THROPPER accompanied me to the wharf in Chicago where, so far as I was able to judge, we were to part forever. The manner of our parting was as follows:

Thropper insisted on carrying my suit-case, though his own was loaded to excess. On crossing a street to enter the railroad station, I half stumbled, blunderingly, under the heavy hoofs of a dray horse which a swearing driver had pulled shortly into the air, when Thropper, by a lunge at my back with his heavy suit-case, startled me into such action, that I lurched ahead and away from danger.

“Thanks, old fellow!” I called, above the roar of the traffic.

My train was announced, and as I gripped my suit-case, Thropper blurted out:

“Well, Priddy, I wish you luck: plenty of it!”

“Well,” I stammered, in return, “you’ve certainly been good to me, Thropper. I shall never forget it!”

“I shall miss you, Priddy!”

“Maybe I shan’t miss you, old fellow!” I said hoarsely, for I was on the verge of tears.

“God bless you!” cried Thropper, with an effort. “God be with you!”

“Make a man of yourself, old fellow!” I replied.

One moment of profound, tearful silence, with our hands tightly clasped, and then I broke away and ran as fast as I could towards my train, pretending by that action that I might be in danger of losing my train, though my only intention was to be by myself, where, unseen, I could baptize this parting from Thropper with unrestrained, heartfelt tears.

The brick-paved and marvellously wide streets of Indianapolis were oppressively hot when I arrived in the city, with Gloomer’s letter of introduction to the sales-stable manager in my possession. I had to spend two days in the city before a regular auction day arrived when it would be possible for me to make a contract with the manager. I had been told that the psychological time to approach the horse-dealer would be at a sale when a carload or two of horses would be made up.

During my wait, I had to harvest my cash diligently, for fear of getting stranded on the way. The four dollars in my pocket seemed indescribably trivial when measured against the gigantic journey I had between Indianapolis and New York City. I went on a side street and searched among the cheaper lodging-houses until I found one whose red, illuminated sign told me that beds there were fifteen cents a night. I went in, talked with a wizened-faced tramp of a man, and was shown up a flight of back stairs into a large, dirty-papered room, in which stood a wooden bedstead with dampish, musty coverings. As I slept that night, I was awakened by loud quarrelsome voices in the back kitchen, and from what I heard, I realized that I was sleeping in a thieves’ lodging-house. After that, I found myself waking up in nervous fright every few minutes, expecting to see the door open while some villain entered with a knife or gun to strip me of what little I owned! It was a night of horror, of wakeful, excited, dread. I was afraid to sleep, and yet I kept waking, hour after hour, with the consciousness that I had given in to sleep, and had made it possible for some one to overpower me. Then early morning dawned, without any accident befalling me, and I seized upon an excuse to leave. I went downstairs very stealthily and confronted three ragged, evil-faced men who were sitting on chairs, smoking with the landlord. I emptied a half-dozen soiled collars on the table and said:

“I haven’t time to have these laundered, and don’t need them. You may have them—if they fit. I wear fifteens. I have to leave early. Here is my lodging fee for the night. Good morning!” and without another word I rushed from the house, hoping that the men would imagine that my excitement was due to fear of losing a train rather than to any dread of them!

The only sight-seeing I accomplished in Indianapolis came in a long walk I took past the freight yards, at the end of which I came to a tomato ketchup factory, where, for two hours, I watched a carload of ripe and otherwise tomatoes unloaded in barrows and carted into the store vats. Then I hurried back to the stables, for a sale was due for late afternoon, and my heart was centred entirely upon the hope of securing the ride to New York City.

Guided by the snap of whips and the strident calls of the auctioneer, I entered a dim vault of a place, where the sale was in progress. After the glare of the sun had worn itself out of my eyes, I found myself on the outer edge of a large group of horse-dealers, watching the animals put through their paces and holding up fingers to the auctioneer.

After the sales had been concluded, I approached a cubby-hole, which was filled with stale tobacco smoke through which I had a view of lithographs of race horses. The manager of the stables sat at his desk, apparently not busy, but eloquent in cigar smoke over the sales he had made that day. He had a blown, raw face, as red as his sunset shirt bosom and dotted with unshaved blotches of bristles. His thin nose had been turned aside by a blow of some sort, his mild blue eyes might not have been out of place in a woman’s head. However, on seeing me hesitate, and probably knowing from my abject, petitioning manner, that I was after some favor, he flavored the air with an oath and tacked on an impatient demand as to my wants. I thereupon unfolded what was in my heart, and in the nervousness of the moment, instead of handing him Gloomer’s letter of introduction, gave him, instead, my pocket comb. Then I thought he would horse-whip me, but, instead, he laughed, and said:

“Well, you’re a thoroughbred, ain’t ye! What’s this?”

