my nobler kin to
whom I have been recreant, and so I finally
dedicate this book to them.
- These are the rules of the road :
(1) Keep away from the Cities ; -
(2) Keep away from the railroads ;
(3) Have nothing to do with money and
carry no baggage ;
(4) Ask for dinner about quarter after eleven ;
(5) Ask for supper, lodging and breakfast
about quarter of five ; , / ,
(6) Travel .alone; .
(7) Be neat, deliberate, chaste and civil ;
(8) Preach the Gospel of Beauty.
And without further parley, let us proceed
to inculcate these, by illustration, precept and
dogma.
VACHEL LINDSAY.
SPBINGFIELD, ILLINOIS,
November, 1916.
FOLLOW THE THISTLEDOWN
I asked her "Is Aladdin's Lamp
Hidden anywhere?"
"Look into your heart/* she said,
"Aladdin's Lamp is there.**
She took my heart with glowing hands.
It burned to dust and air
And smoke and rolling thistledown.
Blowing everywhere.
"Follow the thistledown," she said,
"Till doomsday if you dare,
Over the hills and far away.
Aladdin's Lamp is there."
VAGRANT ADVENTURES IN THE
SOUTH
COLUMBUS
WOULD that we had the fortunes of Columbus.
Sailing his caravels a trackless way,
He found a Universe he sought Cathay.
God give such dawns as when, his venture o'er,
The Sailor looked upon San Salvador.
God lead us past the setting of the sun
To wizard islands, of august surprise ;
God make our blunders wise.
THE MAN UNDER THE YOKE
IT was Sunday morning in the middle of
March. I was stranded in Jacksonville, Florida.
After breakfast I had five cents left. Joyously
I purchased a sack of peanuts, then started
northwest on the railway ties straight toward
that part of Georgia marked "Swamp" on the
map.
Sunset found me in a pine forest. I decided
to ask for a meal and lodging at the white
house looming half a mile ahead just by the
track. I prepared a speech to this effect :
"I am the peddler of dreams. I am the
sole active member of the ancient brotherhood
of the troubadours. It is against the rules of
our order to receive money. We have the
habit of asking a night's lodging in exchange
for repeating verses and fairy tales."
As I approached the house I forgot the
speech. All the turkeys gobbled at me fiercely.
The two dogs almost tore down the fence try-
ing to get a taste of me. I went to the side
5
6 A HANDY GUIDE FOR BEGGARS
gate to appeal to the proud old lady crowned
with a lace cap and enthroned in the porch
rocker. Her son, the proprietor, appeared.
He shall ever be named the dog-man. His
tone of voice was such, that, to speak In meta-
phor, he bit me in the throat. He refused
me a place in his white kennel. He would
not share his dog-biscuit. The being on the
porch assured me in a whanging yelp that
they did not take " nobody in under no cir-
cumstances." Then the dog-man, mollified by
my serene grin, pointed with his thumb into
the woods, saying : " There is a man in there
who will take you in sure." He said it as
though it were a reflection on Ms neighbor's
dignity. That I might not seem to be hurry-
ing, I asked if his friend kept watch-dogs.
He assured me the neighbor could not afford
them.
The night with the man around the corner
was like a chapter from that curious document,
"The Gospel according to St. John." He
"could not afford to turn a man away" be-
cause once he slept three nights in the rain
when he walked here from west Georgia. No
one would give him shelter. After that he
THE MAN UNDEB THE YOKE 7
decided that when he had a roof he would go
shares with whoever asked. Some strangers
were good, some bad, but he would risk them
all. Imagine this amplified in the drawling
wheeze of the cracker sucking his corn-cob
pipe for emphasis.
His real name and address are of no conse-
quence. I found later that there were thou-
sands like him. But let us call him "The
Man Under the Yoke." He was lean as an
old opium-smoker. He was sooty as a pair
of tongs. His Egyptian-mummy jaws had a
two-weeks' beard. His shirt had not been
washed since the flood. His ankles were in-
nocent of socks. His hat had no band. J.
verily believe his pipe was hereditary, smoked
first by a bond-slave in Jamestown, Virginia.
He could not read. I presume his wife
could not. They were much embarrassed
when I wanted them to show me Lakeland
on the map. They had warned me against
that village as a place where itinerant strangers
were shot full of holes. Well, I found that
town pretty soon on the map, and made the
brief, snappy memorandum in my notebook:
"Ivoid Lakeland."
