Tramping on Life Part 55

But Alfoxden was a soul of rare quality. He never seemed to resent "John's" action. He was too much of a gentleman and too grateful for the real help Spalton had extended to him.

Alfoxden was a slight, Mephistophelian man ... with bushy, red eyebrows.

And he was totally bald, except for the upper part of his neck, which was fiery with red hair. He had a large knowledge of the Rabelaisan in literature ... had in his possession several rather wild effusions of Mark Twain in the original copy, and a whole MSS. volume of Field's s.m.u.tty casual verse....

But I was in the lumber camp, cooking for the "boys."...

"Hank," Spalton's youngest son (there was a second son, whose name I forget ... lived with his mother, Spalton's divorced wife, in Syracuse, and was the conventional, well-brought-up, correct youth)--Hank worked in the camp, along with the other lumber-jacks.

The boy was barely sixteen, yet he was six feet two in his stocking feet ... huge-shouldered, stupendous-muscled, a vegetarian, his picture had appeared in the magazines as the prodigy who had grown strong on "Best o' Wheat," a prepared breakfast food then popular.

I asked him if the story that he had built his growth and strength on it was a fake.

"Yes. I never ate 'Best o' Wheat' in my life, except once or twice," he answered, "I like only natural food ... vegetables ... and lots of milk ... but I draw the line at prepared, pre-digested stuff and baled breakfast foods."

"Then why did you lend them the use of your name?"

"Oh, everybody that has any prominence does that ... for a price ... but I really didn't want to do it. 'John' made me ... or I wouldn't have."

"And now you have your hair cropped close, why is that?"

"I suppose it's all right to wear your hair long ... but, last summer, it got so d.a.m.ned hot with the huge mop I had, that I always had a headache ... so one day I went down town to the barber and slipped into his chair. 'h.e.l.lo, Hank,' says he, 'what do you want, a shave?' (joking you know--I didn't have but one or two cat-hairs on my face)....

"'No, Jim, I want a hair-cut.' At first he refused ... said 'The Master' would bite his head off ... but then he did it--

"John wouldn't speak to me that night, at table ... but the other fellows shouted and clapped....

"I don't exactly get dad's idea all the time ... he's a mighty clever man, though....

"Books? Oh, yes ... the only ones I care about are those on Indians and Indian lore ... I have all the Smithsonian Inst.i.tution books on the subject ... and I have a wigwam back of the bindery--haven't you noticed it?--where I like to go and sit cross-legged and meditate ... no, I don't want to study regular things. Dad always makes me give in, in fact, whenever I act stubborn, by threatening to send me off to a regular school....

"No, I want nothing else but to work with my hands all my life."

But, with all his thinking for himself, "Hank" was also childishly vulgar. He gulped loudly as he ate, thinking it an evidence of hearty good-fellows.h.i.+p. And he deliberately broke wind at the table ... then would rap on wood and laugh....

I, on my dignity as cook, and because the others, rough as they were, complained to me in private about this behaviour, but did not openly speak against it because "Hank" was their employer's son. I took exception to the good-natured "lummox's" behaviour.

One morning he was the last to climb out from over the bench at the rough, board table....

"Hank ... wait. I want to speak to you a minute."

"Yes, Razorre, what is it?" he asked, waiting....

"Hank, the boys have delegated me to tell you that you must use better manners than you do, at meals."

"The h.e.l.l you say! and what are you going to do if I don't?"

"I--why, Hank, I hadn't thought of that ... but, since you bring up the question, I'm going to try to stop you, if you won't stop yourself."

"--think you can?--think you're strong enough?"

"I said '_try_'!"

"Listen, Razorre," and he came over to me with lazy, good-natured strength, "I'll pick you up, take you out, and roll you in the snow, if you don't keep still."

"And I'll try my best to give you a good whipping," replied I, setting my teeth hard, and glaring at him.

He started at me, grinning. I put the table between us, and began taking deep breaths to thoroughly oxygenate my blood, so it would help me in my forthcoming grapple with the big, over-grown giant.

He toppled the table over. We were together. I kept on breathing like a hard-working bellows, as I wrestled about with him.

He seized me by the right leg and tried to lift me up, carry me out. I pushed his head back by hooking my fingers under his nose, like a p.r.o.ng.

Then I grabbed him by the seat of the britches and heaved. And they burst clean up the back like a bean pod....

Unexpectedly Hank flopped on the bench and began to shout with laughter....

My heavy, artificial breathing, like a bellows, for the sake of oxygenating more strength into my muscles, had struck him as being so ludicrous, that he was in high good humour. I joined in the laughter, struck in the same way.

"I surrender, Razorre, and I'll promise to be decent at the table--you skinny, crazy, old poet!"

And he rumbled and thundered again with Brobdingnagian mirth.

Back from the lumber camp. Comparatively milder weather, but still the farmers we pa.s.sed on the road were startled by my summery attire. But by this time the lumber-jacks and I were on terms of proven friends.h.i.+p ...

I had told them yarns, and had listened to their yarns, in turn ... the stories of their lives ... and their joys and troubles....

I was reported to Spalton as having been a first-rate cook.

I went to work in the bindery again.

Every day seemed to bring a new "eccentric" to join our colony. I have hardly begun to enumerate the prime ones, yet....

But when I returned to the little settlement a curious man had already established himself ... one who was called by Spalton, in tender ridicule, Gabby Jack ... that was Spalton's nickname for him ... and it stuck, because it was so appropriate. Jack was a pilgrim in search of Utopia. And he was straightway convinced, wholly and completely, that he had found it in Eos. To him Spalton was the one and undoubted prophet of G.o.d, the high priest of Truth.

Gabby Jack was a "j'iner." From his huge, ornate, gold watch-chain hung three or four bejewelled insignia of secret societies that he was a member of. He wore a flowered waistcoat ... an enormous seal-ring, together with other rings.

He had laid aside a competence, by working his way from journeyman carpenter to an independent builder of frame houses, in some thriving town in the Middle West ... where, in his fifty-fifth year, he had received the call to go forth in quest of the Ideal, the One Truth.

His English was a marvel of ignorant ornateness, like his vest and his watch-chain and rings. He had, apparently, no family ties. Spalton became his father, his mother, his brother, his sister, almost his G.o.d.

There was nothing the Master said or did that was not perfect ... he would stand with wors.h.i.+p and adoration written large on his swarthy, great face, listening to Spalton's most trivial words....

Otherwise, he was Gabby Jack ... talking ... talking ... talking ...