I thereupon exchanged the comb for the letter, which he took with some show of interest. After reading it he said:

“Why, I’d ship you to Jericho, if I was sending hosses that fur, but only thing I can do’s to send ye to Buffalo. You’ll mebbe get another haul from there, though I can’t say.”

I thought of the small amount of money in my pocket, and of the distance at which I found myself from home, and then said:

“I was told that you might be able to ship me to New York, sir. I need the lift. I have less than five dollars.”

“Sorry, kid,” he muttered. “Buffalo’s best thing in the ring for a week or more. Good day, sonny!”

“But I’ll take the chance to Buffalo,” I gasped, fearful that he would turn me off entirely. “I’ll be very thankful for that much of a ride, sir.”

He opened a drawer and wrote several items on a yellow way bill which he handed to me.

“Shove that in yer pocket and skedaddle, sonny,” he said. “I wish yer joy in yer ejucation, though I don’t in hang know what ye’ll do with it when yer got it; plant corn, in all likelihood. S’long! Train leaves at half-past six: freight yard. Numbers of the cars on the pass!”

At six o’clock I appeared in the terminal freight yards with a bag of three-cent egg sandwiches under one arm and with my slate-colored suit-case bumping against my shins. It was not until I reached the yards and beheld the illimitable maze of tracks and the innumerable dragon-like trains of freight cars and the hive of busy, shifting engines that were making up trains, that I realized how wise I had been by coming a half hour early. I asked a switchman where I should find the freight which left for Buffalo at half-past six. Then I realized still more acutely that my difficulties were only begun, for after he had whirled the lever over and allowed the section of shunted cars to rattle past, he turned to me and with a very decided and pugilistic gesture, asked me if I would not immediately consign myself and all my ancestors to a very negative theological place. I stumbled over the switches and as I went felt the hot, resentful glare of the railroad crews, as they refused me the information I sought and spiced their refusals with peppery idioms. They would have buffeted me had I not been armed by the pass. Finally, knowing that I was in danger of losing my train, I entered the switch-house and after I had gulped a stomachful of pipe-smoke, one of the men told me that I should find the train if I would look for the numbers of the cars which were written on the pass. So I went out in the dim twilight and tried to match numbers, which to my startled, nervous imagination looked like 54679900993259 and 563780533255555555573275, but which, in reality, were an inch or two shorter! Finally I found the two numbers, and then I eagerly ran down the length of the train until I came to the caboose. I climbed up the steps, opened the dusty door and was immediately greeted by the angry gaze of the conductor and brakemen who were busy with some sort of schedules.

As I humbly presented my pass to the conductor, and when it was made known to the crew that I was to be their guest in the comfortable caboose, they immediately gave me a lurid and explicit welcome: one that made me shiver. Genealogical connections of a hitherto unknown nature were ascribed to me; to them I appeared as one of the brood of imps from that negative theological place, and various exciting and blood-bringing adjectives were loaded on me that made my flesh quiver. The conductor, after generously and minutely explaining how undesirable was my presence in that caboose, going into the minutest details of my personal limitations, sent me, shuddering, over to the opposite side of the car, as far away as possible from his presence, where I found a padded window seat which was to be my bed overnight.

When the train started, and the crew were sitting around with nothing to do, I tried to enter into conversation with one of them. But I was persona non grata; of a different caste, I was told to “hang my lip on the clothes-hook,” a grewsome feat and quite a poetic conception. The window, a little square one, was high above my head. I stood on the seat in the attempt to look through it into the night. Immediately I was told to “switch off.” Then I made myself comfortable for the night by spreading myself at full length on the seat. After a time, the fumes of the lamp drugged me into a doze, and then the thunder of the freight and the dull, dull rumble of the train crew’s voices sent me off into a fretful, but long sleep. In the morning, when I opened my eyes, and looked out of the back door window, we were passing stations in Ohio. The morning was very pleasant, and thinking that a whole night of my presence might have made the train crew tolerant, I ascended into the lookout, above the roof of the caboose, where, from the cushioned seat, I could make a splendid observation of country through which we were passing. But my joy was short-lived. Immediately the thunders of the conductor called me down and I was sternly ordered to “sit down where you belong,” a command which was followed by a descriptive phrase which linked me to a low and disreputable order of creation.

