cleveland exemplifies the characteristics of contemporary america, and points to the future. it has its horde of foreign mercenaries living by alien ethics, and committing every now and then atrocious crimes which shock the american community. but it is a "cleaned-up" town. all the dens of the city have been raided; there is no gambling, little drunkenness and immorality. on my first night in the town i had my supper in a saloon, and as i sat among the beer-drinking couples i listened to an old man who was haranguing us all on the temptations of women and drink. the saloon-keeper had no power to turn him out, and possibly had not even the wish to do so. the passion for cleaning up america overtakes upon occasion even those whose living depends upon america remaining "unclean."
cleveland is well built, and has fine avenues and broad streets. it is well kept, and in the drawing-room of the town you'd never suspect what was going on in the back kitchen and the yard. but take a turn about and you see that the city is not merely[pg 226] one of good clothes, white buildings, and upholstery; there are vistas of smoke and sun, bridges and cranes, endless railway tracks and steaming engines. they are working in the background, the slavs and the italians and the hungarians, the kikes and the wops and the hunkies. there is a rumour of chicago in the air; you can feel the pulse of the hustling west.
perhaps nothing is more promising than the twelve miles of garden suburb that go westward from the city along erie shore. tchekof, working in his rose-garden in the crimea, used to say, "i believe that in quite a short time the whole world will be a garden." this growth of cleveland gives just that promise to the casual observer. how well these middle-class americans live? without the advertisement of the fact they have finer arrangements of streets and houses than we have at golders green and letchworth. nature is kind. there is a grand freshness and a steeping radiance. the people know how to live out-of-doors, and the women are public all day. no railings, fences, bushes, just sweet lawn approaches, verandahs, on the lawns sprinklers and automatic fountains scattering water to the sparrows' delight. the iris is out and the honeysuckle is in bloom.
the lithuanian who sat behind the asphalt and coal-oil scatterer
the lithuanian who sat behind the asphalt and coal-oil scatterer.
i prefer, however, to walk in the sight of wooded hills or great waters, and as soon as i could find a way to the back of the long series of suburban villas i went to the sandbanks of the shore and into the[pg 227] company of the great lake. it was just sunset time, and the sun of fire was changing to a sun of blood and sinking into the waters. there was a great suffusion of crimson in the western sky and a reflection of it in the green and placid lake. but the water in the foreground was grey, and it rippled past silver reeds. i stood and listened; the great silence of the vast lake on the one hand and the whizz of automobiles on the other, the paup-paup of electric-tram signals, the great whoop of the oncoming freight trains on the lake-shore railway. far out on the water there were black dashes on the lit surface and little smokes proceeding from them—steamers. the lake became lucent yellow with blackness in the west and mystery in the east. a steamer in the east seemed fixed as if caught in a spell. then the blackness of the west came like an intense dye and poured itself into the rest of the sky. the east became still—indigo, very precious and holy, the colour of incense smoke.
i tramped by clifton through the deep dust of a motor-beaten road towards lorain. it was night before i found a suitable place for sleeping, for most of the ground was private, and there were many people about. at last i found a deserted plot, where building operations had evidently been taking place during the day, but from which the workmen had gone. there were, however, many tools and covetable properties lying about, and i had hardly settled down[pg 228] before i heard the baying of dogs on a chain. about half-past eleven fedka the watchman came along, singing a russian song to himself, and he lighted a large lantern, unloosed two dogs, then went into a shed, lay down and went to sleep—a nice watchman! my only consideration was the dogs, a bull-dog and a collie, but they didn't know of my presence. they had expeditions after tramps on the road, after waggons, automobiles, tramcars, trains, but never once sniffed at the stranger sleeping under their noses. however, at about three in the morning the bull-dog spotted me, and no doubt had rather a queer turn. he actually tripped on me as he was prowling about, and my heart stood still. he eyed me, growled low, sniffed at my knees, snorted. "he will spring at my throat in a moment," i thought; "i'll defend myself with that big saw lying so handy beside me!" but no, wonder of wonders! the dog did not attack me, but just lay calmly down beside me and was my gaoler. he dozed and breathed heavily, but every now and then opened one eye and snarled; evidently he took his duties seriously. i forgot him and slept. but i had the consciousness that in the morning i had to get away somehow.
but about half an hour before dawn some one drove a score of cows down the road, causing the collie to go mad—so mad that the bull-dog bestirred himself and followed superciliously, not sure whether[pg 229] he were needed or not. then i swiftly put my things together and decamped—and got away.
