Adventures While Preaching the Gospel of Beauty (2024)

NEW YORK—MITCHELL KENNERLEY 1914

Dedicated to
Miss Sara Teasdale

CONTENTS

Thanks are due the Crowell PublishingCompany for permission to reprint the proclamationsfrom Farm and Fireside withwhich the book ends.

[9]

Adventures While Preachingthe Gospel of Beauty

I
I Start on My Walk

As some of the readers of this account areaware, I took a walk last summer frommy home town, Springfield, Illinois, acrossIllinois, Missouri, and Kansas, up and downColorado and into New Mexico. One of themost vivid little episodes of the trip, thatcame after two months of walking, I wouldlike to tell at this point. It was in southernColorado. It was early morning. Aroundthe cliff, with a boom, a rattle and a bang,appeared a gypsy wagon. On the front seatwas a Romany, himself dressed inconspicuously,[10]but with his woman more bedeckedthan Carmen. She wore the bangles andspangles of her Hindu progenitors. Thewoman began to shout at me, I could notdistinguish just what. The two seemed tothink this was the gayest morning the sunever shone upon. They came faster andfaster, then, suddenly, at the woman's suggestion,pulled up short. And she asked mewith a fraternal, confidential air, "What yousellin', what you sellin', boy?"

If we had met on the first of June, whenI had just started, she would have pretendedto know all about me, she would have askedto tell my fortune. On the first of June Iwore about the same costume I wear on thestreets of Springfield. I was white as paperfrom two years of writing poetry indoors.Now, on the first of August I was sunburneda quarter of an inch deep. My costume,once so respectable, I had graduallytransformed till it looked like that of a show-man.I wore very yellow corduroys, a fancysombrero and an oriflamme tie. So Mrs.[11]Gypsy hailed me as a brother. She eyedmy little worn-out oil-cloth pack. It was adelightful professional mystery to her.

I handed up a sample of what it contained—myGospel of Beauty (a little one-pageformula for making America lovelier), andmy little booklet, Rhymes to Be Traded forBread.

The impatient horses went charging on.In an instant came more noises. Four morehappy gypsy wagons passed. Each timethe interview was repeated in identical language,and with the same stage business.The men were so silent and masterful-looking,the girls such brilliant, inquisitive cats!I never before saw anything so like high-classcomic opera off the stage, and in fancyI still see it all:—those brown, braceletedarms still waving, and those provocativesiren cries:—"What you sellin', boy? Whatyou sellin'?"

I hope my Gospel did them good. Itsessential principle is that one should not be[12]a gypsy forever. He should return home.Having returned, he should plant the seedsof Art and of Beauty. He should tend themtill they grow. There is something essentiallyhumorous about a man walking rapidlyaway from his home town to tell all menthey should go back to their birthplaces. Itis still more humorous that, when I finallydid return home, it was sooner than I intended,all through a temporary loss ofnerve. But once home I have taken my ownadvice to heart. I have addressed fourmothers' clubs, one literary club, two missionarysocieties and one High School DebatingSociety upon the Gospel of Beauty.And the end is not yet. No, not by anymeans. As John Paul Jones once said, "Ihave not yet begun to fight."

I had set certain rules of travel, evolvedand proved practicable in previous expeditionsin the East and South. These ruleshad been published in various periodicals beforemy start. The home town newspapers,[13]my puzzled but faithful friends in goodtimes and in bad, went the magazines onebetter and added a rule or so. To promotethe gala character of the occasion, a certainpaper announced that I was to walk in aRoman toga with bare feet encased in sandals.Another added that I had travelledthrough most of the countries of Europe inthis manner. It made delightful reading.Scores of mere acquaintances crossed thestreet to shake hands with me on the strengthof it.

The actual rules were to have nothing todo with cities, railroads, money, baggage orfellow tramps. I was to begin to ask fordinner about a quarter of eleven and forsupper, lodging and breakfast about a quarterof five. I was to be neat, truthful, civiland on the square. I was to preach the Gospelof Beauty. How did these rules workout?

The cities were easy to let alone. Ipassed quickly through Hannibal and Jefferson[14]City. Then, straight West, it wasnothing but villages and farms till the threemain cities of Colorado. Then nothing butdesert to central New Mexico. I did nottake the train till I reached central NewMexico, nor did I write to Springfield formoney till I quit the whole game at thatpoint.

Such wages as I made I sent home, startingout broke again, first spending justenough for one day's recuperation out ofeach pile, and, in the first case, rehabilitatingmy costume considerably. I always walkedpenniless. My baggage was practically nil.It was mainly printed matter, renewed bymail. Sometimes I carried reproductions ofdrawings of mine, The Village ImprovementParade, a series of picture-cartoonswith many morals.

I pinned this on the farmers' walls, explainingthe mottoes on the banners, and exhortingthem to study it at their leisure. Mylittle pack had a supply of the aforesaid[15]Rhymes to Be Traded for Bread. And itcontained the following Gospel of Beauty:

THE GOSPEL OF BEAUTY

Being the new "creed of a beggar" bythat vain and foolish mendicant NicholasVachel Lindsay, printed for his personalfriends in his home village—Springfield,Illinois. It is his intention to carry this gospelacross the country beginning June, 1912,returning in due time.

I

I come to you penniless and afoot, to bringa message. I am starting a new religiousidea. The idea does not say "no" to anycreed that you have heard.... Afterthis, let the denomination to which you nowbelong be called in your heart "the churchof beauty" or "the church of the open sky."... The church of beauty has two sides:the love of beauty and the love of God.[16]

II
THE NEW LOCALISM

The things most worth while are one'sown hearth and neighborhood. We shouldmake our own home and neighborhood themost democratic, the most beautiful and theholiest in the world. The children nowgrowing up should become devout gardenersor architects or park architects or teachersof dancing in the Greek spirit or musiciansor novelists or poets or story-writers orcraftsmen or wood-carvers or dramatists oractors or singers. They should find theirtalent and nurse it industriously. Theyshould believe in every possible applicationto art-theory of the thoughts of the Declarationof Independence and Lincoln's GettysburgAddress. They should, if led by thespirit, wander over the whole nation insearch of the secret of democratic beautywith their hearts at the same time filled to[17]overflowing with the righteousness of God.Then they should come back to their ownhearth and neighborhood and gather a littlecircle of their own sort of workers aboutthem and strive to make the neighborhoodand home more beautiful and democraticand holy with their special art....They should labor in their little circle expectingneither reward nor honors.... Intheir darkest hours they should be madestrong by the vision of a completely beautifulneighborhood and the passion for acompletely democratic art. Their reasonfor living should be that joy in beautywhich no wounds can take away, and thatjoy in the love of God which no crucifixioncan end.

The kindly reader at this point clutcheshis brow and asks, "But why carry this paperaround? Why, in Heaven's name, do it asa beggar? Why do it at all?"

Let me make haste to say that there has[18]been as yet no accredited, accepted way forestablishing Beauty in the heart of the averageAmerican. Until such a way has beendetermined upon by a competent committee,I must be pardoned for taking my owncourse and trying any experiment I please.

But I hope to justify the space occupiedby this narrative, not by the essential seriousnessof my intentions, nor the essentialsolemnity of my motley cloak, nor by thefinal failure or success of the trip, but bythe things I unexpectedly ran into, as curiousto me as to the gentle and shelteredreader. Of all that I saw the State of Kansasimpressed me most, and the letters homeI have chosen cover, for the most part, adventuresthere.

Kansas, the Ideal American Community!Kansas, nearer than any other to the kindof a land our fathers took for granted!Kansas, practically free from cities and industrialism,the real last refuge of the constitution,since it maintains the type of agricultural[19]civilization the constitution had inmind! Kansas, State of tremendous cropsand hardy, devout, natural men! Kansasof the historic Santa Fé Trail and the classicvillage of Emporia and the immortal editorof Emporia! Kansas, laid out in roads amile apart, criss-crossing to make a greatchecker-board, roads that go on and on pastendless rich farms and big farm-houses,though there is not a village or railroad formiles! Kansas, the land of the real countrygentlemen, Americans who work the soil andown the soil they work; State where theshabby tenant-dwelling scarce appears asyet! Kansas of the Chautauqua and the collegestudent and the devout school-teacher!The dry State, the automobile State, the insurgentState! Kansas, that is ruled by thecross-roads church, and the church type ofcivilization! The Newest New England!State of more promise of permanent spiritualglory than Massachusetts in her brilliantyouth![20]

Travellers who go through in cars withroofs know little of this State. Kansas isnot Kansas till we march day after day,away from the sunrise, under the blisteringnoon sky, on, on over a straight west-goingroad toward the sunset. Then we begin tohave our spirits stirred by the sight of thetremendous clouds looming over the most interminableplain that ever expanded andmade glorious the heart of Man.

I have walked in eastern Kansas wherethe hedged fields and the orchards and gardensreminded one of the picturesque sectionsof Indiana, of antique and settledOhio. Later I have mounted a little hill onwhat was otherwise a level and seemingly uninhabiteduniverse, and traced, away to theleft, the creeping Arkansas, its coursemarked by the cottonwoods, that becamelike tufts of grass on its far borders. Allthe rest of the world was treeless and riverless,yet green from the rain of yesterday,and patterned like a carpet with the shadows[21]of the clouds. I have walked on and onacross this unbroken prairie-sod where half-wildcattle grazed. Later I have marchedbetween alfalfa fields where hovered the lavenderhaze of the fragrant blossom, and haveheard the busy music of the gorging bumblebees.Later I have marched for days anddays with wheat waving round me, yellowas the sun. Many's the night I have slept inthe barn-lofts of Kansas with the wide loft-doorrolled open and the inconsequentialgolden moon for my friend.

These selections from letters home tellhow I came into Kansas and how I adventuredthere. The letters were written avowedlyas a sort of diary of the trip, but theircontents turned out to be something less thanthat, something more than that, and somethingrather different.

Thursday, May 30, 1912. In the bluegrass by the side of the road. Somewherewest of Jacksonville, Illinois. Hot sun.[22]Cool wind. Rabbits in the distance. Bumblebeesnear.

At five last evening I sighted my lodgingfor the night. It was the other side of ahigh worm fence. It was down in the hollowof a grove. It was the box of an oldbox-car, brought there somehow, without itswheels. It was far from a railroad. I saidin my heart "Here is the appointed shelter."I was not mistaken.

As was subsequently revealed, it belongedto the old gentleman I spied through thewindow stemming gooseberries and singing:"John Brown's body." He puts the car topon wagon wheels and hauls it from grove togrove between Jacksonville and the eastbank of the Mississippi. He carries a sawmill equipment along. He is clearing thiswood for the owner, of all but its walnuttrees. He lives in the box with his son andtwo assistants. He is cook, washerwomanand saw-mill boss. His wife died manyyears ago.[23]

The old gentleman let me in with alacrity.He allowed me to stem gooseberrieswhile he made a great supper for the boys.They soon came in. I was meanwhile assuredthat my name was going into the pot.My host looked like his old general, McClellan.He was eloquent on the sins ofpreachers, dry voters and pension reformers.He was full of reminiscences of the stringband at Sherman's headquarters, in whichhe learned to perfect himself on his wonderfulfiddle. He said, "I can't play slow music.I've got to play dance tunes or die."He did not die. His son took a banjo froman old trunk and the two of them gave usevery worth while tune on earth: MoneyMusk, Hell's Broke Loose in Georgia, TheYear of Jubilee, Sailor's Hornpipe, Babyon the Block, Lady on the Lake, and TheIrish Washerwoman, while I stemmed gooseberries,which they protested I did not needto do. Then I read my own unworthyverses to the romantic and violin-stirred[24]company. And there was room for all ofus to sleep in that one repentant and convertedbox-car.

Friday, May 31, 1912. Half an hourafter a dinner of crackers, cheese and raisins,provided at my solicitation by the grocer inthe general store and post-office, ValleyCity, Illinois.

I have thought of a new way of statingmy economic position. I belong to one ofthe leisure classes, that of the rhymers. Inorder to belong to any leisure class, one mustbe a thief or a beggar. On the whole I preferto be a beggar, and, before each meal,receive from toiling man new permission toextend my holiday. The great business ofthat world that looms above the workshopand the furrow is to take things from peopleby some sort of taxation or tariff or specialprivilege. But I want to exercise my covetousnessonly in a retail way, open and aboveboard, and when I take bread from a man's[25]table I want to ask him for that particularpiece of bread, as politely as I can.

But this does not absolutely fit my life.For yesterday I ate several things withoutpermission, for instance, in mid-morning Idevoured all the cherries a man can hold.They were hanging from heavy, breakingbranches that came way over the stone wallinto the road.

Another adventure. Early in the afternoonI found a brick farm-house. It had anoble porch. There were marks of old-fashioneddistinction in the trimmed hedgesand flower-beds, and in the summer-houses.The side-yard and barn-lot were the cluckingest,buzzingest kind of places. There wasnot a human being in sight. I knocked andknocked on the doors. I wandered throughall the sheds. I could look in through theunlocked screens and see every sign of presentoccupation. If I had chosen to enter Icould have stolen the wash bowl or the baby-buggyor the baby's doll. The creamery[26]was more tempting, with milk and butterand eggs, and freshly pulled taffy cut insquares. I took a little taffy. That is allI took, though the chickens were very socialand I could have eloped with several ofthem. The roses and peonies and geraniumswere entrancing, and there was not a watchdog anywhere. Everything seemed to say"Enter in and possess!"

I saw inside the last door where I knockeda crisp, sweet, simple dress on a chair. Ah,a sleeping beauty somewhere about!

I went away from that place.

Sunday, June 1, 1912. By the side ofthe road, somewhere in Illinois.

Last night I was dead tired. I hailed aman by the shed of a stationary engine. Iasked him if I could sleep in the engine-shedall night, beginning right now. Hesaid "Yes." But from five to six, he put meout of doors, on a pile of gunny sacks onthe grass. There I slept while the ducks[27]quacked in my ears, and the autos whizzedover the bridge three feet away. My hostwas a one-legged man. In about an hourhe came poking me with that crutch and thatpeg of his. He said "Come, and let me tellyour fortune! I have been studying yourphysiognifry while you were asleep!" Sowe sat on a log by the edge of the pond.He said: "I am the Seventh Son of a SeventhSon. They call me the duck-pond diviner.I forecast the weather for theseparts. Every Sunday I have my corner forthe week's weather in the paper here." Thenhe indulged in a good deal of the kind oftalk one finds in the front of the almanac.

He was a little round man with a pair ofround, dull eyes, and a dull, round face,with a two weeks' beard upon it. Hesquinted up his eyes now. He was deliberate.Switch engines were going by. Hepaused to hail the engineers. Here is a partof what he finally said: "You are a Childof Destiny." He hesitated, for he wanted[28]to be sure of the next point. "You wereborn in the month of S-e-p-t-e-m-b-e-r.Your preference is for a business like clerkingin a store. You are of a slow, pigmatictemperament, but I can see you are fastidiousabout your eating. You do not use tobacco.You are fond of sweets. You havebeen married twice. Your first wife died,and your second was divorced. You looklike you would make a good spiritualist medium.If you don't let any black cats crossyour track you will have good luck for thenext three years."