By nine o’clock we brought up in the Cleveland yards, where a new caboose and a new train were to be fastened to the freight. I was told to “grab” my belongings and “git the-twelfth-letter-of-the-alphabet out of this!” which I did, and found, when I got to the ground, that the freight train had gone off and left the caboose standing in the yard. Then I went on a frightful, heart-thumping search for the two cars with the long numbers on them: not spending any time to be rebuffed by the yard men. I leaped from track to track and searched car after car until, at last, I found the numbers I wanted, and by following out the length of the train, came to the new caboose.

In this second caboose I resolved not to irritate the crew, and to this end I made myself comfortable in my allotted place, took off my boots, put on a pair of tennis shoes, and read a book I had in my suit-case. When the train finally entered the Buffalo freight yards I was hurried out, as the conductor wanted to lock the caboose without the loss of a minute. When I got to the ground, in my hurry, and after the conductor had locked the door and left me standing dazed, I found that I had left my shoes in the caboose. But no amount of search for the conductor succeeded, and finally one of the railroad men told me that I might as well give up the search, especially as the caboose had been whirled out of sight by a switching engine. So I went into the city with my suit-case and my lean purse, determined to visit the sales stables and stock-yards, until I should find a chance to ride on to New York City. I realized that if I should ever arrive in New York I should not have enough money to carry me home, but I followed a blind instinct which seemed to tell me that, New York attained, “something would turn up.”

In one of the back streets of Buffalo I found a Temperance Hotel, where beds and rooms were fifteen cents a day. The hotel had in its frowsy lobby a group of unkempt men who seemed to be temperate in one thing more strikingly than another,—work, for during any part of the day I found them there tipped back in the chairs holding their conferences on momentous matters. I left my umbrella with the clerk for collateral, and told him that further security for my board would be my suit-case which was certainly worth thirty-five cents. I had a good thirty-cent dinner in the dining-room, and then went out to visit the stock-yards of the city.

When I saw the multitude of cattle pens, near the railroad, and saw them filled with sheep and cattle, I estimated that in them alone were two hundred and fifty possible trips to the end of the world; but when I entered the lobby of the Stockman’s Hotel and tried to get the influence of the cattle-buyers towards a pass, they would have nothing to do with me. Thus rebuffed, I went the rounds of the sales stables, of which there were many facing the stock pens. In these I was told there were no sales on just then, but that if anything turned up they would see what they could do. That gave me hope, so I said that I would call on them during the next day.

During this wait I found that my money was nearly gone. I had fifty cents on hand for board. I asked a disreputable fellow, near the Temperance Hotel, where I could get some cheap meals. He pointed to the next street and told me that they had three-cent meals in some of the eating-houses there. That evening I indulged in a three-cent supper. It consisted of a dish of beans, a slice of bread, some “butter” and a cup of coffee. I went to the same place for breakfast the next morning and for three cents secured a cup of coffee, a doughnut, and a dish of stew. That morning a heavy rain began to fall, and, for the first time, I began to miss the shoes I had left in the caboose. I had on a suit of good clothes, so that the worn tennis shoes on my feet were all the more startling; but when the streets were filled with running brooks of rain through which I was forced to walk, it was not merely a matter of appearance with me, but a matter of comfort. On my way to the stock-yards to see what the sales stables could do for me, my feet were uncomfortably soaked to the skin. The canvas tops of the shoes were like mops. Every step I took on the sidewalk was the cause of a soggy, moppish slop. I expected the first policeman to arrest me as a suspicious character.

I went from stable to stable, and at each one asked in a tremulous voice if they were about to send any horses to New York or Boston in the near future, but neither sales nor shipments were being made. I tried to interest some of the stock-drovers in the cattle yards in my affairs, but evidently I bored them. I paid another, desperate visit to the Stockman’s Hotel, but the cattle-buyers would not give me a word of encouragement towards a pass to New York City.

After this I returned to the heart of the city and began to plan against absolute starvation. Even with three-cent meals I could not have a much longer time to eat unless I obtained some more money. Then I felt the bulge of my nickel-plated watch, in my vest pocket. I had paid a dollar for it and had used it for two years. It had been purchased second-hand from a mill friend and had originally cost not more than three dollars. I hurried to a pawn-broker’s shop and said, eagerly, as I handed the shopman the weighty time-piece:

“You can have this at your own price—I don’t care how much you offer. I need the money!”

