A shaggy, unshaven, rawboned man, gray-haired and collarless, sat near the window and uttered convincing imitations of the sounds made by chickens, roosters, pigs, goats and crows
The platform crowds, the negroes in particular, were mystified and lured by this animal chorus coming from a passenger coach. On hearing it they would first gaze in astonishment at the car, then edge up to the windows and doors, and peer in with eyes solemn, round, and wondering, only to be more amazed than ever by the discovery that the car housed neither bird nor beast. This bucolic comedy was repeated at every station until we reached Wyatt, Alabama, where our gifted fellow traveler arose, pointed his collar button toward the door, bade us farewell, and departed, saying that he was going to "walk over to Democrat."
Presently the conductor dropped in for a chat, in the course of which he informed the assembly that a certain old lady in one of the towns along the way had died the night before, whereupon our companions of the smoking room, all of whom seemed to have known the old lady well, held a protracted discussion of her history and traits.
After a time my companion and I put in a few questions about the State of Mississippi. Boiled down, the principal information we gathered was as follows:
By the 1910 census Mississippi had not one city of 25,000 inhabitants. Meridian, with 23,000, was (and probably still is) her metropolis, with Jackson and Vicksburg, cities of about 20,000 each, following. The entire State has but fifteen cities having a population of 5000 or more, so that, of a total of about a million and three-quarters of people in the State (more than half of them colored), only about one-tenth live in towns with a population of 5000 or over.
After a little visit the conductor went away. Now and then a man would leave us and get off at a station, or some new passenger would join our group. Presently I found myself thinking about dinner, and asked a man wearing an electric-blue cap if he knew what provision was made for the evening meal.
Before he could reply the train boy, who had come into the smoking room a few minutes before, piped up. He was a train boy of a type I had supposed extinct: the kind of train boy one might have encountered on almost any second-rate train twenty years ago,—a bold, impudent young smartaleck, full of insistent salesmanship and obnoxious conversation. He declared that dinner was not to be had, and that the only sustenance available en route consisted in the uninviting assortment of fruit, nuts, candy, and sweet tepid beverages contained in his basket.
Fortunately for us, the man we had addressed knew better.
"What do you want to lie like that for, boy?" he demanded. "You know as well as I do that the brakeman takes on five boxes of lunch at Covin."
"Well," said the boy, with a grin, "I gotta sell things, ain't I? The brakeman hadn't oughta have that graft anyhow. I'd oughta have it. He gets them lunches fer two bits and sells 'em for thirty-five cents." Far from feeling abashed, he was pleased with himself.