both the weather and the country improved before i reached williamsport. on the height of the road to hughesville i had a grand view of the mountains and of the sky above them, saw displayed green hills and forested mountains, and great stretches of ploughed upland all dotted over with white heaps of fertiliser. and the sky above was a battle-scene, the sun and his angels having given battle and the clouds taking ranks like an army. glad was i to see to eastward whole battalions in retreat.
i passed through fine forested land with great hemlocks, maples, and hickories. a brawling stream poured along through the dark wood, and as i walked beside it a sudden gleam of sunshine pierced the gloom of foliage, and lit up boles and wet banks and wet rocks and the crystal freshets of the stream. of all weathers i like best convalescent weather, the getting sunny after much rain. on the sunday on which i reached the city the open road was swept by fresh winds, all the birds were singing, every blade of grass was conscious of rain taken in and of the sun bringing out.
[pg 162]
williamsport i found to be a peaceful, provincial town, well kept in itself and surrounded by beautiful scenery. it was looking its best in the freshness and radiance of a may morning. on its many hundred bright green lawns that run down so graciously from pleasant urban villas to the roadway there was much white linen airing. williamsport is an old lumbering town on a branch of the susquehanna, and though that business has gone away, prosperity and happiness seem to have remained behind. there was a feeling of calmness that i had not experienced in other american cities, and i felt it would be pleasant to live there for a season.
i tramped down to jersey shore, and the night after my halcyon day at williamsport a thunderstorm overtook me, shaking the old barn in which i slept and tearing away rafters and doors. i witnessed lockhaven under depressing circumstances, but in any weather it must be an inferior town to williamsport, though it is also an old point for lumbering on the susquehanna.
the weather remained very rainy, and i was obliged to forsake the atrociously clayey high-road for the cinder track of the railway. in doing this i passed up into a fine hilly country along the valley of the beech creek. i came to mapes (to rhyme with shapes), but found it a name and no more. a shooting and fishing resort with one house in it. the beech[pg 163] creek was a fine sight, running along the base of the embankment of the railway, carrying pine logs on its flood and racing the trains with them, roaring and rushing, the logs pointing, racing, turning, rolling, toppling, colliding, but always going forward, willy-nilly getting clear of every obstacle and galloping out of sight.
with one wet match i lighted a grand fire by the side of the line, and boiled my kettle and dried myself and chuckled. it might be going to rain more. i might be going to have a queer night, but for the time being i was having a splendid tea. it was a matter for consolation in the future that on the wettest possible day it was not difficult to light a fire with one match. the secret lies in having plenty of dry paper in your wallet; and i had a copy of a new york sunday paper, which lasted me to light my fire all the way to elkhart, indiana, at least five hundred miles' tramping.
the district of mapes is one of the most beauteous in the alleghanies, or it was so this quiet evening. the summits of the mountains were obscured by mists, but up from the profound valleys the woods climbed, and the lovely tops of trees seemed like so many stepping-stones from the land up to cloudy heaven.
by the time i came to monument it was dark. but a great glowing brick-kiln looked out into the[pg 164] night, and there were houses with many lighted windows. i was directed to a workmen's boarding-house, and spent a night among miners, railway men, and brick-workers. the keeper of the establishment was doubtful whether he would have me, but thought there was "one feller on the third floor gone."
"what will be your charge?" i asked.
"well," said he, "a won't charge ye anything for the bed, but the breakfast to-morrow morning will be twenty-five cents."
"my!" i thought, "here's something choice coming along in the shape of a bed."
it turned out to be four in a room and two in a bed, all sleeping in their clothes. there was even some doubt as to whether there was not a fifth coming.
one man was in bed already; i chose the unoccupied bed, and laid myself upon it in full tramping attire. you can imagine the state of sheets and quilts in a bed that brickmakers and soft-coal miners sleep in their clothes.
the man in bed was an anglo-saxon american. when i said i was from england he asked me if i had walked it all.
"i came by steamer of course to new york."
"how many days?"
"eight."
"weren't you afraid?" said he. "quite out of sight of land no doubt? you wouldn't get me to go,[pg 165] not for many thousand dollars. that titanic was an affair, wasn't it. fifteen hundred—straight to the bottom! i'd have shot myself had i been there."
