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| author | nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org> | 2025-01-21 23:17:19 -0800 |
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| committer | nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org> | 2025-01-21 23:17:19 -0800 |
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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8dbb062 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #67960 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/67960) diff --git a/old/67960-0.txt b/old/67960-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 69308f5..0000000 --- a/old/67960-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6156 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Tramping With a Poet in the Rockies, -by Stephen Graham - -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: Tramping With a Poet in the Rockies - -Authors: Stephen Graham - Vachel Lindsay - -Illustrator: Vernon Hill - -Release Date: May 1, 2022 [eBook #67960] - -Language: English - -Produced by: D A Alexander, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was - produced from images generously made available by - University of California libraries) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TRAMPING WITH A POET IN THE -ROCKIES *** - - - - - -TRAMPING WITH A POET IN THE ROCKIES - - - - -BOOKS BY STEPHEN GRAHAM - - THE GENTLE ART OF TRAMPING - THE DIVIDING LINE OF EUROPE - IN QUEST OF EL DORADO - TRAMPING WITH A POET IN THE ROCKIES - EUROPE--WHITHER BOUND? - THE CHALLENGE OF THE DEAD - CHILDREN OF THE SLAVES - A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS - THE QUEST OF THE FACE - RUSSIA IN 1916 - PRIEST OF THE IDEAL - THROUGH RUSSIAN CENTRAL ASIA - THE WAY OF MARTHA AND THE WAY OF MARY - RUSSIA AND THE WORLD - WITH POOR EMIGRANTS TO AMERICA - WITH THE RUSSIAN PILGRIMS TO JERUSALEM - CHANGING RUSSIA - A TRAMP’S SKETCHES - UNDISCOVERED RUSSIA - A VAGABOND IN THE CAUCASUS - ST. VITUS DAY - - - - - TRAMPING WITH A POET - IN THE ROCKIES - - BY - STEPHEN GRAHAM - AUTHOR OF “EUROPE--WHITHER BOUND?” - - WITH THIRTY-EIGHT EMBLEMS BY - VERNON HILL - - [Illustration] - - - D. APPLETON-CENTURY COMPANY - INCORPORATED - NEW YORK LONDON - 1936 - - - - - COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY - D. APPLETON AND COMPANY - - _All rights reserved. This book, or parts - thereof, must not be reproduced in any - form without permission of the publisher._ - - - PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA - - - - -PREFACE - - -Vachel Lindsay is the poet. He is best known as the author of _General -William Booth Enters Heaven_, _The Congo_ and _Johnny Appleseed_. He -also wrote a highly comical piece called _The Daniel Jazz_. He is a -wonderful reciter, and is aided by a sonorous, heaven-reaching voice. -All his poems are written to be read aloud, chanted, or declaimed; in -some cases they are written to be danced also, and played as games. -In many of his recitations the audience is called upon to take part -in choruses and refrains. Thus, in one poem, when Lindsay says, “I’ve -been to Palestine,” the audience as one man has to cry back to him, -“_What did you see in Palestine?_” This is rapturously enjoyed by -the audience. When you have heard the poet you can well understand -that he did not starve when he used to tramp in America and recite to -the farmers for a meal and a night’s lodging. He has gained a great -popularity. - -He is, however, something more than an entertainer. He has a spiritual -message to the world, and is deeply in earnest. In a large experience -of men and women in many countries, I have rarely met such a rebel -against vulgarity, materialism, and the modern artificial way of life. -At the same time, despite his poetry, he is almost inarticulate. He has -helped me, and here in a way I help him by giving in a new form part of -the richness of his thoughts and his opinions. - -Vachel Lindsay visited England in 1920, and recited his poems at Oxford -and Cambridge and to several groups of friends in London. His mother, -Catharine Frazee Lindsay, who accompanied him, was a notable woman in -Springfield, Illinois, in religious and progressive activities. She -succumbed to an attack of pneumonia this year. But those who met her -in this country recognised in her a remarkable figure. At Vachel’s -invitation I visited Springfield last summer, and we went to the -Rockies, and tramped together to Canada, and this volume is a record -of our holiday. A mutual friend of ours is Christopher Morley, who -brought us together in 1919. When he heard of our projected expedition -he interposed to get some letters for the New York _Evening Post_. Some -thirty-two of these were written, mostly by the camp fire or sitting -on the rocks in the sun, and were printed in the _Post_, where they -attracted considerable attention. “Centurion” in the _Century Magazine_ -for August wrote: “Mr. Lindsay and Mr. Graham are having a glorious -time. As for those of us who must spend the dog-days in stuffy cities -and stuffier offices, the picture of the two of them by a camp fire -in the Rockies waking to the freshness and glory of a mountain dawn -is--well, if there are no future issues of the _Century Magazine_, -you may be sure that the entire staff, inspired by this example, has -started vagabonding.” Another, a facetious scribe, wrote: “It is -conceded by every one that Stephen Graham’s _Tramping with a Poet_ will -some day stand on the shelf of open-air literature beside _Travels with -a Donkey_.” - -My thanks are due to the representatives of the Great Northern -Railway of America, at St. Paul, who gave us a wonderful collection -of pictures, maps, and books, when they heard we were going, on the -subject of Glacier Park, which we tramped through. In fact, the railway -company would have done a great deal for us, but we eluded their kind -care, as was our wish, and got out entirely on our own. - -As Vachel Lindsay was an art student before he was a poet, and wrote -his first verses as scrolls to be illuminated below emblematic figures, -we naturally discussed emblems and emblematic art and hieroglyphics as -we tramped together. The emblems in this book are an attempt to express -that side of our mutual experience. They have been done by my friend, -Vernon Hill, who drew once that very precious work, “The Arcadian -Calendar.” - -One of the poems is by “Rusticus,” who, anent our adventures, -contributed it to the New York _Evening Post_. - -A last point: Vachel is pronounced to rhyme with Rachel, and is spelt -with one l. It does not rhyme with satchel. The poet asked me to tell -you that. - - STEPHEN GRAHAM - - - - -CONTENTS - - - CHAPTER PAGE - - I. TRAMPING AGAIN 1 - - II. FINDING THE POET 7 - - III. TAKING THE ROAD 14 - - IV. FIRST NIGHTS OUT 21 - - V. GOING UP TO THE SNOW 28 - - VI. DIFFERENT WAYS OF GOING DOWNWARD 34 - - VII. SILENCED BY THE MOUNTAINS 40 - - VIII. NIGHT AND NOTHING ON THE MOUNTAINS 47 - - IX. “WIFE, GIVE ME THE PAIN-KILLER” 54 - - X. CLEAR BLUE 62 - - XI. NATIONAL WILDERNESS 71 - - XII. GOING WEST 77 - - XIII. CLIMBING RED EAGLE 82 - - XIV. DOING THE IMPOSSIBLE 89 - - XV. PEOPLE IN CAMP 95 - - XVI. VISITED BY BEARS 101 - - XVII. LINDSAY’S STONE COFFEE 108 - - XVIII. MAKING MAPS OF THE WORLD 114 - - XIX. A MOUNTAIN POINT OF VIEW 121 - - XX. BY THE CAMP FIRE 127 - - XXI. DOWN CATARACT MOUNTAIN 133 - - XXII. “GO WEST, YOUNG MAN” 139 - - XXIII. THE SUN-WORSHIPPERS 146 - - XXIV. TWO VOICES 151 - - XXV. STOPPED BY THE CLOUDS 158 - - XXVI. LINDSAY ON ROOSEVELT 165 - - XXVII. THE WILLOWS 171 - - XXVIII. JOHNNY APPLESEED 177 - - XXIX. LOG-ROLLING 184 - - XXX. TOWARD THE KOOTENAI 190 - - XXXI. AS THE SPARKS FLY UPWARD 196 - - XXXII. THE STAR OF SPRINGFIELD 201 - - XXXIII. FLAT TOP MOUNTAIN 213 - - XXXIV. CROSSING THE CANADIAN LINE 221 - - XXXV. THE DIFFERENCE 231 - - XXXVI. DUKHOBORS 239 - - XXXVII. A VISIT TO THE MORMONS 247 - - XXXVIII. “BLOOM FOR EVER, O REPUBLIC!” 274 - - - - -TRAMPING WITH A POET IN THE ROCKIES - - - - -[Illustration: HAIL TO ALL MOVING THINGS] - - - - -I. TRAMPING AGAIN - - -WELL, it’s good to be going tramping again. I’ve been sitting in -European cafés and reading newspapers half a year, from Constantinople -to Berlin, and I’ve only stretched my legs when in strange cities I -needed to find a hotel, beating it pleasurelessly on asphalt. Last -autumn, yes, I was tramping over the ruins and wreck of the war in -France, and the year before that walked across Georgia on the track of -old Sherman. But with a purpose, and in lands where after all there are -hotels, and one pulls the blinds down when the stars appear. - -But now I’ve had a real call from Hesperus and the wilds, and am off -with a knapsack and a pot and a blanket, and a free mind--yes, and, I -confess, a few yards of mosquito netting. I’ve left a notice, “Not at -home,” at my Soho flat, though I don’t spend much time there, anyhow; -“Back in half an hour or so,” and there are already four thousand miles -between my arm-chair and me. - -And as I hasten to the West the link stretches, stretches. Not that my -flat could ever be lasting home. Where the lady of your heart is, there -is home! And where is she not? The worst thing man ever did to man was -to nail him down. So hail to all things and men which move and keep -moving. - - * * * * * - -I AM called by one of the most wonderful men who ever broke silence -with a song. He belongs to the same sub-species. Yes, a tramping -species. His hat has got a hole in it, and so have his breeches. But he -is a poet, and he sings of what the world will be when the years have -passed away. He can charm a supper out of a farmer with a song. And I -who have tramped without music know what a miracle that is. They always -said to me, “Chop this wood,” or “Turn that hay,” or “If a man do not -work, then neither shall he eat.” - -_Grande erreur_, Mr. Farmer! - -“Well, _I_ can’t take to the road,” says Mrs. Farmer. “Look at -me!--it’s wuk, wuk, wuk, all day!” Mrs. Farmer was born on a Saturday. -I always feel sorry for Saturday’s children. They were born a day -before I was. For I was born on a Sunday. How sadly we used to -intone it when we were children--“Saturday’s child works _hard_ for -his living!” And then the relief, “But the child who is born on the -good Sunday, is happy and loving and blithe and gay.” That is the -tramp-baby, born on the day of rest. - - * * * * * - -I AM sitting at this moment in the St. Louis train heading for -Missouri. The little negro marionette with set smile and the borrowed -voice of a ventriloquist has offered coffee, ice-cream, oranges, -without response, and now the car-conductor has just put into my hand -a tract. It is entitled “Millions Now Living Will Never Die,” and costs -25 cents. - -“The emphatic announcement that millions now living on earth will never -die must seem presumptuous to many people; but when the evidence is -carefully considered I believe that almost every fair mind will concede -that the conclusion is a reasonable one.” So the book begins. And you -who are spiritually a citizen of Missouri will doubtless require, like -doubting Thomas of old, to be shown the very truth in substance and -reality. - -But the car-conductor has made a mistake. I have not read this book, -but I believe. Though I have not seen, I believe and am blessed. -And though in the Missouri train, I am not going to Missouri. I am -stepping off at Flora, Illinois, to catch the Beardstown local train to -Springfield, which unlike St. Louis and Jerusalem and Capernaum, and -perhaps more like Tyre and Sidon, is a city of faith where they have -bread from heaven to eat. - -Not that I am staying in Springfield. But there I pick up the poet. -That is where he haunts--“where Lincoln dreamed in Illinois.” The -poet thinks that the world could be regenerated from a centre in -Illinois--this beautiful state upon which Chicago has thought fit to -rear its awful form. - -Some one of Illinois, not the poet, wrote to me, “What do you think -of Springfield as a centre of world thought?” Now I know the craze -of “Boost your home town” can be, and often is, carried to excess, -and little Springfield is not even on a main line from New York. But -neither is Bethlehem nor the human heart. If you want to regenerate -your wicked world you can begin here and now--or, to use the language -of the country, put your hand to your bosom and say it--“_You can begin -right here._” And then, to quote the poet himself, you will have-- - - Crossed the Appalachians, - And turned to blazing warrior souls - Of the lazy forest. - -Springfield will not hold us. But we shall take Springfield with us. We -are going to take it in our hearts and place it on the top of the Rocky -Mountains, at the Triple Divide, where the waters of the new world -flow north and east and west-- - -[Illustration] - - _Going tramping again, - Going to the mountains, - To recapture the stars, - To meet again the nymphs of the fountains. - To visit the bear, - To salute the eagles, - To be kissed all night by wild-flowers in the grass!_ - - - - -[Illustration: TO HEART’S DESIRE] - - - - -II. FINDING THE POET - - -FLORA, Illinois, where one changes for Springfield, has a Main Street, -and, like many a little town of the Middle West of America, looks -rather self-consciously askance at visitors, like the village that -voted the earth was flat in Kipling’s tale. For the novel of the hour -is called _Main Street_ and is sold to hundreds of thousands of people -and read by every American who reads anything, and is bitterly or -jocularly discussed at every tea-table. It sheds a bright light on -the life of a typical little town in the Middle West. It names the -town Gopher Prairie--because the Middle West is prairie land and the -gopher-rats or marmots live there in myriads in their little burrows. -The novelist seems to suggest that the people themselves are a species -of gopher, a little people, limited of view, good-natured, of the earth -earthy, but always bobbing-up. Because of the criticism implied in this -novel the Middle West would rather now be called the “Central West.” - -These Main Streets, however, except for the sophisticated eyes of a -college girl inauspiciously married, are probably not so bad as the -realist paints them. They are dull, but genuine. They exhibit our -modern civilisation without too many shams. See the people working -in the heat. The minds of the young are set on their dull jobs and -not thinking of drink or sex--it is sufficiently wonderful. There -are “Main Street” towns in every country in Europe, and life is dull -in them though adorned by fights and drinks and “hussies”--but where -will you find such an unexhausted _élan_ and zest for the unornamented -reality that America affords? Where else moreover will you find the -working-men to-day working in silk shirts? Life in Main Street seems -worth while, at least to those who live there. - -It’s a by-line from Flora to Springfield, and you plough iron slowly -through Illinois corn. An old mechanical car-conductor with grey straw -hat and fat stubby face calls the stations one by one in an outlandish -accent which to a stranger is entirely baffling. He collects the -tickets, and if you are for Springfield he puts a red check in your -hat-band; if you are for anywhere else it is a white check. Springfield -is now in the mind’s eye as a large place and is printed everywhere in -big type. The Springfield _Register_ and the Springfield _Journal_ make -showing. - - * * * * * - -I READ the newspapers and then tick off the names of the stations on -the printed time-table of the B. and O. folder and patiently await -the city and its bard. A four-hour journey in a slow train in England -would seem intolerable, but America has a different sense of time and -space, and a long time is not thought so long. At last, in the late -dusk, behold Springfield, Illinois, and the unmistakable marble of the -poet’s face under a small black felt--“waitin’ for me, prayin’ for me,” -and certainly not really believing in the act of faith which can bring -the mountain to Mahomet. In the literary world when invitations are -rife there is a golden rule--_Promise everything and do just what you -like._ So one never really knows whether “Yes, I’ll come,” means yea, -yea or nay, nay. - -It meant yea, yea this time, and so, getting out of the Beardstown -local which pulled up outside the station, behold--two strong men -stand face to face and they come from the ends of the earth. Vachel -Lindsay rasped out sentences of welcome in broad Illinois and I replied -in whispering English, and we bundled along Fifth Street for home. -Then mother, of seventy years, tiptoed and curtsied and smiled with -the roguishness of a young maid, and brought us in. So we sit now on -rocking-chairs and talk while beads of moisture roll ticklingly adown -our brows, and it is home. - -Vachel is a poetical vagabond. I also am a vagabond. There lies our -common ground. He is an old-fashioned hiker of the tramping parson -type. He leaves home, as it were to post a letter, and does a thousand -or so miles. He made a rule once to travel without money, and he -recited his poems to the farmers and their wives for food and a night’s -lodging. Like Weston, who tramped with ice-blocks under his hat and -water streaming down his neck, he can do his twenty miles a day over a -long time and has travelled some huge distances in his day. I for my -part hardly believe in tramping for tramping’s sake, but in living with -Nature for what that is worth. - -To sleep under the stars, to live with the river that sings as it -flows, to sit by the embers of morning or evening fire and just dream -away time and earnestness, to gather sticks to keep the old pot -a-boiling, to laze into the company of strangers and slip out of their -company in time, to make friends with bird and beast, and watch insects -and grubs--to relax and to be; that’s my idea of tramping. The blessed -nights full of dew or rain and breeze, the full length of a ferny bed -that Mother Earth provides--don’t they attract, don’t they pull one -away from the town! And then the day, with celestial, unadvertised, -unpaid-for sunshine or shade, on the rocks, on the tufty hills, beside -tiny springs or stream on the stairs of the mountains! - - * * * * * - -I HAD an idea I was finding my poet at Springfield--well, I know -I shall not find him now till we get to the wilderness. He is yet -incarcerated in the home town. He reflects in his soul the grey walls -and squat architecture of the city; his nerves are still tied to the -leading strings of audiences and friends; his soul, like a rare singing -bird lately caught by the curious, flings itself against the bars and -pines for the wilderness. All is going to go well with him and us, I -surmise, and his eyes will have mountains and stars in them, and his -nerves get free of strings and sink into their natural beds for a rest, -and his soul, that rarely plumaged, wingéd wanderer ’twixt heaven and -earth--well, some one has come to open the cage door and let him fly -away, to heart’s desire. - -The world will have to send a fowler after him with a net, if it wants -to get him back. And to find him--it will be “a long ways.” - -[Illustration] - - _The poet was in Fifth Street - Mewed up as in a prison. - He was moping in his bedchamber - All the day long - Far from the mountains and the flowers, - But see, a visitor has arrived - From strange parts._ - - - - -[Illustration] - - - - -III. TAKING THE ROAD - - -WE packed our knapsacks at Springfield, and stowed away blankets and -socks, a coffee-pot, and a frying-pan. We bought at a ten-cent store -knife and fork and spoon, skillet, towels which we sewed into sacks, -mugs, and what was labelled “The Mystic Mit--the greatest discovery -since soap for cleaning pots and pans.” Lindsay had hobnails put -in his old boots and bought a handsome pair of corduroy breeches, -which, together with his old black hat, made him look like a tramping -violinist. Springfield bade us farewell. We were one night in the -train to Chicago and travelled all day north to St. Paul. We were then -two nights and a day crossing the great land ocean of Minnesota, North -Dakota, and eastern Montana--what was once an unending stage-coach -trail to the West. - -“This is what I like,” said Lindsay--“the prairie to the horizon, -no fences, no stone walls, as in New England. It is all broad and -unlimited; that is why since the days of Andrew Jackson all the great -politicians have come from the West--the unfenced West. I’d like to put -all the Boston and New York people out here on the plains and let the -plain men run the East.” - -To me, however, it looked a land of endless toil as I saw it from train -windows, and I thought of the toiling pioneers and the Russians in -the Dakotas, the Swedes and the Germans content to live and toil and -be swallowed up at last by the distances and the primitive. European -life-rivers have flowed into these deserts and made them what they are. -One day their children perhaps will have a Western consciousness, an -American consciousness. - - * * * * * - -WE stepped off the train at Glacier Park Station. Some dozen women in -khaki riding breeches were waiting on the platform, and six or seven -people got out from the tourist and Pullman cars to cross to the great -log-built hotel opposite. Then the train started again and toiled -onwards to the heights of the divide, whence, as Kipling put it: - - They ride the iron stallions down to drink; - To the canyons and the waters of the West. - -We spent a night at the hotel and were much amused by the idea of a -room with a bath in such a place, and by the notice that you could have -your linen laundered in twenty-four hours. There was dancing in the -evening in an immense hall lit by red Chinese lanterns and adorned by -bear-skins and Alaskan ornaments--a fair company of people, too, though -mostly from the West. - -We, however, were eager for the road, and set out next morning with -blankets and provisions and steered a north-westerly or west by -north-westerly course by our compasses, abjuring trails and guides. Our -idea was to obtain a cross-section view of the Rockies in their most -primitive state unguided by convention. We hoped to realise something -of what America was like for at least a hundred years after Columbus -discovered it. We were headed for the virgin land. - -How quickly did we leave that hotel with its “stopping over” crowd -behind! In an hour we were in the deep silence of the mountains -encompassed on each side by exuberant pink larkspurs and blanket -flowers and red paint-brush. We clambered upward, ever upward, through -fresh, young, chattering aspens and then green tangled pinewood--and -then also through old dead forests lying in black confusion, uprooted, -snapped, stricken, in heaps like the woods of the Somme Valley. Then -we walked through new dead forests, burned only last year, and then -through brown scorched forests that did not burn, but died merely of -the great heat which their neighbours’ burning had caused. - -We stepped from log to log and tree to tree, making for the open -and the light, with the gaiety of troubadours, and Lindsay seemed -romantically happy. I also was happy, and thought of the happy days -before the war, when I tramped in this fashion back and forth across -the Caucasus Mountains and along hundreds of miles of Black Sea shore. -It was pure joy to light the first fire and fry our bacon and make our -coffee in the full effulgence of the sun. - - * * * * * - -GLACIER NATIONAL PARK, which we passed through first, is a preserve. -It is God’s holy mountain on which no man may shoot. By the laws you -are not allowed even to frighten a bird. You may not carry firearms -into the region. We were therefore not very agreeably surprised to hear -in the thickets the whiz-ping of a gun which some Indians were using. -Lindsay nearly got a shot in the head as he got up from luncheon. The -fact is, Glacier adjoins the Blackfeet Indian reservation, and the -Indians are all hunters by instinct and preference. It is difficult -to restrain them. They are a gay, independent, and wild lot. We saw a -number of these men with an array of plumes round their heads, steel -padlocks in their ears for ear-rings, cow-bells on their sleeves, -and chequer-work embroidery on their gay vests and cloaks. They had -with them their squaws, fat and handsome women, all swollen out and -weather-beaten like fishwives, with high cheek-bones and red-ochre -faces. They danced together and skirled in wild Asiatic strains while -four intent ruffians in ordinary attire beat upon one small drum with -sticks. I seemed to recognise in them some sort of acquaintance to my -old friends, the nomads of Central Asia, the Kirghiz--the same sort of -faces and the same way of being musical. I have had a similar musical -entertainment during weeks and months tramping in Turkestan and Seven -Rivers Land. Both Kirghiz and Indians are dying out and both are red. I -was struck by the feminine expression of the faces of the Indians and -the absence of hair on their lips and chins--as if their males were not -male. - -However, we soon left the Blackfeet behind, and came out of their -forests, and in late afternoon stood high above the lovely length of -water which we identified as Medicine Lake. - -[Illustration] - - _The Indians are dancing as we enter their paradise, - Our hearts are dancing too. - We love the Indians because they never bent their backs - To slavery, - To civilisation, - To office-desks. - What matter if they are dying out, - They have at least lived once._ - - - - -[Illustration: - - I WENT TO A HOUSE - AND I KNOCKED AT THE DOOR - BUT THE OLD LADY SAID - I HAVE SEEN YOU BEFORE] - - - - -IV. FIRST NIGHTS OUT - - -WE spent our first night in a burned forest beside a sunken pink and -grey rock. There was a green carpet of unblossoming flowers as green -and romantic as ideal spring, and beside it in contrast the stark -blackness of the charred trees all up and down the hill. Hidden from -view but twenty yards away was a foaming rivulet with pools. - -We bathed and we cooked and we talked and we slept. A great mountain -like God Almighty in the midst of His creation was visible to us -through the trees. We made our beds soft by pulling the dead red -foliage from scorched trees and heaping it under our blankets beside -the pink rocks. Lindsay made hot a large stone in the embers of our -fire to keep him warm. So we lay down and waited for the night. I -looked through black masts and great entanglements to the hills. -Lindsay faced a scorched section of the forest all hanging in brown -tresses. We listened to the stream below, its music becoming every -moment more insistent. We knew that it would lull us all night long. - -The mountain cloud then began to come down and roll over the tree-tops, -giving them ghostly semblance. That passed, and the stars and the moon -appeared and stillness ruled. An hour before dawn we were awakened by -the sudden patter of a shower of rain and it was followed by the birth -of a wind which came roaring along a ravine and started all the air -moving everywhere and all the dead forest creaked and whined. It was -our signal to arise. - - * * * * * - -LINDSAY rose like a young lion roaring, rrrah!... and making the -mountains echo with his roar. “Let us go up higher,” says he. I read -him this. “Put it, ‘Lindsay arose groaning and grunting like a pig -under a gate--and let people choose,’” said the poet. - -He was in great spirits. “I have never been so free. I start afresh. -All is behind me. We’ll tramp to the coast. We’ll tramp to Alaska. -We’ll do all the national parks, the same way,” were his impulsive -speeches. - -As we climbed aloft, following the North-west by our wrist-compasses, -and careless of time and space, he sang a disreputable song belonging -no doubt to that disreputable past of his when he hiked and begged and -recited his poems to farmers-- - - Why don’t you go to work - Like other men do? - How can we work when there’s no work to do? - Hallelujah, on the bum! - Hallelujah, bum again! - Hallelujah! Give us a hand-out - To revive us again! - -“You do look a real honest-to-God tramp this morning,” said I in the -language of the country, “with your corduroys burst out at the knees, -old red handkerchief round your neck, and devil-may-care look in your -eyes.” - -We reached the top of a mountain where there was a perfect “cyclorama,” -as he called it, and he balanced on his toes, and half closed his eyes -in his half upturned face, and turned round and about like a teetotum. -Last time I had seen him do this was on the carpet of a London -drawing-room in Queen Anne’s Gate to the strains of “_Let Samson be -a-coming in to your mind_.” - -This mountain was our first _ne plus ultra_, for having got to the top -of it there was only one thing to do, and that was to go down again. -Lindsay tested the echoes from it with “_Rah for Bryan!_” apparently -his favourite war-cry, and then as if in response a slim Indian youth -on horseback appeared and seemed much amused by us. He was very red -and swarthy, with bright teeth, and rode his horse as if he and it -made one. He told us he knew all the mountains and had been to the top -of every one except Rising Wolf, which had never been climbed by any -one. “It is called ‘Wolf gets up’ in our language,” he explained, and -pointed to its snarling and menacing mass upstarting through clouds. “A -storm comes from the mountain,” said he in warning, and passed on. He -passed and we remained, and we saw no other human being the whole day. - -“Just think of the children these flowers would amuse,” said Lindsay. -“Millions of flowers--and the only human being we see is an Indian. I’d -like to write a song on it.” - - * * * * * - -BUT the poetic mood passed. Thunderclouds rose in spectral peaks behind -the mountains. Mount Helen grew dark and dreadful, and four phantasmal -Mount Helens appeared behind her, the first of white mist, the second -of lead, the third of streaming cloud, the fourth of shadow. Rising -Wolf entered heaven; a howling, gathering, tumultuous wind roared over -all the pines of the valleys and lightning like the glint of an eye -traversed the ravine. Clouds swept forward to embrace us and indeed -overtook us and soaked us while we sat together on a downward slide and -sheltered under a blanket. - -The storm passed, but we got drenched to our necks as we walked through -dense undergrowth downward to a strikingly prominent clump of gigantic -pines which from aloft we had chosen as harbourage for the night. These -lifted their fine forms from immemorial heaps of old pine mould, soft -and brown and porous. There was a stream near them and we lit a great -fire by the water’s edge and hung out a line to dry blankets, coats, -pants, socks, and all we possessed. - -The heat flew up in armfuls of smoke, in showers of sparks, up to our -sagging shirts and heavy blankets. Sparks in hundreds lighted on them, -and went out or burned small holes. We walked about like savages the -while, wresting dead wood to build ever higher the fire. I pulled down -a branch with a tree-wasp’s nest upon it, and brought a cloud of wasps -after our bodies, and I paid the penalty in a sting. Thus, however, we -dried everything, and we were able at last to make a dry bed in a wet -place. But rain came on again at night, and in the intense darkness -under the giant pines we lay and heard it, and slept, and then waked to -hear it again. - -[Illustration] - - _If it rains in the town and if you get caught in the rain - And soaked to the bone--ah what a calamity! - You must have a hot bath, and take some hot toddy; - You must swallow an aspirin and sleep under blankets, - Whilst your clothes on two chairs by the fire will be drying; - You must put on dry clothes in the morning. - It’s different in the mountains, - You can sleep wet and wake wet, - And dry when the weather gets drier, - That’s more fun: try it._ - - - - -[Illustration: SERAPHICAL SUNRISE] - - - - -V. GOING UP TO THE SNOW - - -IT cleared up before dawn, but it rained for three hours after dawn. -Vachel got up in the night and relit the fire and made himself a hot -rock. Coming back into our dark and gloomy thicket, he mistook my form -for a bear, and his heart jumped. We lived in expectation of meeting -bears. “There’ll just be one heading in the _Illinois Register_,” says -Vachel--“ATE BY BEARS.” We placed our bacon twenty yards away from -where we slept, and hoped tacitly that they would take the bacon and -spare us. - -Our knapsacks weighed double next morning because of the wet in our -things. We got wetter still as we ploughed out through flower fields -of a drowned paradise. But an hour before noon the sun broke free and -started a miraculous drying of Nature and of ourselves. We seemed to -cook in the steam of our own clothes. On the hillside, at last, we -decided to rest and we spread out everything to dry, dispensing with -most of our clothes, and we lay in the sun in the hot damp of the -flowers and let Old Sol stream into us. - -Early in the afternoon most of our clothes were dry and, following -the compass, we climbed up and up to a great height through primeval -forest. The trees were so close that often we could not squeeze -between them with our packs. We hustled and bustled and impolitely -pushed through branches and umbrage and crossed tiny glades filled -with ineffably lovely basket grass, holding aloft their cream crowns -of blossom. It seemed to us a great struggle, and Lindsay and I held -different opinions as to what we should find when we got to the end -of the wood, and both of us were wrong. He thought it would be “the -divide.” I thought it might be another _ne plus ultra_ and a sheer -descent. - -But instead it was a sort of end of the world. Our primeval forest came -sharply to an end on a deep, green, wind-bitten line where the branches -of the trees were gnarled and twisted and beaten downward. Beyond that -was a boulder-strewn upper-mountain region and a wall of rock. We asked -no questions as to the morrow, but camped beside a huge stone. It was -twelve feet high, but one could creep under it and be safe from the -rain. And a few feet away was our first snow-bank. We built a big fire -and made tea of melted snow, and Lindsay made ice-cream of sugar and -condensed milk and snow which we voted very good, and we made eight or -nine hot rocks for our bed. - - * * * * * - -BECAUSE of the mountain-wall above us sunset took place at about four -in the afternoon here. But a beautiful evening endured long in the east -below us. We were so exalted that we looked a hundred miles over the -plains and saw, as it were, the whole world picked out in shadow and -sunshine below. Sunset slowly advanced over it all, and with reflected -rays from an unseen west the day passed serenely away. - -Lindsay, being the colder man, slept under the great boulder, and I -smoothed out a recess at the side. I lay beside scores of daintily -hooded yellow columbines and looked out to the occasional licked-sweet -redness of an Indian paint brush. A chipmunk rudely squeaked at us, -and as a last visitor a humming bird boomed over our heads like a -night-awakened beetle. - -We slept serenely. At two I awoke to see a fleeting half moon, all -silver, tripping homeward over the high wall of the mountain with -attendant stars behind. But away in the east there was a faint rose -light over a bank of darkness. The darkness slowly took sharp contour, -and the light that comes before the light of day picked out ten or -twelve lakes and tarns which we had not noticed until then. The -darkness below the rose quivered with lightning; the zenith clearness -grew clearer and clearer, and then, with uplifting hands of glory and -light, came seraphical sunrise. - -Our bonfire, which had burned red all night, now burned a pallid yellow -in the new light, and we brought out our blankets into the open and lay -down and slept again in the increasing light and warmth of the new day. -Then breakfast at seven and God’s in his heaven. And we washed in the -snow, and scores of curlews screamed from rock to rock above us on the -road that we should take. - -“How new it all is!” said the poet. “It is as if no one ever slept here -before and wakened to see what we see or to do the things we do.” - -Wrapped in our thoughts we put our packs on our shoulders and -meditatively turned our steps to the downward-dropping corner of the -mountain-wall which obscured the adventures of the new day. - -[Illustration] - - We cut off the top of the snow with a sharp piece of slate, - And took the purer under-snow to make our coffee, - To make ice-cream: - _Fastidious creatures!_ - And then we stood in the snow-hole - And washed with warm water, - And rubbed ourselves all over with handfuls of sloppy snow-- - _Disgusting old tramps!_ - The discreet birds watched us, - The chipmunks squeaked at us, - You didn’t see us. - - - - -[Illustration: THE DOWNWARD WAY] - - - - -VI. DIFFERENT WAYS OF GOING DOWNWARD - - -FOR several days now we did not meet a human being or see evidence of -the existence of one; nor, though continually imagining that we had -found a bit of a trail, did we find either a footstep or a hoof-mark. -“I’ve never been before in a place where you did not see tin cans,” -said Lindsay. “Why, some of the popular canyons of the West are -literally filled with cans. It is not only tourist parties that leave -them, but the cowboys live on canned goods and fill the valley with -their cans.” Another relief is the absence of advertisements, of all -the signs of modern civilisation. You are given without reserve to -America as she was. - -“I don’t believe in class war,” says Lindsay, as we turn the corner of -the mountain-wall. “I believe in the war of the mountain and the desert -with the town. Only the deserts and mountains of America can break the -business-hardened skulls of the East.” - -He wants me to seek with him the source of the American spirit in the -mountains of the West. However, reality confronts us and not a dream. -We see beyond the wall of the mountain, terrace after terrace and -cascade upon cascade, gleaming upward on a sort of endless stairway. To -the first waterfall we count eight bays of loose stone and shale. We -step from rock to rock, and as my legs are longer this hinders Lindsay -more than it does me. He is all for diagonalising downward, or even -going straight down, and finding an imaginary easier course skirting -the edge of the forest. We, however, try to keep our level, but whether -we wish it or no we slide downward at each uncertain step. - -At last we come to a bay of tiny, trickling silt, so steep and smooth -that a glass marble might roll from the top of the mountain to the -bottom. Decent progress along this is impossible, so we decide to -toboggan to the bottom, and seat ourselves on broad, flat stones, -and guiding ourselves with our hands go off at a rare pace for that -imaginary better way at the skirting of the mid-mountain forest. The -device reminds Lindsay of an Indian Government agent who had the task -of supplying the Indians with all they needed on their reservation. - -There came, consigned to him, some very large skillets or frying-pans, -which the Indians repeatedly refused to take away, having no use for -them. At last one day the chief came in and gladly took away the lot. -The agent, curious to know what they were going to do with them, went -out to see. He found half the tribe on the hillside and a very gay game -in progress--Indians sitting in the frying-pans and tobogganing on the -loose shale. - -We slid to the bottom like the Indians, but we found no better way -down there. The skirting of the mid-mountain forest ran unevenly, now -up three hundred feet, now down again, and it was too arduous a way -for us. “Let us go down through the forest and seek a trail,” said my -companion. Once more we entered the primeval crowd of vegetation, and -like police hurrying to some scene of accident, pushed our way through. -In half an hour we made good progress downward and came to a sheer -cliff over the rivulet of the valley. The cliff was feathered with -pines, and we let ourselves down with our hands from the tops of trees, -from branches, from stem to stem and trunk to trunk, to the verdant -pit of the stream. We clambered downward like two curious Mowglis, but -with large humps on our backs, and the humps were our packs. And how -these packs of ours pulled us about! We seldom touched earth with our -feet and therefore constantly slewed around and dangled with our packs -entangled in thick growth. - -There was little to console the poet when the water was reached, unless -it was the mess of tea we made on a fire on a dank, red rock standing -out of the stream. But he was all for fording the water and for trying -to find a better way on the other side. This we did, and we climbed up -again and then we climbed down. And we found no better way. For no one -had been there before us to make it for us. - -But we found beautiful quarters at last among the snows and the -waterfalls below the pass, and we slept under innumerable stars, lulled -by the choruses of many waters. We made breakfast at dawn and talked -till it was warm. Vachel told me of his past--how he had struggled -always against the downward way. People had said to him, “You must -make money. You must enter a profession.” When as an art student he -had gained some power with the pencil, they had said, “You must enter -commercial art”; when as poet he had been recognised, they had said, -“You must let us organise and commercialise your gift, turn it into -money for you.” “They wanted to Barnumise me,” said my companion, “and -take me all over America as a reciting freak. When I refused, they -said, ‘You’ll end in the poor-house,’ and I replied, ‘I don’t care: -show me the poor-house--let me go to it.’” He had taken to the road -to regain his self-respect. He had gone without any money, and in the -hospitality and kindness of the farmers he had won a personal faith in -the common man and a reliance which was not merely on success. When he -harvested in Kansas for two dollars fifty a day, that daily wage was -like millions to him. And now with me, when all the world was telling -him he must do thus and so, he was finding in the wilderness of the -Rockies a new means of escape. - -“To-morrow,” said he, “we will climb right away to the top and find the -pass into new country.” - -[Illustration] - - _Who said it was easier to go down, - Facilis decensus and the rest? - I’ll say it is more painful - Than to go up. - You think it was great fun a-sliding down the shale - On large flat rocks. - But it leaves me cold, - As the saying is, - For the seat of my pants is much thinner._ - - - - -[Illustration: THEY OUTSTAYED US AND WILL OUTSTAY US] - - - - -VII. SILENCED BY THE MOUNTAINS - - -MY companion’s secret thought is that he is a Virginian. But how, since -he was born in Illinois and his parents in Kentucky? “I am a follower -of Poe and Jefferson,” he answers. Kentucky was largely colonised from -Virginia, and the poet is ready to claim allegiance to the chivalric, -leisurely and flamboyant genius of the South. “If only as a protest -against the drab, square-toed, dull, unimaginative America which is -gaining on us all,” he adds. He has a passion for ideal democracy, -and his great hero of the hour as we stride over the rocks is John -Randolph, of Roanoke, who could enter Congress with four hounds and -a dog-whip and make speeches to which all must listen. “America,” -Lindsay insists, “simply _needs_ the flamboyant to save her soul.” I -suppose, because of that faith, he also, Vachel Lindsay, the poet, is a -flamboyant genius. - -The higher we rose in the mountains the more serious became our -conversation. We were silent only when we lost our breath. Upon -occasion, in this grand and lonely scene, the poet would lift his voice -so high that it could have been heard on the mountain on the other side -of the valley. His enthusiasm naturally lifted his resonant voice. His -political hero is John Randolph or Andrew Jackson, his literary hero -is Ruskin, his artist in marble is Saint-Gaudens, his pet hobby is -Egyptian hieroglyphics, his passion is the road, and his ideal is St. -Francis. Tell it to the mountains and the streams; tell it out! They -hear and so do I. - - * * * * * - -WHERE we stand is where never man has stood before, or foot of man has -trod, and the fresh and virginal flowers on every hand look up at us -with mute surprise. We carry our argument higher and higher. We sit -and boil our pot beside a bank of purple heather, exalted upon the bare -scarp of a sun-drowned mountain, and crackling of roots in the fire -blends with strident Middle-West American. We pull up to the black door -of a great rock, and the splashing of a cascade splashes through his -vibrant tones. - -At last, however, the mountains silenced us. They outstayed us, and -will outstay us. They ate up our provisions, and swallowed our breath, -and beguiled us deceptively to climb higher. “Upward and onward!” was -invisibly written on every crag. And we always expected to get to -the top in an hour. We finished the coffee, we finished the milk, we -finished the bread, we finished the sugar. We got down to a rasher of -bacon a day and tea without sugar and milk. Then even the much-loathed -bacon got finished, and the problem was to find a “camp” and get more -supplies. So we set ourselves seriously to the task of finding a pass -over the range. - -The poet became much exhausted, and the high altitude evidently -affected him more than it did me. We walked quarter-hours and rested -quarter-hours, and every time we rested we fell fast asleep. I led up -the steep inclines, and we stopped every twenty paces and listened to -our breath, I to his breath, he to mine--_ao, ao, ao_--almost a sob, -and waited for the _ahoo_ sound, which meant that the lungs had filled -again. After some arduous hours in this wise, we came on our first -destitute afternoon, to our first topmost ridge. A cold hurricane -seemed to try to stop our final conquest of it, and it went through our -bodies like swords. But when we exultantly bore through it we came to a -sheer precipice going down to a narrow corridor which led always to the -northward. - - * * * * * - -VACHEL punctuates most of his remarks with a wild native yell--“Whoopee -Whuh!” but he was down to a whisper now, and could no longer move the -mountains with a “Hurrah for Bryan.” Silently and rather mournfully we -diagonalised downward to a far blue lake which was the ultimate end -of the valley, and the source of the stream we had followed for days. -Devastating winds blew across us, and we watched how they descended -upon the surface of that lake and tore it off in sprays and circles of -water and steam. We found what seemed to be a horse trail over the -shingle, but it led to an extensive field of snow, and we recognised -only the footsteps of a bear. The lake was not blue, but green when we -got near to it, and was banked on three sides by snow. - -Said Vachel: “Here, Stephen, is the place to catch a fish.” - -I said: “No, Vachel, this is just a snow-melt; there never were any -fish here.” - -“Nevertheless try!” said the poet. - -Now we had purchased fishing tackle, though we had no rods. And Vachel -had a large red wooden grasshopper, and I had a large green one. - -Vachel said: “You must throw your grasshopper in, and I’ll go light a -fire so as to be ready to cook the fish.” - -So I fastened my fat green wooden gentleman to the gut, and the gut to -the line, and attaching a stone, flung him in the air. Behold, he flew -like a grasshopper and disported with the winds. But when he settled at -last on the surface of that green and snowy lake, he always made a most -rapid progress toward the shore. I sailed him like a boat. No fish -came, and even our faith remained unrewarded. - -Was not this adventure prophetically put in verses in _Alice_, where -some one sent a message to the fish, telling them, this is what I -wish. And the little fishes’ answer was--“We cannot do it, sir, -because,”--the little fishes, as was disclosed later, were in bed. - -We sat down together in a place like the heath in Macbeth, and the -weird sisters were ready to appear, had we been evil. The sun had -set, winds were blowing from four directions at the same time, and -it was bitterly cold. A tiny fire of roots peeped at us and smoked -and chattered, and we tried hard to get warm at it. We looked at the -mountain-walls, we looked at our maps and compasses. We thought of the -night and of our empty wallets and insides. “Just think of Broadway at -this minute,” said Vachel. “Still sweltering in heat, not yet lighted -up for evening pleasure.” We felt far from civilisation, and sighed -at last for what we despised. “Or think of Piccadilly and Shaftesbury -Avenue,” said I, “all a-swarm with the light-hearted summer crowd of -London.” - -“Well, we can’t sleep here,” said I at length. - -“Let us make one last attempt to get over to the other side.” - -Vachel seemed surprised, but agreed with alacrity: “I’m for it,” said -he. - -[Illustration] - - _The greedy old mountains have been to our knapsacks - And eaten up most of our food. - They’ve swallowed our breath and silenced our speech. - But they haven’t broken our hearts. - It takes more than a mountain to do that!_ - - - - -[Illustration: IMPRISONED IN THE VIEWLESS WINDS] - - - - -VIII. NIGHT AND NOTHING ON THE MOUNTAINS - - -MY companion has a curious old-man-of-the-woods appearance. It is not -his loose red handkerchief round his neck so much as his hanging, -dead-branch-like arms. His face sleeps even when he is awake. He walks -when he is tired in a patient, dog-like way, treading in my very steps. -No ribald songs, now, of tramping days--but as if hushed by the hills -he croons ever to himself-- - - O Beulah land, sweet Beulah land, - Lo, on thy topmost mount I stand, - -and in a sort of hymnal marching step, like way-worn pilgrims, we take -the trackless way upward once again. And it is late twilight. Sombre -hope and patience dwell in our hearts as we trudge, trudge upward. - -By slow stages we reach a new possible pass, and every time we stop and -turn round and sit down to rest we face the lake. On three sides the -descent to the water is precipitous, and an overhanging snow-crust goes -round. In the late light the surface of the lake is a still, viscous -green and the mountain above it a calm blood-red. The snow patches -on the mountain are of fantastic shape and give an idea of futurist -designs. We stare at the patches and see in one of them a ferocious -white tiger, stalking forward with a demented white cat on its back. -In another we see an Egyptian figure, slender, with veiled features of -awful and eternal significance. These grow in the dusk. The winds chase -over us, and when they pass there are moments of windlessness, and we -watch hurrying grey rags of clouds running over the brow of the ridge -above us and losing themselves in thin air. - -It is a romantic climb. We support each other up the steep, sitting -down every twenty paces in breathlessness. Vachel sits with his head on -my shoulder and I with my head on his. In a minute or so we recover and -sit up straight, in the half darkness, and pick up flat stones and try -to make them skid over the snow patches. For a moment I was taken back -to the romantic vein of “Parsifal” as I saw it in Vienna, last May, and -we were Wagnerian pilgrims, toiling upwards in the ecstacy of mystical -opera. Somewhere below us, in the lake, all the violins should sob and -croon together and aspire, yes, aspire and throb, and the drums should -start the gods to look at us. But we treated the matter in light vein. -“The Bacon-eaters,” said Vachel _sotto voce_. “Seventh reel.” - - * * * * * - -A MIGHTY final effort brought us to the top. I shall not soon forget -the dramatic sensation of seeing the new sky which suddenly began to -lift itself into our view from out the other side of the mountain, -a sky with more light, for it lay in the West. It was as if the -prison-wall of the mountain had been thrown down and that which -prisoners dream about and rave about had been given us. - -And there was a way down. It was night and nothing, but we found a -narrow gully on the other side, five or six feet broad, two or three -thousand feet down, and an appalling steepness. This gully was all -loose stones and boulders which the slightest touch sent clattering or -thundering to the bottom. We were nerved to the descent by what we had -gone through and by our joy at finding a way out. - -I took the lead, clutched the rock wall for support, and began to -slip downward, tentatively and cautiously. But directly I started, -a wonderful thing occurred. I found the whole body of loose stones -under my feet moved with me, and I began a progress as on a moving -staircase, down, down, down, as in Jules Verne’s _Journey to the Centre -of the Earth_--easily, steadily. Pleasure in this was, however, rudely -disturbed. Lindsay had started downward behind me and was naturally -starting a movement of rocks on his own, and suddenly a leg-breaking -boulder flew past on my track with dumfounding acceleration. I climbed, -therefore, away from the moving staircase into a cleft of the rock and -waited for the poet to draw level. - - * * * * * - -IT was dark night now, and as the rocks from Lindsay’s feet rushed -past they struck bright sparks in the gloom. How they crashed! How -they thundered and lurched and thumped, and thumped again, and thudded -into the abyss below, and how the little stones rattled after them! We -agreed to go downward in short spells, one at a time, and then go into -shelter and wait till we drew level again. And as we sat side by side -in the gloom we looked to the great mountains on the other side of the -new valley and discerned a colossal figure nine in snow, staring at us -out of the darkness. It was eerie. It needed a deal of nerve to go on. - -And we did not go much further. At one point I thought I saw two human -beings, or they might have been bears, struggling slowly upward toward -us. I shouted to them and they stopped. But they made no reply and -just glowered menacingly upward. That was the end for me. I would -go no further. I gave the halloo to Lindsay and got into shelter. -He came down the way I had come, laboriously, cautiously, like some -weather-beaten old soldier, a skulker from beyond human ken. And he -also desired to do no more that night. So we lay in a lair of a beast -on the brink of a sheer cliff, far, as it happened, above mist and -cloud and a rain that was falling below, and slumbered the night away. - -[Illustration] - - _The Guardsman and the Western Bard_[1] - _Went hiking hand in hand. - They felt uplifted much to see - The prospects wide and grand. - “A thousand leagues,” said one, “Oh Steve, - From any boardwalk band.”_ - - _“How fine the air, immense the view! - The trees are large and green. - See! Here are glades and crystal rills, - And every scent and petal fills_ - - _Our souls with pure ecstatic thrills. - Afflatus holds the scene!” - The Guardsman pointed to the sun. - “It’s supper time, I mean.”_ - - _And as they munched the cracker thin - And quaffed eau naturel, - The gates of heaven were oped--and all - Its liquid contents fell. - They felt the truth that bards have sung: - Heaven is a limpid well._ - - _Then night came on, that covers all - Of high and mean degree, - The king, the clown, the russet gown, - The land, the clouds, the sea. - “And yet I scarcely feel,” said one, - “It really covers me.”_ - - _Long time they sought sweet slumber’s balm, - Kind antidote to care. - “O soft embalmer,” was their psalm - That filled the mountain air. - Embalmer! Something rough in pine - Was as all they wanted there._ - - _A chilly dawn illumed the East, - Most wonderfully wet. - And evermore their pangs increased, - Nor heaven’s libations ever ceased ... - (No further messages released - They’re on that mountain yet)._ - -[1] Contributed by “Rusticus” to the _New York Evening Post_ at this -point in our adventures. - - - - -[Illustration: WHEN HE IS IN PAIN HE CALLETH FOR THE BOTTLE] - - - - -IX. “WIFE, GIVE ME THE PAIN-KILLER” - - -“I SUFFERED forty-seven separate chills,” said the poet. “And -forty-seven separate cramps,” said I. Did we sleep? Six hours passed -somehow and it seemed not so long as waiting that time for a train or -for a theatre to open. Lindsay lay in a sort of hole. I lay with my -head half over the abyss. I watched the stars swim out of the clouds -above. I saw the blackness of the bottomless below us become grey as -the clouds formed there. Lindsay cried out once: “I’m getting up to -light a fire.” “Impossible!” I rejoined. “There’s no wood, and no -place to light it.” - -“I am afraid the clouds are below us; we may have to stay up here all -day,” I whispered, an hour before dawn. But it was all the same to the -poet, whose thoughts were entirely in the present. - -Destiny, however, was kind to us. The clouds at last lifted and -drifted, and angels at sunrise lifted white curtains and smiled at us. - -A couple of old woe-begone weather-beaten tramps lifted themselves -up cautiously and peeped at the wilderness. Last night’s nerve had -gone. With backs bent, and sometimes on hands and knees, they picked -their way gingerly down to the far snow dump beneath, to the first -wind-missed bits of mountain forest, to the first tinkling stream, and -to the first chalice anemones and pink paint-brush flowers. We washed -and we dressed, and we slept and washed again, and put snow inside our -hats--for the morning had become rapidly hot--and we descended. The -streamlet foamed down its rocky bed, and we waded and jumped and clung -to its sides. And other streams flowed into it and made it deeper and -the current stronger, and it splashed us above the waist. We waded -knee-high through pools where shadowy fishes darted, and we sat to rest -on shiny rocks in the water and talked of desirable foods. We scanned -the map of the Geological Survey and stared at our compasses and -considered the contours of the hills, and at length were rewarded by -the sight of a real human horse trail with indisputable hoof-marks upon -it. - - * * * * * - -WE found this in the afternoon, and for three hours followed doggedly, -without meeting a soul. At last, to our great joy, we came upon a -trivial enough thing, and that was a piece of candy wrapping. “Those -who eat candy do not stray far from the place where candy was bought,” -said I sententiously. - -“Well argued, sir,” said Lindsay. “I fully agree.” - -And, indeed, before sunset the happy augury was fulfilled, and we found -a camp much used by Montana fishermen. Curiously enough, though all -other wild things are preserved in the National Park, the fishes are -allowed to be caught. In our opinion, however, after some experience, -the fishes do not stand in need of protection. - -At the camp we resumed acquaintance with the human race in the person -of the keeper and his wife, a fire-ranger, and a hired maid called -Elsie. They filled up our cans and gave us a pail of boiling water to -wash our clothes, and thread for our trousers and coats, and a week’s -rations to take us to “The Sun.” They were disappointed that we would -not buy bacon. - -“Bacon,” said the camp keeper, “is my long suit.” But Vachel vowed he -had gone over to the Mosaic point of view, and didn’t care if he never -tasted bacon again. - -Instead, we “filled up” with corn-beef hash and took into our packs -raisins and grape-nuts and butter; double quantities of bread and -sugar and milk, and nine packets of comforting lozenges. And we saw by -the Spokane _Advertiser_ of some remote date that the King and Queen -of England had been to Ascot races in person, and no one knew what -was happening in Ireland, or whether De Valera was a Protestant or a -Catholic, and the fire-ranger confessed he did not know the ins and -outs of Sinn Fein. And no, there had not been a forest fire this year -yet, though he evidently lived in hope. - - * * * * * - -SO the poet and I fortified ourselves materially and spiritually, and -set off again for the North-west. We started on our new rations and had -one of the most jovial of meals in a place where evidently people had -once camped before. We found the charred circles of old camp-fires in -the grass. - -While we were resting under the trees, and in the gleam of the -firelight, Vachel told me the story of how once, in Kansas, he “ate -down” his landlord. He had hired himself out with a gang of others -to harvest the wheat on the land of a certain German farmer. All the -week-days they “piled the golden sheaves,” and it was a red-hot July. -The men ate as much as they were able, slept in barns on the hay -when the day was done, slept like the dead, rose with the dawn, and -certainly did bring in the wheat. For this they got two dollars fifty a -day and were proud of their gains. - -On Sunday, however, work was suspended, and the gang just lazed and -dozed and ate. The German was a pious Catholic, and said a longish -grace before and after meals. As the gang were rather sheepish -regarding religion, they generally let one course pass, just to avoid -the grace, and came slouching in as the meal went on. But Vachel -started in with the first grace, right level with the farmer himself. -Whatever he had Vachel had. He had several helpings of everything on -the table, and as each of the ten harvest hands came in Vachel started -afresh with him, and as he had hash he had hash. As each man thought he -had done, he slunk out so as to avoid the second grace. The farmer kept -piously waiting for all the men to get finished, and helping himself -with them, too, just for company. - -At last all seemed to have finished and gone, and the farmer was about -to pronounce the final blessing when he had an afterthought and took -another piece of pie. So Vachel also took another piece of pie. Then -mechanically the last grace was said. “I went over to the barn and lay -down and slept,” says Vachel. “By supper time I was ready for another -meal, and I sat down again with the farmer before the rest of the gang -had arrived and grace was said. The farmer was about to help himself -when suddenly he paused, spoon in hand, and sat back in his chair, -looking ill.” - -Then, in a loud, stentorian voice he called to the kitchen: “Wife, give -me the pain-killer.” - -He had a violent fit of indigestion. Wife then brought a large bottle -labelled PAIN-KILLER, an astonishing bottle, about a foot long, that -looked as if it might be horse liniment, and the farmer took his dose -with a large iron spoon. “A terrible stuff,” says Vachel, “a stuff that -just eats the inside out of you, one part turpentine, three alcohol, -and the rest iron rust. It gives you such a heat you forget about your -indigestion.” - -So the farmer had his pain-killer, but he did not eat any supper, and -the poet and the rest of the gang as they came went gaily on and ate to -the end. “I began with each man as he came in and ate him down,” says -my hungry companion suggestively. “And the farmer, tasting nothing, had -to wait till all were through to say the final grace. We finished at -last and went all of us to the barns to sleep till Monday morning and -the hour when we returned again to the golden line.” - - _The kiss by hopeless fancy feigned - On lips that are for others, - Does not compare with the imaginary meal - You eat when the wallet is empty. - The kiss too, when you get it, - Oft proves a disillusion; - But the first meal after an involuntary fast, - Well! - It takes a real poet to describe that!_ - - - - -[Illustration] - - - - -X. CLEAR BLUE - - -AFTER telling me how he “ate down” the farmer, Vachel rested and passed -into a halcyon mood. We had a heavenly day climbing towards a heaven of -unclouded blue. Swinburne flowed more naturally from the poet’s lips -than conversation: - - Before the beginning of years - There came to the making of man - Time with a gift of tears, - Grief with a glass that ran. - -His thought soared with our steps. - - As the sea gives her shells to the shingle - The earth gives her streams to the sea, - -he declaimed to the streams. I promised to arrange a Swinburne recital -for him next time he came to England. For I soon found that he knew as -much Swinburne by heart as he did of his own poetry. Ellery Sedgwick -wrote me from Boston that to tramp with a poet would be “Some punkins,” -and one may say it was when the poet all day long was a living fountain -of verse. I had but to mention a poem and Lindsay poured it forth to -the skies. We bathed in a waterfall in the heat of noon, which was also -a Swinburnian joy, and we splashed in melting snow whilst our shoulders -were burned by the sun and inured ourselves to sun and ice. - -The sun literally blistered the skin, and we reclined in it on scarlet -shelving rocks and cooked our luncheon. All the while Vachel recited -Swinburne’s “Ode to Athens,” addressing the walls of a great mountain -cirque which drooped in snow curtains and hanging gardens of silver -water. - -Up there came to us after lunch a yellowish-grey animal with sprawling -hind legs and stupid benevolent snout and whistled at us--_fee-fo, -fee-fo_,--a whistling marmot. As I tried to approach him he snuggled -off to the snow-field whence he had come, disappeared under the crust, -and presently reappeared from a hole in the midst of the snow and began -chasing chipmunks in and out of the snow holes. - - * * * * * - -WE resumed our journey upward, and all was well. The grass was emerald, -the paint-brush was bright ruby. Swallow-tailed butterflies aeroplaned -to our feet. The valley was broad and clear without mystery or horror. -The waterfalls hung like the gardens of Babylon. An opal lake below us -changed and waxed in iridescent glory and caused whispers of rapturous -interest. And the mountain we were on was the one of the great figure -nine made of snow, which had so thrilled us and appalled us when we saw -it afar at night some days before. When we had gone to the top of it -we had reached the great divide, where the waters flow north, south, -and west toward Hudson’s Bay, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Pacific. -At least, so the topographers assure us, and we must take their word. -Vachel says we will not wait for rain and see the rain-drops hit the -mountain-top and divide automatically into three parts. - -So we descended at dusk into a verdant valley, with low trees growing -wide apart, and waist-high flowering daisies and basket grass, and -sunflowers--all as fresh and fair as if gardened for us yesterday. -There were serried ranks of flowers. The tall mullein stalks became -so thick that they looked like a wooden fencing in the twilight. -Looking upward we saw a crimson mountain, a brown mountain, and a green -mountain. Looking downward, afar, we saw many forests, separated by -streams, sleeping before us. And we slept in a thicket and were made -music to by the nymphs of the seven waterfalls of Shadow Mountain. - - * * * * * - -VACHEL LINDSAY belongs to a sect of primitive Christians called -“Disciples of Christ.” They are followers of Alexander Campbell, and -are called “Campbellites” in America, much as members of the Catholic -and Apostolic community are called Irvingites in England. They are -akin to the Baptists, being emphatically “immersionists.” Among other -notable people who belong to this brotherhood is Mr. Lloyd George, and -it has been suggested that the British statesman be asked to address a -general convention of the Disciples if he comes to America. The chief -virtue in the sect lay doubtless in an attempted return to primitive -historical Christianity in all its simplicity. Not that the poet is -a narrow sectarian. How could a poet be? But he has drunk deep of -the primitive spirit in Christianity, and is very near to children, -negroes, Indians, and the elemental types in men and women. He loves -oratory more than reason, and impulse more than thought. Hence, no -doubt, the well of his poetry. - -We talked of the modern cult of mediævalism and the Chesterton-Belloc -group as we resumed our tramp, and we discussed G. K. Chesterton’s -visit to America. Lindsay felt that Chesterton counted for a great deal -in America. He was not merely a celebrity. He had the reputation of -a Socrates eager to converse with youth. But when he came to America -he did not really come. “He has been Barnumised as Oliver Lodge -was Barnumised,” said the poet. “It’s the worst of commercialised -lecturing. Literary lions are imported by speculative impresarios and -then put to the American people entirely from a dollar point of view. -The organisations that can pay five hundred dollars for a visit get -their Chesterton. But how about the universities and colleges and small -groups, the real intelligentsia of America--the people who have a -creative interest in what a thinker and critic has said and in what he -says? A similar mistake was made with Alfred Noyes, who was booked as -the man who made poetry pay. It created a false impression and did much -injury when there was an opportunity for great good.” Vachel Lindsay’s -idea is that two or three literary men and women should be chosen each -year as the guests of the nation, and that they should be sponsored by -the magazines and the universities. In that way they would meet the -American nation and not merely the brassy front of American business. - - * * * * * - -WITH this subject we plunged through the rank undergrowth of the -forest, following our north-westerly way, which should bring us to -St. Mary’s Lake and the steps of “Going to the Sun Mountain.” We -gathered our first potful of black currants and stewed them with sugar -for our luncheon, and we had our daily dip in the rushing waters of -Red Eagle Creek. It was a warm valley, and the west wind, surcharged -with moisture from the Pacific, had expressed itself in a great floral -exuberance, in ripe raspberries, currants, and gooseberries, and in -forests of firs, which lay against the steep mountain-sides like -feathers against a bird’s wing. - -Vachel indulged his passion for the West and all that the West means -to an American. He has memorised at some time or other the map of -the United States, and can draw it and put in all the States in a -few minutes. He drew it on a scrap of paper as we rested at sunset, -putting in the far Western States first--Washington and Oregon like -two sugar-boxes on top of one another, and then the key-shape of -Utah, whose southern line is roughly the southern line of Colorado, -Kansas, Missouri, Kentucky, and Virginia, and whose northern line is -the northern line of California and Nevada, and approximately of -Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. - -“California,” says he, “is a whale swimming around the desert of -Nevada; Idaho is a mountain throne and its curve is the curve of -Montana. Wyoming fits into the angle of Utah. New Mexico is under -Colorado, and its capital, Sante Fé, is the spiritual capital of -America. Texas plunges southward like a root--don’t draw it too -small. Oklahoma is a pistol pointing west. Nebraska is another -pistol pointing west. North and South Dakota are western blankets. -Louisiana is a cavalier’s boot. Illinois is like an ear of Indian -corn. Arkansas, Missouri, and Iowa move westward with the slant of -the mountains and the rivers. All America, as you will see, has a -grandiose north-westerly-south-easterly direction or kink caused by the -Rocky Mountains primarily, and by the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers -secondarily. The Rocky Mountains control the continent. That is why we -are travelling north-west. It is quite natural. It is America’s way. It -is written in her rocks and by her waters. - -“As the families migrated from Virginia to Kentucky and Illinois and -Minnesota--so we go following nature’s trail out to the wilderness.” - -[Illustration] - - _North-west, north-west! - Give us north-westerly breezes. - Let us be mad north-north-west, - Rather than southerly sober and sane. - Some one once wrote on a madhouse wall, - That the madder we were the nearer to God; - The saner, the further from Man. - God give us the divine kink - North-north-west, north-north-west, - When you can’t tell a hawk from a handsaw,-- - Hamlet only became Hamlet when he learned the secret._ - - - - -[Illustration: YOU HAVE COME TO BE ALONE WITH YOUR HEART] - - - - -XI. NATIONAL WILDERNESSES - - -GLACIER in Montana, Yellowstone in Wyoming, Sequoia and Yosemite in -California, Grand Canyon in Arizona, besides Mount McKinley in Alaska -and many minor reservations and national forests--they ought truly to -be called by some name other than parks. The same also is true for -Canada, which possesses its wonderful Dominion Parks such as those of -Waterton and Lake Louise. The name “park” has evidently been given to -popularise them. Such places in Russia are called “wildernesses,” -and are resorted to for meditation. They are called literally “empty -places,” the same word that is used in the Bible for wilderness. -Tolstoy when he died was on his way to the wilderness--to the “Empty -Place of Optin.” In England, in our conventional phrase, we should be -likely to call them “retreats,” like the retreat on the Island of Iona. -But the idea is that they should provide in our life what is meant when -it is written: _The Spirit drove Him into the wilderness_; or _He went -up into the mountain to pray._ In the midst of the hurly-burly comes -the happy thought--“I will arise now and go to my wilderness, to my -retreat, to my empty place.” - -The spiritual background of Great Britain is in the mountains of the -North, among the Cumberland Lakes and on the wild border. Or it is in -the obscure grandeur of the Sussex Downs, or on Dartmoor, or on the -Welsh hills. Small though the mountains may be, they are continually in -the minds of English people. The way of escape is clear. And many of -the bright spirits of England and Scotland have derived their strength -direct from the hills. Byron and Scott and Ruskin and Wordsworth drew -their strength from the hills. Carlyle super-imposed Ecclefechan upon -Chelsea. Even he who once said “London’s streets are paved with gold” -was driven by the spirit from Battersea to Buckingham. I find a belief -in the wilderness strong in Vachel Lindsay. He holds that the wild West -has been and still must be the spiritual lodestone of American men. -Untamed America has remade the race. Andrew Jackson was the voice of -the West of his day, Abraham Lincoln of his. And though New England -has held the hegemony of letters he divines that the wilderness--the -mountains--will be the source of the inspiration of the coming time. -Early America derived most of her inspiration from across the Atlantic. -Her heart was outside her body. But mature America, conscious of -herself as a whole, will know more surely that she has a heart and a -soul and a way to God in herself. - - * * * * * - -I LOOK to a time when national wildernesses will have an acknowledged -significance in our public life, when men and women of all classes of -life will naturally retire to them for recreation--as naturally as -people used to go to church on Sundays and for a similar reason. All -praise to the foresight and energy of Franklin Lane, the late American -Minister of the Interior, that enterprising Canadian who did so much to -bring the people’s heritage before their eyes! - -The “See America First” is a poor slogan. It is like “Do Everything -Once” and “Buy him a Fountain Pen.” The question should be raised to a -higher level. People need not visit Glacier as they visit Switzerland, -in a spirit of curiosity. Even in this sophisticated age they can -come as pilgrims of Nature as easily as they can come as tourists. -“Triangular trips,” “Four-day tours,” are not in the right spirit. Time -is immaterial. - -But there is virtue in shoe-leather, virtue in the saddle of the horse. -Not much virtue in guides, in hotels. You come to these places to be -alone with Nature or you do not arrive. - - * * * * * - -SO much for the idea and possibilities of the national parks. Lindsay -showed me a portfolio of descriptions of them when he was in London, -and he did much to persuade young Englishmen interested in America to -visit them, go tramp in them. And though of course we had heard in a -dim way of Yellowstone Park and of the Indian reservations both in the -United States and in Canada it was a novelty for us. But Englishmen are -born trampers and lovers of the wilderness, and are ready to reverse -the American proverb--Why walk if you can ride?