i watched the dawn come up out of a rosy mist over erie. the lake was vast and placid and mud-coloured, but there were vague purple shadows in it. i learned that mud was the real colour at this point, and there was no clear sparkling water to bathe in, but only a sea stirred up.
down by the shore, just after my dip, i caught a young aureole with red breast and mouth so yellow, and i tried to feed him with sugar and butter; but he was very angry, and from many trees and low bushes round about came the scolding and calling of the parents, who had been rashly giving their progeny his first run.
i tramped to the long settlement of lorain with its store-factory and many polish workers, but continued to the place called vermilion, walking along the grey-black sands of the shore. i came to crystal beach. it was a perfect day, the zenith too radiant to look at, the western sky ahead of the road a rising smoke of sapphire, but filled with ineffable sunshine. it was difficult to look otherways but downward, and i needed all the brim of my hat to protect my neck and my eyes. the lake was now blue-grey as the sea, but still not very tempting, though crystal beach is a great holiday resort. it seemed to me more than a lake and yet less than a sea—the water had no other shore and[pg 230] yet suggested no infinity. the visitor, however, considered it beautiful. that was clear from the enthusiastic naming of the villas and resorts on the shore. again, it was strange to pass from the workshop of america to the parlour,—from industrial lorain to ease-loving vermilion, and to exchange the vision of unwashed immigrants in slouch hats for dainty girls all in white and smart young men in delicate linen.
i went into the general store and bought butter and sugar and tea, and then to the baker for a loaf of bread and a peach pie. what a delicacy is an eight-penny peach pie when you know you are going to sit on a bank and munch it, drink coffee, and watch your own wood-blaze.
on my way to sandusky i got several offers of jobs. a road surveyor and his man, trundling and springing along the road in their car, nearly ran me down, and as a compensation for my experience of danger stopped and gave me a lift, offering also to give me work if i wanted it. all the highway from cleveland to toledo was to be macadamised by next summer; thousands of men were wanted all along the line, and i could get to work that very afternoon "farming ditches on each side of the road" if i wished.
i jigged along three miles in the automobile and then stepped down to make my dinner. whilst i was lighting my fire a bohemian came and had a little chat with me.
[pg 231]
"how far ye going?"
"chicago."
"you should get on a freight train. i come up from new york myself on a freighter and dropped off here two days ago. it's too far to walk; you carry heavy things. besides, there's a good job here mending the road. i've just been taken on. a mile up the road you'll see a waggon; ask there, they're making up a gang. the work's a bit rough but the pay good."
then i came on a gang of wops and huns loading bridge-props and ribbons and guard-rails on to an electric trolley, and the boss again applied to me.
"no, thanks!"
a man with an asphalt and coal-oil scatterer came past. his was a dirty job. he sat behind a boiler-shaped cistern, which another man was dragging along with a petrol engine. it had a rose like a watering-cart, but instead of water there flowed this dark mixture of asphalt and oil. the man, a lithuanian, was sitting on the rose, his legs were dangling under it, and it was his task to keep his finger on the tap and regulate the flow of the fast-trickling mixture. though a lithuanian by birth he spoke a fair english, and explained that the asphalt and oil laid the dust for the whole summer, and solidified the surface of the road, so that automobiles could go pleasantly along. there was another machine waiting behind, and they had[pg 232] not men to work it. if i liked to report myself at the depot i could get a job, it was quite simple, not hard work, and the pay was good. he got two dollars a day.
then, as i was going through a little town, a norwegian came running out of a shop and pulled me in, saying, "you're a professional, no doubt, stay here and take photographs"; and he showed me his screens and classical backgrounds. it was interesting to consider the many occasions on which i might have given up europe and started as a young man in america, entering life afresh, and starting a new series of connections and acquaintances. but i had only come as a make-believe colonist.
as the weather was very hot i took a wayside seat erected by a firm of clothiers to advertise their wares, and it somewhat amused me to think that as i sat in my somewhat ragged and dust-stained attire the seat seemed to say i bought my suit at clayton's. as i sat there six boy scouts came tramping past, walking home from their camping-ground, boys of twelve or thirteen, all carrying saucepans and kettles, one of them a bag of medical appliances and medicines, all with heavy blankets—sun-browned, happy little bodies.
