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It must be admitted, however, that when the departure from the attitude of cordiality is made it is done thoroughly, and with a sort of reckless truculence which the wary traveler will be wise to ascribe solely to its individual source.
In the winter and spring of 1913 there was a great deal of work cut out for me in the Southern territory, and during my travels there, which involved the crossing and recrossing of every State in the section except Kentucky, from the Atlantic coast to the Mexican border, I encountered much in the way of human experience that is delightful to remember, and very little that I would rather forget. It was upon this trip that two incidents occurred which showed very clearly the difference between a cutting retort smilingly administered and that other kind of peculiarly rasping repartee, born of a soured nature that
that at least day before yesterday's train would come along and pick us up, whatever might be the fate of the special combination of wheezy engine and spring-halted cars due that morning. As I nervously paced the dragging hours away I noticed this old fellow limping anxiously about, making over and over again of everybody he met the same inquiry as to the probable arrival or non-arrival of our train; and now and then he would hobble with difficulty over to a small soap box, with a slatted top, which stood just outside the baggage room, in which there was imprisoned a poor, shivering, and I fancy hungry, little fox terrier, whining to be let out.
"Never mind, Bobby," the old man would whisper through the slatted top of the box. "'Taint gwine to be much longer now. We'll be home soon."
The kindly attitude of the old man toward the unhappy little animal touched me more deeply than his own poverty-stricken condition, and so, yielding to a friendly impulse, I stood by him for a moment and spoke to him.
"It's a long wait," said I.
"Oh, well," he said cheerfully, straightening himself up stiffly, "it's so near the end I ain't complainin'. I been waitin' fohty yeahs for this, Brother."
"Forty years?" I repeated.
"Yes, suh," he replied, "fohty long yeahs, suh. I ain't been home since the end o' the wah, suh. An' now I'm comin' back, an' I reckon after I git thar thar ain't a gwine to be but one mo' journey, suh, befo' I'm through."
"You mean " I began.
"I'm comin' home to die, suh," he said. "Not that I'm a gwine to be in any hurry to do it," he added, with a winning smile, "but I'm tiahed o' wanderin', an' what's left o' my time hyah, suh, 'll pass mo' pleasantly back among the old scenes."
I endeavored to cover up my emotions by offering the old man a cigar.
"I thank you, suh," he said, taking it. "I'm very fond of a good seegyar, though I don't git 'em any too often, suh. Are you a Tennessee man, suh?"
"No," said I. "I come from Maine. That's a good way from here."
And then it came. The old fellow gave a great chuckle, and reached out his hand and seized me by mine.
"I want to shake your hand, suh," he said with rare cordiality. "The last time I see a Maine man, suh, was durin' the wah, an' I was chasin' him with a gun. He was a darned good runner; but I ketched him, an' I'm glad I did, fo' he was a dam sight better feller than he was a runner! "
I must confess that when later in the day I saw the old gentleman get off the train in the midst of a welcoming multitude of old friends, with his battered old suitcase in one hand, and the slatted soap box containing the yelping Bobby in the other all his earthly possessions I was glad to feel that he had come "home"; and as he waved a feeble but courteous adieu to me from the platform as the train drew out I knew that I had met a Southern gentleman of a peculiarly true and lovable sort.
One finds much in these little jaunts in the Southland to appeal to one's sense of humor; but after all there is much more that appeals to one's sympathies. I had the pleasure of riding once in Louisiana on a train in company with an old Confederate soldier, who made me as completely his prisoner in the shackles of affectionate regard as he might, because of his powerful build, have made me a prisoner in fact had we met face to face on the field of battle. He was a man of convictions; but he was always so thoroughly the honest-hearted gentleman in presenting his points of view that, although we differed radically upon almost every matter of present political interest, I found for the moment, anyhow, a sweet reasonableness in his principles. His manner was so calm, and gracious, and transparently sincere, that I found him wholly captivating.
His chance remark that he hoped to attend the great Confederate reunion shortly to be held at Chattanooga, or Chattanoogy, as he called it (there is always a soft, caressing accent in the real Southerner's discourse that changes a mere word or name into a term of endearment), naturally brought up a reference to the great conflict, and I took a certain amount of human pleasure out of the old man's present content with the general situation, as shown in the naïve statement with which he began to talk on the subject.