He hit it right twice. I am a Child ofDestiny and I am fond of sweets. When aprophet hits it right on essentials like that,who would be critical?

An old woman with a pipe in her mouthcame down the railroad embankment lookingfor greens. He bawled at her "Git outof that." But on she came. When she wascloser he said: "Them weeds is full ofpoison oak." She grunted, and kept working[29]her way toward us, and with a belligerentswagger marched past us on into theengine-room, carrying a great mess ofgreens in her muddy hands.

There was scarcely space in that little shedfor the engine, and it was sticking out inseveral places. Yet it dawned on me thatthis was the wife of my host, that they kepthouse with that engine for the principal articleof furniture. Without a word of introductionor explanation she stood behindme and mumbled, "You need your supper,son. Come in."

There was actually a side-room in thatlittle box, a side room with a cot and a cupboardas well. On the floor was what wasonce a rug. But it had had a long kitchenhistory. She dipped a little unwashed bowlinto a larger unwashed bowl, with an unwashedthumb doing its whole duty. Shehanded me a fuzzy, unwashed spoon andsaid with a note of real kindness, "Eat yoursupper, young man." She patted me on the[30]shoulder with a sticky hand. Then she stood,looking at me fixedly. The woman had onlyhalf her wits.

I suppose they kept that stew till it wasused up, and then made another. I was aChild of Destiny, all right, and Destiny decreedI should eat. I sat there trying tothink of things to say to make agreeable conversation,and postpone the inevitable.Finally I told her I wanted to be a little boyonce more, and take my bowl and eat on thelog by the pond in the presence of Nature.

She maintained that genial silence whichindicates a motherly sympathy. I left hersmoking and smiling there. And like a littlechild that knows not the folly of waste, Islyly fed my supper to the ducks.

At bedtime the old gentleman slept in hisclothes on the cot in the kitchenette. Hehad the dog for a foot-warmer. There wasa jar of yeast under the table. Every sooften the old gentleman would call for theold lady to come and drive the ducks out, or[31]they would get the board off the jar. Everand anon the ducks had a taste before theavenger arrived.

On one side of the engine the old lady hadpiled gunny-sacks for my bed. That softenedthe cement-floor foundation. Then sheinsisted on adding that elegant rug fromthe kitchen, to protect me from the fuzz onthe sacks. She herself slept on a pile of excelsiorwith a bit of canvas atop. She kepta cat just by her cheek to keep her warm,and I have no doubt the pretty brute whisperedthings in her ear. Tabby was the onearistocratic, magical touch:—one of thesegolden coon-cats.

The old lady's bed was on the floor, justaround the corner from me, on the other sideof the engine. That engine stretched itsvast bulk between us. It was as the swordbetween the duke and the queen in the fairystory. But every so often, in response tothe old gentleman's alarm, the queen wouldcome climbing over my feet in order to get[32]to the kitchen and drive out the ducks.From where I lay I could see through twodoors to the night outside. I could watchthe stealthy approach of the white andwaddling marauders. Do not tell me a duckhas no sense of humor. It was a great gameof tag to them. It occurred as regularly asthe half hours were reached. I could timethe whole process by the ticking in my soul,while presumably asleep. And while waitingfor them to come up I could see the pondand a star reflected in the pond, the star ofmy Destiny, no doubt. At last it began torain. Despite considerations of fresh air,the door was shut, and soon everybody wasasleep.

The bed was not verminiferous. I dislikeall jokes on such a theme, but in this casethe issue must be met. It is the one thingthe tramp wants to know about his bunk.That peril avoided, there is nothing to quarrelabout. Despite all the grotesquerie of[33]that night, I am grateful for a roof, andtwo gentle friends.

Poor things! Just like all the citizens ofthe twentieth century, petting and groomingmachinery three times as smart as they arethemselves. Such people should have enginesto take care of them, instead of takingcare of engines. There stood the sleek brutein its stall, absorbing all, giving nothing,pumping supplies only for its own caste;—waterto be fed to other engines.

But seldom are keepers of engine-stablesas unfortunate as these. The best they canget from the world is cruel laughter. Yetthis woman, crippled in brain, her soul onlyhalf alive, this dull man, crippled in body,had God's gift of the liberal heart. If theyare supremely absurd, so are all of us. Wemust include ourselves in the farce. Thesetwo, tottering through the dimness and vexationof our queer world, were willing thestranger should lean upon them. I say theyhad the good gift of the liberal heart. One[34]thing was theirs to divide. That was a roof.They gave me my third and they helped meto hide from the rain. In the name of St.Francis I laid me down. May that saint ofall saints be with them, and with all thegentle and innocent and weary and broken!

UPON RETURNING TO THE COUNTRYROAD

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II
Walking Through Missouri

Tuesday Morning, June 4, 1912. In ahotel bedroom in Laddonia, Missouri. I occupythis room without charge.

Through the mercy of the gateman Icrossed the Hannibal toll-bridge withoutpaying fare, and the more enjoyed thepearly Mississippi in the evening twilight.Walking south of Hannibal next morning,Sunday, I was irresistibly reminded of Kentucky.It was the first real "pike" of myjourney,—solid gravel, and everyone wasexercising his racing pony in his racing cart,and giving me a ride down lovely avenuesof trees. Here, as in dozens of other interesting"lifts" in Illinois, I had the driver's[37]complete attention, recited The Gospel ofBeauty through a series of my more didacticrhymes till I was tired, and presented theVillage Improvement Parade and theRhymes to Be Traded for Bread and exhortedthe comradely driver to forget menever. One colored horseman hitched forwardon the plank of his breaking-cart andgave me his seat. Then came quite a rideinto New London. He asked, "So you goin'to walk west to the mountains and allaround?" "Yes, if this colt don't break myneck, or I don't lose my nerve or get bittenby a dog or anything." "Will you walkback?" "Maybe so, maybe not." He pondereda while, then said, with the Bert Williamsmanner, "You'll ride back. Mark mywords, you'll ride back!"

He asked a little later, "Goin' to harves'in Kansas?" I assured him I was not goingto harvest in Kansas. He rolled his big whiteeyes at me: "What in the name of UncleHillbilly air you up to then?"

In this case I could not present my tracts,[38]for I was holding on to him for dear life.Just then he turned off my road. Gettingout of the cart I nearly hung myself; andthe colt was away again before I could say"Thank you."

Yesterday I passed through what wasmostly a flat prairie country, abounding inthe Missouri mule. I met one man on horsebackdriving before him an enormous specimentied head to head with a draught-horse.The mule was continually dragging his good-naturedcomrade into the ditch and beingjerked out again. The mule is a perpetualinquisitor and experimenter. He followedme along the fence with the alertest curiosity,when he was inside the field, yet meetingme in the road, he often showed deadly terror.If he was a mule colt, following hismare mamma along the pike, I had to standin the side lane or hide behind a tree till hewent by, or else he would turn and run asif the very devil were after him. Then thefarmer on the mare would have to pursue[39]him a considerable distance, and drive himback with cuss words. 'Tis sweet to stir upso much emotion, even in the breast of ananimal.

What do you suppose happened in NewLondon? I approached what I thought atiny Baptist chapel of whitewashed stone.Noting it was about sermon-time, and feelinglike repenting, I walked in. Behold, themost harmoniously-colored Catholic shrinein the world! The sermon was beingpreached by the most gorgeously robedpriest one could well conceive. The fatherwent on to show how a vision of the Christ-childhad appeared on the altar of a laxcongregation in Spain. From that timethose people, stricken with reverence andgodly fear, put that church into repair, andthe community became a true servant of theLord. Infidels were converted, hereticswere confounded.

After the sermon came the climax of themass, and from the choir loft above my head[40]came the most passionate religious singingI ever heard in my life. The excellence ofthe whole worship, even to the preaching ofvisions, was a beautiful surprise.

People do not open their eyes enough,neither their spiritual nor their physical eyes.They are not sensitive enough to lovelinesseither visible or by the pathway of visions.I wish every church in the world could seethe Christ-child on the altar, every Methodistand Baptist as well as every Catholiccongregation.

With these thoughts I sat and listenedwhile that woman soloist sang not onlythrough the Mass, but the Benediction ofthe Blessed Sacrament as well. The wholesurprise stands out like a blazing star in mymemory.

I say we do not see enough visions. Iwish that, going out of the church door atnoon, every worshipper in America couldspiritually discern the Good St. Franciscome down to our earth and singing of the[41]Sun. I wish that saint would return. Iwish he would preach voluntary poverty toall the middle-class and wealthy folk of thisland, with the power that once shook Europe.

Friday, June 7, 1912. In the mid-afternoonin the woods, many miles west of JeffersonCity. I am sitting by a wild rosebush. I am looking down a long sunlit vistaof trees.

Wednesday evening, three miles fromFulton, Missouri, I encountered a terrificstorm. I tried one farm-house just beforethe rain came down, but they would not letme in, not even into the barn. They said itwas "not convenient." They said there wasanother place a little piece ahead, anyway.Pretty soon I was considerably rained upon.But the "other place" did not appear. Laterthe thunder and lightning were frightful.It seemed to me everything was being struckall around me: because of the sheer downpour[42]it became pitch dark. It seemed asthough the very weight of the rain wouldbeat me into the ground. Yet I felt that Ineeded the washing. The night before Ienjoyed the kind of hospitality that makesone yearn for a bath.

At last I saw a light ahead. I walkedthrough more cataracts and reached it.Then I knocked at the door. I entered whatrevealed itself to be a negro cabin. Minehost was Uncle Remus himself, only a personof more delicacy and dignity. He appearedto be well preserved, though he waseighteen years old when the war broke out.He owns forty acres and more than onemule. His house was sweet and clean, allmetal surfaces polished, all wood-workscrubbed white, all linen fresh laundered.He urged me to dry at his oven. It was along process, taking much fuel. He allowedme to eat supper and breakfast withhim and his family, which honor I scarcelydeserved. The old man said grace standing[43]up. Then we sat down and he said another.The first was just family prayers. The secondwas thanksgiving for the meal. Thetable was so richly and delicately providedthat within my heart I paraphrased thetwenty-third Psalm, though I did not quoteit out aloud: "Thou preparest a table beforeme in the presence of mine enemies"—(namely,the thunder and lightning, and theinhospitable white man!).

I hope to be rained on again if it bringsme communion bread like that I ate withmy black host. The conversation was aboutmany things, but began religiously; how"Ol' Master in the sky gave us everythinghere to take keer of, and said we mussentwaste any of it." The wife was a mixture ofcharming diffidence and eagerness in offeringher opinion on these points of politicaleconomy and theology.

After supper the old gentleman told mea sweet-singing field-bird I described wascalled the "Rachel-Jane." He had five children[44]grown and away from home and onesleek first voter still under his roof. Theold gentleman asked the inevitable question:"Goin' west harvestin'?"

I said "No" again. Then I spread outand explained The Village ImprovementParade. This did not interest the familymuch, but they would never have done withasking me questions about Lincoln. Andthe fact that I came from Lincoln's hometown was plainly my chief distinction in theireyes. The best bed was provided for me,and warm water in which to bathe, and Islept the sleep of the clean and regeneratedin snowy linen. Next morning the sunshone, and I walked the muddy roads ascheerfully as though they were the paths ofHeaven.

Sunday Morning, June 9, 1912. I amwriting in the railroad station at Tipton,Missouri.

A little while back a few people began[45]to ask me to work for my meals. I believethis is because the "genteel" appearancewith which I started has become somethingelse. My derby hat has been used for somany things,—to keep off a Noah's flood ofrain, to catch cherries in, to fight bumblebees,to cover my face while asleep, and keepaway the vague terrors of the night,—thatit is still a hat, but not quite in the mode.My face is baked by the sun and my handsare fried and stewed. My trousers arecreased not in one place, but all over. Thesethings made me look more like a person who,in the words of the conventional world,"ought to work."

Having been requested to work once ortwice, I immediately made it my custom tooffer labor-power as a preliminary to themeal. I generally ask about five people beforeI find the one who happens to be in ameal-giving mood. This kindly person,about two-thirds of the time, refuses to letme work. I insist and insist, but he says,[46]"Aw, come in and eat anyway." The manwho accepts my offer of work may let mecut weeds, or hoe corn or potatoes, but hegenerally shows me the woodpile and theaxe. Even then every thud of that inevitablydull instrument seems to go throughhim. After five minutes he thinks I haveworked an hour, and he comes to the porchand shouts: "Come in and get your dinner."

Assuming a meal is worth thirty-fivecents, I have never yet worked out the worthof one, at day-laborer's wages. Very oftenI am called into the house three times beforeI come. Whether I work or not, the mealsare big and good. Perhaps there is a littlecloser attention to The Gospel of Beauty,after three unheeded calls to dinner.

After the kindling is split and the mealeaten and they lean back in their chairs,a-weary of their mirth, by one means or anotherI show them how I am knocking at[47]the door of the world with a dream in myhand.

Because of the multitudes of tramps pouringwest on the freight trains,—tramps Inever see because I let freight cars alone,—nightaccommodations are not so easy to getas they were in my other walks in Pennsylvaniaand Georgia. I have not yet beenforced to sleep under the stars, but eachevening has been a scramble. There mustbe some better solution to this problem of asleeping-place.

The country hotel, if there is one around,is sometimes willing to take in the man whoflatly says he is broke. For instance, theinn-keeper's wife at Clarksburg was tenderlypitiful, yea, she was kind to me afterthe fashion of the holiest of the angels.There was a protracted meeting going onin the town. That was, perhaps, the reasonfor her exalted heart. But, whatever thereason, in this one case I was welcomed withsuch kindness and awe that I dared not lift[48]up my haughty head or distribute my poems,or give tongue to my views, or let her suspectfor a moment I was a special idea onlegs. It was much lovelier to have her thinkI was utterly forlorn.

This morning when I said good-bye Ifumbled my hat, mumbled my words andshuffled my feet, and may the Good St.Francis reward her.

When I asked the way to Tipton thefarmer wanted me to walk the railroad.People cannot see "why the Sam Hill" anyonewants to walk the highway when therails make a bee-line for the destination.This fellow was so anxious for the preservationof my feet he insisted it looked likerain. I finally agreed that, for the sake ofavoiding a wetting, I had best hurry to Tiptonby the ties. The six miles of railroadbetween Clarksburg and Tipton should bevisited by every botanist in the UnitedStates. Skip the rest of this letter unlessyou are interested in a catalogue of flowers.[49]

First comes the reed with the deep blueblossoms at the top that has bloomed by mypath all the way from Springfield, Illinois.Then come enormous wild roses, showingevery hue that friend of man ever displayed.Behold an army of white poppies join ourmarch, then healthy legions of waving mustard.Our next recruits are tiny golden-heartedragged kinsmen of the sunflower.No comrades depart from this triumphalmarch to Tipton. Once having joined us,they continue in our company. The massof color grows deeper and more subtle eachmoment. Behold, regiments of pale lavenderlarkspur. 'Tis an excellent garden, thefiner that it needs no tending. Though therain has failed to come, I begin to be glad Iam hobbling along over the vexatious ties.I forget my resolve to run for President.