there is all manner of interest on the road. the gleaming, red-headed woodpecker that i watch alights on the side of the telegraph-pole, looks at the wood as[pg 233] at a mirror, and then, to my mild surprise, goes right into the pole. there must be a hole there and a nest. i hear the guzzling of the little woodpeckers within. upon reflection, i remember that the mother's beak was disparted, and there was something between. rather amusing, a woodpecker living in a telegraph-pole—nature taking advantage of civilisation!
then there are many squirrels in the woods by the road, and they wag their tails when they squeak.
at tea-time, by the lake shore, a beautiful white-breasted but speckled snipe tripped around the sand, showing me his round head, plump body, and dainty legs. he had his worms and water, i my bread and tea; we were equals in a way.
then after tea i caught a little blind mouse, no bigger than my thumb, held him in my hand, and put him in his probable hole.
as i rested by a railway arch johnny kishman, a fat german boy, got off his bicycle to find out what manner of man i was. his chief interest was to find out how much money i made by walking. and i flabbergasted him.
i came into huron by a road of coal-dust, and left the beautiful countryside once more for another industrial inferno. here were many cranes, black iron bridges, evil smells, an odorous, green river. there was a continuous noise as of three rolls of thunder in one from the machinery of the port. i stopped[pg 234] a party of slavs, who were strolling out of the town to the strains of an accordion, and asked them by what the noise was made. i was informed it was the lading of pennsylvanian coal and the unlading of wisconsin and canadian ore, the tipping of five to ten tons at a time into the holds of coal boats or into trucks of freight trains.
i went into a restaurant in the dreary town, and there, over an ice-cream, chatted with an american, who hoped i would lick jack london and gibson and the rest of them "to a frazzle." a girl, who came into the shop, told me that last year she wanted to walk to chicago and sleep out, but could not get a companion—a chance for me to step in. mine host was one of these waggish commercial men in whom america abounds, and he had posted above his bar:
eleven men who asked
credit
lie dead in my cellar
but he made good ice-cream.
every one combined to boost the town and advise me to see this and that. the port machinery and lading operations were the wonder of erie shore, and provided work for a great number of hungarians, italians, and slavs. not so many years back there was no such machinery here, and the work was done with buckets and derricks.
johnny kishman, a german boy, got off his bicycle
"johnny kishman, a german boy, got off his bicycle to find out what manner of man i was."
[pg 235]
i forebore to have supper at the creditless inn, but as i walked out of the dark town i spied a fire burning on a bit of waste land, and there i boiled my kettle and made coffee. it was an eerie proceeding, and as i sat in the dusk i saw several children come peering at me, hshing the younger ones, and inferring horrible suspicions as to my identity. when i had finished my supper i went down to the beach, and there, on the sand amidst old logs, under a stooping willow tree, i made my bed.
it was a wonderful, placid night after a long, hot day. the smoke-coloured lake was weakly plashing. there was no sign of the past sunset in the west, and smoke seemed to be rising from the darkness of the horizon. the one light on the city pier had its stab of reflection in the water below. near me, still trees leant over the water. the branches and leaves of the willow under which i slept were delicately figured against the sky as i looked upward, and far away over the lake the faint stars glimmered. the moon stood high in the south, and illumined the surface of the waters and the long coast line of the bay.
when i awoke next morning what a sight! the blue-grey lake so placid, just breathing, that's all, and crimson ripples stealing over it from the illuminated smoky east. it was clear that the smokiness of the horizon came from real smoke—from all the chimneys and stacks of huron. i saw massed volumes of[pg 236] it hurrying away from the docks and the works, and standing out on the lake like a great wall. as i lay on my spread on the sand, looking out idly with my cheek on my hand, i saw the sun come sailing through the smoke like a red balloon. no celestial sunrise this, but nature beautifully thwarted.
i made a fire and cooked my breakfast, and sat on a log enjoying it; and all the while the sun strove to be himself and shine in splendour over the new world, whose beauties he himself had called into being. for a whole hour, though there was not a cloud in the sky or a mist on the lake, he made no more progress than on a foggy january morning in london. he gave no warmth to speak of; he was an immaterial, luminous moon.
but at last he got free, and began to rise indeed, exchanging the ragged crimson reflection in the water for a broad-bladed flashing silver dagger. a great glory grew about him; all the wavelets of the far lake knew him and looked up to him with their tiny faces. his messengers searched the horizon for the shadows of night, for all lingering wraiths and mists, and banished them. the smoky door by which the sun had come out of the east was shut after him. but he shed so much light that you could not see the door any longer.