8 A HANDY GUIDE FOR BEGGARS
There were three uncertain chairs on the
porch, one a broken rocker. Therefore the
company sat on the railing, loafing against
the pillars. The plump wife was frozen with
diffidence. The genial, stubby neighbor, a
man from away back in the woods, after tell-
ing me how to hop freight-cars, departed
through an aperture in the wandering fence.
The two babies on the floor, squealing like
shoats, succeeded in being good without being
clean. They wrestled with the puppies who
emerged from somewhere to the number of
four. I wondered if the Man Under the Yoke
would turn to a dog-man when the puppies
grew up and learned to bark.
Supper was announced with the admonition,
"Bring the chairs." The rocking chair would
not fit the kitchen table. Therefore the two
babies occupied one, ,and the lord of the house
another, and the kitchen chair was "allotted
to your servant. The mother hastened to
explain that she was "not hungry." After
snuffing the smoking lamp that had no chim-
ney, she paced at regular intervals between
the stove and her lord, piling hot biscuits
before him.
THE MAN UNDER THE YOKE 9
I could not offer my chair, and make it
plain that some one must stand. I expressed
my regrets at her lack of appetite and fell to.
Their hospitality did not fade in my eyes
when I considered that they ate such pro-
visions every day. There was a dish of salt
pork that tasted like a salt mine. We had
one deep plate in common containing a soup
of luke-warm water, tallow, half-raw fat pork
and wilted greens. This dish was innocent
of any enhancing condiment. I turned to the
biscuit pile.
They were " raw in the middle. I kept up
courage by watching the children consume
the tallow soup with zest. After taking one
biscuit for meat, and one for vegetables, I
ate a third -for good-fellowship. The mother
was anxious that her children should be a
credit, and shook them too sternly and ener-
getically I thought, when they buried their
hands in the main dish.
Meanwhile the Man Under the Yoke told
me how his bosses in the lumber-camp kept
his wages down to the point where the grocery
bill took all his pay; how he was forced to
trade at the "company" store, there in the
10 A HANDY GUIDE FOR BEGGARS
heart of the pine woods. He had cut himself
In the saw-pit, had been laid up for a month,
and "like a fool" had gone back to the same
business. Last year he had saved a little
money, expecting to get things "fixed up nice/'
but the whole family was sick from June till
October. He liked his fellow-workmen. They
had to stand all he did. They loved the
woods, and because of this love would not
move to happier fortunes. Few had gone
farther than Jacksonville. They did not under-
stand travelling. They did not understand
the traveller and were " likely to be mean to
him." Then he asked me whether I thought
"niggers" had souls. I answered "Yes." He
agreed reluctantly. "They have a soul, of
course, but it's a mighty small one." We
adjourned to the front room, carrying our
chairs down a corridor, where the open door-
ways we passed displayed uncarpeted floors
and no furniture. The echo of the slow steps
of the Man Under the Yoke reverberated
through the wide house like muffled drums
at a giant's funeral. Yet the largeness of
the empty house was wealth. I have been
entertained since in many a poorer castle;
THE MAN UNDER THE YOKE 11
for Instance, in Tennessee, where a deaf old
man, a crone, and lier sister, a lame man, a
slug of a girl, and a little unexplained boy ate,
cooked, and slept by an open fire. They had
neither stove, lamp, nor candle. I was made
sacredly welcome for the night, though it
was a one-room cabin with a low roof and a
narrow door.
Thanks to the Giver of every good and
perfect gift, pine-knots cost nothing in a pine
forest. New York has no such fireplaces
as that in the front room of the Man Under
the Yoke. I thought of an essay by a New
England sage on compensation. There were
many old scriptures rising in my heart as I
looked into that blaze. The one I remembered
most was "I was a stranger, and ye took me
in." But though it was Sunday night, I did
not quote Scripture to my host.
It was seven o'clock. The wife had put
her babies to bed. She sat on the opposite
side of the fire from us. Eight o'clock was
bedtime, the host had to go to work so early.
But our three hearts were bright as the burn-
ing pine for an hour.
You have enjoyed the golden embossed
12 A HANDY GUIDE FOR BEGGARS
brocades of Hokusai. You have felt the
charm of Maeterlinck's "The Blind." Think
of these, then think of the shoulders of the
Man Under the Yoke, embossed by the flame.
