“Well, I guess I punctured his tire, all right,” vouchsafed the conductor. “Guess he’ll go a little easy on efficiency and discipline with this crew for a while.”
“I wouldn’t have missed that performance for five hundred dollars,” broke in the rear brakeman. “It was the richest thing I ever heard.”
“You should have heard Miss Innocence here stringing him along when he first came aboard. Her eyes kept a-glowing bigger and bigger, and his chest kept a-swelling and a-swelling, till I thought I’d bust. Oh, he was a wonderful man, all right, all right.”
“Well, boys,” remarked the conductor, whipping off his cap. “You all admit you enjoyed a good show, that would have had a very different ending if it hadn’t been for the quick wit of this gritty lady. Chip in now, and pay for your reserved seats.”
Money rattled into the cap and despite our protestations the conductor forced it into Dan’s hands. With quip and jest the men bade us good-bye, and we passed over to the main street in search of a restaurant. Our hunger appeased, we marched boldly to the station and took a passenger train to Sacramento, where we made connection with the river boat for San Francisco.
So now I sit on the deck of the steamer and watch the green and fertile country glide past. From time to time a signal flutters on the bank, the boat swings over and the crew rapidly loads great boxes of plums, luscious peaches, early pears, and crates of seedless grapes. Here comes a man with a truckload of magnificent Burbank plums. I once read of the little plum with the enormous pit, from which the California wizard evolved this beautiful fruit. He did not attempt to change the nature of the plum to that of some transcendental fruit. He simply modified the environment so that the inherent qualities of the plum might develop. Would that the environment of the little children of the slums and sweat shops, to whom the meanest cull that lies in yonder orchard would be a gracious treat, might be so modified as to give their essentially beautiful, natural qualities an opportunity for healthy, normal growth.
I give a sigh of contentment and happiness as I realise that the hazardous journey is ended. And now I realise another fact. For weeks I have been free from colds or cough; my digestion is superior to that of an ostrich; a ten-mile jaunt with twenty pounds of baggage on my back would be mere child’s play. A more healthy human specimen than myself it would be hard to find, so I feel free to dismiss the spectre of tuberculosis along with the other horrors of the slums.
But physical benefit is not the greatest gain. A change has taken place in my psychology. My belief in the inherent kindliness and unselfishness of the human heart has been strengthened. In cases of cruelty I recognise an outside influence or pressure that warps natural instincts. Toward the trainmen especially I am deeply grateful. When one realises the risks they ran to aid a couple of outcasts, and the kindness and consideration so often manifested, a wonderful appreciation of their sterling manhood is born. Never again will I think it necessary to change human nature before we can improve social conditions. I am conscious of a deeper human sympathy; a wider vision; a greater understanding of the problems of the under dog and a closer sense of fellowship with him. I feel that I am learning the divine lesson of human unity, which is rooted in the Fatherhood of God and manifests itself as the Brotherhood of Man.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES