the men whom you meet during the day are like a hand of cards dealt out to you by providence. but they are more than that, for you feel that luck does not enter into it. you feel there is no such thing as luck, and that the wayfarer is in his way a messenger sent to you by the hospitable spirit of man. he brings a sacred opportunity.
i sit tending my fire, and watching and balancing the kettle upon it; or i sit beside the cheerful blaze on which i have cooked my breakfast or my dinner, and i hold my mug of coffee in my hand and my piece of bread; i chip my just-boiled eggs, or i am digging into a pot of apple-jelly or cutting up a pine-apple, and i feel very tender towards the man who comes along the road and stops to pass a greeting and give and take the news of the day and the intelligence of the district.
there is a sort of hermit's charity. it is to have a spirit that is quietly joyful, to be in that state towards man that a gentle woodsman is towards the shy birds who are not afraid of him as he lies on a forest bank[pg 189] and watches them tripping to and from their little nests. your fellow-man instinctively knows you and trusts you, and he puts aside the mask in which he takes refuge from other fellow-travellers who are alert and busy. i cherish as very precious all the little talks i had with this man and that man who came up to me in america.
as i sat one day by the side of my pleasant susquehanna road, an oil-carrier met me, a gentle-voiced man in charge of four tons of kerosene and petrol, which his horses were dragging over the mountains from village to village and store to store. i was an opportunity to rest the horses, and the driver pulled up, relaxed his reins and entered into converse with me. was i going far? why was i tramping? what nationality was i? i told him what i was doing, and he said he would like to give up his job and do the same; he also was of british origin, though his mother was a german. he was a descendant of sir robert downing. "there used to be many english about here," said he, "but they wore off." he went on to tell me what a wild district it had once been. his grandfather had shot a panther on the mountains. but there were no panthers now. the railways and the automobiles had frightened the wild things away. the change had come about very suddenly. he remembered when there were no telephone-poles along the road, but only road-poles. it used to be a posting-road, [pg 190]and a good one too; but now the automobiles had torn up all the surface, and no one would take any trouble about the needs of horse vehicles.
one hot noontide, on the road to shippenville and oil city, i was having luncheon when a very pleasant swede came down the road carrying a bucket in his hand,—mr. g. b. olson, bossing a gang of workers on the highway. he was going down the hill to a special spring to draw water for his thirsty men, but he could hardly resist the smoke of my wayside fire, and he told me, as it seemed, his whole story. he had come to america in 1873, and had worked on a farm in illinois before the great chicago fire. he was twenty-four then, and was sixty-five now.
when he heard i was british he told me how he had come from europe via leith and glasgow, and had been fifteen and a half days crossing the atlantic.
"have you ever been back to sweden?" i asked.
"no, sirr, never."
"are you content with america?"
"yes, sirr; it's the finest country under the sun. it gives the working man a show."
"the americans speak very kindly of your countrymen. they like them."
"yes. we gave the americans a good lift, we swedes, norwegians, danes, and germans, by settling the land when the rest of the colonists were running to the towns. we came in and did the rough pioneer[pg 191] work that had to be done if america was going to be more than a mushroom growth. where would america be to-day if it were not for us in minnesota, wisconsin, iowa? you can't keep up big cities unless you've got plenty of men working in the background on the land."
the swede went on to compliment me on my english. i spoke pretty clear for one who had been only three months in the country. he had met many british who spoke "very broken," especially scotch. "i shouldn't have been able to understand them," said he, "but that i am a foreigner myself, and know what it is not to speak good."
"well, i must be off," he added, and pointed to the bucket.
"you've got a gang of men working up above?"
"yes. i'm bossing them for the state. a good job it is too, good money, and i don't have to work much."
"i should say you'd make a kind boss!"
"yes. i never do anything against them. i get a good day's work out of the men, but i never put myself above them. i've got authority, that's all—it doesn't make me better'n they. i've got to boss them, they've got to work. that's how it's turned out.... well, i must be off to water my hands!"
and he hastened away down the hill, whilst i put my things together and shouldered my pack.
the strange thing about this american journey[pg 192] was the diversity of nationality i encountered, and the friendly terms in which it was possible for me as a man on the road to converse with them.
on leaving clearfield i fell in with peter deemeff, a clever little bulgarian immigrant, and spent two days in his company. he was an unpractical, rebellious boy, a student by inclination, but a labourer by necessity, nervous in temperament, and alternately gay and despondent. he was thin-bodied, broad-browed, clean-shaven, but blue-black with the multitude of his hair-roots; he had two rows of faultless, little, milk-white teeth; an angelic bulgarian smile, and an occasional ugly american grimace.
we tramped along the most beautiful susquehanna road to curwenville, and then through magnificent gorges to the height of luthersburg.
"ho! where you going?" said one of a group of italian labourers at curwenville.
"oil city," i answered.
"you'll be sore," the italian rejoined, and slapped his thigh. "why not stop here and get good job?"
but peter and i were not looking for a job just then, and we went on. i was glad the bulgarian was not tempted, for i relished his company, and he was pleasantly loquacious.
"do you like the americans?" i asked him.
he raised his eyebrows. evidently he did not like them very much.
[pg 193]
"half-civilise," said he. "when i say my boss, 'i go,' he want me fight. he offens me. i say, 'you americans—bulldogs, no more, half-civilise.' and i go all the same and no fight great big fat american."
"you think bulgaria a better country?"
"'s a poor country, that's all. there's more life in europe. americans don't know what they live for."
i looked with some astonishment on this day-labourer in shabby attire talking thus intelligently, and withal so frankly.
he told me he hated the english. they had said, anent the balkan war, "the fruits must not be taken from the victors"; but when montenegro took scutari they were the first to say to king nicholas "go back, go back." he thought i was a slav immigrant like himself, or he would not have struck up acquaintance with me. but he seemed relieved when i told him my sympathies were entirely with the slavs.
we talked of russian literature, and of tolstoy in particular.
"tolstoy understood about god," said he. "he said god is within you, not far away or everywhere, but in yourself. by that i understand life. all life springs from inside. what comes from outside is nahthing. that is how americans live—in outside things, going to shows, baseball matches.... i know shakespeare was the mirror of life, that's not[pg 194] what i mean.... to be educated mentally is light and life; to be developed only physically is death and.... that's why i say bulldogs, not civilise. when i was in philadelphia i hear a socialist in the park and he asked, 'how d'ye fellows live?—eat—work, eat—work—drink, eat—work—sleep, eat—work—sleep. machines, that's what y'are.'"
the most astonishing evidence of thought and culture that peter deemeff gave me was contained in a reflection he made half-aloud, in a pause in the conversation—"a great writer once said, 'if god had not existed, man would have invented his god'—that is a good idea, eh?" fancy that from the lips of an unskilled labourer! these foreign working-men are bringing something new to america. if they only settle down to be american citizens and look after their children's education!
"do many bulgarians think?" i asked him.
"yes, many—they think more than i do."
we spent the night under great rocks; he under one, i under another. my bed, which i made soft with last year's bracken, was under three immense boulders, a natural shelter, a deep dark cavern with an opening that looked across the river-gorge to the forested cliff on the other side. the bulgarian, less careful about his comfort, lay in a ferny hollow, just sheltered by an overhanging stone. before lying down he commended himself to god, and crossed[pg 195] himself very delicately and trustfully. with all his philosophy he had not cast off the habits of the homeland. and almost directly he laid himself down he fell asleep.
it was a wonderful night. as i lay in my cave and the first star was looking down at me from over the great wooded cliff, what was my astonishment to see a living spark go past the entrance of the cave, a flame on wings—the firefly. i lay and watched the forest lose its trees, and the cliff become one great black wall, ragged all along the crest. mists crept up and hid the wall for a while, and then passed. an hour and a half after i had lain down, and the bulgarian had fallen asleep, i opened my eyes and looked out at the black wall—little lamps were momentarily appearing and disappearing far away in the mysterious dark depths of the cliff. it seemed to me that if when we die we perish utterly, then that living flame moving past my door was something like the passing of man's life. it was strange to lie on the plucked rustling bracken, and have the consciousness of the cold sepulchre-like roof of the cave, and look out at the figure of man's life. but the river chorus lulled me to sleep. whenever i reawakened and looked out i saw the little lights once more, appearing and vanishing, like minutest sprites searching the forest with lanterns.
peter and i woke almost at the same time in the[pg 196] morning in a dense mist. i sent him for water, and i collected wood for a fire. we made tea, took in warmth, and then set off once more.
"let us go to a farmhouse and get some breakfast," said i.
"we get it most likely for nothing, because it's sunday," said peter with a smile.
the americans are much more hospitable on sundays than on week days. they do not, however, like to see you tramping the road on the day of rest; it is thought to be an infraction of the sabbath—though it is difficult to see what tramps can do but tramp on a sunday.
we had a splendid breakfast for ten cents apiece at a stock-breeding farm below luthersburg,—pork and beans, bread and butter and cookies, strawberry jam and home-canned plums, pear-jelly. i thanked the lady of the establishment when we had finished, and remarked that i thought it very cheap at the price. she answered that she didn't serve out lunches for a profit, but wouldn't let decent men pass hungry.
"are you hiking to the next burg?" she asked.
"chicago," said i.
"gee!"
we came to luthersburg, high up on the crest of the hills, a large village, with two severe-looking churches.
"when i see these narrow spires i'm afraid," said[pg 197] the bulgarian. "i should have to wither my soul and make it small to get into one of these churches. i like a church with walls of praise and a spire of yearning,—tolstoy, eh? that spire says to me 'i feared thee, o god, because thou art an austere man.'"
i, for my part, thought it strange that americans, taking so many risks in business, and daring and imagining so large-heartedly in the secular world, should be satisfied with so cramped an expression of their religion.
peter and i went down on the other side of the hills to helvetia, the first town in a wild coaling district, a place of many austrians, poles, and huns. it was the sunday evening promenade, and every one was out of doors, hundreds of miners and labourers in straight-creased trousers (how soon obtained) and cheap felt hats, a similar number of dark, interesting-looking polish girls in their gaudy sunday best. we passed a hundred yards of grey coke-ovens glowing at all their doors and emitting hundreds of fires and flames. peter seemed unusually attracted by the coke-ovens or by the slav population, and he decided to remain at helvetia and seek for a job on the morrow. so i accompanied him into a "boarding-house," and was ready to spend the night with him. but when i saw the accommodation of coaly beds i cried off. so the bulgarian and i parted. i went on to sykesville[pg 198] and the hotel sykes. obviously i was in america,—fancy calling a hotel in england "hotel sykes." but i did not stay there, preferring to hasten up country and get a long step beyond black breaker-towers, the sooty inclines up which trucks ran from the mines, the coke-ovens, the fields full of black stumps and rotting grass, the seemingly poverty-stricken frame-buildings, and more dirt and misery than you would see even in a bad district in russia. it surprised me to see the sunday clothes of sykesville, the white collars, the bright red ties, the blue serge trousers with creases, the bowler hats, and american smiles. despite all the dirt, these new-come immigrants say yes to american life and american hopes. but to my eyes it was a terrible place in which to live. it was an astonishing change, moreover, to pass from the magnificent loveliness of the susquehanna gorges to this inferno of a colliery. but i managed to pass out of this region almost as quickly as i came into it, and next day was in the lovely country about reynoldsville; and i tramped through beautiful agricultural or forested country to the bright towns of brookville, clarion, and shippenville, clean, new, handsome settlements, with green lawns, shady avenues, fine houses, and well-stocked shops. in such places i saw america at its best, just as at helvetia and sykesville i saw it at about its worst. i suppose sykesville will never be made as beautiful as brookville;[pg 199] the one is the coal-cellar, the other is the drawing-room in the house of modern america.
but i had definitely left the coal region behind, now i was striking north, for oil. in three days i came into oil city, so wonderfully situated on the wide and stately alleghany river—the river having brown rings here and there, glimmering with wandering oil. the city is built up five or six hills, and is only a unity by virtue of its fine bridges. it is a clean town compared with scranton, as oil is cleaner to deal with than coal. but the houses are more ramshackle. the poor people's dwellings suggest to the eye that they were made in a great hurry many years ago, and are now falling to bits; they are set one behind another up the hills, and you climb to them by wooden stairways. some seem veritably tumbling down the hill. there were a fair number of foreign immigrants there, mostly italians; but the oil business seems to be worked by americans, the foreigners being too stupid to understand. oil city is a cheap town to live in. i was boarded at a hotel for a dollar a day; and when i bought provisions for my next tramp to erie shore i found everything cheaper than in eastern pennsylvania. there appeared to be little cultured life, however, no theatre but the cinema, and little offered for sale in the shape of books.
i set out for meadville on the "meadville pike." a feature of the new landscape and of the road and[pg 200] fields was the oil-pump, working all by itself, the long cables, connecting the pump with the engine, often coming across the roadway, the jig, jig, jig of the pumping movement, the clump, clump, clump, stump of the engine—the pulse of the industrial countryside.
i met a dutchman. he asked:
"what's on? what is it for?"
i told him i was studying the emerging american, and he told me what a menace the fecund slavs were to the barren americans. according to him the extinction of the american was a matter of mathematics.
i came upon an enormous gang of americans, russians, slavs, italians at work on the highroad, digging it out, laying a bed of mortar, putting down bricks; some hundreds of workmen, extending over a mile and a half of closed road. many of the american workmen were dressed as smartly as stockbrokers' clerks and city men, and they kept themselves neat and clean—a new phenomenon in labouring. americans, however, were working together, italians together, and russians together. a fine-looking american workman said to me knowingly, "you can photograph me if you like, but the guineas won't want to be photographed—most of them shot some one sometime or other, you bet!"
italians working with the mixer on the meadville pike
italians working with the "mixer" on the meadville pike.
near cochranton i made the acquaintance of four little girls—julia, margaret, elinor, cora, and georgiana—scampering about in bare legs and week-day[pg 201] frocks, whilst father and mother, with gauze bags on their heads, were "boxing the bees." it was the first swarm of summer; two lots of bees had been boxed, but the third was giving much trouble. julia, aged twelve, was a very pretty girl, and when at her mother's recommendation she went indoors, washed her face and put on a sunday frock, she looked a very smart young lady. she was conscious of that fact, and informed me in course of conversation that she was going to travel when she was grown up. she was dying to see paris, and she wanted to visit all the european towns!
some miles north, near frenchville, i met one of the french colonists of northern pennsylvania,—a tall, well-built stripling,—and he told me how the breton peasants had settled at boussot and frenchville, bringing all their french ways of farming and economy, and becoming the admiration of the district round—a little brittany. the young man's father-in-law had been the first frenchman to come and settle in the district. after him had come, straight from france, relatives and friends, and relatives of friends and friends of friends in widening circles. they were beginning to speak english well now, but the newcomers were still without the new language. it was interesting for me to realise what a great gain such people were to america—to the american nation in the making. it is good to think of such[pg 202] agricultural settlements lying in the background of industrial america—the whole villages of swedes, of russians, of danes, finns, germans, french. they are ethnic reserves; they mature and improve in the background. they are capital. if urban america can subsist on the interest, the surplus of the ambitious, how much richer she will be than if the population of whole country-sides is tempted to rush pêle-mêle to the places of fortune-making and body-wasting.
coming into meadville, a town of twelve thousand inhabitants, most of the labourers of whom are italians employed at the great railway works, i was attracted to nicola hiagg, a syrian, sitting outside his ice-cream shop, reading the syrian paper. whilst i had a "pine-apple soda," i drew him into talk. it was a matter of pleasing interest to him that i had myself tramped in syria, and knew the conditions in his native land. nicola had first left syria twelve years ago, had come to philadelphia, and started making his living selling "soft drinks" in the street. after five years he had saved enough to take a holiday and go back to the old land. he and his brother had been merchants in jerusalem before he set out for america; the brother had had charge of the store, and nicola had convoyed the merchandise and the train of thirty asses to and from the country. he had many friends in syria, but it was a poor country. the turks were bloodsuckers, and drained it of every drop of vital energy.
[pg 203]
"i lived in a poor little town between beyrout and damascus, not with my brother in jerusalem. so poor! you cannot start anything new in syria—the turk interferes. no bizness! what you think of the war? the turk is beaten, hey? now is the time for the syrians to unite and throw off the turk. there are syrians all over the world; they are prosperous everywhere but in syria.... america is a fine country; but if syria became independent i'd go back...."
nicola, when he had his holiday, found a syrian girl and brought her back to america as his wife. she was not visible now, however; for the syrian kept her in the background, and he told me he didn't believe in women's rights to public life. a bit of a turk himself!
he was very proud of his little girl, who is being brought up as an american in the town school. "already she can write, and when you say to her, 'write something,' she does not look up at you and say, 'how d'you spell it?' she just writes it."
"she's sharp."
"you bet."
the turks, the greeks, and the syrians, and to some extent the italians, are engaged in the sweet-stuff and ice-cream business. turkish delight, the most characteristic thing of the levant, seems to be their bond of union. it is a great business in[pg 204] america, for the americans are, beyond all comparison, fonder of sweet things than we are. i stopped one day at a great candy shop in south bend, indiana. it was kept by a mr. poledor, who was so pleased that i had been in greece and knew the habits of the greek orthodox, that he gave me the freedom of the shop and bade me order anything i liked—he would "stand treat." there were over a hundred ways of having ice-cream, twenty sorts of ice-cream soda, thirteen sorts of lemonade, twelve frappes, and the menu card was something like a band programme. mr. poledor was a man of inventiveness, and the names of some of the dishes were as delicious as the dishes themselves. i transcribe a few:
merry widow.
don't care.
john d. (is very rich).
yankee doodle.
upside down.
new moon.
sweet smile.
twin beauties.
n?tre dame.
lover's delight.
black-eyed susan.
a young man could take his girl there and give her anything she asked for, were it the moon itself. the greek was a magician.
[pg 205]
but to return. as i was going out of meadville, two young men swung out of a saloon and addressed me thus strangely:
"have you had a benevolent? we're giving them away."
one of them showed me a stylographic pen.
"wha're you doing?" said the other.
"oh, i'm travelling," i replied.
"how d'ye get your living?"
"i write in the magazines now and then."
a look of disappointment crept over the faces of the young men. the stylographic pen was replaced in waistcoat pocket.
"did you say you were working for a magazine? so are we—the homestead. i was about to ask you to become a subscriber."
"and the benevolent?" i asked.
"oh, these are given away to subscribers."
i explained that i wasn't a commercial traveller, but one of those who wrote sometimes in magazines.
"you'd be a sort of reporter?"
"well, not quite."
"a poet?"
"no. i earn my living by writing."
"better than a poet, i suppose. well, good-day, wish you luck!"
so i won free of my last big town in mighty pennsylvania, and set out for the state of ohio.
[pg 206]
i had a "still-creation-day" in quiet country, and towards evening came through the woods to the store and house of padan-aram. and just on the border of ohio an elf-like person skipped out of a large farm and conducted me across, a boy of about twenty years, who cried out to me shrilly as he caught me up:
"i say, you're still in pennsylvania."
"yes," said i.
"yes, but that house over there is in ohio. say! would you like some candy?"
"i thought you were fumbling in your pocket for tobacco," said i.
"no use for it," said the boy. "i've found god. i used to chew it, but i've stopped it."
"that is good. you've a strong will," said i.
"i reckon god can break any will," said the boy. "once i ran away from home with five hundred dollars. you're walking? i can walk. i walked a hundred miles in five days and five nights. feet were sore for a week. five times i ran away. the sixth time i stayed away four years and worked on the steel works."
"were your parents unkind?" i asked. "or did you run away to see life?"
"ran to show them i could," said the boy.
"they lay in to me i can tell you. there were chinamen and niggers—all sorts. hit a fellow over[pg 207] the head with an ice-cream refrigerator—killed him dead."
"where was this?"
"poke. at the institution. i showed them i could fight."
"what are you, american?"
"pennsylvanian dutch."
"i suppose there is a church about here that you go to?"
"yes; a methodist. but i don't go. family service. we get many blessings."
"is there a hotel at padan-aram?"
"no; but at leon. if you go there, you'll get a christian woman. you'll find god. she'll lighten your load. she's a saint. i know her well."
"what's your name? i'll mention you to her."
"dull."
"i'll tell her i met you."
"tell her you met ralph dillie—she'll know."
"all right," said i.
"now you're in ohio," said the boy. "are you going into the store at padan-aram?"
"no."
"don't you want to buy some candy?"
"no. i don't eat it along the road."
"buy some for me."
"all right; yes."
"buy a nickel's worth."
[pg 208]
"yes."
ralph dillie rejoiced. we went into the store and ordered a nickel's worth of candy. and directly the boy got it he started back for home on the run. and i watched him re-cross the border once more—into pennsylvania.