i went in for a swim, and as i was playing about in the sunlit water the first human messenger of the[pg 237] morning came past me—a fisherman in a tooting, panting motor-boat, dragging fishing-nets after him. he gave me greeting in the water.
fishing is good here—as a trade. every day many tons of carp are unloaded. the fish are caught in gill-nets—nets with a mesh from which the fishes are unable to extricate themselves, their gills getting caught. the nets are framed on stakes, floated by corks and steadied by leads. the fishermen leave them standing two or three days, and when the fish are wearied out or dead they haul them in.
this very hot day i marched to an accompaniment of the thunder of the dock-works, and reached sandusky,—a very large industrial port, the junction of three railways, not a place of much wealth, its population at least half foreign.
i had a shave at a negro barber's, and chatted with the darkie as he brandished the razor.
after the war he and his folks had come north and settled in michigan. he sent all his children to college. one was earning a hundred and twenty-five dollars a month as music-mistress in washington.
"they treat you better up here than in the south?" said i.
"why, yes!"
"and in london better still."
"oh, i know. my father went to london. he stayed at a big hotel, and there turned up three [pg 238]southerners. they went up to the hotel-keeper and said, 'look hyar, that coloured feller 'll have to go; we cahn stay here with him!' and the hotel-keeper said, 'if he don't please you, you go; we won't keep you back.'"
"very affecting," said i.
"there was a fellah came hyar to play the organ for the episcopal church," the negro went on. "he was called street. the other fellah was only fit to turn the music for him. he had the goods, b'god he had. tha's what i told them."
with that i got away. outside the shop a hawker cried out to me:
"kahm'ere!"
"what d'you want?" said i.
"i've a good safety razor."
"don't use them."
"a fountain pen to write home to your wife...."
the hawker had many wares.
i spent the night in a saloon at venice, and watched the rate at which german fishermen can drink beer.
next morning i walked across sandusky bay by the lake shore railway-bridge, a mile and a half long—an unpleasant business, watching for the express trains and avoiding being run over. at last i got to danbury, and could escape from the rails to the cinder-path at the side. the engine-drivers and firemen of the freight trains greeted me as they passed me, and[pg 239] now and then i was able to offer "casey jones" a cup of coffee and exchange gossip.
erie shore
erie shore.
"amidst old logs, under a stooping willow tree, i made my bed."
the enormous freight trains told their tale of the internal trade of america; on no other lines of railway in the world could you witness such processions of produce. all sorts of things flew past on these lumberous trains—cars full of hogs with hundreds of motionless black snouts poking between the bars; refrigerator cars full of ham—dead hogs, dripping and slopping water as they went along in the heat, and the sun melted the ice; cars of coal; open cars of bright glistening tin-scraps going to be molten a second time; cars of agricultural machinery; cars laden with gangs of immigrant men being taken to work on a big job by labour contractors; closed cars full of all manner of unrevealed merchandise and machinery. on the cars, the names of the railways of america—illinois central, wabash, big four, lake shore....
at gypsum i returned to the highroad, and there once more had an offer of a job from a gang. i was surprised to see boys of thirteen or fourteen hard at work with spade and shovel.
"i see you're working for your living," said i.
"what's the matter with you?"
"i said 'you're working for your living.'"
"wahn a jahb?"
"no; i'm not looking for one. i'm walking to chicago."
[pg 240]
a contractor came forward, a short frenchman in waistcoat and shirt-sleeves. his bowler hat was pushed to the back of his head, and his hair poked out from under it over his scarred, perspiring brow. he was not working—only directing.
"what would you be? a sort of tramp?" said he. "i used to have a hobo-station at toledo. i've seen the shiner[3] line up sixty or seventy of them and send them to work with car fare paid. they'd work half a day and then disappear mysteriously. we have pay-day once in two weeks; but these tramps, many of them educated fellers too, would never work the time through or wait for their pay. thousands of dollars have been lost by hoboes who gave up their jobs before pay-day."
there was an englishman from northampton in the gang, and he testified that america had "england licked ten times over."
there were fat germans in blouses, moustachioed italians with black felt hats pulled down over sunburnt, furrowed brows. all the men and the boys were suffering from a sort of "tar blaze" in the face. they were glad to ease up a little to talk to me; but they had a watchful eye on the face of the boss, who besides being contractor was a sort of timekeeper.
the contractor was vexed that i wouldn't take a job. labour was scarce. he averred that before[pg 241] i reached chicago the farmers would come on to the road and compel me to work on their fields. trains had been held up before now.