--and put it, Why ride -when you can walk? And I shall not be the first Englishman to seek -refreshment hiking through the wild places of the West. - -We talked of this exuberantly as we clambered through the forests on -the side of Little Chief Mountain, and it was still our theme in the -evening when we lighted our fires in a vast rock temple and chasm down -into which tumbled dark water, glittering and hastening as it flowed -downward to the valleys. How to say a word for national wildernesses -in this sedentary era of the world’s history, how to say a word for -true religion and quiet and the things of the spirit! Vachel Lindsay -will no doubt dramatise the subject in one fine Western epic some day, -and I make my appeal, as I have done before, in prose, as for the -wildernesses of Europe, so also for the wildernesses of America. But -whether we write or sing of what we feel or see, one thing is sure when -we are done--we shall have lived apart and tramped and meditated upon -the mountains and far in the wilderness and it will mean something in -our lives. - -[Illustration] - - _What wish you to-day, dear tramp? - What wish you for brother-man? - Why, just this:-- - The quality of mountain-sides in the colour of his eyes, - The deep of stars in the lake of his soul, - Feet that have learned to leap, - And a spirit that longs to fly. - That’s what I wish, dear brother, to-day, - Said the tramp._ - - - - -[Illustration: THE SUN SEES EVERYTHING] - - - - -XII. GOING WEST - - -WE love inspirational phrases such as to “go West” which sprang on to -men’s lips in the Great War, and was a way of saying “to die,” which -was startlingly poetic, seeing that it came from the soul of those -masses usually admitted to be so vulgar. “He’s gone West,” men said -with a hushed voice, meaning that like so many who had passed before, -he had gone--to another world, to beyond the setting sun. The phrase -was not current among the American soldiers, but I have heard of an -equally wonderful expression used by the mountaineers, who said: “He -has crossed the Great Divide.” - -My mind is inevitably drawn to these thoughts as we face so often the -setting sun, as we cross the pinnacles of our momentary aspirations, -the passes, the divides which separate sky from sky and valley from -valley. - -Lindsay is also constantly enwrapped by the romance of Going West--the -historic and poetic Western movement which has pulsated humanity since -the hordes and their caravans stampeded across Asia in the days which -are almost before history. What was it, what is it that hypnotises -us--is it not the sun which, rising in the morning, calls all his -children after him all day and bids them follow when at last he plunges -into night and nothingness? - - * * * * * - -“HAVE courage,” says the sun in the evening. “Have faith,” say the -stars all the night long. “You see, I rise again; you will rise,” says -the sun in the morning. “This way, this way,” he says till noon, and -“Follow, follow,” all the afternoon, and then once more, “Behold! I -go. Have courage!” he says in the evening again. And that sets young -hearts a-beating, that kindles the poet’s flame and enlarges the spirit -and makes the way of the world. - -That makes us all nomads, all gypsies, all pilgrims. That draws the -steps of the willing, and even the unwilling find themselves borne -along by a human tide and a sliding sand of time--away to the west and -the night and the other country. No one can stay, even if he will. In -time all must go, all must follow the sun and cross the Divide and go -down the slopes of the unimaginable other side and be with the stars -in the long, hungry night, the myriads of stars that never do anything -else but look down on human souls and ask of us and stare at us and -dream of us. The night of stars for all of us, and then with our Father -and guide, far o’er these mountains, wan and tired, but gleaming -and then resplendent, we lift our eyes to the other country, the -dreamed-of, hoped-for country--and it is morning and we are still with -the light that we followed yesterday. - - * * * * * - -“THE old prairie-schooners,” says Lindsay, “blundered forward on the -western way, day after day, season after season, sometimes for years, -for the pioneers often worked their way to the Virgin Land which they -had taken for goal. Often, indeed, they died on the way, they broke -down on the way. Each yearned to the West even as they failed and threw -their spirits westward, like Douglases carrying the heart of Bruce to -the Promised Land. The primitive instinct for moving was awakened by -the road and many a pioneer found happiness in the going as much as in -the attainment.” - -We ourselves are going westward now, rather than north-west, and the -sun beckons us. For the mountain we are now setting out to reach has -been called by the Indians “Going-to-the-Sun.” It stands over and -beyond St. Mary’s Lake and climbs heavenward in gigantic steps of -stone. It steps from the forest to the rocks, from the rocks to the -snow, from the snow to the sky. It is a mighty cathedral, standing in -the midst of prosaic mountains, surely one of the most beautiful and -majestic of these mountains, symbolic in its shape and its ancient -name. We have slept on the mossy earth at the foot of the pines. We -will arise and go to the sun. - -[Illustration] - - _There’s some one calling you: - Arise, sleepy-head, - Arise from your bed! - A messenger is peeping, - There where you’re sleeping: - For the day’s been begun - By your master the sun, - And you surely will follow._ - - - - -[Illustration: CROSSING THE GREAT DIVIDE] - - - - -XIII. CLIMBING RED EAGLE - - -WE journeyed through the primeval forest without a trail to guide us, -through the jagged, thorny, tumultuous pine wilderness. It was not so -easy for Lindsay, whose legs are shorter than mine, but he took it as -a game of banter leader and moved forward doggedly into the openings I -made. We were glad to take advantage of the thousands of wind-smitten -trees which lay dead, piled at every angle and piled on one another. - -We climbed upward for miles on the white, smooth, dead timber of fallen -trees, balancing and jumping, transferring from trunk to trunk, and -clambering over the immense stars of upturned roots. We were rewarded -at length by a view of the rocks above the tree line and of a tumbling -cascade. This was in the direction we required and we made for it -and lunched by the cascade become rivulet, and then climbed all the -afternoon by rock stairs to the snow. - -At six beside a “bride-veil waterfall,” we had supper. Above us was an -amphitheatre of red rocks and ruined slate and it seemed but a small -climb to the top of the mountain. The gradient was steep and there were -large quantities of loose stones. We climbed without intermittence -until 9 o’clock at night, and as one top was nearly conquered another -top seemed to be added. The amphitheatre receded upward to heaven. - -How arduous it was and at times how risky! Massive stones on which we -relied to place our feet proved to be only passengers like ourselves -upon the mountain and at a touch from us resumed their downward track, -clashing and smashing from rock to rock. We came to steep banks of -shale which moved _en masse_ with the weight of our bodies and we lay -flat on them and slid with them unwillingly and fearfully. Nevertheless -we did make great progress upward, and if we did not conquer the -mountain on which we were we at least conquered some peaks that -were behind us. We entered the society of the mountains. The mighty -eminences and august personalities of the southward view came into our -ken. - - * * * * * - -THE sun went down, the shadows below us deepened, the snow banks -multiplied themselves in number, and their outlines and suggestiveness -intensified as the valley whence we had arisen lost its trees and -changed to a vast blank abyss. Our unfailing wonder when we sat down -on a stone to regain our lost breath was the multitudinous terrain of -awful, wrathful mountain peaks which in indescribable promiscuity had -climbed the horizon wall to stare at us. - -Vachel confessed to being dizzy and dared hardly look downward whence -we had come. He preferred to look upward, and it was always “three -more dashes and we’ll be there,” though instead of three we made thirty. - -Our mountain at length seemed to show the last limits and to be crowned -by a sort of Roman wall. We came in view of a long, serried, level grey -rock which ran evenly along the mountain brow like a fortification, and -in the midst of it was a way of stone steps and a gap. I got up through -the hole in the wall and hauled up Lindsay’s pack after me, and he -followed. - -But when we got on top it was flat, but it was not the top. We lay -full length there and ate raisins and looked upward over another field -of shale and loose boulders, and a cold wind as from the Pole swept -across. We watched the first stars appear and talked of finding a -sheltered ledge somewhere and sleeping on it or at least waiting on it -till morning. But secretly we still had a strong hold on hope. Mountain -tops are only to be conquered, and we would not give in. - - * * * * * - -“THE other sky beyond the mountain ridge is on tiptoe waiting for us,” -said I. - -It should be explained that the mountains here are nearly all -“razor-edges.” When you have climbed sheer up to the top you have to -climb sheer down the other side. Plateaus and table mountains are rare. - -The mountain “cirques” and ridges actually cut the great sky in two and -you can only join the two pieces of it at the top. - -However, when, after another forty minutes of picking our way upward, -we did actually reach the summit no new sky greeted us. Indeed, I -shrank back aghast from the dreadful view that I saw. For the mountain -swept downward in long, swift and severe lines into a funnel of Erebus -darkness. We stood perched at a gigantic height above the world, and it -was black night with an abyss both behind and in front of us. - -You could stand on the top of the mountain and see the two dreadful -views, on the one side scores and fifties of wrathful, staring -mountains and on the other a purgatorial abyss for lost souls. - -We dared not start a descent so we slept on the top of the mountain. -I lay on a narrow ledge and slumbered and waked. And Vachel, who was -hypnotised by the abyss, would not lie down for fear he might fall off -or might get up in his sleep and jump. So he sat like a fakir the whole -night long, looking unwaveringly on one fixed spot. - -“Our friends all lie in their soft beds with their heads on pillows of -down,” I thought, “far away in the valleys and across the plains, in -snug, comfortable homes, and we lie on rocky, jagged edges on the very -top of a great mountain, far from human ken.” - -We seemed as much nearer the stars as we were further away from -mankind. Venus was like a diamond cut out of the sun, and she lifted -an unearthly splendour high into the sooty devouring darkness of the -night. In other parts of the sky the meteors shot laconically in and -out as if on errands for the planets. Cold winds ravaged the heights, -but they did not roar. For the forests were far away. And there was -no sound of waters--only the long slow threatening roll and splurge -of loose rocks continually detaching themselves from the heights and -slipping downward to perdition. - -I lay and I lay, and Vachel sat unmoving, and we heard, as it were, the -pulse of the world. We did not see humanity’s prayers going up to God. -We only saw the stars and the night. - -[Illustration] - - _If you join the mountain-peak club - You’ll notice the old members stare at you, - Call you silently a parvenu, interloper, upstart. - Upstart you are, of course, - But never mind, you’ve got a rise in the world. - No use trying to outstare the mountains - Sitting in their arms-chairs, nursing their gouty feet. - Be a social climber still, - Aspire higher, - And be put up as soon as you can - For the club of Heaven’s stars._ - - - - -[Illustration: WHERE THE ANTELOPE WILL GO THE BEAR WILL FOLLOW] - - - - -XIV. DOING THE IMPOSSIBLE - - -BLESSINGS for dawn and the rosy lights and for the cloudlessness of the -morning! Had mist enshrouded us we should have had to have remained -high up on the slippery knife-edge of the mountain till the mist had -passed. We were able to descend, cautiously, cautiously, for three -hours in a trackless precipitous zig-zag to the red peak of a lower -mountain and a high snow-bound lake, where we made a good fire and -made coffee with our last coffee, and lay down again and slept. Then -we washed in the snow and ceased to be old weather-beaten tramps and -recaptured our yesterdays and our youth, and Vachel began to sing again -and our knapsacks felt lighter, as indeed they were, for we had eaten -up all the rations, even the iron rations. - -Then we walked to the valley of the Sun Mountain adown the rocks of a -continuous cascade. The descent to the snow-bound lake and the red peak -had seemed impossible, and we essayed the impossible again. It was not -merely a polite walk downstairs. Every step that we took was a problem. -We used our hands and the strength of our wrists as much as our feet -and the tension of our ankles. Constantly were we faced with fifteen -to twenty-foot drops on to narrow ledges, where a balance must be kept -when we alighted. - -No doubt I am by nature a mountaineer and hillsman, half a Highlander, -at least, and Vachel’s genius is the genius of the plains. I am an -antelope and he is a bear, we tell each other. - -“You lead,” says Vachel. “Where the antelope will go the bear will -follow after him, but the antelope will not follow the bear.” - -So he followed downward, and we took the most abominable chances of -breaking our legs or our necks--we had to take them. Then presently we -came to what seemed a full forty-foot sheer drop of foaming water--an -impossible descent, you would say, for all the grasp and grip in it -was water-washed and water-smoothed by ages of water--impossible, -impossible. But no, face it, think it over, it can be managed. O -caution, caution! Trust yourself to the Almighty Protector and grit -your teeth! - - * * * * * - -TIMIDITY fought daring all the way down. We sat once or twice, and -regarded the view. One thing was certain: we could not climb back to -the places we had come from. If we did not continue downward we had to -remain where we were. - -We did things which one does not do without guides and ropes and the -paraphernalia of mountaineering, and when we got down to the tortured -fissured rocks below the cataract we looked up whence we had come and -said again to ourselves, “Impossible, impossible!” - -And as in going up the mountain the winning of the summit was -continually deferred, so in descending to the valley we only conquered -one steep mountain slope to be presented with another steep mountain -slope and another series of terraces and another impossibility. - -Perhaps no one ever came this way over the mountains unless it was some -adventurous Indian, but even Indians do not venture where horse cannot -go. I remember as one of the most remarkable passages of our descent an -hour we spent in a subarboreal channel shut out from the light of day, -a jagged downward plunge where the stream fell away in darkness while -in voluminous curves the thick sallow roofed it in. We made a hanging -descent, clinging to handfuls of branches of sallow and swaying and -sagging and dropping, and then touching rock with a dangling foot, and -then clutching another lower bunch of branches and letting ourselves -down again, downward, downward. - - * * * * * - -BUT it all ended well, for we came at last to sheets of sliding -shale and then to a spacious forest. And we had been saved from all -mischance, and the silence which danger had gradually imposed on us -was broken. - -“Bread, beauty, and freedom is all that man requires,” cried Vachel, -“and now I’ll translate it into fire, water, and a place to sleep.” - -These we found, and one by one the stars discovered us when they peeped -through the branches of the lofty pines. They saw us where we lay -now far away below, stretched out beside the embers of our fire and -luxuriating in its warmth like cats. - -We boiled a pot of black currants and wild gooseberries and we ate -it to the last berry, though, as the poet said afterwards, it was -a quart of concentrated quinine. And we made a rosy layer of wild -black-currant candy in the frying-pan which was not allowed to remain -long unconsumed. We had no food in our knapsacks, only a little sugar, -but we counted ourselves happy though hungry because we had been up on -top of a great mountain and had come down. - -“A joy to the heart of a man is a goal that he may not reach,” says -Swinburne. And a greater joy still is the joy of reaching it. That is -what we have been doing all day. - -“Call it ‘Doing the Impossible’ and thinking well of ourselves,” adds -the poet when I read this to him: - -[Illustration] - - _“My master builder!” said the lady - When she made the master builder - Climb to the top of his new building, - Risking his life and doing the impossible a second time. - She made him do it, but he doing it was a hero. - He showed his manhood to her - By doing something that could not be done. - “The impossible or nothing” be our cry. - Don’t you loathe the perfectly possible? - I do._ - - - - -[Illustration: SWEET LADIES DO STOP ROLLING YOUR EYES] - - - - -XV. PEOPLE IN CAMP - - -A DAY’S steady tramping brought us to a camp, and then we bathed in St. -Mary’s Lake and washed every separate item of linen, even that which -we wore, and we sun-baked ourselves on the hot beach while the clothes -dried, and we made a clean appearance at last among fair women and -brave men, and we took supplies on which to vagabondise for days on the -slopes of Going-to-the-Sun Mountain. - -It was a curious experience to be absolutely alone on the mountains so -long and then suddenly to come on a large congregation of tourists. -Going-to-the-Sun Camp is a spectacular point in the recognised tour of -Glacier Wilderness. - -“We are doing the four days’ tour,” is the common explanation which -visitors gave us. Or, “We are making the triangular trip.” - -One’s eyes naturally rest on the ladies, who are nearly all in seeming -male attire, and some of this attire fits and some does not; some of it -suggests homes where men are rare and breeches have to be imported. But -they all look pretty well in this simplicity. Girls in mauve and violet -jumpers, shiny leather belts, and leg-o’-mutton breeches sit with us -at supper and explain that to-day was their first day on a horse--and -they know it. “Are you tired?” say I. “You can tell the world,” is the -reply. Near us stands a girl in tan riding costume, violet stockings, -white shoes, and bobbed brown hair in a hair net. She is talking to -two well-built youths, standing with their legs apart, and the girl, -imitating their styles, droops forward to them as they chaff one -another. She will not stray far. The same may be said of a well-fed -lady of sixty, pampered and neurotic, but sitting in a riding jacket -and very baggy breeches and nervously smelling at an ammonia bottle. -Grandma in trousers is rather portentous. - -But how describe the charm of the little boy and girl, children of -twelve and thirteen, accoutred also for the horse and sitting on their -steeds with the grace of Indians. The old and middle-aged are stiff and -only the children look as if they could never get tired. In any case, -all is good humour and jollity. Mme. Censure is not here. There are -people with crumpled faces and there are people made of dimples and -curves--but happiness holds all. - - * * * * * - -WE did not see very much of the tourist life. There is not much of it -up here. There ought probably to be more. While Yosemite, Grand Canyon -and Yellowstone are visited by hundreds of thousands of Americans, -Glacier is left unused. We do not want its canyons also to be filled -up to the top with cans, but no one would grudge a few more people in -a wilderness where you can travel weeks without meeting a soul--a few -more sharers in the loveliness of the Northern Rockies. - -A number of camps have been made with log-cabins and canvas tents, and -there are two large hotels on the fringe of the wilderness. But an -especial charm lies in the fact that the people in charge of the camps -and the little inns called “chalets” are mostly university students -and college girls of the institutions of Minnesota and Montana, and -they do the needful work on the self-help principle of earning a little -money in their holidays to pay their way during term. There is nothing -of the low commercial spirit, no one hanging around for a tip, no one -with any interest to treat you shabbily, but instead the natural good -manners of unspoiled people. You see the choleric “colonel” trying to -get more than his share of attention and service, but he doesn’t effect -anything, and you may see the millionaire cheerfully and shrewdly -recognising the fact that he must take his turn after his stenographer -and perhaps after a couple of ragged old tramps like ourselves. - - * * * * * - -VACHEL is devoted to the universities and high schools of America -and the life they represent. He has almost completely changed his -constituency from the “ladies’ club” and the heavy society of Mr. and -Mrs. Leo Hunter and is now a poetic voice of young germinal America. -He has “covered the map” of the United States singing his songs to -college youths. And in return college youth recognises him quickly. He -is a natural favourite among those who run the “chalets.” And they all -wanted him to “sing” to them. - -Not that the visitors do not also make friends with us and we with -them. Such coats of sunshine as we have make ordinary sunburn pale and -give us much glamour. Souvenir huntresses grab us from a “big ballyhoo” -Western town. Likewise, a girl from Chicago, pronounced in three facial -contortions. And when we set off to vagabondise for some days we were -followed by a beautiful creature who wished for a minute to come with -us to the world’s end. - -[Illustration] - - _The tramps have gone to sleep - Nearer to the skies; - Oh ladies, sweet ladies, - Do stop rolling your eyes. - The tramps have gone away - To seek their paradise; - Oh ladies, sweet ladies, - Do stop rolling your eyes. - The tramps have taken with them - The best of apple pies, - They’re not prepared to-day - To take on extra ties. - So ladies, sweet ladies, - Do stop rolling your eyes._ - - - - -[Illustration: ST. SERAPHIM - HE IS ONLY A WILD BEAST WHEN TREATED LIKE A WILD BEAST] - - - - -XVI. VISITED BY BEARS - - -I RETAIN very cheerily in mind from Russia the memory of the typical -Russian saint who lived in the woods and was so holy that the bears -approached without malice and took what the saint could spare of the -store of crusts on which he lived. The unfortunate Tsarina when she -desired so religiously a male heir, went to the shrine of Seraphim in -the “empty place” of Arzamas to pray for one. And the most famous -thing about St. Seraphim was his love of the bears. He is nearly always -depicted in popular oleographs feeding the bears with bread, and in -Russian ikons the bear is the national emblem of the primitive nature -of Russia and the saint is the emblem of Christ. - -On the other hand, I remember also my good old friend Alexander Beekof, -a hunter of bears who had himself snapshotted facing in the snowy -forest the upstanding, snarling, dangerous beast which presently he -was to lay low. And since we are thinking of bears, I call to mind how -I saw last winter little baby bears, dressed up in ribbons and fed -with milk from a pap-bottle, hawked for sale by refugee Russians from -street to street in Constantinople--pets to put in the nursery with -your children, astonishing little rompers and ideal players of hide and -seek. I have wondered about the bear as we wonder now about the Russian -as to just what sort of an animal he is. Is he only a wild beast when -treated like a wild beast, but otherwise tame in the presence of saints -and children? Or is he a wild beast all the while? - -This problem we evidently went to the Rocky Mountains to solve. For -there we met the bears, and even if we may not have the haloes of the -saints we hope to find a place among the children. - - * * * * * - -NOT that we were entirely ready for the overtures of Brother Bear, and -it is true that we frightened some bears away, but later we got on good -terms. I saw the first bear on “Going-to-the-Sun” Mountain. No one, of -course, is allowed to shoot bears in Glacier National Park, though it -is not many years since hunters hunted them there with Indians and with -dogs, and one may read of the bear-hunting adventures of Emerson Hough -and others. Now without dogs or guns the bear has been won over and he -has ceased to fear mankind. - -It was a beautiful morning and Vachel had been sitting in Baring Creek, -letting Balchis, as he called the waterfall, flow over him, and he was -now lying in a blanket on the ferns and meditating when I heard an -unwonted stump, stump, crash, in the undergrowth. - -“Is it a man?” I asked. - -Crash, stump, stump, it went again, and peering through the trees I -saw a black bear coming towards us, glossy and shaggy. I called Vachel, -but at that the bear stopped short, raised his intent, listening ears -and then made away from us in another direction. We saw no more of him. - -After that I recognised the sound of the bear’s feet in the forest, -quite a characteristic sound, and we knew there were many bears. But -the next occasion of a personal encounter was some weeks later near -Heaven’s Peak. Vachel had got himself an extra long wisp of old canvas -from a ruined tent. We slept by a large fire, and when the fire went -out a bear came to us. Vachel and I were lying close to one another -and both had our blankets over our faces, for it was cold. Vachel, as -he told me afterwards, was awakened by something and lay listening to -my breathing. He thought to himself, “Stephen is certainly making a -terrible racket; he must have a cold”; and then he thought again lazily -and unsuspectingly, “Stephen surely must have caught a cold to be -snuffing and snorting in that way.” Then he thought again, “He seems to -be moving about, I wonder what he’s doing.” - - * * * * * - -THEN Vachel put his head out of his blanket and what should he see -standing beside us but a big black bear. As for me, I was sleeping like -a babe, and the bear apparently had been snuffing at me to see whether -I were live meat or dead meat. Vachel gave one terrific shout. “THE SON -OF A GUN,” said he, and I wakened up. - -“Wake up, Stephen; it’s a bear,” said he. At this Brother Bear walked -across from my side, where I had a pile of boiled eggs, which he had -scattered, and leisurely began to knock our tin cans about on the other -side and try and find the ham which we had bought the day before. In -a most unsaintly way we drove him off. We forgot the example of St. -Seraphim, and Brother Bear was fain to depart. I repented too late -and followed the old scallywag up the moon-bathed forest glade quite -a way. But he would not be called by his pet name after the abuse -we had hurled at him and went away and away till he was lost in the -moon-beams. “He was smelling you to find out whether you were good -to eat,” said Vachel, laughing. “He wouldn’t begin on you unless he -were sure you were carrion.” “Curious,” said I, “isn’t it; we used as -children to look at pictures of bears smelling men who were shamming -dead in order to escape being eaten by them. In children’s books, the -bear won’t eat carrion. Out here in the Rockies you can’t keep them out -of the garbage cans of the camps at night.” - -On another occasion, however, when three bears came trundling down -after our supper was over, I approached one with some bread, which he -very gently took from my fingers, and I scratched his nose and put -myself on speaking terms. - -“Curious,” said I to Vachel, “is it not? These are the same bears which -used to figure so largely in adventure stories of the Rocky Mountains. -It follows they are ready to be good citizens of the forest if treated -‘good.’” - -You’d have had a different experience had they been grizzlies, we were -told later. - -Maybe. But St. Seraphim himself did not tackle grizzlies. - -[Illustration] - - _So we’ve met the bear: - The bear has snuffed at us - And wondered what we were. - Humans with a forest smell to us, - No doubt quite game; - Sleeping out too, very quietly. - Good to eat no doubt, - Dare one, dare a poor bear take a bite? - Would they mind? - I’ve bitten most of the animals in the wood - Except them-- - In my time._ - - - - -[Illustration: ELEMENTS OF GOOD COFFEE - - MOSQUITO - NETTING - WATERFALL - COFFEE POT - FIR TREE - COFFEE BEANS - STONE - PYRE - LOVE] - - - - -XVII. LINDSAY’S STONE COFFEE - - -THE wind blew all night long, a wind that seemed to be cleaning up and -burnishing all the spaces between the stars. The rock wall against -which I leaned my back kept stealing away the warmth from my blanket. -Vachel slept off the level on the ferns, at a forty-five degree tilt -downward. We both looked out to the mountains and the stars, and it -was an epical summer night on the Rockies. - -The mountains were compact and black and clear, and a dim light behind -them glorified each. A young moon arose and poised herself above us, -and only slowly and very unobtrusively crept across the sky. It was a -night of persistent gale but of a steadfast starry universe. It seemed -to call for rain, but there never came a cloud, only the metallic -interstellar spaces grew lustrous and more lustrous, and the mountains -more and more romantic. Our eyes were religiously and adoringly -spellbound. Our hands--our feet--that is a different tale. - - Their hearts were pure, - Their hands were horribly red, - -as Balzac said of two young ladies of France. - -Vachel, who had tied the tassels of his old steamer rug together and -made a sleeping-bag, was meditative of Peary and Shackleton and their -companions, and though he had procured an extra flannel shirt and -had tied himself up in all he possessed, he still could not find the -temperature at which corn ripens in central Illinois. We heard the -waters of the creek pouring down below, we heard movements among the -trees, and the idea of a bear coming to us was not unsuggested. Vachel -picked up his steamer rug and came across to my rock and laid him down -nearer to me. We slept then till dawn, slept with one eye open and one -shut; one ear alert, the other muffled. - - * * * * * - -THE lovely light of the east flooded upward and over us from Lake St. -Mary, bathing our mountain-side in a peach blossom glamour; small birds -winged it through the wedge of air ’twixt mountain and mountain. The -creek poured more loudly into our consciousness, and the sharp points -of our rocky bed jibbed upward towards our bones. Then it was morning. -Then it was coffee time. - -I shall never forget the poet as he looked in the dawn, with his red -handkerchief tied over his old felt hat and under his chin, and the -concentration of his gaze as he plodded about in three pairs of socks -and half-laced boots seeking extra twigs to make that fire burn. He -looked like a true dwarf or old man of the woods from a page of a -fairy-book, but not really visible to human eyes. - -And it was an unpractical fairy who expected damp wood and large wood -to burn as easily as dry withered pine. It sometimes took a long while -to set our pot a-boilin’. Once, however, that had been achieved, great -was our reward. We had our coffee, “Lindsay’s stone coffee,” as we -named it, better than any other coffee in the United States. - - * * * * * - -“STEPHEN,” said Vachel quietly to me one day, “you must let them know -just how this coffee is made. I’m not one of those selfish people who -keep such secrets to themselves. The ladies especially will like to -have our secret.” - -The first point is that you take a stone which has never seen either -sunset or sunrise, a stone lying at the feet of trees not less than -100 feet high. It must have lain there not less than 4000 years and -listened to the music of a waterfall. That is the important point. Any -decent coffee beans ground in any kind of clean grinder will do. A pot -that has seen more than one continent is preferred. - -You then cut a square piece of white mosquito net sufficient to hold -the coffee and the stone. Tie up carefully like a plum-pudding, but -leave seven or eight inches of string attached to it so that you can -pull the coffee sack up and down in the pot at will. Vachel in this -matter of coffee is a complete immersionist. The coffee must go right -under. - -It is prepared, moreover, in silence and without fear of flame and -smoke. The pot stands on a funeral pyre, and is allowed to lift its lid -several times before a hand swathed up in a towel darts in to rescue it. - -We pour it out into our tin cups. It is black, it is good, it has a -kick like a mule; it searches the vitals and chases out the damps; it -comforts the spine and gives tone to the heart. And the poet, silent -hitherto, sits holding his large cup before him. Then he takes a sip -and looks at me. - -“Thadd touches the spadd,” says he at last in a deep gastronomical -gestatory voice which seems to lend expression to his ears and -shoulders. “Thadd touches the spadd,” says he in happy relief. - -[Illustration] - - _Coffee should be made with love; - That’s the first ingredient. - It’s all very well about the stone, - Say I, but it needs a heart as well. - The coffee knows if you really care, - And will do its best if you lend it encouragement. - You can flatter the coffee whilst it is in the pot, - And it will rise to your persuasion. - But the commonest cause of coffee being just indifferent - Is your indifference towards the coffee._ - - - - -[Illustration: TO THE WORLD’S END] - - - - -XVIII. MAKING MAPS OF THE WORLD - - -AFTER an era of drawing maps of the United States my companion took to -drawing maps of the world, supporting them by mermaids and making them -fly by north-westerly and north-easterly angels, and he wrote original -couplets and hid them in hollow trees and under stones. As Shelley made -paper boats in the Bay of Naples he made maps and hid them--his pet -hobby for a number of days. - -One verse asked Atlas if he did not find the world heavier since the -Treaty of Versailles. - -“I hope you made a copy of it before hiding it,” said I. - -“Oh, no; stray leaves of poetry, rewards for seekers,” said he. -Celebrated mountaineers have been putting copper boxes with their -signatures on the tops of the mountains this year; Vachel has been -leaving original poems in the valleys. - -We set off from Sun Mountain for the high walls of the Canadian line. -Vachel was in no passion for climbing, and confessed that if he were a -woman, he would, at this point in our adventure, “lie down on the floor -and scream.” So our progress was slow and punctuated by long waits. We -went through tree thickets and breast-high flowers and through tearing -thorns, and we came to many red-rock promontories. Rocks grew up out of -the jungle and topped the highest trees, and we climbed them and looked -out from their smooth, wind-swept summits and listened to the bears, -and Vachel, with paper and pencil, drew maps and put Czecho-Slovakia -in the scheme of things, and asked the God who made the world where -Turkestan might be. - - * * * * * - -AT length, at noon, we came unto a mighty cliff, an end of the world, -rosy red and flamingly joyful, but very final. The poet was a quarter -of a mile behind me, and I watched him patiently grubbing his way -through the exuberant green, trackless jungle, hit in the face by -branches, choked up to the fork of his legs by the weeds. And when he -came to the end of the world he asked no questions but just sat down -and began drawing a map. “Where,” asked he, “is Seven Rivers Land and -the Desert of Pamir?” - -I left him sitting down below and began climbing the giddy cliff with -a tin can in my hand. For growing like wall-flowers on the rocks above -were dwarf raspberry bushes all hung with tiny rosy lights--and these -were fruits. I got up to them and standing on half-inch ledges and -holding to twigs and weeds I picked a cupful of the hot berries all -half-cooked by the sun’s rays. And when I got down again we had a -wonderful repast of raspberries and sugar. - -When we resumed tramping we crossed a crag-strewn valley, which was -very rough on our boots. My boots were cracking; Lindsay’s were very -floral. His held out a little while longer, but mine died that day. As -we each carried two pairs of boots we were prepared for the emergency. - -Mine had been a stout pair of pre-war boots (Americans please read -“shoes”). I used them first in North Norway and Russia. I tramped in -them in France. They were repaired first by a Russian at Kislovodsk -in the Caucasus; repaired for the second time in Georgia by a negro -cobbler. For I did Sherman’s march and walked from Atlanta to the -sea in them in 1919. And they were repaired for the last time by a -Frenchman in Hazebrouck last year. I had tramped in them over the -battlefields of Gallipoli, and had worn them when the weather was bad -in Constantinople, Belgrade, Budapest, Vienna, Warsaw, and almost every -other capital of Europe. - -“We must burn them,” said Vachel, “and have a special ceremony. These -are no ordinary shoes (Englishmen please read ‘boots’) to be abandoned -in the wilds without the meed of some melodious tear.” So we burned -one on a high flaming fire with young pine-shoots for incense, and the -other we threw into a rushing mountain torrent, and bade it continue -its world journey to the world’s end. - - * * * * * - -WE lay stretched on our blankets by the pine fire that night and talked -of the world. We arrived at some ideas. “You are not drawing the map -merely as part of a geography lesson,” said I. “You are drawing the -poetry of it.” - -A poetical map of the world has never yet been drawn. “It should have -ships on its oceans and lighthouses on its rocks and mermaids under it, -and stars over it,” said Vachel. “Imagine how Blake would have drawn -it.” - -First, you put in the North and South Poles, symbols of man’s love -of the inaccessible and the paradox of his striving life; then Cape -Horn, stormiest point in the world, cape of innumerable wrecks, of -the innumerable adventures of daring sailors. Then put in the Panama -Canal, symbol of utilitarianism and our modern life. Draw in the Bering -Strait, which is the pre-historic link of the Old World and the New, -and then the Rocky Mountains, which the red men climbed. - -Then draw in a dotted line the keel track of Columbus over the ocean -and put an eye upon a peak in the Darien looking downward and outward -to the great Pacific. Draw the Mason and Dixon line. Draw 54° 40´--the -“fifty-four forty or fight” line. Then for the old world, make the -coast-line of China and then mark the Chinese Wall built to keep out -the Huns, then draw the caravans of the hordes, and may arrows fly -over the desert of Asia, spitting against Bokhara and Samarkand, -spitting against the empire of Darius, spitting against the Scythians, -the Slavs, stampeding the Goths and the North Men and ruining Rome and -starting the modern world! - -You must put in Athens the birthplace of the ideal, and Marathon and -then Rome, the birthplace of materialism, the capital of capitals, seat -of the Caesars. And then St. Helena, symbol of the doom of would-be -Caesars. - -Mark in the mysterious Nile, and the place where the Sphinx looks out -from the sand. Mark Bethlehem and then Jerusalem---- - -Thus we schemed and mused and made many maps in fancy, and we took -to ourselves just before the stars said good-night the title Geo. -Ast.--geographical astrologers. - -“I dare you to register as such,” said Vachel, “when we get out of all -this and reach a hotel at last.” - -[Illustration] - - _Poor old world, you’re a playground. - And we are the children who romp in you now. - Those maps of you are wrong - Which show trade winds - Instead of winds of inspiration, - Where names of business-places are in bold black print - And railway lines are ruled, - And capitals are marked with blots - And other places are invisible._ - - - - -[Illustration: THE EAGLE SEES WHAT IS IN THE PIT] - - - - -XIX. A MOUNTAIN POINT OF VIEW - - -“WITE man, you’s skeerin’ me to death,” cries Vachel playfully from -behind me as we get out of forests and up among the naked rocks. “Wite -man, you’s skeerin’ me to death,” or again, “You might as well kill a -man as scare him to death.” - -“This is no place to bring ladies,” I ventured. - -“And no place to bring a poet, either,” says Vachel. “Look here, -Stephen, I make one rule. I’ll only be scared out of my wits once a -day.” - -The poet riveted his eyes on me, and I was a curious sight, being torn -to tatters from head to foot. I had been mending my trousers with the -stuff of my vest and the lining of my coat. “Stephen,” cries Vachel, -“when I get tired of looking at the scenery I look at your pants.” And -I employed much time when we rested sewing up the triangles and flaps -on my knees with white thread drawn from our mosquito netting. - -We saw now the wonderful cathedral-shaped mountain behind us, blue -and white and scarred and crumpled. It lifted its clerestory with -grandiosity up into the colder and rarer air. Its rivelled snow hung -in great white copes; its earthquake rents and chasms yawned, and -its dreadful steeps, up which no man ever climbed, drew sternly and -austerely up to summits and spires and towers. Grandiose mountain! And -what little flies, what microscopical insects we were upon it! - - * * * * * - -WE came to the top of the Valley of Boulder Creek, stretching away -from the heart of the Rockies to the tents of the Indians and the -indeterminate plains, one of the grandest of views to my companion, who -loves the prairie like the prairie child, an aperçu of America seen -from the mountains. “That is what we want to get,” said Vachel, “a -Rocky Mountain point of view on all things American. That is the true -meaning of calling it a national park.” - -“Not only that, but a world-point-of-view can be found,” said I. -“That is why it was called Going-to-the-Sun Mountain--the sun sees -everything.” - -We turned, however, into a wild and obscure region and blundered and -staggered among a miscellany of all kinds of boulders. Blue lakelets -and pools lay at the foot of djinns of snow, and there were dreadful -iceberg-like reflections in the weird blueness of the water. We -camped on a plateau, or rather in a wide, high trough surrounded by -mountain-sides, and we made a fire of old resinous roots and stumps of -dead, dwarfed trees. There were shallow lakes in sight, but the way -to them was over undulating, quaking moss. Mists encircled us before -nightfall and made our fire ghostly. We lay all night in a great -stillness, and the fire glowered and smouldered and the mist uneasily -crept into rain with a breeze or settled again into mist with the calm. -Next day was a cold and chilling morning like November in England, -and we heaped higher the fire with wood and slept till wind and sun -conquered cloud and damp. And that was nearly noon. - - * * * * * - -“ONWARD,” cried Vachel, “upward, higher, purer, better, nobler, -sweeter, stronger”--which was his favourite war-cry at the time, and -amid stark upper-mountain scenery we made a glorious afternoon march to -a place of great height. At length, on what seemed a terrifically high -pedestal of black rock, we gleaned a coffee-pot full of fresh snow and -proposed to make tea. And I upset the evaporated milk, but licked it -up off the rocks with the flat of my tongue. This Vachel was too proud -to do, so I have surmised that his progenitors were Lowland Scottish -gentlemen farmers, but mine were Border cattle thieves and “land -loupers.” - -We had supper that evening in a great, open mountain space, with -glaciers as large as cities brooding and impending over abysses, -and we looked downward to dark and gloomy rising forests gone tired -on their way up towards us, and we looked upwards to the grandeur of -snow-covered crags and tumultuous, heaven-climbing waves of rock. -Vachel fried the beans to an accompaniment of rhythmical remarks. -Poetry possessed us both. All about us was in grand, romantic, heroic -strain. Vachel remarked how the forests were like harps with long harp -strings, and the strings were the lines which mountain stones and -avalanches had furrowed there for ages. The carpet on which we lay was -of yellow vetches and dark-blue gentians, with lichened stones all -interspersed. Heaven itself was not flat-roofed above us, but raised -at the zenith, a blue vault above us, like the dome of a world-temple. -And the fire burned a black patch on the green and puffed and flamed -symbolically as if we were children of the Old Testament sacrificing -there to our God. - -[Illustration] - - _Two stars arose above the mountain’s head, - Two stars looked down upon the world in bed; - Looked through the window-panes and saw the world at home, - From Babylon to Tyre, and Rome to Rome. - What if the stars, lifting their tiny lamps, - Were but like us, a couple of old tramps? - Heaven’s tramps the stars, blazing their trails they go, - From mountain-top to mountain-top and snow to snow._ - - - - -[Illustration: ‘I HAD RATHER BE A PEACOCK THAN A HOG’ SAID THE PEACOCK] - - - - -XX. BY THE CAMP FIRE - - -MANY years ago one of the Springfield newspapers offered a prize to the -reader who should send in the best answer to the question: _What would -you do with a million dollars?_ Young Vachel sent in an answer. His -was: “I would change them to dimes and have them thrown into the State -House yard and any one who wanted them could come and take as much as -he liked.” The answer was printed in the paper with a lot of others and -gave considerable offence. The telephone was kept busy that morning by -those who thought fit to tell his father and mother that they ought to -look after him better and not let him make a fool of himself. - -“I did not get the prize,” said Vachel sadly. “The editor probably -thought that with a million dollars one could do just a million -dollars’ worth of good. He thinks, as does my dearest friend, that -you can employ people to do good at a salary, and the one who got the -prize probably allotted ten thousand dollars to this charity and ten -thousand dollars to that and endowed this thing and endowed that and -did not even dare to buy himself an ice-cream soda. They’ve got such a -high idea of money that it’s almost an attribute of God himself. Now, I -rank money low. I’m right up against the weekly magazine advertisement -point of view--‘Doing good is only possible when you’ve a lot of money. -Get money! Oh, get money first somehow, then you can do good. Wear good -clothes and then you’ll be in the way of doing good.’” - - * * * * * - -WE had made our camp under a great overhanging rock beside rushing -cataracts. The huge vague scenery about us was made more immense by a -cloud screen which prevented one knowing exactly how high the mountains -were, and we looked outward at a vastitude of scarred precipitous -cliffs. Our fire warmed the rock against which we had laid our -blankets, and we had found a delightfully cosy place in which to be at -home. Night came down upon us, but we lay long in the flamelight and -talked. - -“I don’t think,” said Vachel, “that this money incentive is really a -strong one or leads far. That is where I part company with the radicals -of this country. They have all founded their faith on the economic -theory of history. I’d like to write for them a ‘romantic theory’ of -history. I believe in the romantic theory; I do NOT believe in the -economic theory.” - -“All right, dear Vachel,” said I constrainedly. “There are only you and -I present, and God. Say it more quietly.” - -“Vanity and ambition have always been stronger motives than the desire -of gain. And that is good. I put vanity a whole lot higher than greed. -In a country of hogs the peacock is a praiseworthy bird.” - -“You say that because you are a peacock.” - -“I KNOW IT. I AM A PEACOCK. I AM NOT A HOG.” - -“All right, Vachel. Now, if money is not so strong an incentive how do -you account for the fact that in your own beautiful State of Illinois -Governor Small has been under arrest for appropriation of funds, and at -Chicago members of one of the greatest baseball teams in America are -under trial for selling championship games to the other side?” - -“That’s the influence of the magazine advertisement--praise of dollars -and the implication that everything in the world has a commercial value -or it has no value. And there are no other honours but money honours.” - - * * * * * - -IT was evidently more that a mere opinion of my companion. It was a -creed. He passionately believed what he said. And thus it was that I -discovered in Glacier wilderness a very rare bird, the American black -swan, and that in the poet of Springfield whom the village in its -ignorance was once scandalised about. - -Vachel told me how he acted on his creed--What is greater than the -power of money? why, contempt of money--and set off without a dime to -see America and live, and how the good God took care of him until he -got to California. “In that way I learned to respect myself and to -respect my fellow-man,” said he. “I learned what a lot of good poor -men and women there are in America. And I have nothing to complain -of individuals as such. I could always rely on brotherliness. But it -was different with institutions, when I went to people who were not -themselves but hirelings, people hired to do good. Don’t I know the -minions of charity? What are the places where as a tramp I’ve had the -stingiest treatment in the world? Why, in institutions from the paid -organisers of charity.” And he told of how he once went to a Y at -H----, Mo., and the fight he had to get mere soap and towel and a bath. - -“By Gosh, they weren’t going to give it to me. I said ‘I’ve been a -Y.M.C.A. worker myself in New York for years and I know that soap and -towel can be had. I know the whole workings of the organisation and -I’ll have soap and towel from you if I have to bring the roof down. -I’ll go to the editors of the newspapers. I’ll go to the leading -ministers and preachers of H---- and I’ll hold you up to shame to the -town. I’ll whale you.’ And I got soap and towel and they said, ‘take -him down,’ and I got a bath, though I used as much energy to get it -from them as would have served to do three days’ hard work. Now I know -that if I had gone into any working man’s home in town and asked for -it, or even into a hotel I’d have got soap and towel without demur. - -“Yet my best friend says, ‘Vachel, you’re morbid on the subject of -money.’ I said to him ‘Well, there’s a lot in the New Testament about -it. Look it up!’” - -[Illustration] - - _The gopher-rats are sitting on their tails - Watching us all around, listening to us. - What is it these queer birds are getting excited about - By their camp fire? - Money, is it? Money’s no good to the gophers, - Leave us a crumb or two. - Don’t forget a spot of that fried hash: - Squeak!_ - - - - -[Illustration: WE CLIMBED UP WITH THE TREES - BUT CAME DOWN WITH THE WATERS] - - - - -XXI. DOWN CATARACT MOUNTAIN - - -VACHEL told me once, to save his self-respect, he took a job in Chicago -in a department store at seven dollars a week, and was employed in -the wholesale toy department; a whole block of toys, where was to -be found every imaginable plaything for young and old, from dolls -as large as three-year-old children to family portrait albums that, -having a musical box in their binding, played “The Old Folks at Home” -and various hymn-tunes when you opened them. He told how a lad called -Timmins wound up all the albums he could lay his hands on, and laid -them open and went away to another part of the building, and of the -wild din that ensued. - -Timmins was “fired.” - -He told how he lived amid acres of dolls and how, to satisfy the fire -insurance inspectors, a three-foot clearance was made between the top -of the toy heaps and the roof, and how all one night they did overtime -slamming down rows and sections of dolls and toys on to waiting trucks, -and they were rushed to another place. Then the inspectors came and -passed the building. And when they were gone the Ghetto came and bought -the “bum dolls” from the “smash dump,” and Vachel and the rest were -soon building toys up to the roof once more. - - * * * * * - -“BUT none of my friends liked my earning my living in this way. They’d -prefer to see me in a bank or an insurance office. You see, I could not -paint a picture that would keep me. I would not enter commercial art--I -mean advertisement drawing. My poems did not sell, and people thought -I had spent long enough studying and loafing, and that I ought to begin -to earn a decent living. So I went into the Chicago Department Store. -They did not like that. So I took to the road again. Curiously enough, -Francis Hackett took a job in that same store before his star arose.” - -Vachel and I had a great pow-wow by night and morning fire, and I -cannot set down half here in these (I hope) dignified paragraphs. But -all the while we sat and talked, the prairie rats sat about us on their -tails and haunches, and stared curiously with their forepaws on their -chests like good masons in their rituals. They smelt the beans, they -smelt the cheese, they smelt the corn-beef hash; they knew they were -protected by the United States Government and they had never seen a dog -or a cat. Curiously friendly little companions! - -After the cloudy night there was a serene morning. When the veils were -lifted off the mountains we knew them for just what they were. They did -not go all the way to the sky after all. - -We went down Cataract Mountain the same way as the water, down to -flower-spread meads and spacious fir-woods and widening streams. -Up above us the water chariots came racing behind white horses four -abreast, five abreast, natural fountains played on every hand, and -high as heaven itself tiny cataracts tipped over and fell downwards -into veils, into smoke, into nothingness. Characteristic of the place -were the great volumes of water which plunged under hollow snow-crusts -to emerge forty feet lower down after a momentary vigil in the snow. -This is the valley of Cataract Creek, bounded by lofty and perhaps -impassable rocks, but in itself a garden to the last patch of mould and -the last bright flower. - - * * * * * - -WE made our way along Haystack Butte toward Mount Grinnell, which, like -a mighty fortress, stood facing us in the line of our tramp. Was it the -beauty of the garden or was it the limpidity of the streams that set -us talking of England? It is a peculiarly happy subject with the poet, -who, with all his Americanism, has a true reverence for the fountain -of English. This July, just before setting out for the Rockies, he -received an invitation from Robert Bridges, the British poet laureate, -to become a member of the “Society for Pure English.” To that extent -has Oxford at least recognised that Vachel Lindsay is no mere performer -or charlatan and not the “jazz-poet.” To some people in England Vachel -came as a prophet, and his courtly and, indeed, stately manners, -the profound obeisance which he made with his hat before entering a -church or a school or a house, revealed him as an American of the -Washingtonian cast. - -Some would-be cynical, smart undergraduate was showing Vachel King’s -College Chapel at Cambridge, and said to him: “The last American we -showed round when we asked him what he thought of it, said, ‘Some -God-box.’” And he seemed to think that very amusing, and could not -understand Lindsay’s silence on the point. - -“He did not know for how many years I had lectured on the Gothic and -what it meant to me,” said Vachel. - -Naturally, I chaffed my companion not a little on his belonging to -the S.P.E., and called him to order whenever the arduousness of our -campaign prompted him to break across the pure classic of Shakespeare’s -tongue, and I made him take note of many expressions, such as “being -wished on,” and “handing a man the canned goods,” which I bade him -chase from America into the sea. - -“I should only be too glad, Stephen,” said he, “if I could get rid -of ‘motivate’ and a man’s ‘implications’ and ‘the last analysis’ and -‘the twilight zone’ and ‘canned metaphor’ and the dollar adjectives, a -‘ten-million-dollar building’ and a ‘million-dollar bride.’” - -[Illustration] - - _Oxford has asked Chicago - To lend its purifying aid - To the King’s English. - O Oxford! O Bridges!_ - - - - -[Illustration: THE INVISIBLE PLAYMATE JOINS US] - - - - -XXII. “GO WEST, YOUNG MAN” - - -“NOW, Horace Greeley----” said Vachel, opening his “morning strafe” of -political conversation. - -“Who the ---- was he?” - -“You don’t know? Why, you’ll be saying you don’t know Shakespeare next. -That’s as if J. C. Squire had never heard of Edwin Booth.” - -“Well, who was he?” - -“He edited the _Tribune_ throughout the Civil War.” - -“That all?” - -“He said, ‘The way to resume is to resume.’” - -“That all?” - -“He said, ‘Go West, young man, and grow up with the country,’ and -printed it at the head of his newspaper every day.” - -“Oh! Did you ever hear of Mudford?” - -“No.” - -“What, never heard of Mudford, the famous editor of the _Standard_?” - -“No.” - -“Ever heard of Nicol Dunn?” - -“No.” - -“He edited the _Morning Post_ in its better days. Ever heard of -Frederick Greenwood?” - -“No.” - -“Never heard of Frederick Greenwood? Why, he was the greatest -journalist England ever produced. He inspired Disraeli with the idea of -buying the Suez Canal. If we don’t know about your journalists, I see -you don’t know about ours.” - -The battery was silenced. - - * * * * * - -WE walked through five miles of rotten-ripe red raspberries and -got thorns in our half-naked knees and carmined our fingers with -raspberry juice, and we kept spitting out unpalatable fruits and making -uncomplimentary remarks. Then we got to open pine woods and freed our -feet of the tangles, and Vachel began to sing softly to himself a -children’s processional hymn: - - We are the Magi, - Children though we are. - We are the wise men, - Following the star. - -“There are only two of us.” I ventured. “Where do you think the third -king has got to?” - -“That’s King Christopher,” said Vachel, sadly. “That’s our ‘other wise -man.’ He is with us, but he’s invisible. He is sitting in Greeley -Square or Vesey Street, and it was thinking of him that really started -me on Horace Greeley.” - -“How do you mean?” - -“Well, he said to all the young Magi, ‘quit seeking a star in the East, -Go West and grow up with the country. Get into America; find your -spiritual roots.’” - -“You want to persuade every one to cross the Appalachians?” - -“Yes,” said Vachel dreamily. “So I brought him along invisibly. He is -our invisible playmate.” And he resumed his children’s hymn. - -“You’re a good bit like Mark Twain and Rudyard Kipling,” said Vachel to -me at last, “You’ve a wonderful geographical background. You ought to -read the life of Mark Twain. Very interesting. He was made by his life -in Nevada. His life in the silver mining camps and his knowledge of the -West and the South made him. Read _Roughing It_. It’s a great book. -Then Kipling with a boyhood in India and a maturity in America owes -much to his knowing both West and East. What’s the matter with young -men to-day is a disinclination to get their feet dirty. You’re the only -man in England or America I’ve been able to persuade to go on a tramp -with me. When I proposed it to M----, the English poet, he seemed to -turn pale. That’s all behind me,” he said, “though I don’t know what he -meant.” - - * * * * * - -WE came within sight of the shore of Lake Josephine. “Shall we ask our -invisible companion if he’d like to come in for a swim with us?” said -I. - -“Why, that would be fine.” - -So we broke through to the green and silver lake and, putting our -tender feet on the sharp stones and water-covered boulders, waded out -to swimming depth and we made a great splash with Napoleon’s beautiful -bride. And when we came we vagabondised on the shore for the rest of -the day--the three of us--lying stretched out beside a mounting red -blaze of rain-washed wood. - -The beach was all of little mauve stones which we raked into couches. -And there we lay munching hot pea-nuts and rebuilding the world on a -foundation of the American Wild West. Vachel drew some more world-maps -and adopted our invisible playmate as a member of the society of -“astrological geographers,” and we took for our emblem and device the -map of the two hemispheres with the motto, “The World is My Parish.” - -What a serene evening it was by the side of fair Josephine! A half -moon rose over us at nightfall and marsh hens sped through the air -in volleying groups of wings. The stars and the moon threw a silver -radiance on the line of the mountain-tops and on the forests and on -the dimples and lines and circles of the lake. We fell asleep and were -warm and at peace. We only waked at four in the morning and then bathed -before sunrise and mingled our bodies with the perfect reflections of -green and grey and brown and snowy mountain-sides. - -The sun arising grew upon us and chased wraith-like mists across the -waters, and our fire, hotter than the sun, blazed on the mauve stones -and baked us and dried us when we came out to it, and gave us our -coffee and gave us all we needed till old Sol was radiant o’er the -scene. - -[Illustration] - - _We know about Josephine - What Napoleon did not know. - He was too preoccupied sacking cities - To love the beautiful altogether, - Killing men, counting cannon, putting unneeded - Crowns upon his brothers’ heads. - He didn’t know much about her, - O no! - He said there were no more Alps, - No more Pyrenees. - He never said there were no more Rocky Mountains._ - - - - -[Illustration: THE CHRISTIAN BECOMES SUN-WORSHIPPER ALSO] - - - - -XXIII. THE SUN-WORSHIPPER - - -“I DRINK to America as she was before 1492,” said Vachel, lifting high -his coffee cup. - -“I drink to her as she was before the Red Man came.” - -“And I drink to her as she was before the Mound-builders came----” - -“And I drink to her as she was in the days of the mountain-top tribe -when a man and his family lived together on a mountain-top and the -rule was one peak to one family, and the eagles were tame and carried -the mail.” - -“And I drink to Noah’s fourth son, who was so naughty he was not -allowed to bring a wife into the Ark but carried a pine branch under -his arm. Is there any more booze i’ the can? Yea. Very well; I drink -again to Noah’s outcast son who wandered in these parts before the -mountain-tribe arrived.” - -“Is there any more of this most excellent coffee?” - -“There is, dear Stephen, one last kick in the bottom of the pot.” - -“Then I drink to the Lady of the Lake whom Noah’s son was obliged to -marry and to the cut-throat trout that were their offspring----” - -“Enough, enough! Is there any more booze?” - -“Not a suck, Sir.” - -“Alas!” - - * * * * * - -THE reader will perhaps surmise that we are approaching the Canadian -line and that my anti-saloon companion has fallen for what they make in -Alberta. - -But no, we have been made drunk with words; it often occurs, and with -Lindsay’s stone coffee. The stone in the mosquito-net coffee bag has -spoken through us. It is a piece of the Rocky Mountains, and they -know all there is to know about the mysterious mound-builders and -mountain-tribes. How gauntly and savagely these old mountains have -looked on at no-humanity and for how many thousands of years! “What -went ye out for to see?” said Vachel presently when we had hitched -on our packs. “Not a reed shaken by the wind! What went we out into -Glacier Wilderness for to see? Why, _man_, a prophet. And there’s a -prophet in these mountains who can tell us a good deal about the old -world. We ought to settle many things about the world before I get back -to Springfield and you get back to London. Everywhere you have been I’m -going to assume I’ve been also. Now, at our next sitting let us drink -to Russia--Russia as she was before the Bolsheviks.” - -“As she was before Peter the Great,” I added. - -“As she was before the hordes.” - -The subject was too dark after all. I felt we should have to drink, -not to the past, but to the Russia that is going to be when the -Bolsheviks have been forgotten. - -“And England?” I asked. “Will you not drink confusion to the enemies of -King George V.?” - - * * * * * - -“OH, no,” said the poet. “I’m too good an American for that. Couldn’t -do that. My roots are too deep in democracy. Confusion to the enemies -of King George--no, couldn’t drink it. Confusion to the enemies of the -English people. Yes, I’d drink that toast.” - -“Well, it’s the same thing.” - -“Doesn’t sound so.” - -“In that case,” I retorted, “I’ll not drink to the President.” - -But Vachel had become preoccupied and began an unending chant of -Patrick Henry’s oration, - - Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, - As to be purchased by chains and slavery-- - I don’t care for others, but as for myself - Give me liberty or give me death! - -No doubt he did not quote it quite correctly, but I fastened -on the third line, which I repeated deliberately after him, -“I--do--not--care--for--others,” until he was once more moved to mirth -and got down from what in one poem he has called: - - The old Elijah, Jeremiah, John the Baptist soap-box; - The Rousseau, Mirabeau, Danton soap-box; - The Karl Marx, Henry George, and Woodrow Wilson soap-box. - -And we washed off our politics from our minds at high noon in a river. -And Vachel sat astride of a giant tree that had fallen across the -stream, and luxuriating in the heat he cried out to me, “Gosh, Stephen, -I’m a sun-worshipper with my shirt off!” - -[Illustration] - - _Quit drinking coffee - Before it’s everlastingly too late; - Be not found among the coffee-bibbers! - Silence those profane toasts - To Noah’s offspring and Patrick Henry. - Oh, Uncle Sam, - See how thy children go - To the devil--drinking coffee! - O prohibit it!_ - - - - -[Illustration: THE BIRD CATCHETH THE EAR OF THE PRIMITIVE MAN] - - - - -XXIV. TWO VOICES - - -MY companion has two voices: one is that of a politician, harsh and -strident, the other is that of a Homeric harper and ballad-chanter of -the days of old. The political voice does not please me much. It is -the voice of the “hell-roarer” of the prairies. Lindsay loves a mighty -shout, an exultant war-whoop for its own sake, like any Indian. And ... -I’ve heard those “glacier boulders across the prairies rolled.” I have -heard the “gigantic troubadour speaking like a siege-gun.” But there is -another voice-- - - Two voices: - One was of the deep, - The other of a poor old silly sheep. - And ... both were thine! - -as G. W. Steevens once wrote. The other voice is truly of the deep; -sonorous and golden, murmuring, and with eternity dreaming in it. That -is the voice of the poet. - -Some days with us were naturally dedicated to poetry. The steps on the -mountains caught the rhythms, the gliding waterfalls and the intensely -coloured listening flowers suggested the mood of the poets, and then -the peaks, the grandeur, uplifted Lindsay’s spirit. The hymns were -silenced. Silence hung on the mute figures of Bryan and Altgelt. We let -Roosevelt sleep on. American and European civilisation ceased to fill -the mind, and there was only the mountains and poetry. Vachel knew by -heart whole books, and he crooned and chanted as we walked, and lifted -his head up to the snows and the waterfalls and the skies. He has a -bird-like face when he recites; his eyes almost close, his lips purse -up and open like a thrush’s beak. He glories in the word of poesy, and -entirely forgets himself-- - - Oh ye who tread the Narrow Way - By Tophet-flare to Judgment Day, - Be gentle when the heathen pray - To Buddha at Kamàkura. - -he chanted over and over again like a prayer, as if those hushed and -holy mountains on which we looked were Buddha, Buddha at Kamàkura. And -then-- - - To him the Way, the Law, Apart - Whom Maya held beneath her heart, - Ananda’s Lord--the Bodhisat. - - For whoso will, from Pride released - Contemning neither man nor beast, - May hear the Soul of all the East - About him at Kamàkura. - - Yea, voice of every Soul that clung - To Life that strove from rung to rung, - When Devadatta’s rule was young, - The warm wind brings Kamàkura. - -My eyes had no doubt often passed over these lines without realising -their beauty. The printing of a poem is only a guide, a clue to what -the poem really is. It is not the poem itself. You have to divine the -inner mystery and beauty. The man who can read a poem may help you to -divine it for yourself. And this Lindsay did, making this poem live as -we walked about--about and about. The beauty of the poem almost depends -on pronouncing the word Kamàkura aright. Because we both loved this -song we thought of naming some snowy mountain after Buddha, with the -great plea--“Be gentle!” Be gentle, all of us! - -Another poem which became a possession of the heart was that of Sydney -Lanier, little-known in England-- - - As the marsh-hen secretly builds on the watery sod, - Behold I will build me a nest on the greatness of God. - I will fly in the greatness of God as the marsh-hen flies, - In the freedom that fills all space ’twixt the marsh and the skies - - By so many roots as the marsh-hen sends to the sod, - I will heartily lay me ahold of the greatness of God. - Like the greatness of God is the greatness within - The range of the marshes, the liberal marshes of Glynn. - -This poet of southern Georgia gave, I thought, voice to a part -of America, and it was a part I had tramped in too, a land of -moss-hung forests and marshes, of marsh-blossoms and many birds. -In that beautiful first verse how the word “secretly” in the first -line enchants the ear, and then the wonderful effect of the phrase -“greatness of God” when taken with wing-flight of birds rising o’er the -reeds! - -Talking of the modern poets, we agreed that a poem was little if there -was not sound in it--melody--resonance. We found a common fellowship in -Poe, and my companion rolled forth under a low and threatening heaven -the cadences of “Ulalume,” his favourite poem, he averred. - -Browning meant nothing to him, but he was fond of some of the early -poems of Tennyson, especially of “Maud,” which greatly inspired him. -Curiously enough, the latter poems of Tennyson were unknown to him-- - - On a midnight in mid-winter when all but the winds were dead, - “The meek shall inherit the earth” was a Scripture which ran through - his head, - -and the kindred poems among the last pages of the collected works of -Tennyson. - -Matthew Arnold had never touched him, but the music of Keats he -understood naturally at sight. Of his own American poets he did not -care for Whitman, whom he is so often told he resembles, but he loved -Longfellow and all such word-music as-- - - Sandalphon the angel of glory, - Sandalphon the angel of prayer, - -all of which he said one day as we were climbing among the rocks. - -He began loving poetry by learning it by heart and reciting it for his -own joy, and I began by writing in an exercise-book all the soldiers’ -poems of Thomas Campbell and reading them--“a thousand times o’er”-- - - My little one kissed me a thousand times o’er, - And my wife sobbed aloud in her fullness of heart. - “Stay, stay with us! rest! thou art weary and worn,” - And fain was their war-broken soldier to stay; - But sorrow returned with the dawning of morn, - And the voice in my dreaming ear--melted away! - -How precious are the recollections of one’s first love of poetry! If as -a boy you read the “Golden Legend” walking in country lanes when the -hay was cut in swathes in the fields on either hand; if you have ever -lain in the midst of a cornfield and crooned to yourself the exultant -promises of Rabbi ben Ezra, or climbed mountains with “Marmion” in -your heart, or lisped the “Ode to a Nightingale” to the first girl you -loved, how touching it will always be in memory! - -The poet and the tramp shared thus their recollections as they wandered -amidst heights and depths. They surely know much more of one another -now! - - _I think the poet - Learned to be a poet, - By living with the poets - Till he became a poet._ - - _He had the great need in him - To give a song a tune. - So he listened how the birds sang - And he began to croon._ - - _Now he’s singing for a living - And living for his singing. - And his companion’s singing, - And all of us are singing, - Because he’s learned to sing._ - - - - -[Illustration: THE CLOUDS CAME OUT OF THEIR HOMES TO SEE US] - - - - -XXV. STOPPED BY THE CLOUDS - - -WE scrambled through thickets to Mount Grinnell, which stands like -a gigantic fortress, a bulwark of this world against others. Its -impregnability seemed appalling. Fancy knocking at that door after it -was shut! We stopped and looked up at it, and the sight of it relaxed -our tense human energy and left us with very contrite souls. However, -the nearer we got to it the less it was magnified. Its battlements -receded and we soon had a fly’s view of the mountain, the view which -the fly has when it is walking on the barren surface of the rock. - -We clawed our way along the steep entangled shore of Lake Grinnell to a -waste of willow saplings, and a litter of postal packets of great rocks -delivered by the mail chute of the Grinnell Cataract. Here a great mass -of water meets momentarily with calamity and falls over a precipice -like houses falling. At two miles’ distance it is like a picture of -a waterfall seen in a shop window, pretty and attractive. At twenty -yards’ distance it is the awful thing it is. The sun is hidden at noon -and a noise that drowns all other noises is in your ears. The spray -blows turbulently over you like rain. - -We had thought to cross the cataract through the _disjecta membra_ -of the rocks at its base, and climbed into dreadful proximity, and -advanced our noses inquisitively over the foam. And then very hurriedly -we drew back as if we feared we should be tempted across it. But what -to do? Not surely to retrace our steps? That seemed unthinkable. - -We decided to go lower and try to ford the rapids. Vachel thought that -would not be difficult. But I had attempted such crossings in the -Caucasus and knew what it meant to adventure one’s tender body into a -hypnotic, rushing current and a frantic roar of stones. So I went first -and demonstrated it. - -And we did get across. With most of our clothes off and stuffed into -our packs, and with uprooted pine saplings for support, we made a -criss-cross diagonal course into the water, which rushed up our bodies -like wild mastiffs, and we were too preoccupied with the rolling stones -and slippery snags and the mesmerising onset of the waters to think -about the chilling we were getting. It was certainly a victory when we -slipped out of the central violence and got into the shallows on the -other side. - - * * * * * - -WE did no more that day. I had sprained two fingers anyway, and could -not rely on my left hand. So we piled a dead-willow fire beside the red -rocks and talked. The cliff above us went up to heaven, but there was -a recess washed out by the water of that waterfall in some past age. -I am inclined to think that the cataract made the wind which simply -raged round the corner all night long. But we had found a place that -was completely out of it. Also, we got enough wood to burn all night -and cure the cold. For it was cold up here. We built a long barrier of -little rocks between us and the elongated glowing furnace of willow -which we had made. This kept the flames off our blankets and yet warmed -our bodies all the way along. - -It was a majestic night, with the screened light of the moon filling -a narrow sky. A selection of heaven’s stars played voluntaries to us, -but the jazz band of the waterfall kept up a grandiose hubbub, in which -were vocal human cries and groans and chatterings--as if it were hell -or Broadway going past. - -Vachel could talk above this roar; I could not. So I listened to him -and his cataclysmic accompaniment. It was, I think, on the subject -of Turner and heroic painting. Vachel, and Ruskin before him were -attracted to Turner by the heroic style. - -“Scenes such as this beside the waterfall delighted Turner. Just at -dusk it was a perfect Turner painting. Did you ever see that ‘elegant’ -edition of Rogers’s _Italy_ which old Mr. and Mrs. Ruskin read with -their child? It is profusely illustrated with vignettes by Turner. -They are all in the heroic spirit and they started Ruskin on his -speculation about cloud-forms and in his idealistic interpretation of -Turner.” - -“I love the heroic,” Vachel went on. “I hate the game of puncturing -heroics which people think so clever nowadays.” - -I made no objection. A poet whose voice can be heard above the jazz -band is a hero, and my sympathies are not with the flood of the -burlesque--unless, as now, they begin to wrap my soul in slumber’s holy -balm. - - * * * * * - -NEXT day we went up to the clouds, climbing by tiny steps of rock and -slippery tussocks, and Vachel went ahead and became pioneer of the way. -For it was a left-handed mountain, and I had no left hand that I could -use, and I kept slipping five feet down in making one foot up. I got -left behind, and when I caught up with the poet he was sitting stripped -under a waterfall and leaning against a gleaming rock whilst the stream -splashed downward over him. - -It was a day of great moving clouds. Clouds with personalities came -stalking out of chasm bed-chambers, clouds overtook us and enveloped -us. We found November’s home, where sweeping rains cross and recross -on the mountains. We passed near the base of the black and dirty -glacier and watched the clouds smoking over it like a spreading fire. -And presently there was not a particle of view above us except cloud, -and no view below except of the rocks at our feet and the cloud-filled -ravines. - -We stood in perplexity. In clear weather it is difficult to get over -the “Garden Wall” from this side. Now we could not see our way any -further. We retired to twin slits in the cliff, stretched ourselves on -our blankets, and gave way to meditation. - -[Illustration] - - _The clouds came out of their homes to see us; - They had heard of us and had seen us from afar, - Now they could satisfy their curiosity - And find out just exactly who we were. - So they gave us of their hospitality, - Inviting us both to their mountain abode. - Mr. and Mrs. Glacier were at home--a chilly couple, - So were the impulsive avalanches, a family of long descent - And purest origin. - The visitors were mostly ladies of the upper strata of society - Most æsthetically gowned. - They came about us, asked us various questions, - Conventional questions about the weather. - Some new ones came, others drifted away. - We were left by ourselves at the last. - The clouds didn’t altogether like our style, - Our form wasn’t theirs, - We were obviously parvenus, Nature’s profiteers, - Living not on our income but by our output. - The Peaks, their husbands, with their patrimonies, - Were certainly less clever and more stodgy, - But we were clear outsiders, people of a lowly birth, - Not altogether possible, they judged. - So the clouds’ curiosity regarding us abated, - We felt pretty chilly towards the end of the party. - They offered us no tea, though we each had an ice on a wafer. - Proud, supercilious, overweening ladies!