out in the country was a different america. the maples were all red, the first blush of the dawn of summer. in the gardens the ficacia was shooting her yellow arrows, in the woods the american dogwood tree was covered with white blossoms like thousands of little dolls' nightcaps. down at caldwell, new jersey, i picked many violets and anemones—large blue fragrant violets. the bride's veil was in lovely wisps and armfuls of white. the unfolding oak turned all rose, like the peach tree in bloom. each morning when i awakened and went out into the woods i found something new had happened overnight,—thus i discovered the sycamore in leaf, fringing and fanning, and then the veils which the naked birch trees were wearing. the birches began to look like maidens doing their hair. the fern fronds and azalea buds opened their hands. the chestnut tree lit up her many candles. the shaggy hickory, the tree giant whose bark hangs in rags and clots, had looked quite dead, but with the coming of may it was seen to be awaking tenderly. in the glades the little columbines[pg 86] put on their pink bonnets. only the pines and cedars were dark and changeless, as if grown old in sin beside the tender innocence of the birches.
it is very pleasant living in the half-country—living, that is, in the outer suburbs of the great american city or in the ordinary suburbs of the small city. new york has very little corresponding to our walthamstow, enfield, catford, ilford, camberwell, and all those dreary congested parishes that lie eight to ten miles from the centre of london. the american suburbs are garden cities without being called so. each house is detached from its neighbour, there is a stretch of greenest lawn in front of it, there is a verandah on which are fixed hammocks and porch-swings, there are flower-beds, blossoming shrubs, the shade of maples and cherry trees. there are no railings or fences, and the people on the verandah look down their lawn to the road and take stock of all the people passing to and fro.
working men and women live a long way out, and are content to spend an hour or an hour and a half a day in trains and cars if only to be quite free of the city when work is over.
twelve miles of garden city is very wearisome to the pedestrian; but he tramps them gaily when he remembers that the country is ahead, and that he has not simply to retrace his footsteps to a town-dwelling which for the time being he calls home.
[pg 87]
i set off for chicago in the beginning of may—not in a pullman car, but on my own feet; for in order to understand america it is necessary to go to america, and the only way she can be graciously approached is humbly, on one's feet. i travelled just in the same way as i have done the last four years in russia—viz. with a knapsack on my back, a staff in my hand, and a stout pair of boots on my feet. i carried my pot, i had matches, and i reckoned to buy my own provisions as i went along, and to cook what was necessary over my own fire by the side of the road. at night i proposed to sleep at farmhouses in cold weather, and under the stars when it was warm. i was ready in mind and body for whatever might happen to me. if the farmers proved to be inhospitable, and would not take me in on cold or rainy nights, i would quite cheerfully tramp on till i came to a hotel, or a barn, or a cave, or a bridge, or any place where man, the wanderer, could reasonably find shelter from the elements.
i took the road with great spirits. there is something unusually invigorating in the american air. it is marvellously healthy and strength-giving, this virginal land. every tree and shrub seems to have a full grasp of life, and outbreathes a robust joy. it is as if the earth itself had greater supplies of unexhausted strength than europe has—as if, indeed, it were a newer world, and had spent less of the primeval potencies and energies bequeathed to this planet at[pg 88] her birth. how different from tranquil and melancholy russia!
america is more spacious in new york state than in new york city. the landscape is so broad that could atlas have held it up, you feel he must have had fine arms. your eyes, but lately imprisoned so closely by unscalable sky-scrapers, run wild in freedom to traverse the long valleys and forested ridges, waking the imagination to realise the country of the indians. there is a vast sky over you. the men and women on the road have time to talk to you, and the farmer ambling along in his buggy is interested to give you a lift and ask after your life and your fortunes; and when he puts you down, and you thank him, he answers in an old-fashioned way:
"you're welcome; hand on my heart."
in the city no one has a word to say to you, but in the country every one is curious. it is more neighbourly to be curious and to ask questions. i rejoiced in every scrap of talk, even in such triviality as my chat with otto friedrichs, a workman, who hailed me at east berne.
"are you an amarikan?"
"no."
"sprechen sie deutsch, mein herr?"
"no; i'm english."
"that bag on your back is made in germany."
"very likely," said i; "i bought it in london."
[pg 89]
"you running avay in case dere should be ze war, eh?"
"well, it would be safer here, even for you."
"what you think of our kaiser?"
"fine man," said i.
"some say ze kaiser is too english to make ze war. but do you know wat i read in ze newspaper? der kaiser cut his hand by accident, zen he hold up his finger—so, viz ze blood on it, and he say, 'dat is my las' blood of english tropp,' and he ... the blood away."
not knowing the word for "flicked" otto told me in dumb show with his fingers.
"last drop of english blood, eh?" said i.
"yes."