He tossed the watch in the palm of his hand, then laughed, and as he handed it back to me he said, impatiently:

“G’wan! It ain’t wuth a flea! I wouldn’t buy dat t’ing fer junk! Git!”

Disconsolately I passed out, with the shopman’s scornful eyes on me, and the gaze of a burly negro and his wife following me. I had no sooner reached the sidewalk, however, than the negro came out and said:

“Say, how much yo’ want fo’ dat watch?”

The negro’s wife appeared, and from their excessive interest in the watch I knew that they would purchase it if I should put out an enticing price. I cogitated in my mind as to how much I might have to pay for a pair of second-hand shoes, and then said:

“Fifty cents! Keeps good time, too, see!”

The negro took the watch in his hand, and evidently it was the enormous size of it rather than its efficiency as a time-keeper that interested him, for he spent more time gazing on its back than he did in contemplating its works. He thrust his hand into his pockets and gave me a fifty-cent piece which, just then, looked as round and golden as a harvest moon, but more tangible.

I hurried from the negro as swiftly as I could in fear that he might repent and ask for a return of the precious coin. I hastened down a side street, made a spiral through a maze of streets, and then felt that the half dollar belonged to me. I next began a search for a pair of shoes. There were rows of them in a Jewish cobbler’s window, so I went in. The Jewish woman, who was in charge, in the absence of her husband, asked me what size I wanted, and then pulled out for my inspection a pair of iron-clads that would not have been amiss on the feet of Ulysses when he started out on his wearing travels, and they surely would have lasted him through all his strenuous adventures.

Say, How Much Yo’ Want fo’ dat Watch

“Fifty-four cents!” announced the woman.

I told her that I could not spend a cent more than fifty for foot-wear else I should have to go without supper, and that wet feet were more comfortable than an empty stomach.

We then entered upon an oriental haggling during which I found it imperative to credit myself with every virtue of honesty and candidness, and during which she called on every prophet to witness that the shoes should not go for a cent less than fifty-four. I held up my soggy tennis shoes and tapped them on the floor so that their miserable splash should strike a compassionate chill in her hard heart. I told her my lifetime’s history; gave her a most pathetic list of my adventures; descanted with fervor on the unkindness of men towards one who was trying to make his way, and then the shoes were mine!

I had to learn to walk over again when the dry shoes were on. I half stumbled at first with the weight, but I felt that at last I could go on the main street of the city and pass among respectable people without having harsh comments made.

After my three-cent supper, I hurried to a church where a prayer-meeting was in progress. After the meeting I made a confidant of the minister, who took me before a group of men; the total result of which was that they lent me ten dollars on a note which I later paid, or tried to pay, but they refused to accept the money and sent me back my note. A scalper’s ticket to New York City took nearly all of the ten dollars. I returned to the “hotel” where I sold my umbrella and out of the proceeds paid my room rent and bade good-bye to the men who lounged there. The New York train which I had to take did not leave Buffalo until two o’clock in the morning. As I went through the quiet streets, the scavengers were out, with bags on their shoulders, fingering the refuse barrels that lined the curbs in front of hotels and eating-houses. It was a glimpse of poverty that made me shudder, and which by comparison made me feel quite aristocratic.

The conductor accepted my scalper’s ticket without comment, though he might have put me off the train on the least suspicion. I took off my heavy shoes, leaned back in the seat and fell asleep without a care to distract me while the express hummed smoothly through the night.

As soon as the train arrived in the New York station I had to hurry across the city to the steamboat wharves in time to board the Providence steamer for the dollar ride into the Fall River zone. Though I had never been in the metropolis before, and though I stood for a thrilling moment in the very midst of its wonders, impelling poverty drove me across the city like a slave-master’s whip, and I boarded the steamer with merely an impressionistic glance of some ferry-houses, some wholesale fruit houses, a dilapidated horse-car, some street corner blockades, a whiff of Hester street, and the East River bridges. After a night in the forward part of the boat, sleeping in a berth which might have been the confines of a barrel, while a drunken man next to me kept up a periodic, loose-mouthed protest to a man in the upper berth that he wished he wouldn’t snore so loud and keep everybody awake, I was put ashore in Providence. From there I was taken by trolley into Massachusetts and home. When I arrived in New Bedford I had thirty-five cents remaining in my pocket. But I was home! And ready for the next step in my education, whatever that should be.