Once I determined to be a candidate. Iknew I would get the tramp-vote and theactor-vote. My platform was to be that[50]railroad ties should be just close enough formen to walk on them in natural steps, neithermincing the stride nor widely stretching thelegs.

Not yet have we reached Tipton. Beholda white flower, worthy of a better name, thatthe farmers call "sheep's tea." Beholdpurple larkspur joining the lavender larkspur.Behold that disreputable camp-followerthe button-weed, wearing its shabbyfinery. Now a red delicate grass joins in,and a big purple and pink sort of an aster.Behold a pink and white sheep's tea. Andlook, there is a dwarf morning glory, thesweetest in the world. Here is a group ofblack-eyed Susans, marching like suffragettesto get the vote at Tipton. Here is awar-dance of Indian Paint. And here arebluebells.

"Goin' west harvestin'?"

"I have harvested already, ten thousandflowers an hour."

[51]

June 10, 1912. 3 p.m. Three miles westof Sedalia, Missouri. In the woods. Nearthe automobile road to Kansas City.

Now that I have passed Sedalia I ampretty well on toward the Kansas line.Only three more days' journey, and then Ishall be in Kansas, State of Romance, Stateof Expectation. Goodness knows Missourihas plenty of incident, plenty of merit. Butit is a cross between Illinois and northernKentucky, and to beg here is like beggingin my own back-yard.

But the heart of Kansas is the heart ofthe West.... Inclosed find a featherfrom the wing of a young chicken-hawk.He happened across the road day beforeyesterday. The farmer stopped the teamand killed him with his pitchfork. Thatfarmer seemed to think he had done the Lorda service in ridding the world of a parasite.Yet I had a certain fellow-feeling for thehawk, as I have for anybody who likeschicken.[52]

This walk is full of suggestions forpoems. Sometimes, in a confidential moment,I tell my hosts I am going to write achronicle of the whole trip in verse. But Icannot write it now. The traveller at mystage is in a kind of farm-hand condition ofmind and blood. He feels himself so mucha part of the soil and the sun and theploughed acres, he eats so hard and sleepsso hard, he has little more patience in tryingto write than the husbandman himself.

If that poem is ever written I shall say,—tomy fellow-citizens of Springfield, for instance:—"Ihave gone as your delegate togreet the fields, to claim them for youagainst a better day. I lay hold on thesefurrows on behalf of all those cooped up incities."

I feel that in a certain mystical sense Ihave made myself part of the hundreds andhundreds of farms that lie between me andmachine-made America. I have scarcelyseen anything but crops since I left home.[53]The whole human race is grubbing in thesoil, and the soil is responding with tremendousvigor. By walking I get as tired asany and imagine I work too. Sometimesthe glory goes. Then I feel my own idlenessabove all other facts on earth. I wantto get to work immediately. But I supposeI am a minstrel or nothing. (There goes asquirrel through the treetops.)

Every time I say "No" to the question"Goin' west harvestin'?" I am a little lessbrisk about reciting that triad of poems thatI find is the best brief exposition of mygospel: (1) The Proud Farmer, (2) TheIllinois Village and (3) The Building ofSpringfield.

If I do harvest it is likely to be just as itwas at the Springfield water-works a yearago, when I broke my back in a week tryingto wheel bricks.

June 12, 1912. On the banks of a streamwest of the town of Warrensburg, Missouri.[54]

Perhaps the problem of a night's lodginghas been solved. I seem to have found asubstitute for the spare bedrooms and whitesheets of Georgia and Pennsylvania. It appearsthat no livery stable will refuse a mana place to sleep. What happened at Ottervilleand Warrensburg I can make happenfrom here on, or so I am assured by a farm-hand.He told me that every tiniest villagefrom here to western Kansas has at leasttwo livery stables and there a man may sleepfor the asking. He should try to get permissionto mount to the hay-mow, for, unlessthe cot in the office is a mere stretch ofcanvas, it is likely to be (excuse me) verminiferous.The stable man asks if the mendicanthas matches or tobacco. If he hashe must give them up. Also he is told notto poke his head far out of the loft window,for, if the insurance man caught him, itwould be all up with the insurance. Thesepreliminaries quickly settled, the transientrequests a buggy-robe to sleep in, lest he be[55]overwhelmed with the loan of a horse-blanket.The objection to a horse-blanketis that it is a horse-blanket.

And so, if I am to believe my friend withthe red neck, my good times at Warrensburgand Otterville are likely to continue.

Strange as it may seem, sleeping in a hayloftis Romance itself. The alfalfa is softand fragrant and clean, the wind blowsthrough the big loft door, the stars shinethrough the cottonwoods. If I wake in thenight I hear the stable-boys bringing in theteams of men who have driven a long wayand back again to get something;—to getdrunk, or steal the kisses of somebody's wifeor put over a political deal or get a chanceto preach a sermon;—and I get scraps ofdetail from the stable-boys after the mainactors of the drama have gone. It soundsas though all the remarks were being madein the loft instead of on the ground floor.The horses stamp and stamp and the grindingsound of their teeth is so close to me I[56]cannot believe at first that the mangers andfeed-boxes are way down below.

It is morning before I know it and thegorged birds are singing "shivaree, shivaree,Rachel Jane, Rachel Jane" in the mulberrytrees, just outside the loft window.After a short walk I negotiate for breakfast,then walk on through Paradise and atthe proper time negotiate for dinner, walkon through Paradise again and at six negotiatefor the paradisical haymow, withoutlooking for supper, and again more sleepythan hungry. The difference between thissystem and the old one is that about halfpast four I used to begin to worry aboutsupper and night accommodations, and generallyworried till seven. Now life is onelong sweet stroll, and I watch the sunsetfrom my bed in the alfalfa with the delightsof the whole day renewed in my heart.

Passing through the village of Sedalia Iinquired the way out of town to the mainroad west. My informant was a man named[57]McSweeny, drunk enough to be awfullyfriendly. He asked all sorts of questions.He induced me to step two blocks out ofmy main course down a side-street to his"Restaurant." He said he was not going tolet me leave town without a square meal. Itwas a strange eating-place, full of ditch-diggers,teamsters, red-necked politiciansand slender intellectual politicians. In thebackground was a scattering of the furtivedaughters of pleasure, some white, someblack. The whole institution was but anannex to the bar-room in front. Mr. McSweenylooked over my book while I ate.After the meal he gathered a group of thepoliticians and commanded me to recite. Igave them my rhyme in memory of Altgeldand my rhyme in denunciation of Lorimer,and my rhyme denouncing all who coöperatedin the white slave trade, including sellersof drink. Mr. McSweeny said I was thegoods, and offered to pass the hat, but Iwould not permit. A handsome black jezebel[58]sat as near us as she dared and listenedquite seriously. I am sure she would haveput something in that hat if it had goneround.

"I suppose," said Mr. McSweeny, as hestood at his door to bow adieu, "you willharvest when you get a little further west?"

That afternoon I walked miles and milesthrough rough country, and put up with afriendly farmer named John Humphrey.He had children like little golden doves, anda most hard-working wife. The man hadharvested and travelled eight years in thewest before he had settled down. He toldme all about it. Until late that night he toldme endless fascinating stories upon thetheme of that free man's land ahead of me.If he had not had those rosy babies to anchorhim, he would have picked up and gonealong, and argued down my rule to travelalone.

Because he had been a man of the roadthere was a peculiar feeling of understanding[59]in the air. They were people of muchnatural refinement. I was the more gratefulfor their bread when I considered thatwhen I came upon them at sunset they wereworking together in the field. There wasnot a hand to help. How could they be sohappy and seem so blest? Their day wasnearer sixteen than eight hours long. I feltdeathly ashamed to eat their bread. I toldthem so, with emphasis. But the mothersaid, "We always takes in them that asks,and nobody never done us no harm yet."

That night was a turning point with me.In reply to a certain question I said: "Yes.I am going west harvesting."

I asked the veteran traveller to tell me thebest place to harvest. He was sitting onthe floor pulling the children's toes, and havinga grand time. He drew himself up intoa sort of oracular knot, with his chin on hisknees, and gesticulated with his pipe.

"Go straight west," he said, "to GreatBend, Barton County, Kansas, the banner[60]wheat county of the United States. Arriveabout July fifth. Walk to the public square.Walk two miles north. Look around. Youwill see nothing but wheat fields, and farmersstanding on the edge of the road cryinginto big red handkerchiefs. Ask the firstman for work. He will stop crying andgive it to you. Wages will be two dollarsand a half a day, and keep. You will haveall you want to eat and a clean blanket inthe hay."

I have resolved to harvest at Great Bend.

HEART OF GOD
A PRAYER IN THE JUNGLES OF HEAVEN

[62]

III
Walking into Kansas

It has been raining quite a little. Theroads are so muddy I have to walk theties. Keeping company with the railroad isalmost a habit. While this shower passes Iwrite in the station at Stillwell, Kansas.

June 14, 1912. I have crossed the mysticborder. I have left Earth. I have enteredWonderland. Though I am still eastof the geographical centre of the UnitedStates, in every spiritual sense I am in theWest. This morning I passed the stonemile-post that marks the beginning ofKansas.

I went over the border and encountered—whatdo you think? Wild strawberries!Lo, where the farmer had cut the weeds[63]between the road and the fence, the gentlefruits revealed themselves, growing in theshadow down between the still-standingweeds. They shine out in a red line thatstretches on and on, and a man has to resolveto stop eating several times. Just ashe thinks he has conquered desire the linegets dazzlingly red again.

The berries grow at the end of a slenderstalk, clustered six in a bunch. One gathersthem by the stems, in bouquets, as it were,and eats off the fruit like taffy off a stick.

I was gathering buckets of cherries for afarmer's wife yesterday. This morning afterthe strawberries had mitigated I encountereda bush of raspberries, and then hedgeson hedges of mulberries both white and red.The white mulberries are the sweetest. Ifthis is the wild West, give me more. Thereare many varieties of trees, and they arethick as in the East. The people seem togrow more cordial. I was eating mulberriesoutside the yard of a villager. He asked[64]me in where the eating was better. Andthen he told me the town scandal, while Ihad my dessert.

A day or so ago I hoed corn all morningfor my dinner. This I did cheerfully, consideringI had been given a good breakfastat that farm for nothing. I feel that twogood meals are worth about a morning'swork anyway. And then I had company.The elderly owner of the place hoed alongwith me. He saved the country, by preachingto me the old fashioned high tariff gospel,and I saved it by preaching to him thenew fashioned Gospel of Beauty. Meanwhilethe corn was hoed. Then we went inand ate the grandest of dinners. Thathouse was notable for having on its wallsreally artistic pictures, not merely respectablepictures, nor yet seed-catalogue advertisem*nts.

That night, in passing through a village,I glimpsed a man washing his dishes in the[65]rear of a blacksmith shop. I said to myself:"Ah ha! Somebody keeping bach."

I knew I was welcome. There is no fearof the stranger in such a place, for there areno ladies to reassure or propitiate. Permissionto sleep on the floor was granted as soonas asked. I spread out The Kansas CityStar, which is a clean sheet, put my versesunder my head for a pillow and was content.Next morning the sun was in my eyes.There was the odor of good fried bacon inthe air.

"Git up and eat a snack, pardner," saidmy friend the blacksmith. And while I atehe told me the story of his life.

I had an amusing experience at the townof Belton. I had given an entertainmentat the hotel on the promise of a night's lodging.I slept late. Over my transom camethe breakfast-table talk. "That was a hotentertainment that young bum gave us lastnight," said one man. "He ought to get towork, the dirty lazy loafer," said another.[66]

The schoolmaster spoke up in an effortnot to condescend to his audience: "He isevidently a fraud. I talked to him a longtime after the entertainment. The pieceshe recited were certainly not his own. I haveread some of them somewhere. It is tooeasy a way to get along, especially whenthe man is as able to work as this one. Ofcourse in the old days literary men used tobe obliged to do such things. But it isn'tat all necessary in the Twentieth Century.Real poets are highly paid." Another spokeup: "I don't mind a fake, but he is a rottenreciter, anyhow. If he had said onemore I would have just walked right out.You noticed ol' Mis' Smith went home afterthat piece about the worms." Then came thelandlord's voice: "After the show was overI came pretty near not letting him have hisroom. All I've got to say is he don't getany breakfast."

I dressed, opened the doorway serenely,and strolled past the table, smiling with all[67]the ease of a minister at his own church-social.In my most ornate manner I thankedthe landlord and landlady for their extremekindness. I assumed that not one of the gentle-folkhad intended to have me hear theiranalysis. 'Twas a grand exit. Yet, in plainlanguage, these people "got my goat." Ihave struggled with myself all morning, almoston the point of ordering a marked copyof a magazine sent to that smart schoolmaster."Evidently a fraud!" Indeed!

"Goin' wes' harvesin'?"

"Yes, yes. I think I will harvest when Iget to Great Bend."

June 18, 1912. Approaching Emporia.I am sitting in the hot sun by the Santa Fétracks, after two days of walking thosetracks in the rain. I am near a queer littleMexican house built of old railroad ties.

I had had two sticks of candy beggedfrom a grocer for breakfast. I was keepingwarm by walking fast. Because of the[68]muddy roads and the sheets of rain comingdown it was impossible to leave the tracks.It was almost impossible to make speed sincethe ballast underfoot was almost all of itbig rattling broken stone. I had walkedthat Santa Fé railroad a day and a half inthe drizzle and downpour. It was a littlepast noon, and my scanty inner fuel wasalmost used up. I dared not stop a minutenow, lest I catch cold. There was no stationin sight ahead. When the mists lifted I sawthat the tracks went on and on, straight westto the crack of doom, not even a water-tankin sight. The mists came down, then liftedonce more, and, as though I were ChildeRoland, I suddenly saw a shack to the right,in dimensions about seven feet each way.It was mostly stove-pipe, and that pipe waspouring out enough smoke to make three ofAladdin's Jinns. I presume some one heardme whistling. The little door opened. Twoperiod heads popped out, "Come in, you slab-sidedhobo," they yelled affectionately. "Come in[69]and get dry." And so my heart was madesuddenly light after a day and a half ofhard whistling.

At the inside end of that busy smoke-stackwas a roaring redhot stove about asbig as a hat. It had just room enough ontop for three steaming coffee cans at a time.There were four white men with their chinson their knees completely occupying thefloor of one side of the mansion, and fourMexicans filled the other. Every man washunched up to take as little room as possible.It appeared that my only chance wasto move the tins and sit on the stove. Butone Mexican sort of sat on another Mexicanand the new white man was accommodated.These fellows were a double-section gang,for the track is double all along here.

I dried out pretty quick. The men beganto pass up the coffee off the stove. Itstrangled and blistered me, it was so hot.The men were almost to the bottom of thefood sections of their buckets and were beginning[70]to throw perfectly good sandwichesand extra pieces of pie through the door.I said that if any man had anything to throwaway would he just wait till I stepped outsideso I could catch it. They handed meall I could ever imagine a man eating. Itrained and rained and rained, and I ate tillI could eat no more. One man gave me fordessert the last half of his cup of stewedraisins along with his own spoon. Goodraisins they were, too. A Mexican urgedupon me some brown paper and cigarettetobacco. I was sorry I did not smoke. Themen passed up more and more hot coffee.

That coffee made me into a sort of thermosbottle. On the strength of it I walked allafternoon through sheets and cataracts.When dark came I slept in wet clothes in adamp blanket in the hay of a windy livery stablewithout catching cold.

Now it is morning. The sky is reasonablyclear, the weather is reasonably warm, but I[71]am no longer a thermos bottle, no, no. I amsitting on the hottest rock I can find, lettingthe sun go through my bones. The coffeein me has turned at last to ice and snow.Emporia, the Athens of America, is justahead. Oh, for a hot bath and a clean shirt!

A mad dog tried to bite me yesterdaymorning, when I made a feeble attempt toleave the track. When I was once back onthe ties, he seemed afraid and would notcome closer. His bark was the ghastliestthing I ever heard. As for his bite, he didnot get quite through my shoe-heel.

Emporia, Kansas, June 19, 1912. Oninquiring at the Emporia General Deliveryfor mail, I found your letter tellingme to call upon your friend Professor Kerr.He took my sudden appearance most kindly,and pardoned my battered attire and themud to the knees. After a day in his houseI am ready to go on, dry and feasted andwarm and clean. The professor's help[72]seemed to come in just in time. I was a mostweary creature.

Thinking it over this morning, the bathtubappears to be the first outstanding advantagethe cultured man has over the half-civilized.Quite often the folk with swepthouses and decent cooking who have givenmy poems discriminating attention, whohave given me good things to eat, forget,even when they entertain him overnight,that the stranger would like to soak himselfthoroughly. Many of the working peopleseem to keep fairly clean with the washpanas their principal ally. But the tub is indispensableto the mendicant in the end, unlesshe is walking through a land of crystalwaterfalls, like North Georgia.

I am an artificial creature at last, dependent,after all, upon modern plumbing. 'Tis,perhaps, not a dignified theme, but I retiredto the professor's bathroom and washed offthe entire State of Missouri and the easterncounties of Kansas, and did a deal of[73]laundry work on the sly. This last was notopenly confessed to the professor, but hemight have guessed, I was so cold on thefront porch that night.

I shall not soon lose the memory of thisthe first day of emergence from the straitpaths of St. Francis, this first meeting, sinceI left Springfield, with a person on whom Ihad a conventional social claim. I had forgottenwhat the delicacy of a cultured welcomewould be like. The professor's tablewas a marvel to me. I was astonished todiscover there were such fine distinctions infood and linen. And for all my troubadourprofession, I had almost forgotten therewere such distinctions in books. I havehardly seen one magazine since I left you.The world where I have been moving readsnothing but newspapers. It is confusing tobob from one world to the other, to zig-zagacross the social dead-line. I sat in the professor'slibrary a very mixed-up person, feelingI could hardly stay a minute, yet too[74]heavy-footed to stir an inch, and immenselygrateful and relaxed.

Sooner or later I am going to step up intothe rarefied civilized air once too often andstay there in spite of myself. I shall get alittle too fond of the china and old silver,and forget the fields. Books and teacupsand high-brow conversations are awfully insinuatingthings, if you give them time tobe. One gets along somehow, and pleasurealternates with pain, and the sum is the joyof life, while one is below. But to quit islike coming up to earth after deep-sea divingin a heavy suit. One scarcely realizes he hasbeen under heavier-than-air pressure, andhas been fighting off great forces, till he hastaken off his diving helmet, as it were. Andyet there is a baffling sense of futility in therestful upper air. I remember it once, longago, in emerging in Warren, Ohio, and oncein emerging in Macon, Georgia:—the feelingthat the upper world is all tissue paper,[75]that the only choice a real man can make isto stay below with the great forces of lifeforever, even though he be a tramp—thefeeling that, to be a little civilized, we sacrificeenormous powers and joys. For allI was so tired and so very grateful to theprofessor, I felt like a bull in a china shop.I should have been out in the fields, eatinggrass.

THE KALLYOPE YELL
[Loudly and rapidly with a leader, Collegeyell fashion]

I

II

III

IV

V

Sunday Morning, June 23, 1912. I amwriting on the top of a pile of creosote-soakedties between the Santa Fé tracks andthe trail that runs parallel to the tracks.Florence, Kansas, is somewhere ahead.

In the East the railroads and machinerychoke the land to death and it was there Imade my rule against them. But the fartherWest I go the more the very life of thecountry seems to depend upon them. I suppose,though, that some day, even out West[83]here, the rule against the railroad will be agood rule.

Meanwhile let me say that my Ruskinianprejudices are temporarily overcome by thepicturesqueness and efficiency of the SantaFé. It is double-tracked, and every fourmiles is kept in order by a hand-car crewthat is spinning back and forth all the time.The air seems to be full of hand-cars.

Walking in a hurry to make a certainplace by nightfall I have become acquaintedwith these section hands, and, most delightfulto relate, have ridden in their iron conveyances,putting my own back into thework. Half or three-fourths of the employeesare Mexicans who are as ornamentalin the actual landscape as they are in a Remingtondrawing. These Mexicans are tractableserfs of the Santa Fé. If there wereenough miles of railroad in Mexico to keepall the inhabitants busy on section, perhapsthe internal difficulties could be ended.These peons live peacefully next to the[84]tracks in houses built by the company fromold ties. The ties are placed on end, side byside, with plaster in the cracks, on a tinyoblong two-room plan. There is a littleroofed court between the rooms. A farmertold me that the company tried Greek serfsfor a while, but they made trouble for outsidersand murdered each other.

The road is busy as busy can be. Almostany time one can see enormous freight-trainsrolling by or mile-a-minute passenger trains.Gates are provided for each farmer'sright of way. I was told by an exceptionalMexican with powers of speech that the efficientdragging of the wagon-roads, especiallythe "New Santa Fé Trail" that followsthe railroad, is owing to the missionarywork of King, the split-log drag man, whowas employed to go up and down this landagitating his hobby.

When the weather is good, touring automobileswhiz past. They have pennantsshowing they are from Kansas City, Emporia,[85]New York or Chicago. They havecamping canvas and bedding on the backseats of the car, or strapped in the rear.They are on camping tours to ColoradoSprings and the like pleasure places. Somefew avow they are going to the coast. Aboutfive o'clock in the evening some man makinga local trip is apt to come along alone. Heit is that wants the other side of the machineweighed down. He it is that will offer me aride and spin me along from five to twenty-fivemiles before supper. This delightfuluse that may be made of an automobile inrounding out a day's walk has had somethingto do with mending my prejudiceagainst it, despite the grand airs of the touriststhat whirl by at midday. I still maintainthat the auto is a carnal institution, tobe shunned by the truly spiritual, but thereare times when I, for one, get tired of beingspiritual.

Much of the country east of Emporia ishilly and well-wooded and hedged like Missouri.[86]But now I am getting into the rangeregion. Yesterday, after several miles oftreeless land that had never known theplough, I said to myself: "Now I am reallyWest." And my impression was reinforcedwhen I reached a grand baronial establishmentcalled "Clover Hill Ranch." It wasflanked by the houses of the retainers. Inthe foreground and a little to the side wasthe great stone barn for the mules and horses.Back on the little hill, properly introducedby ceremonious trees, was the ranch houseitself. And before it was my lord on hisranching charger. The aforesaid lordcreated quite an atmosphere of lordliness ashe refused work in the alfalfa harvest to abattered stranger who bowed too low andbegged too hard, perhaps. On the porchwas my lady, feeding bread and honey to thebeautiful young prince of the place.

I have not yet reached the wheat belt.Since the alfalfa harvest is on here, I shalltry for that a bit.[87]

Sunday Afternoon, June 30, 1912. Inthe spare room of a Mennonite farmer, wholives just inside the wheat belt.

This is going to be a long Sunday afternoon;so make up your minds for a long letter.I did not get work in the alfalfa. Yetthere is news. I have been staying a weekwith this Mennonite family shocking wheatfor them, though I am not anywhere nearGreat Bend.

Before I tell you of the harvest, I musttell you of these Mennonites. They are adear people. I have heard from their reverentlips the name of their founder, MennoSimonis, who was born about the time ofColumbus and Luther and other suchworthies. They are as opposed to carnalliterature as I am to tailor-made clothes,and I hold they are perfectly correct in allowingno fashion magazines in the house.Such modern books as they read deal withpractical local philanthropies and great internationalmission movements, and their interdenominational[88]feelings for all Christendomare strong. Yet they hold to their ancientverities, and antiquity broods over theirmeditations.

For instance I found in their bookcase anendless dialogue epic called The WanderingSoul, in which this soul, seeking mainly forinformation, engages in stilted conversationwith Adam, Noah, and Simon Cleophas.Thereby the Wandering Soul is informedas to the orthodox history and chronology ofthe world from the Creation to the destructionof Jerusalem. The wood-cuts are devotional.They are worth walking to Kansasto see. The book had its third translationinto Pennsylvania English in 1840,but several American editions had existedin German before that, and several Germaneditions in Germany. It was originallywritten in the Dutch language and was popularamong the Mennonites there. But itlooks as if it was printed by Adam to lastforever and scare bad boys.[89]

Let us go to meeting. All the women areon their own side of the aisle. All of themhave a fairly uniform Quakerish sort ofdress of no prescribed color. In front arethe most pious, who wear a black scoop-bonnet.Some have taken this off, and showthe inevitable "prayer-covering" underneath.It is the plainest kind of a lace-cap, awfullycoquettish on a pretty head. It is intendedto mortify the flesh, and I suppose it is unbecomingto some women.

All the scoop-bonnets are not black.Toward the middle of the church, behold acream-satin, a soft gray, a dull moon-gold.One young woman, moved, I fear, by thedevil, turns and looks across the aisle at us.An exceedingly demure bow is tied all toosweetly under the chin, in a decorous butterflystyle. Fie! fie! Is this mortifying theflesh? And I note with pain that the blackbonnets grow fewer and fewer toward therear of the meeting house.

Here come the children, with bobbing[90]headgear of every color of the rainbow, yetthe same scoop-pattern still. They have beentaking little walks and runs between Sunday-schooland church, and are all flushedand panting. But I would no more criticisethe color of their headgear than the color intheir faces. Some of them squeeze in amongthe black rows in front and make piety reasonable.But we noted by the door as theyentered something that both the church andthe world must abhor. Seated as near to themen's side as they can get, with a mixtureof shame and defiance in their faces, are certaindaughters of the Mennonites who insiston dressing after the fashions that comefrom Paris and Kansas City and Emporia.By the time the rumors of what is proper inmillinery have reached this place they are adisconcerting mixture of cherries, feathersand ferns. And somehow there are too manymussy ribbons on the dresses.

We can only guess how these rebels mustsuffer under the concentrated silent prayers[91]of the godly. Poor honest souls! they taketo this world's vain baggage and overdo it.Why do they not make up their minds toserve the devil sideways, like that sly pusswith the butterfly bow?

On the men's side of the house the divisionon dress is more acute. The Holinessmovement, the doctrine of the Second Blessingthat has stirred many rural Methodistgroups, has attacked the Mennonites also.Those who dispute for this new ism of sanctificationleave off their neckties as a sign.Those that retain their neckties, satisfiedwith what Menno Simonis taught, have ahard time remaining in a state of completecalm. The temptation to argue the matteris almost more than flesh can bear.

But, so far as I could discover, there wasno silent prayer over the worst lapse of thesepeople. What remains of my Franciscansoul was hurt to discover that the buggy-shedof the meeting-house was full of automobiles.And to meet a Mennonite on the[92]road without a necktie, his wife in the blackestof bonnets, honking along in one of thoseglittering brazen machines, almost shakesmy confidence in the Old Jerusalem Gospel.

Yet let me not indulge in disrespect.Every spiritual warfare must abound in itslittle ironies. They are keeping their ruleagainst finery as well as I am keeping mineagainst the railroad. And they have theirown way of not being corrupted by money.Their ministry is unsalaried. Their preachersare sometimes helpers on the farms,sometimes taken care of outright, the sameas I am.

As will later appear, despite some inconsistencies,the Mennonites have a piety asliteral as any to be found on the earth. Sincethey are German there is no lack of thoughtin their system. I attended one of theirquarterly conferences and I have neverheard better discourses on the distinctionsbetween the four gospels. The men whospoke were scholars.[93]

The Mennonites make it a principle to ignorepolitics, and are non-resistants in war.I have read in the life of one of their heroeswhat a terrible time his people had in theShenandoah valley in the days of Sheridan....Three solemn tracts are here on mydresser. The first is against church organs,embodying a plea for simplicity and thespending of such money on local benevolencesand world-wide missions. The tractaptly compares the church-organ to the Thibetanprayer-wheel, and later to praying byphonograph. A song is a prayer to them,and they sing hymns and nothing but hymnsall week long.

The next tract is on non-conformity tothis world, and insists our appearance shouldindicate our profession, and that fashionsdrive the poor away from the church. Itcondemns jewels and plaiting of the hair,etc., and says that such things stir up awicked and worldly lust in the eyes of youth.This tract goes so far as to put worldly pictures[94]under the ban. Then comes another,headed Bible Teaching on Dress. It goeson to show that every true Christian, especiallythat vain bird, the female, should wearsomething like the Mennonite uniform toindicate the line of separation from "theWorld." I have a good deal of sympathyfor all this, for indeed is it not briefly comprehendedin my own rule: "Carry no baggage"?

These people celebrate communion everyhalf year, and at the same time they practisethe ritual of washing the feet. Since IsadoraDuncan has rediscovered the humanfoot æsthetically, who dares object to it inritual? It is all a question of what weare trained to expect. Certainly these peopleare respecters of the human foot and notashamed to show it. Next to the way theirwomen have of making a dash to find theirgauzy prayer-covering, which they put onfor grace at table and Bible-lesson beforebreakfast, their most striking habit is the[95]way both men and women go about in veryclean bare feet after supper. Next to thislet me note their resolve to have no profanehour whatsoever. When not actually atwork they sit and sing hymns, each Christianon his own hook as he has leisure.