"so he's quite german now, and ready to fight."
as i sat at the side of the road every passer-by was interested in my fire and my pot. they pitied me when they saw me trudging along the road, and when i told them i was tramping to chicago they commonly exclaimed:
"gee! i wouldn't do that for ten thousand dollars."
but when they saw me cooking my meals they stopped and looked at me wistfully—that was their weakness; a hankering, not after the wilderness, but for the manna there. they addressed to me such non-pertinent remarks as:
"so that's how you fix it."
[pg 90]
"i say, you'll get burned up."
"are yer making yer coffee?"
there was a great doubt as to my business, as the following interlocutions will suggest. in russia i should be asked:
"where are you going?"
"to kieff," i might answer.
"to pray," the russian would conclude. but in america i was most commonly taken to be a pedlar.
"whar you going?"
"chicago," i answered.
"peddling?"
it astonished me to be taken for a pedlar. but i was almost as commonly taken to be walking for a wager. i was walking under certain conditions. i must not take a lift. i must keep up thirty miles a day. i was walking to chicago on a bet. some one had betted some one else i wouldn't do it in a certain time. i took only a dollar in my pocket and was supporting myself by my work. i lectured in schoolhouses, mended spades, would lend a hand in the hayfield. or i was walking to advertise a certain sort of boot. or i was walking on a certain sort of diet to advertise somebody's patent food. i was repairer of village telephones. i was hawking toothpicks, which i very cunningly made in my fire at the side of the road. i was a tramping juggler, and would give a show in the town next night.
[pg 91]
every one thought i accomplished a prodigious number of miles a day. at least a hundred times i was called upon to state what was my average "hike" for the day. some were sympathetic and explained that they would like to do the same, to camp out, it was the only way to see america. a girl in a baker's shop told me she had long wanted to tramp to chicago and sleep out every night, but could get no friend to accompany her. jews slapped me on the back and told me i was doing fine. especially i remember a young man who walked by my side through the streets of wilkes barre. he told me his average per day had been forty-five miles.
"how long did you keep that up?" i asked.
"a week, we went to washington."
"that's going some," said i.
"how far do you usually go?" asked he.
"oh, five or six miles when the weather's fine," said i.
"yer kiddin us!"
i was told that i wasn't the only person on the road. the great weston was behind me, patriarch of "hikers," aged seventy-five. he wore ice under his hat and was walking from new york to st. paul at twenty-five miles a day, and was accompanied by an automobile full of liquid food. far ahead of me was a woman in high-heeled boots tramping from new york to san francisco. she carried only a small handbag, walked with incredible rapidity, and was proving for [pg 92]newspaper that it was just as easy to walk in vienna boots as in any other. several weeks before me a cripple had passed, wheeling a wheelbarrow full of picture-post-cards of himself, which he sold at a nickel each, thereby supporting himself. he was going from philadelphia to los angeles, but had five years to do it in.
for all and sundry upon the road i had a ready smile and a greeting; almost every one replied to me at least as heartily, and many were ready to talk at length. some, however, to whom i gave greeting either took me for a disreputable tramp or felt themselves too important in the sight of the lord. when i said, "how d'ye do?" or "good morning" they simply stared at me as if i were a cow that had mooed. in my whole journey i encountered no hostility whatever. only once or twice i would hear a woman in a car say truculently to her husband, "there goes weary willie."
i had pleasant encounters innumerable, and many a talk with children. i felt that as i was in search for the emerging american, the american of to-morrow and the day after, i ought to take the children i met rather seriously. it was surprising to me that the grown-ups upon the road said to me always, "how-do?" but the children said, "hullo." the children always spoke as if they had met me before, or as if they were dying for me to stop and talk to them and tell them all about the road, and who i was and what i was doing.
on the way to school: my breakfast party
on the way to school: my breakfast party.
[pg 93]
at a little place called clarkville i had a breakfast party. perhaps i had better begin at the beginning. it had been a hard frosty night, and i slept in a barn on two planks beside an old rusty reaping-machine. at five in the morning i made my first fire of the day, and i shared a pot of hot tea with a disreputable tramp, who had come to warm himself at the blaze. by seven o'clock i had walked into the next village, about five miles on, and i was ready for a second breakfast. my first had been for the purpose of getting warm; now i was hungry for something to eat.
it was a beautiful morning; on each side of the road were orchards in full bloom, the gnarled and angular apple trees were showing themselves lovely in myriad outbreaking of blossom, and there were thousands of dandelions in the rank green grass beneath them. the sides of the roadway and the banks of the village stream were deep in grass and clover, and every hollow of the world seemed brimming with sunshine. the sun had been radiant, and he stood over a shoulder of the catskills and poured warmth on the whole western world.
