diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'old/67947-0.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | old/67947-0.txt | 5147 |
1 files changed, 0 insertions, 5147 deletions
diff --git a/old/67947-0.txt b/old/67947-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 6de6ddc..0000000 --- a/old/67947-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,5147 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of A Handy Guide for Beggars, by Vachel -Lindsay - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: A Handy Guide for Beggars - Especially Those of the Poetic Fraternity - -Author: Vachel Lindsay - -Release Date: April 28, 2022 [eBook #67947] - -Language: English - -Produced by: D A Alexander, David E. Browm, and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was - created from images of public domain material made - available by the University of Toronto Libraries.) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A HANDY GUIDE FOR -BEGGARS *** - - - - - -A HANDY GUIDE FOR BEGGARS - - - - - [Illustration] - - THE MACMILLAN COMPANY - - NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO · DALLAS - ATLANTA · SAN FRANCISCO - - MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED - LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA - MELBOURNE - - THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. - TORONTO - - - - - A HANDY GUIDE - FOR BEGGARS - ESPECIALLY THOSE OF - THE POETIC FRATERNITY - - - _Being sundry explorations, made while afoot and - penniless in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, - Tennessee, Kentucky, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. - These adventures convey and illustrate - the rules of beggary for poets and some others._ - - - BY VACHEL LINDSAY - - _Author of “The Congo,” “The Art of The Moving - Picture,” “Adventures while Preaching - the Gospel of Beauty,” etc._ - - - THE MACMILLAN COMPANY - PUBLISHERS MCMXVI - - - - - COPYRIGHT, 1916, - - BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. - - Set up and electrotyped. Published November, 1916. - - - Norwood Press - J. S. Cushing Co.--Berwick & Smith Co. - Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. - - - - -ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS - - -THE author desires to express his indebtedness to _The Outlook_ for -permission to reprint the adventures in the South and to Charles -Zueblin for permission to reprint the adventures in the East. - -The author desires to express his indebtedness to the _Chicago Herald_ -for permission to reprint _The Would-be Merman_, and to _The Forum_ -for _What the Sexton Said_, and to _The Yale Review_ for _The Tramp’s -Refusal_. - -The author wishes to express his gratitude to Mr. George Mather -Richards, Miss Susan Wilcox, Mr. and Mrs. Frank Ide and Miss Grace -Humphrey for their generous help and advice in preparing this work. - - - - -DEDICATION AND PREFACE OF A HANDY GUIDE FOR BEGGARS - - -THERE are one hundred new poets in the villages of the land. This Handy -Guide is dedicated first of all _to them_. - -It is also dedicated to the younger sons of the wide earth, to the -runaway boys and girls getting further from home every hour, to the -prodigals who are still wasting their substance in riotous living, be -they gamblers or blasphemers or plain drunks; to those heretics of -whatever school to whom life is a rebellion with banners; to those who -are willing to accept counsel if it be mad counsel. - -This book is also dedicated to those budding philosophers who realize -that every creature is a beggar in the presence of the beneficent sun, -to those righteous ones who know that all righteousness is as filthy -rags. - -Moreover, as an act of contrition, reënlistment and fellowship this -book is dedicated to all the children of Don Quixote who see giants -where most folks see windmills: those Galahads dear to Christ and -those virgin sisters of Joan of Arc who serve the lepers on their -knees and march in shabby armor against the proud, who look into the -lightning with the eyes of the mountain cat. They do more soldierly -things every day than this book records, yet they are mine own people, -my nobler kin to whom I have been recreant, and so I finally dedicate -this book _to them_. - -These are the rules of the road:-- - -(1) Keep away from the Cities; - -(2) Keep away from the railroads; - -(3) Have nothing to do with money and carry no baggage; - -(4) Ask for dinner about quarter after eleven; - -(5) Ask for supper, lodging and breakfast about quarter of five; - -(6) Travel alone; - -(7) Be neat, deliberate, chaste and civil; - -(8) Preach the Gospel of Beauty. - -And without further parley, let us proceed to inculcate these, by -illustration, precept and dogma. - - VACHEL LINDSAY. - - SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, - November, 1916. - - - - -TABLE OF CONTENTS - - - PAGE - - ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS v - - THE DEDICATION AND PREFACE vii - - FOLLOW THIS THISTLEDOWN xi - - - I. VAGRANT ADVENTURES IN THE SOUTH - - COLUMBUS 3 - - THE MAN UNDER THE YOKE. BEING MY FIRST EXPERIENCE - AS AN ABSOLUTELY PENNILESS PERSON, - AND SHOWING THE GOOD FORTUNE OF THE - PENNILESS 5 - - THE MAN WITH THE APPLE-GREEN EYES. A STORY - COVERING A RIDE IN TWO FREIGHT-CABOOSES - IN SOUTHERN GEORGIA. SHOWING HOW MY - GOOD LUCK CAME AFTER I SPENT MY ALL UPON - GINGER-SNAPS 14 - - INTERLUDE: THE WOULD-BE MERMAN 33 - - MACON. SHOWING MY FIRST RESPITE WITH A CIVILIZED FRIEND 35 - - THE FALLS OF TALLULAH. BEING THE STORY OF A - WILD BATH IN A MOUNTAIN-TORRENT, AND A - CONVERSATION WITH THE EARTH 38 - - THE GNOME. BEING THE STORY OF A GROTESQUE - MOONSHINER, EATEN UP WITH DRINK 46 - - INTERLUDE: THE TRAMP’S REFUSAL 61 - - THE HOUSE OF THE LOOM. BEING THE STORY OF - SEVEN ARISTOCRATS AND A SOAP-KETTLE. AN - EMINENT INSTANCE OF THE GOOD FORTUNE OF - THE DEVOTEE OF VOLUNTARY POVERTY 63 - - INTERLUDE: PHIDIAS 78 - - MAN, IN THE CITY OF COLLARS. SHOWING HOW AN - UNEXPECTED SHOCK CAME TO A CIVILIZED PERSON. - A NOT VERY TRAGIC RELAPSE INTO THE - TOILS OF FINANCE 79 - - INTERLUDE: CONFUCIUS 87 - - THE OLD LADY AT THE TOP OF THE HILL. SHOWING - HOW AN EMPRESS OF THE MOUNTAINS DESIRED - ME AS HER GUEST 88 - - INTERLUDE: WITH A ROSE, TO BRUNHILDE 94 - - LADY IRON-HEELS. A STORY TOUCHING UPON THE - ROMANCE OF A LONG-DEAD FLORIST,--ALSO - THE CANTICLE OF THE ROSE 96 - - - II. A MENDICANT PILGRIMAGE IN THE EAST - - IN LOST JERUSALEM 113 - - A TEMPLE MADE WITH HANDS 115 - - INTERLUDE: THE TOWN OF AMERICAN VISIONS 133 - - ON BEING ENTERTAINED BY COLLEGE BOYS 135 - - INTERLUDE: THAT WHICH MEN HAIL AS KING 137 - - NEAR SHICKSHINNY. THE STORY OF THE HOSPITALITY - OF A PROMISING FAMILY IN A COAL-MINING REGION 138 - - INTERLUDE: WHAT THE SEXTON SAID 159 - - DEATH, THE DEVIL, AND HUMAN KINDNESS. BEING - THE SHRED OF AN ALLEGORY 160 - - INTERLUDES: “LIFE TRANSCENDENT” 179 - - IN THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION CHURCH 180 - - THE OLD GENTLEMAN WITH THE LANTERN (AND THE - PEOPLE OF HIS HOUSEHOLD) 182 - - THAT MEN MIGHT SEE AGAIN THE ANGEL-THRONG 205 - - - - -FOLLOW THE THISTLEDOWN - - - I asked her “Is Aladdin’s Lamp - Hidden anywhere?” - “Look into your heart,” she said, - “Aladdin’s Lamp is there.” - - She took my heart with glowing hands. - It burned to dust and air - And smoke and rolling thistledown, - Blowing everywhere. - - “Follow the thistledown,” she said, - “Till doomsday if you dare, - Over the hills and far away. - Aladdin’s Lamp is there.” - - - - -I - -VAGRANT ADVENTURES IN THE SOUTH - - - - -COLUMBUS - - - WOULD that we had the fortunes of Columbus. - Sailing his caravels a trackless way, - He found a Universe--he sought Cathay. - God give such dawns as when, his venture o’er, - The Sailor looked upon San Salvador. - God lead us past the setting of the sun - To wizard islands, of august surprise; - God make our blunders wise. - - - - -THE MAN UNDER THE YOKE - - -IT was Sunday morning in the middle of March. I was stranded in -Jacksonville, Florida. After breakfast I had five cents left. Joyously -I purchased a sack of peanuts, then started northwest on the railway -ties straight toward that part of Georgia marked “Swamp” on the map. - -Sunset found me in a pine forest. I decided to ask for a meal and -lodging at the white house looming half a mile ahead just by the track. -I prepared a speech to this effect:-- - -“I am the peddler of dreams. I am the sole active member of the ancient -brotherhood of the troubadours. It is against the rules of our order -to receive money. We have the habit of asking a night’s lodging in -exchange for repeating verses and fairy-tales.” - -As I approached the house I forgot the speech. All the turkeys gobbled -at me fiercely. The two dogs almost tore down the fence trying to get -a taste of me. I went to the side gate to appeal to the proud old -lady crowned with a lace cap and enthroned in the porch rocker. Her -son, the proprietor, appeared. He shall ever be named the dog-man. His -tone of voice was such, that, to speak in metaphor, he bit me in the -throat. He refused me a place in his white kennel. He would not share -his dog-biscuit. The being on the porch assured me in a whanging yelp -that they did not take “nobody in under no circumstances.” Then the -dog-man, mollified by my serene grin, pointed with his thumb into the -woods, saying: “There is a man in there who will take you in sure.” He -said it as though it were a reflection on his neighbor’s dignity. That -I might not seem to be hurrying, I asked if his friend kept watch-dogs. -He assured me the neighbor could not afford them. - -The night with the man around the corner was like a chapter from that -curious document, “The Gospel according to St. John.” He “could not -afford to turn a man away” because once he slept three nights in the -rain when he walked here from west Georgia. No one would give him -shelter. After that he decided that when he had a roof he would go -shares with whoever asked. Some strangers were good, some bad, but he -would risk them all. Imagine this amplified in the drawling wheeze of -the cracker sucking his corn-cob pipe for emphasis. - -His real name and address are of no consequence. I found later that -there were thousands like him. But let us call him “The Man Under the -Yoke.” He was lean as an old opium-smoker. He was sooty as a pair of -tongs. His Egyptian-mummy jaws had a two-weeks’ beard. His shirt had -not been washed since the flood. His ankles were innocent of socks. His -hat had no band. I verily believe his pipe was hereditary, smoked first -by a bond-slave in Jamestown, Virginia. - -He could not read. I presume his wife could not. They were much -embarrassed when I wanted them to show me Lakeland on the map. They had -warned me against that village as a place where itinerant strangers -were shot full of holes. Well, I found that town pretty soon on the -map, and made the brief, snappy memorandum in my note-book: “Avoid -Lakeland.” - -There were three uncertain chairs on the porch, one a broken rocker. -Therefore the company sat on the railing, loafing against the pillars. -The plump wife was frozen with diffidence. The genial, stubby neighbor, -a man from away back in the woods, after telling me how to hop -freight-cars, departed through an aperture in the wandering fence. - -The two babies on the floor, squealing like shoats, succeeded in being -good without being clean. They wrestled with the puppies who emerged -from somewhere to the number of four. I wondered if the Man Under the -Yoke would turn to a dog-man when the puppies grew up and learned to -bark. - -Supper was announced with the admonition, “Bring the chairs.” The -rocking chair would not fit the kitchen table. Therefore the two babies -occupied one, and the lord of the house another, and the kitchen chair -was allotted to your servant. The mother hastened to explain that she -was “not hungry.” After snuffing the smoking lamp that had no chimney, -she paced at regular intervals between the stove and her lord, piling -hot biscuits before him. - -I could not offer my chair, and make it plain that some one must stand. -I expressed my regrets at her lack of appetite and fell to. Their -hospitality did not fade in my eyes when I considered that they ate -such provisions every day. There was a dish of salt pork that tasted -like a salt mine. We had one deep plate in common containing a soup of -luke-warm water, tallow, half-raw fat pork and wilted greens. This dish -was innocent of any enhancing condiment. I turned to the biscuit pile. - -They were raw in the middle. I kept up courage by watching the children -consume the tallow soup with zest. After taking one biscuit for meat, -and one for vegetables, I ate a third for good-fellowship. The mother -was anxious that her children should be a credit, and shook them too -sternly and energetically I thought, when they buried their hands in -the main dish. - -Meanwhile the Man Under the Yoke told me how his bosses in the -lumber-camp kept his wages down to the point where the grocery bill -took all his pay; how he was forced to trade at the “company” store, -there in the heart of the pine woods. He had cut himself in the -saw-pit, had been laid up for a month, and “like a fool” had gone back -to the same business. Last year he had saved a little money, expecting -to get things “fixed up nice,” but the whole family was sick from June -till October. He liked his fellow-workmen. They had to stand all he -did. They loved the woods, and because of this love would not move to -happier fortunes. Few had gone farther than Jacksonville. They did -not understand travelling. They did not understand the traveller and -were “likely to be mean to him.” Then he asked me whether I thought -“niggers” had souls. I answered “Yes.” He agreed reluctantly. “They -have a soul, of course, but it’s a mighty small one.” We adjourned to -the front room, carrying our chairs down a corridor, where the open -doorways we passed displayed uncarpeted floors and no furniture. The -echo of the slow steps of the Man Under the Yoke reverberated through -the wide house like muffled drums at a giant’s funeral. Yet the -largeness of the empty house was wealth. I have been entertained since -in many a poorer castle; for instance, in Tennessee, where a deaf -old man, a crone, and her sister, a lame man, a slug of a girl, and a -little unexplained boy ate, cooked, and slept by an open fire. They had -neither stove, lamp, nor candle. I was made sacredly welcome for the -night, though it was a one-room cabin with a low roof and a narrow door. - -Thanks to the Giver of every good and perfect gift, pine-knots cost -nothing in a pine forest. New York has no such fireplaces as that in -the front room of the Man Under the Yoke. I thought of an essay by a -New England sage on compensation. There were many old scriptures rising -in my heart as I looked into that blaze. The one I remembered most was -“I was a stranger, and ye took me in.” But though it was Sunday night, -I did not quote Scripture to my host. - -It was seven o’clock. The wife had put her babies to bed. She sat on -the opposite side of the fire from us. Eight o’clock was bedtime, the -host had to go to work so early. But our three hearts were bright as -the burning pine for an hour. - -You have enjoyed the golden embossed brocades of Hokusai. You have -felt the charm of Maeterlinck’s “The Blind.” Think of these, then think -of the shoulders of the Man Under the Yoke, embossed by the flame. -Think of his voice as an occult instrument, while he burned a bit of -crackling brush, and spoke of the love he bore that fireplace, the -memory of evenings his neighbors had spent there with him, the stories -told, the pipes smoked, the good silent times with wife and children. -It was said by hints, and repetitions, and broken syllables, but it -was said. We ate and drank in the land of heart’s desire. This man and -his wife sighed at the fitting times, and smiled, when to smile was to -understand, while I recited a few of the rhymes of the dear singers -of yesterday and to-day: Yeats and Lanier, Burns and even Milton. -This fire was the treasure at the end of the rainbow. I had not been -rainbow-chasing in vain. - -As my host rose and knocked out his pipe, he told how interesting -lumbering with oxen could be made, if a man once understood how they -were driven. He assured me that the most striking thing in all these -woods was a team of ten oxen. He directed me to a road whereby I would -be sure to see half a dozen to-morrow. He said if ever I met a literary -man, to have him write them into verses. Therefore the next day I -took the route and observed: and be sure, if ever I meet the proper -minstrel, I shall exhort him with all my strength to write the poem of -the yoke. - -As to that night, I slept in that room in the corner away from the -fireplace. One comfort was over me, one comfort and pillow between me -and the dark floor. The pillow was laundered at the same time as the -shirt of my host. There was every reason to infer that the pillow and -comfort came from his bed. - -They slept far away, in some mysterious part of the empty house. I -hoped they were not cold. I looked into the rejoicing fire. I said: -“This is what I came out into the wilderness to see. This man had -nothing, and gave me half of it, and we both had abundance.” - - - - -THE MAN WITH THE APPLE-GREEN EYES - - -REMEMBER, if you go a-wandering, the road will break your heart. It -is sometimes like a woman, caressing and stabbing at once. It is a -mystery, this quality of the road. I write, not to explain, but to -warn, and to give the treatment. Comradeship and hospitality are -opiates most often at hand. - -I remember when I encountered the out-poured welcome of an Old -Testament Patriarch, a praying section boss in a gray log village, one -Monday evening in north Florida. He looked at me long. He sensed my -depression. He made me his seventh son. - -He sent his family about to announce my lecture in the schoolhouse -on “The Value of Poetry.” Enough apple-cheeked maidens, sad mothers, -and wriggling, large-eyed urchins assembled to give an unconscious -demonstration of the theme. - -The little lamp spluttered. The windows rattled. Two babies cried. -Everybody assumed that lectures were delightful, miserable, and -important. The woman on the back seat nursed her baby, reducing the -noise one-third. When I was through shouting, they passed the hat. -I felt sure I had carried my point. Poetry was eighty-three cents -valuable, a good deal for that place. And the sons of the Patriarch -were the main contributors, for before the event he had thunderously -exhorted them to be generous. I should not have taken the money? But -that was before I had a good grip on my rule. - -The Patriarch was kept away by a neighbor who had been seized with fits -on Sunday, while fishing. The neighbor though mending physically, was -in a state of apprehension. He demanded, with strong crying and tears, -that the Patriarch pray with him. Late in the evening, as we were about -the hearth, recovering from the lecture, my host returned from the -sinner’s bed, the pride of priesthood in his step. He had established -a contrite heart in his brother, though all the while frank with him -about the doubtful efficacy of prayer in healing a body visited with -just wrath. - -Who would not have loved the six sons, when, at the Patriarch’s -command, they drew into a circle around the family altar, with their -small sister, and the gentle mother with her babe at her breast? It -was an achievement to put the look of prayer into such flushed, wilful -faces as those boys displayed. They followed their father with the -devotion of an Ironside regiment as he lifted up his voice singing “The -Son of God goes forth to War.” They rolled out other strenuous hymns. -I thought they would sing through the book. I looked at the mother. -I thanked God for her. She was the only woman in Florida who could -cook. And her voice was honey. Her breast was ivory. The child was a -pearl. Her whole aspect had the age and the youth of one of De Forest -Brush’s austere American madonnas. The scripture lesson, selected not -by chance, covered the adventures of Jacob at Bethel. - -We afterwards knelt on the pine floor, our heads in the seats of the -chairs. I peeped and observed the Patriarch with his chair almost in -the fireplace. He ignored the heat. He shouted the name of the smallest -boy, who answered the roll-call by praying: “Now I lay me down to -sleep.” The father megaphoned for the next, and the next, with a like -response. He called the girl’s name, but in a still small voice she -lisped the Lord’s Prayer. As the older boys were reached, the prayers -became individual, but containing fragments of “Now I lay me.” The -mother petitioned for the soul of the youngest boy, not yet in a state -of grace, for a sick cousin, and many a neighborhood cause. The father -prayed twenty minutes, while the chair smoked. I forgot the chair at -last when he voiced the petition that the stranger in the gates might -have visitations on his lonely road, like Jacob at Bethel. Then a -great appeal went up the chimney that the whole assembly might bear -abundantly the fruits of the spirit. The fire leaped for joy. I knew -that when the prayer appeared before the throne, it was still a tongue -of flame. - - * * * * * - -Next morning I spent about seventy cents lecture money on a railway -ticket, and tried to sleep past my destination, but the conductor woke -me. He put me off in the Okefenokee swamp, just inside the Georgia -line. The waters had more brass-bespangled ooze than in mid-Florida; -the marsh weeds beneath were lustrous red. I crossed an interminable -trestle over the Suwannee River. A fidgety bird was scolding from -tie to tie. If the sky had been turned over and the azure boiled to -a spoonful, you would have had the intense blue with which he was -painted. If the caldron had been filled with sad clouds, and boiled to -a black lump, you would have had my heart. Ungrateful, I had forgotten -the Patriarch. I was lonely for I knew not what; maybe for my friend -Edward Broderick, who had walked with me through central Florida, and -had been called to New York by the industrial tyranny which the steel -rails represented even here. - -We two had taken the path beside the railway in the regions of Sanford -and Tampa, walking in loose sand white as salt. An orange grove in -twilight had been a sky of little moons. We had eaten not many oranges. -They are expensive there. But we had stolen the souls of all we passed, -and so had spoiled them for their owners. It had been an exquisite -revenge. - -We had seen swamps of parched palmettos set afire by wood-burning -locomotives whose volcanic smoke-stacks are squat and wide, like those -on the engines in grandmother’s third reader. - -We had met Mr. Terrapin, Mr. Owl, Mrs. Cow, and Master Calf, all of -them carved by the train-wheels, Mr. Buzzard sighing beside them. We -had met Mr. Pig again at the cracker’s table, cooked by last year’s -forest-fire, run over by last year’s train. But what had it mattered? -For we together had had ears for the mocking-bird, and eyes for the -moss-hung live oaks that mourn above the brown swamp waters. - -We had met few men afoot, only two professional tramps, yet the path by -the railway was clearly marked. Some Florida poet must celebrate the -Roman directness of the railways embanked six feet above the swamp, -going everywhere in regions that have no wagon-roads. - -But wherever in our land there is a railway, there is a little path -clinging to the embankment holding the United States in a network as -real as that of the rolled steel,--a path wrought by the foot of the -unsubdued. This path wanders back through history till it encounters -Tramp Columbus, Tramp Dante, Tramp St. Francis, Tramp Buddha, and the -rest of our masters. - -All this we talked of nobly, even grandiloquently, but now I walked -alone, ignoring the beautiful turpentine forests of Georgia and the -sometime accepted merits of a quest for the Grail, the Gleam, or the -Dark Tower. Reaching Fargo about one o’clock I attempted to telegraph -for money to take me home, beaten. It was not a money-order office, and -thirteen cents would not have covered the necessary business details. -Forced to make the best of things, I spent all upon ginger-snaps at -the combination grocery-store and railway-station. I shared them with -a drummer waiting for the freight, who had the figure of Falstaff, and -the mustaches of Napoleon third. I did not realize at that time, that -by getting myself penniless I was inviting good luck. - -After a dreary while, the local freight going to Valdosta came in. -Napoleon advanced to capture a ride. A conductor and an inspector were -on the platform. He attacked them with cigars. He indulged freely in -friendly swearing and slapping on the back. He showed credentials, -printed and written. He did not want to wait three hours for the -passenger train in that much-to-be-condemned town. His cigars were -refused, his papers returned. He took the path to the lumberman’s -hotel. His defeat appeared to be the inspector’s doing. - -That obstinate inspector wore a gray stubble beard and a collar chewed -by many laundries. He was encompassed in a black garment of state that -can be described as a temperance overcoat. He needed only a bulging -umbrella and a nose like a pump-spout to resemble the caricatures of -the Prohibition Party that appeared in _Puck_ when St. John ran for -President. - -I showed him all my baggage carried in an oil-cloth wrapper in my -breast pocket: a blue bandanna, a comb, a little shaving mirror, a -tooth-brush, a razor, and a piece of soap. “These,” I said, “are my -credentials.” - -Also I showed a little package of tracts in rhyme I was distributing to -the best people: _The Wings of the Morning_, or _The Tree of Laughing -Bells_.[1] I hinted he might become the possessor of one. I drew his -attention to the fact that there was no purse in the exhibit. I divided -my last four ginger-snaps with him. I showed him a letter commending me -to all pious souls from a leading religious worker in New York, Charles -F. Powlison. - -_Soon we were thundering away to Valdosta!_ Mr. Temperance climbed to -the observation chair in the little box at the top of the caboose, -alternately puzzling over my _Wings of the Morning_,[2] and looking -out. The caboose bumped like a farm-wagon on a frozen road. The -pine-burning stove roared. The negro Adonis on the wood-pile had gold -in his teeth. He had eyes like dark jewels set in white marble, and he -polished lanterns as black as himself. - -“By Jove,” I said. “That’s the handsomest bit of lacquer this side of -the Metropolitan Museum.” - -“’Sh,” said Conductor Roundface, sobering himself. “You will queer -yourself with the old man. He wouldn’t let that drummer on because _he_ -swore.” - -The old man came down. I bridled my profane tongue while he lectured -the conductor on the necessity for more interest in the Georgia -public schools, and the beauty of total abstinence, and, at last, the -Japanese situation. This is a condensed translation of his speech: -“I was on the side of the Russians all through the Russo-Japanese -war. My friends said, ‘Hooray for Japan.’ But I say a Japanese is a -nigger. I have never seen one, but I have seen their pictures. The -Lord intended people to stay where they were put. We ought to have -trade, but no immigration. Chinese belong to China. They are adapted -to the Chinese climate. Niggers belong to Africa. They are adapted to -the African climate. Americans belong to America. They are adapted to -the American climate. Why, the mixing that is going on is something -scandalous. I had a nigger working for me once that was half-Spaniard -and half-Indian. There are just a few white people, and more mulattoes -every day. The white people ought to keep their blood pure. Russians -are white people. Germans, English, and Americans are white people. -French people are niggers. Dagoes are niggers. Jews are niggers. All -people are niggers but just these four. There is going to be a big war -in two or three years between all the white people and all the niggers. -The niggers are going to combine and force a fight, Japan in the lead.” - -We reached Valdosta after dark. Conductor and inspector exchanged with -me most civil good-bys. Their hospitality had been nepenthe for my poor -broken heart. I reconciled myself to sitting in front of the station -fireplace all night. I thought my nearest friend was at Macon, one -hundred and fifty miles north; a gay cavalier who had read Omar Khayyam -with me in college. - -Just then an immense, angular, red-haired man sat down in front -of the fire. He might have been the prodigal son of some Yankee -farmer-statesman. He threw his arms around me, and though I had never -seen him before, the Brotherhood of Man was established at once. He -cast an empty bottle into the wood-box. He produced another. I would -not drink. He poured down one-half of it. It snorted like dish-water -going into the sink. He said: “That’s right. Don’t drink. This is -the first time I ever drank. I have been on a soak two weeks. You see -I was in Texas a long time, and went broke. I don’t know how I got -here.” “Well,” I said, “we have this fire till they run us out. Enjoy -yourself.” - -He wept. “I don’t deserve to enjoy anything. Anybody that’s made a fool -of himself as I have done. I wish I were in Vermont where my wife and -babies are buried. Somebody wrote me they were dead and buried just -when I went broke.” - -Thereafter he was merry. “There was a man in Vermont I didn’t like who -kept a fire like this. I went to see him every evening because I liked -his fire. He would study and I would smoke.” - -He took out two dimes. “Say, that’s my last money. Let’s buy two -tickets to the next station and get off and shoot up the town.” - -A hollow-eyed little man of middle age, grimy like a coal-miner, sat -down on the other side of Mr. Vermont. He said he had been flagging -trains for so long he could not tell when he began. He said he must -wait three hours for a friend. He declined the bottle. He listened to -Mr. Vermont’s story, told with variations. He put his chin into his -hands, his elbows on his knees, and slept. Vermont threw himself on -top of the bent back, his face wrapped in his arms, like a school-boy -asleep on his desk-lid. Mr. Flagman slowly awoke, and cast off his -brother, and slept again. Cautiously Vermont waited, to resume his -pillow in a quarter of an hour, and be again cast off. - -Mr. Flagman sat up. I asked him if there was a train for Macon going -soon. He said: “The through freight is making up now.” He gave me the -conductor’s name. I asked if there was any one about who could write me -a pass to Macon. He said, “The pay car has just come in, and Mr. Grady -can give you a pass if he wants to.” I went out to the tracks. - -From a little window at the end of the car Mr. Grady was paying the -interminable sons of Ham, who emerged from the African night, climbed -the steps, received their envelopes, and slunk down the steps into the -African night. - -At last I showed Mr. Grady my letter from Charles F. Powlison. Mr. -Grady did not appear to be of a religious turn. I asked him permission -to ride to Macon in the caboose of the freight, going out at one -o’clock. I assured him it was beneath my dignity to crawl into the -box-car, or patronize the blind baggage, and I was tired of walking in -swamp. Mr. Grady asked, “Are you an official of the road?” - -“No, sir.” - -“Then what you ask is impossible, sir.” - -“Oh, my dear Mr. Grady, it is not impossible--” - -“I am glad to have met you, sir. Good-night, sir,” and Mr. Grady had -shut the window. - -There was the smash, clang, and thud of making up a train. A negro -guided me to the lantern of a freight conductor. The conductor had -the lean frame, the tight jaw, the fox nose, the Chinese skin of a -card-shark. He would have made a name for himself on the Spanish Main, -some centuries since, by the cool way he would have snatched jewels -from ladies’ ears and smiled when they bled. He did not smile now. He -gripped his lantern like a cutlass, and the cars groaned. They were -gentlemen in armor compelled to walk the plank by this pirate with the -apple-green eyes. We will call him Mr. Shark. - -I put my pious letter into my pocket. “Mr. Shark, I would like to -ride to Macon in the caboose.” Mr. Shark thrust his lantern under -my hat-brim. I had no collar, but was not ashamed of that. He said, -“I have met men like you before.” He turned down the track shouting -orders. I jumped in front of him. I said, “You are mistaken. You have -not met a man like me before. I am the goods. I am the wise boy from -New York. I have been walking in every swamp in Florida, eating dead -pig for breakfast, water-moccasins for lunch, alligators for dinner. I -would like to tell you my adventures.” - -Mr. Shark ignored me, and went on persecuting the train. - -Valdosta was a depot in the midst of darkness. I hated the darkness. I -went into the depot. Vermont was offering Flagman the bottle. He drank. - -Flagman asked me: “Can’t you make it?” - -“No. Grady turned me down. And the conductor turned me down.” - -Mr. Flagman said, “The sure way to ride in a caboose like a gentleman -is to ask the conductor like he is a gentleman, and everybody else -is a gentleman, and when he turns you down, ask him again like a -gentleman.” And much more with that refrain. It was wisdom lightly -given, profounder than it seemed. Let us remember the tired flagman, -and engrave the substance of his saying on our souls. - -I sought the pirate again. I took off my hat. I bowed like Don Cæsar De -Bazan, but gravely. “I ask you, just as one gentleman to another, to -take me to Macon. I have friends in Macon.” - -Mr. Shark showed a pale streak of smile. “Come around at one o’clock.” - -My “Thank you” was drowned by a late passenger. It came from Fargo, for -Napoleon III dismounted. He said: “Hello. Where are you going, boy?” - -“I am just taking the caboose of the through freight for Macon. But I -have a few minutes.” - -“How the devil did you get here, sir?” I told him the story in brief. -We were in front of the fire now. “How are you going to make this next -train? I would like to go with you.” - -I could not tell whether he meant it or not. Right beside us Mr. -Flagman was asleep for all night, with his elbows on his knees, his -chin in his hands. Stretched above Flagman’s back was Mr. Vermont, like -a school-boy asleep on his desk. I said, “Do you see the gentleman on -the bottom of the pile? He is the Grand Lama of Cabooseville. You have -to ask him for the password. The man on top is the sublime sub-Lama.” - -Napoleon looked dubiously at them, and the two bottles in the wood-box. -He gave me good words of farewell, finishing with mock-gravity: “Of -course I respect you, sir, in not giving the password without orders -from your superior, sir.” - -And now I boarded the caboose, hurrying to surprise the Macon cavalier. -He expected me in three weeks, walking. But the caboose did one hundred -and fifty miles in thirteen hours, and all the way my heart spun like -a glorified musical top. Alas, this is a tale of drink. I filled the -coffee-pot and drained it an infinite number of times, all because my -poor broken heart was healed. The stove was the only person in the -world out of humor. He was mad because his feet were nailed to the -floor. He tried to spill the coffee, and screamed, “Now you’ve done -it” every time we rounded a curve. The caboose-door slammed open every -seven minutes, Shark and his white man and his negro rushing in from -their all-night work for refreshment. - -The manner of serving coffee in a caboose is this: there are three -tin cups for the white men. The negro can chew sugar-cane, or steal -a drink when we do not look. There is a tin box of sugar. If one is -serving Mr. Shark, one shakes a great deal of sugar into the cup, and -more down one’s sleeve, and into one’s shoes and about the rocking -floor. One becomes sprinkled like a doughnut, newly-fried, and fragrant -with splashed coffee. The cinders that come in on the breath of the -shrieking night cling to the person. But if you are serving Mr. Shark -you do not mind these things. You pour his drink, you eat his bread and -cheese, thanking him from the bottom of your stomach, not having eaten -anything since the ginger-snaps of long ago. You solemnly touch your -cup to his, as you sit with him on the red disembowelled car cushions, -with the moss gushing out. You wish him the treasure-heaps of Aladdin -or a racing stable in Ireland, whichever he pleases. - -Let all the readers of this tale who hope to become Gentlemen of the -Road take off collars and cuffs, throw their purses into the ditch, -break their china, and drink their coffee from tinware to the health -of Mr. Shark, our friend with the apple-green eyes. Yea, my wanderers, -the cure for the broken heart is gratitude to the gentleman you would -hate, if you had your collar on or your purse in your pocket when you -met him. Though there was heavy betting against him, he becomes the -Hero in a whirlwind finish. Patriarch and Flagman disputing for second, -decision for Flagman. - - - - -THE WOULD-BE MERMAN - - - MOBS are like the Gulf Stream, - Like the vast Atlantic. - In your fragile boats you ride, - Conceited folk at ease. - Far beneath are dancers, - Mermen wild and frantic, - Circling round the giant glowing - Sea-anemones. - - “Crude, ill-smelling voters,-- - Herds,” to you in seeming. - But to me their draggled clothes - Are scales of gold and red. - Ah, the pink sea-horses, - Green sea-dragons gleaming, - And knights that chase the dragons - And spear them till they’re dead! - - Wisdom waits the diver - In the social ocean-- - Rainbow shells of wonder, - Piled into a throne. - I would go exploring - Through the wide commotion, - Building under some deep cliff - A pearl-throne all my own. - - Yesterday I dived there, - Grinned at all the roaring, - Clinging to the corals for a flash, - Defying death. - Mermen came rejoicing, - In procession pouring, - Yet I lost my feeble grip - And came above for breath. - - I would be a merman. - Not in desperation - A momentary diver - Blue for lack of air. - But with gills deep-breathing - Swim amid the nation-- - Finny feet and hands forsooth, - Sea-laurels in my hair. - - - - -MACON - - -THE languid town of Macon, Georgia, will ever remain in my mind as my -first island of respite after vagrancy. My friend C. D. Russell lent -me his clothes, took me to his eating-place, introduced his circle. -We settled the destiny of the universe several different ways in -peripatetic discourse. - -After one has ventured one hundred and fifty miles through everglades -and spent twenty-four sleepless hours riding in freight-cabooses the -marrow of his bones is marsh, his hair and clothes are moss, cinders -and bark, his immortal soul is engine-smoke. Feeling just so, I had -entered Russell’s law office. He was at court. I sent word by his -partner that I had gone to school with him in Ohio, that I had mailed -a postal last Sunday from Florida telling him I would arrive afoot -in three weeks,--but here I was, already. The word was carried with -Southern precision. - -“There is a person in the office who went to school with you in -Indiana.” - -“I did not go to school in Indiana.” - -“He has been walking in Mississippi and Alabama. He wrote you a postal -six weeks ago.” - -“How does he look?” - -“Like the devil. He is principally pants and shirt.” - -The cavalier knew who that was. He found me, took me to his castle, -introduced civilization. CIVILIZATION is whiter than the clouds, and -full of clear water. One enters it with a plunge. CULTURE is a fuzzy -fabric with which one rubs in CIVILIZATION. After I had been intimate -with these, I was admitted to SOCIETY: a suit of the cavalier’s -clothes. I looked like him then, all but head and hands. I regarded -myself with awe, as a gorilla would if he found himself fading into a -Gibson picture. - -A chair is a sturdy creature. I wonder who captured the first one? -Who put out its eyes and taught it to stand still? A table-cloth -is ritualistic. How nobly the napkin defends the vest, while those -glistening birds, the knife, the fork, the spoon, bring one food. - -How did these things to eat get here among these hundreds of houses? -One would think that if anything to eat were brought among so many men, -there would be enough hungry ones to kill each other and spoil it with -blood. - -Why do people stop eating when they have had just a bit? Why not go on -forever? - -We were in another room. The cavalier showed on the table what he -called his Bible: the letters of Lord Chesterfield. To one who has -not slept in all his life, who has lived a thousand years on freight -trains, books do not count much. But how ingenious is a white iron bed, -how subtle are pillows, how overwhelming is sleep! - - - - -THE FALLS OF TALLULAH - -(North Georgia) - - -I - -THE CALL OF THE WATER - -THE dust of many miles was upon me. I felt uncouth in the presence -of the sun-dried stones. Here was a natural bathing-place. Who could -resist it? - -I climbed further down the cañon, holding to the bushes. The cliff -along which the water rushed to the fall’s foot was smooth and seemed -artificially made, though it had been so hewn by the fury of the -cataclysm in ages past. - -I took off my clothes and put my shoulders against the granite, being -obliged to lean back a little to conform to its angle. I was standing -with my left shoulder almost touching the perilous main column of -water. A little fall that hurried along by itself a bit nearer -the bank flowed over me. It came with headway. Though it looked so -innocent, I could scarcely hold up against its power. - -But it gave me delight to maintain myself. The touch of the stone was -balm to my walk-worn body and dust-fevered feet. Like a sacerdotal robe -the water flowed over my shoulders and I thought myself priest of the -solitude. - -I stepped out into the air. With unwonted energy I was able to throw -off the coldness of my wet frame. The water there at the fall’s foot -was like a thousand elves singing. “Joy to all creatures!” cried the -birds. “Joy to all creatures! Glory, glory, glory to the wild falls!” - - -II - -THE PIPING OF PAN - -I was getting myself sunburned, stretched out on the warm dry rocks. -Down over the steep edge, somewhere near the foot of the next descent I -heard the pipes of Pan. Why should I dress and go? - -I made my shoes and clothes into a bundle, and threw them down the -cliff and climbed over, clinging to the steep by mere twigs. I seemed -to hear the piping as I approached the terrace at the fall’s base. Then -the sound of music blended with the stream’s strange voice and I turned -to merge myself again with its waters. - -Against the leaning wall of the cliff I placed my shoulders. The -descending current smote me, wrestling with wildwood laughter, -threatening to crush me and hurl me to the base of the mountain. But -just as before my feet were well set in a notch of the cliff that went -across the stream, cut there a million years ago. - -It was a curious combination to discover, this stream-wide notch, and -above it this wall with the water spread like a crystal robe over -it. In the centre of the fall a Cyclops could have stood to bathe, -and on the edge was the same provision in miniature for feeble man. -And it was the more curious to find this plan repeated in detail by -successive cataracts of the cañon, unmistakably wrought by the slow -hand of geologic ages. And to see the water of the deep central stream -undisturbed in the midst of the fall and still crystalline, and to see -it slide down the steep incline and strike each notch at the foot with -sudden music and appalling foam, was more wonderful than the simple -telling can explain. - -Each sheet of crystal that came over my shoulders seemed now to pour -into them rather than over them. I lifted my mouth and drank as a -desert bird drinks rain. My downstretched arms and extended fingers and -the spreading spray seemed one. My heart with its exultant blood seemed -but the curve of a cataract over the cliff of my soul. - - -III - -PERIL, VANITY, AND ADORATION - -Led by the pipes of Pan, I again descended. Once more that sound, -almost overtaken, interwove itself with the water’s cry, and I merged -body and soul with the stream and the music. The margin of another -cataract crashed upon me. In the recklessness of pleasure, one arm -swung into the main current. Then the water threatened my life. To save -myself, I was kneeling on one knee. I reached out blindly and found -a hold at last in a slippery cleft, and later, it seemed an age, with -the other hand I was able to reach one leaf. The leaf did not break. At -last its bough was in my grasp and I crawled frightened into the sun. I -sat long on a warm patch of grass. - -But the cliffs and the water were not really my enemies. They sent a -wind to give me delight. Never was the taste of the air so sweet as -then. The touch of it was on my lips like fruit. There was a flattery -in the tree-limbs bending near my shoulders. They said, “There is -brotherhood in your footfall on our roots and the touch of your hand on -our boughs.” - -The spray of the splashed foam was wine. I was the unchallenged -possessor of all of nature my body and soul could lay hold upon. It -was the fair season between spring and summer when no one came to -this place. Like Selkirk, I was monarch of all I surveyed. In my -folly I seemed to feel strange powers creeping into my veins from the -sod. I forgot my near-disaster. I said in my heart, “O Mother Earth -majestical, the touch of your creatures has comforted me, and I feel -the strength of the soil creeping up into my dust. From this patch of -soft grass, power and courage come up into me from your bosom, from the -foundation of your continents. I feel within me the soul of iron from -your iron mines, and the soul of lava from your deepest fires.” - - -IV - -THE BLOOD UNQUENCHABLE - -The satyrs in the bushes were laughing at me and daring me to try the -water again. - -I stood on the edge of the rapids where were many stones coming up out -of the foam. I threw logs across. The rocks held them in place. I lay -down between the logs in the liquid ice. I defied it heartily. And my -brother the river had mercy upon me, and slew me not. - -Amid the shout of the stream the birds were singing: “Joy, joy, joy to -all creatures, and happiness to the whole earth. Glory, glory, glory to -the wild falls.” - -I struggled out from between the logs and threw my bundle over the -cliff, and again descended, for I heard the pipes of Pan, just below me -there, too plainly for delay. They seemed to say “Look! Here is a more -exquisite place.” - -The sun beat down upon me. I felt myself twin brother to the sun. -My body was lit with an all-conquering fever. I had walked through -tropical wildernesses for many a mile, gathering sunshine. And now in -an afternoon I was gambling my golden heat against the icy silver of -the river and winning my wager, while all the leaves were laughing on -all the trees. - -And again I stood in a Heaven-prepared place, and the water poured in -glory upon my shoulders. - - * * * * * - -Why was it so dark? Was a storm coming? I was dazed as a child in the -theatre beholding the crowd go out after the sudden end of a solemn -play. My clothes, it appeared, were half on. I was kneeling, looking -up. I counted the falls to the top of the cañon. It was night, and I -had wrestled with them all. My spirit was beyond all reason happy. -This was a day for which I had not planned. I felt like one crowned. -My blood was glowing like the blood of the crocus, the blood of -the tiger-lily. And so I meditated, and then at last the chill of -weariness began to touch me and in my heart I said, “Oh Mother Earth, -for all my vanity, I know I am but a perishable flower in a cleft of -the rock. I give thanks to you who have fed me the wild milk of this -river, who have upheld me like a child of the gods throughout this day.” - -Around a curve in the cañon, down stream, growing each moment sweeter, -I heard the pipes of Pan. - - -V - -THE GIFT OF TALLULAH - -Go, you my brothers, whose hearts are in sore need of delight, and -bathe in the falls of Tallulah. That experience will be for the -foot-sore a balm, for the languid a lash, for the dry-throated pedant -the very cup of nature. To those crushed by the inventions of cities, -wounded by evil men, it will be a washing away of tears and of blood. -Yea, it will be to them all, what it was to my heart that day, the -sweet, sweet blowing of the reckless pipes of Pan. - - - - -THE GNOME - - -LET us now recall a certain adventure among the moonshiners. - -When I walked north from Atlanta Easter morning, on Peachtree road, -orchards were flowering everywhere. Resurrection songs flew across the -road from humble blunt steeples. - -Stony Mountain, miles to the east, Kenesaw on the western edge of -things, and all the rest of the rolling land made the beginning of a -gradual ascent by which I was to climb the Blue Ridge. The road mounted -the watershed between the Atlantic and the gulf. - -An old man took me into his wagon for a mile. I asked what sort of -people I would meet on the Blue Ridge. He answered, “They make blockade -whisky up there. But if you don’t go around hunting stills by the -creeks, or in the woods away from the road, they’ll be awful glad to -see you. They are all moonshiners, but if they likes a man they loves -him, and they’re as likely to get to lovin’ you as not.” - -When I was truly in the mountains, six days north of Atlanta, a day’s -journey from the last struggling railway, the road wound into a certain -high, uninhabited valley. Two days back, at a village I entered just -after I had enjoyed the falls of Tallulah, I had found a letter from -my new friend John Collier whom I had met in Macon and Atlanta. It -contained a little money, which he insisted I should take, to make -easier my way. I was inconsistent enough to spend some of it, instead -of returning it or giving it “to the poor.” - -I invested seventy-five cents in brogans made of the thickest leather. -I had thought they were conquered the first day. But now one of them -bit a piece out of my heel. John Collier has done noble things since. -On my behalf, for instance, he climbed Mount Mitchell with me, and -showed me half the glory of the South. Then and after, he has helped -my soul with counsel and teaching. But he should not have corrupted a -near-Franciscan with money for hoodoo brogans. Though it was fairly -warm weather, if ever I rested five minutes, the heavy things -stiffened like cooling metal. - -The little streams I crossed scarcely afforded me a drink. Their dried -borders had the foot-prints of swine on them. - -Lameness affects one’s vision. The thick woods were the dregs of the -landscape, fit haunt for the acorn-grubbing sow. The road following the -ridges was a monster’s spine. - -Those wicked brogans led me where they should not. Or maybe it was just -my destiny to find what I found. - -About four o’clock in the afternoon, after exploring many roads that -led to futile nothing, I was on what seemed the main highway, and -dragged myself into the sight of the first mortal since daybreak. He -seemed like a gnome as he watched me across the furrows. And so he -was, despite his red-ripe cheeks. The virginal mountain apple-tree, -blossoming overhead, half covering the toad-like cabin, was out of -place. It should have been some fabulous, man-devouring devil-bush from -the tropics, some monstrous work of the enemies of God. - -The child, just in her teens, helping the Gnome to plant sweet -potatoes, had in her life planted many, and eaten few. Or so it -appeared. She was a crouching lump of earth. Her father dug the furrow. -She did the planting, shovelling the dirt with her hands. Her face was -sodden as any in the slums of Chicago. She ran to the house a ragged -girl, and came back a homespun girl, a quick change. It must not be -counted against her that she did not wash her face. - -The Gnome talked to me meanwhile. He had made up his mind about me. “I -guess you want to stay all night?” - -“Yes.” - -“The next house is fifteen miles away. You are welcome if what we have -is good enough for you. My wife is sick, but she will not let you be -any bother.” - -I wanted to be noble and walk on. But I persuaded myself my feet were -as sick as the woman. I accepted the Gnome’s invitation. - -Let the readers with a detective instinct note that his hoe-handle was -two feet short, and had been whittled a little around the top to make -it usable. It was at best an awkward instrument. (The mystery will soon -be solved.) - -We were met at the door by one my host called Brother Joseph--a -towering shape with an upper lip like a walrus, for it was armed with -tusk-like mustaches. He was silent as King Log. - -But the Gnome said, “I have saved up a month of talk since the last -stranger came through.” With ease, with simplicity of word, with I know -not how much of guile, he gave fragments of his life: how he had lived -in this log house always, how his first wife died, how her children -were raised by this second wife and married off, how they now enjoyed -this second family. - -He showed me the other fragment of the hoe-handle. “I broke that over a -horse’s head the last time I was drunk. I always get crazy. When I come -to, I do not remember anything about it. The last time I fought with my -cousin. When I knocked down his horse he drew his knife. I drew _this_ -knife. My wife said I fought like a wild hog. I sliced my cousin pretty -bad. He skipped the country, for he cut out one of my lungs and two of -my ribs. I lost two buckets of blood. It took the doctor a long time to -put my insides back.” - -From this hour forward he struggled between the luxury of being even -more confidential, and the luxury of being cautious like a lynx. I -squirmed. Despite his abandon, he was watching me. - -I put one hand in my pocket. I found a diversion, a pair of eyeglasses. -I had chanced on them in the bushes at Tallulah. The droop of his -eyelids as he put them on was exquisite. He paced the floor. I had a -review of his appearance. He was like a thin twist of tobacco. He had -been burned out by too-sharp whisky. The babies clapped their hands -as he strutted. He was like a third-rate Sunday-school teacher in a -frock coat in the presence of the infant class. He was glad to keep -the glasses, yet asked questions with a double meaning, implying I had -stolen them in Atlanta, and fled these one hundred miles. We were gay -rogues, and we knew it. - -“Get up! Make some coffee and supper!” he shouted to the figure on -the bed in the black corner of the cabin. He kept his jaw tight on -his pipe, speaking to her in the gnome language. She replied in kind, -snorting and muffling her words, without moving lips or tongue, and -keeping her teeth on her snuff-stick. She stumbled up, groaning, with -both hands on her head. She had once been a woman. She had lived with -this thing too long. All the trappings that make for home had grown -stale and weird about her. The scraps of rag-carpet on the floor were -rat eaten. The red calico window curtains were vilely dirty from the -years of dust and the leak of many rains. The benches were battered, -unsteady. The door-latch was gone. The door was held in place by a -stone. She stood before me, her hair hanging straight across her face -or down her collar, or flying about or tied behind in a dreadful knot. -She stood before me, but as long as I was in that house she did not -look at me, she did not speak to me. - -There was no stove. The Gnome said: “Wife don’t