My first evening among these dearstrangers I was sitting alone by the frontdoor, looking out on the wheat. I wasthrilled to see the fairest member of thehousehold enter, not without grace and dignity.Her prayer covering was on her head,her white feet were shining like those ofNicolette and her white hymn-book was inher hand. She ignored me entirely. Shewas rapt in trance. She sat by the windowand sang through the book, looking straightat a rose in the wall-paper.

I lingered there, reading The WanderingSoul just as oblivious of her presence as shewas of mine. Oh, no; there was no art inthe selection of her songs! I remember onewhich was to this effect:[96]

On the whole she had as much right toplunk down and sing hymns out of seasonas I have to burst in and quote poetry topeaceful and unprotected households.

I would like to insert a discourse here onthe pleasure and the naturalness and the humannessof testifying to one's gospel whateverthat gospel may be, barefooted or golden-slipperedor iron-shod. The best wemay win in return may be but a kindlysmile. We may never make one convert.Still the duty of testifying remains, andis enjoined by the invisible powers andmakes for the health of the soul. This Mennonitewas a priestess of her view of thetruth and comes of endless generations ofsuch snow-footed apostles. I presume the[97]sect ceased to enlarge when the Quakersceased to thrive, but I make my guess thatit does not crumble as fast as the Quakers,having more German stolidity.

Let me again go forward, testifying tomy particular lonely gospel in the face ofsuch pleasant smiles and incredulous questionsas may come. I wish I could start asturdy sect like old Menno Simonis did.They should dress as these have done, andbe as stubborn and rigid in their discipline.They should farm as these have done, buton reaching the point where the Mennonitebuys the automobile, that money and energyshould go into the making of cross-roadspalaces for the people, golden as the harvestfield, and disciplined well-parked villages,good as a psalm, and cities fair as a Mennonitelady in her prayer-covering, delicateand noble as Athens the unforgotten, thedivine.

The Mennonite doctrine of non-participationin war or politics leads them to confine[98]their periodic literature to religious journalsexclusively, plus The Drover's Journal tokeep them up to date on the prices of farm-products.There is only one Mennonite politicalevent, the coming of Christ to judgethe earth. Of that no man knoweth theday or the hour. We had best be preparedand not play politics or baseball or anything.Just keep unspotted and harvest thewheat.

"Goin' wes' harvesin'?"

I have harvested, thank you. Four daysand a half I have shocked wheat in theseprayer-consecrated fields that I see even nowfrom my window. And I have good harddollars in my pocket, which same dollars areagainst my rules.

I will tell you of the harvest in the nextletter.[99]

ON THE ROAD TO NOWHERE

[101]

IV
In Kansas: The First Harvest

Monday Afternoon, July 1, 1912. Alittle west of Newton, Kansas. In the publiclibrary of a village whose name I forget.

Here is the story of how I came to harvest.I was by chance taking a short respitefrom the sunshine, last Monday noon, onthe porch of the Mennonite farmer. I hadhad dinner further back. But the good folkasked me to come in and have dessert anyway.It transpired that one of the twoharvest hands was taking his farewell meal.He was obliged to fill a contract to workfurther West, a contract made last year. Itimidly suggested I might take his place.To my astonishment I was engaged at once.This fellow was working for two dollars a[102]day, but I agreed to $1.75, seeing my predecessorwas a skilled man and twice as bigas I was. My wages, as I discovered, includedthree rich meals, and a pretty spareroom to sleep in, and a good big bucketto bathe in nightly.

I anticipate history at this point by tellinghow at the end of the week my wages lookedas strange to me as a bunch of unexpectedducklets to a hen. They were as curious tocontemplate as a group of mischievous nieceswho have come to spend the day with theirembarrassed, fluttering maiden aunt.

I took my wages to Newton, and spentall on the vanities of this life. First thegrandest kind of a sombrero, so I shall notbe sunstruck in the next harvest-field, whichI narrowly escaped in this. Next, the mostindestructible of corduroys. Then I hadmy shoes re-soled and bought a necktie thatwas like the oriflamme of Navarre, and attendedto several other points of vanity. Istarted out again, dead broke and happy.[103]If I work hereafter I can send most all mywages home, for I am now in real travellingcostume.

But why linger over the question of wagestill I show I earned those wages?

Let me tell you of a typical wheat-harvestingday. The field is two miles from thehouse. We make preparations for a twelve-hoursiege. Halters and a barrel of waterand a heap of alfalfa for the mules, binder-twineand oil for the reaper and water-jugsfor us are loaded into the spring wagon.Two mules are hitched in front, two are ledbehind. The new reaper was left in the fieldyesterday. We make haste. We must beat work by the time the dew dries. Thefour mules are soon hitched to the reaperand proudly driven into the wheat by the sonof the old Mennonite. This young fellowcarries himself with proper dignity as heirof the farm. He is a credit to the father.He will not curse the mules, though thoseanimals forget their religion sometimes, and[104]act after the manner of their kind. Theworst he will do will be to call one of theman old cow. I suppose when he is vexedwith a cow he calls it an old mule. Myother companion is a boy of nineteen from aMennonite community in Pennsylvania. Hesets me a pace. Together we build thesheaves into shocks, of eight or ten sheaveseach, put so they will not be shaken by anordinary Kansas wind. The wind has beenblowing nearly all the time at a rate whichin Illinois would mean a thunderstorm infive minutes, and sometimes the clouds loomin the thunderstorm way, yet there is not adrop of rain, and the clouds are soon gone.

In the course of the week the boy and Ihave wrestled with heavy ripe sheaves,heavier green sheaves, sheaves full of Russianthistles and sheaves with the string off.The boy, as he sings The day-star hath risen,twists a curious rope of straw and reties theloose bundles with one turn of the hand.[105]I try, but cannot make the knot. Once allsheaves were so bound.

Much of the wheat must be cut heavy andgreen because there is a liability to suddenstorms or hail that will bury it in mud, orsoften the ground and make it impossibleto drag the reaper, or hot winds that suddenlyripen the loose grain and shake itinto the earth. So it is an important matterto get the wheat out when it is anywherenear ready. I found that two of the girlswere expecting to take the place of the departinghand, if I had not arrived.

The Mennonite boy picked up two sheavesto my one at the beginning of the week.To-day I learn to handle two at a time andhe immediately handles three at a time. Hebuilds the heart of the sheaf. Then we addthe outside together. He is always marchingahead and causing me to feel ashamed.

The Kansas grasshopper makes himselffriendly. He bites pieces out of the backof my shirt the shape and size of the ace[106]of spades. Then he walks into the door hehas made and loses himself. Then he hasto be helped out, in one way or another.

The old farmer, too stiff for work, comesout on his dancing pony and rides behind thenew reaper. This reaper was bought onlytwo days ago and he beams with pride uponit. It seems that he and his son almostswore, trying to tinker the old one. Thefarmer looks with even more pride uponthe field, still a little green, but mostlygolden. He dismounts and tests the grain,threshing it out in his hand, figuring theaverage amount in several typical heads. Hestands off, and is guilty of an æsthetic thrill.He says of the sea of gold: "I wish I couldhave a photograph of that." (O eloquentword, for a Mennonite!) Then he plays atbuilding half a dozen shocks, then goes hometill late in the afternoon. We three areagain masters of the field.

We are in a level part of Kansas, not arolling range as I found it further east.[107]The field is a floor. Hedges gradually fadedfrom the landscape in counties several days'journey back, leaving nothing but unbrokenbillows to the horizon. But the hedges havebeen resumed in this region. Each timeround the enormous field we stop at a breakin the line of those untrimmed old thorn-trees.Here we rest a moment and drinkfrom the water-jug. To keep from gettingsunstruck I profanely waste the water,pouring it on my head, and down my neckto my feet. I came to this farm wearinga derby, and have had to borrow a slouchwith a not-much-wider rim from the farmer.It was all the extra headgear available inthis thrifty region. Because of that not-much-widerrim my face is sunburned allover every day. I have not yet received mywages to purchase my sombrero.

As we go round the field, the Mennoniteboy talks religion, or is silent. I have caughtthe spirit of the farm, and sing all the hymn-tunesI can remember. Sometimes the wind[108]turns hot. Perspiration cannot keep up withevaporation. Our skins are dry as thedryest stubble. Then we stand and wait fora little streak of cool wind. It is prettysure to come in a minute. "That's a niceair," says the boy, and gets to work. Onceit was so hot all three of us stopped fiveminutes by the hedge. Then it was I toldthem the story of the hens I met just westof Emporia.

I had met ten hens walking single-file intothe town of Emporia. I was astonished tomeet educated hens. Each one was swearing.I would not venture, I added, to repeatwhat they said.

Not a word from the Mennonites.

I continued in my artless way, showinghow I stopped the next to the last hen,though she was impatient to go on. I inquired"Where are you all travelling?" Shesaid "To Emporia." And so I asked, "Whyare you swearing so?" She answered,[109]"Don't you know about the Sunday-schoolpicnic?" I paused in my story.

No word from the Mennonites. One ofthem rose rather impatiently.

I poured some water on my head and continued:"I stopped the last hen. I asked:"Why are you swearing, sister? And whatabout the picnic?" She replied: "These Emporiapeople are going to give a Sunday-schoolpicnic day after to-morrow. Meantimeall us hens have to lay devilled eggs."

"We do not laugh at jokes about swearing,"said the Mennonite driver, and climbedback on to his reaper. My partner strodesolemnly out into the sun and began to pilesheaves.

Each round we study our shadows on thestubble more closely, thrilled with the feelingthat noon creeps on. And now, up theroad we see a bit of dust and a rig. No, itis not the woman we are looking for, buta woman with supplies for other harvesters.We work on and on, while four disappointing[110]rigs go by. At last appears a sunbonnetwe know. Our especial Mennonite maidis sitting quite straight on the edge of theseat and holding the lines almost on a levelwith her chin. She drives through the fieldtoward us. We motion her to the gap in thehedge.

We unhitch, and lead the mules to the gap,where she joins us. With much high-mindedexpostulation the men try to show themules they should eat alfalfa and not hedge-thorns.The mules are at last tied out in thesun to a wheel of the wagon, away fromtemptation, with nothing but alfalfa nearthem.

The meal is spread with delicacy, yet thereis a heap of it. With a prayer of thanksgiving,sometimes said by Tilly, sometimesby one of the men, we begin to eat. To aman in a harvest-field a square meal is morethrilling than a finely-acted play.

The thrill goes not only to the toes and thefinger-tips, but to the utmost ramifications[111]of the spirit. Men indoors in offices, whosebodies actually require little, cannot thinkof eating enormously without thinking ofsodden overeating, with condiments torouse, and heavy meats and sweets to lullthe flabby body till the last faint remnantsof appetite have departed and the man is amonument of sleepy gluttony.

Eating in a harvest field is never so.Every nerve in the famished body calls franticallyfor reinforcements. And the nervesand soul of a man are strangely alert together.All we ate for breakfast turned tohot ashes in our hearts at eleven o'clock. Ising of the body and of the eternal soul,revived again! To feel life actually throbbingback into one's veins, life immense inpassion, pulse and power, is not over-eating.

Tilly has brought us knives, and no forks.It would have been more appropriate if wehad eaten from the ends of swords. We arefinally recuperated from the fevers of the[112]morning and almost strong enough for thelong, long afternoon fight with the sun.Fresh water is poured from a big glitteringcan into the jugs we have sucked dry. Tillyreloads the buggy and is gone. After anothersizzling douse of water without andwithin, our long afternoon pull commences.

The sun has become like a roaring lion,and we wrestle with the sheaves as thoughwe had him by the beard. The only thingthat keeps up my nerve in the dizziness isthe remembrance of the old Mennonite'sproverb at breakfast that as long as a mancan eat and sweat he is safe. My hands insidemy prickling gloves seem burning off.The wheat beards there are like red-hotneedles. But I am still sweating a little inthe chest, and the Mennonite boy is cheerfullysinging:

Two-thirds round the field, methinks the jigis up. Then the sun is hidden by a friend ofours in the sky, just the tiniest sort of acloud and we march on down the rows. Themerciful little whiff of dream follows thesun for half an hour.

The most terrible heat is at half-past two.Somehow we pull through till four o'clock.Then we say to ourselves: "We can standthis four-o'clock heat, because we have stoodit hotter."

'Tis a grim matter of comparison. Wespeed up a little and trot a little as the sunreaches the top of the western hedge. A bitlater the religious hired man walks home todo the chores. I sing down the rows bymyself. It is glorious to work now. Theendless reiterations of the day have developeda certain dancing rhythm in one'snerves, one is intoxicated with his own wearinessand the conceit that comes with seizingthe sun by the mane, like Sampson.

It is now that the sun gracefully acknowledges[114]his defeat. He shows through thehedge as a great blur, that is all. Then hebecomes a mist-wrapped golden mountainthat some fairy traveller might climb in enchantedshoes. This sun of ours is no longeran enemy, but a fantasy, a vision and adream.

Now the elderly proprietor is back on hisdancing pony. He is following the hurryingreaper in a sort of ceremonial fashion,delighted to see the wheat go down so fast.At last this particular field is done. Wefinish with a comic-tragedy. Some littlerabbits scoot, panic-stricken, from the lastfew yards of still-standing grain. The oldgentleman on horseback and his son afootsoon out-manœuvre the lively creatures. Wehave rabbit for supper at the sacrifice ofconsiderable Mennonite calm.

It was with open rejoicing on the partof all that we finished the field nearest thehouse, the last one, by Saturday noon. Theboy and I had our own special thrill in catching[115]up with the reaper, which had passed byus so often in our rounds. As the squarein mid-field grows smaller the reaper has toturn oftener, and turning uses up muchmore time than at first appears.

The places where the armies of wheat-sheavesare marshalled are magic places,despite their sweat and dust. There is nothingsmall in the panorama. All the lines ofthe scene are epic. The binder-twine is invisible,and has not altered the eternal classicform of the sheaf. There is a noble dignityand ease in the motion of a new reaper on alevel field. A sturdy Mennonite devoteemarching with a great bundle of wheat undereach arm and reaching for a third makesa picture indeed, an essay on sunshine beyondthe brush of any impressionist. Eachreturning day while riding to the field, whenone has a bit of time to dream, one feelsthese things. One feels also the essentiallypatriarchal character of the harvest. Onethinks of the Book of Ruth, and the Jewish[116]feasts of ingathering. All the new Testamentparables ring in one's ears, parables ofsowing and reaping, of tares and good grain,of Bread and of Leaven and the story ofthe Disciples plucking corn. As one lookson the half-gathered treasure he thinks onthe solemn words: "For the Bread of Godis that which cometh down out of Heavenand giveth life unto the World," and therest of that sermon on the Bread of Life,which has so many meanings.