_ - - - - -[Illustration: IF YOU’RE MY FRIEND YOU’RE GREAT] - - - - -XXVI. LINDSAY ON ROOSEVELT - - -WE decided to change our direction and make for the camp at the head -of Lake McDermot. This we could hope to reach by nightfall, as it was -downhill all the way. It was moreover a right-hand descent and suited -me well. In an hour of diving and plunging downward we got out of the -clouds and saw that there was fine weather away to the East. We had -moreover found a foot-trail, and, “Bless de Lo’d I’se found de way,” -cried Vachel. - -Downward, downward to the low pines, to the large pines, to the giant -pines--how easy it was to go down. I thought we should have little -difficulty in getting to the little log-cabins of the camp, and sleep -dry for once. It was now ten days since we had last had a roof over -our heads. The prospect was pleasant; we thought of the hot supper -awaiting us. We thought of the drying of our clothes and our blankets, -and of a gentle sweet repose of our tumbled and jolted bodies between -white sheets. - -The descent, however, suited Vachel as badly as the ascent had suited -me. As a short-legged man he had to take three steps to my one, and he -constantly serenaded me through the evening air--“Steeven ... wait a -minute! Little Vachel’s lonesome!” - -I would stop, he would draw level. “Now wait a minute,” he would say. -“Let’s look back! What a wonderful view! Isn’t it a wonderful view? -Let’s sit here awhile and take it in--a _wonderful_ view!” - -Or he would let me go on a bit and then stop me. “Stee-ven, look at the -pine-tree, look at the giant tree, giant of the forest, look what a -_great_ giant! Let’s sit down and take it all in!” - -In the twilight we got to talking of oratory, which is one of the -poet’s pet themes. He holds that pure oratory is natural poetry. Bryan -is a poet; Patrick Henry was a poet; Daniel Webster was a poet. He -enunciated various famous lines to me, trying to rouse the mountains -with a sort of voice-of-God tone or air-bursting boom which the poet -commands-- - - Lib-er-ty _and_ Un-i-on ... - One ... and in-sep-ar-able ... - Now ... and ... for-everrr! - -and he imitated Andrew Jackson saying--“_The Federal Union! It must and -will be preserved!_” - -I found in the poet a curious creed, and that is, that oratory is -better than logic. He preferred the warm glowing orator to the cold -clear logician. He preferred Antony to Brutus, and put friendship above -merit. He justified the “Solid South” in being solid. He justified -Wilson for appointing his friends to power. He considered politics a -matter not of theories but of friendships and family ties. He justified -the spoils system to me. “When a man comes to power--he brings his clan -to power, his friends, the people of the village, and that is much -better than a collection of high-browed experts,” said he. He loathed -detraction and personal attacks of any kind. The commonest laudatory -adjective which he used to me in his conversations about his friends -was the adjective “loyal.” I could not persuade him to talk critically -of any of the literary work of his friends. - -“Any poet who is a friend of mine is a good poet!” cried Vachel more -than once. “I’m _for_ him.” - - * * * * * - -WE came into view once more of fair Lake Josephine, but we could not -make much headway. We were held by conversational webs. The poet was -tired, and at every halting-place he started on some engrossing theme -which beguiled us into spending half an hour sitting on dead trees. He -was in the rôle of Scheherezade talking to her sultan. We ought to have -plunged down to the lake-shore, built a big fire and dried off, but I -was foolishly persistent in the idea of getting to the Many Glacier -camp that night. Presently we started talking of Roosevelt, and the -poet held me by the coat for a whole hour while he explained how he had -been carried off his feet by a Republican, and had defied his family -and voted for Roosevelt and had been struck out of the family Bible, so -to speak. - -“I was for him until the end of his Presidency,” said Vachel. “He -refused to give business and high finance the first place, he would -not talk the holy gospel of tariff, he made the White House a national -centre of culture, he gave a great progressive lead, and rallied to -his banner the bright spirits of America; he hit the shams and the -frauds and the trusts; he stood by the Negro; he was not afraid to -express what he thought on any subject under the sun; he did not halt -between yes and no, and he was the very opposite of the Adams type of -politician.” - -“But it burned him out,” Vachel went on. “He had a third and last -period when he was not himself, when he acted the young man, and -stage-managed the delusion of endless energy.” - -And he told the story of Roosevelt’s last visit to Springfield with -great gusto, imitating Teddie’s mighty stride down through the people -to the platform, the war-cries and yells of the audience, the clash of -the brass-bands. - -“And he was not an orator, and he did not believe in the spoils -system,” I interrupted maliciously. “And he did not believe in the -families ruling America----” - -No wonder we got lost in the willows. - -[Illustration] - - _A’m ti-erd, yes a’m ti-erd, - A got th’ bloo-ooes aw-fool ba-ad. - Ma feet is sore; - You’s awful so-ore, - Ain’t ye, feet? - That fellah over the-ere - ’S legs is just too lo-ong. - Now where’s he gwine to now? - Where’s he gwine to now? - I’se skeered he’ll leave me here a-lone, - All a-lo-one. - Say, Cap, doan go on so fa-ar, - Say, boss, you sure didn’t see that tree, - You cahn have no feelin’s for the view - Huhhyin’ on so fass--_ - (Tired Feet Blues) - - - - -[Illustration: SHE SENT MORE RAIN AND LAUGHED AGAIN] - - - - -XXVII. THE WILLOWS - - -WHEN I was at Springfield I was brought before the children of the -High School, where in years past the poet went to school, two thousand -children in a grand auditorium. I think we could show nothing of -the kind in England, an assembly of nearly all the boys and girls -between the ages of twelve and sixteen in the city--white children, -black children, immigrant European children promiscuously grouped, -bright-faced and vivacious and feeling all-together. I was to speak -to them on Russia, but before my turn came the school did twenty -minutes’ practice at the school-yell. For there was a ball-match on the -morrow, and as a young orator cried out to them, “We are going to win -to-morrow. If the school is behind us we’ll win.” - -The leaders of the school-yell came out of their seats, and they leapt -like Indians and flung their arms about and writhed and appealed and -struck the floor with the palms of their hands and appealed again. -Thus they gave “The Locomotive Yell,” which reminded me of the voice -of the Purple Emperor Express in Kipling’s locomotive story “.007.” -Thus they imitated a great steam-engine under full pressure of steam, -laboriously and mightily and then victoriously roaring forth from the -Grand Terminal-- - - Rah ... rah ... rah ... rah-- - Spring ... field ... High ... School - - (repeated four times with gradual acceleration) - - Yea Springfield - Yea Springfield - Rah ... Rah ... Rah. - -Vachel was visibly affected. “That’s where I get my inspiration,” said -he. “I just love them to death. I feel as if I’d got a snoot full o’ -whisky. I just love them.” - -It would be idle to deny that these yells did not raise every hair on -my scalp. It was an astonishing enkindling of the primitive. When I -stood up to speak to these children I felt myself on a mighty friendly -river. I was borne along by a rapturous enthusiasm which had been -started by the yells. The whole school, boys and girls, white and -coloured, were fused in one glowing whole. And Vachel said to me once -more, “There is America.” - -What a contrast to England, where the children are not allowed to get -into this rapturous state! If you have faced the critical audience of -Rugby or Harrow, or the restrained maidenhood of a school like High -Wycombe, you realise the difference. If you are a moving speaker the -Head may even ask you “not to get the children excited.” - -I was explaining this to Vachel. “Well,” said he, “that’s how it is -in England. The duelling spirit survives. Every one is still on his -guard. The American has thrown his shield away. Most human beings are -incapable of understanding anything till they are moved. That’s how we -do things in America, and go ahead, by whoops and yells--Whoopee!” - - * * * * * - -ROOSEVELT made America into one man. He mesmerised America. But the -spell failed, and many were disillusioned. His destruction of his own -Progressive party was a terrible blow. - -We were walking now in the woods in the dark, and heavy rain had come -on, and we thought we were on a foot-trail and were not, and we got -into a lamentable jungle of devastated pines and wild undergrowth and -water. We walked in a circle, we tore our clothes afresh, we climbed -pitiably slowly over stark dead jagged trees and branches, and Vachel -forgot the subject of Roosevelt and of oratory, and began to make many -suggestions as to the right direction. We got so desperate that I said -to him: - -“You think you know the way. Go ahead, I’ll follow.” - -He wouldn’t do that. - -“All right: you follow me. And no suggestions for twenty minutes. We’re -going to get out of here.” - -We then plunged into a waste of tightly-packed willow trees, all about -ten feet high, with branches thickly interlaced. It was intensely dark, -and they soused us with water at every step. It was like breast-stroke -swimming through them. We came to a pine-tree island in the midst of -them, and then after a long struggle forward, as I thought, we came -back to the same pine trees. Then Vachel said, “Let us just lie down -here for the night. When morning comes it will be easier.” - -But the ground under us was in slops of water, and rather than sit and -shiver there for hours I was all for getting out, and still believed -it possible. This faith or stubbornness was at length rewarded, for we -came to the water at the top of Lake McDermot, and it was nothing to us -to walk through thigh-deep water for half a mile and ford the river. We -were so soaked with the water of the willows that we must have made the -lake a little wetter. - -So we made our way to the palatial hotel which is situated on the -north-eastern corner of Lake McDermot. Bedraggled, hanging in new -tatters and with water streaming into little pools on the floor when -we stood still, we were no people for the hotel. And we read on the -front door, “No one in hobnails or bradded shoes allowed to enter -here.” The many lights shone on our red faces for a minute, and then -we passed on--to the log-cabins of the campers and the hob-nailed -brethren. And there we got a room, and we opened our last can of pork -and beans and ate it to the bottom, and we rung out our streaming -clothes and hung them to dry, and we put Roosevelt and Bryan to sleep, -and the poet and the Guardsman were hushed. - -[Illustration] - - _The joke was on us and Nature laughed at us, - She laughed at us, she would not help us. - She sent more rain and laughed again, - Swish, swish! - Ha, Ha! - She laughed at us, she would not help us, - She sent more rain and laughed again._ - - - - -[Illustration: SO FOR US HE MADE GREAT MEDICINE] - - - - -XXVIII. JOHNNY APPLESEED - - -I BUILT a fire by the roadside opposite the palatial hotel and made our -coffee. “It’s like lighting a fire and making yourself a personal cup -of coffee on Broadway,” said Lindsay, “but it’s fine.” It’s a dramatic -act and startles the imagination. The coffee-pot could be made the -emblem of revolt--“Go West, young man, with a coffee-pot. You can live -on nothing a year with a coffee-pot. Figure it out, how little money -you need to live in the wilds!” - -Vachel is all for giving the business man and clerk and industrial -worker a three-months’ vacation. “They don’t work in these summer -months anyway,” says he. “But they are afraid of being reproached if -they take long holidays. Every man here, be he a millionaire or a poor -man, works. He has an office, he has a factory. If he hasn’t these, -he invents them. He believes it is effeminate to take more than two -weeks’ holiday. For a month’s holiday he must have the recommendation -of his physician. Otherwise he loses caste and may be called a ‘lounge -lizard,’ which is one of the terms of abuse which sting most. On -the other hand, modern work becomes every-day more sedentary, more -mechanical. In accountancy figures become more exclusive, in the -workshop automatic machinery becomes more and more perfect. It dulls -and enthralls the mind.” - -“Yet how easy it is to get out and do what we are doing!” I urged in -agreement. - -“Go, give them a message,” cried the poet. - -“Intelligentsia of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your -chains. Young men and women, get free, get your coffee-pots, take up -the national parks and the free lands of the West!” - -“I have an idea that most of the tramps and vagabonds of our -country-sides have had lives full of poetry. The men who are dismissed -as eccentrics were often mystics. America has not liked its Thoreaus -and its Chapmans.... Johnny Appleseed, for instance, who was an -American St. Francis, has been generally laughed at as a sort of a -harmless lunatic.” - -We talked of this on the upward trail next day. One point in favour of -the hotel had been its good supply of canvas trousers. I bought myself -a pair, and was thereby saved the reproach of looking a little like -Johnny Appleseed in the matter of my attire. I laughed at Johnny for -having worn a tin can on his head for a hat, and Vachel was at pains to -defend him even there. But the poetry of his life was his going ahead -of the pioneers of Ohio and Indiana, and planting apple-orchards and -tending them and watching them grow for the America that should come -after him. I often wonder whether the large red-gleaming Ohio apples -of to-day do not come from him. I’ve stolen them and munched them -at dawn, as I tramped to the West, and I can testify how good they -were--good medicine. - -“And so for us he made great medicine,” says the poet reverently, -quoting his own new poem. - -Vachel in his quest for beauty was regarded by many as a crank, an -eccentric. He endured the humiliation of being village-idiot, or, as -they call it in the Middle West, “town-boob.” Awfully silly people who -thought themselves smart would stop in front of him with the air of a -Johnny Walker whisky advertisement and ask him quizzically if he were -“still going strong.” He was discovered later, and hailed and acclaimed -by the poets of America and England, but even then the dulled folk -of business and politics looked doubtfully upon him. He told me, for -instance, how a celebrated impresario introduced him to the notables of -the capital, but always with the formula-- - -“I want to introduce you to Mr. Vachel Lindsay of Springfield, -Illinois.... He is a pp--oet.” - -So there’s a streak of sadness somewhere in the poet’s mind, and it -comes from brother-man. And that sadness has expressed itself in a -love of Johnny Appleseed and all others whom the Spirit drives into the -wilderness. - - * * * * * - -WE camped then under an overhanging crag of Mt. Justinian and watched -the moon, half eclipsed by a cliff, creep and crawl like a golden -turtle over the mountains, over the mighty tops, over the ... over the -world, whilst bright silver cloudlets in ball-robes danced lightly -amongst the stars. And we climbed next day by twenty-four zigzags to -the jagged summit, and rested in a grand snow-cavern as large as a -church, made by the winds and the drifts in dread mid-winter, and we -saw the clouds blow off the glaciers like washing-day steam out of a -kitchen door. The poet lifted his mighty voice to the rocks, and they -sent a kindred answer back to him. He called the snow-cavern Brand’s -Church, and it was a strange and thrilling place in which to abide. - -They call the ridge of the mountain the “Garden Wall,” but it is not -very felicitously named. But it is wall-like. It is like an enormous -exaggeration of the Roman wall built to keep out the Picts and Scots -from England, but it is a rampart against the Martians rather than -against man. - -We came at last to a joyous company in an old-fashioned inn, and -made happy acquaintance with a band of hikers and sportsmen and -mountaineers. Girls with riding-switches in their hands were dancing -with one another, and a tall dark striking one whom I called the -Spaniard chummed in with us and brought her friend and made Vachel -promise to recite. We had a mountain-climbers’ supper, and when this -was cleared away the bears came down the mountain toward us for the -leavings, and watched us eagerly and ate the sweets we threw them, -and when the bears were gone we built a huge bonfire and sat around -and watched the sparks fly upward, and told stories and chaffed one -another. And Vachel talked to us all of the virtue of the West and read -to us his poem of the hour--the story of Johnny Appleseed, who in the -days of President Washington made for us all--great medicine. - -[Illustration] - - _Thackeray advised us-- - How to live on nothing a year. - “Take a nice little house in Mayfair; - Order everything and pay nothing.” - We can go one better than that. - Take over the Rocky Mountains - As your personal estate; - Everything arranged for you in advance, - Complete freedom of mind, - And no bills. - When the little game in Mayfair is played out - And you are clearly on the rocks, - Be sweet about it, - Leave your friends a card, - Tell them you’ve been advised a change of scene. - You’re on the Rockies._ - - - - -[Illustration: HENCEFORTH I CALL YE NOT SERVANTS BUT FRIENDS] - - - - -XXIX. LOG-ROLLING - - -VACHEL slipped near Heaven’s Peak and turned a double somersault -downward, buffeting his head with his huge pack (crammed with canned -goods, loaves, blankets, and what not) and then I picked him up and -found he had sprained his ankle. - -“Don’t think I’m hurt,” said the poet. “I yelled because I was scared. -I’ll be all right in a few minutes.” - -He didn’t mind the pain, but he loathed being beaten. Nevertheless he -was down and out. “We’ll go on to-morrow,” said he. “We’ll go on next -day.” - -“Here we are, and here we remain,” said I, “till the ankle has -recovered. We can stay a week or two weeks, and I’ll go back for more -food. So let’s make up our minds to it.” - -So we stayed by a flat-rocked stream on a grand slope in a forest of -stately pines and firs. Vachel sat on his blankets like a sultan. And -he speedily forgot his ankle and the mountains and Heaven’s Peak, and -began to tell me the story of Elbert Hubbard, from the time when he -travelled in Larkin’s soap to the time when he wrote “Who Took the -Lid off Hell?” and went down in the Lusitania. And then he told me -the substance of “A Self-made Businessman’s Letters to his Son,” that -unashamed best seller which portrayed the benevolent soul of a Chicago -packer before Upton Sinclair dared. Then he told me a fantastic story -of how ten ne’er-do-well men of Springfield were found ready to die for -the Flag. Then he told to me from memory Edgar Allan Poe’s story of -King Pest, and the ghouls of the forest crept close to us to listen. -Then he told me of the prairie-schooners which used to have inscribed -on them “Pike’s Peak or bust!” - -“Heaven’s Peak or bust,” said I, maliciously pointing to his swollen -ankle. “Lindsay, essaying to climb Heaven’s Peak, slipped downward,” I -went on facetiously, imitating the style of my letters to the _Evening -Post_. He smiled. - -“How yer feelin’?” I interjected. - -“I’m feelin’ fine,” said he. - -“Shall we get to Canada?” - -“I’ll be all right to-morrow.” - -“We ought to have gone further whilst the goin’ was good, eh?” - -“I’m sorry, Stephen,” said he apologetically. - -“But this is good?” - -“It’s good enough for me.” - -“All right.” - - * * * * * - -BRINGING in wood for a big fire is rather a tedious job, but I hit on -a sporting way of doing it all by myself, and doing it better. We were -at seven thousand feet, and the avalanches and spring floods and storms -had wrought havoc among the trees. Fine dead trunks lay in scores -on the mighty slope of the mountain. Our fire was at the foot of a -slippery granite slide. So I took a stout young pine-tree, and began -to lever the great dead trees and set them rolling downward. Vachel -was perched on a rock above the fire, and the logs arrived at the -embers below like colliding locomotives, with a great bump and showers -of sparks. It was possible to lever and roll downwards logs that were -thirty or forty feet long, and we pulled the great lumps of their -sprawling resinous roots on to the fire. - -We slept that night among the granite shelves, and the pine-roots -roared as they burned, and the great rocks beside the fire cracked -under the heat with a sort of earthquake thud which registered a buffet -on our bodies ten yards away. - -We stayed four days in this wonderful spot, and I became fascinated -with log-rolling. Even Vachel, with his ankle, hobbled after me and -tried to do it too. We talked of political and literary log-rolling, -log-rolling for one’s friends. “I’m all for it,” said the poet. -“Log-rolling is a virtue.” - -Then he recounted to me the origin of the expression--log-rolling. “It -is a Western term,” said the poet. “It also comes from the life of -the pioneers. You know how it was; the settler chose the site of his -log-cabin or of his new barn, and then went into the forest and felled -the number of trees necessary, and he left them lying where they had -fallen, and then called his friends together for a festive occasion. -They all worked together for him, and rolled his logs to the most -convenient spot where they could be piled to make his home. Of course -he always gave his friends a luncheon first, and then they went off and -rolled his logs home for him.” - -“And I like that,” said the poet. “No man can hope to do much in this -world without the help of friends. And I for one would not want to.” - -Go to it then, ye log-rollers of the literary world, ye friends, we’ll -lunch ye, we’ll give you, coffee with a kick of a mule in it, and fried -corned-beef hash fit for the best friend of the Grand Vizier’s cook. -And he, as you know, fares better than the Sultan himself. - -[Illustration] - - _Who rolled home Shakespeare’s logs? - We did: we helped to do it. - All the world has given a hand. - Were they lunched first? - Ah, I doubt it. - But that was not Shakespeare’s fault, - He was a jolly fellow!_ - - _N.B._--According to Frederick Dallenbaugh, writing to the _New - York Post_, the real log-rolling commences after the logs have been - brought to the site: - - “The foundation logs for the house having been duly notched and fixed - in position, another tier is placed on top of them, and then another, - and so on till the log wall is of the prescribed height. Now, it is - obvious that it would be difficult to lift the logs up on to this - growing wall. Primitive science then comes to the builder’s aid. - Other logs are placed at an incline against those already established - in their position and the logs that are to surmount the lower logs - are rolled up the incline into place. - - “From this came the invitations sent out by the prospective builder - to come to his log-rolling.” - - - - -[Illustration: POOR ACTÆON PAYS * THE WOMAN NEVER PAYS] - - - - -XXX. TOWARD THE KOOTENAI - - -SUMMER began to give way to winter on the mountains. There were very -cold nights, and frost. The full moon made the forest spacious, and the -beautiful fir-trees, like candelabras, glittering with silver lights. -The mornings were of an intense stillness as if ordained whilst God -walked in the garden. We had stayed three days beside a grey rock wall -which was eight feet high, and it began to have the light of home upon -it, and one might have lived there long. - -Vachel soon began to feel much better, though he looked quaint, -hobbling along the rocks and uneven woodland holding on to a tall -pine-cudgel which he had cut. He wore a red cotton handkerchief over -his crumpled hat, and it was tied in knots under his chin. He was weak -at all joints and walked like a dwarf who lives in a hollow tree, a -fairy-like antediluvian old fellow. His red wind-blown face was lined -and lined. His eyes twinkled as he walked. He stooped to pick up wood, -he looked cautiously about him, and I had the feeling that he would -rapidly scurry away if a human being came into view. - -I returned to camp for a bagful of provisions, and bright-faced Myrtle -La Barge gave me a whole apple-pie to take to the poet in memory of -Johnny Appleseed, and she gave me large overweight of cheese and -apricots and ham and all the rest I asked for. That night a bear came -after us, smelling the ham, and I said to him, “Bite Daniel, bite him, -bite him!” and the bear studied us some paltry half-hour, but as the -Comick saith, “his mind was in the kitchen.” And he said to the poet -with a disappointed groan--“How about the ham?” But Vachel then waved -his pine-cudgel and the bear did waver with his hind-quarters and ran -away. The poet then became a silent watcher for the rest of the night. - -We set off next day for the Kootenai River, and Vachel had tied up -his game foot in a dozen ropes and bindings, and it was soaking in -iodine besides, and we went very slowly and he sang hymns all the way. -I said to him, “You won’t mind, Vachel, if I go ahead some distance.” -For his singing scared the wild animals. The white-vested woodpecker -walking like a great fly up the dead poles of old pines, tapping as he -went, paused meditatively at the sound of Vachel’s voice; the grouse -and the ptarmigan tripped ahead of us like hens, and scurried out of -view; little piggy the porcupine trembled in all his beautiful quills; -and the squirrels scolded from all the trees as if we were a terrible -annoyance. I am not surprised. At school at Springfield the teacher -used to say; “All sing except Vachel,” the reason being that he has his -own voice entirely. Thus, in slow and devastating accents, keeping pace -with the enforced slow walk and pine-cudgel progress, you might have -heard him singing-- - - We ... shall ... dwell ... in that fair and happy ... land - Just across ... from the ever-green sho-o-re. - -and I put distance between us, but ever as he caught up I could hear -the scared animals rushing away. I grew facetious about the ever-green -shore, after he had sung it fifty-five times, and he, with utter -meekness, gave it up from that hour forth and sang instead: - - When he cometh, when he cometh, - To make up his jewels. - - * * * * * - -WE descended into a profound and shadowy valley where the pines and -firs got loftier as if trying to reach the level of the mighty cliffs -above them, but all their branches hung in veils of the tillandsia -moss. Here were firs with thousands of Uncle Sam beards of yellow-green -hair hanging from thousands of sharp chins. The great depth of the -brown floor of the forest was roofed in by darkness, and tree-tops and -moss. We came down to a wild brawling stream which rent the forest in -twain and let in the fairness of the sky and the sun. It was a perfect -place and I must say we did not expect to meet anybody there. - -We took off our clothes in the sun, and naked Lindsay took his shirt -to wash in the stream. Naked, I made a fire by the water-edge, and put -on the coffee-pot to boil. The water of the river was ice-cold, and -surreptitiously dipping a limb in it, one registered the fact. Many -brown comma butterflies danced in the sunshine, and settling on our -arms and legs, tickled us, throwing their honey-tubes deep into our -pores and getting their luncheon before we got ours. Evidently we were -a couple of sweet boys. - -Our innocence was, however, sharply disturbed by an unwonted cry and a -shout, and a red-faced, large-eyed, half-breed Indian suddenly appeared -on horseback along the river shore. He was trying to protect the eyes -of his party. But he was too late. We made a rapid scramble and dived -as a party of five highly-amused girls came past, and following them a -dozen pack-mules, carrying their camping outfits and party-frocks. - -I lay in the water after that and thought it over whilst a cascade of -melted snow rushed down my neck, and I saw on the shore the coffee-pot -lifting its lid and spitting many times. Presently I saw the Indian -re-appear and struggle through the forest wreckage of the river-bank. - -“The party apologises,” says he, “for coming upon you unexpectedly.” I -apologised in return. - -[Illustration] - - _When Actaeon saw Artemis at her bath, - The goddess changed him to a stag. - And when Tiresias saw Athene thus - She robbed him of his eyes. - But when these goddesses saw Actaeon and Tiresias - A-bathing, - They laughed. - We meant nothing to them - Compared with what they knew they meant to us._ - - - - -[Illustration: FROM THE FIRE TO THE DARK GOES THE TINY SPARK] - - - - -XXXI. AS THE SPARKS FLY UPWARD - - -WE lunched on ham and peas and caramel cake, and lay in a natural -cradle among the roots of giant firs, and slept for an hour of a -perfect afternoon. After the ice-cold dip and scalding coffee and a -good feed and a self-indulgent snooze, we knew ourselves to be well and -certainly happy. What a thing is physical well-being--to be hard, to -be fit, to be cool, to be clear-headed, to know there’s a live spring -in every muscle, and then to be care-free and able to sleep in the -afternoon! - -Vachel’s ankle went very well, the danger was that he might do too much -on it. We walked three or four miles up stream and then camped for the -night on a wild triangle alongside a mighty barricade of the jetsam of -broken water-washed tree trunks, some as long as fifty feet. We lodged -in the profound trough of a characteristic Western canyon. Night came -quickly, and our camp-fire light obscured the stars. The giant trees -with shadowy bases climbed sheer out of sight into the murky sky above. -The brown and white foaming river, like hundreds of swimming beavers, -rolled onward past us all the while. We boiled from it, washed clothes -in it, made soap-foam over it, but the ever-freshening waves purified -our margins faster than we could sully them. We paddled about in bare -feet on the shore and gathered wood whilst the firelight played on the -stones, and we heaped high the bonfire. I stood on a mighty chief of -the forest and flung lesser logs from the water-washed wood barricade -right to the fire, and they landed one after another with a thud and a -roar in the midst of the flames. Then we lay flat on our backs on our -blankets and watched our sparks fly up and die in scores, in thirties, -in fives, in thirty-fives, in hundred and fives. What a giddy and wild -life some of them had! How they whirled! How impetuous were some, how -serpentine others! We saw how all of them trailed their light as the -first escaped from the fire, and were like serpents of flame. - -“They do not die,” said the poet. “They only seem to die; they go -on, like ideas, into the invisible world. I’d like to write a volume -of adventures, the story of the adventures of, say, twelve different -sparks.” - -It was very white wood and very red fire. And it was slow-burning, for -the resin had been washed out of all their boles. The fire glowed and -glittered and was sociable and was taking time to live and taking time -to die. Our eyes grew hot and staring, like children’s eyes sitting -in front of the yule-logs listening to Christmas tales after their -bed-time hour. - -Our thoughts fly up brightly and then disappear, but goodness knows -where they go to. Our fancies stream upward idly like little flaming -serpents. Life is a fire, and we keep on burning and throwing up -sparks. We are very pretty, if we could only see ourselves, with our -thoughts and fancies jumping out of us and flying from us. The fire -will burn out towards dawn, and then the sparks will cease. They’ll -only be a happy memory then. But the poet believes the sparks go on. - -What a silence! The river is roaring past like the river of time -itself, but we have forgotten it, we have detached ourselves from -it, and beside our little fire there is a silence all our own. We -have a silence and a noise at the same time. There is a stillness and -aloofness and a sense of no man near. - -A disturbing thought comes. “If there were an earthquake in San -Francisco you’d feel the tremor here. If there were an earthquake in -the West the river might suddenly flow over us.” We listened, we tried -to sense the sleeping world, the ball on which we were lying. How -still, how peaceful it was! Not a tremor, not a quiver from beneath us! -Old earth slept the perfect sleep of a child. We too could sleep that -way, and presently some one spoke but the others did not reply, did not -dare. One was left speaking and the other was asleep. All became still -and quiet in the temple. The candles were still burning. But the priest -had gone. It was night, and the Spirit reigned in serenity. And the -candles were still burning. - -[Illustration] - - _A tiny spark was born to-day; - It said good-b’ye to yesterday. - It carried up a tiny light, - Said good-day and then good-night. - “Good-morrow!” said the tiny spark, - But ere the morrow came ’twas dark. - So that’s the best that he can do, - In his own time say “How d’ye do.”_ - - - - -[Illustration: LINCOLN - THE STAR OF THE EAST BECOMES THE STAR OF THE WEST] - - - - -XXXII. THE STAR OF SPRINGFIELD - - -NEXT day, tramping to Flat Top Mountain, we talked of Springfield and -Abraham Lincoln. We were in stately forests, and the ancient mould -under the feet silenced our steps. We walked slowly, and stopped to -pick the big black huckleberries, paused to climb over stricken trees, -paused to eat the raspberries from the undergrowth of raspberry bushes. - -“I’d like you to think of Lincoln as a poor man,” said Vachel, -“an eccentric--laughed at, sneered at a great deal, entirely -underestimated, a man who was a mystic, who believed in dreams and -presentiments and told many dreams to his Cabinet with great gravity. -Politicians want to see in him a conventional great man now, but in his -life-time he was called eccentric. He was as much laughed at as Johnny -Appleseed. But if a man is called eccentric in this country, or much -laughed at, you’ll often find he was a mystic or a genius of some kind.” - -One of Vachel’s alternative ideas for a tramp was to do a Springfield -star, making the city our centre to radiate outward, or, could I say, -walk radiantly outward, in one direction, then in another, all round -the compass. “As you went to Bethlehem with the Russian pilgrims so you -could pilgrimage to our Bethlehem,” said he, “see our star.” - -People from all parts of the world come to Springfield to see the -Lincoln home, to visit Salem and the grave of Anne Rutledge, to salute -Lincoln’s grave. They do so, not because they are told to do so, or -because there are organised tours, but because the heart moves them to -it. - -But there are also many people in America ready to turn their backs on -the simple Abe Lincoln of Springfield. He is too rough for them, too -untidy, too raw. They would fain think of him as a man of aplomb, a man -of a well-established family, one of the governing class. Lincoln’s -son Robert is president of the Pullman Car Company, and they would see -the father in the son and surmise a family well-lined, well-wadded, -well-upholstered. In that class you can get to power, and be carried -there, and sleep on the way. Belong to that class and all is yours! - -But the real Abe Lincoln gives the lie to this. It offends some people -to the heart to think that Lincoln’s father lived in a three-ways-round -log-cabin with the fourth side not built in, that young Abraham was a -barge-man, what we call in England a bargee, and came down the Sangamon -River in a flat-bottomed boat with a cargo and got stuck on the dam -at Salem and accepted a job there, and slept in a sort of loft over a -ramshackle tavern, men one side of a plank, women the other, and that -he rose out of the very depths of American life. - -“What Lincoln did, any boy in the United States can aspire to do,” -cried Vachel as we sat on a log together and looked at the shadow and -shine of the myriad-fold population of trees. “We’ve no governing -class. We’ve only got a class that thinks it is the governing class, -but it is the most barren in the community. Lincoln’s life shows -the real truth. Any one who feels he has it in him can rise to the -Presidency of the United States.” - -I promised to make the pilgrimage to the Lincoln shrines when our tramp -should be over and we returned to Springfield. Then Vachel was fired -by his pet fancies about his native city. He would have it all painted -white, like the Chicago World’s Fair. “White harmonises all sizes and -shapes of houses and all types of architectural design. And it has an -effect on the mind. It suggests the ideal. If the city were all painted -white, then people would try to live up to its appearance. Then also -it would stand out among all cities of America. The very fact of its -painting itself white would go into every newspaper in the United -States, it would be known in all English-speaking lands and would -direct world-attention to the shrine of Abraham Lincoln,” said he. - -It seemed to me a practical idea, and I bade him preach it still. He’d -find valuable allies in the paint merchants and painters of Springfield -anyway. If America could go “dry” one need not despair of Springfield -painting itself white. “In America all things are possible,” as a -German street-song says. - -He returned once more to his story of the ten who died for the flag -of Springfield--the new flag of the city. “I’ve always felt,” said -he, “that there could be found at least ten men among the unlikely -fellows who loaf around our town square ready to give their lives for -Springfield. If ever there came a time when Springfield was in danger -or its flag likely to be dishonoured, I know it is from the tramps and -wasters that something would come. At least, from the people we don’t -know.” - -“If only I could write that idea as Edgar Allan Poe wrote ‘King Pest,’” -said the poet, “then I’d tell the truth and shame the Devil.” - - * * * * * - -“YET Springfield was once disgraced by a most unholy race-riot,” my -companion went on. “It was in 1908, the centenary of Lincoln’s birth, -and I felt it as a terrible disgrace. The negro victims were entirely -innocent. It was a shocking affair.” - -We had by this time lifted ourselves high out of the gloomy valleys -and had attained to a rarer atmosphere and a clearer world, where the -forest lay below like a book that has been read and above it rose the -eternal hills lifting their mighty granite shoulders to the sky. We saw -in retrospect many of the mountains we had climbed. “Going-to-the-Sun” -and “Heaven’s Peak” were remote but grandiose on the horizon. We were -on a much-exposed ridge of Flat Top Mountain, and we camped in a wintry -spot beside a natural table of rock. On the rock we spread our supper; -on the ground our blankets. The wind blew the flaps of our blankets, -it blew away the flaming embers of the bonfire which we made, and it -ignited the grass, and when we had put the fire out on one side it -broke out on the other, and yet there was not enough of a fire to warm -us. Night came on, and we sought new fuel. Vachel hobbled beside me and -discoursed in a preoccupied way about Springfield and its race-riot. - -“I’m with you all the way about the Negroes, Stephen,” said he, as we -struggled to upraise an embedded sapling which the snows had tumbled -over in the spring. “If you write about the Negro again, say I’m with -you, I subscribe to it. I’ll go the limit with you.” - -We raised the entangled, difficult, fallen tree up on to the star-radii -of its roots, and looked down the wild slope to where our fire was -burning and blowing. It was dark up there where we were, and the fire -below gleamed in the darkness. We rolled the sapling down to the -fire and on to it, and stamped out the flames in the grass, and then -returned into the darkness for another sapling. - -“You know how I felt in Springfield when that riot occurred,” said -Vachel. “I visited all the leading Negroes and most of the leading -white men. I bombarded the newspapers with letters. And I don’t know -that it did any good. You couldn’t be sure that another onslaught on -the coloured people wouldn’t occur to-morrow.” - -As we talked we sought and collected withered branches, wind-riven arms -of the pines. Some we had to pull out of the earth, others we could not -pull out. - -“I believe the only way to stop lynching would be to break into a -lynching crowd and make them either lynch you instead of the Negro or -lynch you for interfering. When they realised what they had done their -hearts would be touched, their consciences would be shocked,” said -Vachel. - -We had unwieldy faggots in our arms and so walked closely together down -the hill, supporting one another’s wood. - -“It is expedient that one man should die for the people once more,” -said the poet. - -We made up a good fire; we boiled a pot of coffee and fried a heap of -beans and stewed a cup of apricots and cut the bread and untied the -sugar-bag and exposed the dried raisins, of which we had a capacious -little sack-full and wrapped ourselves round and sat by the fire and -fed and talked-- - -“Springfield was just about to attract the attention of the world in a -special way, as the shrine of Lincoln, when that riot broke out,” said -Vachel. “Large schemes had been approved for the improvement of the -city. All promised well. Then suddenly this race-riot broke out, and -Springfield was the subject of cartoons all over the United States. -The finger of scorn was pointed at Lincoln’s city. Springfield is still -trying to live it down.” - -I confessed it was difficult to think of Springfield as an American -Bethlehem after it had been the scene of a race-riot. That was indeed -a smudge on its fair name. Quiet little Bethlehem in Palestine has at -least kept clear of that. Still even Bethlehem could not help it if -some ugly human doings occurred there. - -It was curious that the race-riot sprang from the “poor Whites,” and -yet from the same poor Whites Vachel was ready to find ten who would -die for the Flag. - -I told my thought then, and that was, that the poor white population, -heroic as it was, would not be deterred by the self-sacrifice of one -of their number for the sake of the Blacks. This very year an English -clergyman was stripped and beaten almost to death by a gang of Whites -in Florida, just because he asked a congregation for fair play for the -Negro. And nothing happened to the gang. No prosecutions followed. -Lynch is powerful when law is weak. - -“The social conscience is dull,” said the poet sadly. “The Negro -question is the one which has most plagued America, and most people -have given it up and decided not to fret their brains any more about -it. You see, we even fought a war for it once, and we’re always -quarrelling about it. A news paragraph about a man being burned by a -mob will not even catch the notice of the newspaper reader. It either -does not stir his imagination, or he refuses to think about it.” - -“But it brings America into disrespect in Europe. It takes away from -the force of her moral example,” said I. - -Lindsay knew that. We discussed then the daring appeal of Governor -Dorsey of Georgia to the people of that State to mend their ways. We -discussed South Africa and then India. - -And then we went for more wood, and the stars shone out above us, -peerless in their righteousness, rolling along deliberately as ever on -their fixed ways. “How brightly they shine on us,” said I. “We should -be as they. If they erred and strayed from their ways as we do, what a -mad universe ’twould be.” - -“And one of them,” said the poet, “is the star of Bethlehem, the star -that rested over Bethlehem and then rested over Springfield for a -while.” - -“Up here in the mountains we see the stars, but down there in the -forests and dark valleys it is not so easy,” said I. - -We talked of Springfield by the firelight till one of us fell asleep. -One picture remains in my mind, and that is of a Hindu who sought out -Vachel Lindsay after he had been to Abraham Lincoln’s home. “Show me -now the home of the poet who lives among you,” said the Hindu. - -[Illustration] - - _A Hindu came to Springfield, - He saw the home of Lincoln, - He saw the court of Lincoln, - He saw the streets he trod. - “Now show me,” quoth the Hindu, - Show me your poet Lindsay, - Show me your prophet Lindsay, - Who sings to-day to God._ - - _The guide to Fifth Street therefore led - And showed the house where Lindsay fed. - And the Hindu much rejoiced and said: - “I know that Springfield is not dead.”_ - - - - -[Illustration: GOOD-DAY MR PRESIDENT] - - - - -XXXIII. FLAT TOP MOUNTAIN - - -THE fire burned sulkily at dawn, and the grass around it was white -with frost. We had lain awake for an hour, silently meditating on the -joys of coffee to be. We knew it was no use getting up before sunrise, -for fuel was scarce and hard to find. It was a wonderful dreamy dawn, -rising above the mists of an autumnal night. We looked to see antelopes -perched on the crags above us, and mountain-goats. But the scene was -bare on all hands. Our eyes lighted on the rusty foliage of some -uprooted trees. Walking in our unlaced boots, we brought this dead wood -in, made a fine blaze, and had breakfast, and then curled ourselves up -by the fire and slept till the sun stood higher. If I woke first it was -to sit with a blanket about my shoulders and pen an article for Kit -Morley. It commonly happened that I sat by the fire and scribbled my -letters to the Post in the morning whilst the poet had an extra hour -asleep. - -When we resumed our climb the poet got talking of the Indians. -Curiously enough Flat Top Mountain marks the entrance to the country of -the Flat-Heads, the Flat-Heads being so called because they press their -babies’ heads to obtain a flat-headed type of beauty. The mountain has -imitated the Indians and grown up flat-headed too. We were presently -to meet, when we crossed the Canadian line, a considerable number -of Indians of various tribes. Vachel facetiously observed that he -wouldn’t mind taking an Indian bride if he could find one that walked -thirty-five miles a day and took a bath every morning. I held that -it was very snobbish on his part. The disqualifying point, however, -proved to be the chewing of tobacco. When the poet saw these young -Amazons rolling their quids he was confirmed in bachelordom. - -“Great people, the Indians,” said Vachel. “I was brought up on their -orations. So was mother, I believe. Did you ever see M’Gaffey’s reader -with Black Hawk’s ‘Oration’ and the ‘Defence of Spartacus,’ and other -wonderful studies in popular oratory? I wouldn’t mind voting for an -Indian to be President of the United States.” - -“What! A red Indian? I should have thought America was too prejudiced -against colour.” - -“Not against the Indians. Against the Negroes. You and I don’t think a -Negro could rise to Presidency. But an Indian is different. There is a -great romance connected with the Indians; there are the traditions of -the battles with them; there is the personal grandeur of the braves. -Every American boy has longed to be an Indian chief. And then there is -the strain of Pocahontas, the Indian princess, married into the pride -of Virginia. I believe an Indian President is just what we want to -root us in America and give us a genuine American inspiration. It would -bring poetry into politics. It would bring all the glamour of the West.” - -“But it is not a practical possibility,” I urged. - -“I believe it could be put over,” said the poet. “You see, the Indians -are a hunting people, a sporting people. They’ve refused to bow the -knee to the sordid side of life.” - -We agreed that they were such good hunters that it was in vain the -United States Government protected game in these parts. The Flat-Heads -seemed to have swept off everything. You may go for days and see -nothing more edible than marmots and porcupines. On the other hand, I -have heard it said that the animals know the difference between the -reservations of the Indians and the preserved regions of the Rockies, -and at sight of an Indian on the horizon they rush to safety. - -Lindsay recounted to me the story of the political campaigns of -“Tippecanoe and Tyler too!” and how the wild tokens of Western life -invaded the East and moved the imagination of America. Every American -politician is aware of this motive force. Even Roosevelt, a pure New -Yorker, played the Western game--as Colonel of the Rough Riders. - -We had a wonderful walk along the Flat Top, which was a prolonged -mountain meadow full of flowers. Vachel began to repine because he -foresaw that, like everything else, our tramp must end, and that in -a few weeks we should be back in Springfield and the mere town. I -told him a story of how one summer day in Petrograd I paused at a -fruiterer’s shop to buy some strawberries which looked very inviting. -They were very dear, but the shopkeeper said, “I have some very -good second quality strawberries inside the shop, and I strongly -recommend them.” “Thanks,” said I. “But I never buy second quality -strawberries.” “So in life, eh Vachel, let us never accept second -quality strawberries.” - -The poet laughed, and began talking of grades of eggs, new-laid eggs, -State eggs, selected eggs, political eggs. So walking gently we reached -the north-western extremity of the tableland and came upon a grandiose -diversified scene of shadows and gloomy greens and barren scarps, and -of crowned monarchs of ice and snow. The pines of the Canadian approach -were posted like companies of soldiers and disposed in beleaguering -armies as if the line, unguarded by men, was guarded by trees, the -forest wardens of the Empire and the Republic. The poet saw in the -scene another Turner engraving. - -We plunged then downward through thick masses of alder and hazel, a -whole mountain-side solid with low growth. Here also were thousands of -raspberry bushes all agleam with rosy fruits. Vachel called the descent -a “raspberry epic.” Down, down we plunged to the dark valley of the -rushing Kootenai, only finding a camping-ground after dark. - -We came to an aged river in a steep vale of years with old shaggy -firs on its very water-edge, and with the ruins of the uncontrollable -ever-encroaching forest piled up like walls. We lighted a fire on a -humpy-bumpy bit of shore where it was hard either to walk or sit, but -easy to find wood to burn. We each cleared ourselves a cradle in the -brown needles of the infringing firs. - -It was a magnificent enclosure which the old river was a-running -through, like a cypress-walled garden of an Asiatic mountain-castle. -The trees stood like gigantic janissaries or guardsmen with their -cloaks on. The night-stars were exalted by the climbing forest and -peeped but faintly into the depths, and like a mighty black bastion the -sheer rock of the mountain cut off the view northward. - -The fire flared, the hot stones cracked and burst. We put our hot -blankets around us and sprawled on them whilst the poet cooked the ham -and the beans, and I tended the coffee-pot or stripped the last wisps -of grease-paper from the butter. - -We slept in our cradles and wakened in the morning to see the beavers -jumping among the fallen timber and diving in the river. - -[Illustration] - - _A prairie resident, - A dweller in a tent, - A White House resident, - A good man for President! - To White House from white tent. - O excellent precedent! - A precedent for a President. - An unprecedented President!_ - - - - -[Illustration: We’ve seen your line of difference and viewed it with -indifference.] - - - - -XXXIV. CROSSING THE CANADIAN LINE - - -“AS we approach the British Empire,” says Vachel facetiously, “the -huckleberries grow more plentiful, the raspberry bushes larger, the -trees loftier, the air purer.” In the poet’s mind politics and hymns -gave way to desire of huckleberries. I luxuriated in raspberries. He -was Huckleberry Finn. I was a character in Russian folk-lore--the hare -with the raspberry-coloured whiskers. “When we get to a Canadian hotel -let us register as H. Finn and R. C. W. Hare,” said the poet. - -We had slept on the hoar-frosted grass of mountain meadows near the -sky; we had slept among the beavers on the banks of the Kootenai; we -tramped in the radiant upper air; we tramped in the gloom of ancient -forests. Mount Cleveland lifted its dome of snow high o’er the lesser -mountains. Trapper Mountain receded. We listened one night to the -coyotes caterwauling in their loneliness. Their superfluous lugubrious -laments reminded me of modern West of Ireland poetry. Vachel laughed -at the comparison. We came to a deserted cabin, once the habitation of -a ranger, now littered with Alberta whisky bottles, and here we read -a pencilled remark written years ago: “Slept here last night. Visited -by a bare who came into cabin and et two sides of bacon.” Another -pencilled notice, apparently by the same hand, said: “Don’t leave -garbig lying about but put it in the Garbig Holl.” An Indian came and -offered to lead us to a boat on Lake Waterton and give us a ferry to -Canada. We preferred to walk, but it occurred to me afterwards that he -was not so much interested in boating as in bottles. I don’t doubt he -could have got us a drink. Then a grand mounted party came past us -with guides and pack-horses, coming from over Brown Pass, going over -Indian Pass. This was a rich American family on holiday: here were -father and mother, grown children, young children, cousins, and in -the midst of them Aunt Jemima, looking very proud and stiff, with an -expression on her face which signified “_Never again!_” They had been -twenty-eight days in the mountains, camping out all the time. - - * * * * * - -VACHEL’S ankle was rather weak, and he much preferred sitting to -walking. He called himself “the slow train through Arkansas.” We -stopped at stations, half-stations, and halts. “All I lack, Stephen, is -steam,” said he. But every now and then he would take courage and say, -“Lots of walk in me to-day--Canada to-night!” - -The excitement of finding the “Canadian Line” cheered my companion. The -face which in the morning had looked contrite and penitent as that of -one just released from jail, lighted up with new mirth and facetious -intent. He began to get steam. The slow train from Arkansas began to -approach Kentucky, and the sign of steam was a return to political -conversation. He began to chaff me mercilessly on the subject of the -Empire and King George and the British lion. I chaffed him about “God’s -own country.” The poet identified America with all that was best in -America’s traditions and in the visions of her poets, the - - All I could never be, - All men ignored in me, - -of his native country. I was critical, for I bore in my mind the -growth of materialism, the corruption of the law, the lynchings of -the Negroes, and the rest. He wanted me to dissociate America from -the dollar, from the noisy business rampage, and from all that was -unworthy, and instead identify America with the dreams of her idealists. - -“That is what I did with Russia,” said I. “If I tell England of the -ideal America they’ll only call me a mystic. But you, Vachel,” I -continued, “try and think of the Empire that way.” - -He found it difficult. He could think creatively about his own country, -but where others were concerned he reverted to the normal critical -mind. - - * * * * * - -IT is almost a recognised convention in literature. If you are writing -about a foreign country you take the general average of what you -observe and describe that. You can attack lustily without fear that the -magazine will lose “advertising.” The writer on Russia was supposed to -bring home a report that the police, and indeed every one else, took -bribes, the Jews were persecuted, the prisoners in Siberia were chained -together. Most American writers on Russia have done it. Kennan is a -characteristic case, who obtained fame identifying Russia with prison -horrors without recalling to the minds of his readers that there are -dreadful prisons also in the United States, and that the silence of his -own Georgia is sometimes desecrated by the melancholy clank-clank of -the chain-gang. - -I was besought in 1917, by a leading magazine of America, to write an -account of Rasputin, and although I had many interesting stories of -that evil genius of Russia I refused to write what I considered would -at that time be damaging to Russia. On the other hand, I wrote in 1919 -a realistic vision of America in perhaps her saddest post-war moment, -when Wilson was down and no one knew what America was going to do next, -and offered it to the same journal. But the editor was quite hurt that -I did not then see America in roseate hues. How characteristic of this -sprightly world, which, as Latimer said, “was begotten of Envy and put -out at Discord for nurse!” - -Not that the poet was critical of England. He idealised England. -He was not as critical of England as I was of America. Whilst he -idealised America creatively he idealised England romantically. To him -America was something to be; to him England was something that forever -was--beautiful, the substance of poetry, the evidence of things not -seen. He did not sympathise with the Irish. He did not think England -was so well organised, commercially, as America. But then to him that -was a point in our favour. Only one point was registered against us--he -did not think that as a nation we could make coffee; and we lagged -behind on Prohibition. But then he had to admit that the Americans for -their part did not know how to make tea. - -“Except for the King,” said Vachel, “we are much the same people.” -He loathed kings. “There’s not much difference between Canada and the -United States,” he went on. - -“We’ll see,” I answered. “Canadians are subjects of a monarch; -Americans are citizens of a Republic. Canadians look to the King. More -than a mere line divides the two halves of North America. You’ll see.” - -So we tramped on. We had a last lunch and finished the ham, the -apricots, and the coffee. As one remarkable fact, we met no Canadians -on the American side; we met no Americans going to Canada either. Yet -there were no restrictions whatever. Out in the Rockies the unguarded -line is literally unguarded; no patrols, no excise or passport -officers. You can come and go as you please. The United States would -encourage Canada to a communion of perfect freedom. Whilst America puts -nothing in Canada’s way, Canada for her part could not afford to police -a 4000-mile line. All is therefore free. - -Still, it is clearly the wild animals that take advantage of freedom, -and they abound and are happy in the region about the line. It is a -very strange line, straight and absolute on the map, the essence of -political division, an absurdity in geography. There is no river, no -main mountain-range, no change of the colour of the soil, but only the -invisible hypothesis called 54.40--the “Fifty-four Forty or fight” of -the boundary dispute. It would have been difficult to find the line but -for the fact that a sixteen-foot swathe has been cut in the forest. We -had been told to look out for that. We found it at last, and it was -afternoon, and we stood in No-man’s land together. - -It was a curious cut, a rough glade, an alley through the tall pines. -We walked along it a short way; we discerned where it stretched far -over a mountain-side, a mere marking in the uniform green of the -forest-roof. We came down to where the lake water was lapping on the -shore, and the great mountains in their fastnesses stood about us. We -found frontier-post No. 276, and then I stood on the Canada side and -Vachel Lindsay stood on the America side, and we put our wrists on -the top of the post. As we two had become friends and learned to live -together without quarrelling, so might our nations! It was a happy -moment in our tramping. - -Then, as it was four in the afternoon, I proposed having tea, much to -the mirth of the poet. For had we not finished the last of our coffee -at our last American resting-place? Fittingly we began on tea when we -entered the Empire. - -There was a change of scenery; fresher air, aspen groves, red hips on -many briars. A beautiful mountain lifted its citadelled peak into a -grey unearthly radiance. We climbed Mount Bertha, and the hillsides -were massed with young slender pines that never grow hoary or old, but -die whilst they are young, and are supplanted by the ever-new--forests -of everlasting youth. The grandeur of the mountains increased upon us -till all was in the sublimity of the Book of Job and of the Chaldean -stars. There was nothing petty anywhere--but an eternal witness and an -eternal silence. - -[Illustration] - - _A Yank and a Britisher walked to the line, - One was a citizen, the other an alien. - “You alien!” said the Yank._ - - _The Yank and the Britisher crossed o’er the line, - One was a subject, the other an alien. - “You alien!” said the Britisher._ - - _But when Yank and Briton elapsed hands on the line, - Then neither the Yank nor the Briton was alien._ - - _Hail, Uncle Sam! - Hail, John Bull!