like a stove. She had -rather cook the way she learned.” We rolled in the back-log for her and -coaxed up the embers. We sat at one side of the hearth. We exchanged -boastful adventures. She crawled into the fireplace to nurse the -corn-bread and coffee and pork to perfection and place the Dutch oven -right. - -Have you heard your grandmother speak of the Dutch oven? It is a squat -kettle which is set in the embers. When it is hot, the biscuit dough -is put in and the lid replaced. Slowly the biscuits become ambrosia. -Slowly the watching cook is baked. - -The Devil was in my host. By his coaxing hospitality he made it seem -natural that a woman deadly sick should serve us. The rest of the -family could wait. It did not matter if the tiny one cried and pulled -the mother’s skirt. She smote it into silence and fear, then carried -it to the black corner where the potato planter herded the rest of the -babies, helped by King Log, the walrus-headed. - -The Gnome said, “I quit drinking ever since I had that fight I told you -about. I don’t dare drink. So I take coffee.” - -You should have seen him flooding himself with black coffee, drinking -from a yellow bowl. I said to myself: “He will surely turn to the -consolation of liquor anon. He will beat his wife again. He will drive -his children into the woods. This woman must fight the battle for her -offspring till her black-snake hair is white. Or maybe that insane -knife will go suddenly into her throat. She may die soon with her hair -black,--and red.” - -We ate with manly leisure. We were sated. The mother prepared the -second meal, and called the group from the black corner. She made ready -her own supper. I see her by the fire, the heavy arm shielding her -face, the hunched figure a knot of roots,--a palpable mystery about -her, making her worthy of a portrait by some new Rembrandt. It is the -tragic mystery born of the isolation of the Blue Ridge and the juice of -the Indian corn. Let us not forget the weapon with which she fights the -flame, the quaint long shovel. - -Let us watch her at the table, breaking her corn-bread alone, her puffy -eyelids closed, her cheek-bones seeming to cut through the skin. There -is something of the eagle in her aspect because of her Roman nose, and -her hands moving like talons. It is not corn-bread that she tears and -devours. She is consuming her enemies, which are Weariness, Squalor, -Flat and Unprofitable Memory, Spiritual Death. She is seeking to forget -that the light of the hearthstone that falls on her dirty but beautiful -babies is kindled in hell. - -The Gnome spoke of his hogs. A Middle West farmer can talk hogs, and -the world will admire him the more. But a mediæval swine-herd dare not. -It is self-betrayal. - -My host grew affectionate, grandfatherly. He told of a solid acre of -mica on top of a mountain. He speculated that it was a mile deep. He -put a chunk into my pocket for me to carry to Asheville to interest -great capitalists. He offered me fifty per cent on the profits. I took -out a copy of the _Tree of Laughing Bells_ from my pocket. I reviewed -the tale contained in the book, in words I thought the Gnome would -understand. Then he read it for himself with the “specs.” He was proud -of having learned to read out of the Bible, with no schooling. - -He seemed particularly impressed with the length of the journey of the -hero of the poem, who flew “to the farthest star of all.” He looked at -me with conceited shrewdness. “I played hookey myself, when I was a -kid. I rode and walked forty-five miles that day. I was mighty glad to -get back to my mammy the day after. I never wanted to run away again.” -He shook his pipe at me. “You are just a runaway boy, that’s what you -are.” - -He said something favorable about me to his wife, in the gnome -language. She stood up. She shrilled back a caution. She showed her -dirty teeth at him. But there was something he was bursting to tell -me. He was essentially too reckless to conceal a secret long, even a -life-and-death secret. He began: “I still raise a little corn.” - -The Walrus gave a sort of watch-dog bark. The Gnome reluctantly -accepted the caution. He pointed sharply to the bed farthest from the -black corner of the room. - -“That’s for you.” - -“Isn’t there a shed or a corn-crib where I can sleep?” - -“No, you don’t get out of this house to-night. There aren’t any sheds -or cribs.” - -I looked helplessly around that single-roomed cabin. Not fear, but -modesty, overcame me. I was expected to retire first. But King Log, the -Walrus, perceiving my diffidence, set me an example. He rapidly hauled -a couch off the porch and tumbled into it, first undressing as far -as his underwear. With a quilt almost to his chin, and covering his -pretty pink feet, he was a decent spectacle. - -Happily I also wore underwear, and was soon under my quilt. I stole a -look at the potato planter. I realized that she was the maiden present. -Be pleased, O brothers, to observe that she has been aware of her age -and state. She has huddled up to the fire, with her back to us; she has -hidden her face on her knees. At last she piles ashes on the embers -and finds a place in the black corner in the cot full of children. Her -father and mother take the cot between. - -Next morning was Sunday, a week since Easter. Only when a man has sadly -mangled feet, and blood heated by many weeks of adventure, can he find -luxury such as I found in the icy stream next morning. The divine -rivulet on the far side of the field had been misnamed “Mud Creek.” It -was clear as a diamond. - -Always carrying a piece of soap in my hip pocket, I was able to take a -complete scour. Not content with this (pardon me), I did scrub shirt, -socks, underwear, and bandanna. I hung them on the bushes, thanking God -for the wind. Taking my before-mentioned credentials from my pocket, I -made myself into a gentleman. When I dressed at last, my clothes were a -little damp, but I knew that an hour’s walking would put all to rights. -As I held the bushes aside I saw a crib-like structure that made me -shake more than the damp clothes. Was it a still, or was it not a still? - -In my innocence I could not tell. But I remembered the warning, “Don’t -go pokin’ round huntin’ stills by the creeks.” - -As I hurried to the house my host carelessly appeared from the region -of my bathing-place. He was whittling with his historic knife. I -suppose he had noted my actions enough to restore his confidence. -Anyway, the shame of being unwashed was his only visible emotion. He -said, “I always bathe in hot water.” - -“So do I, when I am not on the road.” - -Still he was abashed. He took an enormous chew of tobacco to vindicate -himself. - -After breakfast the wife helped the Walrus to drag the cot out of -doors. When she was alone on the porch I told her how sorry I was she -had been obliged to cook for me. I thanked her for her toil. But she -hurried away, without a pause or a glance. She kissed one of those -miry faced babies. She walked into the house, leaving me smirking -at the hills. She growled something at the host. He came forth. He -pointed out the road, over the mountains and far away. He broke off a -blossoming apple-sprig and whittled it. - -“So you’ve been to Atlanta?” he asked. - -“Yes.” - -“I was there once. What hotel did you use?” - -“The Salvation Army.” - -“I was in the United States Hotel.” - -Still I was stupid. He continued: - -“I was there two years.” - -He put on his glasses. He threw down the apple-sprig, and, looking over -the glasses, he made unhappy each blossom in his own peculiar way. -He continued: “I was in the United States Hotel, for making blockade -whisky. I don’t make it any more.” He spat again. “I don’t even go -fishin’ on Sunday unless--” - -He had made up his mind that I was a customer, not a detective. - -“Unless what?” - -“Unless a visitor wants a mess of fish.” - -But I did not want a mess of fish. Repeatedly I offered money for my -night’s lodging. This he declined with real pride. _He maintained his -one virtue intact._ And so I thought of him, just as I left, as a man -who kept his code. - -The John Collier brogans were easier that morning, partly because I had -something new on my mind, no doubt. - -I thought of the Gnome a long time. I thought of the wife, and wondered -at her as a unique illustration of the tragic mysteries of the human -race. If she screams when seven devils enter into the Gnome, no one -outside the house will hear but the apple-tree. If she weeps, only the -wind in the chimney will understand. If she seeks justice and the law, -King Log, the Walrus, is her uncertain refuge. If she desires mercy, -the emperor of that valley, the king above King Log, is a venomous -serpent, even the Worm of the Still. - -But now the road unwound in glory. I walked away from those -serpent-bitten dominions for that time. I was one with the air of -the sweet heavens, the light of the ever-enduring sun, the abounding -stillness of the forest, and the inscrutable Majesty, brooding on the -mountains, the Majesty whom ignorantly we worship. - - - - -THE TRAMP’S REFUSAL - -On Being Asked by a Beautiful Gipsy to Join her Group of Strolling -Players. - - - LADY, I cannot act, though I admire - God’s great chameleons, Booth-Barret men. - But when the trees are green, my thoughts may be - October-red. December comes again - And snowy Christmas there within my breast - Though I be walking in the August dust. - Often my lone contrary sword is bright - When every other soldier’s sword is rust. - Sometimes, while churchly friends go up to God - On wings of prayer to altars of delight - I walk and talk with Satan, call him friend, - And greet the imps with converse most polite. - When hunger nips me, then at once I knock - At the near farmer’s door and ask for bread. - I must, when I have wrought a curious song - Pin down some stranger till the thing is read. - When weeds choke up within, then look to me - To show the world the manners of a weed. - I cannot change my cloak except my heart - Has changed and set the fashion for the deed. - When love betrays me I go forth to tell - The first kind gossip that too-patent fact. - I cannot pose at hunger, love or shame. - It plagues me not to say: “I cannot act.” - I only mourn that this unharnessed _me_ - Walks with the devil far too much each day. - I would be chained to angel-kings of fire. - And whipped and driven up the heavenly way. - - - - -THE HOUSE OF THE LOOM - -A Story of Seven Aristocrats and a Soap-Kettle. - - -WITH no sorrow in my heart, with no money in my pocket, with no -baggage but a lunch, the most dazzling feature of which was a piece of -gingerbread, I walked away from a wind-swept North Carolina village, -one afternoon, over the mountain ridges toward Lake Toxaway. I turned -to the right once too often, and climbed Mount Whiteside. There was -a drop of millions of miles, and a Lilliputian valley below like a -landscape by Charlotte B. Coman. I heard some days later that once a -man tied a dog to an umbrella and threw him over. Dog landed safely, -barking still. Dog was able to eat, walk, and wag as before. But the -fate of the master was horrible. Dog never spoke to him again. - -Having no umbrella, I retraced my way. I stepped into the highway that -circumscribes the tremendous amphitheatre of Cashier’s Valley. I met -not a soul till eight o’clock that night. The mountain laurel, the -sardis bloom, the violet, and the apple blossom made glad the margins -of the splendidly built road; and, as long as the gingerbread lasted, I -looked upon these things in a sort of sophisticated wonder. - -This was because the gingerbread was given me by a civilized man, -to whom John Collier had written for me a letter of introduction: -Mr. Thomas G. Harbison, Botanical Collector; American tree seeds a -specialty. - -Back there by the village he was improving the breed of mountain apples -by running a nursery. He was improving the children with a school -he taught without salary, and was using the most modern pedagogy. -Something in his manner made me say, “You are like a doctor out of -one of Ibsen’s plays, only you are optimistic.” Then we talked of -Ibsen. He debated art versus science, he being a science-fanatic, I -an art-fanatic. He concluded the argument with these words: “You are -bound to be wrong. I am bound to be wrong. What is the use of either -of us judging the other?” That is not the mountain way of ending a -discussion. - -For the purposes of the tale, as well as for his own merits, we must -praise this civilized man who entertained me a day and a half so well. -His mountain cottage was a permanent civilized camp. Without intruding -on his privacy, we can show what that means. Cross a few states to the -west with me. - -Have you watched the camps of the up-to-date visitors, in the oldest -parts of Colorado? They begin with tent, axe, blanket, bacon, and -frying-pan, as miners do. In ten summers, though they climb as much as -the miners, wear uglier boots, and rougher clothes, their tents are -highly organized. They are convenient and free from clutter as the -best New York flat. The axe has multiplied rustic benches, bridges, -shelters. It has made a refrigerator in the stream. The frying-pan -has changed into a camp-stove and a box of white granite dishes. -The blanket flowers and Mariposa lilies that made the aspen groves -celestial have been gathered in jardinières. - -Meanwhile, in the big houses of the veteran miners of the villages are -the axe, the blanket, and the frying-pan, though their lords have been -through half a dozen fortunes since pioneer days. Those houses have -the single great advantage of a rich tradition. They seem to grow up -out of the ground. - -Musing these matters, I munched my gingerbread, walking past sweet -waterfalls, groves of enormous cedars, many springs, and one deserted -cabin. I was homesick for that great civilized camp, New York, and the -sober-minded pursuit of knowledge there. - -But civilization lost her battle at twilight, when I swallowed my last -gingerbread crumb. Immediately I was in the land beyond the nowhere -place, willing to sleep twelve hours by a waterfall, or let the fairies -wake me before day. The road went deeper into savagery. I blundered on, -rejoicing in the fever of weariness. In the piercing light of the young -stars, the house that came at last before me seemed even more deeply -rooted in the ground than the oaks around it. What new revelation lies -here? Knock, knock, knock, O my soul, and may Heaven open a mystery -that will give the traveller a contrite heart. - -Let us tell a secret, even before we enter. If, with the proper magic -in our minds, we were guests here, a year or a day, we might write the -world’s one unwritten epic. All day, in one of these tiny rooms, amid -appointments that fill the spirit with the elation of simple things, we -would write. At evening we would dream the next event by the fire. The -epic would begin with the opening of the door. - -There appeared a military figure, with a face like Henry Irving’s in -contour, like Whistler’s in sharpness, fantasy, and pride. - -“May I have a night’s lodging? I have no money.” - -“Come in.... We never turn a man away.” - -We were inside. He asked: “What might be your name?” I gave it. He gave -his. The circle by the fire did not turn their heads, but presumably -I was introduced. One child ran into the kitchen. My host gave me her -chair. All looked silently into the great soap-kettle in the midst of -the snapping logs. - -I have a high opinion of the fine people of the South, and gratefully -remember the scattering of gentlefolk so good as to entertain me in -their mansions. But in this cottage, with one glance at those fixed, -flushed faces, I said: “This is the best blood I have met in this -United States.” The five children were night-blooming flowers. There -were hints of Doré in the shadow of the father, cast against the log -walls of the cabin. He sat on the little stairway. He was a better Don -Quixote than Doré ever drew. - -I said, “Every middle-aged man I have met in Florida, Georgia, and -North Carolina has been a soldier, and I suppose you were.” - -He looked at me long, as though the obligation of hospitality did not -involve conversation. He spoke at last: “I fought, but I could not help -it. It was for home, or against home. I fought for this cabin.” - -“It is a beautiful cabin.” - -He relented a bit. “We have kept it just so, ever since my -great-grandfather came here with his pack-mule and made his own trail. -I--I hated the war. We did not care anything about the cotton and -niggers of the fire-eaters. The niggers never climbed this high.” - -I changed the subject. “This is the largest fireplace I have seen in -the South. A man could stand up in it.” - -He stiffened again. “_This is not the South. This is the Blue Ridge._” - -An inner door opened. It was plain the woman who stood there was his -wife. She had the austere mouth a wife’s passion gives. She had the -sweet white throat of her youth, that made even the candle-flame -rejoice. She looked straight at me, with ink-black eyes. She was dumb, -like some one struggling to awake. - -“Everything is ready,” she said at length to her husband. - -He turned to me: “Your supper is now in the kitchen, ‘if what we have -is good enough.’” It was the usual formula for hospitality. - -I turned to the wife. “My dear woman, I did not know that this was -going on. It is not right for you to set a new supper at this hour. I -had enough on the road.” - -“But you have walked a long way.” Then she uttered the ancient proverb -of the Blue Ridge. “‘A stranger needs takin’ care of.’” - -In the kitchen there was a cook-stove. Otherwise there was nothing -to remind one of the world this side of Beowulf. I felt myself in a -stronghold of barbarian royalty. - -“Do you do your own spinning and weaving?” - -She lifted the candle, lighting a corner. “Here are the cards and the -wools.” She held it higher. “There is the spinning wheel.” - -“Where is the loom?” - -“Up stairs, just by where you will sleep.” - -I knew that if there was a loom, it was a magic one, for she was a -witch of the better sort, a fine, serious witch, and a princess withal. -Her ancestors wore their black hair that simple way when their lords -won them by fighting dragons. She was prouder than the pyramids. If -the epic is ever written, let it tell how the spinner of the wizard -wools did stand to serve the stranger, that being the custom of her -house. This was a primitive camp indeed. There was no gingerbread. -There was not one thing to remind me of the last table at which I had -eaten. But every gesture said, “Good prince, you are far from your -court. Therefore, this, our royal trencher, is yours. May you find your -way to your own kingdom in peace.” But for a long time her lips were -still. She had the spareness of a fertile, toiling mother. And, ah, the -motherhood in her voice when she said at last, “My son, you are tired.” - -Let the epic tell that, when the stranger returned to the fireplace, -a restless, expectant silence settled down upon the circle. There was -portent in the hiss of the flames. When I spoke to the children they -only stared at me as at a curious shadow. Their lips moved not. The -eldest, about seventeen, had inherited, no doubt, his love of strange -brewing. He looked sideways into the soap-kettle. I said to myself, “He -sees more hippogriffs than steam-engines.” He eyed every move of the -circle with restless approval or disapproval. Every chip his little -brother threw on the fire seemed to be a symbol of some precious thing -sacrificed, every curl of steam seemed to have something to do with the -destiny of the house. - -He took out of his pocket a monthly magazine. It was the sort that -costs ten cents a year. No doubt, had he gone to school to the -admirable man who gave me gingerbread, he would have learned to read -scientific and technical monthlies. But a magazine of any sort is a -terribly intrusive thing at this juncture. The boy, and a sister just a -little younger, read in a loud whisper to one another an advertisement -they did not want me to hear. At their stage of culture it was -impossible to read silently. The advertisement, if I remember, went -about this way:-- - -“Free, free, free! A sewing machine! Send us a two-cent stamp, your -name and address, mentioning the name of this magazine. We will tell -you how to get an up-to-date sewing machine absolutely free. This offer -is good for thirty days.” - -They wrote a most unscholarly letter, spelling it aloud. It required -their total and united culture to produce it. When the girl returned -to the fire, she was provoked by her pride into an astonishing flush. -How it set off her temples, with their pattern of azure veins! With -her lotus-leaf hands, the hands of Hathor, goddess of love, she cooled -her cheeks again and again. There is something of breeding in the very -color of blood. Come, brothers of the road, all who travel with me -in fancy, will you not join the knighthood of the soap-kettle? Come, -ladies in mansions, will you not be one with us? None of you could have -gainsaid the maiden-in-chief of the assembly. She wore her homespun as -Zenobia, princess of Palmyra, wore her splendors. With her arms around -her two gipsy younger sisters she smiled at last into the soap-kettle. -When the epic is written, let it use words of marvelling, speaking of -her hair, so pale, so electrical, set in a thick, ingenious coronal. - -All the little children stood up. “Uncle,” they shouted. Hoofs sounded -by the door. A man entered without knocking. When he saw me he became -ceremonious as a Mandarin. - -“This is a traveller,” said my host. - -The messenger indulged in inquiries about my welfare, journey, and -destination. My host interrupted. - -“How’s mother? We have watched late to know.” - -“She is much worse.” And the messenger went on to say that she might -not live two days, and the doctor was a careless, indifferent dog, -treating her as though she were an ordinary old woman. - -“Does he still give her strychnine?” - -“He won’t deny it.” The messenger explained that the doctor thought -strychnine in small doses was good for old people. The scientist who -gave me gingerbread should have been there to champion the doctor. In -the eyes of his judges that night he was suspected of poisoning or -treating with criminal folly, royalty itself. - -The younger doctor was miles away, and might refuse to make the trip. -The two loyal sons seemed paralyzed because the time for decision -and the time for mourning came together. There were long silences, -interrupted by my host repeating in a sort of primitive song, “_I can’t -think of anything except my dying mother. I can’t think of anything -except mother is going to die._” - -At last, with his brother’s consent, the messenger galloped and -galloped away, to find his only hope, the younger physician. As the -wife gave me the candle, sending me up stairs, I looked back at the -family circle. - -Helpless grief made every face rigid. I looked again at the eldest -daughter. The moving shadows embroidered on her breast intricate -symbols of the fair years, passing by in the ghost of tapestry, things -that happened in the beginning of the world. Let the epic tell that -when the stranger slept there was a magic loom by his bed that wove -that history again in valiant colors, showing battles without number, -and sieges, and interminable sunny love-tales, and lotus-handed -ladies whispering over manuscript things too fine to be told, and -ruddy warriors sitting at watch-fires on battlements eternal; and let -the epic tell how, in the early dawn, the stranger half awoke, yet -saw this tapestry hung round the walls. If one could remember every -story for which the pictures stood, he might indeed write the world’s -unwritten epic. The last tapestry to be hung changed from gold to black -warp and woof upon which was written that because of a treacherous -prime minister who served a poisoned wine, the Empress of the White -Witches was perishing before her time, and the young wizard, with the -counter-spell, was riding night and day, but all the palace knew he -would arrive too late. - -At breakfast the faces were stolid and white as frost. The father -answered me only when I said good-by. - -He said he hardly knew whether I had had anything to eat, or whether -any one had been good to me. “You just had to take care of yourself.” -The son, feeling the demand of hospitality in his father’s voice, -walked to the road with me. He asked if I was walking to Asheville. - -“Yes, by way of Mount Toxaway and Brevard.” - -He told me it was good walking all the way, and added, in a difficult -burst of confidence, “I am going to Asheville.” - -“Why not come along with me?” I asked. I meant it heartily. - -He said he had to take horseback, and then the railway. He had to be -there to-morrow. - -“What’s the hurry?” - -“I have to witness in a whisky case, an internal revenue case.” - -He said it like a Spanish Protestant called before the inquisition. - - * * * * * - -I said to my soul: “These were the revelations of a night and a -morning. What deeper troubles were in the House of the Loom that you -did not know?” - -All through the country there had been that night what is called a -black frost. By the roadside it was deep and white as the wool on -a sheep. But it left things blighted and black, and destroyed the -chances of the fruit-bearing trees. All the way to Mount Toxaway I met -scattered mourners of the ill-timed visitation. - -But the simple folly of spring was in me, and the strange elation of -gratitude. My soul said within itself: “A money-claim has definite -limits, but when will you ever discharge your obligation to the proud -and the fine in the House of the Loom? You intruded on their grief. Yet -they held their guest sacred as their grief.” - - - - -PHIDIAS - - - WOULD that the joy of living came to-day, - Even as sculptured on Athena’s shrine - In sunny conclave of serene design, - Maidens and men, procession flute and feast, - By Phidias, the ivory-hearted priest - Of beauty absolute, whose eyes the sun - Showed goodlier forms than our desires can guess - And more of happiness. - - - - -MAN, IN THE CITY OF COLLARS - -A Not Very Tragic Relapse into the Toils of the World, and of Finance. - - -HAVING been properly treated as a bunco man by systematic piety -in a certain city further south, I had double-barrelled special -recommendations sent to a lofty benevolence in Asheville, from a -religious leader of New York, the before-mentioned Charles F. Powlison. - -It was with confidence that I bade good-by to the chicken-merchant -who drove me into the city. I entered the office of the black-coated, -semi-clerical gentleman who had received the Powlison indorsements. -My stick pounded his floor. The heels of my brogans made the place -resound. But he gave all official privileges. He received me with the -fine manly hand-clasp, the glitter of teeth, the pat on the back. He -insisted I use the shower bath, writing room, reading table. Then I -suggested a conference among a dozen of his devouter workers on the -relation of the sense of Beauty to their present notion of Christianity -or, if he preferred, a talk on some aspect of art to a larger group. - -He took me into his office. He shut the door. He was haughty. He made -me haughty. I give the conversation as it struck me. He probably said -some smart things I do not recall. But I remember all the smart things -I said. - -He denounced labor agitators in plain words. I agreed. I belonged to -the brotherhood of those who loaf and invite their souls. - -He spoke of anarchy. I maintained that I loved the law. - -He very clearly, and at length, assaulted Single Tax. I knew nothing -then of Single Tax, and thanked him for light. He denounced Socialism. -Knowing little about Socialism at that time, I denounced it also, -having just been converted to individualism by