Tramping on Life Part 52

I freighted it to New York, where I landed, grimy and full of coal-dust.

And I sought out my uncle who lived in the Bronx.

I appeared, opportunely, around supper time. I asked him if he was not glad to see me. He grimaced a yes, but wished that I would stop tramping about and fit in, in life, somewhere.... He observed that my s.h.i.+rt was filthy and that I must take a bath immediately and put on a clean one of his.

In Boston I had ditched everything but the clothes I wore ... and my suit was wrecked with hard usage.

"Get work at anything," advised my Uncle Jim, "and save up till you can rig yourself out new. You'll never accomplish anything looking the way you do. Your editor at the _Independent_ will not be impressed and think it romantic, if you go to see him the way you are ... ragged poets are out of date."

At "Perfection City" I had made the acquaintance of a boy, whom, curiously enough, I have left out of that part of the narrative that has to deal with the Nature Colony. He was a millionaire's son: his father, a friend of Barton's, had sent him out to "Perfection City" with a tutor. His name was Milton Saunders. He was a fine, generous lad, but open as the weather to every influence ... especially to any which was not for his good.

One morning I saw him actually remove his own shoes and give them to a pa.s.sing tramp who needed them worse than he.

"That's nothing, dad's money will be sufficient to buy me a new pair,"

he explained, going back to his tent, in his bare feet, his socks in his hand--to put on his sneakers while he hastened to the shoe store in Andersonville.

Milton had urged me to be sure to come and see him if I chanced to be in New York.

I now called him on the telephone and was cordially invited to visit him, and that, immediately.

The servants eyed me suspiciously and sent me up by the tradesmen's elevator. Milton flew into a fury over it. His friend was his friend, no matter how he was dressed--he wanted them to remember that, in the future!

He brought out a bottle of wine, had a fine luncheon set before me. I went for the food, but pushed the wine aside. He drank the bottle himself. I was still, for my part, clinging to shreds of what I had learned at "Perfection City." ...

He rushed me to his tailor. I had told him of my first poems' being accepted.

"Of course, you must be better dressed when you go to see the editor."

The tailor looked me over, in whimsical astonishment. He vowed that he could not have a suit ready for me by ten the next morning, as Milton was ordering.

"Then you have a suit here for me about ready."

"It is ready now."

"Alter it immediately to fit Mr. Gregory ... we're about the same height."

The tailor said _that_ could be done.

For the rest of the day Milton and I peregrinated from one saloon back-room to another ... in each of which the boy seemed to be well known. He drank liquor while I imbibed soft drinks ... the result was better for him than for me. I soon had the stomach-ache, while he only seemed a little over-exhilarated.

At his door-step he shoved a ten dollar bill into my hand. I demurred, but accepted it.

"I'd hand you more," he apologised, "but the Old Man never lets me have any more than just so much at a time ... says I waste it anyhow ... but I manage to do a lot of charging," he chuckled.

"Have you a place to stay to-night?"

"Yes ... I have an uncle who lives uptown."

When I showed up at my uncle's, that night, I showed him my new rig-out, and explained to him how I came into possession of it. But he did not accept my explanation. Instead, he shook his head in mournful dubiousness ... indicating that he doubted my story, and insinuating that I had not come by my suit honestly; as well as by the new dress suitcase Saunders had presented me with, and the s.h.i.+rts and underclothing.

"G.o.d knows where you'll end up, Johnny."

After supper Uncle Jim grew restive again, and he came out frankly with the declaration that he did not want me to stay overnight in the house, but to pack on out to Haberford to my father ... or, since I must stay in town to see my editor (again that faint, dubious smile), I might stay the night at a Mills Hotel ... since my rich friend had given me money, too ... besides my aunt was not so very strong and I put a strain on her.

At the Mills Hotel I was perched in a cell-like corner room, high up.

The room smelt antiseptic. Nearby, Broadway roared and spread in wavering blazons of theatric gold. I looked down upon it, dreaming of my future fame, my great poetic and literary career ... my plays that would some day be announced down there, in great s.h.i.+ning sign-letters.

The sound of an employee's beating with a heavy stick, from door to iron door, to wake up all the Mills Hotel patrons, bestirred me at an early hour.

I meditated my next move, and now resolved on another try at community life.... The Eos Artwork Studios, founded in the little New York State town of Eos, by the celebrated eccentric author and lecturer, Roderick Spalton.

I was in such impatience to reach Eos that I did not cross over to Haberford, to drop in on my father. I feared also that my leaving school the second time, "under a cloud," would not win me an enthusiastic welcome from him.

By nightfall I was well on my way to Eos, sitting in an empty box-car. I had with me my new clothes--which I wore--and my suitcase, a foolish way to tramp. But I thought I might as well appear before Roderick Spalton with a little more "presence" than usual. For I intended spending some time in his community.

Characteristically, I had gone to the office of the _Independent_, had not found the editor in, that morning, and had chafed at the idea of waiting till the afternoon, when I might have had a fruitful talk with a man who was interested in the one real thing in my life--my poetry.

I reached Rochester safely. It was on the stretch to Buffalo that I paid dearly for being well-dressed and carrying a suitcase ... as I lay asleep on the floor of the box-car I was set upon by three tramps, who pinioned my arms and legs before I was even fully awake. I was forced to strip off my clothes, after wrestling and fighting as hard as I could. I floated off into the stars from a blow on the head....

When I came to, I was trembling violently both with cold and from the nervous shock. My a.s.sailants had made off with my suitcase ... I was in nothing but my B.V.D.'s and s.h.i.+rt. Even my Keats had been stolen. But beside me I found the ragged, cast-off suit of one of the tramps ... and my razor, which had dropped out of my coat pocket, while the tramp had changed clothes, and not been noticed. Gingerly, I put on the ragged suit....

I stood in front of the Eos Artwork Studios.

I saw a boy coming down the path from one of the buildings.

"Would you tell me please where I can find the Master?" I asked, reverently.

The boy gave me a long stare.