One afternoon as I lay there, going over such silly ideas and shutting my eyes against that terrible ceiling, I felt the unmistakable touch of a man’s hand, laid, large and gentle, on mine. Turning my head I opened my eyes on a tall and kindly looking man in uniform.
‘Who are you?’ I asked, smiling with pleasure at any break to my thoughts.
‘I’m the ship’s doctor,’ said he, ‘and you must try to come up on deck, or you will be really ill.’
Cheered by his mere manner I struggled into some clothes and found someone to help me along the passages and up on to the deck again. How lovely was the fresh air and the sight of the sea, and the sound of the talk of the others. They welcomed me heartily, one wrapped a rug round me and another brought me a tot of brandy, and I knew then for the first time the magic effect of this godsend of a restorative. Time didn’t hang so heavily now, but I think that Columbus himself was not more pleased at a sight of America than I to have Long Island pointed out to me, to see fireworks ashore and the varied lights of the shipping that we were passing. Sickness left me and I even made my way into the dining-room and ordered something to eat.
We docked early in the morning, and my first contact with America was the big customs-shed of New York. The officials were tall and leisurely, always sucking something and completely indifferent to anyone’s concerns. It gave me an absurd shock to hear them talking English quite easily, and me having come all that way! The four of us who had shared a cabin kept together for mutual protection, and ventured forth into the streets. They seemed much like those at home, only far noisier. We tried a little restaurant for lunch, and greatly amused the people by our ignorance of the strange coinage. Refreshed, we began to look about, and presently one of us discovered through some advertisement that it was possible to go to Washington by train. We knew that Washington was the capital, but it seemed a long way off, and we had no notion that trains were common enough in America for people to go about casually as we did in England.
‘But what about Chicago?’ I demurred. ‘We have to get there somehow, and Cook’s man has told us how to.’
‘Oh, but there’s sure to be some kind of railway-line to get there from Washington,’ argued the bolder spirit, ‘and we may never in our lives have the chance to see Washington if we don’t now. Oh do let’s.’
So we all went to the station, after learning to our amusement that we must never ask for the ‘station’ (a very different place), but for the ‘depot’. Here we found ourselves among a large number of passengers, just like one sees at Liverpool Street Station on any Saturday afternoon. Only in New York there was no agitated speculation as to which platform or what hour. Everyone was seated comfortably in an airy waiting-room until the summons came for the train. ‘Why can’t we go on the platform,’ I wondered. I soon saw the reason. There was no platform. We had to step up into the train from the line, or ‘track’ as they called it. Here were fresh surprises for us. Instead of the stuffy little upholstered compartments on our English railways (where people never agree as to how much fresh air may be let in) there were spacious, long, open carriages, where we could move about in comfort, change our seats so as to get different points of view, arrange our belongings, and make frequent excursions to the end of the car where iced water was provided free! We had hardly started when white-coated boys came along, proclaiming for sale all sorts of little luxuries—magazines, fans, tempting fruit, candy…. When I exclaimed that it seemed to me a kind of fairyland, one of our party argued that it was all very well for the Americans to have all these modern improvements, but it was the English who had started railways, and had to work off the old stock. I was obliged to concede this point, but felt more sympathy with her next remark about the views from the windows, which compared unfavourably enough with our English countryside: she said that her respect for the Pilgrim Fathers was much increased, for they must have been extremely earnest about their religion to leave England for America. I wished we could have seen more of Philadelphia than we managed to spy from the railway, for Penn had always been one of my heroes.
However, Washington made up for all and exceeded my best expectations. In mid-July this lovely city was hotter than anything I had ever experienced, but was a dream of delight. White and green were the prevailing tones, from beautiful houses and huge trees. Spacious streets were being continually watered with great splashing hoses that made our little lumbering water-carts seem funny in comparison. There were few people about at that time of year, and our hotel was nearly empty, and hardly any attendants to be seen. After consulting with one another we rang for the chambermaid, and a negro appeared! But he was quite efficient for all we wanted. My chief need was a bath, and I never enjoyed one so much before or since. Then a real bed to lie down in. My first night in America will never fade from my memory.
We were up early the next morning to make the most of the few hours before we were to start for Chicago. The Capitol astounded us; we had no idea that the Americans knew how to build anything so large and impressive. But we were far more fascinated by the White House, a homely looking villa so near the roadway that we felt inclined to tap on the window and ask how they were getting on.
How silent and dignified the city seemed on that Sunday afternoon as we made our way to the depot to get our train for Chicago. But here we came upon a new phase of American life. The depot was all a-bustle with negroes starting on excursions. Believe me, I had always pictured negroes, if not naked, attired in the minimum, or in white garments of some slight kind. Here they were out-doing our ’Ampstead ’Arries and ’Arriets in the colour and extravagant splendour of their holiday clothes. I had a chat with a woman who was carrying a real live black baby in a snow-white dress. She was pleased at my admiring the little fellow, and let me hold him a bit. I was sorry to leave Washington.
Our first point of excitement on the journey was Harper’s Ferry. This romantic spot actually existed, and there we were, passing through it quite casually. Our enthusiasm amused our fellow passengers, some of whom appeared to know less about John Brown than we did. I was struck with the extreme readiness of these people to talk to us and start a temporary friendship. My own family had always been inclined to chat with a traveller at any time, but our chattiness was cool reserve compared to that of Americans. At first I was a little on the defensive, but soon began to enjoy and appreciate this general friendliness. After all it’s the best way to ‘see’ a country, and get various opinions and meet new people; and there was the ever-blessed link of a common language. A common language, yes, but everyone spotted us as English. ‘How do you know I’m English?’ I asked a pleasant sea-captain who begged to join us at our tea in the ‘parlour car’, and entertained us with yarns from a worldwide experience. His reply was immediate: ‘By your way of talking and by your bright complexion.’ It was news to me that I had either.
When dusk fell our negro porter came to make up our couches for the night. Now I had not been anything but hot since leaving New York, and I besought him not to pile on the rugs. ‘You’re hot now,’ said he, ‘but wait till we are going over the Alleghanies, and see if you don’t pull them round you.’ I lay down and enjoyed the quiet evening effect as the sun was setting over the hills, and then there came over me that odd feeling (that has always attacked me at intervals) of being alone in the world, and I began to wonder what on earth I was doing careering over a strange continent. Not for long; the negro was right; the night grew cold, and rolling myself up in my rugs I fell happily asleep.
In the morning we managed to have a sketchy kind of wash in the train. It was badly needed, for the soot on a railway journey in America was like nothing we get in England. Great lumps of soot nestled into our clothes. Our captain explained it as due to the softness of the coal, so nothing could be done about it. We were indeed sorry to say goodbye to this Captain Riley, who was going on, while we had to change for Chicago. We talked eagerly of the meal we intended to have at the junction, picturing a kind of Bristol refreshmen
t room, for the tea in the ‘parlour car’ had not been very sustaining, and it was now eight o’clock in the morning. But Cincinnati Junction turned out to be no more than a wooden track, with a small shed on it. This shed was evidently a refreshment-room, but all that was left to eat consisted of two buns on a glass dish. ‘How much are these buns?’ said I to the woman presiding over them. Staring at me she exclaimed in rich nasal twang, ‘How funny you do talk!’ When I laughed and said that we had come from an outlandish place called England, she said we could have the buns for nothing (although she called them by some other word which I forget). These didn’t go far to stay the hunger of the four of us, and as we were wondering rather dismally where and when our next meal would be, in came the Chicago express. We had hardly taken our seats when a white-robed waiter stalked along the train, proclaiming in each car the joyful news: ‘Breakfast is served in the rear car.’ Course after course was placed before us, including fruit, porridge and cream, omelettes, fish, and cutlets. We enjoyed as much as the swaying of the train allowed us to convey to our mouths, and with much laughter we agreed that the waiter deserved a good tip, although the price of the breakfast itself was a bit staggering. I said that I had plenty of change and would see to the tip. A shilling seemed to me handsome enough, and I left on the table what I took to be a shilling, but I noticed as we were leaving the car that the waiter looked anything but pleased, and it was not till several hours later that I realized the value of the nickel I had so generously given him.
We felt that another meal in that train was beyond our means, and arrived at Chicago at about 6.30 in the evening, very tired, dirty, and hungry. Different places for boarding had been assigned to us, so our foursome party was split up. Two of us were to be lodged at the University, and looked forward with confidence to an immediate and pleasant reception. We pictured the University as a dignified cluster of colleges in some prominent part of the town, as well-known to the inhabitants as King’s is to Cambridge people. Having been warned that cabmen were apt to be extortionate we thought to economize by taking the elevated railway, but there was no ready response when we asked for tickets to take us as near the University as possible. Each person consulted recommended a different station to aim at. So we tried one after another along the line, looking out in vain for anything that suggested a university. Back and forth we went, and it was now getting dark. One fellow traveller strongly recommended the Exhibition station, and although anything more unlike a university than an exhibition it was hard to imagine, we determined to get out and give the idea a trial. We started off walking along several unmade roads deep in dust, getting no nearer anywhere promising. I was wearing the slippers into which I had changed for the railway journey, and they were hardly the thing for a suburban walk in Chicago in the dark. Ploughing through one road I left a shoe stuck in the soil, and as I retrieved it I thought of Tadpole’s similar accident and laughed. ‘There’s nothing to laugh at,’ said my companion. ‘We don’t want to be out here all night, and there’s not even a cab to be had in this region.’ Just then I spied a kind of open café, with lights and people moving about. We went in and told them our plight. They were very kind and brought out a map of Chicago. Accustomed to the complexity of London, with its muddle but at least a few main streets, I was defeated by this chess-board of straight roads crossing one another at right angles and all apparently of equal importance, and numbered like convicts. But those in the know read it quite easily, and our good Samaritans soon found that the University was indeed close to the Exhibition. So we must have been circling round it all the time.