a man in Highlands. - -The religious leader spoke of his long experience with bunco men. I -insisted I wanted not a cent from him, I was there to do him good. I -had letters of introduction to two men in the city; one of them, an -active worker in the organization, had already been in to identify me. -A third man was coming to climb Mount Mitchell with me. - -He doubted that I was a bona fide worker in his organization. Then -came my only long speech. We will omit the speech. But he began to see -light. He took a fresh grip on his argument. He said: “There is a man -here in Asheville I see snooping around with a tin box and a butterfly -net. They call him the state something-ologist. He goes around -and--and--_hunts bugs_. But do you want to know what I think of a crank -like that?” I wanted to know. He told me. - -“But,” I objected, “I am not a scientist. I am an art student.” - -He expressed an interest in art. He gave a pious and proper view of the -nude in art. It took some time. It was the sort of chilly, cautious -talk that could not possibly bring a blush to the cheek of ignorance. -I assured him his decorous concessions were unnecessary. I was not -expounding the nude. - -There was an artist here, and Asheville needed no further instruction -of the kind, he maintained. The gentleman had won some blue ribbons in -Europe. He painted a big picture (dimensions were given) and sold it -for thousands (price was given). - -“He is holding the next one, two feet longer each way, for double the -money.” - -I told him if he felt there was enough art in Asheville, we might do -something to popularize the poets. - -In reply he talked about literary cranks. He spoke of how Thoreau, with -his long hair and ugly looks, frightened strangers who suddenly met -him in the woods. I thanked him for light on Thoreau.... But he had to -admit that my hair was short. - -He suspected I was neither artist nor literary man. I assured him my -friends were often of the same opinion. - -“But,” he said bitterly, “do you know sir, by the tone of letters -I received from Mr. Powlison I expected to assemble the wealth and -fashion of Asheville to hear you. I expected to see you first in your -private car, wearing a dress-suit.” - -I answered sternly, “Art, my friend, does not travel in a Pullman.” - -He threw off all restraint. “Old shoes,” he said, “old shoes.” He -pointed at them. - -“I have walked two hundred miles among the moonshiners. They wear -brogans like these.” But his manner plainly said that his organization -did not need cranks climbing over the mountains to tell them things. - -“Your New York letter did not say you were walking. It said you ‘would -arrive.’” - -He began to point again. “Frayed trousers! And the lining of your coat -in rags!” - -“I took the lining of the coat for necessary patches.” - -“A blue bandanna round your neck!” - -“To protect me from sunburn.” - -He rose and hit the table. “And no collar!” - -“Oh yes, I have a collar.” I drew it from my hip pocket. It had had a -two hundred mile ride, and needed a bath. - -“I should like to have it laundered, but I haven’t the money.” - -“_Get_ the money.” - -“No,” I said, “but I will get a collar.” - -I entered a furnishing and tailor shop around the corner. I asked for -the proprietor. He showed me collars. - -“Two for a quarter?” - -“Yes.” - -“Now I have here a little brochure I sell for twenty-five cents. In -fact it is a poem, well worth the money. I will let you have it for -half price, that is, one collar.” - -“We are selling collars.” - -“I am selling the poem.” - -I turned my Ancient Mariner eye on him. I recited the most mesmeric -rhymes. - -He repeated, “We are selling collars.” - -Evidently the eye was out of order. I tried argument. - -“Don’t you think I need a collar?” - -“Yes.” - -“Don’t you think this one would fit this shirt?” - -“Yes.” - -“I renew my offer.” - -He sternly put the box away. - -So I said, “If I must face my friends in Asheville without this -necessary ornament, you shall blush. I have done my duty, and refuse to -blush.” - -I looked up a scholar from Yale, Yutaka Minakuchi, friend of old -friends, student of philosophy, in which he instructed me much, first -lending me a collar. He became my host in Asheville. It needs no words -of mine to enhance the fame of Japanese hospitality.... - -And I had a friend in a distant place, whom, for fancy’s sake, we -will call the Caliph Haroun-al-Raschid. Let him remain a mystery. We -will reveal this much. Had he known the truth, he would have sent -Greek slaves riding on elephants, laden with changes of raiment. He -discerned, at least, that I was in a barbarous land, for at length a -long package containing a sword arrived from the court of the Caliph -(to speak in parables). I exchanged the weapon at a pawnshop for -_money_, all in one bill--_money_--against which I had so many times -sworn eternal warfare, which had been my hoodoo in the past, and was -destined to be again. But this time, such are the whims of fate, the -little while it was with me it brought me only good. - -I entered the furnishing store. The proprietor was terribly busy, -but my glittering eye was in condition. I persuaded him, by dint of -repetition, to show me his collars. I treated him as though we had not -met. - -“Fifteen cents apiece?” - -“Yes.” - -“I will take _one_.” I gave the bill. He had to send a boy out for the -change. I put the silver in my pocket, and rattled it. He wrapped up -the collar, while I studied his cheeks. He blushed like a maid, bless -his tender heart, and in his sweet confusion he knew that I knew it. - -The streets of Asheville kept shouting to me: “Let us praise Man, when -he builds cities, and grows respectable, and cringes to money, and -becomes a tailor, and loves collars with all his heart.” - - * * * * * - - - - -CONFUCIUS - - - WOULD we were scholars of Confucius’ time - Watching the feudal China crumbling down, - Frightening our master, shaking many a crown, - Until he makes more firm the father sages, - Restoring custom from the earliest ages - With prudent sayings, golden as the sun. - Lord, show us safe, august, established ways, - Fill us with yesterdays. - - - - -THE OLD LADY AT THE TOP OF THE HILL - - -IT was a bland afternoon. I had been crossing a green valley in North -Carolina. Every man I passed had that languid leanness slanderously -attributed to the hookworm by folk who have no temperament. Yet some -bee of industry must have stung these fellows into intermittent effort -this morning, yesterday, last week or last year. - -Here were reasonably good barns. Here were fences, and good fences at -that. Here were mysterious crops, neither cotton nor corn. One man was -not ploughing with a mule. No, sir. He was ploughing with a sort of -horse.... - -At last I mounted the northern rim of the circle of steep hills that -kept the place as separate from the rest of the world as a Chinese -wall. I met her on the crest. She advanced slowly, looking on the -ground, leaning at the hips as do the very aged, but not grotesquely. -Her primly made dress and sunbonnet were dull dark blue. With her -walking-stick she meditatively knocked the little stones from her path. -The staff had a T-shaped head. It was the cane Old Mother Hubbard -carries in the toy book. - -And now she looked up and said with a pleasant start, “Why, good -evening, young stranger.” - -“Good evening, kind lady.” - -“Where have you been, my son?” - -“Why, I am following my nose to the end of the world. I have just -walked through this enterprising valley.” - -She looked into the dust and meditated awhile. Then she said: “It’s -getting late. No one has let you in?” - -“No one.” - -“How about that house by the bridge?” She pointed with her cane. - -“The lady said she had a sick child.” - -“Nonsense, nonsense. Do you see that little Ardella by that corner of -the ploughed field near the house? She don’t run like a sick child.... -Did you ask at the next place, the one that has a green porch?” She -pointed again with her cane. - -“The woman said she had no spare bed.” - -“But she has. I slept in it last week.... And that last house before -you start up this hill?” - -“The woman said she had to take care of saw-mill hands.” - -“Did she tell you _that_?” - -“Yes, ma’am.” - -The old lady ruminated again, leaning on her stick. At length she said: -“Sit down. I want to tell you something.” There we were, Grandmother -and newly adopted grandson, on a big sunlit rock. - -I give only the spirit of her words. She discoursed in that precious -mountain dialect, so mediæval, so Shakespearean with its surprising -phrases that seem at first the slang of a literary clan, till one -learns they are the common property of folk that cannot read. It is a -manner of speech all too elusive. Would that I had kept a note-book -upon it! But somewhat to this intent she spoke, and in a tone gentler -than her words:-- - -“They thought I would never find out about this, or they would not have -treated you so. That woman in the last house is my daughter-in-law. -She has only two saw-mill hands, and they’re no trouble. That’s my -house anyway. It was my mother’s before me. No one dares turn strangers -away when I am there. There’s an empty bed up stairs, and another in -the hall.” - -She turned about and pointed in the direction in which I had been -walking. “Just ahead of you, around that clump of trees, is a -hospitable family. If they will not take care of you, it is because -they have a good excuse. If they cannot take you in, ask no further. -Come back to my place, and” (she spoke with a Colonial Dame air) “_I -will make you welcome_.” - -“What sort of mountaineer is this?” I asked myself. “The hospitality is -the usual thing, but the grandeur is exotic.” - -We chatted awhile of the sunset. Then I accompanied her to the edge of -the hill. - -Under her sacred hair her face retained girl-contours. The wrinkles -were not too deep. She seemed not to have changed as mothers often do, -when, under decades of inevitable sorrow, the features are recarved -into the special mask of middle age, and finally into the very -different mask of senility. She had yet the authority of Beauty. She -wore her white hair with a Quakerish-feminine skill most admirably -adapted to that ancient forehead. I divined she had learned that at -sixteen. What a long time to be remembering. - -We were spirits that at once met and understood. She said: “My son, I -have walked all my life across this valley, or up this hill, or toward -that green mountain where you are going. I never walked as far as I -wanted to. But walking even so short a path makes for consolation.” - -Now she laid aside antique grandeur and took on plain vanity. - -“Do you know how old I am?” - -“About eighty-five.” - -“I’m ninety-two years old, young man, and I’m going to live ten years -more.” - -It was getting late. I said, “I am glad indeed to have met you.” - -She answered, “I am sorry my valley has not been kind.” - -I ventured to ask, “So it’s _your_ valley?” - -I had touched a raw nerve. I was completely shaken by the suddenness of -her answer. - -“Mine! Mine! Mine!” she shrieked. Kneeling, she beat up the dust of -the road with her cane. And then “Mine! Mine! Mine!” shaking her -outstretched arms over that amphitheatre, as though she would drag it -all to her breast. - -She was out of breath and trembling. At length she smiled, and added so -quietly it seemed another person. “And they shall not take it away from -me.” - -I helped her to her feet. She was once more the Martha Washington -sort.... I remember her last sentence. In a royal tone, that was three -times an accolade, in a motherly tone that was caressing and slow she -half-sung the pretty words:-- - -“Good evening, young man. I wish you well.” - -The man at the next house took me in. In the course of the evening he -assured me that the old lady did own the valley, and that she ruled -it with a rod of iron. The family graveyard was full of heirs who had -grown to old age and died of old age hoping in vain to outlive, and to -inherit her authority. - - - - -WITH A ROSE, TO BRUNHILDE - - - BRUNHILDE, with the young Norn soul - That has no peace, and grim as those - That spun the thread of life, give heed: - Peace is concealed in every rose. - And in these petals peace I bring: - A jewel clearer than the dew: - A perfume subtler than the breath - Of Spring with which it circles you. - - Peace I have found, asleep, awake, - By many paths, on many a strand. - Peace overspreads the sky with stars. - Peace is concealed within your hand. - And when at night I clasp it there - I wonder how you never know - The strength you shed from finger-tips: - The treasure that consoles me so. - - Begin the art of finding peace, - Beloved:--it is art, no less. - Sometimes we find it hid beneath - The orchards in their springtime dress: - Sometimes one finds it in oak woods, - Sometimes in dazzling mountain-snows; - In books, sometimes. But pray begin - By finding it within a rose. - - - - -LADY IRON-HEELS[3] - - -I - -THE SEVEN SUSPICIONS - -ONE Saturday in May I was hurrying from mountainous North Carolina into -mountainous Tennessee. Because of my speed and air of alarm, I was -followed by the Seven Suspicions. I was either a revenue detective in -pursuit of moonshiners, or a moonshiner pursued by revenue detectives, -or a thief hurrying out of hot territory, or a deputy sheriff pursuing -a thief, or a pretended non-combatant hurrying toward a Tennessee feud, -actually an armed recruit, or I had just killed my family’s hereditary -enemy and was eluding his avengers, or I had bought some moonshine -whisky and was trying to get out of a bad region before nightfall. -These suspicions implied that the inhabitants admired me. Yet I hurried. - -I came upon one article of my creed, the very next day, Sunday. But -Saturday was a season of panic, preparation, and trial. - -The article of my creed that I won as my reward might be stated in this -fashion: “_Peace is to be found, even in a red and bleeding rose._” - -I was accustomed to the feudist and the assassin. Such people had been -good to me, and I had walked calmly through their haunts. But now the -smothering landscape seemed to double every natural fear. The hills -were so steep and so close together that only the indomitable corn and -rye climbed to the top to see the sun. The road was in the bed of a -scolding rivulet. People in general travelled horseback. Cross-logs for -those afoot bridged high above the streams every half mile. There was -a primeval something about the heavy chains of the cross-logs, binding -them to the trees, that suggested the forgotten beginning of an iron -people, some harsh iron-willed Sparta. This impression was strengthened -by the unpainted dwellings, hunched close to the path, with thick walls -to resist siege. - -What first fixed these outlaws here, as in a nest, with a ring of -houseless open country round them? A traveller was more shut from the -horizon than in the slums of Chicago. The road climbed no summits. It -writhed like a snake. And there were snakes sunning themselves on every -other cross-log. _And there was never a flower to be seen._ - -An old woman, kindly enough, gave this beggar a noon-meal for the -asking, but the landscape had struck into me so I almost feared to eat -the bread. For this fear I sternly blamed my perverse imagination. -Refreshed in body only, I crept like a fascinated fly, dragged by -occult force toward a spider’s den. I felt as though I had reached the -very heart of the trap when I stepped into the streets of the profane -village of Flagpond, Tennessee. - -It was early in the afternoon. The feudal warriors had come to the -place on horseback, dressed in poverty-stricken Saturday finery: -clothes tight and ill-dyed, with black felt hats that should have -slouched, but did not. The immaculate rims stood out in queer -precision. The wearers sat in front of the three main stores, looking -across the street at one another. Since there was no woman in sight, -every one knew that the shooting might begin at any time. The silence -was deadly as the silence of a plague. I checked my pace. I ambled in -a leisurely way from store to store, inquiring the road to Cumberland -Gap, the distance to Greenville, and the like. I was on the other -side of the circle of dwellings pretty soon, followed by the Seven -Suspicions, shot from about seventy-five lean countenances, which makes -about five hundred and twenty-five suspicions. - -One of the most indescribable and haunting things of that region was -that all the women and children were dressed in a certain dead-bone -gray. - -About four o’clock I had made good my escape. I had begun to mount -rolling, uninhabited hills. At twilight I entered a plain, and felt -a new kind of civilization round me. It would have been shabby in -Indiana. Here it was glorious. They had whitewashed fences, and -white-painted cottages, glimmering kindly through the dusk. Some farm -machinery was rusting in the open. I climbed a last year’s straw-stack, -and slept, with acres of stars pouring down peace. - - -II - -THE TAILOR AND THE FLORIST - -Now the story begins all over again with the episode of the well-known -tailor and the unknown florist. Just off the main street of Greenville, -Tennessee, there is a log cabin with the century old inscription, -ANDREW JOHNSON, TAILOR. That sign is the fittest monument to the -indomitable but dubious man who could not cut the mantle of the -railsplitter to fit him. I was told by the citizens of Greenville that -there was a monument to their hero on the hill. So I climbed up. It was -indeed wonderful--a weird straddling archway, supporting an obelisk. -The archway also upheld two flaming funeral urns with buzzard contours, -and a stone eagle preparing to screech. There was a dog-eared scroll -inscribed, “His faith in the people never wavered.” Around all was, -most appropriately, a spiked fence. - -But I was glad I came, because near the Tailor’s resting-place was a -Florist’s grave, on which depends the rest of this adventure, and which -reaches back to the beginning of it. It had a wooden headstone, marked -“John Kenton of Flagpond, Florist. 1870-1900.” And in testimony to his -occupation, a great rosebush almost hid the inscription. Any man who -could undertake to sell flowers in Flagpond might have it said of him -also, “His faith in the people never wavered.” - -And now in my tramping the spirit of John Kenton, or some other -Florist, seemed to lead me. My season of panic, preparation, and trial -was over. It was indeed Sunday on this planet for awhile. I passed bush -after bush of the same sort as that marking Kenton’s place of sleep. -The sight of them was all that I had to give me strength till noon. -I had had neither breakfast nor supper. People would have fed this -poor tramp, but I love sometimes the ecstasy that comes with healthy -fasting. And now that I reflect upon it, it was indeed appropriate that -the Religion of the Rose should begin with abstinence. - -I have burdened you further back with an elaborate description of -the landscape of Flagpond. Now that landscape was repeated with the -addition of roses. And what a difference they made! They quenched the -Seven Suspicions. They made gray dresses seem rather tolerable. On -either side loomed the steepest cornfields yet, but they did not make -me tremble now. - -At noon I turned aside where a log cabin on stilts, leaning against its -own chimney, stood astride a little gully. It was about as big as a -dove-cote. Straggling rose-hedges led to the green-banked spring at the -foot of a ladder that took the place of steps. The old lady that came -to the door was a dove in one respect only; she was dressed in gray. - -She was drawn to the pattern of the tub-like peasants of the German -funny paper _Simplicissimus_. I told her my name was Nicholas. She -took it for granted that I wanted my dinner, and asked me up the -ladder without ado. She did an unusual thing. She began to talk family -affairs. “You must be kin to Lawyer Nicholas of Flagpond.... He -defended my son ten years ago ... in a trial for murder.” - -I said: “I am no kin to Lawyer Nicholas, but I hope he won his case.” - -“No. My son is in the state’s prison for life.... He surely killed -Florist Kenton.” But she added, as if it nullified all guilt, “they -were both drunk.” - -She was busy cooking at the open fireplace. She turned to the boy, -about ten years old. “Call your Ma and your Aunt to dinner.” He climbed -the steep and shouted. Presently two figures came over the ridge. The -larger woman took the boy’s hand. - -“_That’s my daughter-in-law, the boy’s mother_,” said Mrs. -Simplicissimus. - -I judged the second figure to be a woman of about twenty-eight. She -carried a fence-rail on her shoulder. She was straight as an Indian. -The old woman said: “_That’s my daughter. She was going to marry John -Kenton._” The only influences that could have induced a mountain-woman -to unburden so much, were the roses, just outside the door, leaping in -the wind. - -The procession soon reached us. The wood-carrier threw the log into -the yard. “There’s firewood,” she sang. She vaulted over the fence, -displaying iron-heeled brogans, thick red stockings, and a red-lined -skirt. There was a smear of earth on cheek and chin. Her face was -a sunburned, dust-mired roseleaf. She swept off her hat. She bowed -ironically. She said: “Howdy. What might be your name?” - -I did not tell my name. - -She fell on her knees. She drank from her hands at the spring. I could -feel the cold water warring with the sunshine in her sinews. She would -never have done with splashing eyelids and ears, and cheeks and red -arms and throat. The rosebushes behind her leaped in the wind. The -boy and his mother and the grandmother knelt at that same place and -splashed after that same manner. Then the grandmother nudged me. - -“Wash,” she said. - -I washed. - -We climbed into that dove-cote block-house on stilts. We ate like -four plough-horses and a colt. We consumed corn-bread and fat pork, -then corn-bread and beans, then corn-bread and butter. I ate supper, -breakfast, and dinner in three quarters of an hour. - - -III - -A BRIEF SIESTA - -Working a farm of fields that stand on edge, without men to help, and -without much machinery, makes women into warriors or kills them. The -grandmother and mother were no longer women. Even when they caressed -the boy their faces were furrowed with invincible will-power. But Lady -Iron-Heels still a woman, was confused in the alternative of manhood -or death. She was indeed a flower not yet torn to pieces by the wind, -greatly shaken, and therefore blooming the faster. - -There was a red ribbon streaming over the gray rag-carpet. Lady -Iron-Heels stooped, gave the ribbon a jerk, and a banjo came snarling -from under the bed. - -She sat on the warring colors of the crazy-quilt, and played a -dance-tune, storming the floor with one heel. She grew pensive. She -sang:-- - - “We shall rest in the fair and happy land - Just across on the ever-green shore, - Sing the song of Moses and the Lamb (by and by) - And dwell with Jesus evermore.” - -Her neck had a yellow handkerchief round it. A brown lock swept across -her leaping throat. Her cheeks and chin were bold as her iron heels. -Underneath the precious silken sunburn, the blood was beating, beating, -and trying to thicken into manhood to fight off death. - -After the music the ladies dipped snuff in the circle around the dim -fire. - - -IV - -“THAT’S ALL THE CHURCH I GET” - -I made a great palaver to Iron-Heels about giving me the banjo ribbon. -She consented easily. Coquetry was not her specialty. - -“What might be your name?” she asked. - -There was no dodging now. The old woman spoke up as though to save me -pain: “His name is Nicholas. But he is no kin to Lawyer Nicholas of -Flagpond.” - -After a long silence the girl said: “We came from Flagpond, once upon a -time.” - -She had been looking out the door at the clear bowl of the spring, and -the reflection of the tall bushes, leaping in the wind. - -I thought to myself: “She herself was John Kenton’s chief rose.” I -thought: “He had her in mind when he set these ameliorating bushes -through the wild.” Possibly the girl could not read or write. Yet she -was royal. - -Democracy has the ways of a jackdaw. Democracy hides jewels in the -ash-heap. Democracy is infinitely whimsical. Every once in a while a -changeling appears, not like any of the people around, a changeling -whose real ancestors are aristocratic souls forgotten for centuries. -As the girl’s eyes narrowed, she became Queen Thi, the masterful and -beautiful potentate of immemorial Egypt whose face I have seen in a -museum, carved on a Canopic jar. She was Queen Thi only an instant, -then she became a Tennessee girl again, with the eyes of a weary doe. - -She said: “Them roses give me comfort. That’s all the church I get.” - -I asked: “Why are there so many roses between here and Greenville and -none near Flagpond?” - -It was her turn not to speak. The old woman as though to save her pain, -answered: “The flowers of these parts were all brought in by John -Kenton. He lived in Flagpond, but could not sell them there.” - -And the mother of the little boy, the man-woman, whose husband had -killed Kenton, broke her long silence: “The only flowers we have to-day -are these he brought. I think we would die without them.... How do we -get through the winter?” - -Lady Iron-Heels and her sister-in-law took a swig of whisky from the -jug under the table, and lifted up their hoes from the floor. The boy -whimpered for a drink. They said: “Wait till you are a man.” All three -climbed the hill. - -Lady Iron-Heels was the last to go over the ridge. She saw me gather -buds from both those bushes by the spring. She made a gesture of salute -with her hoe. - -I never travelled that way again. I passed by quickly; therefore I had -a glimpse of what she was intended to be. “He that loseth his life -shall find it.” I see her many a time when I am looking on scattered -rose-leaves. She was a woman, God’s chief rose for man. She was scorned -and downtrodden, but radiant still. I am only saying that she wore the -face of Beauty when Beauty rises above circumstance. - -The buds that I had gathered did not fall to pieces till I had passed -by Daniel Boone’s old trail on through Cumberland Gap, on over big -hill Kentucky into the Blue Grass. On the way I wrote this, their poor -memorial, the Canticle of the Rose:-- - -It is an article of my creed that the petals of this flower of which we -speak are a medicine, that they can almost heal a mortal wound. - -The rose is so young of face and line, she appears so casually and -humbly, we forget she is an ancient physician. - -Yet so much tradition is wrapped around her stalk, it is strange she is -not a mummy. Her ashes can be found in the tombs of the Pharaohs, in -everlasting companionship with the ashes of the lotus and the papyrus -plant. Her dust travels on every desert wind. - -No love-song can do without her. - -No soldier and no priest can scorn her. There were the Wars of the -Roses. And there was a Rose in Sharon. Our wandering brother Dante -found a great rose in Paradise. - -There are white roses, sweet ghosts under the pine. There are yellow -roses, little suns in the shadow. But the normal bloom is red, -flushed with foolish ardors, laughing, shaking off the gossamer years. -She remembers Love, but not too well, if love is pain. There is no -yesterday that can daunt her and keep her dear heart-laughter down. In -springtime her magic petals bring God to the weary and give Heaven’s -strength to the wavering of heart. - -She can turn the slave to a woman, the woman to something a little -more than mortal. Oh, how bravely, with the same life-giving red, with -the last of her virgin strength, she blooms and blooms on almost every -highway. We find her on the road to Benares, on the road to Mecca, on -the road to Rome, and