The insolent swaggerer was nonplussed for the moment. I suppose he thought I was only a poor, starving berry picker or farm hand who, at his command, would cringingly creep on in the boiling sun, like a dog, to another shady spot.
“Who are you?” he then asked.
“I am a laborer looking for work,” I replied, “but I am also an American. When I am insolently ordered to ‘move on’ on a public highway, I’ll know the reason why if I have to go to Washington to find out. I know your actions have been tolerated in England and Europe for two thousand years. Since you ask me who I am, I am going to ask who you are.”
“I am foreman of this estate,” he answered. “This is the country estate of a very rich ex-United States Congressman, and the State road line runs within six feet of the hedge.”
“Well, sir,” I replied, “I humbly beg your pardon. It is a principle of mine never to ask or take something for nothing, unless it be to draw dividends on a few blocks of nine billion dollars of watered railroad stock. But say, if you would wall this little six-foot strip in, or put up a sign, ‘No trespassing,’ or ‘Beware of the dog,’ as others have done, neither your master nor yourself would have further cause to growl.”
As I wandered on I overtook an honest-looking man who said he was on his way to a farm near Marlborough where he had worked for several summers and had always pulled out with enough money to carry him, in a way, through the winter. It would have been much nearer for him to have walked the railroad track, he said, but he was told in Newburgh that if he did so he was liable to be arrested by the West Shore Railroad Company. They had arrested a hundred and thirty-eight wandering men at Kingston the day before and put them in jail, and so he thought it best to follow the country road.
A little farther on, near some great elm trees, stood an old stone house. From the gilded signs and the many beer kegs in evidence, I saw at once it was another one of the roadside lamps of ruin. Many men seemed to have gathered in and about the place and without disturbance were resting beneath the trees. I joined them and just as I did so a farmer drove up in an automobile looking for help. Before he had spoken, I asked, “Do you want help?”
“Well, I should say so,” he answered. “The farmers are all clamoring for men, and are wondering where the temporary farm hands are this year.”
I suggested he might find a few of them in the Kingston jail. He said that because of the recent rains the fruit was ripening so rapidly that it was decaying on the vines for the need of being gathered. Considering that the earnings of the railroad company were augmented by the fruit shipments he granted that a little persuasive argument with the latter might be of help. But did I want work, and would I work for him? I certainly would.
“What do you pay?” I asked.