on the bank of the stream i spread out my things, emptying out of my pack, pots, cups, provisions, books, paper, pen, and ink. i gathered wisps of last year's weeds, and on a convenient spot started my little fire. i had just put eggs in to boil when the first of my party arrived. this was little charles van wie and his[pg 94] friend. charles was hired to come early to the school-house and light the fire, so that the school would be warm by the time the teacher and the other boys and girls arrived. i did not know that i had pitched my camp just between the village and the school, on the way all the children would have to come. in america the school-house is always some distance from the village—this is so that mothers may not come running in and out every minute, and it is a good arrangement for other reasons. it gives every little boy and girl a walk, and the chance of having upon occasion extraordinary adventures.
charles and his friend set to work to gather sticks for me, and saved me the trouble of rushing every now and then for fuel to keep up the fire. then they hurried away to the school-house, but promised, excitedly, to come back as soon as they could.
charles returned and asked me where i was going to, and what was my name and where i'd come from. i told him, and he took out a pocket-book and pencil and wrote all down.
then other boys came and watched me make my coffee. the boys—they were all under twelve—had bunches of white lilac fixed in their coats. i sat and ate my food and chattered.
"is the lilac for your teacher?" i asked of a boy.
"i guess not," he replied.
there was a look of disgust on his face.
[pg 95]
"is your teacher strict?"
"some."
the boys all sat or sprawled on the grass and chaffed one another.
one of them was wearing a badge in his buttonhole, a white enamelled button, on which was printed very distinctly:
every
d a m
booster.
but the dam, when you looked at it closely, turned out to be "dayton's adding machines."
"what does 'booster' mean?" i asked.
"a feller that makes a job go," it was explained to me.
after breakfast i took a photograph of them sitting in the grass. they were much pleased.
"if skinny atlas had been here he'd have broke the camera," said one of them.
an extremely fat boy came into view and approached our party. the others all cried at him "skinny atlas," so i asked:
"is that a nickname? is his surname atlas?"
"no," they replied, "his surname is higgins. but he's so darned fat that we call him skinny atlas. we have a saying, 'put a nickel in the slot and up comes skinny atlas.'"
accordingly all the boys cried out, "put a nickel in the slot and up comes skinny atlas."
[pg 96]
the fat boy, wearing a big straw sun-bonnet, came up and walloped several little boys. there was some horseplay round the embers of my fire, but charles van wie set an example by giving warning—
"next person who pushes me i baste."
but it was getting late, and three little girls who had been hovering shyly at a distance cried out that it was time for the boys to go in.
the school had only fifteen pupils, boys and girls together, and they were all in one class, and they learned "the three r's," physiology, and the geography of the county they lived in.
the making of an american citizen is a simple matter in the country. and little charles van wie would make one of the best that are turned out, i should think.
later on in the morning i went along to the school-house and peeped in at the window. there they all were, under the stern sway of a little school-mistress. but they didn't see me.
how useful to the tramp is the custom of hanging in the school-room a map of the county or of the state in which the children live. often when i have wanted to know where i was i have clambered to the school-house window and consulted the map on the wall.
once more to the road. the american high-road differs considerably from any way in europe. every farm-house has a white letter-box on a post outside[pg 97] its main entrance, and the farmer posts his letter and hoists a metal flag as a signal to the peripatetic postman that there are letters to collect. there are no thatched cottages; the homesteads stand back from the road, they are always of wood, and have shady verandahs and cosily furnished front rooms. the fields on each side of the road are protected by six-inch mesh steel netting, turned out by some great factory in pittsburg i suppose. there are very few country guide-posts, and in new york state those there are come rather as a reward to you after you have guessed right. they are put up at a distance from the cross-roads. the pointers of the guide-posts are of tin. the telephone cones are of green glass, the poles are mostly chestnut, are not straight, and rot quickly. there are many advertisements by the way, and as you approach a town of importance they are as thick as fungi. they are not written for tramps to jeer at, but as hints to rich motorists. still one necessarily smiles at:
clothe your whole family on credit
$1 a week.
or
dutchess trousers. ten cents a button.
a dollar a rip.
a great portion of the state of indiana seems to be devoted to dutchess trousers, and i often wonder[pg 98] whether the company had to pay many indemnities to customers.
one sorry feature of country advertising was the number of notices scrawled in black with charcoal or painted in tar. in europe picnickers write their names or the names of their sweethearts on the rocks and the walls and palings, but in america they write their trade, the thing they sell, and the price a pound, what o. henry would call their especial sort of "graft."