on the road to Nowhere, in Tennessee. - -Her red petals can almost heal a mortal wound. - - - - -II - -A MENDICANT PILGRIMAGE IN THE EAST - - - - -IN LOST JERUSALEM - - - BEHOLD the Pharisees, proud, rich, and damned, - Boasting themselves in lost Jerusalem, - Gathered a weeping woman to condemn, - Then watching curiously, without a sound - The God of Mercy, writing on the ground. - How looked his sunburned face beneath the sun - Flushed with his Father’s mighty angel-wine? - God make us all divine. - - - - -A TEMPLE MADE WITH HANDS - - -I - -THE DWELLING-PLACE OF FAITH, HOPE, AND CHARITY - -I HAD walked twelve miles before noon. Then I had eaten four slices -of bread and butter on merciful doorsteps. At four-thirty, having -completed twenty-one miles, I entered the richest village in the United -States, a village that is located in New Jersey. I was so weary I was -ready to sleep in the gutter, and did not care if the wagons ran over -me. I should have walked through to the green fields before I looked -for hospitality. I knew that the well-meant deeds of the city cannot -equal the kindness of the most commonplace farm-hand. Yet I lingered. - -I purchased a feast of beefsteak and onions at an obscure Jewish -restaurant and felt myself once more a man. But it was now too late to -leave town. The rule of the country is--one must ask for his night’s -lodging before five o’clock. After that, things are growing dark, and -people may be afraid of you. - -After paying for beefsteak and onions, I had twenty-five cents. This -twenty-five cents was all that remained after a winter’s lecturing on -art and poetry in Manhattan. I am satisfied that the extra money, over -and above all paid debts, brought me some of the ill-luck of the night. -As I have before observed, money is a hoodoo on the road. Until a man -is penniless he is not stripped for action. - -A sign at the lunch-counter advertised: “Furnished rooms, fifty cents.” - -I asked the proprietor to cut the price. He dodged the issue. “Say, why -don’t you go up there to the mission? They will sell you a good bed -cheap.” - -“For a quarter?” - -“Something like that.” - -“Show me the place.” - -As of old the Jew pointed out the way of salvation. The Gentile -followed it and reached the dwelling-place of Faith, Hope, and Charity. - -“What do you want?” The questioner, evidently in charge of the place, -was accoutred in stage laboring-man style. Maybe his paraphernalia was -intended to put him on a level with wayfarers. He wore a slouch hat, a -soft shirt, and no necktie. His clothes had the store freshness still. -They looked rather presumptuous in that neat, well-stocked reading room. - -“I want a cheap bed.” - -“We do not sell beds.” - -“I was told you did.” - -“We give them away.” - -“All right.” - -“But you have to work.” - -“Very well.” - -“Do you want to leave early in the morning?” (The place was evidently a -half-way house for tramps.) - -“Yes. I want to leave early in the morning.” - -“Then you will have to split kindling two hours to-night.” - -“Show me the kindling.” - - -II - -SPLITTING KINDLING - -In the basement I throned myself on one block while I chopped kindling -on another. Before me, piled to the first story, was a cellarful -of wood, the record of my predecessors in toil. I gathered that the -corporal’s guard of the unemployed who stayed at the mission that -night, and had been there two or three days, had finished their day’s -assignment of splitting. They completely surrounded me, questioned me -with the greatest curiosity, and put me down as a terrific liar, for I -answered every question with simple truth. - -As soon as the melodramatic workingman-boss went up stairs, one of them -said, “Don’t work so fast. It’s only a matter of form this late at -night. They want to see if you are willing, that’s all.” - -I chopped a little faster for this advice. Not that I was out of humor -with the advisers,--though I should have been, for they were box-car -tramps. - -One of them, having an evil and a witty eye, said, “If I was goin’ west -like you, I’d start about ten o’clock to-night and be near Buffalo -before morning.” - -Another, a mild nobody, professed himself a miller. He told what a -wonderful trick it was to say, “Leddy, I’m too tired to work till I -eat,” and after eating, to walk away. - -The next, a carriage painter of battered gentility, told endless -stories of the sprees that had destroyed him. Another, a white frog -with a bald head and gray mustache, quite won my heart. He said, “Wait -till you get a nice warm bath after service. Then you’ll sleep good.” - -To my weary and addled brain the mission was like one of those -beautiful resting-places in Pilgrim’s Progress. It became my religion, -just to split kindling. I failed to apprehend what infinitesimal -nobodies these fellows around me were. I should have disliked them more. - -The modern tramp is not a tramp, he is a speed-maniac. Being unable -to afford luxuries, he must still be near something mechanical and -hasty, so he uses a dirty box-car to whirl from one railroad-yard to -another. He has no destination but the cinder-pile by the water-tank. -The landscape hurrying by in one indistinguishable mass and the roaring -of the car-wheels in his ears are the ends of life to him. He is no -back-to-nature crank. He is a most highly specialized modern man. All -to keep going, he risks disease from these religious missions, from -foul box-cars, and foul comrades. He risks accident every hour. He is -always liable to the cruelty of conductor or brakeman and to murder by -companions. - -He runs fewer risks in the country, yet his aversion to the country -is profound. He knows all that I know about country hospitality, that -it can be purchased by the merest grain of courtesy. Yet most of the -farm-people that entertained me had not seen a tramp for months. - -To account for some of the happenings of this tale I will only add that -a speed-maniac at either end of the social scale is not necessarily a -hustler, personally. But in one way or another he is sure to be shallow -and artificial, the grotesque, nervous victim of machinery. And a -“Mission,” an institution built by speed-maniacs who use automobiles -for speed-maniacs who use box-cars, is bound to be absurd beyond words -to tell it. - - -III - -THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT - -I loved all men that night, even the fellow in melodramatic -laboring-man costume, who appeared after two hours to drive us animals -up stairs into one corner of the chapel, where a dozen of our kind had -already assembled from somewhere. - -On the far side of that chapel sat the money-fed. The aisle was a -great gulf between them and us. I smiled across the gulf indulgently, -imagining by what exhortations to “Come and help us in our problem” -those uncomfortable persons had been assembled. An unmitigated -clergyman rose to read a text. - -I presume this clergyman imagined Christ wore a white tie and was on a -salary promptly paid by some of our oldest families. But I share with -the followers of St. Francis the vision of Christ as a man of the open -road, improvident as the sparrow. I share with the followers of Tolstoi -the opinion that when Christ proclaimed those uncomfortable social -doctrines, he meant what he said. - -The clergyman read: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the -kingdom of heaven.” - -“Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.” - -“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” - -He read much more than I will quote. Here is the final passage:-- - -“Ye have heard how it hath been said: ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth -for a tooth.’ But I say unto you that you resist not evil. But -whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other -also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, -let him have thy cloak also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a -mile, go with him twain. Give to him that asketh thee, and to him that -would borrow of thee, turn not thou away.” - -This Pharisee smugly assumed that he was authorized by the Deity to -explain away this scripture. And he did it, as the reader has heard it -done many a time. - -The Pharisee was followed by a fat Scribe who tried to smile away what -the other fellow had tried to argue away. The fat one then called on -the assembly to bow, and exhorted the repentant to hold up their hands -to be prayed for. - -I held up my hand. Was I not eating the bread of the mission? And then -I felt like a sinner anyway. - -“Thank God,” said the fat one. - -After a hymn, testimonies were called for. I felt the spirit move me, -but some one had the floor. Across the gulf she stood, an exceedingly -well-dressed and blindly devout sister. She glanced with a terrified -shrinking at the animals she hoped to benefit. She said:-- - -“There has been one great difficulty in my Christian life. It came with -seeking for the Spirit. Sometimes we think it has come with power, when -we are simply stirred by our own selfish desires. Our works will show -whether we are moved by the Spirit.” - -I wanted to preach them a sermon on St. Francis. But how could I? There -was still a quarter in my own pocket. Meanwhile there rose a saint -with a pompadour and blocky jaws. He was distinctly inferior in social -position to a great part of the saints. It was probable he had given -that testimony many times. But he did not want the meeting to drag. He -spake in a loud voice: “I was saved from a drunkard’s life, in this -mission, eighteen years ago, and ever since, not by my own power, but -by the grace of God, I have been leading a God-fearing and money-making -life in this town.” That was his exact phrase, “a money-making life.” -His intention was good, but he should have been more tactful. The -Pharisee looked annoyed. - - -IV - -A SCREAMING FARCE - -I advise all self-respecting citizens to skip this section. It is -nothing but over-strained, shabby farce. - -The throng melted. Scribe and Pharisee, Dives, Mrs. Dives, and their -satellites went home to their comfortable beds. Many of the roughs on -our side of the house found somewhere else to stay. The fellow dressed -like a workingman in a melodrama sought the consolations of his own -home. Had the last authority departed? Were we to have anarchy? The -Frog, in his gentlest manner, sidled up to make friends again. - -“Now you can have your nice warm bath, you two.” I looked around. There -were two of us then. Beside me, fresh from a box-car was a battered -scalawag. The Frog must have let him in at the last moment. - -We three climbed to the bath-room. - -“Wait a minute,” said the Amphibian. He disappeared. I opened my eyes, -for this creature spake with a voice of authority. The box-car scalawag -grinned sheepishly. - -There was a scuffling overhead, a scratch and a rumble. We two looked -up just in time to dodge the astonishing vision of a clothes-horse -descending through a trap-door by a rope. At the upper end of the rope -was the absurd bald head of our newly achieved superintendent. - -“Hello, Santy Claus,” said the box-car tramp. “Whose Christmas present -is this?” - -The Frog shouted: “Put your shoes and hats in the corner. If you -have any tobacco, put it in your shoes. Hang everything else on the -clothes-horse.” - -I obeyed, except that I had no tobacco. The rascal by my side had -a plenty, and sawdusted the bath-room floor with some of it, and -the remainder went into his foot-gear. Then we two, companions in -nakedness, watched the Frog haul up our clothes out of sight. He closed -the trap-door with many grunts. - -Then this Amphibian, this boss, descended and entered the bath-room. -He was a dry-land Amphibian. He had never taken a bath himself, but -was there to superintend. He seemed to feel himself the accredited -representative of all the good people behind the mission, and no doubt -he was. - -“Can it be possible,” I asked myself, “that they have chosen this -creature to apply their Christianity?” - -The Frog said to my companion: “Git in the tub.” - -Then he turned on the water, regulated the temperature, and watched as -though he expected one of us to steal the faucets from the wash-bowl. -He threw a gruesome rag at the tramp, and allowed him to scrub himself. -The creature bathing seemed well-disposed toward the idea, and had put -soap on about one-third of his person when the Frog shouted: “I’ve got -to get up at four-thirty.” - -The scalawag took the hint and rose like Venus from the foam. He -splashed off part of it, and rubbed off the rest with a towel that was -a fallen sister of the wash-rag. - -The Frog was evidently trying to enforce, in a literal way, regulations -he did not understand. He wiped out the bath-tub most carefully with -the unclean wash-rag. Then he provided the scalawag with a shirt for -night-wear. The creature put it on and said:-- - -“Ain’t I a peach?” - -He was. - -The nightie was an old, heavily-starched dress-shirt, once white. Maybe -it had once been worn by the Scribe or the Pharisee. But it had not -been washed since. The rascal cut quite a figure as he took long steps -down the corridor to bed, piloted by the hurrying Amphibian. He was a -long-legged rascal, and the slivered remainders of that ancient shirt -flapped about him gloriously. - -I was hustled into the tub after the rascal. I was supervised after -the same manner. “Now wash,” boomed the Amphibian. He threw at me the -sloppy rag of my predecessor. - -I threw it promptly on the floor. - -“I don’t use a wash-rag,” I said. - -“Hurry,” croaked the Frog. _And he let the water out of the tub._ He -handed me the towel the scalawag had used. I had not, as a matter of -fact, had a bath, and I was quite foot-sore. - -“I do not want that towel,” I said. - -“You’re awful fancy, aren’t you?” sneered the Frog. - -Wherever I was damp, I rubbed myself dry with my bare hands, being -skilled in the matter, meanwhile reflecting that there is nothing worse -than a Pharisee except a creature like this. I wondered if it was -too late to rouse a mob among the better element of the town, neither -saints nor sinners, but just plain malefactors of great wealth, and -have this person lynched. There were probably multi-millionnaires in -this town giving ten-dollar bills to this mission, who were imagining -they were giving a free bath to somebody. - -I wanted to appeal to some man with manicured hands who had grown -decently rich robbing the widow and the orphan and who now had the -leisure to surround himself with the appurtenances of civility and the -manners of a Chesterfield. - -“I am through with the poor but honest submerged tenth. Rich worldlings -for mine,” I muttered. - -“Put these on,” squeaked the Frog. His manner said, “See how good -we are to you.” He held out the treasure of the establishment, a -night-garment retained for fastidious new-arrivals, newly-bathed. Of -course, no one else was supposed to bathe. - -Was the garment he held out a slivered shirt? Nay, nay. It was a sort -of pajama combination. Hundreds of men had found shelter, taken a -luxurious bath, and put them on. They were companions in crime of -the towel and the wash-rag. Let us suppose that three hundred and -sixty-five men wore them a year. In ten years there would have been -about three thousand six hundred and fifty bathed men in them. That did -not account for their appearance. - -“What makes them so dirty?” I asked. - -No answer. - -“Can’t I wear my underclothes to bed instead of these?” - -“No.” - -“Why?” - -“Sulphur.” - -“What do you mean by sulphur?” - -“Your clothes are up stairs being fumigated.” - -“Can’t I get my socks to-night? I always wash them before I go to bed.” - -“No. It’s against the law of the state. And you would dirty up these -bowls. I have just scrubbed them out.” - -“I will wash them out afterward.” - -“I haven’t time to wait. I must get up at four-thirty.” - -“But why fumigate my clean underwear, and give me dirty pajamas?” - -The Frog was getting flabbergasted. “I tell you it’s the law of New -Jersey. You are getting awful fancy. If I had had my way, you would -never have been let in here.” - -“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth,” I said to -myself, and put on the pajamas. - -This insanitary director showed me my bed. It was in a long low room -with all the windows closed, where half a score were asleep. The sheets -had never, never, never been washed. Why was it that in a mission so -shiny in its reading room, and so devout in its chapel, so melodramatic -with its clean workman-boss, in the daytime, these things were so? - -The lights went out. I kicked off the pajamas and slept. I awoke at -midnight and reflected on all these matters. I quoted another scripture -to myself: “I was naked, and ye clothed me.” - - -V - -THE HIGHWAY OF OUR GOD - -At six o’clock I was called for breakfast. My sulphur-smelling clothes -were on my bed. I put them on with a light heart, for after all I had -slept well, and my feet were not stiff. The quarter was still in my -trousers’ pocket. I presume that hoodoo quarter had something to do -with the bad breakfast. - -The Amphibian was now cook. He gave each man a soup-plate heaped with -oat-meal. If it had been oats, it would have been food for so many -horses. Had the Frog been up since four-thirty preparing this? - -The price of part of that horse-feed might have gone into something to -eat. There was a salty blue sauce on it that was called milk. And there -was dry bread to be had, without butter, and as much bad coffee as a -man could drink. - -A person called the bookkeeper arrived with the janitor. I made my -formal farewells to those representatives of the law, before whom the -Amphibian melted with humility. The scalawag who had bathed with me -tipped me a wink, and tried to escape in my company. But I bade him -good-by so firmly that the authorities noticed, and the brash creature -remained glued to his chair. He probably had to do his full share of -kindling before he escaped. - -I went forth from that place into the highway of our God, who dwelleth -not in temples made with hands, neither is worshipped with men’s hands, -as though He needed anything, seeing He giveth to all men life and -breath and all things. - -I said in my heart: “I shall walk on and on and find a better, a far -holier shrine than this at the ends of the infinite earth.” - - - - -THE TOWN OF AMERICAN VISIONS - -(Springfield, Illinois) - - - IS it for naught that where the tired crowds see - Only a place for trade, a teeming square, - Doors of high portent open unto me - Carved with great eagles, and with hawthorns rare? - - Doors I proclaim, for there are rooms forgot - Ripened through æons by the good and wise: - Walls set with Art’s own pearl and amethyst - Angel-wrought hangings there, and heaven-hued dyes:-- - - Dazzling the eye of faith, the hope-filled heart: - Rooms rich in records of old deeds sublime: - Books that hold garnered harvests of far lands, - Pictures that tableau Man’s triumphant climb: - - Statues so white, so counterfeiting life, - Bronze so ennobled, so with glory fraught - That the tired eyes must weep with joy to see - And the tired mind in Beauty’s net be caught. - - Come enter there, and meet To-morrow’s Man, - Communing with him softly day by day. - Ah, the deep vistas he reveals, the dream - Of angel-bands in infinite array-- - - Bright angel-bands, that dance in paths of earth - When our despairs are gone, long overpast-- - When men and maidens give fair hearts to Christ - And white streets flame in righteous peace at last. - - - - -ON BEING ENTERTAINED ONE EVENING BY COLLEGE BOYS - - -I WALKED across the bridge from New Jersey into Easton, Pennsylvania, -one afternoon. I discovered there was a college atop of the hill. In -exchange for a lecture on twenty-six great men[4] based on a poem on -the same theme, that I carried with me, the boys entertained me that -night. They did not pay much attention to the lecture. Immediately -before and after was a yell carnival. There was to be a game next day. -They were cheering the team and the coach with elaborate reiteration. -All was astir. - -But for all this the boys spoke to me gently, gave me the privileges -of the table, the bath-room, the dormitory. The president of the Y. M. -C. A. lent me a clean suit of pajamas. He and two other young fellows -delighted my vain soul, by keeping me up late reciting all the poems I -knew. - -I record these things for the sake of recording one thing more, the -extraordinary impression of buoyancy that came from that school. It was -inspiring to a degree, a draught of the gods. Coming into that place -not far from the centre of hard-faced Easton-town I realized for the -first time what sheltered, nurtured boy-America was like, and what -wonders may lie beneath the roofs of our cities. - - - - -THAT WHICH MEN HAIL AS KING - - - WOULD I might rouse the Cæsar in you all, - (That which men hail as king, and bow them down) - Till you are crowned, or you refuse the crown. - Would I might wake the valor and the pride, - The eagle soul with which he soared and died, - Entering grandly then the fearful grave. - God help us build the world, like master-men, - God help us to be brave. - - - - -NEAR SHICKSHINNY - - -I - -LEAVING New Jersey I kept from all contact with money, and was -consequently turning over in memory many delicious adventures among the -Pennsylvania-German farmers. After crossing that lovely, lonely plateau -called Pocono Mountain, I descended abruptly to Wilkesbarre by a length -of steep automobile road called Giant Despair. - -It was a Sunday noon in May. Wilkesbarre was a mixture of Sabbath calm -and the smoke of torment that ascendeth forever. One passed pious faces -too clean, sooty faces too restless. I hurried through, hoping for -more German farmers beyond. But King Coal had conspired against the -traveller, and would not let him go. The further west I walked, the -thicker the squalor and slag heaps, and the presence of St. Francis -seemed withdrawn from me, though I had been faithful in my fashion. - -King Coal is a boaster. He says he furnishes food for all the engines -of the earth. He says he is the maker of steam. He says steam is the -twentieth century. He holds that an infinite number of black holes in -the ground is a blessing. - -He may say what he likes, but he has not excused himself to me. He -blasts the landscape. Never do human beings drink so hard to forget -their sorrow as in the courtyards of this monarch. To dig in a mine -makes men reckless, to own one makes them tormentors. - -I had a double reason for hurrying on. My rules as a mendicant afoot -were against cities and railroads. I flattered myself I was called and -sent to the agricultural laborer. - -When the land grew less black and less inhabited, I mistakenly -rejoiced, assuming I should soon strike the valleys where grain is -sown and garnered. Yet the King was following me still, like a great -mole underground. There was no coal on the surface. The land was -rusty-red and ashen-gray,--as though blasted by the torch of a Cyclops -and only yesterday cooled by the rain. The best grain that could have -been scattered among such rocks with the hope of a crop was a seed of -dragons’ teeth. - -How long the desolation continued! Toward the end of the day in the -midst of the nothingness, I came upon a saloon full of human creatures -roaring drunk. Otherwise there was not so much as a shed in sight. - -Four vilely dirty little girls came down the steps carrying beer. One -of them, too intoxicated for her errand, entrusted her can to her -companions. They preceded me toward the smoke-veiled sun by a highway -growing black again with the foot-prints of the King. - -Now there was a deafening explosion. I sat down on a rock examining -myself to see if I was still alive. The children pattered on. My start -seemed to amuse them immensely. I followed toward the new civil war, or -whatever it was. - -Just over the crest and around the corner I encountered the King’s -never-varying insignia, the double-row of “company houses.” - -Every dwelling was as eternally and uniformly damned as its neighbor, -making the eyes ache, standing foursquare in the presence of the -insulted daylight. Every porch and railing was jig-sawed in the same -ruthless way. Every front yard was grassless. Everything was made of -wood, yet seemed made of iron, so black it was, so long had it stood -in the wasting weather, so steadily had it resisted the dynamite now -shaking the earth. - -There they stood, thirty houses to the left, thirty to the right, with -what you might call a street between, whose ruts were seemingly cut by -the treasure-chariots of the brimstone princes of the nether world. - -Two-thirds of the way through, several young miners were exploding -giant powder. As I approached I saw another was loading his pistol with -ball-cartridges and shooting over the hills at the sun. He did not put -it out. - -The group of children with the beer served these knights of dynamite, -holding up the cans for them to drink. The little cup-bearers were then -given pennies. They scurried home. - -By their eyes and queer speech I guessed that these children were -Poles, or of some other race from Eastern Europe. I guessed the same -about the men celebrating. Every porch on both sides of that street -held some heavy headed creatures from presumably the same foreign -parts. They were, no doubt, good citizens after their peculiar fashion, -but with countenances that I could not read. Though the next explosion -seemed to jolt the earth out of its orbit, they merely blinked. - -I said to myself, “This is not the fourth of July. Therefore it must -be the anniversary of the day when ‘Freedom shrieked’ and ‘Kosciuszko -fell.’” - -I reached the end of the street; nothing beyond but a hollow of hills -and a dubious river, enclosing a new Tophet, that I learned afterwards -was Shickshinny. It was late. I wanted to get beyond to the green -fields. - -I zigzagged across that end of the street to folk on the front -porches that I thought were Americans. Each time I vainly attempted -conversation with some dumb John Sobieski in Sunday clothes. I wondered -what were the Polish words for bread, shelter, and dead broke. - - -II - -THE SON OF KING COAL - -Some spick and span people came out on the porch of the last house. -Possibly they could understand English. I went closer. They were out -and out Americans. - -So I looked them in the eye and said: “I would like to have you -entertain me to-night. I am a sort of begging preacher. I do not take -money, only food and lodging.” - -“A beggin’ preacher?” - -“My sermon is in poetry. I can read it to you after supper, if that -will suit.” - -“What sort of poetry?” asked the man. - -“I can only say it is my own.” - -“Why I just LOVE poetry,” said the woman. “Come in.” - -“Come up,” said the man, and hustled out a chair. - -“I’ll go right in and get supper,” said the wife. She was a breezy -creature with a loud musical voice. She doubtless developed it by -trying to talk against giant powder. - -I told the man my story, in brief. - -After quite a smoke, he said, “So you’ve walked from Wilkesbarre this -afternoon. Why, man, that’s seventeen miles.” - -I do not believe it was over fourteen. - -He continued, “I’m awful glad to see a white man. This place is full -of Bohunks, and Slavs, and Rooshians, and Poles and Lickerishes -(Lithuanians?). They’re not bad to have around, but they ain’t -Cawcasians. They all talk Eyetalian.” - -The fellow’s manner breathed not only race-fraternity, but industrial -fraternity. It had no suggestion of sheltered agricultural caution. -It was sophisticated and anti-capitalistic. It said, “You and I are -against the system. That’s enough for brotherhood.” - -Now that he stood and refilled his pipe from a tobacco box nailed just -inside the door, I saw him as in a picture-frame. He had powerful but -slanting shoulders. He was so tall he must needs stoop to