"what do you work at here?"
"brick-making."
"lot of men?"
"plenty of work. two truck-loads of extra men coming to-morrow."
"foreigners?"
"italians."
i told him the story of a storm at sea with the exaggeration to which one is too prone when addressing simple souls. i rather harrowed him with an account of cook's enamel ware and kitchen things rolling about and jangling when every one was saying his prayers.
presently i remarked irrelevantly, "my goodness! what a noise the frogs make here!"
"that's no noise," said he; "i'm going to sleep."
after a while his bedfellow came in and he, before turning in, got down on his knees in the narrow passage between the beds and prayed—i should say, a whole half-hour, talking half to himself, half-aloud. whilst he was doing so my bedfellow came in, a tall, heavy, tired pole, who looked neither to right nor left, but just clambered over me and lay down with his face to the wall and slept and snored.
it rained heavily all night, and next morning it[pg 166] still poured. after a disreputably bad breakfast i sat on a chair at the door of the establishment and watched the thresh of the rain on two great pools beside a road of coal-dust, looked out at the lank grass, the tomato-can dump, the sodden refuse of the boarding-house, and away to the square red chimney of the brick factory belching forth black smoke.
"say, stranger," said mine host, "i'm going to wade into that cave and hand out potatoes; will you take them from me?" this was the first time i had been called stranger in america, and it sounded pleasant in my ears.
about eleven o'clock in the morning the rain ceased, and i went on to the next point on the railway. the track climbed higher and higher, and i learned that on the morrow i should reach the top of the alleghany mountains—snow shoe creek.
it was a fine walk to orviston under the heavily clouded sky. the mountain sides were all a-leak with springs and trickling streams and cascades. there was an accompanying music of the racing beech creek on the one hand, and of the gushing rivulets on the other; but this would be swallowed up and lost every now and then in the uproar of the oncoming and passing freight train of coal; the appalling, hammering, affrighting freight train passing within two feet of me, taking my breath away with the thought of its power. how pleasant it was, though, to listen[pg 167] to the rebirth of the music of the waters coming to the ear in the wind of the last trucks as they passed.
slovaks working on the line with pick and shovel
"slovaks working on the line with pick and shovel."
orviston prides itself on its fire-bricks. the whole village is made of them, and the pavement as well, and every brick is stamped "orviston," and is both a commodity and an advertisement.
after i had visited the village store for provisions i re-entered the railway enclosure, and read as i did so the following notice typical of america: "cultivate the safety habit—if you see anything wrong report it to the man with the button."
i met the man with the button after i had walked a mile along the way; he was a slovak, working on the line with pick and shovel, a tall, brawny slav, and with him a rather tubby little chap of the same nationality.
"you haf no r?it on these l?ins," said the slovak. "you go off. you are no railway man. what are you? slavish?"
i replied in english, but on second thoughts went on in russian. he understood, and was mollified at once. he was in america for the second time, they neither of them liked the old country. i photographed them as they stood—john kresica and paul cipriela. they were unmarried men, and lived in a "boarding-house" in orviston. they worked in a gang. would i please send them a copy of the photograph? i agreed to do so; then, when i moved to go off the lines, the man with the button cried out, smiling:
[pg 168]
"hi! all-right, go ahead!"
i went on blithely. there was a change of weather in the afternoon. at one o'clock the sun lifted his arms and pulled apart the mist curtains at the zenith and disclosed himself—a miraculous apparition. the whole sky was cloudy, but the sun was shining. an apparition, the ghost of a sun, and then a reality—hot, light-pouring, cloud-dispersing. by two it was a hot summer day, at three there was not a cloud in the sky. what a change! it was clear that summer had progressed during the rain; insects of bright hues were on the wing, huge yellow-winged butterflies, crimson-thighed grasshoppers, green sun-beetles. a new-born butterfly settled three times on my sleeve; the fourth time i just caught him. i held him delicately between two fingers and let him go.
during a most exhilarating evening i tramped past houseless panther and got to cato at nightfall. cato was a railway station of no pretensions; a broken-down shed with no door, no ticket offices, no porter. passengers who wished to take a train had to wave a flag and trust to the eyesight of the engine-driver. for village, all that i could make out was a coal-bank, a shaft, and some heaps of old iron.
it was an extremely cold night, so i slept in the railway shed on a plank form that ran along the three sides of the building. i lay and looked out at the bright night shining over the mountains, dozed, waked,[pg 169] dozed again. shortly after midnight i had a strange visitor. i was lying half-asleep, looking at a misshapen star which was resting on the mountains opposite me, which became a silver thumb pointing upward, which became at last the young crescent moon just rising. i was in that somnolent state when you ask, as you see the moon rising behind dark branches of the forest, is it the moon in eclipse? is it a comet?—when a portly man with shovel hat came out of the night, stood in front of the shed, leaned on a thick cudgel, and looked in.
"hallo!" said i.
"haffing sum sleep?" queried the visitor.
"yes, trying to; but it's a cold night."
"ah, you haf bed pretty goot!"
"who are you,—the night watchman?"
"naw. you don't see a n?it wawtchman without 'is lantern."
the old chap came close up to me, bent down, and whispered, "i'm in the same box as yourself."
"walking all night?" i asked.
"the only vay to keep varm," said the old man ruefully. he took out a shining watch from his waistcoat.
"three o'clock," said he. "in an hour it will be daylight. oh, i think i'll try and sleep here an hour. say, is there to eat along the road?"
i wasn't quite sure what he meant.
[pg 170]
"not much," i hazarded.
"wot are you—you don't speak the langwage very goot," said the tramp.
"english."
"i am a cherman."
the old man lay down on the plank form, resting his head on my feet, and using them for a pillow.
"how old are ye?" he went on.... "hoh, i can give you forty years. if i were in germany now i should be getting an army pension."
"are you going back?" said i.
"naw, naw. i could never give up this country."
we composed ourselves to sleep, but with his head resting on my feet i was too uncomfortable. "presently i'll make a fire," said i, "and we'll have hot tea and some bread and butter." and after about twenty minutes i got up, put my boots on, and wandered out to find wood to make a fire. it was about half an hour before dawn. there was a hoar frost, and everything was cold and rimy to the touch. but i made up a bundle of last year's weeds, now sodden straws, and laid them on a half-sheet of my sunday newspaper. that made a fine blaze, and with twigs and sticks and bits of old plank, i soon had a fine bonfire going. the old german came out and watched me incredulously. he didn't think it was possible to make a fire on such a morning. but he was soon convinced, and went about picking up chunks of wood desultorily, alleging the[pg 171] while that he couldn't have lit such a fire in three hours; evidently i knew how to do it.
"shall i make tea or coffee?" i asked.
"cawfee," said the old chap, his mouth watering. the word tea did not represent to him anything good.
"after a cup of hot cawfee i can go a long way. hot cawfee, mind yer. varm cawfee 'salright for lunch, but in the morning it must be hot. the only thing better than a cup of cawfee is a pint of whisky.... say, you've enough fire here now to roast a chicken."
"wish i had one, we'd roast it."
i emptied the last of my sugar into the pot, and seven or eight spoonfuls of coffee. it was to be "turkish." the old tramp sat down on the stump of a tree, took out a curly german pipe, and then put a red coal on it. he had matches, but was economical in the matter of lights. "say," he said to me later, pointing to the ground, "you've dropped a good match." i picked it up.
the coffee was "real good." the old fellow drank it through his thick moustache, and dipping his bread into his cup, munched great mouthfuls. i had offered him butter with his bread, but he refused. "booter" was nothing to him. he liked apple-"booter."
"say, you've got on a powerful pair of boots!"
"i need them, tramping to chicago."
"chicago's not a bad town if you know where to[pg 172] go. say, presently you'll come to snow shoe. don't go past it. you'll get something there."
the old man stopped a minute in his talk, and stared at me knowingly, didactically.
"rich miners," he went on. "you need only ask. see this packet of tobacco, they gave it to me at the company store. that's the thing i can't get on without, must have it. if a man asks me for a smoke and i haf it to give i must give him also. where've you come from yesterday, orviston?"
"no. monument."
"is there anything there?" he whispered mysteriously.
"not much to be had," said i. "but there's a good deal of work, and they're bringing in a big gang of italians. you can't get much of anything at the farms."