This Sunday before breakfast, I couldfully enter into the daily prayers, that attimes had appeared merely quaint to me,and in my heart I said "Amen" to the specialthanksgiving the patriarch lifted up for thegift of the fruit of the land. I was happyindeed that I had had the strength to bearmy little part in the harvest of a noble anddevout household, as well as a hand in thefeeding of the wide world.

What I, a stranger, have done in thisplace, thirty thousand strangers are doing[117]just a little to the west. We poor trampsare helping to garner that which reestablishesthe nations. If only for a little while,we have bent our backs over the splendidfurrows, to save a shining gift that wouldotherwise rot, or vanish away.

Thursday Afternoon, July Fourth,1912. In the shadow of a lonely windmillbetween Raymond and Ellinwood, Kansas.

I arrived hot and ravenous at Raymondabout eleven a.m. on this glorious IndependenceDay, having walked twelve miles facinga strange wind. At first it seemed fairlycool, because it travelled at the rate of anexpress train. But it was really hot andalkaline, and almost burnt me up. I hadhad for breakfast a cooky, some raisins anda piece of cheese, purchased with my bookletof rhymes at a grocery. By the time Ireached Raymond I was fried and frantic.

The streets were deserted. I gatheredfrom the station-master that almost everyone[118]had gone to the Dutch picnic in thegrove near Ellinwood. The returns for theJohnson-Flynn fight were to be receivedthere beneath the trees, and a potent varietyof dry-state beverage was to flow free. Theunveracious station-master declared this beveragewas made of equal parts iron-rust,patent medicine and rough-on-rats, addedto a barrel of brown rain-water. He appearedto be prejudiced against it.

I walked down the street. Just as I hadsomehow anticipated, I spied out a certaintype of man. He was alone in his restaurantand I crouched my soul to spring. Theonly man left in town is apt to be a soft-heartedparty. "Here, as sure as my nameis tramp, I will wrestle with a defencelessfellow-being."

Like many a restaurant in Kansas, it wasa sort of farm-hand's Saturday night paradise.If a man cannot loaf in a saloon hewill loaf in a restaurant. Then certainproblems of demand and supply arise according[119]to circ*mstances and circumlocutions.

I obtained leave for the ice-water withoutwrestling. I almost emptied the tank.Then, with due art, I offered to recite twentypoems to the solitary man, a square meal tobe furnished at the end, if the rhymes weresufficiently fascinating.

Assuming a judicial attitude on the lunch-counterstool he put me in the arm-chair bythe ice-chest and told me to unwind myself.As usual, I began with The Proud Farmer,The Illinois Village and The Building ofSpringfield, which three in series containmy whole gospel, directly or by implication.Then I wandered on through all sorts ofrhyme. He nodded his head like a mandarin,at the end of each recital. Then hebegan to get dinner. He said he liked mypoetry, and he was glad I came in, for hewould feel more like getting something toeat himself. I sat on and on by the ice-chestwhile he prepared a meal more heating[120]than the morning wind or the smell of fire-crackersin the street. First, for each man,a slice of fried ham large enough for awhole family. Then French fried potatoesby the platterful. Then three fried eggsapiece. There was milk with cream on topto be poured from a big granite bucket aswe desired it. There was a can of beanswith tomato sauce. There was sweet apple-butter.There were canned apples. Therewas a pot of coffee. I moved over from theice-chest and we talked and ate till half-pastone. I began to feel that I was solid as aniron man and big as a Colossus of Rhodes.I would like to report our talk, but this lettermust end somewhere. I agreed with myhost's opinions on everything but the temperancequestion. He did not believe intotal abstinence. On that I remained noncommittal.Eating as I had, how could Itake a stand against my benefactor eventhough the issue were the immortal one ofman's sinful weakness for drink? The ham[121]and ice water were going to my head as itwas. And I could have eaten more. I couldhave eaten a fat Shetland pony.

My host explained that he also travelledat times, but did not carry poetry. He gaveme much box-car learning. Then, curiousto relate, he dug out maps and papers, andshowed me how to take up a claim in Oregon,a thing I did not in the least desire todo. God bless him in basket and in store,afoot or at home.

This afternoon the ham kept on fryingwithin me, not uncomfortably. I stoppedand drank at every windmill. Now it isabout four o'clock in the afternoon and Iam in the shadow of one more. I have founda bottle which just fits my hip pocket whichI have washed and will use as a canteenhenceforth. When one knows he has hisdrink with him, he does not get so thirsty.

But I have put down little to show youthe strange intoxication that has pervadedthis whole day. The inebriating character[122]of the air and the water and the intoxicationthat comes with the very sight of the wind-millsspinning alone, and the elation thatcomes with the companionship of the sun,and the gentleness of the occasional goodSamaritans, are not easily conveyed in words.When one's spirit is just right for this sortof thing it all makes as good an IndependenceDay as folks are having anywhere inthis United States, even at Ellinwood.

Thursday, July 5, 1912. In the officeof the Ellinwood livery stable in the morning.

Everyone came home drunk from theDutch picnic last night. Ellinwood roaredand Ellinwood snorted. I reached the placefrom the east just as the noisy revellers arrivedfrom the south.

Ellinwood is an old German town full ofbar-rooms, forced by the sentiment of thedry voters in surrounding territory to turninto restaurants, but only of late. The bar-fixtures[123]are defiantly retained. Ever andanon Ellinwood takes to the woods withmalicious intent.

Many of the citizens were in a mad-dogfury because Flynn had not licked Johnson.This town seems to be of the opinion thatthat battle was important. The proprietorof the most fashionable hotel monopolizedthe 'phone on his return from the woods.He called up everybody in town. His conversationwas always the same. "What'dya think of the fight?" And without waitingfor answer: "I'll bet one hundred thousanddollars that Flynn can lick Johnson ina fair fight. It's a disgrace to this nationthat black rascal kin lay hands on a whiteman. I'll bet a hundred thousand dollars....A hundred thousand dollars ..."etc.

I sat a long time waiting for him to getthrough. At last I put in my petition atanother hostelrie. This host was intoxicated,but gentle. In exchange for what I call the[124]squarest kind of a meal I recited the mostcooling verses I knew to a somewhat distracted,rather alcoholic company of harvesthands. First I recited a poem in praise ofLincoln and then one in praise of the upliftinginfluence of the village church. Then,amid qualified applause, I distributed mytracts, and retreated to this stable for thenight.

KANSAS

[127]

V
In Kansas: the Second and Third Harvest

Two miles north of Great Bend. Inthe heart of the greatest wheat countryin America, and in the midst of the harvest-time,Sunday, July 7, 1912.

I am meditating on the ways of Destiny.It seems to me I am here, not altogether bychance. But just why I am here, time mustreveal.

Last Friday I had walked the ten milesfrom Ellinwood to Great Bend by 9 a.m.I went straight to the general delivery, wherea package of tracts and two or three weeks'mail awaited me. I read about half throughthe letter-pile as I sat on a rickety bench inthe public square. Some very loud-mouthednegroes were playing horse-shoe obstreperously.[128]I began to wish Flynn had whippedJohnson. I was thinking of getting awayfrom there, when two white men, evidentlyharvesters, sat down near me and diluted thecolor scheme.

One man said: "Harvest-wages this weekare from two dollars and fifty cents up tofour dollars. We are experienced men andworth three dollars and fifty cents." Thena German farmer came and negotiated withthem in vain. He wanted to hold them downto three dollars apiece. He had his automobileto take his crew away that morning.

Then a fellow in citified clothes came tome and asked: "Can you follow a reaperand shock?" I said: "Show me the wheat."So far as I remember, it is the first time inmy life anyone ever hunted me out and askedme to work for him. He put me into hisbuggy and drove me about two miles northto this place, just the region John Humphreytold me to find, though he did notspecify this farm. I was offered $2.50 and[129]keep, as the prophet foretold. The manwho drove me out has put his place this yearinto the hands of a tenant who is my directboss. I may not be able to last out, but allis well so far. I have made an acceptablehand, keeping up with the reaper by myself,and I feel something especial awaits me.But the reaper breaks down so often I donot know whether I can keep up with itwithout help when it begins going full-speed.

These people do not attend church likethe Mennonites. The tenant wanted me tobreak the Sabbath and help him in the alfalfato-day. He suggested that neither henor I was so narrow-minded or superstitiousas to be a "Sunday man." Besides hecouldn't work the alfalfa at all without onemore hand. I did not tell him so, but I feltI needed all Sunday to catch up on mytiredness. I suspect that my refusal to violatethe Sabbath vexed him.

There has been a terrible row of some kindgoing on behind the barn all afternoon.[130]Maybe he is working off his vexation. Atlast the tenant's wife has gone out to "seeabout that racket." Now she comes in.She tells me they have been trying to breaka horse.

The same farm, two miles north of GreatBend, July 8, 1912.

How many times in the counties furtherback I have asked with fear and misgivingfor permission to work in the alfalfa, andhave been repulsed when I confessed to thelack of experience! And now this morningI have pitched alfalfa hay with the best ofthem. We had to go to work early whilethe dew softened the leaves. It is a kindof clover. Once perfectly dry, the leavescrumble off when the hay is shaken. Thenwe must quit. The leaves are the nourishingpart.

The owner of the place, the citified partywho drove me out here the other day andwho is generally back in town, was on top[131]of that stack this morning, his collar off,his town shirt and pants somewhat the worsefor the exertion. He puffed like a porpoise,for he was putting in place all the hay wemen handed up to him. We lifted the alfalfain a long bundle, using our three forksat one time. We worked like drilled soldiers,then went in to early dinner.

This is a short note written while thebinder takes the necessary three turns roundthe new wheatfield that the tenant's brotherand I are starting to conquer this afternoon.Three swaths of four bundles each must becut, then I will start on my rounds, pilingthem into shocks of twelve bundles each.

I am right by the R. F. D. box that goeswith this farm. I will put up the little tinflag that signals the postman. One of thefour beasts hitched to the reaper is a bronchocolt who came dancing to the field this afternoon,refusing to keep his head in line withthe rest of the steeds, and, as a consequence,pulling the whole reaper. It transpires that[132]the row in the horselot Sunday was causedby this colt. He jumped up and left hishoof-print on the chest of the man now drivinghim. So the two men tied him up andbeat him all afternoon with a double-tree,cursing him between whacks, lashing themselveswith Kansas whisky to keep up steam.Yet he comes dancing to the field.

On the farm two miles north of GreatBend, Wednesday evening, July 10, 1912.

I must write you a short note to-nightwhile the rest are getting ready for supper.I will try to mail it to-morrow morning onthe way to the wheat. Let me assure youthat your letter will be heeded. I knowpretty well, by this time, what I can stand,but if I feel the least bit unfit I will not gointo the sun. That is my understandingwith the tenant who runs the farm. I caneat and sweat like a Mennonite. I sleep likea top and wake up fresh as a little daisy.So far I have gone dancing to the field as[133]the broncho did. But the broncho is a poorillustration. He is dead.

The broncho was the property of a littleboy, the son of the man who owns the farm.The little boy had started with a lamb andraised it, then sold it for chickens, increasinghis capital by trading and feeding tillit was all concentrated to buy this colt. Thenhe and his people moved to town and leftthe colt, just at the breaking age, to betrained for a boy's pet by these men. Sincehe became obstreperous, they thought hitchinghim to the reaper would cure him, leavinga draught-horse in the barn to makeplace for the unruly one.

The tenant's brother, who drove the reaper,sent word to the little boy he had not theleast idea what ailed Dick. He hinted tome later that whatever killed him must havecome from some disease in his head.

Yes, it came from his head. That double-treeand that pitchfork handle probablymissed his ribs once or twice and hit him[134]somewhere around his eyes, in the course ofthe Sabbath afternoon services. Two whisky-lashedcolt-breakers can do wonders withouttrying. I have been assured that this isthe only way to subdue the beasts, that lawand order must assert themselves or thewhole barnyard will lead an industrial rebellion.It is past supper now. I have beenwriting till the lamp is dim. I must go tomy quilts in the hay.

To-day was the only time the reaper didnot break down every half hour for repairs.So it was one continuous dance for me andmy friend the broncho till about three o'clockin the afternoon, when the sun really did itsbest. Then the broncho went crazy. Heshoved his head over the backs of two mulestwice his size, and almost pushed them intothe teeth of the sickle.

He was bleeding at the mouth and hiseyes almost popped out of his head. He hadhardly an inch of hide that was whole, andhis raw places were completely covered with[135]Kansas flies. And the hot winds have madethe flies so ravenous they draw blood fromthe back of the harvester's hand the momentthey alight.

The broncho began to kick in all fourdirections at once. He did one good thing.He pulled the callouses off the hands of thetenant's brother, the driver, who still grippedthe lines but surrendered his pride andyelled for me to help. I am as afraid ofbronchos and mules as I am of buzz saws.Yet we separated the beasts somehow, themules safely hitched to the fence, the bronchobetween us, held by two halter-ropes.

There was no reasoning with Dick. Hewas dying, and dying game. One of thesmall boys appeared just then and carriedthe alarm. Soon a more savage and indomitableman with a more eloquent tongue,the tenant himself, had my end of the rope.But not the most formidable cursing couldstop Dick from bleeding at the mouth.Later the draught horse whose place he had[136]taken was brought over from his pleasantrest in the barn and the two were tied headto head. The lordly tenant started to leadthem toward home. But Dick fell downand died as soon as he reached a patch ofunploughed prairie grass, which, I think,was the proper end for him. The peacefuldraught horse was put in his place.

The reaper went back to work. Thereaper cut splendidly the rest of this afternoon.As for me I never shocked wheat withsuch machine-like precision. I went at a dog-trotpart of the time, and almost caughtup with the machine.

The broncho should not have been calledDick. He should have been called DanielBoone, or Davy Crockett or Custer or Richard,yes, Richard the Lion-Hearted. Hecame dancing to the field this morning, betweenthe enormous overshadowing mules,and dancing feebly this noon. He pulledthe whole reaper till three o'clock. I rememberI asked the driver at noon what made[137]the broncho dance. He answered: "Theflies on his ribs, I suppose."

I fancy Dick danced because he was madeto die dancing, just as the Spartans rejoicedand combed their long hair preparing toface certain death at Thermopylæ.

I think I want on my coat of arms abroncho, rampant.

Thursday, July 11, 1912. Great Bend,Kansas.

Yesterday I could lift three moderate-sizedsheaves on the run. This morning Icould hardly lift one, walking. This noonthe foreman of the ranch, the man who, withhis brother, disciplined the broncho, was furiouslyangry with me, because, as I plainlyexplained, I was getting too much sun andwanted a bit of a rest. He inquired, "Whydidn't you tell me two days ago you weregoing to be overcome by the heat, so I couldhave had a man ready to take your place?"Also, "It's no wonder dirty homeless men[138]are walking around the country looking forjobs." Also, a little later: "I have my opinionof any man on earth who is a quitter."