avoid the -lintel. With his bent neck, he looked as though he could hold up a mine -caving in. His general outlines seemed to be hewn from fence-rails, -then hung with grotesque muscles of loose leather. His eyebrows were -grown together. From looking down long passageways his eyes were -marvellously owl-like. He was cadaverous. He had a beak nose. He had -a retreating chin but, breaking the rules of phrenology, he managed -to convey the impression of a driving personality. He looked like an -enormous pick-axe. - -He calmly commented: “Them Polacks waste powder awful. Not only on -Sunday, for fun, but down in the mine they use twice too much. And -they can’t blast the hardest coal, either.... And they’re always -gettin’ careless and blowin’ themselves to hell and everybody else. -It’s awful, it’s awful,” he said, but in a most philosophic tone. - -He lowered his voice and pointed with his pipe stem: “Them people -that live in the next house are supposed to be Cawcasians, but they -haven’t a marriage license. They let their little girl go for beer this -afternoon, for them fellows explodin’ powder over there. ’Taint no way -to raise a child. That child’s mother was a well-behaved Methodist till -she married a Polack, and had four children, and he died, and they -died, and some say she poisoned them all. Now she’s got this child by -this no-account white man. They live without a license, like birds. Yet -they eat off weddin’s.” - -“Eat off weddings?” - -“Yes,” he said. “These Bohunks and Lickerishes all have one kind of a -wedding. It lasts three days and everybody comes. The best man is king. -He bosses the plates.” - -“Bosses the plates?” - -“Yes. They buy a lot of cheap plates. Every man that comes must break -a plate with a dollar. The plate is put in the middle of the floor. -He stands over it and bangs the dollar down. If he breaks the plate -he gets to kiss and hug the bride. If he doesn’t break it, the young -couple get that dollar. He must keep on givin’ them dollars in this way -till he breaks the plate. Eats and plates and beer cost about fifty -dollars. The young folks clear about two hundred dollars to start life -on.” - -“And,” he continued, “the folks next door make a practice of eatin’ -round at weddin’s without puttin’ down their dollars.” - -I began to feel guilty. - -“It’s a good deal like my begging supper and breakfast of you.” He -hadn’t meant it that way. “No,” he said, “you’re takin’ the only way -to see the country. Why, man, I used to travel like you, before I was -married, except I didn’t take no book nor poetry nor nothin’, and -wasn’t afeered of box-cars the way you are.... I been in every state in -the Union but Maine. I don’t know how I kept out of there.... I’ve been -nine years in this house. I don’t know but what I see as much as when I -was on the go.... - -“That fellow Gallic over there that was shootin’ that pistol at the -sky killed a man named Bothweinis last year and got off free. It was -Gallic’s wedding and Bothweinis brought fifty dollars and said he was -goin’ to break all the plates in the house. He used up twelve dollars. -He broke seven plates and kissed the bride seven times. Then the bride -got drunk. She was only fifteen years old. She hunted up Bothweinis and -kissed him and cried, and Gallic chased him down towards Shickshinny -and tripped him up, and shot him in the mouth and in the eye.... The -bride didn’t know no better.... He was an awful sight when they brought -him in. The bride was only a kid. These Bohunk women never learn no -sense anyway. They’re not smart like Cawcasian women, and they fade in -the face quick.” - -He reflected: “My wife’s a wonderful woman. I have been with her nine -years, and she learns me something every day, and she still looks good -in her Sunday clothes.” - -He became lighter in tone again. “What these Bohunks need is a priest -and a church to make them behave. They mind a priest some, if he is a -good priest. They’re all Catholics, or no church....” - -“Seems though sometimes a man’s got to shoot. Some of them devils over -there used to throw rocks at my door, but one Sunday I filled ’em -full of buckshot and they quit. The justice upheld me. I didn’t have -to pay no fine. They’ve been pretty good neighbors since, pretty good -neighbors.” - -There was a sound as though the flagstones of eternity had been ripped -up. He saw I didn’t like it and said consolingly, “They’ll stop and -go to supper pretty soon. They eat too much to do anything but set, -afterwards. They don’t have nothin’ to eat in the old country but raw -turnips. Here they stuff themselves like toads. I don’t see how they -save money the way they do. The mine owners squeeze the very life out -of ’em and they wallow in beer. I’ve always made big money, but somehow -never kept it. Me and my wife are spenders. But I ain’t afraid, for I -am the only man on the street that can dig the hardest coal. I could -dig my way out of hell with my pick, and by G---- once I did it, too.” - -The wife came to the door newly decked in an elaborate lace waist, -torn, alas, at the shoulder. Husband was right. She looked good. She -announced radiantly: “Come to supper.” - -Then she rushed down between the houses and shouted: “Jimmy and Frank, -come here! What you doin’? Get down off that roof. What you doin’, -associatin’ with them Polack children? What you doin’ with them -switches?” Then she swore heartily, as unto the Lord, and continued, -“They’re helpin’ them Polack kids switch that poor little drunk -American child. Come down off that coal shed!” - -They slunk into sight. She snatched their switches from them. - -“Who started it?” - -Jimmy admitted he started it. He looked capable of starting most -anything, good or bad. He had eyes like black diamonds, a stocky frame, -and the tiny beginnings of his mother’s voice. - -“I don’t know whether to lick you or not,” she said judicially. -Finally: “Go up to bed without supper.” - -Jimmy went. - -She addressed us in perfect good humor, as a musical volcano might: -“Come and eat.” - - -III - -THE DAUGHTER OF THE KING - -Never did I see beefsteak so thick. There was a garnish of fried -onions. There was a separate sea of gravy. There was a hill of butter, -a hill of thickly sliced bread. There was a delectable mountain of -potatoes. That was all. These people were living the simple life, -living it in chunks. - -At table, as everywhere, the husband solemnly deferred to the wife. -She was to him a druid priestess. And so she was radiant, as woman -enthroned is apt to be. Of course, no young lady from finishing school -would have liked the way we tunnelled and blasted our way through the -provender. We were gloriously hungry and our manners were a hearty -confession of the fact. - -My passion for the joys of the table partially sated, I began to -realize the room. There were hardly any of the comforts of home. There -was a big onyx time-piece, chipped, and not running. Beside it was a -dollar alarm-clock in good trim. - -There were in the next room, among other things, two frail gilt parlor -chairs, almost black. The curtains were streaked with soot and poorly -ironed. She said she had washed them yesterday. But, she continued, “I -just keep cheerful, I don’t keep house. Doesn’t seem like I can, this -street is so awful dirty and noisy and foreign.” - -“Yet you like it,” said the husband. - -“Yes,” she said, “that’s because I’m half Irish. The Irish were born -for excitement.” - -“What’s _your_ ancestry?” I asked the husband. - -“My father was a mountain white. Moved here from North Carolina, and -dug coal and married a Pennsylvania Dutch lady.” - -“It’s your turn,” she said to me. “You are a preacher?” - -“That’s a kind of an excuse I make.” - -“You can’t be any worse than the preacher we had here,” continued the -wife. “He lived down toward Shickshinny. He preached in an old chapel. -He wouldn’t start a Sunday school. We needed one bad enough. He just -married folks. He hardly ever buried them. They say he was afraid. -And,” she continued, with a growing tone of condemnation, “it’s a -preacher’s BUSINESS to face death. - -“Just about the time two of our children died of diphtheria, was when -he came to these parts. He was a Presbyterian, and I was raised a -Presbyterian, and he wouldn’t preach the funeral of my two babies. He -promised to come, and we waited two hours. So I just read the Bible at -the grave.” - -This she recounted with a bitter sense of insult. - -“And the same day he locked up his mother, too.” - -“Locked up his mother?” - -“Yes. Some said he wanted to visit a woman he didn’t want her to know -about. They said he was afraid she would follow him and spy. He locked -up the old lady, and she about yelled the roof off, and the neighbors -let her out. - -“And then,” continued my hostess, “when he was dying, he sent for a -Wilkesbarre priest.” - -“Sent for a priest?” I exclaimed, completely mystified. - -“Yes,” she whispered. “He must have been a Catholic all the time. And -the priest wouldn’t come either. _That’s what that old preacher got for -being so mean._” - -She continued: “That preacher wasn’t much meaner than the man is in the -company store.” - -She was bristling again. - -“He won’t deliver goods up here unless you run a big bill. If I want -anything much while big Frank here is at work, I have to take Jimmy’s -little play express-wagon and haul it up.” - -And now she was telling me of her terrible fright three days ago, down -at the company store, when there was a rumor of an accident in one of -the far tunnels of the mine. - -“All the foreign women came running down the hill, half-crazy. I am -used to false alarms, but I could hardly get up to this house with my -goods. I was expecting to see big Frank brought in, just like he was -before little Frank was born, eight years ago.” - -Little Frank lifted his face from its business of eating to listen. - -“The first thing that boy ever saw was his father on the floor there, -covered with blood.” - -“You don’t remember it, Frank?” asked his father, grinning. - -“Nope.” - -The wife continued: “There was only one doctor came. We had a time -between us. The other doctor was tendin’ the men husband had dug out. -The coal fell on them and mashed them flat. It couldn’t quite mash -husband. He’s too tough,” she said, lovingly. “He grabbed his pick and -he tunnelled his way through, with the blood squirting out of him.” - -Husband grinned like a petted child. He said: “It wasn’t quite as bad -as that, but I was bloody, all right.” - -She continued with a gesture of impatience: “This is cheerful Sunday -night talk. Let’s try something else. What kind of a poem are you goin’ -to read?” - -“It tells boys how to be great men, but it’s for fellows of from -fifteen to twenty. You’ll have to save it for your sons till they grow -a bit.” - -She was at the foot of the stairway like a flash. - -“Son, dress and come down to supper.” - -Son was down almost as soon as she was in her chair, pulling on a -stocking as he came. And he was hungry. He ate while we talked on and -on. - - -IV - -THE GRANDSONS OF THE KING - -After the supper the dishes waited. The wife said: “Now we will have -the poetry.” I said in my heart, “Maybe this is the one house in a -hundred where the seed of these verses will be sown upon good ground.” - -We went into the parlor, distinguished as such by the battered organ. -The mother had Frank and Jimmy sit in semicircle with her and big -Frank, while I plunged into my rhymed appeal. After the dynamite of the -day I did not hesitate to let loose the thunders. I did not hesitate to -pause and expound:--the poem being, as I have before described, many -stanzas on heroes of history, with the refrain, ever and anon: _God -help us to be brave._ No, kind and flattering reader, it was not above -their heads. Earnestness is earnestness everywhere. The whole circle -grasped that I really expected something unusual of those boys with the -black-diamond eyes, no matter what kind of perversity was in them at -present. - -I said, in so many words, as a beginning, that nitro-glycerine was not -the only force in the world, that there is also that dynamite called -the power of the soul, and that detonation called fame. - -But I did not dwell long upon my special saints, Francis of Assisi -and Buddha, nor those other favorites who some folk think contradict -them: Phidias and Michael Angelo. I dwelt on the strong: Alexander, -Cæsar, Mohammed, Cromwell, Napoleon, and especially upon the lawgivers, -Confucius, Moses, Justinian; and dreamed that this ungoverned strength -before me, that had sprung from the loins of King Coal, might some day -climb high, that these little wriggling, dirty-fisted grandsons of -that monarch might yet make the world some princely reparation for his -crimes. - -After the reading the mother and father said solemnly, “it is a good -book.” - -Then the wife showed the other two pieces of printed matter in the -household, a volume of sermons, and a copy of _The House of a Thousand -Candles_. You have read that work about the candles. The sermons were -by the Reverend Wood M. Smithers. You do not know the Reverend Mister -Smithers? He has collected in one fair volume all the sermons that ever -put you to sleep, an anthology of all those discourses that are just -alike. - -She said she had read them over and over again to the family. I -believed it. There was butter on the page. I said in my heart: “She is -not to be baffled by any phraseology. If she can get a kernel out of -Wood M. Smithers, she will also derive strength from my rhyme.” - -She promised she would have each of the boys pick out one of the -twenty-six great men for a model, as soon as they were schooled enough -to choose. She put the poem in the kitchen table drawer, where she kept -some photographs of close relatives, and I had the final evidence that -I had become an integral part of the family tradition. - - -V - -ON TO SHICKSHINNY - -They sent me up to bed. I put out the lamp at once, lest I should see -too much. I went to sleep quickly. I was as quickly awakened. Being a -man of strategies and divertisements, I reached through the blackness -to the lamp that was covered with leaked oil. I rubbed this on my -hands, and thence, thinly over my whole body. Coal oil too thick makes -blisters; thin enough, brings peace. - -I remember breakfast as a thing apart. Although the table held only -what we had for supper, warmed over, although the morning light was -grey, and the room the worse for the grey light, the thing I cannot -help remembering was the stillness and tenderness of that time. -Father and mother spoke in subdued human voices. They had not yet had -occasion to shout against the alarums and excursions of the day. And -the sensitive faces of the boys, and the half-demon, half-angel light -of their eyes stirred me with marvelling and reverence for the curious, -protean ways of God. - -And now I was walking down the steeps of Avernus into Shickshinny, -toward the smoke of torment that ascends forever. Underfoot was spread -the same dark leprosy that yesterday had stunted flower and fruit and -grass-blade. - -I hated King Coal still, but not so much as of yore. - - - - -WHAT THE SEXTON SAID - - - YOUR dust will be upon the wind - Within some certain years, - Though you be sealed in lead to-day - Amid the country’s tears. - - When this idyllic churchyard - Becomes the heart of town, - The place to build garage or inn, - They’ll throw your tombstone down. - - Your name so dim, so long outworn, - Your bones so near to earth, - Your sturdy kindred dead and gone, - How should men know your worth? - - So read upon the runic moon - Man’s epitaph, deep-writ. - It says the world is one great grave. - For names it cares no whit. - - It tells the folk to live in peace, - And still, in peace, to die. - At least, so speaks the moon to me, - The tombstone of the sky. - - - - -DEATH, THE DEVIL, AND HUMAN KINDNESS - -THE SHRED OF AN ALLEGORY - - -I - -THE UNDERTAKER - -CURIOUS are the agencies that throw the true believer into the -occult state. Convalescence may do it. Acts of piety may do it. -Self-mortification may do it. - -After reading my evening sermon in rhyme in the house of the stranger, -I had slept on the lounge in the parlor. The lounge had lost some of -its excelsior, and the springs wound their way upwards like steel -serpents. So strenuous had been the day I could have slumbered -peacefully on a Hindu bed of spikes. - -I awoke refreshed, despite several honorable scars. What is more -important I left that house with faculties of discernment. - -I did not realize at first that I was particularly spiritualized. I -was merely walking west, hoping to take in Oil City on my route. Yet I -saw straight through the bark of a big maple, and beheld the loveliest -... but I have not time to tell. - -Then I heard a fluttering in a patch of tall weeds and discovered what -the people in fairyland call ... but no matter. We must hurry on. - -At noon your servant was on the front step of a store near a -cross-roads called Cranberry, Pennsylvania. The store was on the south -side of the way by which I had come. I sat looking along wagon tracks -leading north, little suspecting I should take that route soon. - -On one side overhead was the sign: “Fred James, Undertaker.” On the -other: “Fred James, Grocer.” - -“_And so_,” I thought, “_I am going to meet, face to face, one of the -eternal powers._ He may call himself Fred James all he pleases. His -real name is Death.” - -I met the lady Life, once upon a time, long ago. She had innocent blue -eyes. Alone in the field I felt free to kiss the palm of her little -hand, under the shadow of the corn. - -It has nothing to do with the tale, but let us here reflect how the -corn-stalk is a proud thing, how it flourishes its dangerous blades, -guarding the young ear. It will cut you on the forehead if the wind is -high. Above the blades is the sacred tassel like a flame. - -Once, under that tassel, under those dangerous blades, I met Life, and -for good reason, bade her good-by. After her solemn words of parting, -she called me back, and mischievously fed me, from the pocket of her -gingham apron, crab apples and cranberries. Ever since that time those -fruits have been bitter delights to my superstitious fancy. - -And here I was at CRANBERRY cross-roads, with a funeral director’s sign -over my head. A long five minutes I meditated on the mystery of Life -and Death and cranberries. A fat chicken, apparently meditating on the -same mystery, kept walking up and down, catching gnats. - -At length it was revealed to me that when things have their proper -rhythm Life and Death are interwoven, like willows plaited for a -basket. Somewhat later in the afternoon I speculated that when times -are out of joint, it is because Death reigns without Life for a -partner, with the assistance of the Devil rather. But do not remember -this. It anticipates the plot. - -One does not hasten into the presence of the undertaker. One rather -waits. HE was coming. I did not look round. Even at noon he cast a -considerable shadow. - -The shadow dwindled as he sat on the same step and asked: “What road -have you come?” His non-partisan drawl was the result, we will suppose, -of not knowing which side of the store the new customer approached. - -“I came from over there. I have been walking since sunrise.” - -He had some account of my adventures, and my point of view as a -religious mendicant. I knew I would have to ask the further road of -him, but disliked the necessity. He waited patiently while I watched my -friend, the fat chicken, explore an empty, dirty, bottomless basket for -flies. - -“I want to go west by way of Oil City,” I finally said. - -He answered: “Oil City is reached by the north road, straight in front -of you as you sit. It is about an hour’s walk to the edge of it. It is -a sort of trap in the mountains. When you get in sight of it, _keep on -going down_.” This he said very solemnly. - -He put his hand on my shoulder: “Come in and rest and eat first. It -won’t cost you a cent.” - -I was hungry enough to eat a coffin handle, and so I looked at him and -extended my hand. He was a handsome chap, with a grey mustache. His -black coat was buttoned high. He was extra neat for a country merchant, -and chewed his tobacco surreptitiously. His face was not so bony and -stern as you might think. - -I gave him an odd copy of the _Tree of Laughing Bells_, still -remaining by me. He looked at the outside long, doing the cover more -than justice. Then he opened it, with a certain air of delicate -appreciation. I urged him to postpone reading the thing till I was gone. - -His store was high and long and narrow and cool. There was a counter -to the west, a counter to the east. Behind the western one were tall -coffin cupboards. As he proudly opened and shut them, one could not but -notice the length of his fingers and their dexterity. He showed plain -coffins and splendid coffins. He unscrewed the lid of one, that I might -see the silky cushions within. They looked easier than last night’s -lounge. - -As he stepped across what might be called the international date line -of the store, and entered the hemisphere of groceries, he began to look -as though he would indulge in a merry quip. A faint flush came to his -white countenance, that shone among the multi-colored packages. - -Before us were the supplies of a rural general store, from the kitchen -mop to the blue parlor vase. Hanging from the ceiling was an array of -the flamboyant varnished posters of the seedsmen, with pictures of cut -watermelons, blood-red, and portraits of beets, cabbages, pumpkins. - -I read his home-made sign aloud: “I guarantee every seed in the store. -Pansy seeds a specialty.” - -“Not that they all grow,” he explained. “But the guarantee keeps up -the confidence of the customers. I have made more off of vegetable and -flower seeds this year than caskets.” - -He pulled out a chip plate and fed me with dried beef, sliced thin. - -He smiled broadly, and set down a jar. The merry quip had arrived. - -“Why,” he asked, “is a stick of candy like a race-horse?” - -I remained silent, but looked anxious to know. Delighted with himself, -he gave the ancient answer, and with it several sticks of candy. Kind -reader, if you do not know the answer to the riddle, ask your neighbor. - -There was no end of sweets. He skilfully sliced fresh bread, and -spread it with butter and thick honey-comb. With much self-approval he -insisted on crowding my pockets with supper. - -“Nobody knows how they will treat you around Oil City. _I go often, but -never for pleasure. Only on funeral business._” - -He gave me pocketfuls of the little animal crackers, so daintily cut -out, that used to delight all of us as children. Since he insisted I -take something more, I took figs and dates. - -He held up an animal cracker, shaped like a cow, and asked: “When was -beefsteak the highest?” I ventured to give the answer. - -Death is not a bad fellow. Let no man cross his grey front stoop with -misgiving. The honey he serves is made by noble bees. Yet do not go -seeking him out. No doubt his acquaintance is most worth while when it -is casual, unexpected, one of the natural accidents. And he does not -always ask such simple riddles. - - -II - -THE TRAP WITHOUT THE BAIT - -It was about two o’clock when the north road left the cornfields and -reached the hill crests above the city. How the highway descended -over cliffs and retraced itself on ridges and wound into hollows to -get to the streets! At the foot of the first incline I met a lame cat -creeping, panic-stricken, out of town. - -Oil City is an ugly, confused kind of place. There are thousands like -it in the United States. - -I reached the post-office at last. _There was no letter for me at the -general delivery. I was expecting a missive._ And now my blistered -heels, and my breaking the rule to avoid the towns, and my detour of -half a day were all in vain. - -Oil City, in her better suburbs, as a collection of worthy families in -comfortable homes, may have much to say for herself. But as a corporate -soul she has no excuse. The dominant, shoddy architecture is as -eloquent as the red nose of a drunkard. I do not need to take pains to -work her into my allegory. The name she has chosen makes her a symbol. -No doubt others reach the very heart of her only to find it empty as -the post-office was to me. Baffling as this may be, there is another -risk. Escape is not easy. - -Almost out of town at last, I sat down by the fence, determined not to -stir till morning. I said, “I can sleep with my back against this post.” - -I had just overtaken the lame cat, and she now moved past me over the -ridge to the cornfields. She seemed most unhappy. I looked back to that -oil metropolis. _I wondered how many had lived and died there when they -would have preferred some other place._ - - -III - -A MYSTERIOUS DRIVER - -A fat Italian came by in a heavily-tired wagon. The wagon was loaded -with green bananas. The fruit-vendor stopped and looked me over. He -most demonstratively offered me a seat beside him. He had a Benvenuto -Cellini leer. He wore one gold earring. He looked like the social -secretary of the Black Hand. - -He was apparently driving on into the country. Therefore I suffered -myself to be pulled up on to the seat. Around the corner we came to -green fields and bushes, and I thanked the good St. Francis and all his -holy company. - -I said to my charioteer: “As soon as you get a mile out, let me down. I -do not want to get near any more towns for awhile.” - -“Allaright,” he said. On his wrist was tattooed a blue dagger. The -first thing he did was unmerciful. He went a yard out of his way to -drive over the lame cat which had stopped in despair, just ahead of us. -Pussy died without a shriek. Then the cruel one, gathering by my manner -that I was not pleased with this incident, created a diversion. He -reproved his horse for not hurrying. It was not so much a curse as an -Italian oration. The poor animal tried to respond, but hobbled so, his -master surprised me by checking the gait to a walk. Then he cooed to -the horse like a two hundred pound turtledove. - -In a previous incarnation this driver must have been one of the lower -animals, he had so many dealings with such. Some rocks half the size -of base-balls were piled at his feet. A ferocious dog shot out from a -cottage doorway. With lightning action he hurled the ammunition at the -offender. The beast retreated weeping aloud from pain. And Mr. Cellini -showed his teeth with delight. - -And now, after passing several pleasant farm-houses, where I ran a -chance for a free lodging for the asking, I was vexed to be suddenly -driven into a town. We hobbled, rattled on, into a wilderness thicker -every minute with fire-spouting smoke-stacks. - -“This ees Franklin,” said my charioteer. “Nice-a-town. _MY_ town,” he -added earnestly. “I getta reech (rich) to-morrow.” - -He began to cross-examine the writer of this tale. I counselled myself -not to give my name and address, lest I be held for ransom. - -After many harmless inquiries, he asked in a would-be ingratiating -manner, “Poppa reech?” - -“No. Poor.” - -“Poppa verra reech?” - -“No. Awfully poor. But happy and contented.” - -“Where your Poppa leeve?” - -“My father is the Man in the Moon.” - -That answer changed him completely. I seemed to have given the -password. I had joined whatever it was he belonged to. He gave me three -oranges as a sign. - -I had hoped we would drive past the smoke and fire. But he turned at -right angles, into the midst of it, and drove into a big black barn. He -waved me good-by in the courtliest manner, as though he were somebody -important, and I were somebody important. - -Pretty soon I asked a passer-by the nearest way to the suburbs. I -had to walk on the edges of my feet they were so tired. The street -he pointed out to me was nothing but a continuation of tar-black, -coughing, out-of-door ovens, side by