ABROAD AT HOME
BY JULIAN STREET
THE NEED OF CHANGE
Fifth Anniversary Edition. Illustrated by James Montgomery Flagg. Cloth, 50 cents net. Leather, $1.00 net.
PARIS À LA CARTE
"Gastronomic promenades" in Paris. Illustrated by May Wilson Preston. Cloth, 60 cents net.
WELCOME TO OUR CITY
Mr. Street plays host to the stranger in New York. Illustrated by James Montgomery Flagg and Wallace Morgan. Cloth, $1.00 net.
SHIP-BORED
Who hasn't been? Illustrated by May Wilson Preston. Cloth, 50 cents net.
ABROAD AT HOME Cheerful ramblings and adventures in American cities and other places. Illustrated by Wallace Morgan. Cloth, $2.50 net.
For Children
THE GOLDFISH
A Christmas story for children between six and sixty. Colored Illustrations and page Decorations. Cloth, 70 cents net.
AMERICAN RAMBLINGS, OBSERVATIONS, AND
ADVENTURES OF JULIAN STREET
WITH PICTORIAL SIDELIGHTS
BY
WALLACE MORGAN
THE CENTURY CO.
1915
The Century Co.
Copyright, 1914, by
P. F. Collier & Son, Inc.
Published, November, 1914
TO MY FATHER
the companion of my first railroad journey
The Author takes this opportunity to thank the old friends, and the new ones, who assisted him in so many ways, upon his travels. Especially, he makes his affectionate acknowledgment to his wise and kindly companion, the Illustrator, whose admirable drawings are far from being his only contribution to this volume.
—J. S.
New York,
October, 1914.
CONTENTS
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
York, but with her people she is San Francisco—which comes
near being the apotheosis of praise. Frontispiece FACING
PAGE I was moving about my room, my hands full of hairbrushes and toothbrushes
and clothesbrushes and shaving brushes; my head full of
railroad trains, and hills, and plains, and valleys 5 A dusky redcap took my baggage 12 What scenes these black, pathetic people had passed through—were
passing through! Why did they not look up in wonderment?. 17 We made believe we wanted to go out and smoke. And as we left
our seats she made believe she didn't know that we were going. 23 The gentleman who favored linen mesh was a fat, prosperous-looking
person, whose gold-rimmed spectacles
from out of doors 26 In a few hours there was enough shame around us to have lasted all
the reformers and muckrakers I know a whole month 32 My companion and I made excuses to go downstairs and wash our
hands in the public washroom, just for the pleasure of doing so
without fear of being attacked by a swarthy brigand with a brush 35 I was prepared to take the field against all comers, not only in favor
of simplicity, but in favor of anything and everything which was
favored by my hostess 38 Chamber of Commerce representatives were with us all the first day
and until we went to our rooms, late at night 43 It is an Elizabethan building, with a heavy timbered front, suggesting
some ancient, hospitable, London coffee house where wits of
old were used to meet 46 In this charming, homelike old building, with its grandfather's clock,
its Windsor chairs, and its open wood fires, a visitor finds it hard
to realize that he is in the "west" 53 Down by the docks we saw gigantic, strange machines, expressive of
Cleveland's lake commerce—machines for loading and unloading
ships in the space of a few hours 60 In midstream passes a continual parade of freighters ... and in
their swell you may see, teetering, all kinds of craft, from proud
white yachts to canoes 71 The automobile has not only changed Detroit from a quiet old town
into a rich, active city, but upon the drowsy romance of the old
days it has superimposed the romance of modern business 74 Of course there was order in that place, of course there was system—relentless
system—terrible "efficiency"—but to my mind it expressed
but one thing, and that thing was delirium 97 Never, since then, have I heard men jeering over women as they look
in dishabille, without wondering if those same men have ever seen
themselves clearly in the mirrored washroom of a sleeping car 112 "Can that stuff," admonished Miss Buck in her easy, offhand manner 117 She was saying to herself (and, unconsciously, to us, through the
window): "If I had played that hand, I never should have done
it that way!" 124 Rodin's "Thinker" 145 Chicago's skyline from the docks.... A city which rebuilt itself after
the fire; in the next decade doubled its size; and now has a population
of two million, plus a city of about the size of San Francisco 160 Two rabbis, old bearded men, performed the rites with long, slim,
shiny blades 177 As I stood there, studying the temperament of pigs, I saw the butcher
looking up at me.... I have never seen such eyes 192 The bold front of Michigan Avenue along Grant Park ... great
buildings wreathed in whirling smoke and that allegory of infinity
which confronts one who looks eastward 196 The dilapidation of the quarter has continued steadily from Dickens's
day to this, and the beauty now to be discovered there is that of
decay and ruin 205 The three used bridges which cross the Mississippi River at St. Louis
are privately controlled toll bridges 212 The skins are handled in the raw state ... with the result that the
floor of the exchange is made slippery by animal fats, and that the
olfactory organs encounter smells not to be matched in any zoo 221 St. Louis needs to be taken by the hand and led around to some municipal-improvement
tailor, some civic haberdasher 225
wretched as this place was, the Clemens family were forced to
leave it for a time because they were too poor to live there 240 At one side is an alley running back to the house of Huckleberry Finn,
and in that alley stood the historic fence which young Sam
Clemens cajoled the other boys into whitewashing for him 244 Never outside of Brittany and Normandy have I seen roads so full of
animals as those of Pike County 253 Mr. Roberts is a wonder—nothing less. There's a book in him, and
I hope that somebody will write it, for I should like to read that
book 268 Looking down from Kersey Coates Drive, one sees ... the appalling
web of railroad tracks, crammed with freight cars, which seen
through a softening haze of smoke, resemble a relief map—strange,
vast and pictorial 289 Colonel Nelson is a "character." Even if he didn't own the "Star," ...
