Kitabı oku: «From Pillar to Post: Leaves from a Lecturer's Note-Book», sayfa 10
XII
PERILS OF THE PLATFORM
"Yours must be an extra hazardous occupation," said a chance acquaintance on a little trip through Ohio last year. "Do you carry any insurance?"
"Yes," said I. "I have an excellent accident insurance policy, and it is a great comfort. Sometimes on dark nights when I am suddenly awakened by some catastrophic quivering of my berth, as if a young earthquake had come aboard, and realize that the train has probably left the track, and is traveling ahead at a mile-a-minute clip over the rocky bed of some mountain stream, it is a real pleasure to me to foot up the sum total of the affluence that will be mine if we fail to strike a switch somewhere that will get us back on the main line again."
"Affluence is good," said he; "but it won't be yours – not if you break your neck."
"Oh, I never think of that," said I. "I think only of the possibility of injuries, and from that point of view the accident insurance policy is a joy forever. It makes you think so well of yourself, and as you lie off in your berth figuring on two legs and a couple of arms at five thousand dollars apiece, twenty toes and fingers at two hundred and fifty a digit, with your neck valued at twenty-five thousand dollars, you begin to feel that a man isn't such a worthless creature after all. I suppose even my nose is worth something."
"Great Scott!" he ejaculated. "Do toes and fingers come as high as that?"
"They do," said I. "I've carried a policy assuring me a market for them at that rate for the last five years, and if I lose them in a railway smash-up, in a taxicab, in a trolley, or in a public elevator somewhere, the quotation doubles. Under certain contingencies my fingers and toes have a market value of ten thousand dollars."
"Heavens!" he cried. "Have you ever had any luck?"
From his point of view I presume I have not had any "luck"; but I am content, satisfied, and even grateful that so far the exigencies of travel have not required me to collect anything on my policy, or compelled me to sacrifice any of my digital collateral even at what seem to be par or premium prices.
But my friend was not altogether wrong in regarding the occupation of an itinerant lyceumite as a hazardous one. If one were to conjure up a picture of the gods of evil shooting darts at human targets, one might think that, a moving object being harder to hit than one that is definitely fixed, the former would prove a better risk than the latter; but it is one of the paradoxes of life that this is not the case, unless of course the sniping fates are better sharpshooters than professional artillerists.
The possibilities of accident to one who is constantly moving from pillar to post on American railways, many of them starved to death in the name of Progress, and unable to maintain an equipment that is even moderately safe; on steamboat lines many of whose vessels are little more than resin-soaked tinderboxes, over-crowded with pipe and cigarette smokers, and speeding through fog-bound waters at night as though the Evil One himself were just astern in pursuit of the Captain; sleeping in hotels constructed of Georgia pine, on mattresses stuffed with excelsior, with matches that, like flies, will light on anything in sight, strewn about on every side, – well, to commute this sentence, the possibilities of accident to such a one are of such a sort that "age cannot wither nor custom stale their infinite variety."
And as for the lecture halls, one now and then encounters a place where it seems as though it were a vain-glorious tempting of fate to enter it. I recall one marvelous hall in one of the most cultured sections of New England, in a town not more than seventy-five miles from Boston, the home of one of America's most famous schools, and the capital of a State that has produced men of worldwide eminence, which in any Court of Commonsense would have been indicted as a menace to the public welfare. It was reached by a climb of two flights of stairs, the first scarcely wide enough for two people to walk up abreast, and the second rising from the end of a dimly lighted corridor up six steps to a landing whence ran on each side two other sections of four or five steps each to a second landing, with still a third turn and another climb before the auditorium floor was reached; and all this in an ordinary brick building, erected long before fireproof construction was even thought of.
My lecture in this architectural device of Beelzebub was delivered before an audience of four hundred people, just one week after the terrible disaster at Boyerstown, Pennsylvania, in which I know not how many lives were lost in a fire started by the explosion of a cinematograph machine. As I stepped upon the stage I inquired of my escort if there were any fire escapes on the building, and was informed that a huge iron door at the rear of the stage opened upon one. I was moderately relieved until I tried to open the iron door, only to find it locked —and the janitor had left the key at home! I may add that if my memory serves me correctly – and it does – this ingeniously designed atrocity was pleasantly and appropriately known as Phenix Hall. Absit omen!
In the main, however, the lecture halls of America are rather fine affairs. In the State of New York and on the other side of the Mississippi River I have found splendid auditoriums, acoustically perfect, well ventilated, and as nearly safe as human ingenuity can make them. The high schools of New York and Massachusetts, and the flourishing educational institutions of the West, have set a pace which other communities would do well to follow: not so much for the sake of the itinerant platformist as for the "safety, honor, and welfare" of their own sons and daughters. In Houston, Texas, where there is a municipally owned free lecture and music course on Sunday afternoons, beginning in October and running through to May, is one of the finest auditoriums I have ever seen anywhere. It seats in comfort and safety an audience of eight thousand, and neither New York, Boston, Philadelphia, nor even Chicago, has anything comparable to it.
I have indeed had luck according to my own conception of it, on trains traveled on, and in respect to trains missed as well. I have been in two railway smash-ups, in the first of which the car behind mine was overturned and reduced to kindling in the twinkling of an eye, and miraculously without serious injury to any one; and in the other the engine directly in front of the car in which I was sitting, having endeavored to jump a frozen switch, succeeded only in landing upon its own back, leaving my car teetering to and fro for a moment as if undecided whether to roll down an embankment, or to remain poised on its offside wheels like a ballet girl balanced upon one tangoing toe. If the gentleman who sat beside me on that occasion had shifted his chewing gum to the other side, I think we should have gone plunging down that embankment into the river; but fortunately he was too paralyzed with fear even to do that, and we remained fixed, safe as ever was the intrepid Blondin when he essayed to walk across Niagara Falls on his slack wire.
As for the trains missed, it was only an over-prolonged discussion of the mysteries of golf between myself and a past-master of putting at Haverhill, Massachusetts, which caused me to miss by ten seconds a section of the Portland Express to New York that five hours later landed in a ditch somewhere in Connecticut.
In respect to perils by water there are the steamboat perils, and those more insidious dangers that come from too free indulgence in the only kind of beverage the wise platformist dares adopt as a steady tipple. These latter perils I have tried to reduce to a minimum by having a billion and a half typhus germs mobilized within to patrol my system, so that any skulking bacilli seeking to spread revolutionary ideas in my midst, and gaining admittance thereto through my taste for ice water, will be seized and duly throttled ere they have time to lay the foundation for an effective propaganda.
But there is no inoculation against the perils of steamboats; although I have been in imminent danger only once in this way, and in its ultimate results even that was far more amusing than terrifying. I was on my way to Boston by the Fall River boat when the incident occurred. The night was foggy, and I retired early. The faithful craft kept steadily on her way, feeling her path through the dark waters of the sound. I slept only fitfully until midnight, when weary Nature at last asserted herself, and I fell into a profound slumber. At four in the morning, however, I was awakened rudely by a fierce shriek of the whistle, a seemingly quick reversal of the engines, a very decided shock as of an impact with some heavy body, followed by a grinding sound, and much shouting.
I sprang from my berth, and glancing out of the window could see nothing but grimly gray fog. It was the work of a moment to jump into my shoes and bathrobe, and go speeding out into the main saloon.
"Any danger, Porter?" I inquired of a wide-awake gentleman of color, who was leaning over the stair-railing.
"Not unless yo' goes asho', Kuhnnel," he replied with a grin. "Dis is Newport."
But there are perils other than these which must be taken into account in reckoning up the hazards of the profession – or perhaps in view of the eternity of the chase it were better called a pursuit. They include exposure to almost every kind of catastrophe mentioned in the Litany, from battle, murder, and sudden death, through hunger and thirst, to the tapering point of mere necessity and tribulation.
I have nearly starved with teeming granaries on every side of me. Once in a delightful mid-New York community which I have since revisited and come to hold in affection, I found myself after a long, tedious, and foodless journey at a hotel where the table was frankly impossible. I arrived late, and out of an ample bill of fare there was nothing left but a few scraps of preserved fish, and not very well preserved at that. If fish could be personified, this particular bit of piscatorial cussedness might have passed as the Rip Van Winkle of the Sea, so long had it evidently been since it left its home in the depths. The merest glance at it filled the eye with visions of serried ranks of ptomaines, armed cap-à-pie for trouble. It waved the red flag of digestive anarchy from the end of every bone and fin, and fortunately for me the very pungency of its aroma took care of my hunger for the moment. One sniff appeased my appetite for any kind of food.
Later, when the chairman of the committee called and invited me to take a drive with him about the town, even though I had had nothing to eat for nearly twelve hours, I accepted. At the end of our drive we stopped at the chairman's home, a delightfully comfortable, newly built house, which he had designed himself and of which he was justly proud. As we entered his dining room a natural association of ideas caused my appetite to return with renewed vigor, and I thought I saw a chance for at least one good meal that day.
"By Jove, Doctor!" said I, "what a pretty room this is!" And then I added, with all the pathos I could put into my voice, "You don't know what a joy it is to get a glimpse now and then of a real home dining room after eating day after day in some of these fearful country hotels. I don't want to seem unduly critical, but really I got the worst dinner at the Blithers House to-day that I've ever had." And I stood expectant.
"Well," he said reflectively, "you'll get a worse supper!"
And lo, it was so.