But I kept my serenity and told him thatunder certain circ*mstances I was apt to bea quitter, though, of course, I did not liketo overdo the quitting business. I remainedunruffled, as I say, and handed him and hisbrother copies of The Gospel of Beautyand Rhymes to Be Traded for Bread andbade them good-bye. Then I went to townand told the local editor on them for theirhorse-killing, which, I suppose, was two-facedof me.

The tenant's attitude was perfectly absurd.Hands are terribly scarce. A halfday's delay in shocking that wheat would nothave hurt it, or stopped the reaper, or alteredany of the rest of the farm routine.He fired me without real hope of a substitute.I was working for rock-bottom wagesand willing to have them docked all he[139]pleased if he would only give me six hoursto catch up in my tiredness.

Anyway, here I am in the SaddlerockHotel, to which I have paid in advance a bitof my wages, in exchange for one night'srest. I enclose the rest to you. I will startout on the road to-morrow, bathed, clean,dead broke and fancy free. I have madean effort to graduate from beggary into therespectable laboring class, which you haveso often exhorted me to do.

I shall try for employment again, as soonas I rest up a bit. I enjoyed the wheat andthe second-hand reaper, and the quaintnessof my employers and all till the death ofRichard the Lion-Hearted.

I am wondering whether I ought to beas bitter as I am against the horse-killers.We cannot have green fields just for bronchosto gambol in, or roads where they cantrot unharnessed and nibble by the way. Wemust have Law and Order and Discipline.

But, thanks to the Good St. Francis who[140]marks out my path for me, I start to-morrowmorning to trot unharnessed once again.

Sunday, July 14, 1912. In front of thegeneral store at Wright, Kansas, whichsame is as small as a town can get.

I have been wondering why Destiny sentme to that farm where the horse-killers flourished.I suppose it was that Dick mighthave at least one mourner. All the world'sheroes are heroes because they had the qualitiesof constancy and dancing gameness thatbrought him to his death.

Some day I shall hunt up the right kindof a Hindu and pay him filthy gold andhave him send the ghost of Dick to thosewretched men. They will be unable to move,lying with eyes a-staring all night long.Dreadful things will happen in that room,dreadful things the Hindu shall devise afterI have told him what the broncho endured.They shall wake in the morning, thinking itall a dream till they behold the horse-shoe[141]prints all over the counterpane. Then theywill try to sit up and find that their ribs arebroken—well, I will leave it to the Hindu.

I have been waiting many hours at thistown of Wright. To-day and yesterday Imade seventy-six miles. Thirty-five of thesemiles I made yesterday in the automobile ofthe genial and scholarly Father A. P. Heimannof Kinsley, who took me as far asthat point. I have been loafing here atWright since about four in the afternoon.It is nearly dark now. Dozens of harvesters,already engaged for the week, have beenhanging about and the two stores have keptopen to accommodate them. There is a manto meet me here at eight o'clock. I mayharvest for him four days. I told him Iwould not promise for longer. He hastaken the train to a station further east totry to get some men for all week. If hedoes not return with a full quota he willtake me on. While I am perfectly willing[142]to work for two dollars and a half, manyhold out for three.

The man I am waiting for overtook metwo miles east of this place. He was hurryingto catch his train. He took me into hisrig and made the bargain. He turned hishorse over to me and raced for the last caras we neared the station. So here I am afew yards from the depot, in front of thegeneral store, watching the horse of an utterstranger. Of course the horse isn't worthstealing, and his harness is half twine andwire. But the whole episode is so carelessand free and Kansas-like.

Most of the crowd have gone, and I amawfully hungry. I might steal off the harnessin the dark, and eat it. Somehow Ihave not quite the nerve to beg where I expectto harvest. I am afraid to try againin this fight with the sun, yet when a manovertakes me in the road and trusts me withhis best steed and urges me to work for him,I hardly know how to refuse.[143]

Sunday Afternoon, July 21, 1912.Loafing and dozing on my bed in the granaryon the farm near Wright, Kansas, whereI have been harvesting a full week.

The man I waited for last Sunday afternoonreturned with his full quota of handson the "Plug" train about nine o'clock.Where was I to sleep? I began to thinkabout a lumber pile I had seen, when I discoveredthat five other farmers had climbedoff that train. They were poking around inall the dark corners for men just like me.I engaged with a German named Louis Lixfor the whole week, all the time shaking withmisgivings from the memory of my lastbreak-down. Here it is, Sunday, before Iknow it. Lix wants me back again nextyear, and is sorry I will not work longer.I have totalled about sixteen days of harvestingin Kansas, and though I sagged in themiddle I think I have ended in fair style.Enclosed find all my wages except enoughfor one day's stay at Dodge City and three[144]real hotel meals there—sherbet and cheeseand crackers, and finger bowls at the end,and all such folly. Harvest eating is grandin its way but somehow lacks frills. Ah,if eating were as much in my letters as inmy thoughts, this would be nothing but aseries of menus!

I have helped Lix harvest barley, oats andwheat, mainly wheat. This is the world ofwheat. In this genial region one can standon a soap-box and see nothing else to thehorizon. Walking the Santa Fé Trail besidethe railroad means walking till theenormous wheat-elevator behind one disappearsbecause of the curvature of the earth,like the ships in the geography picture, andwalking on and on till finally in the west thetop of another elevator appears, being graduallyrevealed because this earth is not flatlike a table, but, as the geography says,curved like an apple or an orange.

In these fields, instead of working areaper with a sickle eight feet long, they[145]work a header with a twelve-foot sickle. Insteadof four horses to this machine, thereare six. Instead of one man or two followingbehind to the left of the driver to pilesheaves into shocks, a barge, a most copiousslatted receptacle, drives right beside theheader, catching the unbound wheat whichis thrown up loosely by the machine. Onepitchfork man in the barge spreads this cataractof headed wheat so a full load can betaken in. His partner guides the team,keeping precisely with the header.

But these two bargemen do not completethe outfit. Two others with their barge or"header-box" come up behind as soon as thefirst box starts over to the stack to be unloaded.Here the sixth man, the stacker,receives it, and piles it into a small mountainnicely calculated to resist cyclones. Thegreen men are broken in as bargemen. Thestacker is generally an old hand.

Unloading the wheat is the hardest partof the bargeman's work. His fork must[146]be full and he must be fast. Otherwise hispartner, who takes turns driving and filling,and who helps to pitch the wheat out,will have more than half the pitching to do.And all the time will be used up. Neitherman will have a rest-period while waitingfor the other barge to come up. This rest-periodis the thing toward which we allwrestle. If we save it out we drink fromthe water-jugs in the corner of the wagon.We examine where the grasshoppers haveactually bitten little nicks out of our pitchforkhandles, nicks that are apt to makeblisters. We tell our adventures and, whenthe header breaks down, and must betinkered endlessly, and we have a grandrest, the stacker sings a list of the mostamazing cowboy songs. He is a young man,yet rode the range here for seven years beforeit became wheat-country. One daywhen the songs had become hopelessly,prosaically p*rnographic I yearned for a[147]change. I quoted the first stanza of Atalanta'schorus:

The stacker asked for more. I finishedthe chorus. Then I repeated it several times,while the header was being mended. Wehad to get to work. The next morning whenmy friend climbed into our barge to rideto the field he began:

"Dammit, what's the rest of it? I've beentrying to recite that piece all night."

Now he has the first four stanzas. Andlast evening he left for Dodge City to stayovernight and Sunday. He was resolved topurchase Atalanta in Calydon and find in[148]the Public Library The Lady of Shallot andThe Blessed Damozel, besides paying theusual visit to his wife and children.

Working in a header-barge is fun, morefun than shocking wheat, even when one isworking for a Mennonite boss. The crewis larger. There is occasional leisure to besocial. There is more cool wind, for oneis higher in the air. There is variety in thework. One drives about a third of the time,guides the wheat into the header a third ofthe time and empties the barge a third ofthe time. The emptying was the back-breakingwork.

And I was all the while fearful, lest, fromplain awkwardness, or shaking from weariness,I should stick some man in the eye withmy pitchfork. But I did not. I camenearer to being a real harvester every day.The last two days my hands were so hardI could work without gloves, this despite theway the grasshoppers had chewed the fork-handle.[149]

Believe everything you have ever heard ofthe Kansas grasshoppers.

The heights of the header-barge aredramatically commanding. Kansas appearsmuch larger than when we are merely standingin the field. We are just as high asupon a mountain-peak, for here, as there,we can see to the very edges of the eternities.

Now let me tell you of a new kind ofweather.

Clouds thicken overhead. The wind turnssuddenly cold. We shiver while we work.We are liable in five minutes to a hailstorm,a terrific cloudburst or a cyclone. Thehorses are unhitched. The barges are tiedend to end. And still the barges may beblown away. They must be anchored evenmore safely. The long poles to lock thewheels are thrust under the bed through thespokes. It has actually been my duty to putthis pole in the wheels every evening to keepthe barges from being blown out of thebarn-lot at night. Such is the accustomed[150]weather excitement in Kansas. Just nowwe have excitement that is unusual. Butas the storm is upon us it splits and passesto the north and south. There is not a dropof rain.

We are at work again in ten minutes. Intwo hours the sky is clear and the air is hotand alkaline. And ten thousand grasshoppersare glad to see that good old hot windagain, you may believe. They are preeningthemselves, each man in his place on the slatsof the barge. They are enjoying their chewingtobacco the same as ever.

Wheat, wheat, wheat, wheat! States andcontinents and oceans and solar-systems ofwheat! We poor ne'er-do-weels take ourlittle part up there in the header half waybetween the sky and the earth, and inthe evening going home, carrying MisterStacker-Man in our barge, we sing SweetRosy O'Grady and the Battle Hymn of theRepublic. And the most emphatic and unadulteratedtramp among us harvesters, a[151]giant Swiss fifty years old, gives the yodelhe learned when a boy.

This is a German Catholic family forwhich I have been working. We have hadgrace before and after every meal, and wecrossed ourselves before and after everymeal, except the Swiss, who left the tableearly to escape being blest too much.

My employers are good folk, good as theMennonites. My boss was absolutely on thesquare all the week, as kind as a hard-workingman has time to be. It gave me greatsatisfaction to go to Mass with him thismorning. Though some folks talk againstreligion, though it sometimes appears to bea nuisance, after weighing all the evidenceof late presented, I prefer a religiousfarmer.[152]

HERE'S TO THE SPIRIT OF FIRE

[154]

VI
The End of the Road; Moonshine; andSome Proclamations

August 1, 1912. Standing up at thePostoffice desk, Pueblo, Colorado.

Several times since going over the Coloradoborder I have had such a cordial receptionfor the Gospel of Beauty that my faithin this method of propaganda is reawakened.I confess to feeling a new zeal. Butthere are other things I want to tell in thisletter.

I have begged my way from Dodge Cityon, dead broke, and keeping all the rulesof the road. I have been asked dozens oftimes by frantic farmers to help them atvarious tasks in western Kansas and easternColorado. I have regretfully refused all[155]but half-day jobs, having firmly resolvednot to harvest again till I have well startedupon a certain spiritual enterprise, namely,the writing of certain new poems that havetaken possession of me in this high altitude,despite the physical stupidity that comeswith strenuous walking. Thereby hangs atale that I have not room for here.

Resolutely setting aside all recent wonders,I have still a few impressions of thewheatfield to record. Harvesting time inKansas is such a distinctive institution!Whole villages that are dead any other seasonblossom with new rooming signs, fiftycents a room, or when two beds are in aroom, twenty-five cents a bed. The eatingcounters are generally separate from these.The meals are almost uniformly twenty-fivecents each. The fact that Kansas has nobar-rooms makes these shabby food-soddenplaces into near-taverns, the main assemblyhalls for men wanting to be hired, or thosespending their coin. Famous villages where[156]an enormous amount of money changeshands in wages and the sale of wheat-cropsare thus nothing but marvellous lines ofdirty restaurants. In front of the dingyhotels are endless ancient chairs. Summerafter summer fidgety, sun-fevered, stickyharvesters have gossiped from chair to chairor walked toward the dirty band-stand inthe public square, sure, as of old, to be encounteredby the anxious farmer, makingup his crew.

A few harvesters are seen, carrying theirown bedding; grasshopper bitten quilts withall their colors flaunting and their cottongushing out, held together by a shawl-strapor a rope. Almost every harvester has ashabby suit-case of the paste-board varietybanging round his ankles. When wages arerising the harvester, as I have said before,holds out for the top price. The poor farmerwalks round and round the village half aday before he consents to the three dollars.Stacker's wages may be three to five simoleons[157]and the obdurate farmer may haveto consent to the five lest his wheat go toseed on the ground. It is a hard situationfor a class that is constitutionally tightwad,often wisely so.

The roundhouses, water tanks, and allother places where men stealing freight ridesare apt to pass, have enticing cards tackedon or near them by the agents of the mayorsof the various towns, giving average wages,number of men wanted, and urging all harvestersgood and true to come to some particulartown between certain dates. Themultitude of these little cards keeps the harvesteron the alert, and, as the saying is:"Independent as a hog on ice."

To add to the farmer's distractions, stillfresher news comes by word of mouth thatthree hundred men are wanted in a regiontwo counties to the west, at fifty cents morea day. It sweeps through the harvesters'hotels, and there is a great banging of suit-cases,and the whole town is rushing for the[158]train. Then there is indeed a nabbing ofmen at the station, and sudden surrender onthe part of the farmers, before it is too late.

Harvesting season is inevitably placardedand dated too soon in one part of the State,and not soon enough in another. Kansasweather does not produce its results onschedule. This makes not one, but manyhurry-calls. It makes the real epic of themuscle-market.

Stand with me at the station. Beholdthe trains rushing by, hour after hour,freight-cars and palace cars of dishevelledmen! The more elegant the equipage themore do they put their feet on the seats.Behold a saturnalia of chewing tobacco andsunburn and hairy chests, disturbing theprimness and crispness of the Santa Fé,jostling the tourist and his lovely daughter.

They are a happy-go-lucky set. Theyhave the reverse of the tightwad's vices. Theharvester, alas, is harvested. Gamblers liein wait for him. The scarlet woman has her[159]pit digged and ready. It is fun for thepolice to lock him up and fine him. Nodoubt he often deserves it. I sat half anafternoon in one of these towns and heardthe local undertaker tell horrible stories offriendless field hands with no kinsfolk anywherediscoverable, sunstruck and buried ina day or so by the county. One man's storyhe told in great detail. The fellow had complainedof a headache, and left the field. Hefell dead by the roadside on the way to thehouse. He was face downward in an anthill. He was eaten into an unrecognizablemass before they found him at sunset. Theundertaker expatiated on how hard it wasto embalm such folks. It was a discoursemarshalled with all the wealth of detail onereads in The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar.

