I had to wait at a small station in the West for one of those periodically late trains, and was reading the only fiction available, the railroad time-table. A train which came from the opposite direction brought a gang of working men who had been shovelling the snow which had blocked the road. As they were all immigrants I had no further use for my time-table and went among them, guessing at their nationality, sorting them according to the shape of their heads, delighting my soul by talking to them as much as I could of their native country, and quizzing them about their experience in the United States.
I had succeeded splendidly with all of them and there was but one man left. As soon as I saw him I said to myself, “He is a Russian, not a common Russian, but of the Velko Russ variety which is still rare or comparatively rare among our immigrant population.” I walked up to him and saluted him with the pious greeting of his class. There wasn’t the slightest indication that he understood me, so I concluded that I was mistaken; but knowing that he was a Slav, I tried a greeting in Polish, and again the great, shaggy Slav seemed not to understand. When Bohemian failed, I decided that my error was merely geographical and this was a Southern, not a Northern Slav. I used all the Serbic I knew without getting anything but a stare from my victim, and then decided that he might be an Albanian. Knowing only two words of that language I tried them with the same negative result. Finally, disgusted with myself I resorted to English. Feeling sure that he would not understand, I shouted at him, “Are you a Greek?” Then a ray of intelligence passed over his stolid face. Deliberately taking his pipe out of his mouth, he laconically replied: “No, I am from Missoury.”
A shout of laughter followed my story; but the Herr Director’s face grew darker and darker. When we were in our taxicab going back to the hotel, he said: “One of the most remarkable things I have learned to-day about the American people is that they are very young, almost childlike.”
“Why, how did you learn that?” I asked.
“Oh,” he answered, “who but a childlike, naïve people would laugh over such a stupid joke as yours? Anyway, how did you dare bring such a silly story into so serious a conversation?”
“Yes,” I replied; “that is as you say a sign of our youth. The more complex and seasoned jokes belong to the older civilizations, and the love of a simple story and the ready response to it, even though it be a poor story, are a sign of our youthful health; but you know,” I added, “that story I told was not so mal apropos after all.” And the rest of the day I struggled mightily to convince the Herr Director that being “from Missoury” is one of the most hopeful things about the American Spirit.
VII
The Herr Director and the College Spirit
“TAKE us out of New York,” the Herr Director said after a wearing day of sightseeing, “or we will go home on the next steamer. My neck aches from looking at the sky-scrapers, my nerves are all on edge, and,” glancing at the Frau Directorin who had hugely enjoyed every moment and showed no sign of weariness, “we must have rest.”
I was reluctant to leave New York, because, after all, it holds those great thrills with which we like to startle our foreign friends. I feared the change from those daily surprises which thus far I had been able to give them. Lake Mohonk, the only place outside of New York City which we had visited, is unique in many ways and its experiences were not likely to be duplicated; so it was somewhat heavy heartedly that I started them on a new adventure, praying to Him who “holds the nations in the hollow of His Hand” to aid me in my praiseworthy endeavors.
I was not very sanguine that my prayer would be answered, for we were beginning a tour of the Eastern educational institutions, than which there is nothing more difficult to interpret. This, not only because they have no counterpart anywhere in Europe, and the line between our university and college is so indistinct, but because I hoped to reveal their Spirit, which no mere outsider can comprehend, and which even the man on the inside finds it difficult to understand.