Think of his voice as an occult instrument,
while he burned a bit of crackling brush, and
spoke of the love he bore that fireplace, the
memory of evenings his neighbors had spent
there with him, the stories told, the pipes
smoked, the good silent times with wife and
children. It was said by hints, and repeti-
tions, and broken syllables, but it was said.
We ate and drank in the land of heart's desire.
This man and his wife sighed at the fitting
times, and smiled, when to smile was to under-
stand, while I recited a few of the rhymes of
the dear singers of yesterday and to-day :
Yeats and Lanier, Burns and even Milton.
This fire was the treasure at the end of the
rainbow. I had not been rainbow-chasing in
vain.
As my host rose and knocked out his pipe,
he told how interesting lumbering with oxen
could be made, if a man once understood
how they were driven. He assured me that
the most striking thing in all these woods
THE MAN UNDER THE YOKE IS
was a team of ten oxen. He directed me to a
road whereby I would be sure to see half a
dozen to-morrow. He said if ever I met a
literary man, to have him write them into
verses. Therefore the next day I took the
route and observed : and be sure, if ever I
meet the proper minstrel, I shall exhort him
with all my strength to write the poem of the
yoke.
As to that night, I slept in that room in the
corner away from the fireplace. One comfort
was over me, one comfort and pillow between
me and the dark floor. The pillow was laun-
dered at the same time as the shirt of my host.
There was every reason to infer that the
pillow and comfort came from his bed.
They slept far away, in some mysterious
part of the empty house. I hoped they were
not cold. I looked into the rejoicing fire. I
said: "This is what I came out into the wil-
derness to see. This man had nothing, and
gave me half of it, and we both had abundance. 3 *
THE MAN WITH THE APPLE-GREEN
EYES
REMEMBER, If you go a-wandering, the road
will break your heart. It is sometimes like a
woman, caressing and stabbing at once. It is
a mystery, this quality of the road. I write,
not to explain, but to warn, and to give the
treatment. Comradeship and hospitality are
opiates most often at hand.
I remember when I encountered the out-
poured welcome of an Old Testament Patriarch,
a praying section boss in a gray log village, one
Monday evening in north Florida. He looked
at me long. He sensed my depression. He
made me his seventh son.
He sent his family about to announce my
lecture in the schoolhouse on "The Value of
Poetry." Enough apple-cheeked maidens, sad
mothers, and wriggling, large-eyed urchins as-
sembled to give an unconscious demonstration
of the theme.
The little lamp spluttered. The windows
14
THE MAN WITH APPLE-GREEN EYES 15
rattled. Two babies cried. Everybody as-
sumed that lectures were delightful, miserable,
and important. Tlie woman on the back seat
nursed her baby, reducing the noise one third.
When I was through shouting, they passed
the hat. I felt sure I had carried my point.
Poetry was eighty-three cents valuable, a
good deal for that place. And the sons of
the Patriarch were the main contributors, for
before the event he had thunderously exhorted
them to be generous. I should not have taken
the money ? But that was before I had a good
grip on my rule.
The Patriarch was kept away by a neighbor
who had been seized with fits on Sunday, while
fishing. The neighbor though mending physi-
cally, was in a state of apprehension. He de-
manded, with strong crying and tears, that
the Patriarch pray with him. Late in the
evening, as we were about the hearth, recover-
ing from the lecture, my host returned from
the sinner's bed, the pride of priesthood in his
step. He had established a contrite heart in
his brother, though all the while frank with
him about the doubtful efficacy of prayer in
healing a body visited with just wrath.
16 A HANDY GUIDE FOR BEGGARS
Who would not have loved the six sons, when,
at the Patriarch's command, they drew Into a
circle around the family altar, with their small
sister, and the gentle mother with her babe
at her breast? It was an achievement to put
the look of prayer into such flushed, wilful
faces as those boys displayed. They followed
their father with the devotion of an Ironside
regiment as he lifted up his voice singing
"The Son of God goes forth to War." They
rolled out other strenuous hymns. I thought
they would sing through the book. I looked
at the mother. I thanked God for her. She
was the only woman in Florida who could
cook. And her voice was honey. Her breast
was ivory. The child was a pearl. Her whole
aspect had the age and the youth of one of
De Forest Brush's austere American madonnas.
The scripture lesson, selected not by chance,
covered the adventures of Jacob at Bethel.