he would be a "character."... I have called him a volcano;
he is more like one than any other man I have ever met 304 Mr. Fish informed me that the waters of Excelsior Springs resemble
the waters of Homburg, the favorite watering place of the late
King Edward—or, rather, I think he put it the other way round 322 We strolled in the direction of the old house, that house of tragedy in
which the family lived in the troublous times.... It was there
that the Pinkertons threw the bomb 328 It was Frank James.... He looks more like a prosperous farmer or
the president of a rural bank than like a bandit. In his manner
there is a strong note of the showman 335 The campus seems to have "just growed."... Nevertheless, there is
a sort of homely charm about the place, with its unimposing, helter-skelter
piles of brick and stone 353 Even at sea the great bowl of the sky had never looked to me so vast 368 The little towns of western Kansas are far apart and have, like the
surrounding scenery, an air of sadness and desolation 373 In the lobby of the Brown Palace Hotel we saw several old fellows,
sitting about, looking neither prosperous nor busy, but always
talking mines. A kind word, or even a pleasant glance, is enough
to set them off 380 "Ain't Nature wonderful!" 405 I was by this time very definitely aware that I had my fill of winter
motoring in the mountains. The mere reluctance I felt as we began
to climb had now developed into a passionate desire to desist 412 The homes of Colorado Springs really explain the place and the society
is as cosmopolitan as the architecture 417 On the road to Cripple Creek we were always turning, always turning
upward 432 We were invited to meet the President of the Mormon Church and
some members of his family at the Beehive House, his official
residence 452 The Lion House—a large adobe building in which formerly resided
the rank and file of Brigham Young's wives 461 The Cliff House has a Sorrento setting and hectic turkey-trotting
nights 468 The Salt-water pool, Olympic Club, San Francisco 477 The switchboard of the Chinatown telephone exchange is set in a
shrine and the operators are dressed in Chinese silks 496 We believed we had encountered every kind of "booster" that creeps,
crawls, walks, crows, cries, bellows, barks or brays, but it remained
for the Exposition to show us a new specimen 504
else. Everyone is trying to keep his knees from being knocked
by swift-passing suitcases 513
STEPPING WESTWARD
ABROAD AT HOME
CHAPTER I
STEPPING WESTWARD
"What, you are stepping westward?"—"Yea."
—'Twould be a wildish destiny,
If we, who thus together roam
In a strange Land, and far from home,
Were in this place the guests of Chance:
Yet who would stop or fear to advance,
Though home or shelter he had none,
With such a sky to lead him on?
—Wordsworth.
For some time I have desired to travel over the United States—to ramble and observe and seek adventure here, at home, not as a tourist with a short vacation and a round-trip ticket, but as a kind of privateer with a roving commission. The more I have contemplated the possibility the more it has engaged me. For we Americans, though we are the most restless race in the world, with the possible exception of the Bedouins, almost never permit ourselves to travel, either at home or abroad, as the "guests of Chance." We always go from one place to another with a definite purpose. We never amble. On the boat, going to Europe, we talk of leisurely trips away from the "beaten track," but we never take them. After we land we rush about obsessed by "sights," seeing with the eyes of guides and thinking the "canned" thoughts of guidebooks.
In order to accomplish such a trip as I had thought of I was even willing to write about it afterward. Therefore I went to see a publisher and suggested that he send me out upon my travels.
