter, the cost of living was higher, taxes were double, the land did not yield what it did of old, there were many demands on them here; but out in the West it was different. There, as in former times, every farm-house had open doors and free table to the tramp and wanderer. No one was more welcome than the tramp, he brought news and stories of personal adventure; he might even be persuaded to do work in the fields.

I believe the Americans would be a truly charitable and hospitable people if the evils of over-commercialism were remedied, and if business were made kinder and more human, and taxes were evenly distributed. There is an immense good-will towards man in America: it is only rendered abortive by mammon. I for my part have to thank numberless farmers, east and west, for kindly interest and good talks, loaves of bread, cups of coffee, and pleasant meals. Several times when I have been cooking by the side of a road a farm wife has come running out to me with something hot from her kitchen, with an "Eat this, poor man, and God bless you, you must be hungry."

Then the farmer's wife is often mollified when you are able to buy her milk and eggs. She is the person who counts in the farm. She must be approached; the husband has very little say in what shall be given to the wanderer. As a fantastic old tramp said to me:

"Whilst you are yet afar off the farmer's wife standing on her threshold, espies you and takes you to be a hungry lion pawing the road and seeking whom you may devour. She calls to her husband and he peereth at you. Perchance she fetcheth down the ancient blunderbuss from the wall; but when you come closer and hail her in English she says to herself with relief, even with pleasure, 'It is a man,' one of the attractive male species. You ask for bread and milk,--oh yes she has it, and with a scared look still on her face, though transfigured with a mild gladness, she fetcheth you bread and milk and eggs; and then if you can pay her market price the scared look goes away entirely; and out of the goodness of her heart and the abundance of her pantry she addeth cookies and apple butter, and for these you pay nought--they are her favour. Don't ask her, however, to put you up for the night."

The tramp always has a hard time to get a night's lodging. A poor, weak, bedraggled Jew, whom I met shortly after the forty-eight hours' rain, told me that he had been all one night in the wet--his pedlar's pack had got ruined, he was suffering from pneumonia, and had thought that such weather meant sure death to him. He had tried every house in five towns and had been refused at every one. It was a sad comment on modern life.

In the Middle Ages, and in the days when Christianity meant more than it does now, the refusal of shelter was almost unheard of. And in peasant Russia to-day it would be considered a sin. An old pilgrim-tramp once said to me, "When we leave this world to get to Heaven we all have to go on tramp, and those find shelter there who sheltered wanderers here." But Americans will not be judged by that standard. The early Christians received strangers and often entertained angels unawares, but the modern American is afraid that in taking in a strange tramp he may be sheltering an outcast spirit. Once tramps were angels; now they are rebel-angels.

IX

OVER THE ALLEGHANIES

Both the weather and the country improved before I reached Williamsport. On the height of the road to Hughesville I had a grand view of the mountains and of the sky above them, saw displayed green hills and forested mountains, and great stretches of ploughed upland all dotted over with white heaps of fertiliser. And the sky above was a battle-scene, the sun and his angels having given battle and the clouds taking ranks like an army. Glad was I to see to eastward whole battalions in retreat.

I passed through fine forested land with great hemlocks, maples, and hickories. A brawling stream poured along through the dark wood, and as I walked beside it a sudden gleam of sunshine pierced the gloom of foliage, and lit up boles and wet banks and wet rocks and the crystal freshets of the stream. Of all weathers I like best convalescent weather, the getting sunny after much rain. On the Sunday on which I reached the city the open road was swept by fresh winds, all the birds were singing, every blade of grass was conscious of rain taken in and of the sun bringing out.

Williamsport I found to be a peaceful, provincial town, well kept in itself and surrounded by beautiful scenery. It was looking its best in the freshness and radiance of a May morning. On its many hundred bright green lawns that run down so graciously from pleasant urban villas to the roadway there was much white linen airing. Williamsport is an old lumbering town on a branch of the Susquehanna, and though that business has gone away, prosperity and happiness seem to have remained behind. There was a feeling of calmness that I had not experienced in other American cities, and I felt it would be pleasant to live there for a season.

I tramped down to Jersey Shore, and the night after my halcyon day at Williamsport a thunderstorm overtook me, shaking the old barn in which I slept and tearing away rafters and doors. I witnessed Lockhaven under depressing circumstances, but in any weather it must be an inferior town to Williamsport, though it is also an old point for lumbering on the Susquehanna.

The weather remained very rainy, and I was obliged to forsake the atrociously clayey high-road for the cinder track of the railway. In doing this I passed up into a fine hilly country along the valley of the Beech Creek. I came to Mapes (to rhyme with Shapes), but found it a name and no more. A shooting and fishing resort with one house in it. The Beech Creek was a fine sight, running along the base of the embankment of the railway, carrying pine logs on its flood and racing the trains with them, roaring and rushing, the logs pointing, racing, turning, rolling, toppling, colliding, but always going forward, willy-nilly getting clear of every obstacle and galloping out of sight.

With one wet match I lighted a grand fire by the side of the line, and boiled my kettle and dried myself and chuckled. It might be going to rain more. I might be going to have a queer night, but for the time being I was having a splendid tea. It was a matter for consolation in the future that on the wettest possible day it was not difficult to light a fire with one match. The secret lies in having plenty of dry paper in your wallet; and I had a copy of a New York Sunday paper, which lasted me to light my fire all the way to Elkhart, Indiana, at least five hundred miles' tramping.

The district of Mapes is one of the most beauteous in the Alleghanies, or it was so this quiet evening. The summits of the mountains were obscured by mists, but up from the profound valleys the woods climbed, and the lovely tops of trees seemed like so many stepping-stones from the land up to cloudy heaven.

By the time I came to Monument it was dark. But a great glowing brick-kiln looked out into the night, and there were houses with many lighted windows. I was directed to a workmen's boarding-house, and spent a night among miners, railway men, and brick-workers. The keeper of the establishment was doubtful whether he would have me, but thought there was "one feller on the third floor gone."

"What will be your charge?" I asked.

"Well," said he, "a won't charge ye anything for the bed, but the breakfast to-morrow morning will be twenty-five cents."

"My!" I thought, "here's something choice coming along in the shape of a bed."

It turned out to be four in a room and two in a bed, all sleeping in their clothes. There was even some doubt as to whether there was not a fifth coming.

One man was in bed already; I chose the unoccupied bed, and laid myself upon it in full tramping attire. You can imagine the state of sheets and quilts in a bed that brickmakers and soft-coal miners sleep in their clothes.

The man in bed was an Anglo-Saxon American. When I said I was from England he asked me if I had walked it all.

"I came by steamer of course to New York."

"How many days?"

"Eight."

"Weren't you afraid?" said he. "Quite out of sight of land no doubt? You wouldn't get me to go, not for many thousand dollars. That _Titanic_ was an affair, wasn't it. Fifteen hundred--straight to the bottom! I'd have shot myself had I been there."

"What do you work at here?"

"Brick-making."

"Lot of men?"

"Plenty of work. Two truck-loads of extra men coming to-morrow."

"Foreigners?"

"Italians."

I told him the story of a storm at sea with the exaggeration to which one is too prone when addressing simple souls. I rather harrowed him with an account of cook's enamel ware and kitchen things rolling about and jangling when every one was saying his prayers.

Presently I remarked irrelevantly, "My goodness! What a noise the frogs make here!"

"That's no noise," said he; "I'm going to sleep."

After a while his bedfellow came in and he, before turning in, got down on his knees in the narrow passage between the beds and prayed--I should say, a whole half-hour, talking half to himself, half-aloud. Whilst he was doing so my bedfellow came in, a tall, heavy, tired Pole, who looked neither to right nor left, but just clambered over me and lay down with his face to the wall and slept and snored.