We afterwards knelt on the pine floor, our
heads in the seats of the chairs. I peeped and
observed the Patriarch with his chair almost
in the fireplace. He ignored the heat. He
shouted the name of the smallest boy, who
answered the roll-call by praying: "Now I
THE MAN WITH APPLE-GREEN EYES 17
lay me down to sleep." The father mega-
phoned for the next, and the next, with a like
response. He called the girl's name, but in
a still small voice she lisped the Lord's Prayer.
As the older boys were reached, the prayers
became individual, but containing fragments
of "Now I lay me." The mother petitioned
for the soul of the youngest boy, not yet in a
state of grace, for a sick cousin, and many a
neighborhood cause. The father prayed twenty
minutes, while the chair smoked. I forgot the
chair at last when he voiced the petition that
the stranger in the gates might have visitations
on his lonely road, like Jacob at Bethel. Then
a great appeal went up the chimney that the
whole assembly might bear abundantly the
fruits of the spirit. The fire leaped for joy.
I knew that when the prayer appeared before
the throne, it was still a tongue of flame.
*******
Next morning I spent about seventy cents
lecture money on a railway ticket, and tried
to sleep past my destination, but the con-
ductor woke me. He put me off in the Oke-
fenokee swamp, just inside the Georgia line.
The waters had more brass-bespangled ooze
18 A HANDY GUIDE FOR BEGGARS
than In mid-Florida ; the marsh weeds beneath
were lustrous red. I crossed an interminable
trestle over the Suwannee River. A fidgety
bird was scolding from tie to tie. If the sky
had been turned over and the azure boiled
to a spoonful, you would have had the intense
blue with which he was painted. If the
caldron had been filled with sad clouds, and
boiled to a black lump, you would have had
my heart. Ungrateful, I had forgotten the
Patriarch. I was lonely for I knew not what ;
maybe for my friend Edward Broderick, who
had walked with me through central Florida,
and had been called to New York by the
industrial tyranny which the steel rails repre-
sented even here.
We two had taken the path beside the rail-
way in the regions of Sanford and Tampa,
walking in loose sand white as salt. An
orange grove in twilight had been a sky of
little moons. We had eaten not many oranges.
They are expensive there. But we had stolen
the souls of all we passed, and so had spoiled
them for their owners. It had been an ex-
quisite revenge.
We had seen swamps of parched palmettos
THE MAN WITH APPLE-GREEN EYES 19
set afire by wood-burning locomotives whose
volcanic smoke-stacks are squat and wide,
like those on the engines in grandmother's
third reader.
We had met Mr. Terrapin, Mr. Owl, Mrs.
Cow, and Master Calf, all of them carved by
the train-wheels, Mr. Buzzard sighing beside
them. We had met Mr. Pig again at the
cracker's table, cooked by last year's forest-
fire, run over by last year's train. But what
had it mattered? For we together had had
ears for the mocking-bird, and eyes for the
moss-hung live oaks that mourn above the
brown swamp waters.
We had met few men afoot, only two pro-
fessional tramps, yet the path by the railway
was clearly marked. Some Florida poet must
celebrate the Roman directness of the rail-
ways embanked six feet above the swamp,
going everywhere in regions that have no
wagon-roads.
But wherever in our land there is a railway,
there is a little path clinging to the embank-
ment holding the United States in a network
as real as that of the rolled steel, a path
wrought by the foot of the unsubdued. This
A HANDY GUIDE FOR BEGGARS
path, wanders back through history till it
encounters Tramp Columbus, Tramp Dante,
Tramp St. Francis, Tramp Buddha, and the
rest of our masters.
All this we talked of nobly, even grandilo-
quently, but now I walked alone, ignoring the
beautiful turpentine forests of Georgia and the
sometime accepted merits of a quest for the
Grail, the Gleam, or the Dark Tower. Reach-
ing Fargo about one o'clock I attempted to
telegraph fonmoney to take me home, beaten.
It was not a money-order office, and thirteen
cents would not have covered the necessary
business details. Forced to make the best of
things, I spent all upon ginger-snaps at the
combination grocery-store and railway-station.
I shared them with a drummer waiting for the
freight, who had the figure of Falstaff, and
the mustaches of Napoleon third. I did not
realize at that time, that by getting myself
penniless I was inviting good luck.
After a dreary while, the local freight going
to Valdosta came in. Napoleon advanced to
capture a ride. A conductor and an inspector
were on the platform. He attacked them
with cigars. He indulged freely in friendly
THE MAN WITH APPLE-GREEN EYES 21
swearing and slapping on the back. He showed
credentials, printed and written. He did not
want to wait three hours for the passenger
train in that much-to-be-condemned town.
His cigars were refused, his papers returned.
He took the path to the lumberman's hotel.
His defeat appeared to be the inspector's doing.
That obstinate inspector wore a gray stubble
beard and a collar chewed by many laundries.
He was encompassed in a black garment of
state that can -be described as a temperance
overcoat. He needed only a bulging umbrella
and a nose like a pump-spout to resemble the
caricatures of the Prohibition Party that ap-
peared in Puck when St. John ran for President.
I showed him all my baggage carried in an
oil-cloth wrapper in my breast pocket : a
blue bandanna, a comb, a little shaving mirror,
a tooth-brush, a razor, and a piece of soap.
"These," I said, "are my credentials."
Also I showed a little package of tracts in
rhyme I was distributing to the best people:
The Wings of the Morning, or The Tree oj
Laughing Bells, 1 I hinted he might become
1 This appears, pages seventy-four through eighty-one, in
General Booth and Other Poems.
2 A HANDY GUIDE FOR BEGGAES
the possessor of one. I drew Ms attention
to the fact that there was no purse In the
exhibit. I divided my last four ginger-snaps
with him. I showed him a letter commending
me to all pious souls from a leading religious
worker In New York, Charles F. Powlison.
Soon we were thundering away to Valdosta !
Mr. Temperance climbed to the observation
chair in the little box at the top of the caboose,
alternately puzzling over my Wings of the
Morning, 1 and looking out. The caboose
bumped like a farm-wagon on a frozen road.
The pine-burning stove roared. The negro
Adonis on the wood-pile had gold in his teeth.
He had eyes like dark jewels set in white
marble, and he polished lanterns as black as
himself.
"By Jove/' I said. "That's the handsomest
bit of lacquer this side of the Metropolitan
Museum."
" J Sh/* said Conductor Roundface, sobering
himself. "You will queer yourself with the
old man. He wouldn't let that drummer on
because Tie swore."
1 This appears, pages seventy-four tlirougli eighty-one, In
General Booth and Other Poems.
THE MAN WITH APPLE-GBEEN EYES 3
The old man came down. I bridled my
profane tongue while lie lectured the conductor
on the necessity for more interest in the Georgia
public schools, and the beauty of total ab-
stinence, and, at last, the Japanese situation.
This is a condensed translation of his speech:
"I was on the side of the Russians all through
the Russo-Japanese war. My friends said,
'Hooray for Japan. 3 But I say a Japanese
is a nigger. I have never seen one, but I have
seen their pictures. The Lord intended people
to stay where they were put. We ought to
have trade, but no immigration. Chinese be-
long to China. They are adapted to the
Chinese climate. Niggers belong to Africa.
They are adapted to the African climate.
Americans belong to America. They are
adapted to the American climate. Why, the
mixing that is going on is something scandalous.
I had a nigger working for me once that was
half-Spaniard and half -Indian. There are just
a few white people, and more mulattoes every
day. The white people ought to keep their
blood pure. Russians are white people. Ger-
mans, English, and Americans are white people.
French people are niggers. Dagoes are niggers.
m A HANDY GUIDE FOR BEGGARS
Jews are niggers. All people are niggers but
just these four. There Is going to be a big
war in two or three years between all the
white people and all the niggers. The niggers
are going to combine and force a fight, Japan
in the lead."
We reached Valdosta after dark. Conductor
and inspector exchanged with me most civil
good-bys. Their hospitality had been nepenthe
for my poor broken heart. I reconciled my-
self to sitting in front of the station fireplace
all night. I thought my nearest friend was
at Macon, one hundred and fifty miles north;
a gay cavalier who had read Omar "Khayyam
with me in college.
Just then an immense, angular, red-haired
man sat down in front of the fire. He might
have been the prodigal son of some Yankee
farmer-statesman. He threw his arms around
me, and though I had never seen him before,
the Brotherhood of Man was established at
once. He cast an empty bottle into the wood-
box. He produced another. I would not
drink. He poured down one-half of it. It
snorted like dish-water going into the sink.
He said: "That's right. Don't drink. This
MAN WITH APPLE-GREEN EYES 25
is the first time I ever drank. I have been
on a soak two weeks. You see I was in Texas
a long time, and went broke. I don't know
how I got here." "Well/' I said, "we have
this fire till -"they run us out. Enjoy yourself."
He wept. "I don't deserve to enjoy any-
thing. Anybody that's made a fool of himself
as I have done. I wish I were in Vermont
where my wife and babies are buried. Some-
body wrote me they were dead and buried just
when I went broke."
Thereafter he was merry. "There was a
man in Vermont I didn't like who kept a fire
like this. I went to see him every evening
because I liked his fire. He would study and
I would smoke."
He took out two dimes. "Say, that's my
last money. Let's buy two tickets to the next
station and get off and shoot up the town."
A hollow-eyed little man of middle age,
grimy like a coal-miner, sat down on the
other side of Mr. Vermont. He said he had
been flagging trains for so long he could not
tell when he began. He said he must wait
three hours for a friend. He declined the
bottle. He listened to Mr. Vermont's story,
26 A HANDY GUIDE FOR BEGGARS
told with variations. He put his chin into
his hands, his elbows on his knees, and slept.
Vermont threw himself on top of the bent
back, his face wrapped in his arms, like a
school-boy asleep on his desk-lid. Mr. Flag-
man slowly awoke, and cast off his brother,
and slept again. Cautiously Vermont waited,
to resume his pillow in a quarter of an hour,
and be again cast off.
Mr. Flagman sat up. I asked Mm if there
was a train for Macon going soon. He said:
"The through freight is making up now."
He gave me the conductor's name. I asked
if there was any one about who could write
me a pass to Macon. He said, "The pay car
has just come in, and Mr. Grady can give
you a pass if he wants to/* I went out to the
tracks.
From a little window at the end of the car
Mr. Grady was paying the interminable sons
of Ham, who emerged from the African night,
climbed the steps, received their envelopes,
and slunk down the steps into the African night.
At last I showed Mr. Grady my letter from
Charles F. Powlison. Mr. Grady did not ap-
pear to be of a religious turn. I asked him
THE MAN WITH APPLE-GREEN EYES 7
permission to ride to Macon in the caboose of
the freight, going out at one o'clock, I as-
sured him it was beneath my dignity to crawl
into the box-car, or patronize the blind bag-
gage, and I was tired of walking in swamp.
Mr. Grady asked, "Are you an official of the
road?"
"No, sir."
"Then what you ask is impossible, sir/ 9
"Oh, my dear Mr. Grady, it is not im-
possible "
"I am glad to have met you, sir. Good-
night, sir," and Mr. Grady had shut the win-
dow.
There was the smash, clang, and thud of
making up a train. A negro guided me to
the lantern of a freight conductor. The con-
ductor had the lean frame, the tight jaw, the
fox nose, the Chinese skin of a card-shark.
He would have made a name for himself on
the Spanish Main, some centuries since, by
the cool way he would have snatched jewels
from ladies* ears and smiled when they bled.
He did not smile now. He gripped his lantern
like a cutlass, and the cars groaned. They
were gentlemen in armor compelled to walk
8 A HANDY GJJIDE FOR BEGGARS
the plank by this pirate with the apple-green
eyes. We will call him Mr. Shark.
I put my pious letter into my pocket. "Mr.
Shark, I would like to ride to Macon in the
caboose." Mr. Shark thrust his lantern under
my hat-brim. I had no collar, but was not
ashamed of that. He said, "I have met men
like you before." He turned down the track
shouting orders. I jumped in front of him.
I said, "You are mistaken. You have not
met a man like me before. I am the goods.
I am. the wise boy from New York. I have
been walking in every swamp 111 Florida, eat-
ing dead pig for breakfast, water-moccasins
for lunch, alligators for dinner. I would like
to tell you my adventures."
Mr. Shark ignored me, and went on persecut-
ing the train.
Valdosta was a depot in the midst of dark-
ness. I hated the darkness. I went into the
depot. Vermont was offering Flagman the
bottle. He drank.
Flagman asked me : "Can't you make it?"
"No. Grady turned me down. And the
conductor turned me down."
Mr. Flagman said, "The sure way to ride
THE MAN WITH APPLE-GREEN EYES 29
in a caboose like a gentleman is to ask the
conductor like he is a gentleman, and every-
body else is a gentleman, and when he turns
you down, ask him again like a gentleman."
And much more with that refrain. It was
wisdom lightly given, profounder than it
seemed. Let us remember the tired flagman,
and engrave the substance of his saying on our
souls.
I sought the pirate again. I took off my
hat. I bowed like Don Csesar De Bazan,
but gravely. "I ask you, just as one gentle-
man to another, to take me to Macon. I have
friends in Macon."
Mr. Shark showed a pale streak of smile.
"Come around at one o'clock."
My "Thank you" was drowned by a late
passenger. It came from Fargo, for Napoleon
III dismounted. He said: " Hello. Where
are you going, boy?"
"I am just taking the caboose of the through
freight for Macon. But I have a few minutes."
"How the devil did you get here, sir?" I
told him the story in brief. We were in front
of the fire now. "How are you going to make
this next train ? I would like to go with you."
SO A HANDY GUIDE FOR BEGGARS
I could not tell whether he meant It or not.
Right beside us Mr. Flagman was asleep for
all night, with his elbows on his knees, Ms
chin in his hands. Stretched above Flagman's
back was Mr. Vermont, like a school-boy
asleep on his desk. I said, "Do you see the
gentleman on the bottom of the pile? He Is
the Grand Lama of Caboose ville. You have
to ask him for the password. The man on
top is the sublime sub-Lama."
Napoleon looked dubiously at them, and the
two bottles In the wood-box. He gave me
good words of farewell, finishing with mock-
gravity : "Of course I respect you, sir, in not
giving the password without orders from your
superior, sir."
And now I boarded the caboose, hurrying
to surprise the Macon cavalier. He expected
me in three weeks, walking. But the caboose
did one hundred and fifty miles In thirteen
hours, and all the way my heart spun like a
glorified musical top. Alas, this Is a tale of
drink. I filled the coffee-pot and drained it
an Infinite number of times, all because my
poor broken heart was healed. The stove was
the only person in the world out of humor.
THE MAN WITH APPLE-GREEN EYES 31
He was mad because Ms feet were nailed to
the floor. He tried to spill the coffee, and
screamed, "Now you've done It 5 ' every time
we rounded a curve. The caboose-door
slammed open every seven minutes, Shark and
his white man and his negro rushing in from
their all-night work for refreshment.
The manner of serving coffee in a caboose is
this': there are three tin cups for the white
men. The negro can chew sugar-cane, or steal
a drink when we do not look. There is a tin
box of sugar. If one is serving Mr. Shark,
one shakes a great deal of sugar into the cup,
and more down one's sleeve, and into one's
shoes and about the rocking floor. One be-
comes sprinkled like a doughnut, newly-fried,
and fragrant with splashed coffee. The cinders
that come in on the breath of the shrieking
night cling to the person. But if you are
serving Mr. Shark you do not mind these
things. You pour his drink, you eat his bread
and cheese, thanking him from the bottom of
your stomach, not having eaten anything
since the ginger-snaps of long ago. You sol-
emnly touch your cup to his, as you sit with
him on the red disembowelled car cushions,
82 A HANDY GUIDE FOR BEGGARS
with the moss gushing out. You wish him
the treasure-heaps of Aladdin or a racing stable
in Ireland, whichever he pleases.
Let all the readers of this tale who hope to
become Gentlemen of the Road take off collars
and cuffs, throw their purses into the ditch,
break their china, and drink their coffee from
tinware to the health of Mr. Shark, our friend
with the apple-green eyes. Yea, my wanderers,
the cure for the broken heart is gratitude to
the gentleman you would hate, if you had
your collar on or your purse in your pocket
when you met him. Though there was heavy
betting against him, he becomes the Hero in a
whirlwind finish. Patriarch and Flagman dis-
puting for second, decision for Flagman.
THE WOULD-BE MERMAN
MOBS are like the Gulf Stream,
Like the vast Atlantic.
In your fragile boats you ride,
Conceited folk at ease.
Far beneath are dancers,
Mermen wild and frantic,
Circling round the giant glowing
Sea-anemones.
"Crude, ill-smelling voters,
Herds," to you in seeming.
But to me their draggled clothes
Are scales of gold and red.
Ah, the pink sea-horses,
Green sea-dragons gleaming,
And knights that chase the dragons
And spear them till they're dead !