I argued that Englishmen, from Dickens to Arnold Bennett, had "done" America; likewise Frenchmen and Germans. And we have traveled over there and written about them. But Americans who travel at home to write (or, as in my case, write to travel) almost always go in search of some specific thing: to find corruption and expose it, to visit certain places and describe them in detail, or to catch, exclusively, the comic side. For my part, I did not wish to go in search of anything specific. I merely wished to take things as they might come. And—speaking of taking things—I wished, above all else, to take a good companion, and I had him all picked out: a man whose drawings I admire almost as much as I admire his disposition; the one being who might endure my presence for some months, sharing with me his joys and sorrows and collars and cigars, and yet remain on speaking terms with me.
The publisher agreed to all. Then I told my New York friends that I was going.
They were incredulous. That is the New York attitude of mind. Your "typical New Yorker" really thinks that any man who leaves Manhattan Island for any destination other than Europe or Palm Beach must be either a fool who leaves voluntarily or a criminal taken off by force. For the picturesque criminal he may be sorry, but for the fool he has scant pity.
At a farewell party which they gave us on the night before we left, one of my friends spoke, in an emotional moment, of accompanying us as far as Buffalo. He spoke of it as one might speak of going up to Baffin Land to see a friend off for the Pole.
I welcomed the proposal and assured him of safe conduct to that point in the "interior." I even showed him Buffalo upon the map. But the sight of that wide-flung chart of the United States seemed only to alarm him. After regarding it with a solemn and uneasy eye he shook his head and talked long and seriously of his responsibilities as a family man—of his duty to his wife and his limousine and his elevator boys.
It was midnight when good-bys were said and my companion and I returned to our respective homes to pack. There were many things to be put into trunks and bags. A clock struck three as my weary head struck the pillow. I closed my eyes. Then when, as it seemed to me, I was barely dozing off there came a knocking at my bedroom door.
"What is it?"
"Six o'clock," replied the voice of our trusty Hannah.
As I arose I knew the feelings of a man condemned to death who hears the warden's voice in the chilly dawn: "Come! It is the fatal hour!"
When, fifteen minutes later, doubting Hannah (who knows my habits in these early morning matters) knocked again, I was moving about my room, my hands full of hairbrushes and toothbrushes and clothes brushes and shaving brushes; my head full of railroad trains, and hills, and plains and valleys, and snow-capped mountain peaks, and smoking cities and smoking-cars, and people I had never seen.
The breakfast table, shining with electric light, had a night-time aspect which made eggs and coffee seem bizarre. I do not like to breakfast by electric light, and I had done so seldom until then; but since that time I have done it often—sometimes to catch the early morning train, sometimes to catch the early morning man.
Beside my plate I found a telegram. I ripped the envelope and read this final punctuation-markless message from a literary friend:
you are going to discover the united states dont be afraid to say so
That is an awful thing to tell a man in the very early morning before breakfast. In my mind I answered with the cry: "But I am afraid to say so!"
And now, months later, I am still afraid to say so, because, despite a certain truth the statement may contain, it seems to me to sound ridiculous, and ponderous, and solemn with an asinine solemnity.
It spoiled my last meal at home—that well-meant telegram.
I had not swallowed my second cup of coffee when, from her switchboard, a dozen floors below, the operator telephoned to say my taxi had arrived; whereupon I left the table, said good-by to those I should miss most of all, took up my suit case and departed.
Beside the curb there stood an unhappy-looking taxicab, shivering as with malaria, but the driver showed a face of brazen cheerfulness which, considering the hour and the circumstances, seemed almost indecent. I could not bear his smile. Hastily I blotted him from view beneath a pile of baggage.
With a jerk we started. Few other vehicles disputed our right to the whole width of Seventy-second Street as we skimmed eastward. Farewell, O Central Park! Farewell, O Plaza! And you, Fifth Avenue, empty, gray, deserted now; so soon to flash with fascinating traffic. Farewell! Farewell!
Presently, in that cavern in which vehicles stop beneath the overhanging cliffs of the Grand Central Station, we drew up. A dusky redcap took my baggage. I alighted and, passing through glass doors, gazed down on the vast concourse. Far up in the lofty spaces of the room
The glass dials of the four-faced clock, crowning the information bureau at the center of the concourse, glowed with electric light, yellow and sickly by contrast with the day which poured in through those windows. Such stupendous windows! Gargantuan spider webs whose threads were massive bars of steel. And suddenly I saw the spider! He emerged from one side, passed nimbly through the center of the web, disappeared, emerged again, crossed the second web and the third in the same way, and was gone—a two-legged spider, walking importantly and carrying papers in his hand. Then another spider came, and still another, each black against the light, each on a different level. For those windows are, in reality, more than windows. They are double walls of glass, supporting floors of glass—layer upon layer of crystal corridor, suspended in the air as by genii out of the Arabian Nights. And through these corridors pass clerks who never dream that they are princes in the modern kind of fairy tale.
As yet the torrent of commuters had not begun to pour through the vast place. The floor lay bare and tawny like the bed of some dry river waiting for the melting of the mountain snows. Across the river bed there came a herd of cattle—Italian immigrants, dark-eyed, dumb, patient, uncomprehending. Two weeks ago they had left Naples, with plumed Vesuvius looming to the left; yesterday they had come to Ellis Island; last night they had slept on station benches; to-day they were departing; to-morrow or the next day they would reach their destination in the West. Suddenly there came to me from nowhere, but with a poignance that seemed to make it new, the platitudinous thought that life is at once the commonest and strangest of experiences. What scenes these black, pathetic people had passed through—were passing through! Why did they not look up in wonderment? Why were their bovine eyes gazing blankly ahead of them at nothing? What had dazed them so—the bigness of the world? Yet, after all, why should they understand? What American can understand Italian railway stations? They have always seemed to me to express a sort of mild insanity. But the Grand Central terminal I fancy I do understand. It seems to me to be much more than a successful station. In its stupefying size, its brilliant utilitarianism, and, most of all, in its mildly vulgar grandeur, it seems to me to express, exactly, the city to which it is a gate. That is something every terminal should do unless, as in the case of the Pennsylvania terminal in New York, it expresses something finer. The Grand Central Station is New York, but that classic marvel over there on Seventh Avenue is more: it is something for New York to live up to.
When I had bought my ticket and moved along to count my change there came up to the ticket window a big man in a big ulster who asked in a big voice for a ticket to Grand Rapids. As he stood there I was conscious of a most un-New-York-like wish to say to him: "After a while I'm going to Grand Rapids, too!" And I think that, had I said it, he would have told me that Grand Rapids was "some town" and asked me to come in and see him, when I got there,—"at the plant," I think he would have said.
As I crossed the marble floor to take the train I caught sight of my traveling companion leaning rigidly against the wall beside the gate. He did not see me. Reaching his side, I greeted him.
He showed no signs of life. I felt as though I had addressed a waxwork figure.
"Good morning," I repeated, calling him by name.
"I've just finished packing," he said. "I never got to bed at all."
At that moment a most attractive person put in an appearance. She was followed by a redcap carrying a lovely little Russia leather bag. A few years before I should have called a bag like that a dressing case, but watching that young woman as she tripped along with steps restricted by the slimness of her narrow satin skirt, it occurred to me that modes in baggage may have changed like those in woman's dress and that her little leather case might be a modern kind of wardrobe trunk.
My companion took no notice of this agitating presence.
"Look!" I whispered. "She is going, too."
Stiffly he turned his head.
"The pretty girl," he remarked, with sad philosophy, "is always in the other car. That's life."
"No," I demurred. "It's only early morning stuff."
And I was right, for presently, in the parlor car, we found our seats across the aisle from hers.
Before the train moved out a boy came through with books and magazines, proclaiming loudly the "last call for reading matter."
I think the radiant being believed him, for she bought a magazine—a magazine of pretty girls and piffle: just the sort we knew she'd buy. As for my companion and me, we made no purchases, not crediting the statement that it was really the "last call." But I am impelled to add that having, later, visited certain book stores of Buffalo, Cleveland, and Detroit, I now see truth in what the boy said.
For a time my companion and I sat and tried to make believe we didn't know that some one was across the aisle. And she sat there and played with pages and made believe she didn't know we made believe. When that had gone on for a time and our train was slipping silently along beside the Hudson, we felt we couldn't stand it any longer, so we made believe we wanted to go out and smoke. And as we left our seats she made believe she didn't know that we were going.
Four men were seated in the smoking room. Two were discussing the merits of flannel versus linen mesh for winter underwear. The gentleman who favored linen mesh was a fat, prosperous-looking person, whose gold-rimmed spectacles reflected flying lights from out of doors.
"If you'll wear linen," he declared with deep conviction—"and it wants to be a union suit, too—you'll never go back to shirt and drawers again. I'll guarantee that!" The other promised to try it. Presently I noticed that the first speaker had somehow gotten all the way from linen union suits to Portland, Me., on a hot Sunday afternoon. He said it was the hottest day last year, and gave the date and temperatures at certain hours. He mentioned his wife's weight, details of how she suffered from the heat, the amount of flesh she lost, the name of the steamer on which they finally escaped from Portland to New York, the time of leaving and arrival, and many other little things.
I left him on the dock in New York. A friend (name and occupation given) had met him with a touring car (make and horsepower specified). What happened after that I do not know, save that it was nothing of importance. Important things don't happen to a man like that.