A Guest at the Ludlow, and Other Stories
Page 25
MY TRIP TO DIXIE
XXIV
I once took quite a long railway trip into the South in search of myhealth. I called my physicians together, and they decided by a risingvote that I ought to go to a warmer clime, or I should enjoy very poorhealth all winter. So I decided to go in search of my health, if I diedon the trail.
I bought tickets at Cincinnati of a pale, sallow liar, who is justbeginning to work his way up to the forty-ninth degree in the Order ofAnanias. He will surely be heard from again some day, as he has theelements that go to make up a successful prevaricator.
He said that I could go through from Cincinnati to Asheville, NorthCarolina, with only one easy change of cars, and in about twenty-threehours. It took me twice that time, and I had to change cars three timesin the dead of night.
The southern railroad is not in a flourishing condition. It ought to gosomewhere for its health. Anyway, it ought to go somewhere, which atpresent it does not. According to the old Latin proverb, I presume weshould say nothing but good of the dead, but I am here to say that therailroad that knocked my spine loose last week, and compelled me tocarry lunch baskets and large Norman two-year-old gripsacks through thegloaming, till my arms hung down to the ground, does not deserve to betreated well, even after death.
I do not feel any antipathy toward the South, for I did not take anypart in the war, remaining in Canada during the whole time, and so I cannot now be accused of offensive partisanship. I have always avoidedanything that would look like a settled conviction in any of thesematters, retaining always a fair, unpartisan and neutral idiocy inrelation to all national affairs, so that I might be regarded as a goodcivil service reformer, and perhaps at some time hold an office.
To further illustrate how fair-minded I am in these matters, I may say Ihave patiently read all the war articles written by both sides, and Ihave not tried to dodge the foot-notes or the marginal references, orthe war maps or the memoranda. I have read all these things until Ican't tell who was victorious, and if that is not a fair and impartialway to look at the war, I don't know how to proceed in order toeradicate my prejudices.
But a railroad is not a political or sectional matter, and it ought notto be a local matter unless the train stays at one end of the line allthe time. This road, however, is the one that discharged its engineersome years ago, and when he took his time-check he said he would now goto work for a sure-enough road with real iron rails to it, instead oftwo streaks of rust on a right of way.
All night long, except when we were changing cars, we rattled along overwobbling trestles and third mortgages. The cars were graded fromthird-class down. The road itself was not graded at all.
They have the same old air in these coaches that they started out with.Different people, with various styles of breath, have used this air andthen returned it. They are using the same air that they did before thewar. It is not, strictly speaking, a national air. It is more of alanguid air, with dark circles around its eyes.
At one place where I had an engagement to change cars, we had a wait offour hours, and I reclined on a hair-cloth lounge at the hotel, with theintention of sleeping a part of the time.
Dear, patient reader, did you every try to ride a refractory hair-clothlounge all night, bare back? Did you ever get aboard a short,old-fashioned, black, hair-cloth lounge, with a disposition to buck?
I was told that this was a kind, family lounge that would not shy ormake trouble anywhere, but I had only just closed my dark-red andmournful eyes in sleep when this lounge gently humped itself, and shedme as it would its smooth, dark hair in the spring, tra la.
The floor caught me in its great strong arms and I vaulted back upon thepolished bosom of the hair-cloth lounge. It was made for a man aboutfifty-three inches in length, and so I had to sleep with my feet in mypistol pockets and my nose in my bosom up to the second joint.
I got so that I could rise off the floor and climb on the lounge withoutwaking up. It grew to be second nature to me. I did it just as a man whois hungry in his sleep bites off large fragments of the air and eats itinvoluntarily and smacks his lips and snorts. So I arose and depositedmyself again and again on that old swayback but frolicsome wreck withoutwaking. But I couldn't get aboard softly enough to avoid waking thelounge. It would yawn and rumble inside and rise and fall like the deeprolling sea, till at last I gave up trying to sleep on it any more, andcurled up on the floor.
_I bought tickets at Cincinnati of a pale, sallow liar,who is just beginning to work his way up to the forty-ninth degree inthe Order of Ananias_ (Page 222)]
The hair-cloth lounge, in various conditions of decrepitude, maybe foundall through this region. Its true inwardness is composed of spiralsprings which have gnawed through the cloth in many instances. Thesesprings have lost none of their old elasticity of spirits, and cordiallycorkscrew themselves into the affections of the man who sits down onthem. If anything could make me thoroughly attached to the South itwould be one of these spiral springs bored into my person about a foot.But that is the only way to remain on a hair-cloth chair or sofa. No manever successfully sat on one of them for any length of time unless hehad a strong pair of pantaloons and a spiral spring twisted into him forsome distance.
In private houses hair-cloth sofas may be found in a domesticated state,with a pair of dark, reserved chairs, waiting for some one to come andfall off them. In hotels they go in larger flocks, and graze together inthe parlor.