A similarly distressing moment one morning out in Montana once brought me a more satisfactory tribute. My train was hours late, and no preparations had been made by the usually considerate management of the Northern Pacific Railroad for the refreshment of the inner man. There was neither diner nor buffet on the train, and as the morning wore on toward noon I became famished to the extent of positive pain and general giddiness. To my supreme relief, however, along about half-past eleven o'clock the train drew into the little station of Livingston, where connections are made by travelers to the Yellowstone. As we drew slowly in the welcome sign of "LUNCH ROOM" greeted my vision; but the train did not stop until we had passed the sign by at least a hundred yards. Finally when we came to a standstill I rushed to the rear platform of the train, and was about to jump off when the conductor intervened.
"Where are you going?" he asked.
"For food," said I. "I'm nearly dead for a cup of coffee."
"We're not going to stop any time," said he, with a glance at his watch. "We're seven hours late as it is."
"Oh, come now, Conductor!" said I. "Five minutes more isn't going to hurt anybody – "
"All right," said he, "go ahead. Only when you hear the whistle blow don't lose a minute, hungry or no hungry."
With that understanding I sped to the lunch counter, and in a few moments had a roll and a steaming cup of coffee before me; but, alas for all human expectations! the coffee was so fearfully hot nothing but a salamander could have hoped to drink it with safety, and I had hardly taken one scalding sip of it when the whistle blew sharply. There was but one thing to do, and I did it. I poured the coffee into my saucer and drained as much as I could of it from that, thrust the roll into my pocket, and darted after the train, which had already begun to move slowly, conscious all the while of the soft thud of pattering feet, like those of the white rabbit in "Alice in Wonderland," behind me. I caught the train, seizing the rear platform rail with one hand, and when swinging myself on board was projected almost flat on my face by another passenger who suddenly developed like an infant battering ram at the rear. He was a little man, and his breath came in appropriate pants. Both completely winded, we gazed into each other's eyes.
"Bub-beg pardon," he gasped. "I dud-didn't mean to bub-bump into you. Very grateful to you – yuh – you saved my life!"
"Saved your life?" said I. "How so?"
"Why," said he, "I was nearly gone for want of my coffee, and the stuff was so infernally hot I couldn't drink it, and then when I saw you pouring yours out into your saucer, I says to myself, 'Well, if a swell-lookin' guy like that kin do that, I kin, – an' b'gosh, I did!"
A not infrequent source of terror to the platform speaker, if not a real peril, is the small boy one encounters en route, singly and alone or in groups. I am glad to say that I have always delighted in him, and so far, despite the possibilities, none of my contacts with him has resulted disastrously; but, while nobody ever need mark him "FRAGILE," it is none the less true that he should be handled with care, and kept right side up if possible, for the sake of the general comfort.
One of these youngsters once gave me a supreme example of intrinsic honesty which I shall never forget. I met him on the evening of my lecture in the town of Everett, Massachusetts. I had somehow got the notion that Everett was farther afield from Boston than it really is, and starting early I arrived at the high school hall a full hour before the advertised time. The building was dark, and every door was locked; so that for some thirty or forty minutes I was compelled to pace the sidewalk in front of it, awaiting the arrival of somebody who could let me in. After several turns up and down the street I was accosted by a bright-faced little urchin who held a ticket for my lecture in his hand.
"Want to buy a ticket for to-night's lecture, mister?" said he.
"No, son," said I. "I've heard this lecture several times already, and I wouldn't go through it again for seven dollars."
"Gee!" he ejaculated. "If it's as bad as that, I guess I'd better tear this up." And he destroyed the ticket on which he had doubtless expected to realize much soda-water money before my very eyes, and went whistling along upon his honest little way.
Perhaps this little lad does not come properly under the head of Hazards; but in one of the larger cities of Arkansas I once came upon a group of boys who did, and they kept me in a state of trepidation for a goodly part of the evening. It happened that simultaneously with my arrival in town there arrived also a snowstorm that for that section of the country was a heavy one. Heavy or light, it brought with it enough snow to provide these forty-odd youngsters with the kind of occupation that all healthy-minded youngsters find to their taste – that of snow-balling passersby. When my motor arrived at the lecture hall the boys were on hand, and for two or three minutes the car was the object of a fierce fusillade of icy missiles that nearly put the chauffeur out of commission. The committee hustled me into the hall with no more damage than one rather slushy splosh of snow perilously close to my neck.
"It's a shame, Mr. Bangs," said the chairman, "and I apologize. These boys aren't a bad lot; but they are irrepressible. I'd advise you to go slow with them to-night. They've broken up two lectures already."
"Gracious!" said I. "Do they attend the lectures?"
"Yes," said the chairman. "By arrangement with the school authorities they have the first two rows reserved for them free."
And sure enough when I walked out upon the platform there they were, two solid rows of them, eying me like hungry birds of prey ready to pounce upon a particularly luscious morsel. I should have fled if flight had been possible; but it was not, and I looked forward to an hour and a half of trial. But as the chairman was introducing me an idea popped into my head which I am glad to say saved the day – or rather the night. Instead of my usual opening I addressed a few words to the boys.
"It is an awful shame, my young friends," said I, "that the requirements of this lecture course and the necessities of my own engagements compel you and me to waste such a delightful evening as this indoors. I feel just as badly as you do about it; for while what few hairs I have are gray, I give you my word that I'd rather go into a good redhot snowball fight with you than listen to the finest lecture that was ever delivered. If I didn't have to go on to Memphis to-night, I'd ask the committee and the audience to postpone this lecture until the snow melts, so that I could show you what a corking shot I am at any old beaver hat, moving or fixed, that ever crowned a mortal head."
The effect was instantaneous. A wave of enthusiasm swept over the lads, and the only interference I had from them during my talk was a somewhat too-ready inclination on their part to help me along with laughter and applause at points where tears and silence would have been more appropriate. Moreover, when at the close of my lecture I started with some reluctance to leave the hall, instead of the volley of arctic ammunition that I had expected, I found those youngsters lined up twenty on a side between the door and my motor with their hats off, forming a little alley of honor for me to tread, giving me three rousing cheers as I departed.
From which somewhat trying experience I deduce that there is a good deal more latent courtesy in Young America than certain despairing critics of modern manners would have us believe. It may be that the reason why we do not find it oftener is that we do not ourselves give it the opportunity to express itself.
I have spoken of our exposure to "battle, murder, and sudden death," and to some it may have seemed an exaggeration to claim anything of the sort as a platform peril; and yet there was one occasion upon which I was so uncomfortably tangent to such conditions that they seemed all too real. It was in one of our far western States. Scheduled to lecture there at eight P.M., my train did not reach the town until nine-forty-five. I had telegraphed news of my delay ahead, and my audience with rare courtesy had voted to remain at the hall until I arrived.
I dressed on the train, and on descending from it was whisked to the opera house in a prehistoric hack, which shed one of its wheels en route, spilling the committee and myself into the road, but without damage; while my Only Muse went on to the hotel, a two-story affair, where she secured accommodations for the night. Later, on the conclusion of my talk, on my arrival at the hotel, I found the Muse sitting up in bed, pallid as a ghost, with a revolver at her side.
"What on earth is the matter with you?" I demanded, more than startled at the sight.
She hardly needed to answer; for almost as I spoke from a saloon located immediately underneath our room came the sharp crack of pistols. Somebody below there was engaged in the pleasing occupation of "shooting up" the place. Not having seen the plans and specifications of the hotel, I did not know how thick the floor was, or what were the prospects for a sudden eruption of bullets through the carpet. It was not any safer to venture out either; for there was no telling how far the trouble might spread. So I jumped into bed and trusted to a combination of Providence, floor, and hair mattress to hold me immune. The disturbance did not last long, however, and shortly after midnight all was quiet, and sleep came.
Two hours later we were awakened by a snarling quarrel going on directly under our window. Two men were applying epithets of an uncomplimentary nature to each other, when suddenly one of them passed the bounds of even occidental toleration. He called the other a name that no right-minded man could be expected to stand, and we heard three sharp cracks of a revolver zipping out in the air. We sprang from the bed and rushed to the window, and there lying flat on his back, on a light fall of snow, in the glare of an electric lamp, was a man, with a gradually widening red spot staining the white of the road on which he lay. There was no sign of an assailant anywhere; but in a few moments, in absolute, almost ghostly silence, black figures appeared from seemingly everywhere, and bent over the fallen victim. We could hear low whisperings, and then suddenly one of the black figures detached himself from the group, and ran off down the street, returning shortly with a covered carriage. Into this the murdered man was placed, the carriage was driven off, the snow muffling the feet of the horses, the black figures vanished as silently as they had come, and all that was left of the tragedy was the red spot in the snow.
We had heard tales of witnesses to similar disturbances being detained for months under surveillance, practically prisoners of the law, pending the trial of the guilty, and were in no mind to suffer a similar experience ourselves. Wherefore when morning came we rose with the first glimmer of dawn, packed our suitcases, and, asking no questions of anybody, departed for other scenes on the earliest milk train we could catch; which happened, fortunately, to be going in the right direction for us.
Personally I have a horror of the Zeppelin and its powers to make things uncomfortable from its aërial thoroughfares; but as between it and the perils of being shot up from below by playful spirits in a frontier saloon I think I shall choose the Zeppelin if the choice must be made. At any rate, if either emergency should ever again enter into my life, I trust I shall have a bomb-proof roof overhead, or an armor-plated hair mattress underneath me; for I have no taste for a last end in which a coroner will be called upon to decide whether the victim of the affair was a mortal being, or a lifeless combination of porous plaster and human sieve.