_ - - _We’ve found your line of difference - And viewed it with indifference._ - - _You don’t need to guard it, - Nor yet to regard it - With doubt or with fret. - Six weeks we’ve tramped together - In every sort of weather, - And haven’t quarrelled yet._ - - _We toe the line, we toe it, - The old tramp and the poet. - If we can do it. - And not rue it, - All can--says the poet._ - - - - -[Illustration: WASHINGTONIA WELLINGTONIA HINDENBURGER] - - - - -XXXV. THE DIFFERENCE - - -SO we entered the Dominion National Park of Waterton Lakes. We climbed -the next mountain after Mount Bertha and saw on every hand the -pinnacled and pillared tops of the Canadian mountains, crags surmounted -by mighty teeth of stone blackly silhouetted against a radiant sky. -Some Dominion officials came into these parts last year, cancelled the -old names of the mountains, and gave them a new set--Mount Joffre, -Mount Foch, and the rest, as if they were No. 1 and No. 2 of Great War -villas. I see by old maps that Mount Cleveland used to be called Kaiser -Peak. How war changes the names of places! It changed St. Petersburg to -Petrograd, Pressburg to Bratislavl; it has even changed the names of -the Rocky Mountains. - -“Luckily the Germans did not win,” I said to Vachel, “or New York might -have become ‘Zeppelindorf.’” - -We were walking down a slope which Nature had planted out with pompous -trees called “Wellingtonias.” - -“What do you call them?” asked the poet. - -“Wellingtonias.” - -“Not in America. We call them ‘Washingtonias.’” - -“You forget you’ve crossed the line--Washingtonias this morning, but -Wellingtonias this afternoon.” - -The poet submitted. - -“But what would the Germans have called them?” - -“Perhaps they’d call them ‘Bluchers’ or ‘Hindenburgers.’” - -Apropos of Bluchers--in the first Canadian village we visited the -cobbler for repairs. He was an old man, and explained to us just -exactly what “Blucher shoes” were. He pronounced the name to rhyme with -“butcher,” and he called them shoes in the American fashion. In America -boots are shoes, and shoes are boots. - -“They call them Bluchers,” said the cobbler in a quavering voice, -“because Blucher came up on both sides, and Bony did not know on which -side he’d turn up. So the upper of the Bluchers are equally high on -both sides of the shoe.” - - * * * * * - -THAT is, however, to go some days ahead. We are in the Rockies still, -and beside a wonderful stretch of water blown by mountain winds into -myriads of running waves. We bathed on its shallow shores; we did not -venture far from the bank. For Waterton is a mysterious lake. It has -often been sounded, but there are parts of it where no bottom has been -found. It is the hole out of which these Rocky Mountains have been -scooped, and it goes down, down, down, to the very depths of the earth. - -At last we came to a Canadian camping-ground and a group of people -clustered around a Ford touring car. A Ford car used for touring. -Here there happened to be on holiday a professor of English, and he -recognised Lindsay at first sight--such is the fame of the poet in -American universities and schools. - -This camping-group told us we were in a land predominantly inhabited -by Mennonites, Mormons, and Dukhobors, and they whetted our curiosity -considerably regarding our new neighbours. We had arrived in a part of -Canada which was rather obscure and certainly little visited by either -Americans or Englishmen. - -We came to a ramshackle inn and a village and a dance-hall, and it was -the last dance of the season. The Mormon, German, and Russian belles -checked in their corsets at the cloakroom, and prepared for fun. It -was a log-cabin hall, but the floor was waxed, and from the beams hung -coloured-paper lanterns. There were a score or so of black bear-skins -hung on the walls all the way round. On the bear-skins were white -sashes with these words printed on them: _I DO LOVE TO CUDDLE_; and on -the main beam of the ceiling was written: _Patrons are respectfully -requested to park their gum outside_. The whole front of the piano was -taken out so that there should be more noise. Splotches on the floor -showed how in the past, patrons had surreptitiously brought in their -gum and had accidents. Many couples assembled, and we saw the human -species, though not at its best. - - * * * * * - -WE issued from the mountains on to the southern Alberta plain, and then -looking back, saw every great mountain we had ever crossed. “We’ve -found the real sky-scrapers,” said Vachel. “Instead of the Times -Building, Heaven’s Peak; instead of the Flatiron, Flat Top Mountain; -instead of the World Building, Going-to-the-Sun; and instead of the -building raised by dimes, the temple not made by hands. The way to -these wonders is not by Broadway, but by primitive trails.” The poet -conducted the orchestra of the universe with the long blossoming stem -of a basket-flower--“instead of the Stock Exchange, the Star Granary -over Waterton Lake,” he murmured. We named the beautiful grouping of -mountains about the lake as the Star Granary. For at night, with stars -above and star-reflections below, it was as if the barns were full of -Heaven’s harvest. - -We tramped away northward toward the Crow’s Nest, where a great forest -fire was raging, and we came to the “cow-town” of Pincer Creek. -The Canadian Wild West seemed much wilder than the Wild West south -of the line--or rather, the population seemed wilder. One missed -the gentleness and playfulness of the United States. The men were -harder than down south, and they looked at us with a contempt only -modified by the thought that we might be potential harvest hands. The -Canadian-English looked more askance at Vachel than they did at me. -He looked poetical. They couldn’t have put a name to it, but that is -what it was. But whatever it was, I could feel their aversion. They -disapproved of tramps, but preferred them to poets. I could see also -they didn’t care for Vachel’s accent, but they rejoiced in mine and -spoke to me just to get me to reply so that they could hear once more -the voice of the Old Country. We were clearly in the Empire and not in -the Republic. The Union Jacks in the little log-cabins were wreathed -with flowers. The Stars and Stripes had disappeared. We were so struck -with the change of feeling in the air that we bought ourselves a -school-history of Canada and read it assiduously. The very way of man -looking to man was different. Then the first popular song which sounded -in our ears was: - - We never get up until the sergeant - Brings our breakfast up to bed. - O it’s a lovely war! - -which is a purely British army song. The Englishman in Alberta is an -overman in the midst of a miscellaneous foreign under-population. The -Englishman’s word is law. He is stronger, rougher in his language and -his ways--not educated. But this sort of fibre is best suited for the -outposts of Empire. - -“We Americans are just a bunch of playful kittens,” said Vachel. - -There was nothing very playful about the Alberta pioneers. - -“Did you light that fire on the side of the road a mile back? Well, you -dam well go back and put it out.” - -“We did put it out.” - -“I tell ye, ye didn’t. I won’t waste my breath talking to you. If you -set the prairie afire I’ll have you both in jail by sundown.” - -“All right, we’ll go back.” - -[Illustration] - - _We’re on the same continent. - Well, I don’t know. Smells different somehow. - Same air; people speak the same language. - But I don’t see that bird about, - That old eagle of yours. - Smells as if a lion had been here. - You don’t know the lion’s smell? - Well, smell that Union Jack! - That’s it._ - - - - -[Illustration: BURN YOUR RIFLES AND RETURN TO WORK] - - - - -XXXVI. DUKHOBORS - - -WE had not anticipated coming into the neighbourhood of the Dukhobors. -It was an interesting surprise. I had promised myself I would make a -special pilgrimage some day to Western Canada just to find out what the -Dukhobors thought about life, and how they were getting on now. And -then to come on them accidentally. - -The Dukhobors, or “Spirit wrestlers,” are a Russian religious community -brought to Canada in 1898. They claim to have been in existence in -Russia for over three hundred years. They are primitive Christians akin -to Quakers, but more uncompromising. They are Communists, pacifists, -anti-state, anti-church, anti-law. Theologically they consider Christ -as a good man and teacher, but not divine. Tolstoy’s teachings show -him very close to the Dukhobors in theory. He greatly sympathised with -them in the persecution which they suffered at the hands of the Russian -Government, and it was in part due to him, and more largely to the -Society of Friends in England, that the expatriation of the Dukhobors -was accomplished. Tolstoy is said to have put aside the profits of his -novel _Resurrection_ to defray in part the expenses of transporting the -Russians. There are several thousand of them, and first they were taken -to Cyprus where at least the British Navy got acquainted with them, as -they were naturally a curiosity. Cyprus was not suitable, and so Canada -was chosen for a habitat. The community was taken to Saskatchewan, and -later migrated in large part to British Columbia. They did not find -their path strewn with roses in Canada, and have had a hard time. -But despite persecution they have prospered. They are notorious for a -naked procession they once made “in quest of the Messiah” some forty -miles in bitter winter weather, displaying “the naked truth” to the -Canadians--the pilgrimage to Yorktown which has been described with -much gusto in the American and Canadian Press. They have refused to -take steps to relinquish their Russian nationality, refused to fight, -refused to pay taxes. So naturally they have been a thorn in the side -of the Canadian. - -The Rocky Mountains stretching away in their majesty must remind -some Russians of the grand array of the Caucasus as seen from the -north--and the prairie is the steppe. Far away you discern the white -and brown buildings of a settlement, and then, ten times as large as -anything else, pale-blue grain-elevators. The circumambient moor is -many coloured, and a dove-coloured sky is flecked with softest cloud. -There are snow fences at many points of the road to protect from drifts -in winter. A neverceasing wind which brings no rain is driving over -the corn-fields. As you approach the village you begin to see Russian -peasant men and women working on the fields hoisting the wheat-sheaves -to the harvesting carts, hoisting the sheaves to the top of the -stacks. A stalwart peasant-wife in cottons stands on top of the stack, -pitchfork in her hand, and she catches the sheaves as they come up to -her. The grain-elevators rise mightily into vision, and then the words -printed on them in large black letters--=THE CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY OF -UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD=. - -I soon met Pavel Potapof, the local headman, and I talked in Russian -with a number of men and women who spoke no other language. They were -raising wheat for themselves and for their wheatless brethren who live -in the lumbering camps and villages of British Columbia, but represent -a sort of a half-way colony between the original Verigin, Saskatchewan, -and the main settlement of Brilliant, British Columbia. - -Potapof was a boy at Cyprus, where his father enjoyed some authority. -He is now a man in his thirties with brown moustache and close-clipped -chin. If you are a Dukhobor you may not shave but you may clip with the -shears. He remembered touching a Mr. St. John at Cyprus, who used to -call him Pavlushka. - -Potapof spoke Russian with a soft Little-Russian accent, all g’s being -h’s. He came from Tiflis province, and I talked first of the Caucasus, -comparing them with the Rockies. Then naturally we discussed Russia, -and a curious crowd gathered about us. Scarcely any spoke English--all -were Russian subjects, and I much wondered what they thought of the -Bolshevik revolution. For they also are Communists. I soon learned that -an appeal had been made to them on behalf of the Bolsheviks to help -to stem the famine in Russia. Some of the Dukhobors were for sending -grain, some not. They blamed the Bolsheviks for their “two million men -under arms.” - -Most of them said: “Let those who are richer in Russia give to -those who are poorer; there’ll be enough to go round.” Imagination -did not show them the ghastly ruin of contemporary Russia, where, -except for a handful of Soviet commissaries, there are no rich, no -“better-off” people. Most of them also said: “Let them lay down their -arms, and then we’ll think of feeding them.” But their deliberations -crystallised in the following way. They decided on a symbolic act. -They visited all their Ruthenian and Galician neighbours and any -one who had a war-trophy to spare, and they made thus a collection -of rifles, shotguns, pistols--some three hundred or more weapons. -These they burned in a heap. Then they sent a wireless message to the -Russian people describing this act, and added further the monition: “Do -likewise; burn your rifles, and return to work!” - -“They murdered Nikolai (rubili Nikolai) and his family for liberty,” -said Potapof. “But now clearly there is much less liberty than ever -there was before.” - -Nevertheless I thought I detected a curious home-sickness among many of -them. The violent rumours and persistent bad news of Russia comes to a -primitive community that cannot read in a more disturbing and dramatic -way than through newspapers. They complained sadly of conditions in -Canada; of droughts, of plagues of grasshoppers, of bygone hardships -and persecutions in Saskatchewan. - -“Here there will be a Bolshevik revolution too,” said one. “We shall -not take part in it. But we know it is preparing. There is much -discontent in the neighbouring settlements and in the mines. Oh yes, -there is trouble brewing here too.” - -This Dukhobor had been talking to brother Poles and Ruthenians, but he -was quite out of perspective. I asked how the Dukhobors had faced under -the Conscription Act. Apparently they did not suffer much; Canada did -not trouble the Dukhobors. They had an easier time than their brothers -the Mennonites in the United States. They told me there had been a -considerable influx of Mennonites by way of the unguarded line: they -also are pacifists and utterly oppose to personal service in war. So -struck are they by what happened to them in America through the war -that there is much talk of their deserting both Canada and the States -and seeking a refuge in Mexico. - -The Dukhobors, however, have a strong hold in Canada, and as long as -Peter Verigin, their unofficial patriarch and leader, lives, they will -most probably hold on to their settlements in British Columbia and -Saskatchewan. Perhaps in a new era, a new Russia may again take the -Dukhobors to herself. Canada does not assimilate them. They do not -assimilate Canada. And they are, and they feel, as Dostoievsky said, -like “a slice cut out of a loaf.” - -[Illustration] - - _Fancy meeting the Dukhobors - Up in the Rockies: - A bit of old Russia - Planted up there to meet me! - Sure next time when I go to the Caucasus - I’ll look to find a batch of English there, - Trying to live their unmolested lives - Under the free institutions - Of old Russia._ - - _Tolstoy, in his story of the old pilgrim, - Taught you could find Jerusalem in your native village, - And did not need to pilgrimage afar. - But he did not say you could find freedom - In your own village--in your own heart. - O no, that’s political, - You must go a long way to find that._ - - - - -[Illustration: WHEREVER THEY LOCATE THEY BUILD TEMPLES] - - - - -XXXVII. A VISIT TO THE MORMONS - - -WE tramped from ranch to ranch by the rutty roads that skirt the -sections, walked away from the mountain-walls, and ever as we went -the terrain extended. The sky had become wider; no rocky walls closed -us in. The backs of our necks became swollen from the unusual heat -of the sun on them. We kicked up dust as we walked, dust again! -Our eyes traversed the scene to light, not on cascades or possible -camping-grounds, but on far-away farmhouses. We met the oats and -wheat and barley fields striving over the moors, and walked till all -moor disappeared, till there was nothing in front of us but gold. -Made dream-like by the forest fires, the long range of the Rockies -seemed unreal--the mountains which we had climbed became remote and -shadowy--and not part of our destiny. Our only reality was golden -Alberta, which seemed to extend to infinitude, the plateau only -gradually losing its altitude, unfolding and undulating downward--one -vast resplendent area of golden harvest fields. - -The sun gleamed on numberless shocks on the right, on the left, and -ahead, and the whole horizon was massed with newly mobilised golden -armies. We walked the rutty roads and were exhilarated, and counted the -wheatfields which we passed, knowing that each, being a whole section, -was a whole mile long. - -We discussed a tragical line in one of Lindsay’s poems: - - Election night at midnight - Boy Bryan’s defeat. - Defeat of Western silver, - Defeat of the wheat - ... Defeat of the aspen groves of Colorado valleys, - The blue-bells of the Rockies, - And blue bonnets of old Texas - By the Pittsburg alleys. - -Defeat of the wheat! How tragical that sounds in the soul, how -calamitous and appalling! It is like the cutting off of golden youth, -the extinction of all our dreams. - - * * * * * - -WE boiled our pot by the side of the road; we sought milk and bread at -farmhouses; we slept at night in the wheat with shocks piled on three -sides of us to keep out the wind, and a broken shock underneath us to -keep us soft--and the night sky above us was of swans’ plumage, and all -the golden stalks and stubble about us and above us were exaggerated -among the stars. - -Night was very different on the plains from night in the mountains. No -sound of waters, no castellated peaks rising in the moonlight, no sense -of vast unevenness and disjected rocks; but instead, a feeling of being -in a great encampment where the swarming shocks of wheat were tents, -the tents of such a host that the numbers took away one’s breath. The -poet rejoiced. He loved it. The odour of the yellow stalks was a new -breath of life to him--for he was a prairie boy. - -The dawn-twilight was long and quiet, and the mornings were serene. -No workers were in sight. The disparity in numbers between men and -wheat was remarkable to my eyes. In Russia, the whole plain would have -been alive with the gay cottons of peasant lads and lasses. But here, -harvesting machinery displaces whole populations of men and women. - -Indians began to be numerous on the road as we approached the Blood -Reservation, Indian farm-wagons with women and children sprawling on -the hay at the bottom, and then Indians on horseback, all one piece -with their horses. We left the golden grain behind and crossed the -Reserve. Vachel explained what a squaw-man is--a white who marries an -Indian girl in order to get hold of her portion of land, the Indians of -to-day being almost all of them endowed with land by the Government. We -found again the Kootenai, now brawling through the plains, and bathed -again, and reverted in spirit to those mountains. Then we tramped from -tent to tent across the green wilderness where the Indians lived. -Indian boys in many-coloured garments pranced on their horses, chased -lines of cattle and horses, and kept the lines straight by galloping -incessantly between them from left to right to one end of the line, and -then right to left to the other end. - -We met Indians in voluminous seedy clothes, walking with a stoop; men -with gloomy ruminating faces who tried to avoid contact with a white -man. We talked to them; they raised their red romantic faces and glared -at us like owls startled by light. They could not speak English, so -they answered nothing, but just turned out of our way and slouched on. -Or the livelier ones made signs to us. The stout squaws stared at us. -The slender girls on their horses were almost indistinguishable from -boys. - - * * * * * - -WHAT a beaten-down and untidy place a Reservation is, strewn with -jetsam from the wigwam, hoofed till not a flower remains! The Indians -spend more time on horseback than on foot--they can’t farm, or -won’t farm, and possess only the roughest of comforts. We came to a -Government Practice Farm where Indians were being taught, and saw -squaws working there--but very little sign of decent cultivation on -the reservations. The Indian asks enough on which to live. He wants no -more, will work for no more. He makes plentiful use of canned foods, -and lives from hand to mouth. Hence you never hear of Indian cooks. -It is curious to contrast the genius of the negro for cooking and the -absence of a taste for cooking in the Indians. - - * * * * * - -AFTER the Indians we came to the Mormons. They were as much surprised -as the Dukhobors. How should Mormons be here? Perhaps we are the first -to make the discovery that the Mormons have invaded Canada. These -are the first Mormons to invite the shelter of the Empire. As usual, -they have made their settlement in a very obscure part, far from the -centre of authority. And if trouble should arise they have only to trek -through the Rockies, and then Uncle Sam and Senator Smoot will protect -them. - -We were regaled at farmhouses by sweet Mormon brides, who gave us -bannocks, who gave us of their simmering greengages out of the great -cauldron on the stove. Elders on horseback very politely, and with -many details, showed us the way to Cardston and the Mormon Temple. We -were happily and sympathetically disposed towards the Mormons, and -Vachel, who has taught the Salt-Lake-City girls to dance whilst he -chanted to them “The Queen of Sheba,” has a soft spot in his heart for -the sect. It was really started by a renegade preacher from his own -sect of Disciples, Sidney Rigdon, who revised the unsaleable manuscript -of a novel called _The Book of Mormon_. He conspired with Joseph Smith, -who discovered the book written in aboriginal American hieroglyphics -on gold plates and translated it by the aid of certain miraculous -spectacles into King’s English, or I should say President’s English, -who was murdered; who therefore gave way to Brigham Young, to whom were -revealed many mysteries. - -“They are a whole lot nearer to Mahometanism than to Christianity,” -said Vachel. “I think a Mahometan mission to the Mormons might not be a -bad idea as a step on the road towards Christianity.” - - * * * * * - -WE sat discussing this on the banks of the Kootenai, and I was -facetious: - -“Ye Mormons, there is no god but God, and Mahomet is His prophet. -Whereas in Christ ye are now living in adultery and sin, in Mahomet ye -are pure men and women. By Christ, in the after-life there is neither -marriage nor giving in marriage, but in Mahomet connubial bliss for -evermore, attended by your houris and your wives. Don’t say no. Think -it over and I’ll call this afternoon!” - -“_Put that in_,” said Vachel. “I think they’ve derived a good deal -from the phallic religions too. They’ve made a much bigger thing of -Mormonism than it was in the days of Joseph Smith. It has got hold of -the sex mysteries. There’s a whole lot of masonry in it. The common -sort of condemnation of the Mormons is all that’s ever been attempted -by way of criticism of them. They’ve been stoned out of all the Middle -West. We have even in Springfield in the Fair-grounds one of their -altars taken from Nauvoo, Illinois, from which they were chased. They -were a mistaken people--but they learned much through tribulation.” - -The poet is by temperament on the side of any one or any institution -which happens to be violently attacked. He was greatly interested by -Mormonism, so I naturally heard from him many things in favour of it. -First of all, he felt it had a great future in America--it was not a -dying cult. - -“One side of it is getting very popular,” I interjected, with some -mirth. “It’s the word of abuse in England from an injured wife to her -husband--‘_You--Mormon!_’” - -“Well, the idea of polygamy does make a strong appeal to the male,” -said the poet. “And the women feel happy in it when it is an accepted -convention.” - -“You mean, women only object to clandestine polygamy?” - -“There is always jealousy,” said my companion. “But that is another -matter. What I meant about the future of Mormonism did not refer -to polygamy so much. But it’s our first real American religion. It -started in America. It pretends to give American religious traditions. -According to Mormon, one of the lost tribes of Israel came to South -America. Mormonism links America to both Noah and Adam and to the -hand of God. In their belief, too, Christ came to America--He did not -wait till 1492 for Columbus to discover it first. He was here before -Columbus. In Mormonism America is presented with a whole American -tradition, going as far back as the Old World traditions, embodied in -the Old and New Testaments.” - - * * * * * - -CARDSTON, which at length we reached, is largely a Mormon city. The -Temple, a remarkable structure, exteriorily chaste and beautiful, -dominates the scene, and the clouds rest upon it, obscuring its upper -storeys in cloudy weather. It is not used for general worship; for -that purpose there is a sufficiently ugly tabernacle. It is almost -exclusively for the Mormon sacraments, the sealing of wives and -children, and for the meditational recreation of the elders. Once the -building has been completed and consecrated it will remain inaccessible -to outsiders, but in order to avert suspicion, visitors are shown -over it until that time. We were lucky, as the Temple is very nearly -finished, and it is a rare experience for an outsider to gain access. -There are only eight Mormon Temples in the world, and the rites -performed therein are entirely secret. - -The town is mostly inhabited by Mormons, and the great business “pull” -of the sect is evidenced in the technical and structural growth of the -place. The land between the city and the reservations is theirs, and -also much that lies beyond. A strong propaganda for the sect is carried -on all over America, and also in England and in Europe. Women converts -seem especially desired. On the other hand, men of proved sincerity or -simplicity are not rejected. The Mormons have land at their disposal, -and they exert considerable influence on settlers and pioneers of -the West. The elders help to organise business and to mormonise the -community as much as possible. They can be of great help to any young -Mormon starting life. On the other hand strange dooms are said to await -any Mormons who give away their secrets, and apostasy is infrequent. - -Some of them are, however, incautious. In my room at the hotel I found -a heap of correspondence left there by the last man who had been in -occupation. It was perhaps indelicate to pry into a Mormon’s private -affairs, but I confess to a human weakness of curiosity under the -circumstances. Here was the basic material for a novel on the Mormons; -letters from one pal to another, letters from girls, sweet letters, -despairing letters, telegrams. Technically there is not supposed to be -polygamy any more, and legally there is not, but in reality something -of the sort goes on, as may be judged from the following letter I -transcribe, one of a packet I brought from Cardston. - - S----D, - Mo. - - DEAR ----, - - I received your letter written on the 21st from Ladysmith, B.C., - yesterday, but I worked late last night and I had an answer to one - of Ruth’s letters to write that I had put off for a week. So it was - pretty near time to get up rather than to go to bed, but I will just - drop a hurried line to let you know I still live. - - I sure am glad to hear you are able to save a little because I also - am trying to save a few pennies also and it sure comes hard. I also - am glad to hear you are in a business that you like but you failed - to tell me just what your line of selling is. What do you sell? buck - handkerchiefs or iron toothpicks. Does Dan travel with you also. - It sure is great to be able to see a lot of the world at some one - else’s expense and your pleasure. I suppose S----d is about like - Vancouver; rainy and not worth a dam. It sure has rained a lot here - in the last few weeks. I believe we have had more rain here this - month than Utah has in a year. - - About my wife in Utah. I receive letters regularly. Eight or nine - days apart as regular as 8 o’clock comes in the morning. Every 8 - or 9 days I get a letter and just that often I get a letter from - home also. I am going to try to get a vacation and get enough money - to take me back to Utah next summer. I don’t know if I can or not - because I will have to have an operation on my nose right away - because I always have a cold as it is. If I do not keep on having - this cold I now have I will not have the operation, but if it does - not leave me pretty soon I will have the bone taken out and doubtless - lose my chance of getting home. - - I sure am glad you appreciate Peggy by now. You know, old Pal, that - you never miss the water till the well runs dry, and it sure is - true when a fellow leaves his friends and is out alone. You sure - appreciate what you did have when it is gone completely. I believe - that a fellow must live a life like we are to really appreciate the - good things in life anyhow. If we did not taste of the sour things - the sweet ones would seem sour to us. By gosh it sure is true in one - respect I miss some one to darn my sox. I try to do it myself but it - is slow work and I get so (nervous?) Try and imagine me sitting all - night darning sox. It sure is a bellina (? hellish) job. I don’t like - it at all. - - Well, old pal, I have a Missouri wife now so S----d seems to be a - pretty good place after all. She is a girl I met in church and is - about the size and looks about like Ruth W----. Some girl I will say. - We have been to a couple of parties and to a couple of shows in two - weeks beside being at her place all day last Sunday. Sunday we are - going to have a picnic and take a few pictures, and Monday night a - large masquerade party is on and we are going to it also. So you see - I stop her right off and she don’t object either, I don’t believe. - - I wrote W---- a letter on the 3rd of this month and as yet I have - not received a letter. I guess he wanted to have a good time while - his “heaven” lasts, and I don’t blame him either. I believe he is a - little worried over his mission and rather hates to go, but I believe - he will be alright. - - I am getting along fine here. I order all the shoes here so I am - the shoe desk manager. The boss gives me all the shoe mail, and I - just order what I want and leave the rest. It is quite a large job, - but our store is not quite as large as Salt Lake’s, but the shoe - department could keep a regular man busy. So you see I am doing fine. - To-morrow is pay-day and I also get a nice raise, so I have no kick - except to darn my sox. They are the greatest worry I have had. - - Well, old pal, I gave this letter and your last one pretty good - service considering all the work we have now that the winter business - is just opening up. Here it is after 12.30 again, so I will go to bed - and get up again at 6 a. m. Try to be good, old pal, and don’t do - anything I wouldn’t--Your old pal, - ED. - - * * * * * - -YOU cannot learn much of the ways of the Mormons by asking them, but -when one of them leaves a whole packet of correspondence behind him in -a hotel he “sure is” giving things away. - -We walked up to the Temple at three in the afternoon, the designated -time when visitors are shown round, and punctually at that hour the -doors were opened and the curious were admitted. - -“Wherever we locates we builds temples,” said the guide, a curious -old fellow, so illiterate that he strewed the temple floor with his -aitches, an Englishman from the provinces, squat, confidential, -insinuating. “This is the eighth Mormon Temple,” said he. “The ninth is -now rising in Phœnix, Arizona.” - -The visitors were mostly farm-women, and Vachel and I looked like a -couple of tramps in their midst. Our clothes hung on us; we held in our -hands a couple of the most weather-beaten of old hats. I was the “big -un” and Vachel was the “little un.” We looked to have a little less -intelligence than gopher-rats. - -“The ’ole edifiss is of stone,” said the guide, “and the foundation is -of rock and concrete. There’s not five dollars’ worth of wood in the -construction. All the wood you see is haksessories.” - -“Are all the temples built of stone only?” I asked cautiously, with the -air of a stone-mason out of a job. - -“No,” said he. “Each is built on a seprit plan.” - -“’Ere,” said he, turning to the rest of the company, “’ere we seals. -This ’ere room is for ordinances only. No, we don’t worship in the -Temple. It’s not used for public worship. You see the red-brick -building as you came up to the Temple. That is the Tabernacle where -public worship is held, and that is free to all. But ’ere in the Temple -we ’as the ordinances and the meditations.” - -The guide was naturally a Mormon, and as he showed us around I thought -his main objects were to tell us nothing while pretending to tell us -all, and yet at the same time to make converts among the women. He did -all he could to interest the latter in the cooking and lighting and -warming and washing arrangements. - -“You ’ave ’ere the electric stoves to cook the meals. You couldn’t -keep running in and out of the Temple in yer sacred garments to get -meals at resterongs, so we cooks ’ere. But there can be no smell of -cooking--as this exhaust takes all the smell away out of the building. -Very convenient, eh, ain’t it? We’ve had over ten thousand applications -from women to come and cook in the Temple.” - -The farm-women giggled appreciatively. The guide led them on to the -laundering establishment. As the Mormons wear secret underlinen with -signs, they naturally don’t care to send their laundry out to wash. -And in the Temple we were given to understand every man and woman wore -special white garments. Consequently there would be much laundering. -But all was to be done by the latest machinery, driven by electric -power. “No hand-work, no scrubbing, no drudgery and gettin’ your -fingers red and ’ard,” said the guide. “Then, when the wash is done, -hpp, in they go to the drying chamber, and in a few seconds they are -sufficiently dry to be taken out and ironed on the electric irons.” - -For a moment it was like being at an ideal home exhibition. “Then the -radiators,” said the guide, “you see, they don’t project into the -rooms, but are fixed in the walls dead level with the surface of the -walls.” - -“Of course the Temple ’asn’t got its upolstery in yet, but in every -room the furniture will be all of a piece with the inlay wood of the -walls. If the walls is oak the furniture will be oak to match; if -it’s bird’s-eye maple, the furniture’ll be bird’s-eye maple; if it’s -Circassian mahogany the furniture will be Circassian mahogany too. -Every room will have its colour scheme. ’Ere you see the thermometer. -Now the temperature of the building will be regulated. It won’t matter -wot the weather is like outside, it will be controlled inside. The -engineer will ’ave ’is orfice outside the Temple and don’t never need -come in. All they ’as to do is telephone ’im to raise the temperature -ten degrees or lower it five and he’ll do it.” - -“We comes to the baths” (they are pretty elaborate). “’Ere’s the men’s -section, over there’s the women’s. You natcherally bathe first of all -when you enter the Temple and remove every speck of dust or dirt from -your body. And ’ere are the robing-rooms where spotless garments is -waiting you to put on. You walks all in white wherever you go in the -Temple, and when it ’as been consecrated no more folks will ever go in -it in ordinary clothes like as you and me to-day.” - -The Temple proved to be the last word in luxury and modern convenience. -In the most elegant club in London, Paris, or New York I have not seen -such luxury and sensual comfort as was in this Temple in the rough -wild west. Every room was inlaid with precious woods. The baths and -robing-rooms were worthy of a Sultan, the lounge and one-piece carpets -all suggested a material heaven. The guide showed us the vast font -reposing on the life-size figures of twelve oxen, the symbols of the -twelve tribes of Israel. This font was the centre of a stately chamber -with galleries running round it. From the galleries the friends of the -candidates could watch the ceremony of immersion. The font was large -enough to baptize families at once. - -“And you can be baptized many times,” said the guide. “For yourself, -then for your friends, and then for the dead--for any one you would -like to have saved.” - -“Baptized for the dead?” said one of the women in horror. “Yes,” said -he. “You think it strange, but the early Christians all used to do it. -Just turn up First Corinthians, chapter fifteen. ‘What shall they do -which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? Why are -they then baptized for the dead?’ which shows plainly that the apostles -recommended it.” - -“Is the water cold?” asked a farm-girl, timorously. - -“Cold,” said the guide ingratiatingly, “oh, no! It’s warmed. It’s just -_nice_. I should say about the temperature of warm milk.” - -“Oh!” “Oh!” There was chorus of approval from the women, who had been -considering the whole matter from a purely personal point of view. - -We were then led to the Creation Room, the Garden of Eden Room, and the -Earth-natural Room, all adorned with works of art. There were pictures -of the world before Creation, and then of each stage in the process of -Creation. - -“God don’t love chaos. ’E’s a great organiser. ’E organised it, and -’e divided the water from the hearth and gave us light and made the -hanimal creation--yes, all that lives and breeves,” said the guide. -“’Ere we meet to meditate on the Creation. Isn’t it a beutiful room?” - -Some one asked him if the artists were Mormons. “Yes, all of them,” -said he, and then went on-- - -“You’d think it gets stuffy in ’ere. But no; we ’as the hair taken out -and washed and then returned. It’s a new device for washing the hair.” - -We passed to Eden. Here were pictures of the whole animal creation in -benevolent and sentimental happiness; the tiger browsing beside the -lamb, and the lion and the giddy goat frisking around. - -The guide purveyed the story of the Garden of Eden, but left out Adam -and Eve, and I walked away from him to wander round and seek the -portraits of our first parents. They were not included. But I found -that the painting of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and of the -Tree of Life were concave at the base, and that there was a recess and -an alcove to each. So there was a place for a living Adam and Eve to -sit, side by side, when the meditation on the Garden was going on. My -idea is that Eve would be seated in the Tree of Life and Adam in the -Tree of Knowledge. But that is surmise. The guide would not tell us -what the alcoves were for, but in the eye of curious imagination I saw -Adam and Eve sitting there in primitive innocence whilst the hearts of -the elders were inditing of a good matter. - -From Eden we went to the Earth-natural, which was a hideous place where -every animal was depicted with a vicious expression. A large mad coyote -or, was it a hyena? seemed to control the atmosphere of the chamber. - -“’Ere we ’ave the Hearth after sin ’as crept in,” said the guide. “’Ere -is life as we know it, full of sin which you can’t escape. You can all -learn a great deal from them pictures. Think of Hadam and Eve. ’Ave you -ever thought of it--’ow God gave them the garden of Eden, and of the -‘experience’ ’e made them ’ave there. Isn’t it true about us? ’E didn’t -mean that nothin’ should ever ’appen to us. ’E brought us into the -world that we might ’ave an experience.” - -So we went on to the Marriage Room, which was entirely bare, and no one -could say what it would be like when the decorations and the furniture -had been added. I judged it time for me to cease being Simple Simon, -so I asked the guide as humbly as I could whether the marriages were -legal when the ceremony was performed. - -“Yes,” said he. “You ’ave a legal marriage.” - -“But polygamy?” I queried, and I saw his eyes flame. - -“Polygamy ’as been done away with long ago when Utah was received into -the Union,” he answered in a gruff way. - -“And what happened to the other wives when it was abolished?” asked -some one else very softly. But the guide did not reply. Instead he -began to hurry us out of the building. We had only seen a third of -it and were loth to go. But there was nothing for it. We managed to -get a last glimpse of an assembly hall with large frescoes on the -walls, depicting Christ distributing the Bread and the Wine to the -Mound-Builders, or Indians of South America, and underneath was written -III. Nephi 15. Another fresco had reference to the Book of Josiah, -which is part of Mormon Holy Writ--found by Joseph Smith, written on -gold plates. - -The guide hurried us to the door. “I’ve some pictures of the Temple -for sale,” said he to the farm-women. But they seemed all to have been -scared by my question about polygamy. Vachel and I stopped to look -at the pictures. After all, they were only picture-postcards of the -exterior. We bought three. - -“Good-b’ye,” said I. “And much obliged.” And I offered him my hand. He -gave me his left. - -“Good-b’ye,” said Vachel. “Most interesting.” And he offered him his -hand. The guide gave him his left also. - -“A left-handed shake,” said Vachel, meditatively, as we went down the -steps. “You know what that means.” - -“No?” - -“That means--Go to Hell!” - - * * * * * - -WE were much intrigued by all this, and found out that Adam is God -to the Mormons, and Christ only one of a series which culminated in -Brigham Young. Mormonism is the story of a passionate sensual man -with a fake religion, a leader, however, of men and women, capable of -starting a church, murdered and then succeeded by the great Brigham. -The Mormon community, persecuted ever, loathed and detested yet -not destroyed, plunged ever westward through the deserts with new -revelations all the way, always, however, being overtaken by the tide -of other pioneers and chased again. They were secret, and wanted to -be secret. But the United States always overtook them. Now they have -compromised in many ways and are not persecuted, and they multiply and -spread and propagandise. They are disciplined. In politics they all -vote one way--as ordered. They begin to be proud of America. - -Vachel and I went up to the Temple at night. It looked like a place -produced by enchantment--the highest thing on the highest eminence -of the widespread but low-built city of Cardston. Clouds hid the top -of it. There was no one near but ourselves, apparently not even a -watchman. The massive gates were locked and barred, and above them -gleamed electric lanterns in large and graceful M’s. - -We have learned an elementary lesson about them. - -“Remember that, Vachel,” said I. “M for Mormon.” - -“The guide said a true word,” said the poet. “God sent us into the -world that we might have an experience.” - - * * * * * - -WITH that our tramping ended. We left our pine-staffs leaning against a -Cardston wall. We slept in beds again and bought our coffee at a shop. -Gathering prose invaded the clear blue of our poetry. Some sadness, -like a shadow, settled on us. And it was good-b’ye to the mountains. - -[Illustration] - - _Thy Kingdom come, O Lord, - As once it came, - May it come again! - For once it came upon the mountains, - It came upon the wings of the morning - Amid the flowers and adown the streams. - It came into our eyes, - It came into our hearts. - Thy Kingdom come, O Lord, - As once it came, - May it come again!_ - - - - -[Illustration: THE WORLD IS MY PARISH] - - - - -XXXVIII. BLOOM FOR EVER, O REPUBLIC! - - -WE crossed the line again and returned to the United States. And then -we went to the city of St. Paul, and we saw the falls where Minnehaha -and Hiawatha met. We stood on the high bank of the Mississippi and -considered meditatively the mounds of the mound-builders there. What -more impressive symbol for a world-traveller than these pre-historic -mounds--there before the Indians came--emblems of the infinite -forgotten past of man! Then we went to Chicago. We saw the beautiful -Wrigley building which has risen to look from drab Chicago over -Michigan Lake--a building raised by the profits of gum! Vachel -introduced me to the first sponsor of his verse, Harriet Monroe, of -“Poetry,” and he described to me how he and W. B. Yeats once divided -the annual poetry prize of Chicago, and how he was to have read aloud -the prize poem--“General William Booth Enters Heaven,” but to the -surprise of the company assembled gave his new, hitherto unheard-of -work “The Congo,” a poem which at that time must have been dumfounding -in its novelty. Then Yeats, who seemed to have snubbed every one -including the poet himself, made a very generous speech in favour of -Lindsay’s genius. And we met Chicago’s poet, Carl Sandburg, a rugged -Scandinavian with brown hair who claimed me as a “Nordic” also. And he -carried a large and old guitar on which he thrummed when reciting his -poems. He has heard Negro Blues in the South, and loves the coloured -folk, and has a whole repertoire of blues which he will sing you if -you will. I had a glass of beer with Sandburg in Milwaukee, the only -glass of anything of the kind offered me this time in these dry United -States. I met Ridgely Torrance, gentle and whimsical, with one long -lock of hair on his head like a Russian khokhol. Curiously enough, he -also had been enchanted by the Negroes and knew more about them than -us all, and he read poetry to us. There I met beautiful Zona Gale of -Portage whom, it is said, nearly every literary man who ever met her -has at some time or other loved. And meeting Zona I met Lulu Bett. We -met delectable Isidora, once queen of Springfield, now queen of another -city. And we stayed with Mrs. William Vaughan Moody, widow of that -dramatist and poet who wrote “The Great Divide” and “The Fire-Bringer.” -We were a rough-looking couple to be a lady’s guests, but Harriet Moody -loves the whole writing world for her husband’s sake and took us in, -and I found in her what so many know--a vivid personality, endlessly -kind. And couldn’t she cook! We loved her for her poetry and we loved -her for her pies. - - * * * * * - -WE went to Springfield, Illinois, and there we had a general clean-up -and our mosquito netting came back from the laundry marked “Lace; two -pieces.” I visited all Vachel’s cronies and friends and acquaintances -and enemies, and there were articles about us in the _Register_ and -_Journal_ every day for a fortnight, and I spoke to the Radical Kaffee -Klatsch for the celebrated Isidor Levine, and to the Conservative -Luncheon Club for the ubiquitous Elmer Neale, and I spoke to the _Via -Christi_ class for Mrs. Lindsay, and to the High School for Vachel’s -old teacher, and to the readers in the Public Library for Martha -Wilson. I had all the books on Russia put on a table, and I discoursed -upon them. The most-read book was _The Brothers Karamazof_, which -looked as if it had been in every bed in Springfield. We went to the -Negro churches together; we talked to Charlie Gibbs the famous coloured -attorney. We were entertained by Mrs. Warren--Drinkwater’s Springfield -hostess. We could not visit the Governor--he was under arrest. But -we visited the unsuccessful candidate for the governship at the last -election. Vachel discoursed on small-town politics while Mrs. Sherman -made us meringues. The poet introduced me to his sweethearts, who were -of all ages, from twelve to eighty. I made friends with beautiful -little Mary Jane Allen, who danced and glided into and out of our -presence, and smiled at us and lifted her child’s heart to us. And we -called on “Judith the Dancer,” who taught little Mary Jane. Always -along the Springfield streets the sight of the children exhilarated my -companion--“Stephen, I just love them to death,” said he. - -I got to be very well known. I had a sort of royal progress in the -street, questioned and smiled at on all hands. “’Scuse me,” they would -say, “those boots, did you tramp in _them_?” or, “How d’ye do? My -little girl heard you give your talk in the school yesterday. She’s -full of it; it was _mighty_ good of you.” - -I came to love the people of this little city, and to see the place -with Vachel’s creative eyes. Surely no one ever encountered such -kindness, such real warmth of heart, as I did there. It was very moving -for one who had come right out of the bitterness and quarrels of Europe -and out of the loneliness of London. They know something about living -which we are forgetting. They taught me much, and the poet has taught -me much also--the bounty of good humour and of unfailing kindness and -warmth. I love those who’ve got the strength of heart to lift their -hands to take yours, who open their mouths actually to speak to you. - -So I cannot tell the poet what I owe him, and he says he cannot tell -me what he owes me. We made one final quest together, and that was -to Salem where Abraham Lincoln lived a poor man’s life, and learned -mathematics from Dominie Graham and fell in love with the daughter of -his landlord--unforgettable Anne Rutledge. And we paused before the -massive block of granite which marks Anne’s grave, strewn otherwise -with flowers, and refulgent with thoughts. And we read Masters’s -beautiful lines inscribed over the grave: - - I am Anne Rutledge who sleep beneath these weeds, - Beloved in life of Abraham Lincoln, - Wedded to him, not through union - But through separation. - Bloom for ever, O Republic - From the dust of my bosom! - -[Illustration] - - - - -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 TRAMPING WITH A POET IN THE -ROCKIES *** - -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. 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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 <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. 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. -</div> - -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Tramping With a Poet in the Rockies</p> -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Authors: Stephen Graham</p> -<p style='display:block; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em;'>Vachel Lindsay</p> -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Illustrator: Vernon Hill</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: May 1, 2022 [eBook #67960]</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</p> - <p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em; text-align:left'>Produced by: D A Alexander, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by University of California libraries)</p> -<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TRAMPING WITH A POET IN THE ROCKIES ***</div> - -<div class="figcenter hide"><img src="images/coversmall.jpg" width="40%" alt="" /></div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<h1>TRAMPING WITH A POET<br /> -IN THE ROCKIES</h1> - - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p class="ph1">BOOKS BY STEPHEN GRAHAM</p> -</div> - - -<p class="center"> -THE GENTLE ART OF TRAMPING<br /> -THE DIVIDING LINE OF EUROPE<br /> -IN QUEST OF EL DORADO<br /> -TRAMPING WITH A POET IN THE ROCKIES<br /> -EUROPE—WHITHER BOUND?<br /> -THE CHALLENGE OF THE DEAD<br /> -CHILDREN OF THE SLAVES<br /> -A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS<br /> -THE QUEST OF THE FACE<br /> -RUSSIA IN 1916<br /> -PRIEST OF THE IDEAL<br /> -THROUGH RUSSIAN CENTRAL ASIA<br /> -THE WAY OF MARTHA AND THE WAY OF MARY<br /> -RUSSIA AND THE WORLD<br /> -WITH POOR EMIGRANTS TO AMERICA<br /> -WITH THE RUSSIAN PILGRIMS TO JERUSALEM<br /> -CHANGING RUSSIA<br /> -A TRAMP’S SKETCHES<br /> -UNDISCOVERED RUSSIA<br /> -A VAGABOND IN THE CAUCASUS<br /> -ST. VITUS DAY</p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="titlepage"> -<p><span class="xxlarge"> -TRAMPING WITH A POET<br /> -IN THE ROCKIES</span></p> - -<p>BY<br /> -<span class="xlarge">STEPHEN GRAHAM</span><br /> -AUTHOR OF “EUROPE—WHITHER BOUND?”</p> - -<p>WITH THIRTY-EIGHT EMBLEMS BY<br /> -<span class="large">VERNON HILL</span></p> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_title.jpg" alt="" /></div> - - -<p><span class="large">D. APPLETON-CENTURY COMPANY</span><br /> -INCORPORATED<br /> -NEW YORK <span class="gap"> LONDON</span><br /> -1936</p> -</div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> -<div class="chapter"> -<p class="center">COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY<br /> -D. APPLETON AND COMPANY<br /> -<br /> -<i>All rights reserved. This book, or parts<br /> -thereof, must not be reproduced in any<br /> -form without permission of the publisher.</i><br /> -<br /> -<br /> -PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA</p> -</div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_v">[v]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">PREFACE</h2> -</div> - - -<p>Vachel Lindsay is the poet. He is best known -as the author of <i>General William Booth Enters -Heaven</i>, <i>The Congo</i> and <i>Johnny Appleseed</i>. He -also wrote a highly comical piece called <i>The Daniel -Jazz</i>. He is a wonderful reciter, and is aided -by a sonorous, heaven-reaching voice. All his -poems are written to be read aloud, chanted, or -declaimed; in some cases they are written to be -danced also, and played as games. In many of -his recitations the audience is called upon to take -part in choruses and refrains. Thus, in one poem, -when Lindsay says, “I’ve been to Palestine,” the -audience as one man has to cry back to him, “<i>What -did you see in Palestine?</i>” This is rapturously -enjoyed by the audience. When you have heard -the poet you can well understand that he did not -starve when he used to tramp in America and -recite to the farmers for a meal and a night’s -lodging. He has gained a great popularity.</p> - -<p>He is, however, something more than an entertainer. -He has a spiritual message to the world, -and is deeply in earnest. In a large experience of -men and women in many countries, I have rarely -met such a rebel against vulgarity, materialism,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_vi">[vi]</span> -and the modern artificial way of life. At the -same time, despite his poetry, he is almost inarticulate. -He has helped me, and here in a way I -help him by giving in a new form part of the -richness of his thoughts and his opinions.</p> - -<p>Vachel Lindsay visited England in 1920, and -recited his poems at Oxford and Cambridge and -to several groups of friends in London. His -mother, Catharine Frazee Lindsay, who accompanied -him, was a notable woman in Springfield, -Illinois, in religious and progressive activities. -She succumbed to an attack of pneumonia this year. -But those who met her in this country recognised -in her a remarkable figure. At Vachel’s invitation -I visited Springfield last summer, and we went to -the Rockies, and tramped together to Canada, -and this volume is a record of our holiday. A -mutual friend of ours is Christopher Morley, who -brought us together in 1919. When he heard of -our projected expedition he interposed to get some -letters for the New York <i>Evening Post</i>. Some -thirty-two of these were written, mostly by the -camp fire or sitting on the rocks in the sun, and -were printed in the <i>Post</i>, where they attracted -considerable attention. “Centurion” in the <i>Century -Magazine</i> for August wrote: “Mr. Lindsay -and Mr. Graham are having a glorious time. As -for those of us who must spend the dog-days in -stuffy cities and stuffier offices, the picture of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_vii">[vii]</span> -two of them by a camp fire in the Rockies waking -to the freshness and glory of a mountain dawn is—well, -if there are no future issues of the <i>Century -Magazine</i>, you may be sure that the entire -staff, inspired by this example, has started vagabonding.” -Another, a facetious scribe, wrote: -“It is conceded by every one that Stephen Graham’s -<i>Tramping with a Poet</i> will some day stand -on the shelf of open-air literature beside <i>Travels -with a Donkey</i>.”</p> - -<p>My thanks are due to the representatives of the -Great Northern Railway of America, at St. Paul, -who gave us a wonderful collection of pictures, -maps, and books, when they heard we were going, -on the subject of Glacier Park, which we tramped -through. In fact, the railway company would -have done a great deal for us, but we eluded their -kind care, as was our wish, and got out entirely -on our own.</p> - -<p>As Vachel Lindsay was an art student before -he was a poet, and wrote his first verses as scrolls -to be illuminated below emblematic figures, we -naturally discussed emblems and emblematic art -and hieroglyphics as we tramped together. The -emblems in this book are an attempt to express -that side of our mutual experience. They have -been done by my friend, Vernon Hill, who drew -once that very precious work, “The Arcadian Calendar.”</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_viii">[viii]</span>One of the poems is by “Rusticus,” who, anent -our adventures, contributed it to the New York -<i>Evening Post</i>.</p> - -<p>A last point: Vachel is pronounced to rhyme -with Rachel, and is spelt with one l. It does not -rhyme with satchel. The poet asked me to tell -you that.</p> - -<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Stephen Graham</span></p> - - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_ix">[ix]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">CONTENTS</h2> -</div> - -<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="2" summary="table"> - - -<tr><td class="tdr"><small>CHAPTER</small></td><td class="right" colspan="2"><small>PAGE</small></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">I.</td><td> <span class="smcap">Tramping Again</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_1"> 1</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">II.</td><td> <span class="smcap">Finding the Poet</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_7"> 7</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">III.</td><td> <span class="smcap">Taking the Road</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_14"> 14</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">IV.</td><td> <span class="smcap">First Nights Out</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_21"> 21</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">V.</td><td> <span class="smcap">Going Up to the Snow</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_28"> 28</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">VI.</td><td> <span class="smcap">Different Ways of Going Downward</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_34"> 34</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">VII.</td><td> <span class="smcap">Silenced by the Mountains</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_40"> 40</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">VIII.</td><td> <span class="smcap">Night and Nothing on the Mountains</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_47"> 47</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">IX.</td><td> “<span class="smcap">Wife, Give Me the Pain-Killer</span>”</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_54"> 54</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">X.</td><td> <span class="smcap">Clear Blue</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_62"> 62</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XI.</td><td> <span class="smcap">National Wilderness</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_71"> 71</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XII.</td><td> <span class="smcap">Going West</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_77"> 77</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XIII.</td><td> <span class="smcap">Climbing Red Eagle</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_82"> 82</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XIV.</td><td> <span class="smcap">Doing the Impossible</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_89"> 89</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XV.</td><td> <span class="smcap">People in Camp</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_95"> 95</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XVI.</td><td> <span class="smcap">Visited by Bears</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_101"> 101</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XVII.</td><td> <span class="smcap">Lindsay’s Stone Coffee</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_108"> 108</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XVIII.</td><td> <span class="smcap">Making Maps of the World</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_114"> 114</a><span class="pagenum" id="Page_x">[x]</span></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XIX.</td><td> <span class="smcap">A Mountain Point of View</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_121"> 121</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XX.</td><td> <span class="smcap">By the Camp Fire</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_127"> 127</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XXI.</td><td> <span class="smcap">Down Cataract Mountain</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_133"> 133</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XXII.</td><td> “<span class="smcap">Go West, Young Man</span>”</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_139"> 139</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XXIII.</td><td> <span class="smcap">The Sun-Worshippers</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_146"> 146</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XXIV.</td><td> <span class="smcap">Two Voices</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_151"> 151</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XXV.</td><td> <span class="smcap">Stopped by the Clouds</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_158"> 158</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XXVI.</td><td> <span class="smcap">Lindsay on Roosevelt</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_165"> 165</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XXVII.</td><td> <span class="smcap">The Willows</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_171"> 171</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XXVIII.</td><td> <span class="smcap">Johnny Appleseed</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_177"> 177</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XXIX.</td><td> <span class="smcap">Log-Rolling</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_184"> 184</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XXX.</td><td> <span class="smcap">Toward the Kootenai</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_190"> 190</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XXXI.</td><td> <span class="smcap">As the Sparks Fly Upward</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_196"> 196</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XXXII.</td><td> <span class="smcap">The Star of Springfield</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_201"> 201</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XXXIII.</td><td> <span class="smcap">Flat Top Mountain</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_213"> 213</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XXXIV.</td><td> <span class="smcap">Crossing the Canadian Line</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_221"> 221</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XXXV.</td><td> <span class="smcap">The Difference</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_231"> 231</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XXXVI.</td><td> <span class="smcap">Dukhobors</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_239"> 239</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XXXVII.</td><td> <span class="smcap">A Visit to the Mormons</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_247"> 247</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XXXVIII.</td><td> “<span class="smcap">Bloom For Ever, O Republic!</span>”</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_274"> 274</a></td></tr> -</table> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p class="ph2">TRAMPING WITH A POET<br /> -IN THE ROCKIES</p> -</div> - - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_1">[1]</span> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_001.jpg" alt="" /></div> -<p class="caption">HAIL TO ALL MOVING THINGS</p> - -<h2 class="nobreak">I. TRAMPING AGAIN</h2> -</div> - - -<p><span class="smcap">Well</span>, it’s good to be going tramping again. -I’ve been sitting in European cafés and reading -newspapers half a year, from Constantinople to -Berlin, and I’ve only stretched my legs when -in strange cities I needed to find a hotel, -beating it pleasurelessly on asphalt. Last -autumn, yes, I was tramping over the ruins -and wreck of the war in France, and the year -before that walked across Georgia on the track<span class="pagenum" id="Page_2">[2]</span> -of old Sherman. But with a purpose, and in -lands where after all there are hotels, and one -pulls the blinds down when the stars appear.</p> - -<p>But now I’ve had a real call from Hesperus -and the wilds, and am off with a knapsack and -a pot and a blanket, and a free mind—yes, and, I -confess, a few yards of mosquito netting. I’ve left -a notice, “Not at home,” at my Soho flat, though -I don’t spend much time there, anyhow; “Back in -half an hour or so,” and there are already -four thousand miles between my arm-chair and -me.</p> - -<p>And as I hasten to the West the link stretches, -stretches. Not that my flat could ever be lasting -home. Where the lady of your heart is, there is -home! And where is she not? The worst thing -man ever did to man was to nail him down. So -hail to all things and men which move and keep -moving.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p><span class="smcap">I am</span> called by one of the most wonderful -men who ever broke silence with a song. -He belongs to the same sub-species. Yes, -a tramping species. His hat has got a hole in -it, and so have his breeches. But he is a poet, -and he sings of what the world will be when<span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[3]</span> -the years have passed away. He can charm -a supper out of a farmer with a song. And I -who have tramped without music know what -a miracle that is. They always said to me, -“Chop this wood,” or “Turn that hay,” or -“If a man do not work, then neither shall he -eat.”</p> - -<p><i>Grande erreur</i>, Mr. Farmer!</p> - -<p>“Well, <i>I</i> can’t take to the road,” says -Mrs. Farmer. “Look at me!—it’s wuk, wuk, -wuk, all day!” Mrs. Farmer was born on a -Saturday. I always feel sorry for Saturday’s -children. They were born a day before I was. -For I was born on a Sunday. How sadly we -used to intone it when we were children—“Saturday’s -child works <i>hard</i> for his living!” -And then the relief, “But the child who is -born on the good Sunday, is happy and loving -and blithe and gay.” That is the tramp-baby, -born on the day of rest.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p><span class="smcap">I am</span> sitting at this moment in the St. Louis -train heading for Missouri. The little negro -marionette with set smile and the borrowed -voice of a ventriloquist has offered coffee, ice-cream, -oranges, without response, and now the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">[4]</span> -car-conductor has just put into my hand a -tract. It is entitled “Millions Now Living -Will Never Die,” and costs 25 cents.</p> - -<p>“The emphatic announcement that millions -now living on earth will never die must seem -presumptuous to many people; but when the -evidence is carefully considered I believe that -almost every fair mind will concede that the -conclusion is a reasonable one.” So the book -begins. And you who are spiritually a citizen -of Missouri will doubtless require, like doubting -Thomas of old, to be shown the very truth in -substance and reality.</p> - -<p>But the car-conductor has made a mistake. -I have not read this book, but I believe. -Though I have not seen, I believe and am -blessed. And though in the Missouri train, -I am not going to Missouri. I am stepping -off at Flora, Illinois, to catch the Beardstown -local train to Springfield, which unlike St. -Louis and Jerusalem and Capernaum, and -perhaps more like Tyre and Sidon, is a city -of faith where they have bread from heaven -to eat.</p> - -<p>Not that I am staying in Springfield. But -there I pick up the poet. That is where he<span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[5]</span> -haunts—“where Lincoln dreamed in Illinois.” -The poet thinks that the world could be regenerated -from a centre in Illinois—this -beautiful state upon which Chicago has thought -fit to rear its awful form.</p> - -<p>Some one of Illinois, not the poet, wrote to -me, “What do you think of Springfield as a centre -of world thought?” Now I know the craze of -“Boost your home town” can be, and often is, -carried to excess, and little Springfield is not even -on a main line from New York. But neither -is Bethlehem nor the human heart. If you -want to regenerate your wicked world you can -begin here and now—or, to use the language of -the country, put your hand to your bosom -and say it—“<i>You can begin right here.</i>” And -then, to quote the poet himself, you will -have—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse">Crossed the Appalachians,</div> -<div class="verse">And turned to blazing warrior souls</div> -<div class="verse">Of the lazy forest.</div> -</div></div> - -<p>Springfield will not hold us. But we shall -take Springfield with us. We are going to -take it in our hearts and place it on the top -of the Rocky Mountains, at the Triple Divide,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[6]</span> -where the waters of the new world flow north -and east and west—</p> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_006.jpg" alt="" /></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse"><i>Going tramping again,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Going to the mountains,</i></div> -<div class="indent2"><i>To recapture the stars,</i></div> -<div class="indent2"><i>To meet again the nymphs of the fountains.</i></div> -<div class="indent2"><i>To visit the bear,</i></div> -<div class="indent2"><i>To salute the eagles,</i></div> -<div class="indent2"><i>To be kissed all night by wild-flowers in the grass!</i></div> -</div></div> - - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[7]</span> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_007.jpg" alt="" /></div> -<p class="caption">TO HEART’S DESIRE</p> - -<h2 class="nobreak">II. FINDING THE POET</h2> -</div> - - -<p><span class="smcap">Flora</span>, Illinois, where one changes for Springfield, -has a Main Street, and, like many a little -town of the Middle West of America, looks -rather self-consciously askance at visitors, like -the village that voted the earth was flat in -Kipling’s tale. For the novel of the hour is -called <i>Main Street</i> and is sold to hundreds -of thousands of people and read by every -American who reads anything, and is bitterly -or jocularly discussed at every tea-table. It<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[8]</span> -sheds a bright light on the life of a typical little -town in the Middle West. It names the town -Gopher Prairie—because the Middle West is -prairie land and the gopher-rats or marmots -live there in myriads in their little burrows. -The novelist seems to suggest that the people -themselves are a species of gopher, a little -people, limited of view, good-natured, of the -earth earthy, but always bobbing-up. Because -of the criticism implied in this novel the Middle -West would rather now be called the “Central -West.”</p> - -<p>These Main Streets, however, except for -the sophisticated eyes of a college girl inauspiciously -married, are probably not so bad -as the realist paints them. They are dull, but -genuine. They exhibit our modern civilisation -without too many shams. See the people -working in the heat. The minds of the young -are set on their dull jobs and not thinking of -drink or sex—it is sufficiently wonderful. There -are “Main Street” towns in every country in -Europe, and life is dull in them though adorned -by fights and drinks and “hussies”—but where -will you find such an unexhausted <i>élan</i> and -zest for the unornamented reality that America<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[9]</span> -affords? Where else moreover will you find -the working-men to-day working in silk shirts? -Life in Main Street seems worth while, at least -to those who live there.</p> - -<p>It’s a by-line from Flora to Springfield, and -you plough iron slowly through Illinois corn. -An old mechanical car-conductor with grey straw -hat and fat stubby face calls the stations one by -one in an outlandish accent which to a stranger -is entirely baffling. He collects the tickets, and -if you are for Springfield he puts a red check -in your hat-band; if you are for anywhere else -it is a white check. Springfield is now in the -mind’s eye as a large place and is printed everywhere -in big type. The Springfield <i>Register</i> -and the Springfield <i>Journal</i> make showing.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p><span class="smcap">I read</span> the newspapers and then tick off the -names of the stations on the printed time-table -of the B. and O. folder and patiently await -the city and its bard. A four-hour journey in -a slow train in England would seem intolerable, -but America has a different sense of time and -space, and a long time is not thought so long. -At last, in the late dusk, behold Springfield, -Illinois, and the unmistakable marble of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[10]</span> -poet’s face under a small black felt—“waitin’ -for me, prayin’ for me,” and certainly not really -believing in the act of faith which can bring -the mountain to Mahomet. In the literary -world when invitations are rife there is a golden -rule—<i>Promise everything and do just what you -like.</i> So one never really knows whether -“Yes, I’ll come,” means yea, yea or nay, nay.</p> - -<p>It meant yea, yea this time, and so, getting -out of the Beardstown local which pulled up outside -the station, behold—two strong men stand -face to face and they come from the ends of the -earth. Vachel Lindsay rasped out sentences -of welcome in broad Illinois and I replied in -whispering English, and we bundled along Fifth -Street for home. Then mother, of seventy -years, tiptoed and curtsied and smiled with the -roguishness of a young maid, and brought us -in. So we sit now on rocking-chairs and talk -while beads of moisture roll ticklingly adown our -brows, and it is home.</p> - -<p>Vachel is a poetical vagabond. I also am a -vagabond. There lies our common ground. -He is an old-fashioned hiker of the tramping -parson type. He leaves home, as it were to -post a letter, and does a thousand or so miles.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[11]</span> -He made a rule once to travel without money, -and he recited his poems to the farmers and their -wives for food and a night’s lodging. Like -Weston, who tramped with ice-blocks under his -hat and water streaming down his neck, he can -do his twenty miles a day over a long time and -has travelled some huge distances in his day. I for -my part hardly believe in tramping for tramping’s -sake, but in living with Nature for what that is -worth.</p> - -<p>To sleep under the stars, to live with the river -that sings as it flows, to sit by the embers of morning -or evening fire and just dream away time and -earnestness, to gather sticks to keep the old pot -a-boiling, to laze into the company of strangers -and slip out of their company in time, to make -friends with bird and beast, and watch insects -and grubs—to relax and to be; that’s my -idea of tramping. The blessed nights full of dew -or rain and breeze, the full length of a ferny bed -that Mother Earth provides—don’t they attract, -don’t they pull one away from the town! And -then the day, with celestial, unadvertised, unpaid-for -sunshine or shade, on the rocks, on the tufty -hills, beside tiny springs or stream on the stairs -of the mountains!</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[12]</span></p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p><span class="smcap">I had</span> an idea I was finding my poet at Springfield—well, -I know I shall not find him now till -we get to the wilderness. He is yet incarcerated -in the home town. He reflects in his soul the grey -walls and squat architecture of the city; his nerves -are still tied to the leading strings of audiences -and friends; his soul, like a rare singing bird lately -caught by the curious, flings itself against the bars -and pines for the wilderness. All is going to -go well with him and us, I surmise, and his -eyes will have mountains and stars in them, and -his nerves get free of strings and sink into their -natural beds for a rest, and his soul, that rarely -plumaged, wingéd wanderer ’twixt heaven and -earth—well, some one has come to open the cage -door and let him fly away, to heart’s desire.</p> - -<p>The world will have to send a fowler after -him with a net, if it wants to get him back. And -to find him—it will be “a long ways.”</p> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_006.jpg" alt="" /></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[13]</span></p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse"><i>The poet was in Fifth Street</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Mewed up as in a prison.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>He was moping in his bedchamber</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>All the day long</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Far from the mountains and the flowers,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>But see, a visitor has arrived</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>From strange parts.</i></div> -</div></div> - - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[14]</span> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_014.jpg" alt="" /></div> - -<h2 class="nobreak">III. TAKING THE ROAD</h2> -</div> - - -<p><span class="smcap">We</span> packed our knapsacks at Springfield, and -stowed away blankets and socks, a coffee-pot, -and a frying-pan. We bought at a ten-cent -store knife and fork and spoon, skillet, towels -which we sewed into sacks, mugs, and what -was labelled “The Mystic Mit—the greatest -discovery since soap for cleaning pots and pans.” -Lindsay had hobnails put in his old boots and -bought a handsome pair of corduroy breeches, -which, together with his old black hat, made -him look like a tramping violinist. Springfield<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[15]</span> -bade us farewell. We were one night in the -train to Chicago and travelled all day north to -St. Paul. We were then two nights and a day -crossing the great land ocean of Minnesota, -North Dakota, and eastern Montana—what -was once an unending stage-coach trail to the -West.</p> - -<p>“This is what I like,” said Lindsay—“the -prairie to the horizon, no fences, no stone walls, -as in New England. It is all broad and -unlimited; that is why since the days of -Andrew Jackson all the great politicians have -come from the West—the unfenced West. I’d -like to put all the Boston and New York people -out here on the plains and let the plain men run -the East.”</p> - -<p>To me, however, it looked a land of endless -toil as I saw it from train windows, and I -thought of the toiling pioneers and the Russians -in the Dakotas, the Swedes and the Germans -content to live and toil and be swallowed up at -last by the distances and the primitive. European -life-rivers have flowed into these deserts -and made them what they are. One day their -children perhaps will have a Western consciousness, -an American consciousness.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[16]</span><span class="smcap">We</span> stepped off the train at Glacier Park Station. -Some dozen women in khaki riding breeches -were waiting on the platform, and six or seven -people got out from the tourist and Pullman -cars to cross to the great log-built hotel opposite. -Then the train started again and toiled onwards -to the heights of the divide, whence, as Kipling -put it:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse">They ride the iron stallions down to drink;</div> -<div class="verse">To the canyons and the waters of the West.</div> -</div></div> - -<p>We spent a night at the hotel and were much -amused by the idea of a room with a bath in -such a place, and by the notice that you could -have your linen laundered in twenty-four hours. -There was dancing in the evening in an immense -hall lit by red Chinese lanterns and -adorned by bear-skins and Alaskan ornaments—a -fair company of people, too, though mostly -from the West.</p> - -<p>We, however, were eager for the road, and -set out next morning with blankets and provisions -and steered a north-westerly or west by -north-westerly course by our compasses, abjuring -trails and guides. Our idea was to obtain a -cross-section view of the Rockies in their most -primitive state unguided by convention. We<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[17]</span> -hoped to realise something of what America -was like for at least a hundred years after Columbus -discovered it. We were headed for the virgin -land.</p> - -<p>How quickly did we leave that hotel with its -“stopping over” crowd behind! In an hour we -were in the deep silence of the mountains encompassed -on each side by exuberant pink larkspurs -and blanket flowers and red paint-brush. -We clambered upward, ever upward, through -fresh, young, chattering aspens and then green -tangled pinewood—and then also through old -dead forests lying in black confusion, uprooted, -snapped, stricken, in heaps like the woods of the -Somme Valley. Then we walked through new -dead forests, burned only last year, and then -through brown scorched forests that did not burn, -but died merely of the great heat which their -neighbours’ burning had caused.</p> - -<p>We stepped from log to log and tree to tree, -making for the open and the light, with the -gaiety of troubadours, and Lindsay seemed -romantically happy. I also was happy, and -thought of the happy days before the war, when -I tramped in this fashion back and forth across -the Caucasus Mountains and along hundreds of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[18]</span> -miles of Black Sea shore. It was pure joy to -light the first fire and fry our bacon and make -our coffee in the full effulgence of the sun.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p><span class="smcap">Glacier National Park</span>, which we passed -through first, is a preserve. It is God’s holy -mountain on which no man may shoot. By -the laws you are not allowed even to frighten -a bird. You may not carry firearms into -the region. We were therefore not very -agreeably surprised to hear in the thickets the -whiz-ping of a gun which some Indians were -using. Lindsay nearly got a shot in the head -as he got up from luncheon. The fact is, -Glacier adjoins the Blackfeet Indian reservation, -and the Indians are all hunters by instinct and -preference. It is difficult to restrain them. -They are a gay, independent, and wild lot. -We saw a number of these men with an array -of plumes round their heads, steel padlocks in -their ears for ear-rings, cow-bells on their -sleeves, and chequer-work embroidery on their -gay vests and cloaks. They had with them -their squaws, fat and handsome women, all -swollen out and weather-beaten like fishwives, -with high cheek-bones and red-ochre faces.