"where guineas are, i don't go. i don't like the eyetaylians."
"d'you like the jews?"
"they're a good people," said he. "don't say anything against the jews. i know a jew who gives free boots to tramps. last year i went into his store, and one of the shopmen came up to me and said, 'i know what you want, you'll get it. i'll tell the boss when he comes out.' and he gave me a powerful pair of boots, and sent me across the road to the quick-lunch with a letter to the boss there, to give[pg 173] me a good dinner. so i never say anything against the jews."
"do you know cleveland?" said i.
"you bet. lived there ten years ago, had a job on a lake steamer. i worked one summer on a boat."
the old tramp stared at me as if he had confessed a sin. "worked like a mule," he added sententiously, and stared again. "i had a home there, and lived just like a married man. but when i wanted to move on to pittsburg my girl wouldn't go."
"i expect you're the sort of man who has run away from a wife in germany," said i.
"naw, naw. never married."
then he began to talk of his loves and conquests. at his age you'd have thought his mind would not have been filled with such vanities. he evidently earned money now and then, and went on "sprees." he averred that he had not a dime now, and was altogether "on the nail." i had an idea, however, that he had hidden on him, somewhere, passage-money to take him to germany, to get that army pension. the germans are a cautious people. they are cautious and cogitative, yet i wonder what the old man thought of me as he stumped away, leaning on his heavy walking-stick. he had been twenty-seven years on the road, and was very shrewd and experienced in many ways. perhaps for a moment he took me for a gentleman burglar. he was immensely[pg 174] curious to see what was in my sack, but he probably reflected—"here is good hot, coffee, a fire, and a pleasant young man; make the most of it, and ask no inconvenient questions."
i put the fire out, shouldered my pack, and resumed the journey to snow shoe. the sun had risen, but his warmth was as yet shut away behind the wall of the mountains. the hoar-frost of night had not melted yet, and it was necessary to walk briskly to keep warm. it was so cold that i got to snow shoe before ten o'clock.
a feature of this tramping along the rails was the danger in crossing bridges. it was a single line, and as there were some twenty bridges over the flood of the river, there were twenty ordeals of trusting that no train would suddenly appear from a corner of the winding track and run me down. if a train had come whilst i was half-way across a bridge there was no refuge but the river, and i was always prepared to jump. for several nights after this bit of tramping i dreamed of crossing bridges, running on the sleepers and just passing the last beams as engines swept down on me. but it was pleasant climbing up so high, and feeling that within an hour or so snow shoe would be achieved. i had lived in the rumour of snow shoe for two days, and the name had come to correspond to something very beautiful in my mind. the sound of the name is pleasant to the ear, and every now and[pg 175] then, as i hurried along, i asked, "snow shoe, snow shoe, what shall i find there?" i imagined the pioneers who first came up this beautiful valley and gave to an indian settlement the dainty name—through what virginal loveliness they had passed! then i thought of the reporter-poet of scranton who objected to the beauty of nature because it was independent of man.
the slav children of snow-shoe creek
the slav children of snow-shoe creek.
then, man came along, the engine-man with his endless, empty freight train and his bellowing, steaming engine howling through the valley. one after another eight freight trains, each about a quarter of a mile long, came grinding past me, going up to the collieries to take their daily loads of carbon. somehow i did not object; it was new america, the america of to-day careering over the america of 1492, and had to be accepted.
but snow shoe gave me pause. when i arrived at the little slate-roofed mining settlement i found there was considerable excitement among the children there. a cow had just been cut to pieces by the last freight train. the driver had driven his train over the beast and on without a word of remark or a hesitation, and a farmer was complaining bitterly, but the children—young americans, russians, ruthenians, slovaks, the ones who have in their keeping the america of to-morrow—were sitting round the remains, helling and god-damning and asking me facetious questions.[pg 176] and that was the answer to what i had asked myself—what shall i see at snow shoe? what am i walking so far and so high for to see?
snow shoe was the dreariest possible mining settlement, and its inhabitants slouched about its coaly ways and in and out of the saloons. scarcely any one could speak english, and the mines were worked almost exclusively by poles and slovaks. the highest point in the alleghanies, a hand of earth stretched up to heaven, perhaps a maledictory hand.