"i thought slavery was abolished?" said i.
the next town on my route was port clinton, a bright little city, and in the eyes of at least one of its citizens a very important one. i had a long talk with a chance-met journalist and the keeper of a fruit-shop. the journalist, by way of interviewing me, told me all i wanted to know about the district. fruit-growing was far in advance here. perry camp, the greatest shooting-butts in the world, was near by. the lake shore railway was going to spend a million dollars in order to shorten the track a quarter of a mile. the greengrocer told me i had the face of a scotsman, but spoke english like a swede—which just shows how badly americans speak our tongue, and hear it as a rule.
in the course of my interview i confessed that for roadside literature i read the gospel of st. john and the book of revelation, a chapter a day, and when i came to the end of either book i started again. the greengrocer interrupted the journalist, and said:
"when you're tired, you just take out the bible and read a little, eh, and you get strength and go on? i knew you were that sort when i saw you first coming up the other side of the road, and i said to my friend, 'he reads his bible.'"
[pg 242]
the greengrocer was much edified, and told me that he was the agent for the district of billy sunday, the revivalist. wouldn't i stay and address a mass meeting?
i fought shy of this offer. the journalist looked somewhat sourly at the greengrocer for breaking into his interrogatory. but then a third interrupter appeared, a little boy, who had come to purchase bananas, and he addressed me thus:
"on which side did your family fight in the year 1745? on the side of prince charlie? that's the side i'm on."
no descendant of the pilgrim fathers he.
on the way out to lacarne two old fishermen in a cart offered me a ride, and i stepped up.
"what are you, german?" i asked, always on the look-out for the immigrant.
"we are yankees."
"your father or grandfather came from germany?"
"no; we're both yankees, i tell yer."
"i suppose your ancestors came from england then."
"no; we've always bin 'ere."
they had been out three nights seine-fishing on the lake, were very tired, and rewarded themselves with swigs of rum every now and then, passing the bottle from one to the other and then to me with real but suspicious hospitality. their families had always been in america. the fact that they came originally[pg 243] from england meant no more to them than hengist and horsa does to some of us.
by the way, hengist and horsa were a couple of savages, were they not?
the fishermen put me down beside a plantation, which they said was just the place in which to sleep the night. i wasn't sorry to get on to my feet again, and i watched them out of sight,—fat, old, sleepy, hospitable ruffians.
the plantation was a mosquito-infested swamp, and i did not take the fishermen's advice. myriads of "husky" mosquitoes were in the air, the unpleasanter sort, with feathered antenn?, and whenever i stood still on the road scores of "canadian soldiers" settled on me, a loathsome but innocuous species of diptera.
i sought shelter of man that night, and through the hospitality of a slav workman found a place in a freight train—a strange bed that not only allows you to sleep, but takes you a dozen miles farther on in the morning. the engine-driver told me that there was a "whole bunch of tramps" on the train, but that no one ever turned tramps off an empty freight train,—not on the lake shore railway at any rate.
when i "dropped" from the freighter i found myself at elliston, and commenced there a day of delicious tramping. the opal dawn gave birth to a great white horse of cloud, and out of the cloud came[pg 244] a strong fresh breeze, having health and happiness on its wings. a quiet sunday. i reached toledo this day—and parted company with erie shore—great, busy, happy, prosperous toledo. it was strange to exchange the country for the town; to come out of the green, fresh, silent landscape into the close, stifling, bustling town, full of promenaders talking and laughing among themselves vociferously.
as i came into the city the day-excursion boat was just about to start on the return journey to detroit. excursionists were flocking together to the quay, a great spectacle to a briton. all the men were carrying their coats in their arms, many had their collars off and the neckbands of their shirts turned down, bunches of carnations on their naked chests; many were without waistcoats, and had tickets with the name of their town pinned to their fancy-coloured shirts; the red, perspiring, glistening faces of many of them suggested an over-confidence in beer as a quencher of thirst. the women carried parasols of coloured paper. they were all in white, and were so thinly clad that you asked yourself why they were so thin. but despite all precautions the sun had marked everybody, but marked them kindly.
suddenly a bell was rung on the steamer, and a little man came forward and announced in broken english:
"somebody wan' to come on the boat; the time is supp."