The harvester is indeed harvested. Hegambles with sunstroke, disease and damnation.In one way or another the moneytrickles from his loose fingers, and he drifts[160]from the wheat in Oklahoma north to thewheat in Nebraska. He goes to Canada toshock wheat there as the season recedes, andthen, perhaps, turns on his tracks and makesfor Duluth, Minnesota, we will say. Hetakes up lumbering. Or he may make acircuit of the late fruit crops of Coloradoand California. He is, pretty largely, somuch crude, loose, ungoverned humanstrength, more useful than wise. Lookedat closely, he may be the boy from themachine-shop, impatient for ready money,the farmer failure turned farm-hand, thebank-clerk or machine-shop mechanic tiredof slow pay, or the college student on alark, in more or less incognito. He maybe the intermittent criminal, the gay-cat orthe travelling religious crank, or the futiletract-distributer.

And I was three times fraternally accostedby harvesters who thought my oil-clothpackage of poems was a kit of[161]burglar's tools. It is a system of breakingin, I will admit.

A STORY LEFT OUT OF THELETTERS

This ends the section of my letters homethat in themselves make a consecutive story.But to finish with a bit of a nosegay, andshow one of the unexpected rewards oftroubadouring, let me tell the tale of theFive Little Children Eating Mush.

One should not be so vain as to recount apersonal triumph. Still this is a personaltriumph. And I shall tell it with all prideand vanity. Let those who dislike a conceitedman drop the book right here.

I had walked all day straight west fromRocky Ford. It was pitch dark, threateningrain—the rain that never comes. It wasnearly ten o'clock. At six I had entered avillage, but had later resolved to press on tovisit a man to whom I had a letter of introduction[162]from my loyal friend Dr. Barbourof Rocky Ford.

There had been a wash-out. I had to walkaround it, and was misdirected by the goodvillagers and was walking merrily on towardnowhere. Around nine o'clock I had beenrefused lodging at three different shanties.But from long experience I knew that somethingwould turn up in a minute. Andit did.

I walked right into the fat sides of a bigcountry hotel on that interminable plain. Itwas not surrounded by a village. It wassimply a clean hostelrie for the transienthands who worked at irrigating in that region.

I asked the looming figure I met in thedark: "Where is the boss of this place?"

"I am the boss." He had a Scandinaviantwist to his tongue.

"I want a night's lodging. I will give inexchange an entertainment this evening, orhalf a day's work to-morrow."[163]

"Come in."

I followed him up the outside stairway tothe dining-room in the second story. Therewas his wife, a woman who greeted mecheerfully in the Scandinavian accent. Shewas laughing at her five little children whowere laughing at her and eating their mushand milk.

Presumably the boarders had been delayedby their work, and had dined late.The children were at it still later.

They were real Americans, those littlebirds. And they had memories like parrots,as will appear.

"Wife," said the landlord, "here is a manthat will entertain us to-night for his keep,or work for us to-morrow. I think we willtake the entertainment to-night. Go ahead,mister. Here are the kids. Now listen,kids."

To come out of the fathomless, friendlessdark and, almost in an instant, to look intosuch expectant fairy faces! They were[164]laughing, laughing, laughing, not in mockery,but companionship. I recited everychild-piece I had ever written—(not many).

They kept quite still till the end of eachone. Then they pounded the table for more,with their tin spoons and their little redfists.

So, with misgivings, I began to recitesome of my fairy-tales for grown-ups. Ispoke slowly, to make the externals of eachstory plain. The audience squealed formore.... I decided to recite six jinglesabout the moon, that I had written long ago:How the Hyæna said the Moon was aGolden Skull, and how the Shepherd Dogcontradicted him and said it was a Candlein the Sky—and all that and all that.

The success of the move was remarkablebecause I had never pleased either grownfolks or children to any extent with thoseverses. But these children, through the accumulatedexcitements of a day that I knew[165]nothing about, were in an ecstatic imaginativecondition of soul that transmuted everything.

The last of the series recounted whatGrandpa Mouse said to the Little Mice onthe Moon question. I arranged the ketchupbottle on the edge of the table for GrandpaMouse. I used the salts and peppers for thelittle mice in circle round. I used a blackhat or so for the swooping, mouse-eatingowls that came down from the moon. Havingacted out the story first, I recited it,slowly, mind you. Here it is:

WHAT GRANDPA MOUSE SAID

At the end I asked for my room and retired.I slept maybe an hour. I was awakenedby those tireless little rascals racingalong the dark hall and saying in horriblesolemn tones, pretending to scare one another:

And so it went on, over and over.

Thereupon I made a mighty and a rashresolve. I renewed that same resolve in themorning when I woke. I said within myself"I shall write one hundred Poems on theMoon!"

Of course I did not keep my resolve towrite one hundred pieces about the moon.But here are a few of those I did write immediatelyafter:

THE FLUTE OF THE LONELY
[To the tune of Gaily the Troubadour.]

THE SHIELD OF FAITH

THE ROSE OF MIDNIGHT
[What the Gardener's Daughter Said]

THE PATH IN THE SKY

PROCLAMATIONS

Immediately upon my return from myjourney the following Proclamations wereprinted in Farm and Fireside, through thegreat kindness of the editors, as anotherphase of the same crusade.

A PROCLAMATION OF BALM IN GILEAD

Go to the fields, O city laborers, till yourwounds are healed. Forget the street-cars,the skyscrapers, the slums, the Marseillaisesong.[172]

We proclaim to the broken-hearted, stillable to labor, the glories of the ploughedland. The harvests are wonderful. Andthere is a spiritual harvest appearing. Agreat agricultural flowering of art and songis destined soon to appear. Where corn andwheat are growing, men are singing thepsalms of David, not the Marseillaise.

You to whom the universe has become ablast-furnace, a co*ke-oven, a cinder-strewnfreight-yard, to whom the history of all agesis a tragedy with the climax now, to whom*our democracy and our flag are but playthingsof the hypocrite,—turn to the soil,turn to the earth, your mother, and she willcomfort you. Rest, be it ever so little, fromyour black broodings. Think with thefarmer once more, as your fathers did.Revere with the farmer our centuries-oldcivilization, however little it meets the city'strouble. Revere the rural customs that havetheir roots in the immemorial benefits ofnature.[173]

With the farmer look again upon theConstitution as something brought byProvidence, prepared for by the ages. Goto church, the cross-roads church, and saythe Lord's Prayer again. Help them withtheir temperance crusade. It is a deepermatter than you think. Listen to the laughterof the farmer's children. Know thatnot all the earth is a-weeping. Know that solong as there is black soil deep on the prairie,so long as grass will grow on it, we have avast green haven.

The roots of some of our trees are still inthe earth. Our mountains need not to bemoved from their places. Wherever there istillable land, there is a budding and bloomingof old-fashioned Americanism, which thefarmer is making splendid for us againstthe better day.

There is perpetual balm in Gilead, andmany city workmen shall turn to it and behealed. This by faith, and a study of thesigns, we proclaim![174]

PROCLAMATION

Of the New Time for Farmers and the NewNew England

Let it be proclaimed and shouted over allthe ploughlands of the United Statesthat the same ripening that brought our firstculture in New England one hundred yearsago is taking place in America to-day.Every State is to have its Emerson, itsWhittier, its Longfellow, its Hawthorneand the rest.

Our Puritan farmer fathers in ourworthiest handful of States waited long fortheir first group of burnished, burninglamps. From the landing of the Pilgrimsin 1620 to the delivery of Emerson's addresson the American Scholar was a wearyperiod of gestation well rewarded.

Therefore, let us be thankful that we havecome so soon to the edge of this occasion,that the western farms, though scarcely settled,[175]have the Chautauqua, which is NewEngland's old rural lecture course; the temperancecrusade, which is New England'sabolitionism come again; the magazine militant,which is the old Atlantic Monthly combinedwith the Free-Soil Newspaper undera new dress; and educational reform, whichis the Yankee school-house made glorious.

All these, and more, electrify the farm-lands.Things are in that ferment wheremany-sided Life and Thought are born.

Because our West and South are richerand broader and deeper than New England,so much more worth while will our work be.We will come nearer to repeating the spiritof the best splendors of the old Italian villagesthan to multiplying the prunes andprisms of Boston.

The mystery-seeking, beauty-serving followersof Poe in their very revolt fromdemocracy will serve it well. The Pan-worshippingdisciples of Whitman will in theend be, perhaps, more useful brothers of the[176]White Christ than all our coming saints.And men will not be infatuated by the writtenand spoken word only, as in New England.Every art shall have the finest devotion.

Already in this more tropical California,this airier Colorado, this black-soiled Illinois,in Georgia, with her fire-hearted traditionof chivalry and her new and most romanticprosperity, men have learned to pray to theGod of the blossoming world, men havelearned to pray to the God of Beauty. Theymeditate upon His ways. They have begunto sing.

As of old, their thoughts and songs beginwith the land, and go directly back to theland. Their tap-roots are deep as thoseof the alfalfa. A new New England iscoming, a New England of ninety millionsouls! An artistic Renaissance is coming.An America is coming such as was long agoprophesied in Emerson's address on the[177]American Scholar. This by faith, and astudy of the signs, we proclaim!

PROCLAMATION

Of the New Village, and the New CountryCommunity, as Distinct from the Village

This is a year of bumper crops, of harvestingfestivals. Through the mistsof the happy waning year, a new villagerises, and the new country community, invisions revealed to the rejoicing heart offaith.

And yet it needs no vision to see them.Walking across this land I have foundthem, little ganglions of life, promise ofthousands more. The next generation willbe that of the eminent village. The son ofthe farmer will be no longer dazzled and destroyedby the fires of the metropolis. Hewill travel, but only for what he can bringback. Just as his father sends half-way[178]across the continent for good corn, or melon-seed,so he will make his village famous bytransplanting and growing this idea or that.He will make it known for its pottery orits processions, its philosophy or its peaco*cks,its music or its swans, its golden roofsor its great union cathedral of all faiths.There are a thousand miscellaneous achievementswithin the scope of the great-heartedvillage. Our agricultural land to-day holdsthe ploughboys who will bring these benefits.I have talked to these boys. I know them.I have seen their gleaming eyes.

And the lonely country neighborhood, asdistinct from the village, shall make itselffamous. There are river valleys that willbe known all over the land for their tall menand their milk-white maidens, as now fortheir well-bred horses. There are mountainlands that shall cultivate the tree of knowledge,as well as the apple-tree. There aresandy tracts that shall constantly ripen redand golden citrus fruit, but as well, philosophers[179]comforting as the moon, and strength-givingas the sun.

These communities shall have their proudcircles. They shall have families joinedhand in hand, to the end that new blood andnew thoughts be constantly brought in, andno good force or leaven be lost. The countrycommunity shall awaken illustrious.This by faith, and a study of the signs, weproclaim!

PROCLAMATION

Welcoming the Talented Children of theSoil

Because of their closeness to theearth, the men on the farms increasein stature and strength.

And for this very reason a certain proportionof their children are being born witha finer strength. They are being born withall this power concentrated in their nerves.[180]They have the magnificent thoughts thatmight stir the stars in their courses, werethey given voice.

Yea, in almost every ranch-house is bornone flower-like girl or boy, a stranger amongthe brothers and sisters. Welcome, and athousand welcomes, to these fairy changelings!They will make our land lovely. Letall of us who love God give our hearts tothese His servants. They are born with eyesthat weep themselves blind, unless there isbeauty to look upon. They are endowedwith souls that are self-devouring, unlessthey be permitted to make rare music; witha desire for truth that will make them madas the old prophets, unless they be permittedto preach and pray and praise God in theirown fashion, each establishing his own dreamvisibly in the world.

The land is being jewelled with talentedchildren, from Maine to California: soulsdewy as the grass, eyes wondering and passionate,lips that tremble. Though they be[181]born in hovels, they have slender hands,seemingly lost amid the heavy hands. Theyhave hands that give way too soon amid thebitter days of labor, but are everlastinglypatient with the violin, or chisel, or brush,or pen.

All these children as a sacred charge areappearing, coming down upon the earth likemanna. Yet many will be neglected as thetoo-abundant mulberry, that is left upon thetrees. Many will perish like the wild strawberriesof Kansas, cut down by the roadsidewith the weeds. Many will be looked uponlike an over-abundant crop of apples, toocheap to be hauled to market, often used asfood for the beasts. There will be a greatslaughter of the innocents, more bloody thanthat of Herod of old. But there will be adesperate hardy remnant, adepts in all theconquering necromancy of agriculturalSong and democratic Craftsmanship. Theywill bring us our new time in its completeness.[182]

This by faith, and a study of the signs,we proclaim!

PROCLAMATION

Of the Coming of Religion, Equality andBeauty

In our new day, so soon upon us, for thefirst time in the history of Democracy,art and the church shall be hand in hand andequally at our service. Neither craftsmanshipnor prayer shall be purely aristocraticany more, nor at war with each other, norat war with the State. The priest, the statesmanand the singer shall discern oneanother's work more perfectly and givethanks to God.

Even now our best churches are blossomingin beauty. Our best political life, whateverthe howlers may say, is tending towardequality, beauty and holiness.

Political speech will cease to turn onlyupon the price of grain, but begin considering[183]the price of cross-roads fountains andpeople's palaces. Our religious life will nolonger trouble itself with the squabbles oforthodoxy. It will give us the outdoor choralprocession, the ceremony of dedicating thewheat-field or the new-built private house toGod. That politician who would benefit thepeople will not consider all the worldwrapped up in the defence or destruction ofa tariff schedule. He will serve the publicas did Pericles, with the world's greatestdramas. He will rebuild the local Acropolis.He will make his particular Athens rule bywisdom and philosophy, not trade alone.Our crowds shall be audiences, not hurryingmobs; dancers, not brawlers; observers, notrestless curiosity-seekers. Our mobs shallbecomes assemblies and our assemblies religious;devout in a subtle sense, equal in privilegeand courtesy, delicate of spirit, aperfectly rounded democracy.

All this shall come through the services ofthree kinds of men in wise coöperation: the[184]priests, the statesmen and the artists. Ourpriests shall be religious men like St. Francis,or John Wesley, or General Booth, or CardinalNewman. They shall be many types,but supreme of their type.

Our statesmen shall find their exemplarsand their inspiration in Washington, Jeffersonand Lincoln, as all good Americansdevoutly desire.

But even these cannot ripen the land withoutthe work of men as versatile as WilliamMorris or Leonardo. Our artists shall fusethe work of these other workers, and giveexpression to the whole cry and the wholeweeping and rejoicing of the land. Weshall have Shelleys with a heart for religion,Ruskins with a comprehension of equality.

Religion, equality and beauty! By theseAmerica shall come into a glory that shalljustify the yearning of the sages for herperfection, and the prophecies of the poets,when she was born in the throes of ValleyForge.[185]

This, by faith, and a study of the signs,we proclaim!

EPILOGUE

[Written to all young lovers about to set up homesof their own—but especially to those of somefar-distant day, and those of my home-village]