side, shoulder to shoulder, on to -the crack of doom. I presume, in the language of this vain world, they -were coke ovens. - -I opened my eyes as little as possible and breathed hardly at all. -Then, by way of diversion, I nibbled animal crackers, first a dog, then -a giraffe, then a hippopotamus, then an elephant. - -Those ovens looked queerer as the street led on. There were subtle -essences abroad when the smoke cleared away, and when the great roar -ceased there were vague sounds that struck awe into the heart. I may be -mistaken, but I think I know the odor of a burning ghost on the late -afternoon wind, and the puffing noise he makes. - -As the cinders crunched, crunched, underfoot, the conviction deepened: -“These ovens are not mere works of man. Dying sinners snared and -corrupted by Oil City are carried here when the city has done its -work--carried in the wagon of Apollyon, under bunches of green bananas. -Body and soul they are disintegrated by the venomous oil; they crumble -away in the town of oil, and here in the town of ovens, the fragments -are burned with unquenchable fire.” - -Now it was seven o’clock. The street led south past the aristocratic -suburbs of Franklin, and on to the fields and dandelion-starred -roadside. - - -IV - -THE ALLEGORY BREAKS DOWN. MY FRIEND HUMANKINDNESS WITH THE GREEN -GALLUSES - -I hoped for a farm-hand’s house. Only in that sort will they give free -lodging so near town. And, friends, I found it, there on the edge of -the second cornfield. The welcome was unhesitating. - -I looked at my host aghast. To satisfy my sense of the formal, he -should have had the dignity to make him Father Adam, and lord of -Paradise. How could one round out a day that began loftily with Death, -and continued gloriously with some one mighty like the Devil, with this -inglorious type now before me? He wrecked my allegory. There is no -climax in Stupidity. - -Just as the colorless, one-room house had stove, chimney, cupboard, -adequate roof, floor, and walls, so the owner had the simplified, -anatomical, and phrenological make-up of a man. He had a luke-warm -hand-clasp. He smoked a Pittsburg stogy. He had thick vague features -and a shock of drab hair. The nearest to a symbol about him was his new -green galluses. I suppose they indicated I was out in the fields again. - -If his name was not Stupidity, it was Awkwardness. He kept a sick -geranium in an old tomato can in the window. He had not cut off the -bent-back cover of the can. Just after he gave me a seat he scratched -his hand, as he was watering the flower, and swore softly. - -Yet one must not abuse his host. I hasten to acknowledge his generous -hospitality. If it be not indelicate to mention it, he boiled much -water, and properly diluted it with cold, that the traveller might -bathe. The bath was accomplished out of doors beneath the shades of -evening. - -Later he was making preparations for supper, with dull eyes that looked -nowhere. He made sure I fitted my chair. He put an old comfort over it. -It was well. The chair was not naturally comfortable; it was partly a -box. - -After much fumbling about, he brought some baked potatoes from the -oven. The plate was so hot he dropped it, but so thick it would not -break. - -He picked up the potatoes, as good as ever, and broke some open for -me, spreading them with tolerable butter, and handing them across the -table. Then I started to eat. - -“Wait a minute,” he said. He bowed his head, closed his dull eyes, and -uttered these words: “The Lord make us truly thankful for what we are -about to receive. Amen.” - -I have been reproved by some of the judicious for putting so much food -in these narratives. Nevertheless the first warm potato tasted like -peacocks’ tongues, the next like venison, and the next like ambrosia, -and the next like a good warm potato with butter on it. One might as -well leave Juliet out of Verona as food like this out of a road-story. -As we ate we hinted to each other of our many ups and downs. He mumbled -along, telling his tale. He did not care whether he heard mine or not. - -He had been born nearby. In early manhood he had been taken with the -oil fever. It happened in this wise:--He had cut his foot splitting -kindling. Meditating ambition as he slowly recovered, he resolved -to go to town. He sold his small farm and wasted his substance in -speculation. At the same time his young wife and only child died -of typhoid fever. He was a laborer awhile in the two cities to the -northeast. Then he came back here to plough corn. - -He had been saving for two years, had made money enough to go back -“pretty soon” and enter what he considered a sure-thing scheme, that I -gathered had a close relation to the oil business. He said that he had -learned from experience to sift the good from the bad in that realm of -commerce. - -He put brakes on the slow freight train of his narrative. “I was about -to explain, when you ast to come in, that I don’t afford dessert to my -meals often.” - -“If you will excuse me,” I said, emptying my pockets, “these figs, -these dates, these oranges, these animal crackers were given me by -Death, and the Devil. Eat hearty.” - -“Death and the Devil. What kind are they?” - -“They’re not a bad sort. Death gave me honey for dinner, and the Devil -did no worse than drive me a little out of my way.” - -He smiled vaguely. He thought it was a joke, and was too interested in -the food itself to ask any more questions. - -The balmy smokeless wind from the south was whistling, whistling past -the window, and through the field. How much one can understand by -mere whispers! The wind cried, “Life, life, life!” Some of the young -corn was brushing the walls of the cottage, and armies on armies of -young corn were bivouacing further down the road, lifting their sacred -tassels toward the stars. - -There was no change in the expression of the countenance of my host, -eating, talking, or sitting still in the presence of the night. I may -have had too poor an estimate of his powers, but I preached no sermon -that evening. - -But, like many a primitive man I have met, he preached me a sermon. He -had no bed. He gave the traveller a place to sleep in one corner and -himself slept in the opposite corner. The floor was smooth and clean -and white, and the many scraps of rag-carpet and the clean comfort over -me were a part of the sermon. Another part was in his question before -he slept: “Does the air from that open window bother you?” - -I assured him I wanted all there was, though from the edge of the world. - -He had awkwardly folded his new overcoat, and put it under my -head.... And so I was beginning to change his name from Stupidity and -Awkwardness to Humankindness. - -Though in five minutes he was snoring like Sousa’s band, I could not -but sleep. When I awoke the sun was in my eyes. It shone through the -open door. Mr. Humankindness was up. The smell of baked potatoes was in -the air. Outside, rustled the com. The wind cried, “Life, life, life.” - - - - -LIFE TRANSCENDENT - -This being the name of praise given to a fair lady. - - - I USED to think, when the corn was blowing, - Of my lost lady, _Life Transcendent_, - Of her valiant way, of her pride resplendent: - For the corn swayed round, like her warrior-band - When I knelt by the blades to kiss her hand. - But now the green of the corn is going, - And winter comes and a springtime sowing - Of other grain, on the plains we knew. - So I walk on air, where the clouds are blowing, - And kiss her hand, where the gods are sowing - Stars for corn, in the star-fields new. - - - - -IN THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION CHURCH - - - HUNTED by friends who think that life is play, - Shaken by holy loves, more feared than foes, - By beauty’s amber cup, that overflows, - And pride of place, that leads me more astray:-- - - Here I renew my vows, and this chief vow-- - To seek each year this shrine of deathless power, - Keeping my springtime cornland thoughts in flower, - While labor-gnarled grey Christians round me bow. - - Arm me against great towns, strong spirits old! - St. Francis keep me road-worn, music-fed. - Help me to look upon the poor-house bed - As a most fitting death, more dear than gold. - - Help me to seek the sunburned groups afield, - The iron folk, the pioneers free-born. - Make me to voice the tall men in the corn. - Let boyhood’s wildflower days a bright fruit yield. - - Scourge me, a slave that brings unhallowed praise - To you, stern Virgin in this church so sweet - If I desert the ways wherein my feet - Were set by Heaven, in prenatal days. - - - - -THE OLD GENTLEMAN WITH THE LANTERN (AND THE PEOPLE OF HIS HOUSEHOLD) - - -I - -THE SAVAGE NECKLACE - -THE reader need not expect this book to contain any nicely adjusted -plot with a villain, hero, lawyer, papers, surprise, and happy ending. -The highway is irrelevant. The highway is slipshod. The highway is as -the necklace of a gipsy or an Indian, a savage string of pebbles and -precious stones, no two alike, with an occasional trumpery suspender -button or peach seed. Every diamond is in the rough. - -I was walking between rugged farms on the edge of the oil country in -western Pennsylvania. - -The road, almost dry after several days of rain, was gay with -butterfly-haunted puddles. The grotesque swain who gave me a lift in -his automobile for a mile is worth a page, but we will only say that -his photograph would have contributed to the gaiety of nations--that -he was the carved peach-stone on the necklace of the day. - -There was a complacent cat in a doorway, that should have been named -“scrambled eggs and milk,” so mongrel was his overcoat. There was a -philosophic grasshopper reading inscriptions in a lonely cemetery, with -whom I had a long and silent interchange of spirit. Even the graveyard -was full of sun. - -On and on led the merry morning. At length came noon, and a meal given -with heartiness, as easily plucked as a red apple. For half an hour -after dinner in that big farm-house we sat and talked religion. - -O pagan in the cities, the brand of one’s belief is still important -in the hayfield. I was delighted to discover this household held by -conviction to the brotherhood of which I was still a nominal member. -Their lingo was a taste of home. “Our People,” “Our Plea,” “The pious -unimmersed.” Thus did they lead themselves into paths of solemnity. - -Then, in the last five minutes of my stay, I gave them my poem-sermon. -The pamphlet made them stare, if it did not make them think. - -Splendor after splendor rolled in upon the highway from the four -corners at heaven. Why then should I complain, if about four o’clock -the prosy old world emerged again? - -The wagon-track now followed a section of the Pennsylvania railroad, -and railroads are anathema in my eyes when I am afoot. There appeared -no promising way of escape. And now the steel rails led into a region -where there had been rain, even this morning. More than once I had to -take to the ties to go on. When the mud was at all passable I walked in -it by preference, fortifying myself with these philosophizings:-- - -“Cinders are sterile. They blast man and nature, but the black earth -renews all. Mud upon the shoes is not a contamination but a sign of -progress, eloquent as sweat upon the brow. Who knows but the feet are -the roots of a man? Who knows but rain on the road may help him to -grow? Maybe the stature and breadth of farmers is due to their walking -behind the plough in the damp soil. Only an aviator or a bird has a -right to spurn the ground. All the rest of us must furrow our way. Thus -will our cores be enriched, thus will we give fruit after our kind.” - -Whistling pretty hard, I made my way. And now I had to choose between -my rule to flee from the railroad, and my rule to ask for hospitality -before dark. - -At length I said to myself: “I want to get into a big unsophisticated -house, the kind that is removed from this railroad. I want to find an -unprejudiced host who will listen with an open mind, and let me talk -him to death.” - -To keep this resolve I had to hang on till near eight o’clock. The -cloudy night made the way dim. At length I came to a road that had been -so often graded and dragged it shed water like a turtle’s shell. It -crossed the railway at right angles and ploughed north. I followed it -a mile, shaking the heaviest mud from my shoes. Led by the light of a -lantern, I approached a dim grey farm-house and what would have been in -the daytime a red barn. - - -II - -BY THE LIGHT OF THE LANTERN - -The lantern was carried, as I finally discovered, by an old man getting -a basket of chips near the barn gate. He had his eye on me as I leaned -over the fence. He swung the lantern closer. - -“My name is Nicholas,” I said. “I am a professional tramp.” - -“W-e-l-l,” he said slowly, in question, and then in exclamation. - -He flashed the lantern in my face. “Come in,” he said. “Sit down.” - -We were together on the chip-pile. He did not ask me to split kindling, -or saw wood. Few people ever do. - -In appearance he was the old John G. Whittier type of educated -laboring-man, only more eagle-like. He spoke to me in a kingly -prophetic manner, developed, I have no doubt, by a lifetime of -unquestioned predominance at prayer-meeting and at the communion table. -It was the sonorous agricultural holy tone that is the particular -aversion of a certain pagan type of city radical who does not -understand that the meeting-house is the very rock of the agricultural -social system. As far as I am concerned, if this manner be worn by a -kindly old man, it inspires me with respect and delight. In a slow and -gracious way he separated his syllables. - -“Young man, you are per-fect-ly wel-come to shel-ter if we are on-ly -sure you will not do us an in-ju-ry. My age and ex-per-ience ought to -count for a lit-tle, and I assure you that most free travel-ers abuse -hos-pi-tal-ity. But wait till my daugh-ter-in-law comes.” - -I was shivering with weariness, and my wet feet wanted to get to a -stove at once. I did not feel so much like talking some one to death as -I had a while back. - -By way of passing the time, the Patriarch showed me his cane. -“Pre-sen-ted at the last old set-tel-ers’ picnic because I have been -the pres-i-dent of the old-settlers’ association for ten years. Young -man, why don’t you carry a cane?” - -“Why should I?” - -“Won’t it help you to keep off dogs?” - -I replied, “A housekeeper, if she is in a nervous condition, is apt -to be afraid of a walking-stick. It looks like a club. To carry -something to keep off dogs is like carrying a lightning-rod to keep off -lightning. I encounter a lot of barking and thunder, but have never -been bitten or blasted.” - -And while I was thus laboring for the respect of the Patriarch, the -daughter-in-law stepped into the golden circle of the lantern light. -She had just come from the milking. I shall never forget those bashful -gleaming eyes, peering out from the sunbonnet. Her sleeves were rolled -to the shoulder. Startling indeed were those arms, as white as the -foaming milk. - -She set down the bucket with a big sigh of relaxation. She pushed back -the sunbonnet to get a better look. The old man addressed her in an -authoritative and confident way, as though she were a mere adjunct, a -part of his hospitality. - -“Daugh-ter, here is a good young man--he Looks like a good young man, -I think a stew-dent. You see he has books in his pock-et. He wants a -night’s lodging. Now, if he _is_ a good young man, I think we can give -him the bed in the spare room, and if he is a bad young man, I think -there is enough rope in the barn to hang him before daylight.” - -“Yes, you can stay,” she said brightly. “Have you had supper?” - -It is one of the obligations of the road to tell the whole truth. But -in this case I lied. The woman was working too late. - -“Oh yes, I’ve had supper,” I said. - -And she carried the milk into the darkness. - -In the city, among people having the status indicated by the big red -barn and the enormous wind-mill and a most substantial fence, this -gleaming woman would have languished in shelter. She would have played -at many philanthropies, or gone to many study clubs or have had many -lovers. She would have been variously adventurous according to her -corner of the town. Here her paramour was WORK. He still caressed her, -but would some day break her on the wheel. - -The old man sent me toward the front porch alone. There was a rolling -back of the low gray clouds just then, and the coming of the moon. The -moon’s moods are so many. To-night she took the forlornness out of the -restless sky. She looked domestic as the lantern. - - -III - -YOU OUGHT TO BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELF - -I was on the porch, scraping an acquaintance with the grandmother. She -held a baby in her lap. They sat in the crossing of the moonlight and -the lamplight. - -There was no one to explain me. I explained myself. She eyed me -angrily. She did not want me to shake hands with the baby. She asked -concerning her daughter-in-law. - -“And did she say you could stay?” - -“She did.” - -The grandmother brought a hard fist down on the arm of the chair: “I’d -like to break her neck. She’s no more backbone than a rabbit.” - -I do not distinctly remember any bitter old man I have met in my -travels. She was the third bitter old woman. Probably with the same -general experiences as her husband, she had digested them differently. -She was on the shelf, but made for efficiency and she was not run down. - -In her youth her hair was probably red. Though she was plainly an old -woman, it was the brown of middle age with only a few streaks of gray. -Under her roughness there were touches of a truly cultured accent and -manner. I would have said that in youth she had had what they call -opportunities. - -I asked: “Isn’t the moon fine to-night?” - -She replied: “Why don’t you go to work?” - -I answered: “I asked for work in the big city till I was worn to a -thread. And you are the first person who has urged it on me since I -took to tramping. I wonder why no one ever thought of it before.” - -She smiled grudgingly. - -“What kind of work did you try to do in the city?” - -“I wanted to paint rainbows and gild sidewalks and blow bubbles for a -living. But no one wanted me to. It is about all I am fit for.” - -“Don’t talk nonsense to me, young man!” - -“Pardon me, leddy--I am a writer of rhymes.” - -“The nation’s going to the dogs,” she said. I suppose I was the -principal symptom of national decay. - -Just then a happy voice called through the house, “Come to supper.” - -“That’s for you,” said the grandmother. “You ought to be ashamed of -yourself.” - - -IV - -GRETCHEN-CECILIA, WAITRESS - -I went in the direction of the voice, delighted, not ashamed. There, in -that most cleanly kitchen, stood the white-armed milkmaid, with cheeks -of geranium red. She had spread a table before me in the presence of -mine enemy. I said: “I did not ask for supper. I told you I had eaten.” - -“Oh, I knew you were hungry. Wait on him, Gretchen-Cecilia.” - -My hostess scurried into the other room. She was in a glorious mood -over something with which I had nothing to do. - -Gretchen-Cecilia came out of the pantry and poured me a glass of warm -milk. I looked at her, and my destiny was sealed forevermore--at least -for an hour or so. The sight of her brought the tears to my eyes. - -I know you are saying: “Beware of the man with tears in his eyes.” -Yes, I too have seen weeping exhibitions. I remember a certain pious -exhorter. The collection followed soon. And I used to hear an actor -brag about the way he wept when he looked upon a certain ladylike -actress whom we all adore. He vividly pictured himself with a -handkerchief to his devoted cheeks, waiting in the wings for his cue. -He had belladonna eyes. At the risk of being classed with such folk, I -reaffirm that I was a little weepy. I insist it was not gratitude for -a sudden square meal--if truth be told, I have had many such--it was -the novel Gretchen-Cecilia. - -It took little conversation to show that Gretchen-Cecilia was a -privileged character. She had little of the touch of the farm upon -her. She was the spoiled pet of the house, and the index of their -prosperity--what novelists call the third generation. She had a way of -lifting her chin and shoving her fists deep into her apron pockets. - -I said: “I have a fairy-tale to read to you after supper.” - -And she said: “I like fairy-tales.” And then, redundantly: “I like -stories about fairies. Fairy stories are nice.” - -It was no little pleasure to eat after nine hours doing without, and -to dwell on beauty such as this after so many days of absence from the -museums of art and the curio shops. Every time she brought me warm -biscuits or refilled my tumbler, she brought me pretty thoughts as well. - -She was nine years old, she told me. Her eyes were sometimes brown, -sometimes violet. Her mouth was half a cherry, and her chin the -quintessence of elegance. Her braids were long and rich, her ribbons -wide and crisp. - -Maidenhood has distinct stages. The sixteenth year, when unusually -ripe, is a tender prophecy. Thirteen is often the climax of astringent -childhood, with its especial defiance or charm. But nine years old is -my favorite season. It is spring in winter. It is sweet sixteen through -walls of impregnable glass. This ripeness dates from prehistoric days, -when people lived in the tops of the trees, and almost flew to and from -the nests they built there, and mated much earlier than now. - -As I finished eating, the mother brought the little brother into the -room saying, “Gretchen-Cecilia, watch the baby.” Then she smiled on me -and said: “When she washes the dishes, you can hold him.” - -She had on a fresh gingham apron, blue, with white trimmings. I judged -by the squeak, she had changed her shoes. - -“Who’s coming?” I asked, when the mother had left. - -“Papa. He goes around the state and digs oil wells, and is back at the -end of the week.” - -I was washing the dishes when Grandma came in. She frowned me away from -the dishpan. She said, “Gretchen-Cecilia, wipe the dishes.” - -The baby howled on the floor. I was not to touch him. Gretchen-Cecilia -tried to comfort him by saying, “Baby, dear dear baby; baby, dear dear -baby.” - -“Do you realize, young man,” asked Grandma, “that I, an old woman, am -washing your dishes for you?” - -I was busy. I was putting my wet stockinged feet on a kindling-board in -the oven, and my shoes were curling up on the back of the stove. - -“Young man--” - -“Yessum--” - -“_Where’s your wife?_” - -I replied, “I have no wife, and never did have.” Then I ventured to -ask, “May I have the hand of Gretchen? I want some one who can wipe -dishes while I wash them.” - -“But I’m not grown up,” piped the maiden. It seemed her only objection. - -I said: “I will wait and wait till you are seventeen.” - -The old lady had no soul for trifles. She intoned, like conscience -that will not be slain: “_Where’s your wife?_” - -But I said in my heart: “Madam, you are only a suspender button upon -the necklace of the evening.” - - -V - -“PAPA HAS COME!” - -There was a scurry and a flutter. Gretchen threw down her dish-rag, -leaving Grandma a plate to wipe. - -I heard the grandfather say, “Wel-come, son, wel-come indeed!” The -young wife gave a smothered shriek, and then in a minute I heard her -exclaim, “John, you’re a scamp!” - -I put on my hot shoes and went in to see what this looked like. -Gretchen-Cecilia was somewhere between them, and then on her father’s -shoulder, mussing his hair. And the mother took Gretchen down, as John -said in reply to a question:-- - -“Business is good. Whether there’s oil or not, I dig the hole and get -paid.” - -This man was now standing his full height for his family to admire. -He was one I too could not help admiring. He had an open sunburned -face, and I thought that behind it there was a non-scheming mind, that -had attained good fortune beyond the lot of most of the simple. He was -worth the dressing up the family had done for him, and almost worthy of -Gretchen’s extra crisp hair ribbons. - -His wife put her arms around his neck and whispered something, -evidently about me. He watched me over his shoulder as much as to say:-- - -“And so it’s a stray dog wants shelter? No objections.” - -He unwrapped his package. It was an extraordinary doll, with truly -truly hair, and Gretchen-Cecilia had to give him seven kisses and -almost cry before he surrendered it. - -He pulled off his boots and threw them in the corner, then paddled -up stairs and came down in his shoes. For no reason at all -Gretchen-Cecilia and her mother chased him around the kitchen table -with a broom and a feather duster, and then out on to the back porch. - - -VI - -CONFERENCES - -The grandfather called me into the front room and handed me a book. - -“Yer a schol-ar. What do you think of that?” - -It was a history of the county. The frontispiece was a portrait of -Judge Somebody. But the book naturally opened at about the tenth -page, on an atrocious engraving of this goodly old man and his not -ill-looking wife. He breathed easier when I found it. It was plainly a -basis of family pride. I read the inscription. - -“So you two are the oldest inhabitants?” I asked. - -“The oldest per-pet-ual in-habitants. I was born in this coun-ty and -have nev-er left it. My wife is some young-er, but she has nev-er left -it, since she married me.” - -Even the old lady grew civil. She tapped a brooch near her neck. “They -gave me this breast-pin at the last old-settlers’ picnic.” - -The old man continued: “All the old farm is still here in our hands, -but mostly rented. It brings something, something. Our big income is -from my son’s well-digging. He never speculates and he makes money.” - -It seemed a part of the old man’s pride to have even the passing -stranger realize they were well-fixed. In a furtive attempt to do -justice to their station in life they had a tall clock in the corner, -quite new and beautiful. And, as I discovered later, there was up -stairs a handsome bath-room. The rest of that new house was clean and -white, but helplessly Spartan. - -The old folk were called to the back porch. At the same time I heard -the mother say, “Show the man your doll.” - -And in came the little daughter like thistledown. - -We were in that white room at opposite ends of the long table, and -nothing but the immaculate cloth stretching between us. She sat with -the doll clutched to her breast, looking straight into my eyes, the -doll staring at me also. The girl was such a piece of bewitchment that -the poem I brought to her about the magical _Tree of Laughing Bells_ -seemed tame to me, and everyday. That foolish rhyme was soon read and -put into her hands. It seemed to give her an infinite respect for me. -And any human creature loves to be respected. - -On the back porch the talking grew louder. - -“Papa is telling them he wants to rent the rest of the farm and move us -all to town,” explained Gretchen. - -It was the soft voice of the young wife we heard: “Of course it will be -nice to be nearer my church.” - -And then the young father’s voice: “And I don’t want Gretchen to grow -up on the farm.” - -And the old man’s voice, still nobly intoned: “And as I say, I don’t -want to be stub-born, but I don’t want to cross the coun-ty line.” - -Gretchen banged the door on them and we crossed the county line indeed. -We told each other fairy-tales while the unheeded murmur of debate went -on. - -When it came Gretchen’s turn, she alternated Grimm, and Hans Andersen -and the legends of the Roman Church. I had left the railroad resolved -to talk some one to death, and now with all my heart I was listening. -She knew the tales I had considered my special discoveries in youth: -“The Amber Witch,” “The Enchanted Horse,” “The Two Brothers.” She also -knew that most pious narrative, _Elsie Dinsmore_. She