What with the soot of the railway and the dust of the streets we felt quite unfit for a dignified arrival at the University. We needn’t have worried; there was a warm welcome for us from those who had already arrived and were getting anxious about us; there was a copious supper covered by netting to keep the flies off; various kinds of baths and bed-rooms; and all troubles were soon drowned in sound sleep. Next morning I was quickly at my window to see my surroundings by daylight. When I saw the extremely new buildings and the wooden planks laid on the ground for people to walk from one to another, I began to see that the whole thing was still ‘in the making’, and to wonder no longer that the bulk of the people of Chicago had not yet heard of their university. After all, I reflected, even Oxford itself must have been new once, or at least parts of it now and then, like Keble; and I tried to picture what Chicago University would be like in a few thousand years.
I went down to breakfast and found the supper-room of the night before a noisy scramble of catch-as-catch-can. But there was plenty to eat and general camaraderie among the strangers from all quarters who were boarded in the University—some fifty in number. The Educational Congress was being held in a large building in another part of the town, and a party of us started off all business-like with note-books. I ran back to fetch something from my room and was shocked to find my bed being made by a negro. It was not that he was a negro, but that a man should be doing such a domestic and intimate job…a job that I used to do for my brothers, but the other way about seemed all wrong. When I breathed my discomfiture to the others they laughed and told me I should soon get used to it. But I never did, and kept well away when this menial task was due.
Our short daily journey was on the Illinois Central overhead railway. The little stations and carriages were all primitive and ramshackly; there were no doors at all to the compartments; we were kept in by a long iron bar which was worked by the guard: he would pull it back at each station for a few moments, for people to get in or out, and they had to nip about quickly for fear of being caught by the bar in transit. In principle it was like our modern sliding doors on the Tube, but how different in practice!
Anyone who has ever looked in at an Educational Conference needs no description of it. The same uplifting speeches are delivered at them all, no doubt the same that bored the Athenians and drove the Romans to the Baths. Of the many that we endured at Chicago I have memories of only two: a rousing, straight-from-the-shoulder, human address from Commissioner Harris; and the curious contrast of a paper read by the Russian Prince Sergius, whose deliberate style and old-world polish enchanted me. Most of the American speakers took themselves more seriously than English people do, and were correspondingly more wearisome. The real value of such conferences lies in the discussions in corridors and side-rooms, at lunches and teas, when teachers will confess to strangers what they really do do, where they have despaired, and where succeeded a bit. They recommend books to one another and pore together over the publishers’ stalls. In Chicago these were good, and I made many casual friends while discussing and buying. Teachers had come from great distances and were obviously enjoying a good time, perhaps their best holiday for many years. I think Chaucer would find good scope today for more tales among these modern pilgrims, and instead of the old slogan ‘St. Thomas is the best doctor’ we might have a new one—‘An Educational Conference is the best doctor’—for it gives teachers a change physically and mentally, if it is only to see the absurdity of their own solemnity.
Those few of us who were English graduates were referred to as alumnae, and were amused to find ourselves lionized and invited hither and thither. I actually spent a week-end at the home of a wealthy Chicago merchant, who had a ‘place’ on the lake-side. This was my one and only chance to be for longer than an hour or two inside a real American home, and it was quite unlike what I expected. The house was large and ‘well appointed’ in every way, but there was total lack of domestic service, even of ‘coloured help’. Meals were on a big scale, but the mother cooked, and we all fetched what we wanted, cleared away, washed up, and so on, with great fun. This struck me as a far more satisfactory arrangement than one finds in some English households, where there is more service than things served. My chief pleasure was in their only child, a little girl of four who did her best to get in the way of everybody and make me romp with her on the grand staircase.
A London Home in the Nineties Page 5
