By watching my time-table carefully, I knew when to look for the mountains; but long before we reached the place appointed for the vision, my heart was leaping with expectation. We had reached the hilly country, and every high knoll served me for a mountain. But on and on and on, past soaring foothills, went the train until what seemed a slate-colored storm-cloud, a thin veil of atmosphere, caught my attention. Then, as the train turned a bend, the foothills dropped away, and there, like a majestic dream, higher than anything on earth before imagined, were the mountains!
Following the delight of the mountains, I had to think of our approach into another country. We were actually going to leave the United States and enter Canada! Immediately the English blood stirred within me. I was actually entering the domains of the Queen. Just over the border, the train stopped at a little village for water. I spoke to the brakeman “Please, mister,” I said, “how long will we stop?” “Eight minutes altogether,” he replied; “eight sure.” “Are we really in Canada now?” I ventured. “Yep,” he said with decision, “this is Canada, sure enough.” “Then I’m going to get off, for a couple of minutes,” I said. I didn’t explain to him the motive I had in getting off. It was to put the soles of my shoes on FOREIGN SOIL! Unfortunately there had been a generous rain that had mixed with the dirt of the village road, so that when I sought to step on Canadian earth I was called upon to wallow in Canadian mud, and that I would not do. “Never mind,” I consoled myself with. “This board walk is a Canadian board walk and will do.” So I ran a hundred yards into the village along the board walk and came back to the train satisfied. I had stepped on Queen Victoria’s territory, come what might.
When the darkness shut out the view, even then I did not keep my eyes from the windows. I did not know what sights I should get a view of even in the darkness. But all I saw of towns were lights, like stars, followed by masses of inky night. Then we stopped at a Canadian city station. I pushed up the window, and heard the great French chatter that went on outside. Not a word of English could I pick out, neither did I want to hear such a word. It would have spoiled all. At last I was in a new country, among a people who spoke a different language from my own! I was a real traveler at last!
At ten o’clock the lights of Montreal, strings of stars, flashed by the windows. Three miles away from the station the passengers became restless. Some of them stood up and waited during all that time. At last the brakeman called out with finality, a downward deflection of the last syllable, as if that ended his day, “Mon-tree-AL!”
There my ticket told me I should have to change. The next stage of my journey would take me along the border of Canada as far as Detroit; an all-night journey.
During the hour that I had to wait in Montreal, I went on a thrilling, timid sight-seeing. I recollect to have seen a couple of dim-lit business streets, silent, ghostly, a couple of buildings which must have been structures of importance in daylight, and a sign which could be read because it was directly in the glare of an arc light, “National Bank.” Having seen so much, and satisfied my provincial soul on so spare a meal, I went back to get on my new train.
I found myself in a most comfortable car. The seat was well padded, the back was high enough to serve for a pillow, and there was no one in the seat in front. So I turned over that seat, took off my coat and hat, unlaced my shoes and put them on one side, leaned back with a sigh of content, ready for a night’s rest when—the conductor came down the aisle, looked at my ticket, and said, “This is a first-class car and you have a second class ticket. The next car ahead, sir!”
I slung my coat over my arm, picked up my shoes and suit-case and went into the car ahead. It was a Tourist Sleeping car and was filled, largely, with a medley of Europeans. Europeans, too, with peasant manners, with peasant dirt and peasant breath. There was odor of garlic mixed with odor of stale rye bread, as some ate lunches. There was odor of unwashed clothes mixed with odor of sour milk. Double seats, leather padded, had been pushed together into berths, while overhead shelves had been let down for upper berths, with thin pads of mattress for the colonists to find rest upon. The aisles were littered with paper, fruit remnants, broken cigarette stubs, empty bottles, and expectoration. The air was vapid, like a drunkard’s breath. I waded through it all to the lower end of the car where there seemed to be an oasis of cleanliness and order. Here, though, were men sprawled out in unpoetic postures of sleep. At the lowest end, even the train boy had left his basket of fruit and soda on one side, while he lay for the night, crumpled up, snorting like a pig.
I looked around and up for a place to sleep. There on one of the high shelves, I saw a young fellow sitting up, eating a sandwich. He saw me looking in his direction. “Hello, fellow,” he greeted cheerily, “you’re English, aren’t you, fellow?” I replied that I was and that I was wanting a place to sleep for the night. He said, “These places are for two. Get a leg up and bunk with me.” He reached down his hand, braced me as I stood on the edge of a lower berth, and then I found myself in the bed with my benefactor.
He sat there in his shirt, ready for bed, with a large basket of sandwiches in front of him. There were more sandwiches together in that one basket than I have ever seen piled up on the counter of any lunch room.