approved when I -told her I had found it not only sad but helpful in my spiritual life. -She had found it just so in hers. - - -VII - -THE SPARE ROOM - -With her eyes still flashing from argument, the grandmother took me up -stairs. She gave me a big bath-towel, and showed me the bath-room, and -also my sleeping place. I asked her about the holy pictures hanging -near my bed. She explained in a voice that endeavored not to censure: -“My daughter-in-law is of German-Catholic descent, and she is _still_ -Catholic.” - -“What is _your_ denomination?” I asked. - -“My husband and son and I are Congregationalists.” - -She did not ask it of me, but I said: “I am what is sometimes -disrespectfully called a ‘Campbellite.’” - -But the old lady was gone. - -After a boiling bath I lay musing under those holy pictures. My brother -of the road, when they put you in the best room, as they sometimes -do, and you look at the white counterpane and the white sheets and the -cosey appointments, do you take these brutally, or do you think long -upon the intrinsic generosity of God and man? - -I have laid hold of hospitality coldly and greedily in my time, but -this night at least, I was thankful. And as I turned my head in a new -direction I was thankful most of all for the unexpected presence of the -Mother of God. There was her silvery statue near the foot of my bed, -the moonlight pouring straight in upon it through the wide window. It -spoke to me of peace and virginity. - -And I thought how many times in Babylon I had gone into the one ever -open church to look on the crowned image of the Star of the Sea. Though -I am no servitor of Rome I have only adoration for virginity, be it -carved in motionless stone, or in marble that breathes and sings. - -A long long time I lay awake while the image glimmered and glowed. The -clock downstairs would strike its shrill bell, and in my heart a censer -swung. - - -VIII - -MORNING - -There was a pounding on the door and a shout. It was the young -husband’s voice. “It’s time to feed your face.” - -They were at the breakfast table when I came down. My cherished memory -of the group is the picture of them with bowed heads, the grandfather, -with hand upraised, saying grace. It was ornate, and by no means brief. -It was rich with authority. I wanted to call in all the mocking pagans -of the nation, to be subdued before that devotion. I wanted to say: -“Behold, little people, some great hearts still pray.” - -I stood in the door and made shift to bow my head. Yet my head was not -so much bowed but I could see Gretchen-Cecilia and her mother timidly -cross themselves. In my heart I said “Amen” to the old man’s prayer. -But I love every kind of devotion, so I crossed myself in the Virgin’s -name. - -The tale had as well end here as anywhere. On the road there are -endless beginnings and few conclusions. For instance I gathered from -the conversation at the breakfast table they were not sure whether they -would move to the city or not. They were for the most part silent and -serene. - -There were pleasant farewells a little later. Gretchen-Cecilia, when -the others were not looking, gave me, at my earnest solicitation, a -tiny curl from the head of her doll that had truly truly hair. - -I walked on and on, toward the ends of the infinite earth, though I had -found this noble temple, this shrine not altogether made with hands. I -again consecrated my soul to the august and Protean Creator, maker of -all religions, dweller in all clean temples, master of the perpetual -road. - - - - -THAT MEN MIGHT SEE AGAIN THE ANGEL-THRONG - - - WOULD we were blind with Milton, and we sang - With him of uttermost Heaven in a new song, - That men might see again the angel-throng, - And newborn hopes, true to this age would rise, - Pictures to make men weep for paradise, - All glorious things beyond the defeated grave. - God smite us blind, and give us bolder wings; - God help us to be brave. - - -Printed in the United States of America. - - - - -The following pages contain advertisements of books by the same -author. - - - - -_VERSE BY THE SAME AUTHOR_ - - -The Congo and Other Poems - - With a preface by HARRIET MONROE, Editor of the _Poetry Magazine_. - _Cloth, 12mo, $1.25; leather, $1.60_ - -In the readings which Vachel Lindsay has given for colleges, -universities, etc., throughout the country, he has won the approbation -of the critics and of his audiences in general for the new verse-form -which he is employing, as well as the manner of his chanting and -singing, which is peculiarly his own. He carries in memory all the -poems in his books, and recites the program made out for him; the -wonderful effect of sound produced by his lines, their relation to the -idea which the author seeks to convey, and their marvelous lyrical -quality are quite beyond the ordinary, and suggest new possibilities -and new meanings in poetry. It is his main object to give his already -established friends a deeper sense of the musical intention of his -pieces. - -The book contains the much discussed “War Poem,” “Abraham Lincoln Walks -at Midnight”; it contains among its familiar pieces: “The Santa Fe -Trail,” “The Firemen’s Ball,” “The Dirge for a Righteous Kitten,” “The -Griffin’s Egg,” “The Spice Tree,” “Blanche Sweet,” “Mary Pickford,” -“The Soul of the City,” etc. - - =Mr. Lindsay received the Levinson Prize for the best poem - contributed to _Poetry_, a magazine of verse, (Chicago) for 1915.= - - “We do not know a young man of any more promise than Mr. Vachel - Lindsay for the task which he seems to have set himself.”--_The Dial._ - - - - -General William Booth Enters Into Heaven and Other Poems - - _Price, $1.25; leather, $1.60_ - -This book contains among other verses: “On Reading Omar Khayyam during -an Anti-Saloon Campaign in Illinois”; “The Wizard Wind”; “The Eagle -Forgotten,” a Memorial to John P. Altgeld; “The Knight in Disguise,” -a Memorial to O. Henry; “The Rose and the Lotus”; “Michaelangelo”; -“Titian”; “What the Hyena Said”; “What Grandpa Mouse Said”; “A Net to -Snare the Moonlight”; “Springfield Magical”; “The Proud Farmer”; “The -Illinois Village”; “The Building of Springfield.” - -=COMMENTS ON THE TITLE POEM:= - - “This poem, at once so glorious, so touching and poignant in its - conception and expression ... is perhaps the most remarkable poem of - a decade--one that defies imitation.”--_Review of Reviews._ - - “A sweeping and penetrating vision that works with a naïve charm.... - No American poet of to-day is more a people’s poet.”--_Boston - Transcript._ - - “One could hardly overpraise ‘General Booth.’”--_New York Times._ - - “Something new in verse, spontaneous, passionate, unmindful of - conventions in form and theme.”--_The Living Age._ - - - - -_PROSE BY THE SAME AUTHOR_ - - -Adventures While Preaching the Gospel of Beauty - - _Price, $1.00_ - -This is a series of happenings afoot while reciting at back-doors in -the west, and includes some experiences while harvesting in Kansas. -It includes several proclamations which apply the Gospel of Beauty to -agricultural conditions. There are, among other rhymed interludes: “The -Shield of Faith,” “The Flute of the Lonely,” “The Rose of Midnight,” -“Kansas,” “The Kallyope Yell.” - -SOMETHING TO READ - - Vachel Lindsay took a walk from his home in Springfield, Ill., over - the prairies to New Mexico. He was in Kansas in wheat-harvest time - and he worked as a farm-hand, and he tells all about that. He tells - about his walks and the people he met in a little book, “Adventures - while Preaching the Gospel of Beauty.” For the conditions of his - tramps were that he should keep away from cities, money, baggage, - and pay his way by reciting his own poems. And he did it. People - liked his pieces, and tramp farmhands with rough necks and rougher - hands left off singing smutty limericks and took to “Atlanta in - Calydon” apparently because they preferred it. Of motor cars, which - gave him a lift, he says: “I still maintain that the auto is a - carnal institution, to be shunned by the truly spiritual, but there - are times when I, for one, get tired of being spiritual.” His story - of the “Five Little Children Eating Mush” (that was one night in - Colorado, and he recited to them while they ate supper) has more - beauty and tenderness and jolly tears than all the expensive sob - stuff theatrical managers ever dreamed of. Mr. Lindsay doesn’t need - to write verse to be a poet. His prose is poetry--poetry straight - from the soil, of America that is, and of a nobler America that is to - be. You cannot afford--both for your entertainment and for the _real - idea_ that this young man has (of which we have said nothing)--to - miss this book.--_Editorial from Collier’s Weekly._ - - - - -The Art of the Moving Picture - - _Price, $1.25_ - -An effort to apply the Gospel of Beauty to a new art. The first -section has an outline which is proposed as a basis for photoplay -criticism in America; chapters on: “The Photoplay of Action,” “The -Intimate Photoplay,” “The Picture of Fairy Splendor,” “The Picture of -Crowd Splendor,” “The Picture of Patriotic Splendor,” “The Picture -of Religious Splendor,” “Sculpture in Motion,” “Painting in Motion,” -“Furniture,” “Trappings and Inventions in Motion,” “Architecture in -Motion,” “Thirty Differences between the Photoplays and the Stage,” -“Hieroglyphics.” The second section is avowedly more discursive, being -more personal speculations and afterthoughts, not brought forward -so dogmatically; chapters on: “The Orchestra Conversation and the -Censorship,” “The Substitute for the Saloon,” “California and America,” -“Progress and Endowment,” “Architects as Crusaders,” “On Coming Forth -by Day,” “The Prophet Wizard,” “The Acceptable Year of the Lord.” - -=FOR LATE REVIEWS OF MR. LINDSAY AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES READ:= - - _The New Republic_: Articles by Randolph S. Bourne, December 5, 1914, - on the “Adventures while Preaching”; and Francis Hackett, December - 25, 1915, on “The Art of the Moving Picture.” - - _The Dial_: Unsigned article by Lucien Carey, October 16, 1914, on - “The Congo,” etc. - - _The Yale Review_: Article by H. M. Luquiens, July, 1916, on “The Art - of the Moving Picture.” - -GENERAL ARTICLES ON THE POETRY SITUATION - - _The Century Magazine_: “America’s Golden Age in Poetry,” March, 1916. - - _Harper’s Monthly Magazine_: “The Easy Chair,” William Dean Howells, - September, 1915. - - _The Craftsman_: “Has America a National Poetry?” Amy Lowell, July, - 1916. - - - THE MACMILLAN COMPANY - Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York - - - - -FOOTNOTES: - - -[1] This appears, pages seventy-four through eighty-one, in _General -Booth and Other Poems_. - -[2] This appears, pages seventy-four through eighty-one, in _General -Booth and Other Poems_. - -[3] In the prose sketches in this book I have allowed myself a -story-teller’s license only a little. Sometimes a considerable -happening is introduced that came the day before, or two days after. In -some cases the events of a week are told in reverse order. - -Lady Iron-Heels is obviously a story, but embodies my exact impression -of that region in a more compressed form than a note-book record could -have done. - -The other travel-narratives are ninety-nine per cent literal fact and -one per cent abbreviation. - -[4] Portions of this poem are scattered through this book for -interludes. Others are already printed in _General Booth and Other -Poems_. - - - - -TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES: - - - Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_. - - Emboldened text is surrounded by equals signs: =bold=. - - Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. - - Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized. - - Archaic or alternate spelling has been retained from the original. - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A HANDY GUIDE FOR BEGGARS *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm -concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, -and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following -the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use -of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for -copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very -easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation -of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project -Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away--you may -do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected -by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark -license, especially commercial redistribution. - -START: FULL LICENSE - -THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE -PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK - -To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free -distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work -(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project -Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full -Project Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at -www.gutenberg.org/license. - -Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works - -1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to -and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property -(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all -the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or -destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your -possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a -Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound -by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the -person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph -1.E.8. - -1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be -used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who -agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few -things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works -even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See -paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this -agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below. - -1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the -Foundation" or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection -of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual -works in the collection are in the public domain in the United -States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the -United States and you are located in the United States, we do not -claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, -displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as -all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope -that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting -free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm -works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the -Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily -comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the -same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when -you share it without charge with others. - -1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern -what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are -in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, -check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this -agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, -distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any -other Project Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no -representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any -country other than the United States. - -1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: - -1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other -immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear -prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work -on which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the -phrase "Project Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, -performed, viewed, copied or distributed: - - This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and - most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no - restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it - under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this - eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the - United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where - you are located before using this eBook. - -1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is -derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not -contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the -copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in -the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are -redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase "Project -Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply -either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or -obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg-tm -trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. - -1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted -with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution -must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any -additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms -will be linked to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works -posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the -beginning of this work. - -1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm -License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this -work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. - -1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this -electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without -prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with -active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project -Gutenberg-tm License. - -1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, -compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including -any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access -to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format -other than "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official -version posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm website -(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense -to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means -of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original "Plain -Vanilla ASCII" or other form. Any alternate format must include the -full Project Gutenberg-tm License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. - -1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, -performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works -unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. - -1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing -access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works -provided that: - -* You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from - the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method - you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed - to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has - agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project - Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid - within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are - legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty - payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project - Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in - Section 4, "Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg - Literary Archive Foundation." - -* You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies - you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he - does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm - License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all - copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue - all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm - works. - -* You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of - any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the - electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of - receipt of the work. - -* You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free - distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. - -1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work or group of works on different terms than -are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing -from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of -the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the Foundation as set -forth in Section 3 below. - -1.F. - -1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable -effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread -works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project -Gutenberg-tm collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may -contain "Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate -or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other -intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or -other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or -cannot be read by your equipment. - -1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right -of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project -Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all -liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal -fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT -LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE -PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE -TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE -LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR -INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH -DAMAGE. - -1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a -defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can -receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a -written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you -received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium -with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you -with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in -lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person -or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second -opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If -the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing -without further opportunities to fix the problem. - -1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth -in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO -OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT -LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. - -1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied -warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of -damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement -violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the -agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or -limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or -unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the -remaining provisions. - -1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the -trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone -providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in -accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the -production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, -including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of -the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this -or any Project Gutenberg-tm work, (b) alteration, modification, or -additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any -Defect you cause. - -Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm - -Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of -electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of -computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It -exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations -from people in all walks of life. - -Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the -assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's -goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will -remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure -and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future -generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see -Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at -www.gutenberg.org - -Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation - -The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit -501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the -state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal -Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification -number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by -U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. - -The Foundation's business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, -Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up -to date contact information can be found at the Foundation's website -and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact - -Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg -Literary Archive Foundation - -Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without -widespread public support and donations to carry out its mission of -increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be -freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest -array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations -($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt -status with the IRS. - -The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating -charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United -States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a -considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up -with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations -where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND -DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular -state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate - -While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we -have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition -against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who -approach us with offers to donate. - -International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make -any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from -outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. - -Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation -methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other -ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To -donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate - -Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works - -Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project -Gutenberg-tm concept of a library of electronic works that could be -freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and -distributed Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of -volunteer support. - -Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed -editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in -the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not -necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper -edition. - -Most people start at our website which has the main PG search -facility: www.gutenberg.org - -This website includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, -including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to -subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. |