then "rrrrrrr! rhrhrh—whaup—ssh!" the automobile appears on the horizon, passes you, and is gone. i have no prejudice against automobilists; they were very hospitable to me, and carried me many miles. if i had accepted all the lifts offered me i should have been in chicago in a week, instead of taking two months on the journey. but the farmers curse them. on one sunday late in june i counted everything that passed me. the farmer commonly tells you that hundreds of automobiles whirl past his door every day. this day there were just one hundred and ten, of which thirty-two were auto-cycles and the rest cars. as a set-off against this there were only five buggies and three ordinary cyclists. that was one of the last days of june, when i was seventy miles from chicago. i had two offers to take me into the city that day!
besides counting the vehicles that passed me i took stock of the automobilists themselves. no one[pg 99] passed till 7 a.m., and then came a loving couple, looking like a runaway match. he was clasping her waist, and their trunks were roped on to the car behind. then six young men, all in their wind-blown shirts, came tearing along on auto-cycles. scarcely had the noise of these subsided when a smart picnic party rolled past in a smooth-running car, flying purple flags on which was printed the name of their home city—michigan. this is a common custom in america, to carry a flag with the name of your city. it boosts your own town, and is thought to bring trade there.
six townsmen came past me in a grand car. their hats were all off; they were all clean shaven and bald. coats had been left at home, and the six were in radiantly clean coloured shirts. they smiled at me; i was one of the sights of the road.
many picnic parties passed me, and men and women called out to me facetiously. six shop-girls on a joy ride came past, and one of them kissed her hand to me—that is one of the things the girl in the car can safely do when she is passing a pedestrian.
family parties went by, and also placid husbands and wives having a spin before lunch, and bashful happy pairs sitting behind the back of the discreet chauffeurs. there came an auto-cycle with a frantic man in front and a girl astride on his carrier behind. she was wiping the sand out of her eyes as she passed,[pg 100] her skirt was blown by the wind, and she showed a pair of dainty legs; the funny way in which she was obliged to sit made her look like a stalk bending over among reeds.
one of the few cyclists i met came up after this, and he dismounted to talk to me. he was a tender of gasoline engines "on vacation." i learned from him about the single auto-cycle for two. it appears that in america they manufacture special seats to screw on the back of a motor-cycle; some use that. many, however, just strap a cushion on. young men who have auto-cycles have a "pull" with the girls; they pick them up and take them to business, or take them home from business, and on holidays they take them for rides of joy. several similar couples passed me during the day.
all sorts of gear went by; rich gentlemen in stately pride, workmen with their week-day grime scarcely cleared from their faces, gay girls with parasols, honeymoon pairs, cars with men driving, cars with women at the wheel. the automobile is far more of a general utility in the united states than in england. workmen, and, indeed, farmers themselves—not those who curse—have their own cars. they mortgage their property to get them, but they get them all the same. even women buy cars for themselves, and are to be seen driving them themselves. in great britain it is very rare that you see a woman travelling alone[pg 101] in a car, but in america it is a frequent sight. of course in russia, in the country, an automobile is still a rarity. i passed last summer in a populous part of the urals and did not see a single car. i did not even see an ordinary bicycle. the farther west you go the more you find the inventions of the day taken advantage of. it is an important phenomenon in america; it shows that there is a readiness to adopt and utilise any new thing right off, directly it is discovered.
this readiness, however, results in a lack of seriousness. inexpert driving is no crime; accidents are nothing to weep over; badly constructed cars are driven along loose springy roads with blood-curdling speed and recklessness. the pedestrian is vexed to see a car come towards him, leaping, bounding, dodging, dribbling, like some tricky centre-forward in a game of football. the nervous pedestrian has to climb trees or walls upon occasion to be sure he won't be killed. and then the cars themselves go frequently into ditches, or overturn and take fire. the car has become a toy, but it's dangerous for the children to play with.
then the dust! carlyle said there was nothing but justice in this world, and he used the law of gravity as his metaphor, but he didn't consider the wind—alas, that the dust does not fly in front of the car and get into the motorist's eyes, but only drifts away over the poor tramp who never did him any harm.
[pg 102]
the only horse vehicle i remarked on the road was the buggy, a gig with disproportionately large wheels, the direct descendant of the home-made cart. the buggy is still popular.
"where've you been?" asks one american of another.
"oh, just buggying around," he replies.
but the buggy is staid and conventional. it belongs to the old censorious religious america. it is supremely the vehicle of the consciously virtuous. it is also a specially rural vehicle. i think those who ride in buggies despise motorists from the bottom of their hearts; they think them vulgar townspeople, and consider motoring a form of trespass. but the automobilists are not prevented, and they bear no rancour. they haven't time to consider the countryman. the man in the buggy belongs to the past. in the future there will not be time to be condemnatory, and the man who stands still to feel self-virtuous will go to the wall.
the people who will continue to feel superior to the motorists will be tramps sitting on palings, grinning at them as they pass by. they also will remain the only people the motorists, rushing abreast of time, will ever envy. however much progress progresses there will always remain those who sit on the palings and grin.