It rained heavily all night, and next morning it still poured. After a disreputably bad breakfast I sat on a chair at the door of the establishment and watched the thresh of the rain on two great pools beside a road of coal-dust, looked out at the lank grass, the tomato-can dump, the sodden refuse of the boarding-house, and away to the square red chimney of the brick factory belching forth black smoke.

"Say, stranger," said mine host, "I'm going to wade into that cave and hand out potatoes; will you take them from me?" This was the first time I had been called stranger in America, and it sounded pleasant in my ears.

About eleven o'clock in the morning the rain ceased, and I went on to the next point on the railway. The track climbed higher and higher, and I learned that on the morrow I should reach the top of the Alleghany Mountains--Snow Shoe Creek.

It was a fine walk to Orviston under the heavily clouded sky. The mountain sides were all a-leak with springs and trickling streams and cascades. There was an accompanying music of the racing Beech Creek on the one hand, and of the gushing rivulets on the other; but this would be swallowed up and lost every now and then in the uproar of the oncoming and passing freight train of coal; the appalling, hammering, affrighting freight train passing within two feet of me, taking my breath away with the thought of its power. How pleasant it was, though, to listen to the rebirth of the music of the waters coming to the ear in the wind of the last trucks as they passed.

Orviston prides itself on its fire-bricks. The whole village is made of them, and the pavement as well, and every brick is stamped "Orviston," and is both a commodity and an advertisement.

After I had visited the village store for provisions I re-entered the railway enclosure, and read as I did so the following notice typical of America: "Cultivate the safety habit--if you see anything wrong report it to the man with the button."

I met the man with the button after I had walked a mile along the way; he was a Slovak, working on the line with pick and shovel, a tall, brawny Slav, and with him a rather tubby little chap of the same nationality.

"You haf no räit on these läins," said the Slovak. "You go off. You are no railway man. What are you? Slavish?"

I replied in English, but on second thoughts went on in Russian. He understood, and was mollified at once. He was in America for the second time, they neither of them liked the old country. I photographed them as they stood--John Kresica and Paul Cipriela. They were unmarried men, and lived in a "boarding-house" in Orviston. They worked in a gang. Would I please send them a copy of the photograph? I agreed to do so; then, when I moved to go off the lines, the man with the button cried out, smiling:

"Hi! All-right, go ahead!"

I went on blithely. There was a change of weather in the afternoon. At one o'clock the sun lifted his arms and pulled apart the mist curtains at the zenith and disclosed himself--a miraculous apparition. The whole sky was cloudy, but the sun was shining. An apparition, the ghost of a sun, and then a reality--hot, light-pouring, cloud-dispersing. By two it was a hot summer day, at three there was not a cloud in the sky. What a change! It was clear that summer had progressed during the rain; insects of bright hues were on the wing, huge yellow-winged butterflies, crimson-thighed grasshoppers, green sun-beetles. A new-born butterfly settled three times on my sleeve; the fourth time I just caught him. I held him delicately between two fingers and let him go.

During a most exhilarating evening I tramped past houseless Panther and got to Cato at nightfall. Cato was a railway station of no pretensions; a broken-down shed with no door, no ticket offices, no porter. Passengers who wished to take a train had to wave a flag and trust to the eyesight of the engine-driver. For village, all that I could make out was a coal-bank, a shaft, and some heaps of old iron.

It was an extremely cold night, so I slept in the railway shed on a plank form that ran along the three sides of the building. I lay and looked out at the bright night shining over the mountains, dozed, waked, dozed again. Shortly after midnight I had a strange visitor. I was lying half-asleep, looking at a misshapen star which was resting on the mountains opposite me, which became a silver thumb pointing upward, which became at last the young crescent moon just rising. I was in that somnolent state when you ask, as you see the moon rising behind dark branches of the forest, Is it the moon in eclipse? is it a comet?--when a portly man with shovel hat came out of the night, stood in front of the shed, leaned on a thick cudgel, and looked in.

"Hallo!" said I.

"Haffing sum sleep?" queried the visitor.