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[19]</span> -They danced together and skirled in wild -Asiatic strains while four intent ruffians in -ordinary attire beat upon one small drum with -sticks. I seemed to recognise in them some -sort of acquaintance to my old friends, the -nomads of Central Asia, the Kirghiz—the same -sort of faces and the same way of being musical. -I have had a similar musical entertainment -during weeks and months tramping in Turkestan -and Seven Rivers Land. Both Kirghiz and -Indians are dying out and both are red. I -was struck by the feminine expression of the faces -of the Indians and the absence of hair on -their lips and chins—as if their males were not -male.</p> - -<p>However, we soon left the Blackfeet behind, -and came out of their forests, and in late afternoon -stood high above the lovely length of -water which we identified as Medicine Lake.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_018.jpg" alt="" /></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[20]</span></p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse"> -<i>The Indians are dancing as we enter their paradise,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Our hearts are dancing too.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>We love the Indians because they never bent their backs</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>To slavery,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>To civilisation,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>To office-desks.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>What matter if they are dying out,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>They have at least lived once.</i></div> -</div></div> - - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[21]</span> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_021.jpg" alt="" /></div> - - -<p class="caption"> -I WENT TO A HOUSE<br /> -AND I KNOCKED AT THE DOOR<br /> -BUT THE OLD LADY SAID<br /> -I HAVE SEEN YOU BEFORE</p> - -<h2 class="nobreak">IV. FIRST NIGHTS OUT</h2> -</div> - - -<p><span class="smcap">We</span> spent our first night in a burned forest beside -a sunken pink and grey rock. There was a -green carpet of unblossoming flowers as green -and romantic as ideal spring, and beside it in contrast -the stark blackness of the charred trees all -up and down the hill. Hidden from view but -twenty yards away was a foaming rivulet with -pools.</p> - -<p>We bathed and we cooked and we talked -and we slept. A great mountain like God -Almighty in the midst of His creation was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[22]</span> -visible to us through the trees. We made our -beds soft by pulling the dead red foliage from -scorched trees and heaping it under our blankets -beside the pink rocks. Lindsay made hot a -large stone in the embers of our fire to keep -him warm. So we lay down and waited for -the night. I looked through black masts -and great entanglements to the hills. Lindsay -faced a scorched section of the forest all hanging -in brown tresses. We listened to the stream -below, its music becoming every moment more -insistent. We knew that it would lull us all -night long.</p> - -<p>The mountain cloud then began to come down -and roll over the tree-tops, giving them ghostly -semblance. That passed, and the stars and the -moon appeared and stillness ruled. An hour before -dawn we were awakened by the sudden patter -of a shower of rain and it was followed by the -birth of a wind which came roaring along a ravine -and started all the air moving everywhere and all -the dead forest creaked and whined. It was our -signal to arise.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p><span class="smcap">Lindsay</span> rose like a young lion roaring, rrrah!... -and making the mountains echo with his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[23]</span> -roar. “Let us go up higher,” says he. I read -him this. “Put it, ‘Lindsay arose groaning and -grunting like a pig under a gate—and let people -choose,’” said the poet.</p> - -<p>He was in great spirits. “I have never been -so free. I start afresh. All is behind me. We’ll -tramp to the coast. We’ll tramp to Alaska. We’ll -do all the national parks, the same way,” were his -impulsive speeches.</p> - -<p>As we climbed aloft, following the North-west -by our wrist-compasses, and careless of -time and space, he sang a disreputable song belonging -no doubt to that disreputable past of his -when he hiked and begged and recited his poems -to farmers—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse">Why don’t you go to work</div> -<div class="verse">Like other men do?</div> -<div class="verse">How can we work when there’s no work to do?</div> -<div class="indent2">Hallelujah, on the bum!</div> -<div class="indent2">Hallelujah, bum again!</div> -<div class="verse">Hallelujah! Give us a hand-out</div> -<div class="verse">To revive us again!</div> -</div></div> - -<p>“You do look a real honest-to-God tramp -this morning,” said I in the language of the -country, “with your corduroys burst out at the -knees, old red handkerchief round your neck, and -devil-may-care look in your eyes.”</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[24]</span>We reached the top of a mountain where -there was a perfect “cyclorama,” as he called -it, and he balanced on his toes, and half closed -his eyes in his half upturned face, and turned -round and about like a teetotum. Last time I had -seen him do this was on the carpet of a London -drawing-room in Queen Anne’s Gate to the -strains of “<i>Let Samson be a-coming in to your -mind</i>.”</p> - -<p>This mountain was our first <i>ne plus ultra</i>, -for having got to the top of it there was only -one thing to do, and that was to go down -again. Lindsay tested the echoes from it with -“<i>Rah for Bryan!</i>” apparently his favourite -war-cry, and then as if in response a slim Indian -youth on horseback appeared and seemed much -amused by us. He was very red and swarthy, -with bright teeth, and rode his horse as if he -and it made one. He told us he knew all the -mountains and had been to the top of every -one except Rising Wolf, which had never been -climbed by any one. “It is called ‘Wolf gets -up’ in our language,” he explained, and pointed -to its snarling and menacing mass upstarting -through clouds. “A storm comes from the -mountain,” said he in warning, and passed on.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[25]</span> -He passed and we remained, and we saw no other -human being the whole day.</p> - -<p>“Just think of the children these flowers would -amuse,” said Lindsay. “Millions of flowers—and -the only human being we see is an Indian. I’d -like to write a song on it.”</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p><span class="smcap">But</span> the poetic mood passed. Thunderclouds rose -in spectral peaks behind the mountains. Mount -Helen grew dark and dreadful, and four phantasmal -Mount Helens appeared behind her, the -first of white mist, the second of lead, the third -of streaming cloud, the fourth of shadow. Rising -Wolf entered heaven; a howling, gathering, tumultuous -wind roared over all the pines of the -valleys and lightning like the glint of an eye -traversed the ravine. Clouds swept forward to -embrace us and indeed overtook us and soaked -us while we sat together on a downward slide and -sheltered under a blanket.</p> - -<p>The storm passed, but we got drenched to -our necks as we walked through dense undergrowth -downward to a strikingly prominent -clump of gigantic pines which from aloft we had -chosen as harbourage for the night. These lifted -their fine forms from immemorial heaps of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[26]</span> -old pine mould, soft and brown and porous. -There was a stream near them and we lit a great -fire by the water’s edge and hung out a line to -dry blankets, coats, pants, socks, and all we -possessed.</p> - -<p>The heat flew up in armfuls of smoke, in -showers of sparks, up to our sagging shirts and -heavy blankets. Sparks in hundreds lighted -on them, and went out or burned small holes. -We walked about like savages the while, -wresting dead wood to build ever higher the fire. -I pulled down a branch with a tree-wasp’s nest -upon it, and brought a cloud of wasps after our -bodies, and I paid the penalty in a sting. Thus, -however, we dried everything, and we were able -at last to make a dry bed in a wet place. -But rain came on again at night, and in the intense -darkness under the giant pines we lay and -heard it, and slept, and then waked to hear it -again.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_018.jpg" alt="" /></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[27]</span></p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse"><i>If it rains in the town and if you get caught in the rain</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>And soaked to the bone—ah what a calamity!</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>You must have a hot bath, and take some hot toddy;</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>You must swallow an aspirin and sleep under blankets,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Whilst your clothes on two chairs by the fire will be drying;</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>You must put on dry clothes in the morning.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>It’s different in the mountains,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>You can sleep wet and wake wet,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>And dry when the weather gets drier,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>That’s more fun: try it.</i></div> -</div></div> - - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[28]</span> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_028.jpg" alt="" /></div> -<p class="caption">SERAPHICAL SUNRISE</p> - -<h2 class="nobreak">V. GOING UP TO THE SNOW</h2> -</div> - - -<p><span class="smcap">It</span> cleared up before dawn, but it rained for -three hours after dawn. Vachel got up in the -night and relit the fire and made himself a hot -rock. Coming back into our dark and gloomy -thicket, he mistook my form for a bear, and his -heart jumped. We lived in expectation of -meeting bears. “There’ll just be one heading -in the <i>Illinois Register</i>,” says Vachel—“<span class="smcap">Ate -by Bears</span>.” We placed our bacon twenty<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[29]</span> -yards away from where we slept, and hoped -tacitly that they would take the bacon and spare -us.</p> - -<p>Our knapsacks weighed double next morning -because of the wet in our things. We got -wetter still as we ploughed out through flower -fields of a drowned paradise. But an hour -before noon the sun broke free and started a -miraculous drying of Nature and of ourselves. -We seemed to cook in the steam of our own -clothes. On the hillside, at last, we decided to -rest and we spread out everything to dry, dispensing -with most of our clothes, and we lay -in the sun in the hot damp of the flowers and let -Old Sol stream into us.</p> - -<p>Early in the afternoon most of our clothes -were dry and, following the compass, we -climbed up and up to a great height through -primeval forest. The trees were so close that -often we could not squeeze between them with -our packs. We hustled and bustled and impolitely -pushed through branches and umbrage -and crossed tiny glades filled with ineffably -lovely basket grass, holding aloft their cream -crowns of blossom. It seemed to us a great -struggle, and Lindsay and I held different<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[30]</span> -opinions as to what we should find when we got -to the end of the wood, and both of us were wrong. -He thought it would be “the divide.” I thought -it might be another <i>ne plus ultra</i> and a sheer -descent.</p> - -<p>But instead it was a sort of end of the world. -Our primeval forest came sharply to an end -on a deep, green, wind-bitten line where the -branches of the trees were gnarled and twisted -and beaten downward. Beyond that was a -boulder-strewn upper-mountain region and a -wall of rock. We asked no questions as to -the morrow, but camped beside a huge stone. -It was twelve feet high, but one could creep -under it and be safe from the rain. And a few -feet away was our first snow-bank. We built -a big fire and made tea of melted snow, and -Lindsay made ice-cream of sugar and condensed -milk and snow which we voted very good, -and we made eight or nine hot rocks for our -bed.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p><span class="smcap">Because</span> of the mountain-wall above us sunset -took place at about four in the afternoon here. -But a beautiful evening endured long in the -east below us. We were so exalted that we<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[31]</span> -looked a hundred miles over the plains and -saw, as it were, the whole world picked out in -shadow and sunshine below. Sunset slowly -advanced over it all, and with reflected rays -from an unseen west the day passed serenely -away.</p> - -<p>Lindsay, being the colder man, slept under -the great boulder, and I smoothed out a recess -at the side. I lay beside scores of daintily -hooded yellow columbines and looked out to -the occasional licked-sweet redness of an Indian -paint brush. A chipmunk rudely squeaked -at us, and as a last visitor a humming bird -boomed over our heads like a night-awakened -beetle.</p> - -<p>We slept serenely. At two I awoke to see a -fleeting half moon, all silver, tripping homeward -over the high wall of the mountain with -attendant stars behind. But away in the east -there was a faint rose light over a bank of -darkness. The darkness slowly took sharp -contour, and the light that comes before the -light of day picked out ten or twelve lakes and -tarns which we had not noticed until then. -The darkness below the rose quivered with -lightning; the zenith clearness grew clearer<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[32]</span> -and clearer, and then, with uplifting hands of -glory and light, came seraphical sunrise.</p> - -<p>Our bonfire, which had burned red all night, -now burned a pallid yellow in the new light, -and we brought out our blankets into the open -and lay down and slept again in the increasing -light and warmth of the new day. Then -breakfast at seven and God’s in his heaven. And -we washed in the snow, and scores of curlews -screamed from rock to rock above us on the road -that we should take.</p> - -<p>“How new it all is!” said the poet. “It is as -if no one ever slept here before and wakened to -see what we see or to do the things we do.”</p> - -<p>Wrapped in our thoughts we put our packs on -our shoulders and meditatively turned our steps -to the downward-dropping corner of the mountain-wall -which obscured the adventures of the -new day.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_006.jpg" alt="" /></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[33]</span></p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse">We cut off the top of the snow with a sharp piece of slate,</div> -<div class="verse">And took the purer under-snow to make our coffee,</div> -<div class="verse">To make ice-cream:</div> -<div class="verse"><i>Fastidious creatures!</i></div> -<div class="verse">And then we stood in the snow-hole</div> -<div class="verse">And washed with warm water,</div> -<div class="verse">And rubbed ourselves all over with handfuls of sloppy snow—</div> -<div class="verse"><i>Disgusting old tramps!</i></div> -<div class="verse">The discreet birds watched us,</div> -<div class="verse">The chipmunks squeaked at us,</div> -<div class="verse">You didn’t see us.</div> -</div></div> - - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[34]</span> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_034.jpg" alt="" /></div> -<p class="caption">THE DOWNWARD WAY</p> - -<h2 class="nobreak">VI. DIFFERENT WAYS OF -GOING DOWNWARD</h2> -</div> - - -<p><span class="smcap">For</span> several days now we did not meet a -human being or see evidence of the existence -of one; nor, though continually imagining that -we had found a bit of a trail, did we find either -a footstep or a hoof-mark. “I’ve never been -before in a place where you did not see tin -cans,” said Lindsay. “Why, some of the -popular canyons of the West are literally filled -with cans. It is not only tourist parties that -leave them, but the cowboys live on canned -goods and fill the valley with their cans.”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[35]</span> -Another relief is the absence of advertisements, -of all the signs of modern civilisation. -You are given without reserve to America as -she was.</p> - -<p>“I don’t believe in class war,” says Lindsay, as -we turn the corner of the mountain-wall. “I believe -in the war of the mountain and the desert -with the town. Only the deserts and mountains -of America can break the business-hardened skulls -of the East.”</p> - -<p>He wants me to seek with him the source -of the American spirit in the mountains of the -West. However, reality confronts us and not -a dream. We see beyond the wall of the -mountain, terrace after terrace and cascade -upon cascade, gleaming upward on a sort of -endless stairway. To the first waterfall we -count eight bays of loose stone and shale. -We step from rock to rock, and as my legs -are longer this hinders Lindsay more than it -does me. He is all for diagonalising downward, -or even going straight down, and finding -an imaginary easier course skirting the edge -of the forest. We, however, try to keep our -level, but whether we wish it or no we slide downward -at each uncertain step.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[36]</span>At last we come to a bay of tiny, trickling -silt, so steep and smooth that a glass marble -might roll from the top of the mountain to -the bottom. Decent progress along this is -impossible, so we decide to toboggan to the -bottom, and seat ourselves on broad, flat stones, -and guiding ourselves with our hands go off -at a rare pace for that imaginary better way -at the skirting of the mid-mountain forest. -The device reminds Lindsay of an Indian -Government agent who had the task of supplying -the Indians with all they needed on their -reservation.</p> - -<p>There came, consigned to him, some very -large skillets or frying-pans, which the Indians -repeatedly refused to take away, having no -use for them. At last one day the chief came -in and gladly took away the lot. The agent, -curious to know what they were going to do with -them, went out to see. He found half the tribe -on the hillside and a very gay game in progress—Indians -sitting in the frying-pans and tobogganing -on the loose shale.</p> - -<p>We slid to the bottom like the Indians, but we -found no better way down there. The skirting -of the mid-mountain forest ran unevenly, now up<span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[37]</span> -three hundred feet, now down again, and it was -too arduous a way for us. “Let us go down -through the forest and seek a trail,” said my companion. -Once more we entered the primeval -crowd of vegetation, and like police hurrying to -some scene of accident, pushed our way through. -In half an hour we made good progress downward -and came to a sheer cliff over the rivulet -of the valley. The cliff was feathered with -pines, and we let ourselves down with our hands -from the tops of trees, from branches, from -stem to stem and trunk to trunk, to the verdant -pit of the stream. We clambered downward -like two curious Mowglis, but with large -humps on our backs, and the humps were our -packs. And how these packs of ours pulled -us about! We seldom touched earth with our -feet and therefore constantly slewed around -and dangled with our packs entangled in thick -growth.</p> - -<p>There was little to console the poet when the -water was reached, unless it was the mess of tea -we made on a fire on a dank, red rock standing -out of the stream. But he was all for fording -the water and for trying to find a better way on -the other side. This we did, and we climbed up<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[38]</span> -again and then we climbed down. And we found -no better way. For no one had been there before -us to make it for us.</p> - -<p>But we found beautiful quarters at last among -the snows and the waterfalls below the pass, and -we slept under innumerable stars, lulled by the -choruses of many waters. We made breakfast -at dawn and talked till it was warm. Vachel told -me of his past—how he had struggled always -against the downward way. People had said to -him, “You must make money. You must enter -a profession.” When as an art student he had -gained some power with the pencil, they had -said, “You must enter commercial art”; when as -poet he had been recognised, they had said, -“You must let us organise and commercialise -your gift, turn it into money for you.” -“They wanted to Barnumise me,” said my companion, -“and take me all over America as a -reciting freak. When I refused, they said, ‘You’ll -end in the poor-house,’ and I replied, ‘I -don’t care: show me the poor-house—let me -go to it.’” He had taken to the road to -regain his self-respect. He had gone without -any money, and in the hospitality and -kindness of the farmers he had won a personal<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[39]</span> -faith in the common man and a reliance -which was not merely on success. When -he harvested in Kansas for two dollars fifty a -day, that daily wage was like millions to him. -And now with me, when all the world was telling -him he must do thus and so, he was finding -in the wilderness of the Rockies a new means of -escape.</p> - -<p>“To-morrow,” said he, “we will climb right -away to the top and find the pass into new -country.”</p> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_039.jpg" alt="" /></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse"><i>Who said it was easier to go down,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Facilis decensus and the rest?</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>I’ll say it is more painful</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Than to go up.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>You think it was great fun a-sliding down the shale</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>On large flat rocks.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>But it leaves me cold,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>As the saying is,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>For the seat of my pants is much thinner.</i></div> -</div></div> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[40]</span></p> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_040.jpg" alt="" /></div> -<p class="caption">THEY OUTSTAYED US AND WILL OUTSTAY US</p> - -<h2 class="nobreak">VII. SILENCED BY -THE MOUNTAINS</h2> -</div> - - -<p><span class="smcap">My</span> companion’s secret thought is that he is a -Virginian. But how, since he was born in -Illinois and his parents in Kentucky? “I am -a follower of Poe and Jefferson,” he answers. -Kentucky was largely colonised from Virginia, -and the poet is ready to claim allegiance to the -chivalric, leisurely and flamboyant genius of the -South. “If only as a protest against the drab, -square-toed, dull, unimaginative America which -is gaining on us all,” he adds. He has a -passion for ideal democracy, and his great hero -of the hour as we stride over the rocks is John -Randolph, of Roanoke, who could enter Congress<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[41]</span> -with four hounds and a dog-whip and make -speeches to which all must listen. “America,” -Lindsay insists, “simply <i>needs</i> the flamboyant to -save her soul.” I suppose, because of that faith, -he also, Vachel Lindsay, the poet, is a flamboyant -genius.</p> - -<p>The higher we rose in the mountains the -more serious became our conversation. We -were silent only when we lost our breath. -Upon occasion, in this grand and lonely scene, -the poet would lift his voice so high that it -could have been heard on the mountain on the -other side of the valley. His enthusiasm -naturally lifted his resonant voice. His political -hero is John Randolph or Andrew Jackson, his -literary hero is Ruskin, his artist in marble is -Saint-Gaudens, his pet hobby is Egyptian -hieroglyphics, his passion is the road, and his -ideal is St. Francis. Tell it to the mountains -and the streams; tell it out! They hear and so -do I.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p><span class="smcap">Where</span> we stand is where never man has stood -before, or foot of man has trod, and the fresh -and virginal flowers on every hand look up at -us with mute surprise. We carry our argument<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[42]</span> -higher and higher. We sit and boil our pot -beside a bank of purple heather, exalted upon -the bare scarp of a sun-drowned mountain, and -crackling of roots in the fire blends with strident -Middle-West American. We pull up to the -black door of a great rock, and the splashing -of a cascade splashes through his vibrant -tones.</p> - -<p>At last, however, the mountains silenced us. -They outstayed us, and will outstay us. They -ate up our provisions, and swallowed our breath, -and beguiled us deceptively to climb higher. -“Upward and onward!” was invisibly written -on every crag. And we always expected to -get to the top in an hour. We finished the -coffee, we finished the milk, we finished the -bread, we finished the sugar. We got down to -a rasher of bacon a day and tea without sugar -and milk. Then even the much-loathed bacon -got finished, and the problem was to find a “camp” -and get more supplies. So we set ourselves seriously -to the task of finding a pass over the -range.</p> - -<p>The poet became much exhausted, and the -high altitude evidently affected him more than it -did me. We walked quarter-hours and rested<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[43]</span> -quarter-hours, and every time we rested we fell -fast asleep. I led up the steep inclines, and we -stopped every twenty paces and listened to our -breath, I to his breath, he to mine—<i>ao, ao, ao</i>—almost -a sob, and waited for the <i>ahoo</i> sound, which -meant that the lungs had filled again. After some -arduous hours in this wise, we came on our first -destitute afternoon, to our first topmost ridge. -A cold hurricane seemed to try to stop our final -conquest of it, and it went through our bodies like -swords. But when we exultantly bore through it -we came to a sheer precipice going down to a -narrow corridor which led always to the northward.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p><span class="smcap">Vachel</span> punctuates most of his remarks with a -wild native yell—“Whoopee Whuh!” but he -was down to a whisper now, and could no longer -move the mountains with a “Hurrah for Bryan.” -Silently and rather mournfully we diagonalised -downward to a far blue lake which was the -ultimate end of the valley, and the source of the -stream we had followed for days. Devastating -winds blew across us, and we watched how they -descended upon the surface of that lake and -tore it off in sprays and circles of water and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[44]</span> -steam. We found what seemed to be a horse trail -over the shingle, but it led to an extensive -field of snow, and we recognised only the footsteps -of a bear. The lake was not blue, but green -when we got near to it, and was banked on three -sides by snow.</p> - -<p>Said Vachel: “Here, Stephen, is the place to -catch a fish.”</p> - -<p>I said: “No, Vachel, this is just a snow-melt; -there never were any fish here.”</p> - -<p>“Nevertheless try!” said the poet.</p> - -<p>Now we had purchased fishing tackle, though -we had no rods. And Vachel had a large red -wooden grasshopper, and I had a large green -one.</p> - -<p>Vachel said: “You must throw your grasshopper -in, and I’ll go light a fire so as to be ready -to cook the fish.”</p> - -<p>So I fastened my fat green wooden gentleman -to the gut, and the gut to the line, and -attaching a stone, flung him in the air. Behold, -he flew like a grasshopper and disported -with the winds. But when he settled at -last on the surface of that green and snowy -lake, he always made a most rapid progress -toward the shore. I sailed him like a boat.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[45]</span> -No fish came, and even our faith remained -unrewarded.</p> - -<p>Was not this adventure prophetically put in -verses in <i>Alice</i>, where some one sent a message -to the fish, telling them, this is what I wish. And -the little fishes’ answer was—“We cannot do it, -sir, because,”—the little fishes, as was disclosed -later, were in bed.</p> - -<p>We sat down together in a place like the heath -in Macbeth, and the weird sisters were ready to -appear, had we been evil. The sun had set, winds -were blowing from four directions at the same -time, and it was bitterly cold. A tiny fire of roots -peeped at us and smoked and chattered, and we -tried hard to get warm at it. We looked at the -mountain-walls, we looked at our maps and compasses. -We thought of the night and of our -empty wallets and insides. “Just think of Broadway -at this minute,” said Vachel. “Still sweltering -in heat, not yet lighted up for evening pleasure.” -We felt far from civilisation, and sighed -at last for what we despised. “Or think of Piccadilly -and Shaftesbury Avenue,” said I, “all -a-swarm with the light-hearted summer crowd of -London.”</p> - -<p>“Well, we can’t sleep here,” said I at length.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[46]</span>“Let us make one last attempt to get over to the -other side.”</p> - -<p>Vachel seemed surprised, but agreed with alacrity: -“I’m for it,” said he.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_006.jpg" alt="" /></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse"><i>The greedy old mountains have been to our knapsacks</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>And eaten up most of our food.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>They’ve swallowed our breath and silenced our speech.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>But they haven’t broken our hearts.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>It takes more than a mountain to do that!</i></div> -</div></div> - - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[47]</span></p> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_047.jpg" alt="" /></div> -<p class="caption">IMPRISONED IN THE -VIEWLESS WINDS</p> - -<h2 class="nobreak">VIII. NIGHT AND NOTHING -ON THE MOUNTAINS</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">My</span> companion has a curious old-man-of-the-woods -appearance. It is not his loose red -handkerchief round his neck so much as his -hanging, dead-branch-like arms. His face sleeps -even when he is awake. He walks when he is -tired in a patient, dog-like way, treading in my -very steps. No ribald songs, now, of tramping<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[48]</span> -days—but as if hushed by the hills he croons ever -to himself—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse">O Beulah land, sweet Beulah land,</div> -<div class="verse">Lo, on thy topmost mount I stand,</div> -</div></div> - -<p>and in a sort of hymnal marching step, like -way-worn pilgrims, we take the trackless way -upward once again. And it is late twilight. -Sombre hope and patience dwell in our hearts as -we trudge, trudge upward.</p> - -<p>By slow stages we reach a new possible -pass, and every time we stop and turn round -and sit down to rest we face the lake. On -three sides the descent to the water is precipitous, -and an overhanging snow-crust goes -round. In the late light the surface of the lake -is a still, viscous green and the mountain above -it a calm blood-red. The snow patches on the -mountain are of fantastic shape and give an -idea of futurist designs. We stare at the patches -and see in one of them a ferocious white tiger, -stalking forward with a demented white cat on -its back. In another we see an Egyptian -figure, slender, with veiled features of awful -and eternal significance. These grow in the -dusk. The winds chase over us, and when<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[49]</span> -they pass there are moments of windlessness, and -we watch hurrying grey rags of clouds running -over the brow of the ridge above us and losing -themselves in thin air.</p> - -<p>It is a romantic climb. We support each -other up the steep, sitting down every twenty -paces in breathlessness. Vachel sits with his -head on my shoulder and I with my head on -his. In a minute or so we recover and sit up -straight, in the half darkness, and pick up flat -stones and try to make them skid over the -snow patches. For a moment I was taken -back to the romantic vein of “Parsifal” as I -saw it in Vienna, last May, and we were -Wagnerian pilgrims, toiling upwards in the -ecstacy of mystical opera. Somewhere below -us, in the lake, all the violins should sob and -croon together and aspire, yes, aspire and throb, -and the drums should start the gods to look at -us. But we treated the matter in light vein. “The -Bacon-eaters,” said Vachel <i>sotto voce</i>. “Seventh -reel.”</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p><span class="smcap">A mighty</span> final effort brought us to the top. -I shall not soon forget the dramatic sensation of -seeing the new sky which suddenly began to lift<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[50]</span> -itself into our view from out the other side of the -mountain, a sky with more light, for it lay in the -West. It was as if the prison-wall of the mountain -had been thrown down and that which prisoners -dream about and rave about had been -given us.</p> - -<p>And there was a way down. It was night and -nothing, but we found a narrow gully on the other -side, five or six feet broad, two or three thousand -feet down, and an appalling steepness. This gully -was all loose stones and boulders which the slightest -touch sent clattering or thundering to the -bottom. We were nerved to the descent by what -we had gone through and by our joy at finding a -way out.</p> - -<p>I took the lead, clutched the rock wall for support, -and began to slip downward, tentatively and -cautiously. But directly I started, a wonderful -thing occurred. I found the whole body of loose -stones under my feet moved with me, and I began -a progress as on a moving staircase, down, down, -down, as in Jules Verne’s <i>Journey to the Centre -of the Earth</i>—easily, steadily. Pleasure in this -was, however, rudely disturbed. Lindsay had -started downward behind me and was naturally -starting a movement of rocks on his own, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[51]</span> -suddenly a leg-breaking boulder flew past on my -track with dumfounding acceleration. I climbed, -therefore, away from the moving staircase into a -cleft of the rock and waited for the poet to draw -level.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p><span class="smcap">It</span> was dark night now, and as the rocks from -Lindsay’s feet rushed past they struck bright -sparks in the gloom. How they crashed! How -they thundered and lurched and thumped, and -thumped again, and thudded into the abyss below, -and how the little stones rattled after them! We -agreed to go downward in short spells, one at a -time, and then go into shelter and wait till we -drew level again. And as we sat side by side in -the gloom we looked to the great mountains on -the other side of the new valley and discerned a -colossal figure nine in snow, staring at us out of -the darkness. It was eerie. It needed a deal of -nerve to go on.</p> - -<p>And we did not go much further. At one -point I thought I saw two human beings, or -they might have been bears, struggling slowly -upward toward us. I shouted to them and -they stopped. But they made no reply and -just glowered menacingly upward. That was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[52]</span> -the end for me. I would go no further. I gave -the halloo to Lindsay and got into shelter. He -came down the way I had come, laboriously, cautiously, -like some weather-beaten old soldier, a -skulker from beyond human ken. And he also -desired to do no more that night. So we lay in -a lair of a beast on the brink of a sheer cliff, far, -as it happened, above mist and cloud and a rain -that was falling below, and slumbered the night -away.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_006.jpg" alt="" /></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse"><i>The Guardsman and the Western Bard</i><a id="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></div> -<div class="indent"><i>Went hiking hand in hand.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>They felt uplifted much to see</i></div> -<div class="indent"><i>The prospects wide and grand.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>“A thousand leagues,” said one, “Oh Steve,</i></div> -<div class="indent"><i>From any boardwalk band.”</i></div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse"><i>“How fine the air, immense the view!</i></div> -<div class="indent"><i>The trees are large and green.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>See! Here are glades and crystal rills,</i></div> -<div class="indent"><i>And every scent and petal fills</i></div> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[53]</span> -<div class="verse"><i>Our souls with pure ecstatic thrills.</i></div> -<div class="indent"><i>Afflatus holds the scene!”</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>The Guardsman pointed to the sun.</i></div> -<div class="indent"><i>“It’s supper time, I mean.”</i></div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse"><i>And as they munched the cracker thin</i></div> -<div class="indent"><i>And quaffed eau naturel,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>The gates of heaven were oped—and all</i></div> -<div class="indent"><i>Its liquid contents fell.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>They felt the truth that bards have sung:</i></div> -<div class="indent"><i>Heaven is a limpid well.</i></div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse"><i>Then night came on, that covers all</i></div> -<div class="indent"><i>Of high and mean degree,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>The king, the clown, the russet gown,</i></div> -<div class="indent"><i>The land, the clouds, the sea.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>“And yet I scarcely feel,” said one,</i></div> -<div class="indent"><i>“It really covers me.”</i></div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse"><i>Long time they sought sweet slumber’s balm,</i></div> -<div class="indent"><i>Kind antidote to care.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>“O soft embalmer,” was their psalm</i></div> -<div class="indent"><i>That filled the mountain air.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Embalmer! Something rough in pine</i></div> -<div class="indent"><i>Was as all they wanted there.</i></div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse"><i>A chilly dawn illumed the East,</i></div> -<div class="indent"><i>Most wonderfully wet.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>And evermore their pangs increased,</i></div> -<div class="indent"><i>Nor heaven’s libations ever ceased ...</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>(No further messages released</i></div> -<div class="indent"><i>They’re on that mountain yet).</i></div> -</div></div></div> - - - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1" class="label">[1]</a> Contributed by “Rusticus” to the <i>New York Evening Post</i> -at this point in our adventures.</p> - -</div> - - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[54]</span> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_054.jpg" alt="" /></div> -<p class="caption">WHEN HE -IS IN PAIN -HE CALLETH -FOR THE BOTTLE</p> - -<h2 class="nobreak">IX. “WIFE, GIVE ME -THE PAIN-KILLER”</h2> -</div> - - -<p>“<span class="smcap">I suffered</span> forty-seven separate chills,” said -the poet. “And forty-seven separate cramps,” -said I. Did we sleep? Six hours passed -somehow and it seemed not so long as waiting -that time for a train or for a theatre to open. -Lindsay lay in a sort of hole. I lay with my -head half over the abyss. I watched the stars -swim out of the clouds above. I saw the -blackness of the bottomless below us become -grey as the clouds formed there. Lindsay cried -out once: “I’m getting up to light a fire.”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[55]</span> -“Impossible!” I rejoined. “There’s no wood, and -no place to light it.”</p> - -<p>“I am afraid the clouds are below us; we may -have to stay up here all day,” I whispered, an -hour before dawn. But it was all the same to -the poet, whose thoughts were entirely in the -present.</p> - -<p>Destiny, however, was kind to us. The -clouds at last lifted and drifted, and angels -at sunrise lifted white curtains and smiled -at us.</p> - -<p>A couple of old woe-begone weather-beaten -tramps lifted themselves up cautiously and -peeped at the wilderness. Last night’s nerve -had gone. With backs bent, and sometimes -on hands and knees, they picked their way -gingerly down to the far snow dump beneath, -to the first wind-missed bits of mountain forest, -to the first tinkling stream, and to the first -chalice anemones and pink paint-brush flowers. -We washed and we dressed, and we slept and -washed again, and put snow inside our hats—for -the morning had become rapidly hot—and -we descended. The streamlet foamed down its -rocky bed, and we waded and jumped and clung -to its sides. And other streams flowed into it<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[56]</span> -and made it deeper and the current stronger, and -it splashed us above the waist. We waded knee-high -through pools where shadowy fishes darted, -and we sat to rest on shiny rocks in the water -and talked of desirable foods. We scanned the -map of the Geological Survey and stared at our -compasses and considered the contours of the hills, -and at length were rewarded by the sight of a -real human horse trail with indisputable hoof-marks -upon it.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p><span class="smcap">We</span> found this in the afternoon, and for three -hours followed doggedly, without meeting a -soul. At last, to our great joy, we came upon -a trivial enough thing, and that was a piece of -candy wrapping. “Those who eat candy do not -stray far from the place where candy was bought,” -said I sententiously.</p> - -<p>“Well argued, sir,” said Lindsay. “I fully -agree.”</p> - -<p>And, indeed, before sunset the happy augury -was fulfilled, and we found a camp much used -by Montana fishermen. Curiously enough, -though all other wild things are preserved in -the National Park, the fishes are allowed to be -caught. In our opinion, however, after some<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[57]</span> -experience, the fishes do not stand in need of -protection.</p> - -<p>At the camp we resumed acquaintance with the -human race in the person of the keeper and his -wife, a fire-ranger, and a hired maid called Elsie. -They filled up our cans and gave us a pail of boiling -water to wash our clothes, and thread for -our trousers and coats, and a week’s rations to -take us to “The Sun.” They were disappointed -that we would not buy bacon.</p> - -<p>“Bacon,” said the camp keeper, “is my long -suit.” But Vachel vowed he had gone over to -the Mosaic point of view, and didn’t care if he -never tasted bacon again.</p> - -<p>Instead, we “filled up” with corn-beef hash -and took into our packs raisins and grape-nuts -and butter; double quantities of bread and -sugar and milk, and nine packets of comforting -lozenges. And we saw by the Spokane -<i>Advertiser</i> of some remote date that the King -and Queen of England had been to Ascot races -in person, and no one knew what was happening -in Ireland, or whether De Valera was a Protestant -or a Catholic, and the fire-ranger confessed -he did not know the ins and outs of -Sinn Fein. And no, there had not been a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[58]</span> -forest fire this year yet, though he evidently lived -in hope.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p><span class="smcap">So</span> the poet and I fortified ourselves materially -and spiritually, and set off again for the North-west. -We started on our new rations and had -one of the most jovial of meals in a place where -evidently people had once camped before. We -found the charred circles of old camp-fires in -the grass.</p> - -<p>While we were resting under the trees, and -in the gleam of the firelight, Vachel told me the -story of how once, in Kansas, he “ate down” his -landlord. He had hired himself out with a gang -of others to harvest the wheat on the land of a -certain German farmer. All the week-days they -“piled the golden sheaves,” and it was a red-hot -July. The men ate as much as they were able, -slept in barns on the hay when the day was done, -slept like the dead, rose with the dawn, and certainly -did bring in the wheat. For this they got -two dollars fifty a day and were proud of their -gains.</p> - -<p>On Sunday, however, work was suspended, -and the gang just lazed and dozed and ate. -The German was a pious Catholic, and said a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[59]</span> -longish grace before and after meals. As the -gang were rather sheepish regarding religion, -they generally let one course pass, just to avoid -the grace, and came slouching in as the meal went -on. But Vachel started in with the first grace, -right level with the farmer himself. Whatever -he had Vachel had. He had several helpings of -everything on the table, and as each of the ten -harvest hands came in Vachel started afresh with -him, and as he had hash he had hash. As each -man thought he had done, he slunk out so as to -avoid the second grace. The farmer kept piously -waiting for all the men to get finished, and helping -himself with them, too, just for company.</p> - -<p>At last all seemed to have finished and gone, -and the farmer was about to pronounce the -final blessing when he had an afterthought and -took another piece of pie. So Vachel also took -another piece of pie. Then mechanically the -last grace was said. “I went over to the barn -and lay down and slept,” says Vachel. “By -supper time I was ready for another meal, and -I sat down again with the farmer before the -rest of the gang had arrived and grace was -said. The farmer was about to help himself<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[60]</span> -when suddenly he paused, spoon in hand, and -sat back in his chair, looking ill.”</p> - -<p>Then, in a loud, stentorian voice he called to -the kitchen: “Wife, give me the pain-killer.”</p> - -<p>He had a violent fit of indigestion. Wife -then brought a large bottle labelled PAIN-KILLER, -an astonishing bottle, about a foot -long, that looked as if it might be horse liniment, -and the farmer took his dose with a large iron -spoon. “A terrible stuff,” says Vachel, “a -stuff that just eats the inside out of you, one part -turpentine, three alcohol, and the rest iron rust. -It gives you such a heat you forget about your -indigestion.”</p> - -<p>So the farmer had his pain-killer, but he did -not eat any supper, and the poet and the rest -of the gang as they came went gaily on and ate -to the end. “I began with each man as he -came in and ate him down,” says my hungry -companion suggestively. “And the farmer, tasting -nothing, had to wait till all were through to say -the final grace. We finished at last and went all -of us to the barns to sleep till Monday morning -and the hour when we returned again to the -golden line.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[61]</span></p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse"><i>The kiss by hopeless fancy feigned</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>On lips that are for others,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Does not compare with the imaginary meal</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>You eat when the wallet is empty.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>The kiss too, when you get it,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Oft proves a disillusion;</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>But the first meal after an involuntary fast,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Well!</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>It takes a real poet to describe that!</i></div> -</div></div> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[62]</span> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_062.jpg" alt="" /></div> - -<h2 class="nobreak">X. CLEAR BLUE</h2> -</div> - - -<p><span class="smcap">After</span> telling me how he “ate down” the farmer, -Vachel rested and passed into a halcyon mood. -We had a heavenly day climbing towards a -heaven of unclouded blue. Swinburne flowed -more naturally from the poet’s lips than conversation:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse">Before the beginning of years</div> -<div class="indent">There came to the making of man</div> -<div class="verse">Time with a gift of tears,</div> -<div class="indent">Grief with a glass that ran.</div> -</div></div> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[63]</span>His thought soared with our steps.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse">As the sea gives her shells to the shingle</div> -<div class="verse">The earth gives her streams to the sea,</div> -</div></div> - -<p>he declaimed to the streams. I promised to -arrange a Swinburne recital for him next time -he came to England. For I soon found that he -knew as much Swinburne by heart as he did of -his own poetry. Ellery Sedgwick wrote me from -Boston that to tramp with a poet would be “Some -punkins,” and one may say it was when the poet -all day long was a living fountain of verse. I -had but to mention a poem and Lindsay poured -it forth to the skies. We bathed in a waterfall -in the heat of noon, which was also a Swinburnian -joy, and we splashed in melting snow whilst our -shoulders were burned by the sun and inured ourselves -to sun and ice.</p> - -<p>The sun literally blistered the skin, and we reclined -in it on scarlet shelving rocks and cooked -our luncheon. All the while Vachel recited -Swinburne’s “Ode to Athens,” addressing the -walls of a great mountain cirque which drooped -in snow curtains and hanging gardens of silver -water.</p> - -<p>Up there came to us after lunch a yellowish-grey<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[64]</span> -animal with sprawling hind legs and stupid -benevolent snout and whistled at us—<i>fee-fo, -fee-fo</i>,—a whistling marmot. As I tried to -approach him he snuggled off to the snow-field -whence he had come, disappeared under -the crust, and presently reappeared from a -hole in the midst of the snow and began -chasing chipmunks in and out of the snow -holes.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p><span class="smcap">We</span> resumed our journey upward, and all was -well. The grass was emerald, the paint-brush -was bright ruby. Swallow-tailed butterflies -aeroplaned to our feet. The valley was broad -and clear without mystery or horror. The -waterfalls hung like the gardens of Babylon. -An opal lake below us changed and waxed -in iridescent glory and caused whispers of -rapturous interest. And the mountain we were -on was the one of the great figure nine made -of snow, which had so thrilled us and appalled -us when we saw it afar at night some days -before. When we had gone to the top of it -we had reached the great divide, where the -waters flow north, south, and west toward -Hudson’s Bay, the Gulf of Mexico, and the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[65]</span> -Pacific. At least, so the topographers assure us, -and we must take their word. Vachel says we -will not wait for rain and see the rain-drops hit -the mountain-top and divide automatically into -three parts.</p> - -<p>So we descended at dusk into a verdant -valley, with low trees growing wide apart, and -waist-high flowering daisies and basket grass, -and sunflowers—all as fresh and fair as if -gardened for us yesterday. There were serried -ranks of flowers. The tall mullein stalks became -so thick that they looked like a wooden -fencing in the twilight. Looking upward we -saw a crimson mountain, a brown mountain, -and a green mountain. Looking downward, -afar, we saw many forests, separated by streams, -sleeping before us. And we slept in a thicket -and were made music to by the nymphs of the -seven waterfalls of Shadow Mountain.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p><span class="smcap">Vachel Lindsay</span> belongs to a sect of primitive -Christians called “Disciples of Christ.” They -are followers of Alexander Campbell, and are -called “Campbellites” in America, much as -members of the Catholic and Apostolic community -are called Irvingites in England. They<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[66]</span> -are akin to the Baptists, being emphatically -“immersionists.” Among other notable people -who belong to this brotherhood is Mr. -Lloyd George, and it has been suggested -that the British statesman be asked to address -a general convention of the Disciples if he -comes to America. The chief virtue in the -sect lay doubtless in an attempted return to -primitive historical Christianity in all its simplicity. -Not that the poet is a narrow sectarian. -How could a poet be? But he has drunk -deep of the primitive spirit in Christianity, -and is very near to children, negroes, Indians, -and the elemental types in men and women. -He loves oratory more than reason, and impulse -more than thought. Hence, no doubt, the well -of his poetry.</p> - -<p>We talked of the modern cult of mediævalism -and the Chesterton-Belloc group as we resumed -our tramp, and we discussed G. K. Chesterton’s -visit to America. Lindsay felt that Chesterton -counted for a great deal in America. He -was not merely a celebrity. He had the -reputation of a Socrates eager to converse with -youth. But when he came to America he did -not really come. “He has been Barnumised<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[67]</span> -as Oliver Lodge was Barnumised,” said the -poet. “It’s the worst of commercialised lecturing. -Literary lions are imported by speculative -impresarios and then put to the American -people entirely from a dollar point of view. -The organisations that can pay five hundred -dollars for a visit get their Chesterton. But -how about the universities and colleges and -small groups, the real intelligentsia of America—the -people who have a creative interest in -what a thinker and critic has said and in what -he says? A similar mistake was made with -Alfred Noyes, who was booked as the man -who made poetry pay. It created a false -impression and did much injury when there -was an opportunity for great good.” Vachel -Lindsay’s idea is that two or three literary -men and women should be chosen each year -as the guests of the nation, and that they -should be sponsored by the magazines and the -universities. In that way they would meet the -American nation and not merely the brassy front -of American business.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p><span class="smcap">With</span> this subject we plunged through the -rank undergrowth of the forest, following our<span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[68]</span> -north-westerly way, which should bring us to -St. Mary’s Lake and the steps of “Going to -the Sun Mountain.” We gathered our first -potful of black currants and stewed them with -sugar for our luncheon, and we had our daily -dip in the rushing waters of Red Eagle Creek. -It was a warm valley, and the west wind, surcharged -with moisture from the Pacific, had -expressed itself in a great floral exuberance, -in ripe raspberries, currants, and gooseberries, -and in forests of firs, which lay against the -steep mountain-sides like feathers against a -bird’s wing.</p> - -<p>Vachel indulged his passion for the West -and all that the West means to an American. -He has memorised at some time or other the -map of the United States, and can draw it and -put in all the States in a few minutes. He -drew it on a scrap of paper as we rested at -sunset, putting in the far Western States first—Washington -and Oregon like two sugar-boxes -on top of one another, and then the key-shape -of Utah, whose southern line is roughly the -southern line of Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, -Kentucky, and Virginia, and whose northern -line is the northern line of California and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[69]</span> -Nevada, and approximately of Pennsylvania, -Connecticut, and Rhode Island.</p> - -<p>“California,” says he, “is a whale swimming -around the desert of Nevada; Idaho is a -mountain throne and its curve is the curve of -Montana. Wyoming fits into the angle of Utah. -New Mexico is under Colorado, and its capital, -Sante Fé, is the spiritual capital of America. -Texas plunges southward like a root—don’t -draw it too small. Oklahoma is a pistol pointing -west. Nebraska is another pistol pointing -west. North and South Dakota are western -blankets. Louisiana is a cavalier’s boot. Illinois -is like an ear of Indian corn. Arkansas, Missouri, -and Iowa move westward with the slant -of the mountains and the rivers. All America, -as you will see, has a grandiose north-westerly-south-easterly -direction or kink caused by the -Rocky Mountains primarily, and by the Mississippi -and Missouri Rivers secondarily. The -Rocky Mountains control the continent. That is -why we are travelling north-west. It is quite -natural. It is America’s way. It is written in -her rocks and by her waters.</p> - -<p>“As the families migrated from Virginia -to Kentucky and Illinois and Minnesota—so<span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[70]</span> -we go following nature’s trail out to the -wilderness.”</p> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_006.jpg" alt="" /></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse"><i>North-west, north-west!</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Give us north-westerly breezes.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Let us be mad north-north-west,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Rather than southerly sober and sane.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Some one once wrote on a madhouse wall,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>That the madder we were the nearer to God;</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>The saner, the further from Man.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>God give us the divine kink</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>North-north-west, north-north-west,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>When you can’t tell a hawk from a handsaw,—</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Hamlet only became Hamlet when he learned the secret.</i></div> -</div></div> - - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[71]</span> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_071.jpg" alt="" /></div> -<p class="caption">YOU HAVE COME TO BE ALONE WITH -YOUR HEART</p> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XI. NATIONAL WILDERNESSES</h2> -</div> - - -<p><span class="smcap">Glacier</span> in Montana, Yellowstone in Wyoming, -Sequoia and Yosemite in California, Grand -Canyon in Arizona, besides Mount McKinley -in Alaska and many minor reservations and -national forests—they ought truly to be called -by some name other than parks. The same -also is true for Canada, which possesses its -wonderful Dominion Parks such as those of -Waterton and Lake Louise. The name “park” -has evidently been given to popularise them. -Such places in Russia are called “wildernesses,”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[72]</span> -and are resorted to for meditation. They are -called literally “empty places,” the same word -that is used in the Bible for wilderness. Tolstoy -when he died was on his way to the wilderness—to -the “Empty Place of Optin.” In -England, in our conventional phrase, we should -be likely to call them “retreats,” like the retreat -on the Island of Iona. But the idea is that they -should provide in our life what is meant when -it is written: <i>The Spirit drove Him into the -wilderness</i>; or <i>He went up into the mountain -to pray.</i> In the midst of the hurly-burly comes -the happy thought—“I will arise now and go -to my wilderness, to my retreat, to my empty -place.”</p> - -<p>The spiritual background of Great Britain -is in the mountains of the North, among the -Cumberland Lakes and on the wild border. -Or it is in the obscure grandeur of the Sussex -Downs, or on Dartmoor, or on the Welsh hills. -Small though the mountains may be, they are -continually in the minds of English people. -The way of escape is clear. And many of the -bright spirits of England and Scotland have -derived their strength direct from the hills. -Byron and Scott and Ruskin and Wordsworth<span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[73]</span> -drew their strength from the hills. Carlyle -super-imposed Ecclefechan upon Chelsea. Even -he who once said “London’s streets are paved -with gold” was driven by the spirit from Battersea -to Buckingham. I find a belief in the wilderness -strong in Vachel Lindsay. He holds that -the wild West has been and still must be the -spiritual lodestone of American men. Untamed -America has remade the race. Andrew Jackson -was the voice of the West of his day, Abraham -Lincoln of his. And though New England has -held the hegemony of letters he divines that the -wilderness—the mountains—will be the source of -the inspiration of the coming time. Early -America derived most of her inspiration from -across the Atlantic. Her heart was outside her -body. But mature America, conscious of herself -as a whole, will know more surely that she -has a heart and a soul and a way to God in -herself.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p><span class="smcap">I look</span> to a time when national wildernesses -will have an acknowledged significance in our -public life, when men and women of all classes -of life will naturally retire to them for recreation—as -naturally as people used to go to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[74]</span> -church on Sundays and for a similar reason. -All praise to the foresight and energy of -Franklin Lane, the late American Minister of -the Interior, that enterprising Canadian who -did so much to bring the people’s heritage -before their eyes!</p> - -<p>The “See America First” is a poor slogan. -It is like “Do Everything Once” and “Buy -him a Fountain Pen.” The question should be -raised to a higher level. People need not visit -Glacier as they visit Switzerland, in a spirit of -curiosity. Even in this sophisticated age they -can come as pilgrims of Nature as easily as -they can come as tourists. “Triangular trips,” -“Four-day tours,” are not in the right spirit. -Time is immaterial.</p> - -<p>But there is virtue in shoe-leather, virtue in -the saddle of the horse. Not much virtue in -guides, in hotels. You come to these places -to be alone with Nature or you do not arrive.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p><span class="smcap">So</span> much for the idea and possibilities of the -national parks. Lindsay showed me a portfolio -of descriptions of them when he was in London, -and he did much to persuade young Englishmen -interested in America to visit them, go<span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[75]</span> -tramp in them. And though of course we had -heard in a dim way of Yellowstone Park and of -the Indian reservations both in the United States -and in Canada it was a novelty for us. But Englishmen -are born trampers and lovers of the -wilderness, and are ready to reverse the American -proverb—Why walk if you can ride?—and -put it, Why ride when you can walk? And I -shall not be the first Englishman to seek refreshment -hiking through the wild places of the -West.</p> - -<p>We talked of this exuberantly as we clambered -through the forests on the side of Little -Chief Mountain, and it was still our theme in -the evening when we lighted our fires in a -vast rock temple and chasm down into which -tumbled dark water, glittering and hastening -as it flowed downward to the valleys. How -to say a word for national wildernesses in this -sedentary era of the world’s history, how to -say a word for true religion and quiet and the -things of the spirit! Vachel Lindsay will no -doubt dramatise the subject in one fine Western -epic some day, and I make my appeal, as I have -done before, in prose, as for the wildernesses of -Europe, so also for the wildernesses of America.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[76]</span> -But whether we write or sing of what we feel -or see, one thing is sure when we are done—we -shall have lived apart and tramped and -meditated upon the mountains and far in the -wilderness and it will mean something in our -lives.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_018.jpg" alt="" /></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse"><i>What wish you to-day, dear tramp?</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>What wish you for brother-man?</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Why, just this:—</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>The quality of mountain-sides in the colour of his eyes,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>The deep of stars in the lake of his soul,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Feet that have learned to leap,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>And a spirit that longs to fly.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>That’s what I wish, dear brother, to-day,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Said the tramp.</i></div> -</div></div> - - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[77]</span> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_077.jpg" alt="" /></div> -<p class="caption">THE SUN SEES EVERYTHING</p> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XII. GOING WEST</h2> -</div> - - -<p><span class="smcap">We</span> love inspirational phrases such as to “go -West” which sprang on to men’s lips in the -Great War, and was a way of saying “to die,” -which was startlingly poetic, seeing that it -came from the soul of those masses usually admitted -to be so vulgar. “He’s gone West,” -men said with a hushed voice, meaning that -like so many who had passed before, he had -gone—to another world, to beyond the setting -sun. The phrase was not current among the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[78]</span> -American soldiers, but I have heard of an -equally wonderful expression used by the -mountaineers, who said: “He has crossed the -Great Divide.”</p> - -<p>My mind is inevitably drawn to these -thoughts as we face so often the setting sun, -as we cross the pinnacles of our momentary -aspirations, the passes, the divides which separate -sky from sky and valley from valley.</p> - -<p>Lindsay is also constantly enwrapped by the -romance of Going West—the historic and poetic -Western movement which has pulsated humanity -since the hordes and their caravans stampeded -across Asia in the days which are almost -before history. What was it, what is it that -hypnotises us—is it not the sun which, rising -in the morning, calls all his children after -him all day and bids them follow when at -last he plunges into night and nothingness?</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>“<span class="smcap">Have</span> courage,” says the sun in the evening. -“Have faith,” say the stars all the night long. -“You see, I rise again; you will rise,” says the -sun in the morning. “This way, this way,” he -says till noon, and “Follow, follow,” all the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[79]</span> -afternoon, and then once more, “Behold! I go. -Have courage!” he says in the evening again. -And that sets young hearts a-beating, that -kindles the poet’s flame and enlarges the spirit and -makes the way of the world.</p> - -<p>That makes us all nomads, all gypsies, all -pilgrims. That draws the steps of the willing, -and even the unwilling find themselves borne -along by a human tide and a sliding sand of -time—away to the west and the night and the -other country. No one can stay, even if he -will. In time all must go, all must follow the -sun and cross the Divide and go down the -slopes of the unimaginable other side and be -with the stars in the long, hungry night, the -myriads of stars that never do anything else but -look down on human souls and ask of us and -stare at us and dream of us. The night of -stars for all of us, and then with our Father -and guide, far o’er these mountains, wan and -tired, but gleaming and then resplendent, we -lift our eyes to the other country, the dreamed-of, -hoped-for country—and it is morning and -we are still with the light that we followed -yesterday.</p> - - - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[80]</span>“<span class="smcap">The</span> old prairie-schooners,” says Lindsay, -“blundered forward on the western way, day -after day, season after season, sometimes for -years, for the pioneers often worked their way -to the Virgin Land which they had taken for -goal. Often, indeed, they died on the way, -they broke down on the way. Each yearned to -the West even as they failed and threw their spirits -westward, like Douglases carrying the heart of -Bruce to the Promised Land. The primitive instinct -for moving was awakened by the road and -many a pioneer found happiness in the going as -much as in the attainment.”</p> - -<p>We ourselves are going westward now, rather -than north-west, and the sun beckons us. For the -mountain we are now setting out to reach has been -called by the Indians “Going-to-the-Sun.” It -stands over and beyond St. Mary’s Lake and -climbs heavenward in gigantic steps of stone. It -steps from the forest to the rocks, from the rocks -to the snow, from the snow to the sky. It is a -mighty cathedral, standing in the midst of prosaic -mountains, surely one of the most beautiful and -majestic of these mountains, symbolic in its shape -and its ancient name. We have slept on the mossy -earth at the foot of the pines. We will arise and -go to the sun.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[81]</span></p> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_006.jpg" alt="" /></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse"><i>There’s some one calling you:</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Arise, sleepy-head,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Arise from your bed!</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>A messenger is peeping,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>There where you’re sleeping:</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>For the day’s been begun</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>By your master the sun,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>And you surely will follow.</i></div> -</div></div> - - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[82]</span> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_082.jpg" alt="" /></div> -<p class="caption">CROSSING THE GREAT DIVIDE</p> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XIII. CLIMBING RED EAGLE</h2> -</div> - - -<p><span class="smcap">We</span> journeyed through the primeval forest -without a trail to guide us, through the jagged, -thorny, tumultuous pine wilderness. It was not -so easy for Lindsay, whose legs are shorter -than mine, but he took it as a game of banter -leader and moved forward doggedly into the -openings I made. We were glad to take advantage -of the thousands of wind-smitten trees which -lay dead, piled at every angle and piled on one -another.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[83]</span>We climbed upward for miles on the white, -smooth, dead timber of fallen trees, balancing -and jumping, transferring from trunk to trunk, -and clambering over the immense stars of upturned -roots. We were rewarded at length -by a view of the rocks above the tree line -and of a tumbling cascade. This was in the direction -we required and we made for it and -lunched by the cascade become rivulet, and then -climbed all the afternoon by rock stairs to the -snow.</p> - -<p>At six beside a “bride-veil waterfall,” we had -supper. Above us was an amphitheatre of red -rocks and ruined slate and it seemed but a small -climb to the top of the mountain. The gradient -was steep and there were large quantities of loose -stones. We climbed without intermittence until -9 o’clock at night, and as one top was -nearly conquered another top seemed to be -added. The amphitheatre receded upward to -heaven.</p> - -<p>How arduous it was and at times how risky! -Massive stones on which we relied to place our -feet proved to be only passengers like ourselves -upon the mountain and at a touch from us resumed -their downward track, clashing and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[84]</span> -smashing from rock to rock. We came to steep -banks of shale which moved <i>en masse</i> with the -weight of our bodies and we lay flat on them and -slid with them unwillingly and fearfully. Nevertheless -we did make great progress upward, and -if we did not conquer the mountain on which we -were we at least conquered some peaks that were -behind us. We entered the society of the -mountains. The mighty eminences and august -personalities of the southward view came into our -ken.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p><span class="smcap">The</span> sun went down, the shadows below us -deepened, the snow banks multiplied themselves -in number, and their outlines and suggestiveness -intensified as the valley whence we -had arisen lost its trees and changed to a vast -blank abyss. Our unfailing wonder when we -sat down on a stone to regain our lost breath -was the multitudinous terrain of awful, wrathful -mountain peaks which in indescribable promiscuity -had climbed the horizon wall to stare -at us.</p> - -<p>Vachel confessed to being dizzy and dared -hardly look downward whence we had come. -He preferred to look upward, and it was always<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[85]</span> -“three more dashes and we’ll be there,” though -instead of three we made thirty.</p> - -<p>Our mountain at length seemed to show the -last limits and to be crowned by a sort of -Roman wall. We came in view of a long, -serried, level grey rock which ran evenly along -the mountain brow like a fortification, and in -the midst of it was a way of stone steps and a -gap. I got up through the hole in the wall -and hauled up Lindsay’s pack after me, and he -followed.</p> - -<p>But when we got on top it was flat, but it was -not the top. We lay full length there and ate -raisins and looked upward over another field of -shale and loose boulders, and a cold wind as from -the Pole swept across. We watched the first -stars appear and talked of finding a sheltered -ledge somewhere and sleeping on it or at -least waiting on it till morning. But secretly -we still had a strong hold on hope. Mountain -tops are only to be conquered, and we would not -give in.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>“<span class="smcap">The</span> other sky beyond the mountain ridge is on -tiptoe waiting for us,” said I.</p> - -<p>It should be explained that the mountains<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[86]</span> -here are nearly all “razor-edges.” When you have -climbed sheer up to the top you have to climb -sheer down the other side. Plateaus and table -mountains are rare.</p> - -<p>The mountain “cirques” and ridges actually cut -the great sky in two and you can only join the two -pieces of it at the top.</p> - -<p>However, when, after another forty minutes -of picking our way upward, we did actually -reach the summit no new sky greeted us. Indeed, -I shrank back aghast from the dreadful -view that I saw. For the mountain swept -downward in long, swift and severe lines into -a funnel of Erebus darkness. We stood perched -at a gigantic height above the world, and it -was black night with an abyss both behind and in -front of us.</p> - -<p>You could stand on the top of the mountain -and see the two dreadful views, on the one side -scores and fifties of wrathful, staring mountains -and on the other a purgatorial abyss for lost -souls.</p> - -<p>We dared not start a descent so we slept on -the top of the mountain. I lay on a narrow -ledge and slumbered and waked. And Vachel, -who was hypnotised by the abyss, would not<span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[87]</span> -lie down for fear he might fall off or might get -up in his sleep and jump. So he sat like a fakir -the whole night long, looking unwaveringly on one -fixed spot.</p> - -<p>“Our friends all lie in their soft beds with -their heads on pillows of down,” I thought, -“far away in the valleys and across the plains, -in snug, comfortable homes, and we lie on -rocky, jagged edges on the very top of a great -mountain, far from human ken.”</p> - -<p>We seemed as much nearer the stars as we -were further away from mankind. Venus was -like a diamond cut out of the sun, and she -lifted an unearthly splendour high into the -sooty devouring darkness of the night. In -other parts of the sky the meteors shot laconically -in and out as if on errands for the planets. -Cold winds ravaged the heights, but they did -not roar. For the forests were far away. -And there was no sound of waters—only the -long slow threatening roll and splurge of loose -rocks continually detaching themselves from -the heights and slipping downward to perdition.</p> - -<p>I lay and I lay, and Vachel sat unmoving, -and we heard, as it were, the pulse of the world.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[88]</span> -We did not see humanity’s prayers going up -to God. We only saw the stars and the -night.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_006.jpg" alt="" /></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse"><i>If you join the mountain-peak club</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>You’ll notice the old members stare at you,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Call you silently a parvenu, interloper, upstart.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Upstart you are, of course,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>But never mind, you’ve got a rise in the world.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>No use trying to outstare the mountains</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Sitting in their arms-chairs, nursing their gouty feet.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Be a social climber still,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Aspire higher,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>And be put up as soon as you can</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>For the club of Heaven’s stars.</i></div> -</div></div> - - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[89]</span> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_089.jpg" alt="" /></div> -<p class="caption">WHERE THE ANTELOPE WILL<br /> -GO THE BEAR WILL FOLLOW</p> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XIV. DOING THE IMPOSSIBLE</h2> -</div> - - -<p><span class="smcap">Blessings</span> for dawn and the rosy lights and -for the cloudlessness of the morning! Had -mist enshrouded us we should have had to -have remained high up on the slippery knife-edge -of the mountain till the mist had passed. -We were able to descend, cautiously, cautiously, -for three hours in a trackless precipitous zig-zag -to the red peak of a lower mountain and -a high snow-bound lake, where we made a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[90]</span> -good fire and made coffee with our last coffee, -and lay down again and slept. Then we washed -in the snow and ceased to be old weather-beaten -tramps and recaptured our yesterdays and our -youth, and Vachel began to sing again and our -knapsacks felt lighter, as indeed they were, for -we had eaten up all the rations, even the iron -rations.</p> - -<p>Then we walked to the valley of the Sun Mountain -adown the rocks of a continuous -cascade. The descent to the snow-bound lake -and the red peak had seemed impossible, and -we essayed the impossible again. It was not -merely a polite walk downstairs. Every step -that we took was a problem. We used our -hands and the strength of our wrists as much -as our feet and the tension of our ankles. Constantly -were we faced with fifteen to twenty-foot -drops on to narrow ledges, where a balance must -be kept when we alighted.</p> - -<p>No doubt I am by nature a mountaineer -and hillsman, half a Highlander, at least, and -Vachel’s genius is the genius of the plains. -I am an antelope and he is a bear, we tell each -other.</p> - -<p>“You lead,” says Vachel. “Where the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[91]</span> -antelope will go the bear will follow after him, -but the antelope will not follow the bear.”</p> - -<p>So he followed downward, and we took the -most abominable chances of breaking our legs -or our necks—we had to take them. Then -presently we came to what seemed a full forty-foot -sheer drop of foaming water—an impossible -descent, you would say, for all the grasp and -grip in it was water-washed and water-smoothed -by ages of water—impossible, impossible. But -no, face it, think it over, it can be managed. -O caution, caution! Trust yourself to the -Almighty Protector and grit your teeth!</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p><span class="smcap">Timidity</span> fought daring all the way down. -We sat once or twice, and regarded the view. -One thing was certain: we could not climb -back to the places we had come from. If we -did not continue downward we had to remain -where we were.</p> - -<p>We did things which one does not do without -guides and ropes and the paraphernalia of -mountaineering, and when we got down to the -tortured fissured rocks below the cataract we -looked up whence we had come and said again -to ourselves, “Impossible, impossible!”</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[92]</span>And as in going up the mountain the -winning of the summit was continually deferred, -so in descending to the valley we only conquered -one steep mountain slope to be presented -with another steep mountain slope and another -series of terraces and another impossibility.</p> - -<p>Perhaps no one ever came this way over -the mountains unless it was some adventurous -Indian, but even Indians do not venture where -horse cannot go. I remember as one of the -most remarkable passages of our descent an -hour we spent in a subarboreal channel shut -out from the light of day, a jagged downward -plunge where the stream fell away in darkness -while in voluminous curves the thick sallow -roofed it in. We made a hanging descent, -clinging to handfuls of branches of sallow and -swaying and sagging and dropping, and then -touching rock with a dangling foot, and then -clutching another lower bunch of branches -and letting ourselves down again, downward, -downward.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p><span class="smcap">But</span> it all ended well, for we came at last to -sheets of sliding shale and then to a spacious -forest. And we had been saved from all mischance,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[93]</span> -and the silence which danger had -gradually imposed on us was broken.</p> - -<p>“Bread, beauty, and freedom is all that man -requires,” cried Vachel, “and now I’ll translate -it into fire, water, and a place to sleep.”</p> - -<p>These we found, and one by one the stars -discovered us when they peeped through the -branches of the lofty pines. They saw us -where we lay now far away below, stretched -out beside the embers of our fire and luxuriating -in its warmth like cats.</p> - -<p>We boiled a pot of black currants and wild -gooseberries and we ate it to the last berry, -though, as the poet said afterwards, it was a -quart of concentrated quinine. And we made -a rosy layer of wild black-currant candy in the -frying-pan which was not allowed to remain -long unconsumed. We had no food in our -knapsacks, only a little sugar, but we counted -ourselves happy though hungry because we -had been up on top of a great mountain and -had come down.</p> - -<p>“A joy to the heart of a man is a goal that -he may not reach,” says Swinburne. And a -greater joy still is the joy of reaching it. That -is what we have been doing all day.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[94]</span>“Call it ‘Doing the Impossible’ and thinking -well of ourselves,” adds the poet when I read -this to him:</p> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_018.jpg" alt="" /></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse"><i>“My master builder!” said the lady</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>When she made the master builder</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Climb to the top of his new building,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Risking his life and doing the impossible a second time.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>She made him do it, but he doing it was a hero.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>He showed his manhood to her</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>By doing something that could not be done.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>“The impossible or nothing” be our cry.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Don’t you loathe the perfectly possible?</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>I do.</i></div> -</div></div> - - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[95]</span> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_095.jpg" alt="" /></div> - - -<p class="caption">SWEET LADIES DO STOP ROLLING YOUR EYES</p> - - -<h2 class="nobreak">XV. PEOPLE IN CAMP</h2> -</div> - - -<p><span class="smcap">A day’s</span> steady tramping brought us to a camp, -and then we bathed in St. Mary’s Lake and -washed every separate item of linen, even that -which we wore, and we sun-baked ourselves on -the hot beach while the clothes dried, and we -made a clean appearance at last among fair -women and brave men, and we took supplies on -which to vagabondise for days on the slopes of -Going-to-the-Sun Mountain.</p> - -<p>It was a curious experience to be absolutely -alone on the mountains so long and then<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[96]</span> -suddenly to come on a large congregation of -tourists. Going-to-the-Sun Camp is a spectacular -point in the recognised tour of Glacier -Wilderness.</p> - -<p>“We are doing the four days’ tour,” is the -common explanation which visitors gave us. -Or, “We are making the triangular trip.”</p> - -<p>One’s eyes naturally rest on the ladies, who -are nearly all in seeming male attire, and some -of this attire fits and some does not; some of it -suggests homes where men are rare and -breeches have to be imported. But they all -look pretty well in this simplicity. Girls in -mauve and violet jumpers, shiny leather belts, -and leg-o’-mutton breeches sit with us at supper -and explain that to-day was their first day on a -horse—and they know it. “Are you tired?” -say I. “You can tell the world,” is the reply. -Near us stands a girl in tan riding costume, -violet stockings, white shoes, and bobbed brown -hair in a hair net. She is talking to two well-built -youths, standing with their legs apart, and -the girl, imitating their styles, droops forward -to them as they chaff one another. She will -not stray far. The same may be said of a -well-fed lady of sixty, pampered and neurotic,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[97]</span> -but sitting in a riding jacket and very baggy -breeches and nervously smelling at an ammonia -bottle. Grandma in trousers is rather portentous.</p> - -<p>But how describe the charm of the little -boy and girl, children of twelve and thirteen, -accoutred also for the horse and sitting on -their steeds with the grace of Indians. The -old and middle-aged are stiff and only the -children look as if they could never get tired. -In any case, all is good humour and jollity. -Mme. Censure is not here. There are people -with crumpled faces and there are people made -of dimples and curves—but happiness holds -all.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p><span class="smcap">We</span> did not see very much of the tourist life. -There is not much of it up here. There ought -probably to be more. While Yosemite, Grand -Canyon and Yellowstone are visited by hundreds -of thousands of Americans, Glacier is left unused. -We do not want its canyons also to be -filled up to the top with cans, but no one would -grudge a few more people in a wilderness where -you can travel weeks without meeting a soul—a -few more sharers in the loveliness of the Northern -Rockies.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[98]</span>A number of camps have been made with -log-cabins and canvas tents, and there are two -large hotels on the fringe of the wilderness. -But an especial charm lies in the fact that the -people in charge of the camps and the little -inns called “chalets” are mostly university -students and college girls of the institutions of -Minnesota and Montana, and they do the -needful work on the self-help principle of earning -a little money in their holidays to pay their -way during term. There is nothing of the low -commercial spirit, no one hanging around for -a tip, no one with any interest to treat you -shabbily, but instead the natural good manners -of unspoiled people. You see the choleric -“colonel” trying to get more than his share of -attention and service, but he doesn’t effect -anything, and you may see the millionaire -cheerfully and shrewdly recognising the fact -that he must take his turn after his stenographer -and perhaps after a couple of ragged old tramps -like ourselves.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p><span class="smcap">Vachel</span> is devoted to the universities and high -schools of America and the life they represent. -He has almost completely changed his constituency<span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[99]</span> -from the “ladies’ club” and the heavy -society of Mr. and Mrs. Leo Hunter and is -now a poetic voice of young germinal America. -He has “covered the map” of the United States -singing his songs to college youths. And in -return college youth recognises him quickly. -He is a natural favourite among those who -run the “chalets.” And they all wanted him to -“sing” to them.</p> - -<p>Not that the visitors do not also make -friends with us and we with them. Such coats -of sunshine as we have make ordinary sunburn -pale and give us much glamour. Souvenir -huntresses grab us from a “big ballyhoo” -Western town. Likewise, a girl from Chicago, -pronounced in three facial contortions. And -when we set off to vagabondise for some days -we were followed by a beautiful creature who -wished for a minute to come with us to -the world’s end.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_039.jpg" alt="" /></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[100]</span></p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse"><i>The tramps have gone to sleep</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Nearer to the skies;</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Oh ladies, sweet ladies,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Do stop rolling your eyes.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>The tramps have gone away</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>To seek their paradise;</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Oh ladies, sweet ladies,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Do stop rolling your eyes.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>The tramps have taken with them</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>The best of apple pies,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>They’re not prepared to-day</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>To take on extra ties.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>So ladies, sweet ladies,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Do stop rolling your eyes.</i></div> -</div></div> - - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[101]</span> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_101.jpg" alt="" /></div> -<p class="caption">ST. SERAPHIM<br /> - - -HE IS ONLY A -WILD BEAST WHEN -TREATED LIKE A WILD -BEAST</p> - - - -<h2 class="nobreak">XVI. VISITED BY BEARS</h2> -</div> - - -<p><span class="smcap">I retain</span> very cheerily in mind from Russia -the memory of the typical Russian saint who -lived in the woods and was so holy that the -bears approached without malice and took what -the saint could spare of the store of crusts -on which he lived. The unfortunate Tsarina -when she desired so religiously a male heir, -went to the shrine of Seraphim in the “empty<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[102]</span> -place” of Arzamas to pray for one. And the -most famous thing about St. Seraphim was his -love of the bears. He is nearly always depicted -in popular oleographs feeding the bears with -bread, and in Russian ikons the bear is the -national emblem of the primitive nature of -Russia and the saint is the emblem of Christ.</p> - -<p>On the other hand, I remember also my -good old friend Alexander Beekof, a hunter -of bears who had himself snapshotted facing -in the snowy forest the upstanding, snarling, -dangerous beast which presently he was to lay -low. And since we are thinking of bears, I call -to mind how I saw last winter little baby bears, -dressed up in ribbons and fed with milk from a -pap-bottle, hawked for sale by refugee Russians -from street to street in Constantinople—pets -to put in the nursery with your children, -astonishing little rompers and ideal players of -hide and seek. I have wondered about the -bear as we wonder now about the Russian -as to just what sort of an animal he is. Is -he only a wild beast when treated like a wild -beast, but otherwise tame in the presence of -saints and children? Or is he a wild beast -all the while?</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[103]</span>This problem we evidently went to the -Rocky Mountains to solve. For there we -met the bears, and even if we may not have -the haloes of the saints we hope to find a -place among the children.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p><span class="smcap">Not</span> that we were entirely ready for the overtures -of Brother Bear, and it is true that we -frightened some bears away, but later we got -on good terms. I saw the first bear on “Going-to-the-Sun” -Mountain. No one, of course, -is allowed to shoot bears in Glacier National -Park, though it is not many years since hunters -hunted them there with Indians and with dogs, -and one may read of the bear-hunting adventures -of Emerson Hough and others. Now -without dogs or guns the bear has been won -over and he has ceased to fear mankind.</p> - -<p>It was a beautiful morning and Vachel had -been sitting in Baring Creek, letting Balchis, -as he called the waterfall, flow over him, and -he was now lying in a blanket on the ferns and -meditating when I heard an unwonted stump, -stump, crash, in the undergrowth.</p> - -<p>“Is it a man?” I asked.</p> - -<p>Crash, stump, stump, it went again, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[104]</span> -peering through the trees I saw a black bear -coming towards us, glossy and shaggy. I -called Vachel, but at that the bear stopped -short, raised his intent, listening ears and then -made away from us in another direction. We -saw no more of him.</p> - -<p>After that I recognised the sound of the -bear’s feet in the forest, quite a characteristic -sound, and we knew there were many bears. -But the next occasion of a personal encounter -was some weeks later near Heaven’s Peak. -Vachel had got himself an extra long wisp of -old canvas from a ruined tent. We slept by -a large fire, and when the fire went out a bear -came to us. Vachel and I were lying close to -one another and both had our blankets over -our faces, for it was cold. Vachel, as he told -me afterwards, was awakened by something -and lay listening to my breathing. He thought -to himself, “Stephen is certainly making a -terrible racket; he must have a cold”; and -then he thought again lazily and unsuspectingly, -“Stephen surely must have caught a cold to be -snuffing and snorting in that way.” Then he -thought again, “He seems to be moving about, -I wonder what he’s doing.”</p> - - - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[105]</span><span class="smcap">Then</span> Vachel put his head out of his blanket -and what should he see standing beside us but -a big black bear. As for me, I was sleeping -like a babe, and the bear apparently had been -snuffing at me to see whether I were live meat -or dead meat. Vachel gave one terrific shout. -“<span class="smcap">The Son of a Gun</span>,” said he, and I wakened up.</p> - -<p>“Wake up, Stephen; it’s a bear,” said he. -At this Brother Bear walked across from my -side, where I had a pile of boiled eggs, which -he had scattered, and leisurely began to knock -our tin cans about on the other side and try -and find the ham which we had bought the day -before. In a most unsaintly way we drove him -off. We forgot the example of St. Seraphim, -and Brother Bear was fain to depart. I repented -too late and followed the old scallywag -up the moon-bathed forest glade quite a way. -But he would not be called by his pet name -after the abuse we had hurled at him and went -away and away till he was lost in the moon-beams. -“He was smelling you to find out -whether you were good to eat,” said Vachel, -laughing. “He wouldn’t begin on you unless -he were sure you were carrion.” “Curious,” -said I, “isn’t it; we used as children to look<span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[106]</span> -at pictures of bears smelling men who were -shamming dead in order to escape being eaten -by them. In children’s books, the bear won’t -eat carrion. Out here in the Rockies you -can’t keep them out of the garbage cans of the -camps at night.”</p> - -<p>On another occasion, however, when three -bears came trundling down after our supper -was over, I approached one with some bread, -which he very gently took from my fingers, -and I scratched his nose and put myself on -speaking terms.</p> - -<p>“Curious,” said I to Vachel, “is it not? -These are the same bears which used to figure -so largely in adventure stories of the Rocky -Mountains. It follows they are ready to be -good citizens of the forest if treated ‘good.’”</p> - -<p>You’d have had a different experience had -they been grizzlies, we were told later.</p> - -<p>Maybe. But St. Seraphim himself did not -tackle grizzlies.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_018.jpg" alt="" /></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[107]</span></p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse"><i>So we’ve met the bear:</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>The bear has snuffed at us</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>And wondered what we were.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Humans with a forest smell to us,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>No doubt quite game;</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Sleeping out too, very quietly.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Good to eat no doubt,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Dare one, dare a poor bear take a bite?</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Would they mind?</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>I’ve bitten most of the animals in the wood</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Except them—</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>In my time.</i></div> -</div></div> - - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[108]</span> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_108.jpg" alt="" /></div> -<p class="caption">ELEMENTS OF GOOD COFFEE<br /> -<br /> -MOSQUITO NETTING<br /> -WATERFALL<br /> -COFFEE POT<br /> -FIR TREE<br /> -COFFEE BEANS<br /> -STONE<br /> -PYRE<br /> -LOVE<br /> -</p> - - - -<h2 class="nobreak">XVII. LINDSAY’S STONE COFFEE</h2> -</div> - - -<p><span class="smcap">The</span> wind blew all night long, a wind that -seemed to be cleaning up and burnishing all -the spaces between the stars. The rock wall -against which I leaned my back kept stealing -away the warmth from my blanket. Vachel -slept off the level on the ferns, at a forty-five -degree tilt downward. We both looked out<span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[109]</span> -to the mountains and the stars, and it was an -epical summer night on the Rockies.</p> - -<p>The mountains were compact and black and -clear, and a dim light behind them glorified -each. A young moon arose and poised herself -above us, and only slowly and very unobtrusively -crept across the sky. It was a night -of persistent gale but of a steadfast starry -universe. It seemed to call for rain, but there -never came a cloud, only the metallic interstellar -spaces grew lustrous and more lustrous, -and the mountains more and more romantic. -Our eyes were religiously and adoringly spellbound. -Our hands—our feet—that is a different -tale.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse">Their hearts were pure,</div> -<div class="verse">Their hands were horribly red,</div> -</div></div> - -<p>as Balzac said of two young ladies of France.</p> - -<p>Vachel, who had tied the tassels of his old -steamer rug together and made a sleeping-bag, -was meditative of Peary and Shackleton and -their companions, and though he had procured -an extra flannel shirt and had tied himself up -in all he possessed, he still could not find the -temperature at which corn ripens in central -Illinois. We heard the waters of the creek<span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">[110]</span> -pouring down below, we heard movements -among the trees, and the idea of a bear coming -to us was not unsuggested. Vachel picked up -his steamer rug and came across to my rock -and laid him down nearer to me. We slept -then till dawn, slept with one eye open and -one shut; one ear alert, the other muffled.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p><span class="smcap">The</span> lovely light of the east flooded upward -and over us from Lake St. Mary, bathing our -mountain-side in a peach blossom glamour; -small birds winged it through the wedge of air -’twixt mountain and mountain. The creek poured -more loudly into our consciousness, and the sharp -points of our rocky bed jibbed upward towards -our bones. Then it was morning. Then it was -coffee time.</p> - -<p>I shall never forget the poet as he looked in -the dawn, with his red handkerchief tied over -his old felt hat and under his chin, and the -concentration of his gaze as he plodded about -in three pairs of socks and half-laced boots -seeking extra twigs to make that fire burn. -He looked like a true dwarf or old man of the -woods from a page of a fairy-book, but not -really visible to human eyes.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">[111]</span>And it was an unpractical fairy who expected -damp wood and large wood to burn as easily -as dry withered pine. It sometimes took a -long while to set our pot a-boilin’. Once, however, -that had been achieved, great was our -reward. We had our coffee, “Lindsay’s stone -coffee,” as we named it, better than any other -coffee in the United States.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>“<span class="smcap">Stephen</span>,” said Vachel quietly to me one day, -“you must let them know just how this coffee -is made. I’m not one of those selfish people -who keep such secrets to themselves. The -ladies especially will like to have our secret.”</p> - -<p>The first point is that you take a stone -which has never seen either sunset or sunrise, -a stone lying at the feet of trees not less than -100 feet high. It must have lain there not -less than 4000 years and listened to the music -of a waterfall. That is the important point. -Any decent coffee beans ground in any kind -of clean grinder will do. A pot that has seen -more than one continent is preferred.</p> - -<p>You then cut a square piece of white mosquito -net sufficient to hold the coffee and the -stone. Tie up carefully like a plum-pudding,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">[112]</span> -but leave seven or eight inches of string -attached to it so that you can pull the coffee -sack up and down in the pot at will. Vachel -in this matter of coffee is a complete immersionist. -The coffee must go right under.</p> - -<p>It is prepared, moreover, in silence and -without fear of flame and smoke. The pot -stands on a funeral pyre, and is allowed to -lift its lid several times before a hand swathed -up in a towel darts in to rescue it.</p> - -<p>We pour it out into our tin cups. It is -black, it is good, it has a kick like a mule; it -searches the vitals and chases out the damps; -it comforts the spine and gives tone to the -heart. And the poet, silent hitherto, sits holding -his large cup before him. Then he takes -a sip and looks at me.</p> - -<p>“Thadd touches the spadd,” says he at last -in a deep gastronomical gestatory voice which -seems to lend expression to his ears and shoulders. -“Thadd touches the spadd,” says he in -happy relief.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_039.jpg" alt="" /></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">[113]</span></p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse"><i>Coffee should be made with love;</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>That’s the first ingredient.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>It’s all very well about the stone,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Say I, but it needs a heart as well.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>The coffee knows if you really care,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>And will do its best if you lend it encouragement.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>You can flatter the coffee whilst it is in the pot,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>And it will rise to your persuasion.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>But the commonest cause of coffee being just indifferent</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Is your indifference towards the coffee.</i></div> -</div></div> - - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">[114]</span></p> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_114.jpg" alt="" /></div> -<p class="caption">TO THE WORLD’S END</p> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XVIII. MAKING MAPS -OF THE WORLD</h2> -</div> - - -<p><span class="smcap">After</span> an era of drawing maps of the United -States my companion took to drawing maps of -the world, supporting them by mermaids and -making them fly by north-westerly and north-easterly -angels, and he wrote original couplets -and hid them in hollow trees and under stones. -As Shelley made paper boats in the Bay of -Naples he made maps and hid them—his pet -hobby for a number of days.</p> - -<p>One verse asked Atlas if he did not find the -world heavier since the Treaty of Versailles.</p> - -<p>“I hope you made a copy of it before hiding -it,” said I.</p> - -<p>“Oh, no; stray leaves of poetry, rewards for -seekers,” said he. Celebrated mountaineers have -been putting copper boxes with their signatures<span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[115]</span> -on the tops of the mountains this year; Vachel -has been leaving original poems in the valleys.</p> - -<p>We set off from Sun Mountain for the high -walls of the Canadian line. Vachel was in no -passion for climbing, and confessed that if he -were a woman, he would, at this point in our -adventure, “lie down on the floor and scream.” -So our progress was slow and punctuated by -long waits. We went through tree thickets -and breast-high flowers and through tearing -thorns, and we came to many red-rock promontories. -Rocks grew up out of the jungle and -topped the highest trees, and we climbed them -and looked out from their smooth, wind-swept -summits and listened to the bears, and Vachel, -with paper and pencil, drew maps and put -Czecho-Slovakia in the scheme of things, and -asked the God who made the world where -Turkestan might be.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p><span class="smcap">At</span> length, at noon, we came unto a mighty -cliff, an end of the world, rosy red and flamingly -joyful, but very final. The poet was a quarter -of a mile behind me, and I watched him patiently -grubbing his way through the exuberant green, -trackless jungle, hit in the face by branches,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[116]</span> -choked up to the fork of his legs by the weeds. -And when he came to the end of the world he -asked no questions but just sat down and began -drawing a map. “Where,” asked he, “is Seven -Rivers Land and the Desert of Pamir?”</p> - -<p>I left him sitting down below and began -climbing the giddy cliff with a tin can in my -hand. For growing like wall-flowers on the -rocks above were dwarf raspberry bushes all -hung with tiny rosy lights—and these were -fruits. I got up to them and standing on half-inch -ledges and holding to twigs and weeds I -picked a cupful of the hot berries all half-cooked -by the sun’s rays. And when I got down again we -had a wonderful repast of raspberries and sugar.</p> - -<p>When we resumed tramping we crossed a -crag-strewn valley, which was very rough on -our boots. My boots were cracking; Lindsay’s -were very floral. His held out a little while -longer, but mine died that day. As we each -carried two pairs of boots we were prepared for -the emergency.</p> - -<p>Mine had been a stout pair of pre-war boots -(Americans please read “shoes”). I used them -first in North Norway and Russia. I tramped -in them in France. They were repaired first<span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">[117]</span> -by a Russian at Kislovodsk in the Caucasus; -repaired for the second time in Georgia by a -negro cobbler. For I did Sherman’s march -and walked from Atlanta to the sea in them in -1919. And they were repaired for the last -time by a Frenchman in Hazebrouck last year. -I had tramped in them over the battlefields of -Gallipoli, and had worn them when the weather -was bad in Constantinople, Belgrade, Budapest, -Vienna, Warsaw, and almost every other capital -of Europe.</p> - -<p>“We must burn them,” said Vachel, “and -have a special ceremony. These are no -ordinary shoes (Englishmen please read ‘boots’) -to be abandoned in the wilds without the meed -of some melodious tear.” So we burned one -on a high flaming fire with young pine-shoots -for incense, and the other we threw into a -rushing mountain torrent, and bade it continue -its world journey to the world’s end.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p><span class="smcap">We</span> lay stretched on our blankets by the pine -fire that night and talked of the world. We -arrived at some ideas. “You are not drawing -the map merely as part of a geography lesson,” -said I. “You are drawing the poetry of it.”</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">[118]</span>A poetical map of the world has never yet -been drawn. “It should have ships on its -oceans and lighthouses on its rocks and mermaids -under it, and stars over it,” said Vachel. -“Imagine how Blake would have drawn it.”</p> - -<p>First, you put in the North and South Poles, -symbols of man’s love of the inaccessible and -the paradox of his striving life; then Cape -Horn, stormiest point in the world, cape of -innumerable wrecks, of the innumerable adventures -of daring sailors. Then put in the -Panama Canal, symbol of utilitarianism and our -modern life. Draw in the Bering Strait, which -is the pre-historic link of the Old World and -the New, and then the Rocky Mountains, -which the red men climbed.</p> - -<p>Then draw in a dotted line the keel track of -Columbus over the ocean and put an eye upon -a peak in the Darien looking downward and -outward to the great Pacific. Draw the Mason -and Dixon line. Draw 54° 40´—the “fifty-four -forty or fight” line. Then for the old world, -make the coast-line of China and then mark -the Chinese Wall built to keep out the Huns, -then draw the caravans of the hordes, and may -arrows fly over the desert of Asia, spitting<span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">[119]</span> -against Bokhara and Samarkand, spitting against -the empire of Darius, spitting against the -Scythians, the Slavs, stampeding the Goths and -the North Men and ruining Rome and starting -the modern world!</p> - -<p>You must put in Athens the birthplace of -the ideal, and Marathon and then Rome, the -birthplace of materialism, the capital of capitals, -seat of the Caesars. And then St. Helena, -symbol of the doom of would-be Caesars.</p> - -<p>Mark in the mysterious Nile, and the place -where the Sphinx looks out from the sand. -Mark Bethlehem and then Jerusalem——</p> - -<p>Thus we schemed and mused and made -many maps in fancy, and we took to ourselves -just before the stars said good-night the title -Geo. Ast.—geographical astrologers.</p> - -<p>“I dare you to register as such,” said Vachel, -“when we get out of all this and reach a hotel -at last.”</p> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_018.jpg" alt="" /></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">[120]</span></p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse"><i>Poor old world, you’re a playground.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>And we are the children who romp in you now.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Those maps of you are wrong</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Which show trade winds</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Instead of winds of inspiration,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Where names of business-places are in bold black print</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>And railway lines are ruled,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>And capitals are marked with blots</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>And other places are invisible.</i></div> -</div></div> - - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">[121]</span> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_121.jpg" alt="" /></div> -<p class="caption">THE EAGLE SEES WHAT IS IN THE PIT</p> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XIX. A MOUNTAIN -POINT OF VIEW</h2> -</div> - - -<p>“<span class="smcap">Wite</span> man, you’s skeerin’ me to death,” cries -Vachel playfully from behind me as we get -out of forests and up among the naked rocks. -“Wite man, you’s skeerin’ me to death,” or -again, “You might as well kill a man as scare -him to death.”</p> - -<p>“This is no place to bring ladies,” I -ventured.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">[122]</span>“And no place to bring a poet, either,” says -Vachel. “Look here, Stephen, I make one rule. -I’ll only be scared out of my wits once a day.”</p> - -<p>The poet riveted his eyes on me, and I -was a curious sight, being torn to tatters from -head to foot. I had been mending my trousers -with the stuff of my vest and the lining of my -coat. “Stephen,” cries Vachel, “when I get tired -of looking at the scenery I look at your pants.” -And I employed much time when we rested sewing -up the triangles and flaps on my knees with -white thread drawn from our mosquito netting.</p> - -<p>We saw now the wonderful cathedral-shaped -mountain behind us, blue and white and scarred -and crumpled. It lifted its clerestory with -grandiosity up into the colder and rarer air. -Its rivelled snow hung in great white copes; -its earthquake rents and chasms yawned, and -its dreadful steeps, up which no man ever -climbed, drew sternly and austerely up to -summits and spires and towers. Grandiose -mountain! And what little flies, what microscopical -insects we were upon it!</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p><span class="smcap">We</span> came to the top of the Valley of Boulder -Creek, stretching away from the heart of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">[123]</span> -Rockies to the tents of the Indians and the -indeterminate plains, one of the grandest of -views to my companion, who loves the prairie -like the prairie child, an aperçu of America -seen from the mountains. “That is what we -want to get,” said Vachel, “a Rocky Mountain -point of view on all things American. That is -the true meaning of calling it a national park.”</p> - -<p>“Not only that, but a world-point-of-view -can be found,” said I. “That is why it was -called Going-to-the-Sun Mountain—the sun -sees everything.”</p> - -<p>We turned, however, into a wild and obscure -region and blundered and staggered among -a miscellany of all kinds of boulders. Blue -lakelets and pools lay at the foot of djinns of -snow, and there were dreadful iceberg-like -reflections in the weird blueness of the water. -We camped on a plateau, or rather in a wide, -high trough surrounded by mountain-sides, and -we made a fire of old resinous roots and stumps -of dead, dwarfed trees. There were shallow -lakes in sight, but the way to them was over -undulating, quaking moss. Mists encircled us -before nightfall and made our fire ghostly. -We lay all night in a great stillness, and the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">[124]</span> -fire glowered and smouldered and the mist -uneasily crept into rain with a breeze or settled -again into mist with the calm. Next day was -a cold and chilling morning like November in -England, and we heaped higher the fire with -wood and slept till wind and sun conquered -cloud and damp. And that was nearly noon.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>“<span class="smcap">Onward</span>,” cried Vachel, “upward, higher, -purer, better, nobler, sweeter, stronger”—which -was his favourite war-cry at the time, and -amid stark upper-mountain scenery we made -a glorious afternoon march to a place of great -height. At length, on what seemed a terrifically -high pedestal of black rock, we gleaned -a coffee-pot full of fresh snow and proposed -to make tea. And I upset the evaporated -milk, but licked it up off the rocks with the -flat of my tongue. This Vachel was too proud -to do, so I have surmised that his progenitors -were Lowland Scottish gentlemen farmers, but -mine were Border cattle thieves and “land -loupers.”</p> - -<p>We had supper that evening in a great, -open mountain space, with glaciers as large -as cities brooding and impending over abysses,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">[125]</span> -and we looked downward to dark and gloomy -rising forests gone tired on their way up towards -us, and we looked upwards to the grandeur of -snow-covered crags and tumultuous, heaven-climbing -waves of rock. Vachel fried the beans -to an accompaniment of rhythmical remarks. -Poetry possessed us both. All about us was -in grand, romantic, heroic strain. Vachel remarked -how the forests were like harps with -long harp strings, and the strings were the -lines which mountain stones and avalanches -had furrowed there for ages. The carpet on -which we lay was of yellow vetches and dark-blue -gentians, with lichened stones all interspersed. -Heaven itself was not flat-roofed -above us, but raised at the zenith, a blue vault -above us, like the dome of a world-temple. -And the fire burned a black patch on the green -and puffed and flamed symbolically as if we were -children of the Old Testament sacrificing there -to our God.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_006.jpg" alt="" /></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">[126]</span></p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse"><i>Two stars arose above the mountain’s head,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Two stars looked down upon the world in bed;</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Looked through the window-panes and saw the world at home,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>From Babylon to Tyre, and Rome to Rome.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>What if the stars, lifting their tiny lamps,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Were but like us, a couple of old tramps?</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Heaven’s tramps the stars, blazing their trails they go,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>From mountain-top to mountain-top and snow to snow.</i></div> -</div></div> - - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">[127]</span> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_127.jpg" alt="" /></div> -<p class="caption">‘I HAD RATHER BE A PEACOCK THAN A -HOG’ SAID THE PEACOCK</p> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XX. BY THE CAMP FIRE</h2> -</div> - - -<p><span class="smcap">Many</span> years ago one of the Springfield newspapers -offered a prize to the reader who should -send in the best answer to the question: <i>What -would you do with a million dollars?</i> Young -Vachel sent in an answer. His was: “I would -change them to dimes and have them thrown -into the State House yard and any one who -wanted them could come and take as much as -he liked.” The answer was printed in the -paper with a lot of others and gave considerable -offence. The telephone was kept busy -that morning by those who thought fit to tell -his father and mother that they ought to look -after him better and not let him make a fool of -himself.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">[128]</span>“I did not get the prize,” said Vachel sadly. -“The editor probably thought that with a -million dollars one could do just a million -dollars’ worth of good. He thinks, as does -my dearest friend, that you can employ people -to do good at a salary, and the one who got -the prize probably allotted ten thousand dollars -to this charity and ten thousand dollars to that -and endowed this thing and endowed that and -did not even dare to buy himself an ice-cream -soda. They’ve got such a high idea of money -that it’s almost an attribute of God himself. -Now, I rank money low. I’m right up against -the weekly magazine advertisement point of -view—‘Doing good is only possible when -you’ve a lot of money. Get money! Oh, get -money first somehow, then you can do good. -Wear good clothes and then you’ll be in the -way of doing good.’”</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p><span class="smcap">We</span> had made our camp under a great overhanging -rock beside rushing cataracts. The -huge vague scenery about us was made more -immense by a cloud screen which prevented -one knowing exactly how high the mountains -were, and we looked outward at a vastitude of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">[129]</span> -scarred precipitous cliffs. Our fire warmed the -rock against which we had laid our blankets, -and we had found a delightfully cosy place in -which to be at home. Night came down upon -us, but we lay long in the flamelight and -talked.</p> - -<p>“I don’t think,” said Vachel, “that this -money incentive is really a strong one or leads -far. That is where I part company with the -radicals of this country. They have all founded -their faith on the economic theory of history. -I’d like to write for them a ‘romantic theory’ -of history. I believe in the romantic theory; -I do <span class="allsmcap">NOT</span> believe in the economic theory.”</p> - -<p>“All right, dear Vachel,” said I constrainedly. -“There are only you and I present, and God. -Say it more quietly.”</p> - -<p>“Vanity and ambition have always been -stronger motives than the desire of gain. And -that is good. I put vanity a whole lot higher -than greed. In a country of hogs the peacock -is a praiseworthy bird.”</p> - -<p>“You say that because you are a peacock.”</p> - -<p>“<span class="smcap">I know it. I am a Peacock. I am not -a Hog.</span>”</p> - -<p>“All right, Vachel. Now, if money is not<span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">[130]</span> -so strong an incentive how do you account -for the fact that in your own beautiful State -of Illinois Governor Small has been under arrest -for appropriation of funds, and at Chicago -members of one of the greatest baseball teams in -America are under trial for selling championship -games to the other side?”</p> - -<p>“That’s the influence of the magazine -advertisement—praise of dollars and the implication -that everything in the world has a -commercial value or it has no value. And -there are no other honours but money honours.”</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p><span class="smcap">It</span> was evidently more that a mere opinion of -my companion. It was a creed. He passionately -believed what he said. And thus it was -that I discovered in Glacier wilderness a very -rare bird, the American black swan, and that -in the poet of Springfield whom the village in -its ignorance was once scandalised about.</p> - -<p>Vachel told me how he acted on his creed—What -is greater than the power of money? -why, contempt of money—and set off without -a dime to see America and live, and how the -good God took care of him until he got to -California. “In that way I learned to respect<span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">[131]</span> -myself and to respect my fellow-man,” said he. -“I learned what a lot of good poor men and -women there are in America. And I have -nothing to complain of individuals as such. I -could always rely on brotherliness. But it was -different with institutions, when I went to -people who were not themselves but hirelings, -people hired to do good. Don’t I know the -minions of charity? What are the places where -as a tramp I’ve had the stingiest treatment in -the world? Why, in institutions from the paid -organisers of charity.” And he told of how he -once went to a Y at H——, Mo., and the fight -he had to get mere soap and towel and a bath.</p> - -<p>“By Gosh, they weren’t going to give it to -me. I said ‘I’ve been a Y.M.C.A. worker -myself in New York for years and I know that -soap and towel can be had. I know the whole -workings of the organisation and I’ll have soap -and towel from you if I have to bring the roof -down. I’ll go to the editors of the newspapers. -I’ll go to the leading ministers and preachers -of H—— and I’ll hold you up to shame to the -town. I’ll whale you.’ And I got soap and -towel and they said, ‘take him down,’ and I -got a bath, though I used as much energy to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">[132]</span> -get it from them as would have served to do -three days’ hard work. Now I know that if I -had gone into any working man’s home in town -and asked for it, or even into a hotel I’d have -got soap and towel without demur.</p> - -<p>“Yet my best friend says, ‘Vachel, you’re -morbid on the subject of money.’ I said to -him ‘Well, there’s a lot in the New Testament -about it. Look it up!’”</p> - - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_039.jpg" alt="" /></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse"><i>The gopher-rats are sitting on their tails</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Watching us all around, listening to us.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>What is it these queer birds are getting excited about</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>By their camp fire?</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Money, is it? Money’s no good to the gophers,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Leave us a crumb or two.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Don’t forget a spot of that fried hash:</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Squeak!</i></div> -</div></div> - - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">[133]</span> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_133.jpg" alt="" /></div> -<p class="caption">WE CLIMBED UP WITH THE TREES<br /> -BUT CAME DOWN WITH THE WATERS</p> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XXI. DOWN CATARACT MOUNTAIN</h2> -</div> - - -<p><span class="smcap">Vachel</span> told me once, to save his self-respect, -he took a job in Chicago in a department store -at seven dollars a week, and was employed in -the wholesale toy department; a whole block -of toys, where was to be found every imaginable -plaything for young and old, from dolls as -large as three-year-old children to family portrait -albums that, having a musical box in their -binding, played “The Old Folks at Home” -and various hymn-tunes when you opened<span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">[134]</span> -them. He told how a lad called Timmins -wound up all the albums he could lay his -hands on, and laid them open and went away -to another part of the building, and of the wild -din that ensued.</p> - -<p>Timmins was “fired.”</p> - -<p>He told how he lived amid acres of dolls -and how, to satisfy the fire insurance inspectors, -a three-foot clearance was made between the -top of the toy heaps and the roof, and how all -one night they did overtime slamming down -rows and sections of dolls and toys on to waiting -trucks, and they were rushed to another -place. Then the inspectors came and passed -the building. And when they were gone the -Ghetto came and bought the “bum dolls” from -the “smash dump,” and Vachel and the rest -were soon building toys up to the roof once -more.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>“<span class="smcap">But</span> none of my friends liked my earning my -living in this way. They’d prefer to see me in -a bank or an insurance office. You see, I could -not paint a picture that would keep me. I -would not enter commercial art—I mean advertisement -drawing. My poems did not sell,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">[135]</span> -and people thought I had spent long enough -studying and loafing, and that I ought to begin -to earn a decent living. So I went into the -Chicago Department Store. They did not like -that. So I took to the road again. Curiously -enough, Francis Hackett took a job in that -same store before his star arose.”</p> - -<p>Vachel and I had a great pow-wow by night -and morning fire, and I cannot set down half -here in these (I hope) dignified paragraphs. -But all the while we sat and talked, the prairie -rats sat about us on their tails and haunches, -and stared curiously with their forepaws on -their chests like good masons in their rituals. -They smelt the beans, they smelt the cheese, -they smelt the corn-beef hash; they knew they -were protected by the United States Government -and they had never seen a dog or a -cat. Curiously friendly little companions!</p> - -<p>After the cloudy night there was a serene -morning. When the veils were lifted off the -mountains we knew them for just what they -were. They did not go all the way to the sky -after all.</p> - -<p>We went down Cataract Mountain the same -way as the water, down to flower-spread meads<span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">[136]</span> -and spacious fir-woods and widening streams. -Up above us the water chariots came racing -behind white horses four abreast, five abreast, -natural fountains played on every hand, and -high as heaven itself tiny cataracts tipped over -and fell downwards into veils, into smoke, into -nothingness. Characteristic of the place were -the great volumes of water which plunged -under hollow snow-crusts to emerge forty feet -lower down after a momentary vigil in the snow. -This is the valley of Cataract Creek, bounded -by lofty and perhaps impassable rocks, but in -itself a garden to the last patch of mould and -the last bright flower.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p><span class="smcap">We</span> made our way along Haystack Butte toward -Mount Grinnell, which, like a mighty fortress, -stood facing us in the line of our tramp. Was -it the beauty of the garden or was it the limpidity -of the streams that set us talking of -England? It is a peculiarly happy subject with -the poet, who, with all his Americanism, has -a true reverence for the fountain of English. -This July, just before setting out for the -Rockies, he received an invitation from Robert -Bridges, the British poet laureate, to become a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">[137]</span> -member of the “Society for Pure English.” -To that extent has Oxford at least recognised -that Vachel Lindsay is no mere performer or -charlatan and not the “jazz-poet.” To some -people in England Vachel came as a prophet, -and his courtly and, indeed, stately manners, -the profound obeisance which he made with -his hat before entering a church or a school or -a house, revealed him as an American of the -Washingtonian cast.</p> - -<p>Some would-be cynical, smart undergraduate -was showing Vachel King’s College Chapel -at Cambridge, and said to him: “The last -American we showed round when we asked -him what he thought of it, said, ‘Some God-box.’” -And he seemed to think that very -amusing, and could not understand Lindsay’s -silence on the point.</p> - -<p>“He did not know for how many years I -had lectured on the Gothic and what it meant -to me,” said Vachel.</p> - -<p>Naturally, I chaffed my companion not a little -on his belonging to the S.P.E., and called -him to order whenever the arduousness of our -campaign prompted him to break across the -pure classic of Shakespeare’s tongue, and I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">[138]</span> -made him take note of many expressions, such -as “being wished on,” and “handing a man -the canned goods,” which I bade him chase -from America into the sea.</p> - -<p>“I should only be too glad, Stephen,” said -he, “if I could get rid of ‘motivate’ and a -man’s ‘implications’ and ‘the last analysis’ -and ‘the twilight zone’ and ‘canned metaphor’ -and the dollar adjectives, a ‘ten-million-dollar -building’ and a ‘million-dollar bride.’”</p> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_018.jpg" alt="" /></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse"><i>Oxford has asked Chicago</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>To lend its purifying aid</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>To the King’s English.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>O Oxford! O Bridges!</i></div> -</div></div> - - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">[139]</span> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_139.jpg" alt="" /></div> -<p class="caption">THE INVISIBLE PLAYMATE JOINS US</p> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XXII. “GO WEST, YOUNG MAN”</h2> -</div> - - -<p>“<span class="smcap">Now</span>, Horace Greeley——” said Vachel, -opening his “morning strafe” of political conversation.</p> - -<p>“Who the —— was he?”</p> - -<p>“You don’t know? Why, you’ll be saying -you don’t know Shakespeare next. That’s as if -J. C. Squire had never heard of Edwin Booth.”</p> - -<p>“Well, who was he?”</p> - -<p>“He edited the <i>Tribune</i> throughout the -Civil War.”</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">[140]</span>“That all?”</p> - -<p>“He said, ‘The way to resume is to resume.’”</p> - -<p>“That all?”</p> - -<p>“He said, ‘Go West, young man, and grow -up with the country,’ and printed it at the head -of his newspaper every day.”</p> - -<p>“Oh! Did you ever hear of Mudford?”</p> - -<p>“No.”</p> - -<p>“What, never heard of Mudford, the famous -editor of the <i>Standard</i>?”</p> - -<p>“No.”</p> - -<p>“Ever heard of Nicol Dunn?”</p> - -<p>“No.”</p> - -<p>“He edited the <i>Morning Post</i> in its better -days. Ever heard of Frederick Greenwood?”</p> - -<p>“No.”</p> - -<p>“Never heard of Frederick Greenwood? -Why, he was the greatest journalist England -ever produced. He inspired Disraeli with the -idea of buying the Suez Canal. If we don’t -know about your journalists, I see you don’t -know about ours.”</p> - -<p>The battery was silenced.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p><span class="smcap">We</span> walked through five miles of rotten-ripe -red raspberries and got thorns in our half-naked<span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">[141]</span> -knees and carmined our fingers with raspberry -juice, and we kept spitting out unpalatable fruits -and making uncomplimentary remarks. Then -we got to open pine woods and freed our feet -of the tangles, and Vachel began to sing softly -to himself a children’s processional hymn:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse">We are the Magi,</div> -<div class="indent">Children though we are.</div> -<div class="verse">We are the wise men,</div> -<div class="indent">Following the star.</div> -</div></div> - -<p>“There are only two of us.” I ventured. -“Where do you think the third king has got -to?”</p> - -<p>“That’s King Christopher,” said Vachel, -sadly. “That’s our ‘other wise man.’ He -is with us, but he’s invisible. He is sitting in -Greeley Square or Vesey Street, and it was -thinking of him that really started me on -Horace Greeley.”</p> - -<p>“How do you mean?”</p> - -<p>“Well, he said to all the young Magi, ‘quit -seeking a star in the East, Go West and grow -up with the country. Get into America; find -your spiritual roots.’”</p> - -<p>“You want to persuade every one to cross -the Appalachians?”</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">[142]</span>“Yes,” said Vachel dreamily. “So I -brought him along invisibly. He is our invisible -playmate.” And he resumed his -children’s hymn.</p> - -<p>“You’re a good bit like Mark Twain and -Rudyard Kipling,” said Vachel to me at last, -“You’ve a wonderful geographical background. -You ought to read the life of Mark Twain. -Very interesting. He was made by his life in -Nevada. His life in the silver mining camps -and his knowledge of the West and the South -made him. Read <i>Roughing It</i>. It’s a great -book. Then Kipling with a boyhood in India -and a maturity in America owes much to his -knowing both West and East. What’s the -matter with young men to-day is a disinclination -to get their feet dirty. You’re the only -man in England or America I’ve been able to -persuade to go on a tramp with me. When I -proposed it to M——, the English poet, he -seemed to turn pale. That’s all behind -me,” he said, “though I don’t know what he -meant.”</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p><span class="smcap">We</span> came within sight of the shore of Lake -Josephine. “Shall we ask our invisible companion<span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">[143]</span> -if he’d like to come in for a swim with -us?” said I.</p> - -<p>“Why, that would be fine.”</p> - -<p>So we broke through to the green and silver -lake and, putting our tender feet on the sharp -stones and water-covered boulders, waded out -to swimming depth and we made a great splash -with Napoleon’s beautiful bride. And when -we came we vagabondised on the shore for -the rest of the day—the three of us—lying -stretched out beside a mounting red blaze of -rain-washed wood.</p> - -<p>The beach was all of little mauve stones -which we raked into couches. And there we -lay munching hot pea-nuts and rebuilding the -world on a foundation of the American Wild -West. Vachel drew some more world-maps -and adopted our invisible playmate as a member -of the society of “astrological geographers,” -and we took for our emblem and device the -map of the two hemispheres with the motto, -“The World is My Parish.”</p> - -<p>What a serene evening it was by the side of -fair Josephine! A half moon rose over us at -nightfall and marsh hens sped through the air -in volleying groups of wings. The stars and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">[144]</span> -the moon threw a silver radiance on the line -of the mountain-tops and on the forests and on -the dimples and lines and circles of the lake. -We fell asleep and were warm and at peace. -We only waked at four in the morning and -then bathed before sunrise and mingled our -bodies with the perfect reflections of green -and grey and brown and snowy mountain-sides.</p> - -<p>The sun arising grew upon us and chased -wraith-like mists across the waters, and our -fire, hotter than the sun, blazed on the mauve -stones and baked us and dried us when we -came out to it, and gave us our coffee and gave -us all we needed till old Sol was radiant o’er -the scene.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_039.jpg" alt="" /></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">[145]</span></p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse"><i>We know about Josephine</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>What Napoleon did not know.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>He was too preoccupied sacking cities</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>To love the beautiful altogether,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Killing men, counting cannon, putting unneeded</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Crowns upon his brothers’ heads.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>He didn’t know much about her,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>O no!</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>He said there were no more Alps,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>No more Pyrenees.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>He never said there were no more Rocky Mountains.</i></div> -</div></div> - - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">[146]</span> - - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_146.jpg" alt="" /></div> -<p class="caption">THE CHRISTIAN BECOMES SUN-WORSHIPPER -ALSO</p> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XXIII. THE SUN-WORSHIPPER</h2> -</div> - - -<p>“<span class="smcap">I drink</span> to America as she was before 1492,” -said Vachel, lifting high his coffee cup.</p> - -<p>“I drink to her as she was before the Red -Man came.”</p> - -<p>“And I drink to her as she was before the -Mound-builders came——”</p> - -<p>“And I drink to her as she was in the days -of the mountain-top tribe when a man and -his family lived together on a mountain-top<span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">[147]</span> -and the rule was one peak to one family, and -the eagles were tame and carried the mail.”</p> - -<p>“And I drink to Noah’s fourth son, who -was so naughty he was not allowed to bring a -wife into the Ark but carried a pine branch -under his arm. Is there any more booze i’ -the can? Yea. Very well; I drink again to -Noah’s outcast son who wandered in these parts -before the mountain-tribe arrived.”</p> - -<p>“Is there any more of this most excellent -coffee?”</p> - -<p>“There is, dear Stephen, one last kick in -the bottom of the pot.”</p> - -<p>“Then I drink to the Lady of the Lake -whom Noah’s son was obliged to marry -and to the cut-throat trout that were their offspring——”</p> - -<p>“Enough, enough! Is there any more -booze?”</p> - -<p>“Not a suck, Sir.”</p> - -<p>“Alas!”</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p><span class="smcap">The</span> reader will perhaps surmise that we are -approaching the Canadian line and that my -anti-saloon companion has fallen for what they -make in Alberta.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">[148]</span>But no, we have been made drunk with -words; it often occurs, and with Lindsay’s stone -coffee. The stone in the mosquito-net coffee -bag has spoken through us. It is a piece of -the Rocky Mountains, and they know all there -is to know about the mysterious mound-builders -and mountain-tribes. How gauntly and savagely -these old mountains have looked on at no-humanity -and for how many thousands of years! -“What went ye out for to see?” said Vachel -presently when we had hitched on our -packs. “Not a reed shaken by the wind! -What went we out into Glacier Wilderness for -to see? Why, <i>man</i>, a prophet. And there’s a -prophet in these mountains who can tell us a -good deal about the old world. We ought to -settle many things about the world before I get -back to Springfield and you get back to London. -Everywhere you have been I’m going to assume -I’ve been also. Now, at our next sitting let us -drink to Russia—Russia as she was before the -Bolsheviks.”</p> - -<p>“As she was before Peter the Great,” I -added.</p> - -<p>“As she was before the hordes.”</p> - -<p>The subject was too dark after all. I felt<span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">[149]</span> -we should have to drink, not to the past, but -to the Russia that is going to be when the -Bolsheviks have been forgotten.</p> - -<p>“And England?” I asked. “Will you -not drink confusion to the enemies of King -George V.?”</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>“<span class="smcap">Oh</span>, no,” said the poet. “I’m too good an -American for that. Couldn’t do that. My -roots are too deep in democracy. Confusion to -the enemies of King George—no, couldn’t drink -it. Confusion to the enemies of the English -people. Yes, I’d drink that toast.”</p> - -<p>“Well, it’s the same thing.”</p> - -<p>“Doesn’t sound so.”</p> - -<p>“In that case,” I retorted, “I’ll not drink to -the President.”</p> - -<p>But Vachel had become preoccupied and -began an unending chant of Patrick Henry’s -oration,</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse">Is life so dear, or peace so sweet,</div> -<div class="verse">As to be purchased by chains and slavery—</div> -<div class="verse">I don’t care for others, but as for myself</div> -<div class="verse">Give me liberty or give me death!</div> -</div></div> - -<p>No doubt he did not quote it quite correctly, -but I fastened on the third line, which I repeated<span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">[150]</span> -deliberately after him, “I—do—not—care—for—others,” -until he was once more moved to -mirth and got down from what in one poem he -has called:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse">The old Elijah, Jeremiah, John the Baptist soap-box;</div> -<div class="verse">The Rousseau, Mirabeau, Danton soap-box;</div> -<div class="verse">The Karl Marx, Henry George, and Woodrow Wilson soap-box.</div> -</div></div> - -<p>And we washed off our politics from our minds -at high noon in a river. And Vachel sat astride of -a giant tree that had fallen across the stream, and -luxuriating in the heat he cried out to me, “Gosh, -Stephen, I’m a sun-worshipper with my shirt off!”</p> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_039.jpg" alt="" /></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse"><i>Quit drinking coffee</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Before it’s everlastingly too late;</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Be not found among the coffee-bibbers!</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Silence those profane toasts</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>To Noah’s offspring and Patrick Henry.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Oh, Uncle Sam,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>See how thy children go</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>To the devil—drinking coffee!</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>O prohibit it!</i></div> -</div></div> - - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">[151]</span> - - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_151.jpg" alt="" /></div> -<p class="caption">THE BIRD CATCHETH THE -EAR OF THE PRIMITIVE -MAN</p> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XXIV. TWO VOICES</h2> -</div> - - -<p><span class="smcap">My</span> companion has two voices: one is that of -a politician, harsh and strident, the other is -that of a Homeric harper and ballad-chanter -of the days of old. The political voice does -not please me much. It is the voice of the -“hell-roarer” of the prairies. Lindsay loves -a mighty shout, an exultant war-whoop for its -own sake, like any Indian. And ... I’ve -heard those “glacier boulders across the prairies<span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">[152]</span> -rolled.” I have heard the “gigantic troubadour -speaking like a siege-gun.” But there is -another voice—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse">Two voices:</div> -<div class="verse">One was of the deep,</div> -<div class="verse">The other of a poor old silly sheep.</div> -<div class="verse">And ... both were thine!</div> -</div></div> - -<p>as G. W. Steevens once wrote. The other -voice is truly of the deep; sonorous and golden, -murmuring, and with eternity dreaming in it. -That is the voice of the poet.</p> - -<p>Some days with us were naturally dedicated -to poetry. The steps on the mountains caught -the rhythms, the gliding waterfalls and the -intensely coloured listening flowers suggested -the mood of the poets, and then the peaks, -the grandeur, uplifted Lindsay’s spirit. The -hymns were silenced. Silence hung on the -mute figures of Bryan and Altgelt. We let -Roosevelt sleep on. American and European -civilisation ceased to fill the mind, and there -was only the mountains and poetry. Vachel -knew by heart whole books, and he crooned -and chanted as we walked, and lifted his head -up to the snows and the waterfalls and the -skies. He has a bird-like face when he recites;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">[153]</span> -his eyes almost close, his lips purse up and -open like a thrush’s beak. He glories in the -word of poesy, and entirely forgets himself—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="indent">Oh ye who tread the Narrow Way</div> -<div class="verse">By Tophet-flare to Judgment Day,</div> -<div class="verse">Be gentle when the heathen pray</div> -<div class="indent3">To Buddha at Kamàkura.</div> -</div></div> - -<p>he chanted over and over again like a prayer, -as if those hushed and holy mountains on which -we looked were Buddha, Buddha at Kamàkura. -And then—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">To him the Way, the Law, Apart</div> -<div class="verse">Whom Maya held beneath her heart,</div> -<div class="verse">Ananda’s Lord—the Bodhisat.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">For whoso will, from Pride released</div> -<div class="verse">Contemning neither man nor beast,</div> -<div class="verse">May hear the Soul of all the East</div> -<div class="indent">About him at Kamàkura.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Yea, voice of every Soul that clung</div> -<div class="verse">To Life that strove from rung to rung,</div> -<div class="verse">When Devadatta’s rule was young,</div> -<div class="indent">The warm wind brings Kamàkura.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>My eyes had no doubt often passed over these -lines without realising their beauty. The -printing of a poem is only a guide, a clue to -what the poem really is. It is not the poem<span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">[154]</span> -itself. You have to divine the inner mystery -and beauty. The man who can read a poem -may help you to divine it for yourself. And -this Lindsay did, making this poem live as we -walked about—about and about. The beauty -of the poem almost depends on pronouncing -the word Kamàkura aright. Because we both -loved this song we thought of naming some -snowy mountain after Buddha, with the great -plea—“Be gentle!” Be gentle, all of us!</p> - -<p>Another poem which became a possession -of the heart was that of Sydney Lanier, little-known -in England—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">As the marsh-hen secretly builds on the watery sod,</div> -<div class="verse">Behold I will build me a nest on the greatness of God.</div> -<div class="verse">I will fly in the greatness of God as the marsh-hen flies,</div> -<div class="verse">In the freedom that fills all space ’twixt the marsh and the skies</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">By so many roots as the marsh-hen sends to the sod,</div> -<div class="verse">I will heartily lay me ahold of the greatness of God.</div> -<div class="verse">Like the greatness of God is the greatness within</div> -<div class="verse">The range of the marshes, the liberal marshes of Glynn.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>This poet of southern Georgia gave, I thought,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">[155]</span> -voice to a part of America, and it was a part -I had tramped in too, a land of moss-hung -forests and marshes, of marsh-blossoms and -many birds. In that beautiful first verse how -the word “secretly” in the first line enchants -the ear, and then the wonderful effect of the -phrase “greatness of God” when taken with -wing-flight of birds rising o’er the reeds!</p> - -<p>Talking of the modern poets, we agreed -that a poem was little if there was not sound -in it—melody—resonance. We found a common -fellowship in Poe, and my companion -rolled forth under a low and threatening heaven -the cadences of “Ulalume,” his favourite poem, -he averred.</p> - -<p>Browning meant nothing to him, but he was -fond of some of the early poems of Tennyson, -especially of “Maud,” which greatly inspired -him. Curiously enough, the latter poems of -Tennyson were unknown to him—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse">On a midnight in mid-winter when all but the winds were dead,</div> -<div class="verse">“The meek shall inherit the earth” was a Scripture which ran through his head,</div> -</div></div> - -<p>and the kindred poems among the last pages -of the collected works of Tennyson.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">[156]</span>Matthew Arnold had never touched him, -but the music of Keats he understood naturally -at sight. Of his own American poets he did -not care for Whitman, whom he is so often -told he resembles, but he loved Longfellow -and all such word-music as—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse">Sandalphon the angel of glory,</div> -<div class="verse">Sandalphon the angel of prayer,</div> -</div></div> - -<p>all of which he said one day as we were -climbing among the rocks.</p> - -<p>He began loving poetry by learning it by -heart and reciting it for his own joy, and I -began by writing in an exercise-book all the -soldiers’ poems of Thomas Campbell and -reading them—“a thousand times o’er”—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse">My little one kissed me a thousand times o’er,</div> -<div class="verse">And my wife sobbed aloud in her fullness of heart.</div> -<div class="verse">“Stay, stay with us! rest! thou art weary and worn,”</div> -<div class="verse">And fain was their war-broken soldier to stay;</div> -<div class="verse">But sorrow returned with the dawning of morn,</div> -<div class="verse">And the voice in my dreaming ear—melted away!</div> -</div></div> - -<p>How precious are the recollections of one’s -first love of poetry! If as a boy you read the -“Golden Legend” walking in country lanes<span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">[157]</span> -when the hay was cut in swathes in the fields -on either hand; if you have ever lain in the -midst of a cornfield and crooned to yourself the -exultant promises of Rabbi ben Ezra, or climbed -mountains with “Marmion” in your heart, or -lisped the “Ode to a Nightingale” to the first -girl you loved, how touching it will always be -in memory!</p> - -<p>The poet and the tramp shared thus their -recollections as they wandered amidst heights -and depths. They surely know much more of -one another now!</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse"><i>I think the poet</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Learned to be a poet,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>By living with the poets</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Till he became a poet.</i></div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse"><i>He had the great need in him</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>To give a song a tune.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>So he listened how the birds sang</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>And he began to croon.</i></div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse"><i>Now he’s singing for a living</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>And living for his singing.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>And his companion’s singing,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>And all of us are singing,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Because he’s learned to sing.</i></div> -</div></div></div> - - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">[158]</span> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_158.jpg" alt="" /></div> -<p class="caption">THE CLOUDS CAME OUT OF THEIR HOMES TO SEE US</p> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XXV. STOPPED BY THE CLOUDS</h2> -</div> - - -<p><span class="smcap">We</span> scrambled through thickets to Mount -Grinnell, which stands like a gigantic fortress, -a bulwark of this world against others. Its -impregnability seemed appalling. Fancy knocking -at that door after it was shut! We stopped -and looked up at it, and the sight of it relaxed -our tense human energy and left us with very -contrite souls. However, the nearer we got to -it the less it was magnified. Its battlements -receded and we soon had a fly’s view of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">[159]</span> -mountain, the view which the fly has when it -is walking on the barren surface of the rock.</p> - -<p>We clawed our way along the steep entangled -shore of Lake Grinnell to a waste of -willow saplings, and a litter of postal packets -of great rocks delivered by the mail chute of -the Grinnell Cataract. Here a great mass of -water meets momentarily with calamity and falls -over a precipice like houses falling. At two -miles’ distance it is like a picture of a waterfall -seen in a shop window, pretty and attractive. -At twenty yards’ distance it is the awful thing -it is. The sun is hidden at noon and a noise -that drowns all other noises is in your ears. -The spray blows turbulently over you like rain.</p> - -<p>We had thought to cross the cataract through -the <i>disjecta membra</i> of the rocks at its base, -and climbed into dreadful proximity, and advanced -our noses inquisitively over the foam. -And then very hurriedly we drew back as if we -feared we should be tempted across it. But -what to do? Not surely to retrace our steps? -That seemed unthinkable.</p> - -<p>We decided to go lower and try to ford the -rapids. Vachel thought that would not be -difficult. But I had attempted such crossings<span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">[160]</span> -in the Caucasus and knew what it meant to -adventure one’s tender body into a hypnotic, -rushing current and a frantic roar of stones. -So I went first and demonstrated it.</p> - -<p>And we did get across. With most of our -clothes off and stuffed into our packs, and with -uprooted pine saplings for support, we made a -criss-cross diagonal course into the water, which -rushed up our bodies like wild mastiffs, and we -were too preoccupied with the rolling stones -and slippery snags and the mesmerising onset -of the waters to think about the chilling we -were getting. It was certainly a victory when -we slipped out of the central violence and got -into the shallows on the other side.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p><span class="smcap">We</span> did no more that day. I had sprained two -fingers anyway, and could not rely on my left -hand. So we piled a dead-willow fire beside -the red rocks and talked. The cliff above us -went up to heaven, but there was a recess -washed out by the water of that waterfall in -some past age. I am inclined to think that the -cataract made the wind which simply raged -round the corner all night long. But we had -found a place that was completely out of it.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">[161]</span> -Also, we got enough wood to burn all night -and cure the cold. For it was cold up here. -We built a long barrier of little rocks between -us and the elongated glowing furnace of willow -which we had made. This kept the flames off -our blankets and yet warmed our bodies all the -way along.</p> - -<p>It was a majestic night, with the screened -light of the moon filling a narrow sky. A -selection of heaven’s stars played voluntaries to -us, but the jazz band of the waterfall kept up a -grandiose hubbub, in which were vocal human -cries and groans and chatterings—as if it were -hell or Broadway going past.</p> - -<p>Vachel could talk above this roar; I could -not. So I listened to him and his cataclysmic -accompaniment. It was, I think, on the subject -of Turner and heroic painting. Vachel, and -Ruskin before him were attracted to Turner by -the heroic style.</p> - -<p>“Scenes such as this beside the waterfall -delighted Turner. Just at dusk it was a perfect -Turner painting. Did you ever see that -‘elegant’ edition of Rogers’s <i>Italy</i> which old -Mr. and Mrs. Ruskin read with their child? -It is profusely illustrated with vignettes by<span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">[162]</span> -Turner. They are all in the heroic spirit and -they started Ruskin on his speculation about -cloud-forms and in his idealistic interpretation -of Turner.”</p> - -<p>“I love the heroic,” Vachel went on. “I -hate the game of puncturing heroics which -people think so clever nowadays.”</p> - -<p>I made no objection. A poet whose voice -can be heard above the jazz band is a hero, and -my sympathies are not with the flood of the -burlesque—unless, as now, they begin to wrap -my soul in slumber’s holy balm.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p><span class="smcap">Next</span> day we went up to the clouds, climbing -by tiny steps of rock and slippery tussocks, and -Vachel went ahead and became pioneer of the -way. For it was a left-handed mountain, and -I had no left hand that I could use, and I kept -slipping five feet down in making one foot up. -I got left behind, and when I caught up with -the poet he was sitting stripped under a waterfall -and leaning against a gleaming rock whilst -the stream splashed downward over him.</p> - -<p>It was a day of great moving clouds. Clouds -with personalities came stalking out of chasm -bed-chambers, clouds overtook us and enveloped<span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">[163]</span> -us. We found November’s home, where sweeping -rains cross and recross on the mountains. -We passed near the base of the black and dirty -glacier and watched the clouds smoking over it -like a spreading fire. And presently there was -not a particle of view above us except cloud, -and no view below except of the rocks at our -feet and the cloud-filled ravines.</p> - -<p>We stood in perplexity. In clear weather -it is difficult to get over the “Garden Wall” -from this side. Now we could not see our way -any further. We retired to twin slits in the -cliff, stretched ourselves on our blankets, and -gave way to meditation.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_006.jpg" alt="" /></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">[164]</span></p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse"><i>The clouds came out of their homes to see us;</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>They had heard of us and had seen us from afar,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Now they could satisfy their curiosity</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>And find out just exactly who we were.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>So they gave us of their hospitality,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Inviting us both to their mountain abode.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Mr. and Mrs. Glacier were at home—a chilly couple,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>So were the impulsive avalanches, a family of long descent</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>And purest origin.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>The visitors were mostly ladies of the upper strata of society</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Most æsthetically gowned.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>They came about us, asked us various questions,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Conventional questions about the weather.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Some new ones came, others drifted away.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>We were left by ourselves at the last.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>The clouds didn’t altogether like our style,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Our form wasn’t theirs,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>We were obviously parvenus, Nature’s profiteers,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Living not on our income but by our output.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>The Peaks, their husbands, with their patrimonies,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Were certainly less clever and more stodgy,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>But we were clear outsiders, people of a lowly birth,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Not altogether possible, they judged.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>So the clouds’ curiosity regarding us abated,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>We felt pretty chilly towards the end of the party.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>They offered us no tea, though we each had an ice on a wafer.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Proud, supercilious, overweening ladies!</i></div> -</div></div> - - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">[165]</span> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_165.jpg" alt="" /></div> -<p class="caption">IF YOU’RE MY FRIEND YOU’RE GREAT</p> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XXVI. LINDSAY ON ROOSEVELT</h2> -</div> - - -<p><span class="smcap">We</span> decided to change our direction and make -for the camp at the head of Lake McDermot. -This we could hope to reach by nightfall, as -it was downhill all the way. It was moreover -a right-hand descent and suited me well. In -an hour of diving and plunging downward we -got out of the clouds and saw that there was -fine weather away to the East. We had moreover -found a foot-trail, and, “Bless de Lo’d I’se -found de way,” cried Vachel.</p> - -<p>Downward, downward to the low pines, to -the large pines, to the giant pines—how easy -it was to go down. I thought we should have -little difficulty in getting to the little log-cabins -of the camp, and sleep dry for once. It was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">[166]</span> -now ten days since we had last had a roof over -our heads. The prospect was pleasant; we -thought of the hot supper awaiting us. We -thought of the drying of our clothes and our -blankets, and of a gentle sweet repose of our -tumbled and jolted bodies between white sheets.</p> - -<p>The descent, however, suited Vachel as -badly as the ascent had suited me. As a -short-legged man he had to take three steps -to my one, and he constantly serenaded me -through the evening air—“Steeven ... wait -a minute! Little Vachel’s lonesome!”</p> - -<p>I would stop, he would draw level. “Now -wait a minute,” he would say. “Let’s look -back! What a wonderful view! Isn’t it a -wonderful view? Let’s sit here awhile and -take it in—a <i>wonderful</i> view!”</p> - -<p>Or he would let me go on a bit and then -stop me. “Stee-ven, look at the pine-tree, -look at the giant tree, giant of the forest, look -what a <i>great</i> giant! Let’s sit down and take -it all in!”</p> - -<p>In the twilight we got to talking of oratory, -which is one of the poet’s pet themes. He -holds that pure oratory is natural poetry. -Bryan is a poet; Patrick Henry was a poet;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">[167]</span> -Daniel Webster was a poet. He enunciated -various famous lines to me, trying to rouse the -mountains with a sort of voice-of-God tone or -air-bursting boom which the poet commands—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse">Lib-er-ty <i>and</i> Un-i-on ...</div> -<div class="verse">One ... and in-sep-ar-able ...</div> -<div class="verse">Now ... and ... for-everrr!</div> -</div></div> - -<p>and he imitated Andrew Jackson saying—“<i>The -Federal Union! It must and will be -preserved!</i>”</p> - -<p>I found in the poet a curious creed, and -that is, that oratory is better than logic. He -preferred the warm glowing orator to the cold -clear logician. He preferred Antony to Brutus, -and put friendship above merit. He justified -the “Solid South” in being solid. He justified -Wilson for appointing his friends to power. -He considered politics a matter not of theories -but of friendships and family ties. He justified -the spoils system to me. “When a man comes -to power—he brings his clan to power, his -friends, the people of the village, and that is -much better than a collection of high-browed -experts,” said he. He loathed detraction and -personal attacks of any kind. The commonest -laudatory adjective which he used to me in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">[168]</span> -his conversations about his friends was the -adjective “loyal.” I could not persuade him -to talk critically of any of the literary work of -his friends.</p> - -<p>“Any poet who is a friend of mine is a good -poet!” cried Vachel more than once. “I’m -<i>for</i> him.”</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p><span class="smcap">We</span> came into view once more of fair Lake -Josephine, but we could not make much headway. -We were held by conversational webs. -The poet was tired, and at every halting-place -he started on some engrossing theme -which beguiled us into spending half an hour -sitting on dead trees. He was in the rôle of -Scheherezade talking to her sultan. We ought -to have plunged down to the lake-shore, built -a big fire and dried off, but I was foolishly -persistent in the idea of getting to the Many -Glacier camp that night. Presently we started -talking of Roosevelt, and the poet held me by -the coat for a whole hour while he explained -how he had been carried off his feet by a -Republican, and had defied his family and -voted for Roosevelt and had been struck out -of the family Bible, so to speak.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">[169]</span>“I was for him until the end of his Presidency,” -said Vachel. “He refused to give -business and high finance the first place, he -would not talk the holy gospel of tariff, he -made the White House a national centre of -culture, he gave a great progressive lead, and -rallied to his banner the bright spirits of -America; he hit the shams and the frauds -and the trusts; he stood by the Negro; he -was not afraid to express what he thought on -any subject under the sun; he did not halt -between yes and no, and he was the very -opposite of the Adams type of politician.”</p> - -<p>“But it burned him out,” Vachel went on. -“He had a third and last period when he -was not himself, when he acted the young man, -and stage-managed the delusion of endless -energy.”</p> - -<p>And he told the story of Roosevelt’s last -visit to Springfield with great gusto, imitating -Teddie’s mighty stride down through the -people to the platform, the war-cries and -yells of the audience, the clash of the brass-bands.</p> - -<p>“And he was not an orator, and he did not -believe in the spoils system,” I interrupted<span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">[170]</span> -maliciously. “And he did not believe in the -families ruling America——”</p> - -<p>No wonder we got lost in the willows.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_018.jpg" alt="" /></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse"><i>A’m ti-erd, yes a’m ti-erd,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>A got th’ bloo-ooes aw-fool ba-ad.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Ma feet is sore;</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>You’s awful so-ore,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Ain’t ye, feet?</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>That fellah over the-ere</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>’S legs is just too lo-ong.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Now where’s he gwine to now?</i></div> -<div class="indent"><i>Where’s he gwine to now?</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>I’se skeered he’ll leave me here a-lone,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>All a-lo-one.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Say, Cap, doan go on so fa-ar,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Say, boss, you sure didn’t see that tree,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>You cahn have no feelin’s for the view</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Huhhyin’ on so fass—</i></div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verseright">(Tired Feet Blues)</div> -</div></div></div> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">[171]</span></p> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_171.jpg" alt="" /></div> -<p class="caption">SHE SENT MORE RAIN AND LAUGHED AGAIN</p> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XXVII. THE WILLOWS</h2> -</div> - - -<p><span class="smcap">When</span> I was at Springfield I was brought -before the children of the High School, where -in years past the poet went to school, two -thousand children in a grand auditorium. I -think we could show nothing of the kind in -England, an assembly of nearly all the boys -and girls between the ages of twelve and sixteen -in the city—white children, black children, -immigrant European children promiscuously -grouped, bright-faced and vivacious and feeling<span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">[172]</span> -all-together. I was to speak to them on Russia, -but before my turn came the school did twenty -minutes’ practice at the school-yell. For there -was a ball-match on the morrow, and as a -young orator cried out to them, “We are -going to win to-morrow. If the school is -behind us we’ll win.”</p> - -<p>The leaders of the school-yell came out of -their seats, and they leapt like Indians and -flung their arms about and writhed and appealed -and struck the floor with the palms of their -hands and appealed again. Thus they gave -“The Locomotive Yell,” which reminded me -of the voice of the Purple Emperor Express -in Kipling’s locomotive story “.007.” Thus -they imitated a great steam-engine under full -pressure of steam, laboriously and mightily -and then victoriously roaring forth from the -Grand Terminal—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse">Rah <span class="gesperrt">...</span> rah <span class="gesperrt">...</span> rah <span class="gesperrt">...</span> rah—</div> -<div class="verse">Spring <span class="gesperrt">...</span> field <span class="gesperrt">...</span> High <span class="gesperrt">...</span> School</div> - -<div class="versecenter"><small>(repeated four times with gradual acceleration)</small></div> - -<div class="verse">Yea Springfield</div> -<div class="verse">Yea Springfield</div> -<div class="verse">Rah <span class="gesperrt">...</span> Rah <span class="gesperrt">...</span> Rah.</div> -</div></div> - -<p>Vachel was visibly affected. “That’s where<span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">[173]</span> -I get my inspiration,” said he. “I just love -them to death. I feel as if I’d got a snoot -full o’ whisky. I just love them.”</p> - -<p>It would be idle to deny that these yells -did not raise every hair on my scalp. It was -an astonishing enkindling of the primitive. -When I stood up to speak to these children -I felt myself on a mighty friendly river. I was -borne along by a rapturous enthusiasm which -had been started by the yells. The whole -school, boys and girls, white and coloured, -were fused in one glowing whole. And Vachel -said to me once more, “There is America.”</p> - -<p>What a contrast to England, where the -children are not allowed to get into this -rapturous state! If you have faced the critical -audience of Rugby or Harrow, or the restrained -maidenhood of a school like High Wycombe, -you realise the difference. If you are a moving -speaker the Head may even ask you “not to -get the children excited.”</p> - -<p>I was explaining this to Vachel. “Well,” -said he, “that’s how it is in England. The -duelling spirit survives. Every one is still on -his guard. The American has thrown his -shield away. Most human beings are incapable<span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">[174]</span> -of understanding anything till they are moved. -That’s how we do things in America, and go -ahead, by whoops and yells—Whoopee!”</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p><span class="smcap">Roosevelt</span> made America into one man. He -mesmerised America. But the spell failed, and -many were disillusioned. His destruction of -his own Progressive party was a terrible blow.</p> - -<p>We were walking now in the woods in the -dark, and heavy rain had come on, and we -thought we were on a foot-trail and were not, -and we got into a lamentable jungle of devastated -pines and wild undergrowth and water. -We walked in a circle, we tore our clothes -afresh, we climbed pitiably slowly over stark -dead jagged trees and branches, and Vachel -forgot the subject of Roosevelt and of oratory, -and began to make many suggestions as to -the right direction. We got so desperate that -I said to him:</p> - -<p>“You think you know the way. Go ahead, -I’ll follow.”</p> - -<p>He wouldn’t do that.</p> - -<p>“All right: you follow me. And no suggestions -for twenty minutes. We’re going to -get out of here.”</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">[175]</span>We then plunged into a waste of tightly-packed -willow trees, all about ten feet high, -with branches thickly interlaced. It was intensely -dark, and they soused us with water -at every step. It was like breast-stroke -swimming through them. We came to a pine-tree -island in the midst of them, and then after -a long struggle forward, as I thought, we came -back to the same pine trees. Then Vachel -said, “Let us just lie down here for the night. -When morning comes it will be easier.”</p> - -<p>But the ground under us was in slops of -water, and rather than sit and shiver there -for hours I was all for getting out, and still -believed it possible. This faith or stubbornness -was at length rewarded, for we came to -the water at the top of Lake McDermot, and -it was nothing to us to walk through thigh-deep -water for half a mile and ford the river. -We were so soaked with the water of the -willows that we must have made the lake a -little wetter.</p> - -<p>So we made our way to the palatial hotel -which is situated on the north-eastern corner -of Lake McDermot. Bedraggled, hanging in -new tatters and with water streaming into little<span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">[176]</span> -pools on the floor when we stood still, we were -no people for the hotel. And we read on the -front door, “No one in hobnails or bradded -shoes allowed to enter here.” The many lights -shone on our red faces for a minute, and then -we passed on—to the log-cabins of the campers -and the hob-nailed brethren. And there we -got a room, and we opened our last can of -pork and beans and ate it to the bottom, and -we rung out our streaming clothes and hung -them to dry, and we put Roosevelt and Bryan -to sleep, and the poet and the Guardsman were -hushed.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_018.jpg" alt="" /></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse"><i>The joke was on us and Nature laughed at us,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>She laughed at us, she would not help us.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>She sent more rain and laughed again,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Swish, swish!</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Ha, Ha!</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>She laughed at us, she would not help us,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>She sent more rain and laughed again.</i></div> -</div></div> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">[177]</span> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_175.jpg" alt="" /></div> -<p class="caption">SO FOR US HE MADE GREAT MEDICINE</p> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XXVIII. JOHNNY APPLESEED</h2> -</div> - - -<p><span class="smcap">I built</span> a fire by the roadside opposite the -palatial hotel and made our coffee. “It’s like -lighting a fire and making yourself a personal -cup of coffee on Broadway,” said Lindsay, -“but it’s fine.” It’s a dramatic act and startles -the imagination. The coffee-pot could be made -the emblem of revolt—“Go West, young man, -with a coffee-pot. You can live on nothing a -year with a coffee-pot. Figure it out, how -little money you need to live in the wilds!”</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">[178]</span>Vachel is all for giving the business man -and clerk and industrial worker a three-months’ -vacation. “They don’t work in these summer -months anyway,” says he. “But they are -afraid of being reproached if they take long -holidays. Every man here, be he a millionaire -or a poor man, works. He has an office, he -has a factory. If he hasn’t these, he invents -them. He believes it is effeminate to take -more than two weeks’ holiday. For a month’s -holiday he must have the recommendation of -his physician. Otherwise he loses caste and -may be called a ‘lounge lizard,’ which is one -of the terms of abuse which sting most. On -the other hand, modern work becomes every-day -more sedentary, more mechanical. In -accountancy figures become more exclusive, -in the workshop automatic machinery becomes -more and more perfect. It dulls and enthralls -the mind.”</p> - -<p>“Yet how easy it is to get out and do what -we are doing!” I urged in agreement.</p> - -<p>“Go, give them a message,” cried the poet.</p> - -<p>“Intelligentsia of the world, unite! You have -nothing to lose but your chains. Young men -and women, get free, get your coffee-pots, take<span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">[179]</span> -up the national parks and the free lands of the -West!”</p> - -<p>“I have an idea that most of the tramps and -vagabonds of our country-sides have had lives -full of poetry. The men who are dismissed -as eccentrics were often mystics. America has -not liked its Thoreaus and its Chapmans.... -Johnny Appleseed, for instance, who was an -American St. Francis, has been generally -laughed at as a sort of a harmless lunatic.”</p> - -<p>We talked of this on the upward trail next -day. One point in favour of the hotel had -been its good supply of canvas trousers. I -bought myself a pair, and was thereby saved -the reproach of looking a little like Johnny -Appleseed in the matter of my attire. I -laughed at Johnny for having worn a tin can -on his head for a hat, and Vachel was at pains -to defend him even there. But the poetry of -his life was his going ahead of the pioneers of -Ohio and Indiana, and planting apple-orchards -and tending them and watching them grow for -the America that should come after him. I -often wonder whether the large red-gleaming -Ohio apples of to-day do not come from him. -I’ve stolen them and munched them at dawn,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">[180]</span> -as I tramped to the West, and I can testify -how good they were—good medicine.</p> - -<p>“And so for us he made great medicine,” -says the poet reverently, quoting his own new -poem.</p> - -<p>Vachel in his quest for beauty was regarded -by many as a crank, an eccentric. He endured -the humiliation of being village-idiot, or, as -they call it in the Middle West, “town-boob.” -Awfully silly people who thought themselves -smart would stop in front of him with the air -of a Johnny Walker whisky advertisement and -ask him quizzically if he were “still going -strong.” He was discovered later, and hailed -and acclaimed by the poets of America and -England, but even then the dulled folk of -business and politics looked doubtfully upon -him. He told me, for instance, how a celebrated -impresario introduced him to the -notables of the capital, but always with the -formula—</p> - -<p>“I want to introduce you to Mr. Vachel -Lindsay of Springfield, Illinois.... He is a -pp—oet.”</p> - -<p>So there’s a streak of sadness somewhere in -the poet’s mind, and it comes from brother-man.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">[181]</span> -And that sadness has expressed itself in a love -of Johnny Appleseed and all others whom the -Spirit drives into the wilderness.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p><span class="smcap">We</span> camped then under an overhanging crag -of Mt. Justinian and watched the moon, half -eclipsed by a cliff, creep and crawl like a golden -turtle over the mountains, over the mighty -tops, over the ... over the world, whilst bright -silver cloudlets in ball-robes danced lightly -amongst the stars. And we climbed next day -by twenty-four zigzags to the jagged summit, -and rested in a grand snow-cavern as large as -a church, made by the winds and the drifts in -dread mid-winter, and we saw the clouds blow -off the glaciers like washing-day steam out of a -kitchen door. The poet lifted his mighty voice -to the rocks, and they sent a kindred answer -back to him. He called the snow-cavern -Brand’s Church, and it was a strange and -thrilling place in which to abide.</p> - -<p>They call the ridge of the mountain the -“Garden Wall,” but it is not very felicitously -named. But it is wall-like. It is like an -enormous exaggeration of the Roman wall -built to keep out the Picts and Scots from<span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">[182]</span> -England, but it is a rampart against the -Martians rather than against man.</p> - -<p>We came at last to a joyous company in an -old-fashioned inn, and made happy acquaintance -with a band of hikers and sportsmen and -mountaineers. Girls with riding-switches in -their hands were dancing with one another, -and a tall dark striking one whom I called the -Spaniard chummed in with us and brought her -friend and made Vachel promise to recite. We -had a mountain-climbers’ supper, and when this -was cleared away the bears came down the -mountain toward us for the leavings, and -watched us eagerly and ate the sweets we -threw them, and when the bears were gone -we built a huge bonfire and sat around and -watched the sparks fly upward, and told stories -and chaffed one another. And Vachel talked -to us all of the virtue of the West and read to -us his poem of the hour—the story of Johnny -Appleseed, who in the days of President -Washington made for us all—great medicine.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_039.jpg" alt="" /></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">[183]</span></p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse"><i>Thackeray advised us—</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>How to live on nothing a year.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>“Take a nice little house in Mayfair;</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Order everything and pay nothing.”</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>We can go one better than that.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Take over the Rocky Mountains</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>As your personal estate;</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Everything arranged for you in advance,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Complete freedom of mind,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>And no bills.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>When the little game in Mayfair is played out</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>And you are clearly on the rocks,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Be sweet about it,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Leave your friends a card,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Tell them you’ve been advised a change of scene.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>You’re on the Rockies.</i></div> -</div></div> - - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_184">[184]</span> - - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_184.jpg" alt="" /></div> -<p class="caption">HENCEFORTH I CALL YE NOT SERVANTS -BUT FRIENDS</p> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XXIX. LOG-ROLLING</h2> -</div> - - -<p><span class="smcap">Vachel</span> slipped near Heaven’s Peak and turned -a double somersault downward, buffeting his -head with his huge pack (crammed with canned -goods, loaves, blankets, and what not) and then -I picked him up and found he had sprained his -ankle.</p> - -<p>“Don’t think I’m hurt,” said the poet. “I -yelled because I was scared. I’ll be all right -in a few minutes.”</p> - -<p>He didn’t mind the pain, but he loathed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">[185]</span> -being beaten. Nevertheless he was down and -out. “We’ll go on to-morrow,” said he. -“We’ll go on next day.”</p> - -<p>“Here we are, and here we remain,” said I, -“till the ankle has recovered. We can stay a -week or two weeks, and I’ll go back for more -food. So let’s make up our minds to it.”</p> - -<p>So we stayed by a flat-rocked stream on a -grand slope in a forest of stately pines and firs. -Vachel sat on his blankets like a sultan. And -he speedily forgot his ankle and the mountains -and Heaven’s Peak, and began to tell me the -story of Elbert Hubbard, from the time when -he travelled in Larkin’s soap to the time when -he wrote “Who Took the Lid off Hell?” and -went down in the Lusitania. And then he told -me the substance of “A Self-made Businessman’s -Letters to his Son,” that unashamed best -seller which portrayed the benevolent soul of a -Chicago packer before Upton Sinclair dared. -Then he told me a fantastic story of how ten -ne’er-do-well men of Springfield were found -ready to die for the Flag. Then he told to me -from memory Edgar Allan Poe’s story of King -Pest, and the ghouls of the forest crept close to -us to listen. Then he told me of the prairie-schooners<span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">[186]</span> -which used to have inscribed on them -“Pike’s Peak or bust!”</p> - -<p>“Heaven’s Peak or bust,” said I, maliciously -pointing to his swollen ankle. “Lindsay, -essaying to climb Heaven’s Peak, slipped downward,” -I went on facetiously, imitating the style -of my letters to the <i>Evening Post</i>. He smiled.</p> - -<p>“How yer feelin’?” I interjected.</p> - -<p>“I’m feelin’ fine,” said he.</p> - -<p>“Shall we get to Canada?”</p> - -<p>“I’ll be all right to-morrow.”</p> - -<p>“We ought to have gone further whilst the -goin’ was good, eh?”</p> - -<p>“I’m sorry, Stephen,” said he apologetically.</p> - -<p>“But this is good?”</p> - -<p>“It’s good enough for me.”</p> - -<p>“All right.”</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p><span class="smcap">Bringing</span> in wood for a big fire is rather a -tedious job, but I hit on a sporting way of doing -it all by myself, and doing it better. We were -at seven thousand feet, and the avalanches and -spring floods and storms had wrought havoc -among the trees. Fine dead trunks lay in -scores on the mighty slope of the mountain. -Our fire was at the foot of a slippery granite<span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">[187]</span> -slide. So I took a stout young pine-tree, and -began to lever the great dead trees and set -them rolling downward. Vachel was perched -on a rock above the fire, and the logs arrived -at the embers below like colliding locomotives, -with a great bump and showers of sparks. It -was possible to lever and roll downwards logs -that were thirty or forty feet long, and we -pulled the great lumps of their sprawling -resinous roots on to the fire.</p> - -<p>We slept that night among the granite -shelves, and the pine-roots roared as they -burned, and the great rocks beside the fire -cracked under the heat with a sort of earthquake -thud which registered a buffet on our -bodies ten yards away.</p> - -<p>We stayed four days in this wonderful spot, -and I became fascinated with log-rolling. Even -Vachel, with his ankle, hobbled after me and -tried to do it too. We talked of political and -literary log-rolling, log-rolling for one’s friends. -“I’m all for it,” said the poet. “Log-rolling is -a virtue.”</p> - -<p>Then he recounted to me the origin of the -expression—log-rolling. “It is a Western -term,” said the poet. “It also comes from the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">[188]</span> -life of the pioneers. You know how it was; -the settler chose the site of his log-cabin or of -his new barn, and then went into the forest and -felled the number of trees necessary, and he -left them lying where they had fallen, and then -called his friends together for a festive occasion. -They all worked together for him, and rolled his -logs to the most convenient spot where they could -be piled to make his home. Of course he always -gave his friends a luncheon first, and then they -went off and rolled his logs home for him.”</p> - -<p>“And I like that,” said the poet. “No man -can hope to do much in this world without the -help of friends. And I for one would not -want to.”</p> - -<p>Go to it then, ye log-rollers of the literary -world, ye friends, we’ll lunch ye, we’ll give you, -coffee with a kick of a mule in it, and fried -corned-beef hash fit for the best friend of the -Grand Vizier’s cook. And he, as you know, -fares better than the Sultan himself.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_039.jpg" alt="" /></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">[189]</span></p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse"><i>Who rolled home Shakespeare’s logs?</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>We did: we helped to do it.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>All the world has given a hand.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Were they lunched first?</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Ah, I doubt it.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>But that was not Shakespeare’s fault,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>He was a jolly fellow!</i></div> -</div></div> - -<hr class="tb" /> -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p><i>N.B.</i>—According to Frederick Dallenbaugh, writing to the -<i>New York Post</i>, the real log-rolling commences after the logs -have been brought to the site:</p> - -<p>“The foundation logs for the house having been duly -notched and fixed in position, another tier is placed on top -of them, and then another, and so on till the log wall is of -the prescribed height. Now, it is obvious that it would be -difficult to lift the logs up on to this growing wall. Primitive -science then comes to the builder’s aid. Other logs are placed -at an incline against those already established in their position -and the logs that are to surmount the lower logs are rolled -up the incline into place.</p> - -<p>“From this came the invitations sent out by the prospective -builder to come to his log-rolling.”</p> -</div> - - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">[190]</span> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_190.jpg" alt="" /></div> -<p class="caption">POOR ACTÆON PAYS<br /> THE WOMAN NEVER PAYS</p> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XXX. TOWARD THE KOOTENAI</h2> -</div> - - -<p><span class="smcap">Summer</span> began to give way to winter on -the mountains. There were very cold nights, -and frost. The full moon made the forest -spacious, and the beautiful fir-trees, like -candelabras, glittering with silver lights. The -mornings were of an intense stillness as if -ordained whilst God walked in the garden. -We had stayed three days beside a grey rock wall -which was eight feet high, and it began to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_191">[191]</span> -have the light of home upon it, and one might -have lived there long.</p> - -<p>Vachel soon began to feel much better, -though he looked quaint, hobbling along the -rocks and uneven woodland holding on to a tall -pine-cudgel which he had cut. He wore a red -cotton handkerchief over his crumpled hat, and -it was tied in knots under his chin. He was -weak at all joints and walked like a dwarf who -lives in a hollow tree, a fairy-like antediluvian -old fellow. His red wind-blown face was lined -and lined. His eyes twinkled as he walked. -He stooped to pick up wood, he looked -cautiously about him, and I had the feeling -that he would rapidly scurry away if a human -being came into view.</p> - -<p>I returned to camp for a bagful of provisions, -and bright-faced Myrtle La Barge gave me a -whole apple-pie to take to the poet in memory -of Johnny Appleseed, and she gave me large -overweight of cheese and apricots and ham -and all the rest I asked for. That night a -bear came after us, smelling the ham, and I -said to him, “Bite Daniel, bite him, bite him!” -and the bear studied us some paltry half-hour, -but as the Comick saith, “his mind was in the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_192">[192]</span> -kitchen.” And he said to the poet with a disappointed -groan—“How about the ham?” -But Vachel then waved his pine-cudgel and -the bear did waver with his hind-quarters and -ran away. The poet then became a silent -watcher for the rest of the night.</p> - -<p>We set off next day for the Kootenai River, -and Vachel had tied up his game foot in a -dozen ropes and bindings, and it was soaking in -iodine besides, and we went very slowly and he -sang hymns all the way. I said to him, “You -won’t mind, Vachel, if I go ahead some distance.” -For his singing scared the wild animals. The -white-vested woodpecker walking like a great -fly up the dead poles of old pines, tapping as -he went, paused meditatively at the sound of -Vachel’s voice; the grouse and the ptarmigan -tripped ahead of us like hens, and scurried out -of view; little piggy the porcupine trembled in -all his beautiful quills; and the squirrels scolded -from all the trees as if we were a terrible -annoyance. I am not surprised. At school -at Springfield the teacher used to say; “All -sing except Vachel,” the reason being that he -has his own voice entirely. Thus, in slow and -devastating accents, keeping pace with the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">[193]</span> -enforced slow walk and pine-cudgel progress, -you might have heard him singing—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse">We ... shall ... dwell ... in that fair and happy ... land</div> -<div class="verse">Just across ... from the ever-green sho-o-re.</div> -</div></div> - -<p>and I put distance between us, but ever as he -caught up I could hear the scared animals -rushing away. I grew facetious about the -ever-green shore, after he had sung it fifty-five -times, and he, with utter meekness, gave it up -from that hour forth and sang instead:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse">When he cometh, when he cometh,</div> -<div class="indent">To make up his jewels.</div> -</div></div> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p><span class="smcap">We</span> descended into a profound and shadowy -valley where the pines and firs got loftier as if -trying to reach the level of the mighty cliffs -above them, but all their branches hung in veils -of the tillandsia moss. Here were firs with -thousands of Uncle Sam beards of yellow-green -hair hanging from thousands of sharp chins. -The great depth of the brown floor of the -forest was roofed in by darkness, and tree-tops -and moss. We came down to a wild brawling -stream which rent the forest in twain and let<span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">[194]</span> -in the fairness of the sky and the sun. It was a -perfect place and I must say we did not expect -to meet anybody there.</p> - -<p>We took off our clothes in the sun, and -naked Lindsay took his shirt to wash in the -stream. Naked, I made a fire by the water-edge, -and put on the coffee-pot to boil. The -water of the river was ice-cold, and surreptitiously -dipping a limb in it, one registered the -fact. Many brown comma butterflies danced -in the sunshine, and settling on our arms and -legs, tickled us, throwing their honey-tubes -deep into our pores and getting their luncheon -before we got ours. Evidently we were a -couple of sweet boys.</p> - -<p>Our innocence was, however, sharply disturbed -by an unwonted cry and a shout, and a -red-faced, large-eyed, half-breed Indian suddenly -appeared on horseback along the river -shore. He was trying to protect the eyes of his -party. But he was too late. We made a rapid -scramble and dived as a party of five highly-amused -girls came past, and following them a -dozen pack-mules, carrying their camping outfits -and party-frocks.</p> - -<p>I lay in the water after that and thought it<span class="pagenum" id="Page_195">[195]</span> -over whilst a cascade of melted snow rushed -down my neck, and I saw on the shore the -coffee-pot lifting its lid and spitting many times. -Presently I saw the Indian re-appear and -struggle through the forest wreckage of the -river-bank.</p> - -<p>“The party apologises,” says he, “for coming -upon you unexpectedly.” I apologised in -return.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_018.jpg" alt="" /></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse"><i>When Actaeon saw Artemis at her bath,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>The goddess changed him to a stag.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>And when Tiresias saw Athene thus</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>She robbed him of his eyes.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>But when these goddesses saw Actaeon and Tiresias</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>A-bathing,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>They laughed.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>We meant nothing to them</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Compared with what they knew they meant to us.</i></div> -</div></div> - - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_196">[196]</span> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_196.jpg" alt="" /></div> -<p class="caption">FROM THE FIRE TO THE DARK GOES THE TINY SPARK</p> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XXXI. AS THE -SPARKS FLY UPWARD</h2> -</div> - - -<p><span class="smcap">We</span> lunched on ham and peas and caramel cake, -and lay in a natural cradle among the roots of -giant firs, and slept for an hour of a perfect -afternoon. After the ice-cold dip and scalding -coffee and a good feed and a self-indulgent -snooze, we knew ourselves to be well and -certainly happy. What a thing is physical well-being—to -be hard, to be fit, to be cool, to be<span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">[197]</span> -clear-headed, to know there’s a live spring in -every muscle, and then to be care-free and able -to sleep in the afternoon!</p> - -<p>Vachel’s ankle went very well, the danger -was that he might do too much on it. We -walked three or four miles up stream and then -camped for the night on a wild triangle alongside -a mighty barricade of the jetsam of broken -water-washed tree trunks, some as long as fifty -feet. We lodged in the profound trough of a -characteristic Western canyon. Night came -quickly, and our camp-fire light obscured the -stars. The giant trees with shadowy bases -climbed sheer out of sight into the murky sky -above. The brown and white foaming river, -like hundreds of swimming beavers, rolled onward -past us all the while. We boiled from it, -washed clothes in it, made soap-foam over it, -but the ever-freshening waves purified our -margins faster than we could sully them. We -paddled about in bare feet on the shore and -gathered wood whilst the firelight played on the -stones, and we heaped high the bonfire. I -stood on a mighty chief of the forest and flung -lesser logs from the water-washed wood barricade -right to the fire, and they landed one after<span class="pagenum" id="Page_198">[198]</span> -another with a thud and a roar in the midst of -the flames. Then we lay flat on our backs on -our blankets and watched our sparks fly up and -die in scores, in thirties, in fives, in thirty-fives, -in hundred and fives. What a giddy and wild -life some of them had! How they whirled! -How impetuous were some, how serpentine -others! We saw how all of them trailed their -light as the first escaped from the fire, and -were like serpents of flame.</p> - -<p>“They do not die,” said the poet. “They -only seem to die; they go on, like ideas, into -the invisible world. I’d like to write a volume -of adventures, the story of the adventures of, -say, twelve different sparks.”</p> - -<p>It was very white wood and very red fire. -And it was slow-burning, for the resin had -been washed out of all their boles. The fire -glowed and glittered and was sociable and was -taking time to live and taking time to die. -Our eyes grew hot and staring, like children’s -eyes sitting in front of the yule-logs listening to -Christmas tales after their bed-time hour.</p> - -<p>Our thoughts fly up brightly and then disappear, -but goodness knows where they go to. -Our fancies stream upward idly like little flaming<span class="pagenum" id="Page_199">[199]</span> -serpents. Life is a fire, and we keep on burning -and throwing up sparks. We are very pretty, if -we could only see ourselves, with our thoughts -and fancies jumping out of us and flying from us. -The fire will burn out towards dawn, and then -the sparks will cease. They’ll only be a happy -memory then. But the poet believes the sparks -go on.</p> - -<p>What a silence! The river is roaring past -like the river of time itself, but we have forgotten -it, we have detached ourselves from it, and -beside our little fire there is a silence all our -own. We have a silence and a noise at the -same time. There is a stillness and aloofness -and a sense of no man near.</p> - -<p>A disturbing thought comes. “If there were -an earthquake in San Francisco you’d feel the -tremor here. If there were an earthquake in -the West the river might suddenly flow over us.” -We listened, we tried to sense the sleeping -world, the ball on which we were lying. How -still, how peaceful it was! Not a tremor, not -a quiver from beneath us! Old earth slept the -perfect sleep of a child. We too could sleep -that way, and presently some one spoke but the -others did not reply, did not dare. One was left<span class="pagenum" id="Page_200">[200]</span> -speaking and the other was asleep. All became -still and quiet in the temple. The candles were -still burning. But the priest had gone. It was -night, and the Spirit reigned in serenity. And -the candles were still burning.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_006.jpg" alt="" /></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse"><i>A tiny spark was born to-day;</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>It said good-b’ye to yesterday.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>It carried up a tiny light,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Said good-day and then good-night.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>“Good-morrow!” said the tiny spark,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>But ere the morrow came ’twas dark.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>So that’s the best that he can do,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>In his own time say “How d’ye do.”</i></div> -</div></div> - - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_201">[201]</span> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_201.jpg" alt="" /></div> -<p class="caption"> LINCOLN<br /> THE STAR OF THE EAST BECOMES THE STAR OF THE WEST</p> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XXXII. THE STAR -OF SPRINGFIELD</h2> -</div> - - -<p><span class="smcap">Next</span> day, tramping to Flat Top Mountain, we -talked of Springfield and Abraham Lincoln. -We were in stately forests, and the ancient -mould under the feet silenced our steps. We -walked slowly, and stopped to pick the big -black huckleberries, paused to climb over -stricken trees, paused to eat the raspberries -from the undergrowth of raspberry bushes.</p> - -<p>“I’d like you to think of Lincoln as a poor -man,” said Vachel, “an eccentric—laughed at,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_202">[202]</span> -sneered at a great deal, entirely underestimated, -a man who was a mystic, who believed in -dreams and presentiments and told many -dreams to his Cabinet with great gravity. -Politicians want to see in him a conventional -great man now, but in his life-time he was -called eccentric. He was as much laughed at -as Johnny Appleseed. But if a man is called -eccentric in this country, or much laughed at, -you’ll often find he was a mystic or a genius -of some kind.”</p> - -<p>One of Vachel’s alternative ideas for a tramp -was to do a Springfield star, making the city -our centre to radiate outward, or, could I say, -walk radiantly outward, in one direction, then -in another, all round the compass. “As you -went to Bethlehem with the Russian pilgrims -so you could pilgrimage to our Bethlehem,” -said he, “see our star.”</p> - -<p>People from all parts of the world come to -Springfield to see the Lincoln home, to visit -Salem and the grave of Anne Rutledge, to -salute Lincoln’s grave. They do so, not -because they are told to do so, or because -there are organised tours, but because the -heart moves them to it.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_203">[203]</span>But there are also many people in America -ready to turn their backs on the simple Abe -Lincoln of Springfield. He is too rough -for them, too untidy, too raw. They would -fain think of him as a man of aplomb, a -man of a well-established family, one of the -governing class. Lincoln’s son Robert is -president of the Pullman Car Company, and -they would see the father in the son and -surmise a family well-lined, well-wadded, well-upholstered. -In that class you can get to -power, and be carried there, and sleep on the -way. Belong to that class and all is yours!</p> - -<p>But the real Abe Lincoln gives the lie to -this. It offends some people to the heart to -think that Lincoln’s father lived in a three-ways-round -log-cabin with the fourth side not -built in, that young Abraham was a barge-man, -what we call in England a bargee, and came -down the Sangamon River in a flat-bottomed -boat with a cargo and got stuck on the dam -at Salem and accepted a job there, and slept -in a sort of loft over a ramshackle tavern, men -one side of a plank, women the other, and that -he rose out of the very depths of American life.</p> - -<p>“What Lincoln did, any boy in the United<span class="pagenum" id="Page_204">[204]</span> -States can aspire to do,” cried Vachel as we -sat on a log together and looked at the shadow -and shine of the myriad-fold population of trees. -“We’ve no governing class. We’ve only got -a class that thinks it is the governing class, -but it is the most barren in the community. -Lincoln’s life shows the real truth. Any one -who feels he has it in him can rise to the -Presidency of the United States.”</p> - -<p>I promised to make the pilgrimage to the -Lincoln shrines when our tramp should be over -and we returned to Springfield. Then Vachel -was fired by his pet fancies about his native -city. He would have it all painted white, like -the Chicago World’s Fair. “White harmonises -all sizes and shapes of houses and all types of -architectural design. And it has an effect on -the mind. It suggests the ideal. If the city -were all painted white, then people would try -to live up to its appearance. Then also it -would stand out among all cities of America. -The very fact of its painting itself white would -go into every newspaper in the United States, -it would be known in all English-speaking -lands and would direct world-attention to the -shrine of Abraham Lincoln,” said he.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_205">[205]</span>It seemed to me a practical idea, and I bade -him preach it still. He’d find valuable allies -in the paint merchants and painters of Springfield -anyway. If America could go “dry” one -need not despair of Springfield painting itself -white. “In America all things are possible,” -as a German street-song says.</p> - -<p>He returned once more to his story of the -ten who died for the flag of Springfield—the -new flag of the city. “I’ve always felt,” said -he, “that there could be found at least ten men -among the unlikely fellows who loaf around -our town square ready to give their lives for -Springfield. If ever there came a time when -Springfield was in danger or its flag likely to -be dishonoured, I know it is from the tramps -and wasters that something would come. At -least, from the people we don’t know.”</p> - -<p>“If only I could write that idea as Edgar -Allan Poe wrote ‘King Pest,’” said the poet, -“then I’d tell the truth and shame the Devil.”</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>“<span class="smcap">Yet</span> Springfield was once disgraced by a -most unholy race-riot,” my companion went -on. “It was in 1908, the centenary of Lincoln’s -birth, and I felt it as a terrible disgrace. The<span class="pagenum" id="Page_206">[206]</span> -negro victims were entirely innocent. It was -a shocking affair.”</p> - -<p>We had by this time lifted ourselves high -out of the gloomy valleys and had attained to -a rarer atmosphere and a clearer world, where -the forest lay below like a book that has been -read and above it rose the eternal hills lifting -their mighty granite shoulders to the sky. We -saw in retrospect many of the mountains -we had climbed. “Going-to-the-Sun” and -“Heaven’s Peak” were remote but grandiose -on the horizon. We were on a much-exposed -ridge of Flat Top Mountain, and we camped -in a wintry spot beside a natural table of rock. -On the rock we spread our supper; on the -ground our blankets. The wind blew the -flaps of our blankets, it blew away the flaming -embers of the bonfire which we made, and it -ignited the grass, and when we had put the -fire out on one side it broke out on the other, -and yet there was not enough of a fire to warm -us. Night came on, and we sought new fuel. -Vachel hobbled beside me and discoursed in -a preoccupied way about Springfield and its -race-riot.</p> - -<p>“I’m with you all the way about the Negroes,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">[207]</span> -Stephen,” said he, as we struggled to upraise -an embedded sapling which the snows had -tumbled over in the spring. “If you write -about the Negro again, say I’m with you, I -subscribe to it. I’ll go the limit with you.”</p> - -<p>We raised the entangled, difficult, fallen -tree up on to the star-radii of its roots, and -looked down the wild slope to where our fire -was burning and blowing. It was dark up -there where we were, and the fire below gleamed -in the darkness. We rolled the sapling down -to the fire and on to it, and stamped out the -flames in the grass, and then returned into the -darkness for another sapling.</p> - -<p>“You know how I felt in Springfield when -that riot occurred,” said Vachel. “I visited -all the leading Negroes and most of the leading -white men. I bombarded the newspapers -with letters. And I don’t know that it did -any good. You couldn’t be sure that another -onslaught on the coloured people wouldn’t occur -to-morrow.”</p> - -<p>As we talked we sought and collected -withered branches, wind-riven arms of the -pines. Some we had to pull out of the earth, -others we could not pull out.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_208">[208]</span>“I believe the only way to stop lynching -would be to break into a lynching crowd and -make them either lynch you instead of the -Negro or lynch you for interfering. When they -realised what they had done their hearts would -be touched, their consciences would be shocked,” -said Vachel.</p> - -<p>We had unwieldy faggots in our arms and -so walked closely together down the hill, supporting -one another’s wood.</p> - -<p>“It is expedient that one man should die -for the people once more,” said the poet.</p> - -<p>We made up a good fire; we boiled a pot -of coffee and fried a heap of beans and stewed -a cup of apricots and cut the bread and untied -the sugar-bag and exposed the dried raisins, -of which we had a capacious little sack-full and -wrapped ourselves round and sat by the fire -and fed and talked—</p> - -<p>“Springfield was just about to attract the -attention of the world in a special way, as the -shrine of Lincoln, when that riot broke out,” -said Vachel. “Large schemes had been approved -for the improvement of the city. All -promised well. Then suddenly this race-riot -broke out, and Springfield was the subject of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_209">[209]</span> -cartoons all over the United States. The -finger of scorn was pointed at Lincoln’s city. -Springfield is still trying to live it down.”</p> - -<p>I confessed it was difficult to think of -Springfield as an American Bethlehem after -it had been the scene of a race-riot. That -was indeed a smudge on its fair name. Quiet -little Bethlehem in Palestine has at least kept -clear of that. Still even Bethlehem could not -help it if some ugly human doings occurred -there.</p> - -<p>It was curious that the race-riot sprang from -the “poor Whites,” and yet from the same poor -Whites Vachel was ready to find ten who would -die for the Flag.</p> - -<p>I told my thought then, and that was, that -the poor white population, heroic as it was, -would not be deterred by the self-sacrifice of -one of their number for the sake of the Blacks. -This very year an English clergyman was -stripped and beaten almost to death by a gang -of Whites in Florida, just because he asked a -congregation for fair play for the Negro. And -nothing happened to the gang. No prosecutions -followed. Lynch is powerful when law -is weak.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_210">[210]</span>“The social conscience is dull,” said the -poet sadly. “The Negro question is the one -which has most plagued America, and most -people have given it up and decided not to -fret their brains any more about it. You see, -we even fought a war for it once, and we’re -always quarrelling about it. A news paragraph -about a man being burned by a mob will not -even catch the notice of the newspaper reader. -It either does not stir his imagination, or he -refuses to think about it.”</p> - -<p>“But it brings America into disrespect in -Europe. It takes away from the force of her -moral example,” said I.</p> - -<p>Lindsay knew that. We discussed then the -daring appeal of Governor Dorsey of Georgia -to the people of that State to mend their -ways. We discussed South Africa and then -India.</p> - -<p>And then we went for more wood, and the -stars shone out above us, peerless in their -righteousness, rolling along deliberately as ever -on their fixed ways. “How brightly they shine -on us,” said I. “We should be as they. If -they erred and strayed from their ways as we -do, what a mad universe ’twould be.”</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_211">[211]</span>“And one of them,” said the poet, “is the -star of Bethlehem, the star that rested over -Bethlehem and then rested over Springfield -for a while.”</p> - -<p>“Up here in the mountains we see the -stars, but down there in the forests and dark -valleys it is not so easy,” said I.</p> - -<p>We talked of Springfield by the firelight -till one of us fell asleep. One picture remains -in my mind, and that is of a Hindu who sought -out Vachel Lindsay after he had been to -Abraham Lincoln’s home. “Show me now -the home of the poet who lives among you,” -said the Hindu.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_018.jpg" alt="" /></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_212">[212]</span></p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse"><i>A Hindu came to Springfield,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>He saw the home of Lincoln,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>He saw the court of Lincoln,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>He saw the streets he trod.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>“Now show me,” quoth the Hindu,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Show me your poet Lindsay,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Show me your prophet Lindsay,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Who sings to-day to God.</i></div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse"><i>The guide to Fifth Street therefore led</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>And showed the house where Lindsay fed.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>And the Hindu much rejoiced and said:</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>“I know that Springfield is not dead.”</i></div> -</div></div></div> - - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_213">[213]</span> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_213.jpg" alt="" /></div> -<p class="caption">GOOD-DAY M<sup><span class="u"><small>R</small></span></sup> PRESIDENT</p> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XXXIII. FLAT TOP MOUNTAIN</h2> -</div> - - -<p><span class="smcap">The</span> fire burned sulkily at dawn, and the grass -around it was white with frost. We had lain -awake for an hour, silently meditating on the -joys of coffee to be. We knew it was no use -getting up before sunrise, for fuel was scarce -and hard to find. It was a wonderful dreamy -dawn, rising above the mists of an autumnal -night. We looked to see antelopes perched on -the crags above us, and mountain-goats. But -the scene was bare on all hands. Our eyes<span class="pagenum" id="Page_214">[214]</span> -lighted on the rusty foliage of some uprooted -trees. Walking in our unlaced boots, we -brought this dead wood in, made a fine blaze, -and had breakfast, and then curled ourselves -up by the fire and slept till the sun stood -higher. If I woke first it was to sit with a -blanket about my shoulders and pen an article -for Kit Morley. It commonly happened that -I sat by the fire and scribbled my letters to the -Post in the morning whilst the poet had an -extra hour asleep.</p> - -<p>When we resumed our climb the poet got -talking of the Indians. Curiously enough -Flat Top Mountain marks the entrance to -the country of the Flat-Heads, the Flat-Heads -being so called because they press their babies’ -heads to obtain a flat-headed type of beauty. -The mountain has imitated the Indians and -grown up flat-headed too. We were presently -to meet, when we crossed the Canadian line, -a considerable number of Indians of various -tribes. Vachel facetiously observed that he -wouldn’t mind taking an Indian bride if he -could find one that walked thirty-five miles a -day and took a bath every morning. I held -that it was very snobbish on his part. The<span class="pagenum" id="Page_215">[215]</span> -disqualifying point, however, proved to be the -chewing of tobacco. When the poet saw these -young Amazons rolling their quids he was -confirmed in bachelordom.</p> - -<p>“Great people, the Indians,” said Vachel. -“I was brought up on their orations. So was -mother, I believe. Did you ever see M’Gaffey’s -reader with Black Hawk’s ‘Oration’ and the -‘Defence of Spartacus,’ and other wonderful -studies in popular oratory? I wouldn’t mind -voting for an Indian to be President of the -United States.”</p> - -<p>“What! A red Indian? I should have -thought America was too prejudiced against -colour.”</p> - -<p>“Not against the Indians. Against the -Negroes. You and I don’t think a Negro could -rise to Presidency. But an Indian is different. -There is a great romance connected with the -Indians; there are the traditions of the battles -with them; there is the personal grandeur of -the braves. Every American boy has longed -to be an Indian chief. And then there is the -strain of Pocahontas, the Indian princess, -married into the pride of Virginia. I believe -an Indian President is just what we want to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_216">[216]</span> -root us in America and give us a genuine -American inspiration. It would bring poetry -into politics. It would bring all the glamour -of the West.”</p> - -<p>“But it is not a practical possibility,” I -urged.</p> - -<p>“I believe it could be put over,” said the -poet. “You see, the Indians are a hunting -people, a sporting people. They’ve refused to -bow the knee to the sordid side of life.”</p> - -<p>We agreed that they were such good hunters -that it was in vain the United States Government -protected game in these parts. The -Flat-Heads seemed to have swept off everything. -You may go for days and see nothing -more edible than marmots and porcupines. On -the other hand, I have heard it said that the -animals know the difference between the reservations -of the Indians and the preserved regions -of the Rockies, and at sight of an Indian on -the horizon they rush to safety.</p> - -<p>Lindsay recounted to me the story of the -political campaigns of “Tippecanoe and -Tyler too!” and how the wild tokens of -Western life invaded the East and moved the -imagination of America. Every American politician<span class="pagenum" id="Page_217">[217]</span> -is aware of this motive force. Even -Roosevelt, a pure New Yorker, played the -Western game—as Colonel of the Rough -Riders.</p> - -<p>We had a wonderful walk along the Flat -Top, which was a prolonged mountain meadow -full of flowers. Vachel began to repine because -he foresaw that, like everything else, our tramp -must end, and that in a few weeks we should -be back in Springfield and the mere town. I -told him a story of how one summer day in -Petrograd I paused at a fruiterer’s shop to buy -some strawberries which looked very inviting. -They were very dear, but the shopkeeper said, -“I have some very good second quality strawberries -inside the shop, and I strongly recommend them.” -“Thanks,” said I. “But I -never buy second quality strawberries.” “So -in life, eh Vachel, let us never accept second -quality strawberries.”</p> - -<p>The poet laughed, and began talking of -grades of eggs, new-laid eggs, State eggs, -selected eggs, political eggs. So walking -gently we reached the north-western extremity -of the tableland and came upon a grandiose -diversified scene of shadows and gloomy greens<span class="pagenum" id="Page_218">[218]</span> -and barren scarps, and of crowned monarchs -of ice and snow. The pines of the Canadian -approach were posted like companies of soldiers -and disposed in beleaguering armies as if the -line, unguarded by men, was guarded by trees, -the forest wardens of the Empire and the -Republic. The poet saw in the scene another -Turner engraving.</p> - -<p>We plunged then downward through thick -masses of alder and hazel, a whole mountain-side -solid with low growth. Here also were -thousands of raspberry bushes all agleam with -rosy fruits. Vachel called the descent a “raspberry -epic.” Down, down we plunged to the -dark valley of the rushing Kootenai, only finding -a camping-ground after dark.</p> - -<p>We came to an aged river in a steep vale of -years with old shaggy firs on its very water-edge, -and with the ruins of the uncontrollable -ever-encroaching forest piled up like walls. We -lighted a fire on a humpy-bumpy bit of shore -where it was hard either to walk or sit, but -easy to find wood to burn. We each cleared -ourselves a cradle in the brown needles of the -infringing firs.</p> - -<p>It was a magnificent enclosure which the old<span class="pagenum" id="Page_219">[219]</span> -river was a-running through, like a cypress-walled -garden of an Asiatic mountain-castle. -The trees stood like gigantic janissaries or -guardsmen with their cloaks on. The night-stars -were exalted by the climbing forest and -peeped but faintly into the depths, and like a -mighty black bastion the sheer rock of the -mountain cut off the view northward.</p> - -<p>The fire flared, the hot stones cracked and -burst. We put our hot blankets around us and -sprawled on them whilst the poet cooked the -ham and the beans, and I tended the coffee-pot -or stripped the last wisps of grease-paper -from the butter.</p> - -<p>We slept in our cradles and wakened in the -morning to see the beavers jumping among the -fallen timber and diving in the river.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_039.jpg" alt="" /></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_220">[220]</span></p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse"><i>A prairie resident,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>A dweller in a tent,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>A White House resident,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>A good man for President!</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>To White House from white tent.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>O excellent precedent!</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>A precedent for a President.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>An unprecedented President!</i></div> -</div></div> - - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_221">[221]</span> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_221.jpg" alt="" /></div> - -<p class="caption">We’ve seen your line of difference and -viewed it with indifference.</p> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XXXIV. CROSSING THE -CANADIAN LINE</h2> -</div> - - -<p>“<span class="smcap">As</span> we approach the British Empire,” says -Vachel facetiously, “the huckleberries grow -more plentiful, the raspberry bushes larger, the -trees loftier, the air purer.” In the poet’s mind -politics and hymns gave way to desire of huckleberries. -I luxuriated in raspberries. He was -Huckleberry Finn. I was a character in Russian -folk-lore—the hare with the raspberry-coloured -whiskers. “When we get to a Canadian hotel -let us register as H. Finn and R. C. W. Hare,” -said the poet.</p> - -<p>We had slept on the hoar-frosted grass of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_222">[222]</span> -mountain meadows near the sky; we had -slept among the beavers on the banks of the -Kootenai; we tramped in the radiant upper -air; we tramped in the gloom of ancient forests. -Mount Cleveland lifted its dome of snow high -o’er the lesser mountains. Trapper Mountain -receded. We listened one night to the coyotes -caterwauling in their loneliness. Their superfluous -lugubrious laments reminded me of -modern West of Ireland poetry. Vachel -laughed at the comparison. We came to a -deserted cabin, once the habitation of a ranger, -now littered with Alberta whisky bottles, and -here we read a pencilled remark written years -ago: “Slept here last night. Visited by a -bare who came into cabin and et two sides of -bacon.” Another pencilled notice, apparently -by the same hand, said: “Don’t leave garbig -lying about but put it in the Garbig Holl.” -An Indian came and offered to lead us to a -boat on Lake Waterton and give us a ferry -to Canada. We preferred to walk, but it -occurred to me afterwards that he was not so -much interested in boating as in bottles. I -don’t doubt he could have got us a drink. -Then a grand mounted party came past us<span class="pagenum" id="Page_223">[223]</span> -with guides and pack-horses, coming from over -Brown Pass, going over Indian Pass. This -was a rich American family on holiday: here -were father and mother, grown children, young -children, cousins, and in the midst of them -Aunt Jemima, looking very proud and stiff, -with an expression on her face which signified -“<i>Never again!</i>” They had been twenty-eight -days in the mountains, camping out all the -time.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p><span class="smcap">Vachel’s</span> ankle was rather weak, and he much -preferred sitting to walking. He called himself -“the slow train through Arkansas.” We stopped -at stations, half-stations, and halts. “All I lack, -Stephen, is steam,” said he. But every now -and then he would take courage and say, “Lots -of walk in me to-day—Canada to-night!”</p> - -<p>The excitement of finding the “Canadian -Line” cheered my companion. The face -which in the morning had looked contrite and -penitent as that of one just released from jail, -lighted up with new mirth and facetious intent. -He began to get steam. The slow train from -Arkansas began to approach Kentucky, and -the sign of steam was a return to political<span class="pagenum" id="Page_224">[224]</span> -conversation. He began to chaff me mercilessly -on the subject of the Empire and King -George and the British lion. I chaffed him -about “God’s own country.” The poet identified -America with all that was best in America’s -traditions and in the visions of her poets, the</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse">All I could never be,</div> -<div class="verse">All men ignored in me,</div> -</div></div> - -<p>of his native country. I was critical, for I -bore in my mind the growth of materialism, -the corruption of the law, the lynchings of the -Negroes, and the rest. He wanted me to -dissociate America from the dollar, from the -noisy business rampage, and from all that -was unworthy, and instead identify America -with the dreams of her idealists.</p> - -<p>“That is what I did with Russia,” said I. -“If I tell England of the ideal America they’ll -only call me a mystic. But you, Vachel,” I -continued, “try and think of the Empire that -way.”</p> - -<p>He found it difficult. He could think -creatively about his own country, but where -others were concerned he reverted to the -normal critical mind.</p> - - - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_225">[225]</span><span class="smcap">It</span> is almost a recognised convention in literature. -If you are writing about a foreign -country you take the general average of what -you observe and describe that. You can attack -lustily without fear that the magazine will lose -“advertising.” The writer on Russia was -supposed to bring home a report that the -police, and indeed every one else, took bribes, -the Jews were persecuted, the prisoners in -Siberia were chained together. Most American -writers on Russia have done it. Kennan is a -characteristic case, who obtained fame identifying -Russia with prison horrors without recalling -to the minds of his readers that there are -dreadful prisons also in the United States, -and that the silence of his own Georgia is -sometimes desecrated by the melancholy clank-clank -of the chain-gang.</p> - -<p>I was besought in 1917, by a leading -magazine of America, to write an account of -Rasputin, and although I had many interesting -stories of that evil genius of Russia I -refused to write what I considered would at -that time be damaging to Russia. On the -other hand, I wrote in 1919 a realistic vision -of America in perhaps her saddest post-war<span class="pagenum" id="Page_226">[226]</span> -moment, when Wilson was down and no one -knew what America was going to do next, -and offered it to the same journal. But the -editor was quite hurt that I did not then see -America in roseate hues. How characteristic -of this sprightly world, which, as Latimer said, -“was begotten of Envy and put out at Discord -for nurse!”</p> - -<p>Not that the poet was critical of England. -He idealised England. He was not as critical -of England as I was of America. Whilst -he idealised America creatively he idealised -England romantically. To him America was -something to be; to him England was something -that forever was—beautiful, the substance -of poetry, the evidence of things not seen. -He did not sympathise with the Irish. He -did not think England was so well organised, -commercially, as America. But then to him -that was a point in our favour. Only one -point was registered against us—he did not -think that as a nation we could make coffee; -and we lagged behind on Prohibition. But -then he had to admit that the Americans for -their part did not know how to make tea.</p> - -<p>“Except for the King,” said Vachel, “we<span class="pagenum" id="Page_227">[227]</span> -are much the same people.” He loathed kings. -“There’s not much difference between Canada -and the United States,” he went on.</p> - -<p>“We’ll see,” I answered. “Canadians are -subjects of a monarch; Americans are citizens -of a Republic. Canadians look to the King. -More than a mere line divides the two halves -of North America. You’ll see.”</p> - -<p>So we tramped on. We had a last lunch -and finished the ham, the apricots, and the -coffee. As one remarkable fact, we met no -Canadians on the American side; we met no -Americans going to Canada either. Yet there -were no restrictions whatever. Out in the -Rockies the unguarded line is literally unguarded; -no patrols, no excise or passport -officers. You can come and go as you please. -The United States would encourage Canada -to a communion of perfect freedom. Whilst -America puts nothing in Canada’s way, Canada -for her part could not afford to police a 4000-mile -line. All is therefore free.</p> - -<p>Still, it is clearly the wild animals that take -advantage of freedom, and they abound and -are happy in the region about the line. It is -a very strange line, straight and absolute on<span class="pagenum" id="Page_228">[228]</span> -the map, the essence of political division, an -absurdity in geography. There is no river, -no main mountain-range, no change of the -colour of the soil, but only the invisible hypothesis -called 54.40—the “Fifty-four Forty or -fight” of the boundary dispute. It would have -been difficult to find the line but for the fact -that a sixteen-foot swathe has been cut in the -forest. We had been told to look out for that. -We found it at last, and it was afternoon, and -we stood in No-man’s land together.</p> - -<p>It was a curious cut, a rough glade, an alley -through the tall pines. We walked along it -a short way; we discerned where it stretched -far over a mountain-side, a mere marking in -the uniform green of the forest-roof. We came -down to where the lake water was lapping on -the shore, and the great mountains in their -fastnesses stood about us. We found frontier-post -No. 276, and then I stood on the Canada -side and Vachel Lindsay stood on the America -side, and we put our wrists on the top of the -post. As we two had become friends and -learned to live together without quarrelling, -so might our nations! It was a happy moment -in our tramping.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_229">[229]</span>Then, as it was four in the afternoon, I -proposed having tea, much to the mirth of the -poet. For had we not finished the last of -our coffee at our last American resting-place? -Fittingly we began on tea when we entered -the Empire.</p> - -<p>There was a change of scenery; fresher air, -aspen groves, red hips on many briars. A -beautiful mountain lifted its citadelled peak -into a grey unearthly radiance. We climbed -Mount Bertha, and the hillsides were massed -with young slender pines that never grow -hoary or old, but die whilst they are young, -and are supplanted by the ever-new—forests -of everlasting youth. The grandeur of the -mountains increased upon us till all was in -the sublimity of the Book of Job and of the -Chaldean stars. There was nothing petty -anywhere—but an eternal witness and an -eternal silence.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_006.jpg" alt="" /></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_230">[230]</span></p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse"><i>A Yank and a Britisher walked to the line,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>One was a citizen, the other an alien.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>“You alien!” said the Yank.</i></div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse"><i>The Yank and the Britisher crossed o’er the line,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>One was a subject, the other an alien.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>“You alien!” said the Britisher.</i></div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse"><i>But when Yank and Briton elapsed hands on the line,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Then neither the Yank nor the Briton was alien.</i></div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse"><i>Hail, Uncle Sam!</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Hail, John Bull!</i></div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse"><i>We’ve found your line of difference</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>And viewed it with indifference.</i></div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse"><i>You don’t need to guard it,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Nor yet to regard it</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>With doubt or with fret.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Six weeks we’ve tramped together</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>In every sort of weather,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>And haven’t quarrelled yet.</i></div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse"><i>We toe the line, we toe it,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>The old tramp and the poet.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>If we can do it.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>And not rue it,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>All can—says the poet.</i></div> -</div></div></div> - - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_231">[231]</span> -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_231.jpg" alt="" /></div> -<p class="caption">WASHINGTONIA WELLINGTONIA HINDENBURGER</p> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XXXV. THE DIFFERENCE</h2> -</div> - - -<p><span class="smcap">So</span> we entered the Dominion National Park -of Waterton Lakes. We climbed the next -mountain after Mount Bertha and saw on every -hand the pinnacled and pillared tops of the -Canadian mountains, crags surmounted by -mighty teeth of stone blackly silhouetted against -a radiant sky. Some Dominion officials came -into these parts last year, cancelled the old -names of the mountains, and gave them a new -set—Mount Joffre, Mount Foch, and the rest,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_232">[232]</span> -as if they were No. 1 and No. 2 of Great War -villas. I see by old maps that Mount Cleveland -used to be called Kaiser Peak. How war -changes the names of places! It changed St. -Petersburg to Petrograd, Pressburg to Bratislavl; -it has even changed the names of the Rocky -Mountains.</p> - -<p>“Luckily the Germans did not win,” I said -to Vachel, “or New York might have become -‘Zeppelindorf.’”</p> - -<p>We were walking down a slope which Nature -had planted out with pompous trees called -“Wellingtonias.”</p> - -<p>“What do you call them?” asked the poet.</p> - -<p>“Wellingtonias.”</p> - -<p>“Not in America. We call them ‘Washingtonias.’”</p> - -<p>“You forget you’ve crossed the line—Washingtonias -this morning, but Wellingtonias -this afternoon.”</p> - -<p>The poet submitted.</p> - -<p>“But what would the Germans have called -them?”</p> - -<p>“Perhaps they’d call them ‘Bluchers’ or ‘Hindenburgers.’”</p> - -<p>Apropos of Bluchers—in the first Canadian<span class="pagenum" id="Page_233">[233]</span> -village we visited the cobbler for repairs. He -was an old man, and explained to us just -exactly what “Blucher shoes” were. He pronounced -the name to rhyme with “butcher,” -and he called them shoes in the American -fashion. In America boots are shoes, and shoes -are boots.</p> - -<p>“They call them Bluchers,” said the cobbler in -a quavering voice, “because Blucher came up on -both sides, and Bony did not know on which side -he’d turn up. So the upper of the Bluchers are -equally high on both sides of the shoe.”</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p><span class="smcap">That</span> is, however, to go some days ahead. -We are in the Rockies still, and beside a -wonderful stretch of water blown by mountain -winds into myriads of running waves. We -bathed on its shallow shores; we did not -venture far from the bank. For Waterton is a -mysterious lake. It has often been sounded, -but there are parts of it where no bottom has been -found. It is the hole out of which these Rocky -Mountains have been scooped, and it goes -down, down, down, to the very depths of the -earth.</p> - -<p>At last we came to a Canadian camping-ground<span class="pagenum" id="Page_234">[234]</span> -and a group of people clustered around a -Ford touring car. A Ford car used for touring. -Here there happened to be on holiday a professor -of English, and he recognised Lindsay at first sight—such -is the fame of the poet in American universities -and schools.</p> - -<p>This camping-group told us we were in a -land predominantly inhabited by Mennonites, -Mormons, and Dukhobors, and they whetted -our curiosity considerably regarding our new -neighbours. We had arrived in a part of -Canada which was rather obscure and certainly -little visited by either Americans or -Englishmen.</p> - -<p>We came to a ramshackle inn and a village -and a dance-hall, and it was the last dance of -the season. The Mormon, German, and Russian -belles checked in their corsets at the cloakroom, -and prepared for fun. It was a log-cabin hall, -but the floor was waxed, and from the beams -hung coloured-paper lanterns. There were a -score or so of black bear-skins hung on the -walls all the way round. On the bear-skins -were white sashes with these words printed on -them: <i><span class="smcap">I do love to cuddle</span></i>; and on the main -beam of the ceiling was written: <i>Patrons are<span class="pagenum" id="Page_235">[235]</span> -respectfully requested to park their gum outside</i>. -The whole front of the piano was taken out so -that there should be more noise. Splotches on -the floor showed how in the past, patrons had -surreptitiously brought in their gum and had accidents. -Many couples assembled, and we saw the -human species, though not at its best.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p><span class="smcap">We</span> issued from the mountains on to the -southern Alberta plain, and then looking back, -saw every great mountain we had ever crossed. -“We’ve found the real sky-scrapers,” said -Vachel. “Instead of the Times Building, -Heaven’s Peak; instead of the Flatiron, Flat -Top Mountain; instead of the World Building, -Going-to-the-Sun; and instead of the -building raised by dimes, the temple not made -by hands. The way to these wonders is not -by Broadway, but by primitive trails.” The -poet conducted the orchestra of the universe -with the long blossoming stem of a basket-flower—“instead -of the Stock Exchange, the -Star Granary over Waterton Lake,” he murmured. -We named the beautiful grouping of -mountains about the lake as the Star Granary. -For at night, with stars above and star-reflections<span class="pagenum" id="Page_236">[236]</span> -below, it was as if the barns were full of -Heaven’s harvest.</p> - -<p>We tramped away northward toward the -Crow’s Nest, where a great forest fire was -raging, and we came to the “cow-town” of -Pincer Creek. The Canadian Wild West -seemed much wilder than the Wild West south -of the line—or rather, the population seemed -wilder. One missed the gentleness and playfulness -of the United States. The men were -harder than down south, and they looked at us -with a contempt only modified by the thought -that we might be potential harvest hands. -The Canadian-English looked more askance -at Vachel than they did at me. He looked -poetical. They couldn’t have put a name to -it, but that is what it was. But whatever it -was, I could feel their aversion. They disapproved -of tramps, but preferred them to -poets. I could see also they didn’t care for -Vachel’s accent, but they rejoiced in mine and -spoke to me just to get me to reply so that -they could hear once more the voice of the -Old Country. We were clearly in the Empire -and not in the Republic. The Union Jacks in -the little log-cabins were wreathed with flowers.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_237">[237]</span> -The Stars and Stripes had disappeared. We -were so struck with the change of feeling in the -air that we bought ourselves a school-history of -Canada and read it assiduously. The very way -of man looking to man was different. Then the -first popular song which sounded in our ears -was:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse">We never get up until the sergeant</div> -<div class="verse">Brings our breakfast up to bed.</div> -<div class="verse">O it’s a lovely war!</div> -</div></div> - -<p>which is a purely British army song. The -Englishman in Alberta is an overman in the -midst of a miscellaneous foreign under-population. -The Englishman’s word is law. He is -stronger, rougher in his language and his ways—not -educated. But this sort of fibre is best suited -for the outposts of Empire.</p> - -<p>“We Americans are just a bunch of playful -kittens,” said Vachel.</p> - -<p>There was nothing very playful about the -Alberta pioneers.</p> - -<p>“Did you light that fire on the side of the road -a mile back? Well, you dam well go back and -put it out.”</p> - -<p>“We did put it out.”</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_238">[238]</span>“I tell ye, ye didn’t. I won’t waste my -breath talking to you. If you set the prairie afire -I’ll have you both in jail by sundown.”</p> - -<p>“All right, we’ll go back.”</p> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_018.jpg" alt="" /></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse"><i>We’re on the same continent.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Well, I don’t know. Smells different somehow.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Same air; people speak the same language.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>But I don’t see that bird about,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>That old eagle of yours.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Smells as if a lion had been here.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>You don’t know the lion’s smell?</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Well, smell that Union Jack!</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>That’s it.</i></div> -</div></div> - - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_239">[239]</span> - - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_239.jpg" alt="" /></div> -<p class="caption">BURN YOUR RIFLES AND RETURN TO WORK</p> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XXXVI. DUKHOBORS</h2> -</div> - - -<p><span class="smcap">We</span> had not anticipated coming into the -neighbourhood of the Dukhobors. It was an -interesting surprise. I had promised myself I -would make a special pilgrimage some day to -Western Canada just to find out what the -Dukhobors thought about life, and how they -were getting on now. And then to come on -them accidentally.</p> - -<p>The Dukhobors, or “Spirit wrestlers,” are a -Russian religious community brought to Canada<span class="pagenum" id="Page_240">[240]</span> -in 1898. They claim to have been in existence -in Russia for over three hundred years. They -are primitive Christians akin to Quakers, but -more uncompromising. They are Communists, -pacifists, anti-state, anti-church, anti-law. -Theologically they consider Christ as a good -man and teacher, but not divine. Tolstoy’s -teachings show him very close to the Dukhobors -in theory. He greatly sympathised with them -in the persecution which they suffered at the -hands of the Russian Government, and it was -in part due to him, and more largely to the -Society of Friends in England, that the expatriation -of the Dukhobors was accomplished. -Tolstoy is said to have put aside the profits of -his novel <i>Resurrection</i> to defray in part the -expenses of transporting the Russians. There -are several thousand of them, and first they -were taken to Cyprus where at least the -British Navy got acquainted with them, as -they were naturally a curiosity. Cyprus was -not suitable, and so Canada was chosen for -a habitat. The community was taken to -Saskatchewan, and later migrated in large part -to British Columbia. They did not find their -path strewn with roses in Canada, and have<span class="pagenum" id="Page_241">[241]</span> -had a hard time. But despite persecution they -have prospered. They are notorious for a -naked procession they once made “in quest of -the Messiah” some forty miles in bitter winter -weather, displaying “the naked truth” to the -Canadians—the pilgrimage to Yorktown which -has been described with much gusto in the -American and Canadian Press. They have -refused to take steps to relinquish their Russian -nationality, refused to fight, refused to pay -taxes. So naturally they have been a thorn in -the side of the Canadian.</p> - -<p>The Rocky Mountains stretching away in -their majesty must remind some Russians of -the grand array of the Caucasus as seen from -the north—and the prairie is the steppe. Far -away you discern the white and brown buildings -of a settlement, and then, ten times as large as -anything else, pale-blue grain-elevators. The -circumambient moor is many coloured, and a -dove-coloured sky is flecked with softest cloud. -There are snow fences at many points of the -road to protect from drifts in winter. A neverceasing -wind which brings no rain is driving -over the corn-fields. As you approach the -village you begin to see Russian peasant men<span class="pagenum" id="Page_242">[242]</span> -and women working on the fields hoisting the -wheat-sheaves to the harvesting carts, hoisting -the sheaves to the top of the stacks. A -stalwart peasant-wife in cottons stands on top -of the stack, pitchfork in her hand, and she -catches the sheaves as they come up to her. -The grain-elevators rise mightily into vision, -and then the words printed on them in large -black letters—<b>THE CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY -OF UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD</b>.</p> - -<p>I soon met Pavel Potapof, the local headman, -and I talked in Russian with a number of -men and women who spoke no other language. -They were raising wheat for themselves and -for their wheatless brethren who live in the -lumbering camps and villages of British -Columbia, but represent a sort of a half-way -colony between the original Verigin, Saskatchewan, -and the main settlement of Brilliant, -British Columbia.</p> - -<p>Potapof was a boy at Cyprus, where his -father enjoyed some authority. He is now -a man in his thirties with brown moustache -and close-clipped chin. If you are a Dukhobor -you may not shave but you may clip with -the shears. He remembered touching a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_243">[243]</span> -Mr. St. John at Cyprus, who used to call him -Pavlushka.</p> - -<p>Potapof spoke Russian with a soft Little-Russian -accent, all g’s being h’s. He came -from Tiflis province, and I talked first of the -Caucasus, comparing them with the Rockies. -Then naturally we discussed Russia, and a -curious crowd gathered about us. Scarcely -any spoke English—all were Russian subjects, -and I much wondered what they thought of -the Bolshevik revolution. For they also are -Communists. I soon learned that an appeal -had been made to them on behalf of the -Bolsheviks to help to stem the famine in -Russia. Some of the Dukhobors were for -sending grain, some not. They blamed the -Bolsheviks for their “two million men under -arms.”</p> - -<p>Most of them said: “Let those who are -richer in Russia give to those who are poorer; -there’ll be enough to go round.” Imagination -did not show them the ghastly ruin of contemporary -Russia, where, except for a handful -of Soviet commissaries, there are no rich, no -“better-off” people. Most of them also said: -“Let them lay down their arms, and then<span class="pagenum" id="Page_244">[244]</span> -we’ll think of feeding them.” But their deliberations -crystallised in the following way. -They decided on a symbolic act. They visited -all their Ruthenian and Galician neighbours -and any one who had a war-trophy to spare, -and they made thus a collection of rifles, shotguns, -pistols—some three hundred or more -weapons. These they burned in a heap. Then -they sent a wireless message to the Russian -people describing this act, and added further -the monition: “Do likewise; burn your rifles, -and return to work!”</p> - -<p>“They murdered Nikolai (rubili Nikolai) -and his family for liberty,” said Potapof. “But -now clearly there is much less liberty than ever -there was before.”</p> - -<p>Nevertheless I thought I detected a curious -home-sickness among many of them. The -violent rumours and persistent bad news of -Russia comes to a primitive community that -cannot read in a more disturbing and dramatic -way than through newspapers. They complained -sadly of conditions in Canada; of -droughts, of plagues of grasshoppers, of bygone -hardships and persecutions in Saskatchewan.</p> - -<p>“Here there will be a Bolshevik revolution<span class="pagenum" id="Page_245">[245]</span> -too,” said one. “We shall not take part in it. -But we know it is preparing. There is much -discontent in the neighbouring settlements and -in the mines. Oh yes, there is trouble brewing -here too.”</p> - -<p>This Dukhobor had been talking to brother -Poles and Ruthenians, but he was quite out of -perspective. I asked how the Dukhobors had -faced under the Conscription Act. Apparently -they did not suffer much; Canada did not -trouble the Dukhobors. They had an easier -time than their brothers the Mennonites in the -United States. They told me there had been -a considerable influx of Mennonites by way of -the unguarded line: they also are pacifists and -utterly oppose to personal service in war. So -struck are they by what happened to them in -America through the war that there is much -talk of their deserting both Canada and the -States and seeking a refuge in Mexico.</p> - -<p>The Dukhobors, however, have a strong -hold in Canada, and as long as Peter Verigin, -their unofficial patriarch and leader, lives, they -will most probably hold on to their settlements -in British Columbia and Saskatchewan. -Perhaps in a new era, a new Russia may again<span class="pagenum" id="Page_246">[246]</span> -take the Dukhobors to herself. Canada does -not assimilate them. They do not assimilate -Canada. And they are, and they feel, as -Dostoievsky said, like “a slice cut out of a -loaf.”</p> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_018.jpg" alt="" /></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse"><i>Fancy meeting the Dukhobors</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Up in the Rockies:</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>A bit of old Russia</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Planted up there to meet me!</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Sure next time when I go to the Caucasus</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>I’ll look to find a batch of English there,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Trying to live their unmolested lives</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Under the free institutions</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Of old Russia.</i></div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse"><i>Tolstoy, in his story of the old pilgrim,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Taught you could find Jerusalem in your native village,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>And did not need to pilgrimage afar.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>But he did not say you could find freedom</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>In your own village—in your own heart.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>O no, that’s political,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>You must go a long way to find that.</i></div> -</div></div></div> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_247">[247]</span> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_247.jpg" alt="" /></div> -<p class="caption">WHEREVER THEY LOCATE<br /> -THEY BUILD TEMPLES</p> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XXXVII. A VISIT TO -THE MORMONS</h2> -</div> - - -<p><span class="smcap">We</span> tramped from ranch to ranch by the rutty -roads that skirt the sections, walked away from -the mountain-walls, and ever as we went the -terrain extended. The sky had become wider; -no rocky walls closed us in. The backs of our -necks became swollen from the unusual heat of -the sun on them. We kicked up dust as we -walked, dust again! Our eyes traversed the -scene to light, not on cascades or possible -camping-grounds, but on far-away farmhouses. -We met the oats and wheat and barley fields<span class="pagenum" id="Page_248">[248]</span> -striving over the moors, and walked till all -moor disappeared, till there was nothing in -front of us but gold. Made dream-like by the -forest fires, the long range of the Rockies -seemed unreal—the mountains which we had -climbed became remote and shadowy—and not -part of our destiny. Our only reality was -golden Alberta, which seemed to extend to -infinitude, the plateau only gradually losing its -altitude, unfolding and undulating downward—one -vast resplendent area of golden harvest -fields.</p> - -<p>The sun gleamed on numberless shocks on -the right, on the left, and ahead, and the whole -horizon was massed with newly mobilised golden -armies. We walked the rutty roads and were -exhilarated, and counted the wheatfields which -we passed, knowing that each, being a whole -section, was a whole mile long.</p> - -<p>We discussed a tragical line in one of -Lindsay’s poems:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse">Election night at midnight</div> -<div class="verse">Boy Bryan’s defeat.</div> -<div class="verse">Defeat of Western silver,</div> -<div class="verse">Defeat of the wheat</div> -<div class="verse">... Defeat of the aspen groves of Colorado valleys,</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_249">[249]</span> -<div class="verse">The blue-bells of the Rockies,</div> -<div class="verse">And blue bonnets of old Texas</div> -<div class="verse">By the Pittsburg alleys.</div> -</div></div> - -<p>Defeat of the wheat! How tragical that sounds -in the soul, how calamitous and appalling! It -is like the cutting off of golden youth, the -extinction of all our dreams.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p><span class="smcap">We</span> boiled our pot by the side of the road; we -sought milk and bread at farmhouses; we slept -at night in the wheat with shocks piled on -three sides of us to keep out the wind, and a -broken shock underneath us to keep us soft—and -the night sky above us was of swans’ plumage, -and all the golden stalks and stubble about -us and above us were exaggerated among the -stars.</p> - -<p>Night was very different on the plains from -night in the mountains. No sound of waters, -no castellated peaks rising in the moonlight, no -sense of vast unevenness and disjected rocks; -but instead, a feeling of being in a great -encampment where the swarming shocks of -wheat were tents, the tents of such a host that -the numbers took away one’s breath. The -poet rejoiced. He loved it. The odour of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_250">[250]</span> -yellow stalks was a new breath of life to him—for -he was a prairie boy.</p> - -<p>The dawn-twilight was long and quiet, and -the mornings were serene. No workers were -in sight. The disparity in numbers between -men and wheat was remarkable to my eyes. -In Russia, the whole plain would have been -alive with the gay cottons of peasant lads and -lasses. But here, harvesting machinery displaces -whole populations of men and women.</p> - -<p>Indians began to be numerous on the road -as we approached the Blood Reservation, Indian -farm-wagons with women and children sprawling -on the hay at the bottom, and then Indians -on horseback, all one piece with their horses. -We left the golden grain behind and crossed -the Reserve. Vachel explained what a squaw-man -is—a white who marries an Indian girl -in order to get hold of her portion of land, the -Indians of to-day being almost all of them -endowed with land by the Government. We -found again the Kootenai, now brawling through -the plains, and bathed again, and reverted in -spirit to those mountains. Then we tramped -from tent to tent across the green wilderness -where the Indians lived. Indian boys in many-coloured<span class="pagenum" id="Page_251">[251]</span> -garments pranced on their horses, -chased lines of cattle and horses, and kept the -lines straight by galloping incessantly between -them from left to right to one end of the line, -and then right to left to the other end.</p> - -<p>We met Indians in voluminous seedy clothes, -walking with a stoop; men with gloomy ruminating -faces who tried to avoid contact with a -white man. We talked to them; they raised -their red romantic faces and glared at us like -owls startled by light. They could not speak -English, so they answered nothing, but just -turned out of our way and slouched on. Or -the livelier ones made signs to us. The stout -squaws stared at us. The slender girls on -their horses were almost indistinguishable from -boys.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p><span class="smcap">What</span> a beaten-down and untidy place a -Reservation is, strewn with jetsam from the -wigwam, hoofed till not a flower remains! The -Indians spend more time on horseback than on -foot—they can’t farm, or won’t farm, and -possess only the roughest of comforts. We -came to a Government Practice Farm where -Indians were being taught, and saw squaws<span class="pagenum" id="Page_252">[252]</span> -working there—but very little sign of decent -cultivation on the reservations. The Indian -asks enough on which to live. He wants no -more, will work for no more. He makes plentiful -use of canned foods, and lives from hand to -mouth. Hence you never hear of Indian -cooks. It is curious to contrast the genius of -the negro for cooking and the absence of a -taste for cooking in the Indians.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p><span class="smcap">After</span> the Indians we came to the Mormons. -They were as much surprised as the Dukhobors. -How should Mormons be here? Perhaps we -are the first to make the discovery that the -Mormons have invaded Canada. These are -the first Mormons to invite the shelter of the -Empire. As usual, they have made their -settlement in a very obscure part, far from the -centre of authority. And if trouble should arise -they have only to trek through the Rockies, -and then Uncle Sam and Senator Smoot will -protect them.</p> - -<p>We were regaled at farmhouses by sweet -Mormon brides, who gave us bannocks, who -gave us of their simmering greengages out of -the great cauldron on the stove. Elders on<span class="pagenum" id="Page_253">[253]</span> -horseback very politely, and with many details, -showed us the way to Cardston and the Mormon -Temple. We were happily and sympathetically -disposed towards the Mormons, and Vachel, -who has taught the Salt-Lake-City girls to -dance whilst he chanted to them “The Queen -of Sheba,” has a soft spot in his heart for the -sect. It was really started by a renegade -preacher from his own sect of Disciples, Sidney -Rigdon, who revised the unsaleable manuscript -of a novel called <i>The Book of Mormon</i>. He -conspired with Joseph Smith, who discovered -the book written in aboriginal American hieroglyphics -on gold plates and translated it by the -aid of certain miraculous spectacles into King’s -English, or I should say President’s English, -who was murdered; who therefore gave way to -Brigham Young, to whom were revealed many -mysteries.</p> - -<p>“They are a whole lot nearer to Mahometanism -than to Christianity,” said Vachel. “I -think a Mahometan mission to the Mormons -might not be a bad idea as a step on the road -towards Christianity.”</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p><span class="smcap">We</span> sat discussing this on the banks of the -Kootenai, and I was facetious:</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_254">[254]</span>“Ye Mormons, there is no god but God, and -Mahomet is His prophet. Whereas in Christ -ye are now living in adultery and sin, in -Mahomet ye are pure men and women. By -Christ, in the after-life there is neither marriage -nor giving in marriage, but in Mahomet -connubial bliss for evermore, attended by your -houris and your wives. Don’t say no. Think -it over and I’ll call this afternoon!”</p> - -<p>“<i>Put that in</i>,” said Vachel. “I think they’ve -derived a good deal from the phallic religions -too. They’ve made a much bigger thing of -Mormonism than it was in the days of Joseph -Smith. It has got hold of the sex mysteries. -There’s a whole lot of masonry in it. The -common sort of condemnation of the Mormons -is all that’s ever been attempted by way of -criticism of them. They’ve been stoned out of -all the Middle West. We have even in Springfield -in the Fair-grounds one of their altars -taken from Nauvoo, Illinois, from which they -were chased. They were a mistaken people—but -they learned much through tribulation.”</p> - -<p>The poet is by temperament on the side of -any one or any institution which happens to be -violently attacked. He was greatly interested<span class="pagenum" id="Page_255">[255]</span> -by Mormonism, so I naturally heard from him -many things in favour of it. First of all, he -felt it had a great future in America—it was -not a dying cult.</p> - -<p>“One side of it is getting very popular,” I -interjected, with some mirth. “It’s the word -of abuse in England from an injured wife to -her husband—‘<i>You—Mormon!</i>’”</p> - -<p>“Well, the idea of polygamy does make a -strong appeal to the male,” said the poet. “And -the women feel happy in it when it is an -accepted convention.”</p> - -<p>“You mean, women only object to clandestine -polygamy?”</p> - -<p>“There is always jealousy,” said my companion. -“But that is another matter. What -I meant about the future of Mormonism did -not refer to polygamy so much. But it’s our -first real American religion. It started in -America. It pretends to give American religious -traditions. According to Mormon, one of the -lost tribes of Israel came to South America. -Mormonism links America to both Noah and -Adam and to the hand of God. In their belief, -too, Christ came to America—He did not wait -till 1492 for Columbus to discover it first. He<span class="pagenum" id="Page_256">[256]</span> -was here before Columbus. In Mormonism -America is presented with a whole American -tradition, going as far back as the Old World -traditions, embodied in the Old and New -Testaments.”</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p><span class="smcap">Cardston</span>, which at length we reached, is -largely a Mormon city. The Temple, a remarkable -structure, exteriorily chaste and beautiful, -dominates the scene, and the clouds rest -upon it, obscuring its upper storeys in cloudy -weather. It is not used for general worship; -for that purpose there is a sufficiently ugly -tabernacle. It is almost exclusively for the -Mormon sacraments, the sealing of wives and -children, and for the meditational recreation of -the elders. Once the building has been completed -and consecrated it will remain inaccessible -to outsiders, but in order to avert suspicion, -visitors are shown over it until that time. We -were lucky, as the Temple is very nearly -finished, and it is a rare experience for an -outsider to gain access. There are only eight -Mormon Temples in the world, and the rites -performed therein are entirely secret.</p> - -<p>The town is mostly inhabited by Mormons,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_257">[257]</span> -and the great business “pull” of the sect is -evidenced in the technical and structural growth -of the place. The land between the city and -the reservations is theirs, and also much that -lies beyond. A strong propaganda for the sect -is carried on all over America, and also in -England and in Europe. Women converts -seem especially desired. On the other hand, -men of proved sincerity or simplicity are not -rejected. The Mormons have land at their -disposal, and they exert considerable influence -on settlers and pioneers of the West. The -elders help to organise business and to mormonise -the community as much as possible. -They can be of great help to any young -Mormon starting life. On the other hand -strange dooms are said to await any Mormons -who give away their secrets, and apostasy is -infrequent.</p> - -<p>Some of them are, however, incautious. In my -room at the hotel I found a heap of correspondence -left there by the last man who had been in -occupation. It was perhaps indelicate to pry -into a Mormon’s private affairs, but I confess -to a human weakness of curiosity under the -circumstances. Here was the basic material<span class="pagenum" id="Page_258">[258]</span> -for a novel on the Mormons; letters from one -pal to another, letters from girls, sweet letters, -despairing letters, telegrams. Technically there -is not supposed to be polygamy any more, and -legally there is not, but in reality something of -the sort goes on, as may be judged from the -following letter I transcribe, one of a packet I -brought from Cardston.</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<p class="right"><span class="smcap">S——d</span>, <br /> -Mo.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Dear</span> ——,</p> - -<p>I received your letter written on the -21st from Ladysmith, B.C., yesterday, but I -worked late last night and I had an answer -to one of Ruth’s letters to write that I had put -off for a week. So it was pretty near time to -get up rather than to go to bed, but I will just -drop a hurried line to let you know I still live.</p> - -<p>I sure am glad to hear you are able to save -a little because I also am trying to save a few -pennies also and it sure comes hard. I also am -glad to hear you are in a business that you like -but you failed to tell me just what your line of -selling is. What do you sell? buck handkerchiefs -or iron toothpicks. Does Dan travel -with you also. It sure is great to be able to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_259">[259]</span> -see a lot of the world at some one else’s expense -and your pleasure. I suppose S——d is -about like Vancouver; rainy and not worth a -dam. It sure has rained a lot here in the last -few weeks. I believe we have had more rain -here this month than Utah has in a year.</p> - -<p>About my wife in Utah. I receive letters -regularly. Eight or nine days apart as regular -as 8 o’clock comes in the morning. Every -8 or 9 days I get a letter and just that -often I get a letter from home also. I am -going to try to get a vacation and get enough -money to take me back to Utah next summer. -I don’t know if I can or not because I will -have to have an operation on my nose right -away because I always have a cold as it is. If -I do not keep on having this cold I now have -I will not have the operation, but if it does not -leave me pretty soon I will have the bone taken -out and doubtless lose my chance of getting -home.</p> - -<p>I sure am glad you appreciate Peggy by -now. You know, old Pal, that you never miss -the water till the well runs dry, and it sure is -true when a fellow leaves his friends and is out -alone. You sure appreciate what you did have<span class="pagenum" id="Page_260">[260]</span> -when it is gone completely. I believe that a -fellow must live a life like we are to really -appreciate the good things in life anyhow. If -we did not taste of the sour things the sweet -ones would seem sour to us. By gosh it sure -is true in one respect I miss some one to darn -my sox. I try to do it myself but it is slow -work and I get so (nervous?) Try and imagine -me sitting all night darning sox. It sure -is a bellina (? hellish) job. I don’t like it at all.</p> - -<p>Well, old pal, I have a Missouri wife now so -S——d seems to be a pretty good place -after all. She is a girl I met in church and is -about the size and looks about like Ruth W——. -Some girl I will say. We have been to a -couple of parties and to a couple of shows in -two weeks beside being at her place all day -last Sunday. Sunday we are going to have a -picnic and take a few pictures, and Monday -night a large masquerade party is on and we -are going to it also. So you see I stop her -right off and she don’t object either, I don’t -believe.</p> - -<p>I wrote W—— a letter on the 3rd of this -month and as yet I have not received a letter. -I guess he wanted to have a good time while<span class="pagenum" id="Page_261">[261]</span> -his “heaven” lasts, and I don’t blame him -either. I believe he is a little worried over his -mission and rather hates to go, but I believe he -will be alright.</p> - -<p>I am getting along fine here. I order all -the shoes here so I am the shoe desk manager. -The boss gives me all the shoe mail, and I just -order what I want and leave the rest. It is quite -a large job, but our store is not quite as large -as Salt Lake’s, but the shoe department could -keep a regular man busy. So you see I am -doing fine. To-morrow is pay-day and I also -get a nice raise, so I have no kick except to -darn my sox. They are the greatest worry I -have had.</p> - -<p>Well, old pal, I gave this letter and your last -one pretty good service considering all the -work we have now that the winter business is -just opening up. Here it is after 12.30 again, -so I will go to bed and get up again at 6 a. m. -Try to be good, old pal, and don’t do anything -I wouldn’t—Your old pal,</p> - -<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Ed</span>.</p> -</div> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p><span class="smcap">You</span> cannot learn much of the ways of the -Mormons by asking them, but when one of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_262">[262]</span> -them leaves a whole packet of correspondence -behind him in a hotel he “sure is” giving -things away.</p> - -<p>We walked up to the Temple at three in the -afternoon, the designated time when visitors -are shown round, and punctually at that hour -the doors were opened and the curious were -admitted.</p> - -<p>“Wherever we locates we builds temples,” -said the guide, a curious old fellow, so illiterate -that he strewed the temple floor with his aitches, -an Englishman from the provinces, squat, confidential, -insinuating. “This is the eighth -Mormon Temple,” said he. “The ninth is now -rising in Phœnix, Arizona.”</p> - -<p>The visitors were mostly farm-women, and -Vachel and I looked like a couple of tramps in -their midst. Our clothes hung on us; we held -in our hands a couple of the most weather-beaten -of old hats. I was the “big un” and -Vachel was the “little un.” We looked to -have a little less intelligence than gopher-rats.</p> - -<p>“The ’ole edifiss is of stone,” said the guide, -“and the foundation is of rock and concrete. -There’s not five dollars’ worth of wood in the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_263">[263]</span> -construction. All the wood you see is haksessories.”</p> - -<p>“Are all the temples built of stone only?” -I asked cautiously, with the air of a stone-mason -out of a job.</p> - -<p>“No,” said he. “Each is built on a seprit -plan.”</p> - -<p>“’Ere,” said he, turning to the rest of the -company, “’ere we seals. This ’ere room is for -ordinances only. No, we don’t worship in the -Temple. It’s not used for public worship. You -see the red-brick building as you came up to -the Temple. That is the Tabernacle where -public worship is held, and that is free to all. -But ’ere in the Temple we ’as the ordinances -and the meditations.”</p> - -<p>The guide was naturally a Mormon, and as -he showed us around I thought his main objects -were to tell us nothing while pretending to tell -us all, and yet at the same time to make -converts among the women. He did all he -could to interest the latter in the cooking and -lighting and warming and washing arrangements.</p> - -<p>“You ’ave ’ere the electric stoves to cook -the meals. You couldn’t keep running in and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_264">[264]</span> -out of the Temple in yer sacred garments to -get meals at resterongs, so we cooks ’ere. But -there can be no smell of cooking—as this -exhaust takes all the smell away out of the -building. Very convenient, eh, ain’t it? We’ve -had over ten thousand applications from women -to come and cook in the Temple.”</p> - -<p>The farm-women giggled appreciatively. -The guide led them on to the laundering -establishment. As the Mormons wear secret -underlinen with signs, they naturally don’t care -to send their laundry out to wash. And in the -Temple we were given to understand every -man and woman wore special white garments. -Consequently there would be much laundering. -But all was to be done by the latest machinery, -driven by electric power. “No hand-work, no -scrubbing, no drudgery and gettin’ your fingers -red and ’ard,” said the guide. “Then, when -the wash is done, hpp, in they go to the drying -chamber, and in a few seconds they are sufficiently -dry to be taken out and ironed on the -electric irons.”</p> - -<p>For a moment it was like being at an ideal -home exhibition. “Then the radiators,” said -the guide, “you see, they don’t project into the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_265">[265]</span> -rooms, but are fixed in the walls dead level -with the surface of the walls.”</p> - -<p>“Of course the Temple ’asn’t got its upolstery -in yet, but in every room the furniture -will be all of a piece with the inlay wood of the -walls. If the walls is oak the furniture will be -oak to match; if it’s bird’s-eye maple, the -furniture’ll be bird’s-eye maple; if it’s Circassian -mahogany the furniture will be Circassian -mahogany too. Every room will have its -colour scheme. ’Ere you see the thermometer. -Now the temperature of the building will be -regulated. It won’t matter wot the weather is -like outside, it will be controlled inside. The -engineer will ’ave ’is orfice outside the Temple -and don’t never need come in. All they ’as to -do is telephone ’im to raise the temperature -ten degrees or lower it five and he’ll do it.”</p> - -<p>“We comes to the baths” (they are pretty -elaborate). “’Ere’s the men’s section, over -there’s the women’s. You natcherally bathe -first of all when you enter the Temple and -remove every speck of dust or dirt from your -body. And ’ere are the robing-rooms where -spotless garments is waiting you to put on. -You walks all in white wherever you go in the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_266">[266]</span> -Temple, and when it ’as been consecrated no -more folks will ever go in it in ordinary clothes -like as you and me to-day.”</p> - -<p>The Temple proved to be the last word in -luxury and modern convenience. In the most -elegant club in London, Paris, or New York I -have not seen such luxury and sensual comfort -as was in this Temple in the rough wild west. -Every room was inlaid with precious woods. -The baths and robing-rooms were worthy of a -Sultan, the lounge and one-piece carpets all -suggested a material heaven. The guide -showed us the vast font reposing on the life-size -figures of twelve oxen, the symbols of -the twelve tribes of Israel. This font was the -centre of a stately chamber with galleries -running round it. From the galleries the -friends of the candidates could watch the -ceremony of immersion. The font was large -enough to baptize families at once.</p> - -<p>“And you can be baptized many times,” -said the guide. “For yourself, then for your -friends, and then for the dead—for any one you -would like to have saved.”</p> - -<p>“Baptized for the dead?” said one of the -women in horror. “Yes,” said he. “You<span class="pagenum" id="Page_267">[267]</span> -think it strange, but the early Christians all -used to do it. Just turn up First Corinthians, -chapter fifteen. ‘What shall they do which -are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at -all? Why are they then baptized for the dead?’ -which shows plainly that the apostles recommended -it.”</p> - -<p>“Is the water cold?” asked a farm-girl, -timorously.</p> - -<p>“Cold,” said the guide ingratiatingly, “oh, -no! It’s warmed. It’s just <i>nice</i>. I should -say about the temperature of warm milk.”</p> - -<p>“Oh!” “Oh!” There was chorus of approval -from the women, who had been considering -the whole matter from a purely personal -point of view.</p> - -<p>We were then led to the Creation Room, the -Garden of Eden Room, and the Earth-natural -Room, all adorned with works of art. There -were pictures of the world before Creation, and -then of each stage in the process of Creation.</p> - -<p>“God don’t love chaos. ’E’s a great organiser. -’E organised it, and ’e divided the water -from the hearth and gave us light and made -the hanimal creation—yes, all that lives and -breeves,” said the guide. “’Ere we meet to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_268">[268]</span> -meditate on the Creation. Isn’t it a beutiful -room?”</p> - -<p>Some one asked him if the artists were -Mormons. “Yes, all of them,” said he, and -then went on—</p> - -<p>“You’d think it gets stuffy in ’ere. But no; -we ’as the hair taken out and washed and then -returned. It’s a new device for washing the -hair.”</p> - -<p>We passed to Eden. Here were pictures of -the whole animal creation in benevolent and -sentimental happiness; the tiger browsing beside -the lamb, and the lion and the giddy goat -frisking around.</p> - -<p>The guide purveyed the story of the Garden -of Eden, but left out Adam and Eve, and I -walked away from him to wander round and -seek the portraits of our first parents. They -were not included. But I found that the painting -of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil -and of the Tree of Life were concave at the -base, and that there was a recess and an alcove -to each. So there was a place for a living -Adam and Eve to sit, side by side, when the -meditation on the Garden was going on. -My idea is that Eve would be seated in the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_269">[269]</span> -Tree of Life and Adam in the Tree of Knowledge. -But that is surmise. The guide would -not tell us what the alcoves were for, but in the -eye of curious imagination I saw Adam and -Eve sitting there in primitive innocence whilst -the hearts of the elders were inditing of a good -matter.</p> - -<p>From Eden we went to the Earth-natural, -which was a hideous place where every animal -was depicted with a vicious expression. A -large mad coyote or, was it a hyena? seemed -to control the atmosphere of the chamber.</p> - -<p>“’Ere we ’ave the Hearth after sin ’as crept -in,” said the guide. “’Ere is life as we know -it, full of sin which you can’t escape. You can -all learn a great deal from them pictures. Think -of Hadam and Eve. ’Ave you ever thought -of it—’ow God gave them the garden of Eden, -and of the ‘experience’ ’e made them ’ave there. -Isn’t it true about us? ’E didn’t mean that -nothin’ should ever ’appen to us. ’E brought us -into the world that we might ’ave an experience.”</p> - -<p>So we went on to the Marriage Room, which -was entirely bare, and no one could say what it -would be like when the decorations and the -furniture had been added. I judged it time<span class="pagenum" id="Page_270">[270]</span> -for me to cease being Simple Simon, so I asked -the guide as humbly as I could whether the -marriages were legal when the ceremony was -performed.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said he. “You ’ave a legal marriage.”</p> - -<p>“But polygamy?” I queried, and I saw his -eyes flame.</p> - -<p>“Polygamy ’as been done away with long -ago when Utah was received into the Union,” -he answered in a gruff way.</p> - -<p>“And what happened to the other wives -when it was abolished?” asked some one else -very softly. But the guide did not reply. -Instead he began to hurry us out of the -building. We had only seen a third of it -and were loth to go. But there was nothing -for it. We managed to get a last glimpse of -an assembly hall with large frescoes on the -walls, depicting Christ distributing the Bread -and the Wine to the Mound-Builders, or -Indians of South America, and underneath -was written III. Nephi 15. Another fresco -had reference to the Book of Josiah, which is -part of Mormon Holy Writ—found by Joseph -Smith, written on gold plates.</p> - -<p>The guide hurried us to the door. “I’ve<span class="pagenum" id="Page_271">[271]</span> -some pictures of the Temple for sale,” said he -to the farm-women. But they seemed all to -have been scared by my question about polygamy. -Vachel and I stopped to look at the -pictures. After all, they were only picture-postcards -of the exterior. We bought three.</p> - -<p>“Good-b’ye,” said I. “And much obliged.” -And I offered him my hand. He gave me -his left.</p> - -<p>“Good-b’ye,” said Vachel. “Most interesting.” -And he offered him his hand. -The guide gave him his left also.</p> - -<p>“A left-handed shake,” said Vachel, meditatively, -as we went down the steps. “You -know what that means.”</p> - -<p>“No?”</p> - -<p>“That means—Go to Hell!”</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p><span class="smcap">We</span> were much intrigued by all this, and found -out that Adam is God to the Mormons, and -Christ only one of a series which culminated -in Brigham Young. Mormonism is the story -of a passionate sensual man with a fake religion, -a leader, however, of men and women, capable -of starting a church, murdered and then succeeded -by the great Brigham. The Mormon<span class="pagenum" id="Page_272">[272]</span> -community, persecuted ever, loathed and detested -yet not destroyed, plunged ever westward -through the deserts with new revelations -all the way, always, however, being overtaken -by the tide of other pioneers and chased again. -They were secret, and wanted to be secret. -But the United States always overtook them. -Now they have compromised in many ways -and are not persecuted, and they multiply -and spread and propagandise. They are disciplined. -In politics they all vote one way—as -ordered. They begin to be proud of America.</p> - -<p>Vachel and I went up to the Temple at -night. It looked like a place produced by -enchantment—the highest thing on the highest -eminence of the widespread but low-built city -of Cardston. Clouds hid the top of it. There -was no one near but ourselves, apparently not -even a watchman. The massive gates were -locked and barred, and above them gleamed -electric lanterns in large and graceful M’s.</p> - -<p>We have learned an elementary lesson about -them.</p> - -<p>“Remember that, Vachel,” said I. “M for -Mormon.”</p> - -<p>“The guide said a true word,” said the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_273">[273]</span> -poet. “God sent us into the world that we -might have an experience.”</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p><span class="smcap">With</span> that our tramping ended. We left our -pine-staffs leaning against a Cardston wall. -We slept in beds again and bought our coffee -at a shop. Gathering prose invaded the clear -blue of our poetry. Some sadness, like a -shadow, settled on us. And it was good-b’ye -to the mountains.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_018.jpg" alt="" /></div> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse"><i>Thy Kingdom come, O Lord,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>As once it came,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>May it come again!</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>For once it came upon the mountains,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>It came upon the wings of the morning</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Amid the flowers and adown the streams.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>It came into our eyes,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>It came into our hearts.</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Thy Kingdom come, O Lord,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>As once it came,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>May it come again!</i></div> -</div></div> - - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_274">[274]</span> - - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_274.jpg" alt="" /></div> -<p class="caption">THE -WORLD IS MY PARISH</p> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XXXVIII. BLOOM FOR EVER, -O REPUBLIC!</h2> -</div> - - -<p><span class="smcap">We</span> crossed the line again and returned to the -United States. And then we went to the city -of St. Paul, and we saw the falls where -Minnehaha and Hiawatha met. We stood -on the high bank of the Mississippi and considered -meditatively the mounds of the mound-builders -there. What more impressive symbol -for a world-traveller than these pre-historic -mounds—there before the Indians came—emblems -of the infinite forgotten past of man! -Then we went to Chicago. We saw the -beautiful Wrigley building which has risen to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_275">[275]</span> -look from drab Chicago over Michigan Lake—a -building raised by the profits of gum! Vachel -introduced me to the first sponsor of his verse, -Harriet Monroe, of “Poetry,” and he described -to me how he and W. B. Yeats once divided -the annual poetry prize of Chicago, and how he -was to have read aloud the prize poem—“General -William Booth Enters Heaven,” but -to the surprise of the company assembled gave -his new, hitherto unheard-of work “The Congo,” -a poem which at that time must have been -dumfounding in its novelty. Then Yeats, who -seemed to have snubbed every one including the -poet himself, made a very generous speech in -favour of Lindsay’s genius. And we met -Chicago’s poet, Carl Sandburg, a rugged -Scandinavian with brown hair who claimed -me as a “Nordic” also. And he carried a -large and old guitar on which he thrummed -when reciting his poems. He has heard Negro -Blues in the South, and loves the coloured folk, -and has a whole repertoire of blues which he -will sing you if you will. I had a glass of beer -with Sandburg in Milwaukee, the only glass of -anything of the kind offered me this time in these -dry United States. I met Ridgely Torrance,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_276">[276]</span> -gentle and whimsical, with one long lock of hair -on his head like a Russian khokhol. Curiously -enough, he also had been enchanted by the -Negroes and knew more about them than us -all, and he read poetry to us. There I met -beautiful Zona Gale of Portage whom, it is said, -nearly every literary man who ever met her -has at some time or other loved. And meeting -Zona I met Lulu Bett. We met delectable -Isidora, once queen of Springfield, now queen -of another city. And we stayed with Mrs. -William Vaughan Moody, widow of that -dramatist and poet who wrote “The Great -Divide” and “The Fire-Bringer.” We were a -rough-looking couple to be a lady’s guests, but -Harriet Moody loves the whole writing world -for her husband’s sake and took us in, and I -found in her what so many know—a vivid -personality, endlessly kind. And couldn’t she -cook! We loved her for her poetry and we -loved her for her pies.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p><span class="smcap">We</span> went to Springfield, Illinois, and there we -had a general clean-up and our mosquito netting -came back from the laundry marked -“Lace; two pieces.” I visited all Vachel’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_277">[277]</span> -cronies and friends and acquaintances and -enemies, and there were articles about us in the -<i>Register</i> and <i>Journal</i> every day for a fortnight, -and I spoke to the Radical Kaffee Klatsch for -the celebrated Isidor Levine, and to the Conservative -Luncheon Club for the ubiquitous Elmer -Neale, and I spoke to the <i>Via Christi</i> class for -Mrs. Lindsay, and to the High School for -Vachel’s old teacher, and to the readers in the -Public Library for Martha Wilson. I had all -the books on Russia put on a table, and I -discoursed upon them. The most-read book -was <i>The Brothers Karamazof</i>, which looked as -if it had been in every bed in Springfield. We -went to the Negro churches together; we talked -to Charlie Gibbs the famous coloured attorney. -We were entertained by Mrs. Warren—Drinkwater’s -Springfield hostess. We could not visit -the Governor—he was under arrest. But we -visited the unsuccessful candidate for the governship -at the last election. Vachel discoursed on -small-town politics while Mrs. Sherman made -us meringues. The poet introduced me to his -sweethearts, who were of all ages, from twelve -to eighty. I made friends with beautiful -little Mary Jane Allen, who danced and glided into<span class="pagenum" id="Page_278">[278]</span> -and out of our presence, and smiled at us and -lifted her child’s heart to us. And we called on -“Judith the Dancer,” who taught little Mary -Jane. Always along the Springfield streets the -sight of the children exhilarated my companion—“Stephen, -I just love them to death,” said he.</p> - -<p>I got to be very well known. I had a sort -of royal progress in the street, questioned and -smiled at on all hands. “’Scuse me,” they -would say, “those boots, did you tramp in <i>them</i>?” -or, “How d’ye do? My little girl heard you -give your talk in the school yesterday. She’s -full of it; it was <i>mighty</i> good of you.”</p> - -<p>I came to love the people of this little city, -and to see the place with Vachel’s creative -eyes. Surely no one ever encountered such -kindness, such real warmth of heart, as I did -there. It was very moving for one who had -come right out of the bitterness and quarrels of -Europe and out of the loneliness of London. -They know something about living which we -are forgetting. They taught me much, and the -poet has taught me much also—the bounty of -good humour and of unfailing kindness and -warmth. I love those who’ve got the strength -of heart to lift their hands to take yours,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_279">[279]</span> -who open their mouths actually to speak to -you.</p> - -<p>So I cannot tell the poet what I owe him, -and he says he cannot tell me what he owes me. -We made one final quest together, and that -was to Salem where Abraham Lincoln lived a -poor man’s life, and learned mathematics from -Dominie Graham and fell in love with the -daughter of his landlord—unforgettable Anne -Rutledge. And we paused before the massive -block of granite which marks Anne’s grave, -strewn otherwise with flowers, and refulgent -with thoughts. And we read Masters’s beautiful -lines inscribed over the grave:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse">I am Anne Rutledge who sleep beneath these weeds,</div> -<div class="verse">Beloved in life of Abraham Lincoln,</div> -<div class="verse">Wedded to him, not through union</div> -<div class="verse">But through separation.</div> -<div class="verse">Bloom for ever, O Republic</div> -<div class="verse">From the dust of my bosom!</div> -</div></div> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_006.jpg" alt="" /></div> - - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<div class="transnote"> -<p class="ph1">TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:</p> - - - -<p>Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.</p> - -<p>Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.</p> - -<p>Archaic or alternate spelling has been retained from the original.</p> -</div></div> -<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TRAMPING WITH A POET IN THE ROCKIES ***</div> -<div style='text-align:left'> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will -be renamed. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -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. 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