A number of camps have been made with log-cabins and canvas tents, and there are two large hotels on the fringe of the wilderness. But an especial charm lies in the fact that the people in charge of the camps and the little inns called “chalets” are mostly university students and college girls of the institutions of Minnesota and Montana, and they do the needful work on the self-help principle of earning a little money in their holidays to pay their way during term. There is nothing of the low commercial spirit, no one hanging around for a tip, no one with any interest to treat you shabbily, but instead the natural good manners of unspoiled people. You see the choleric “colonel” trying to get more than his share of attention and service, but he doesn’t effect anything, and you may see the millionaire cheerfully and shrewdly recognising the fact that he must take his turn after his stenographer and perhaps after a couple of ragged old tramps like ourselves.
Vachel is devoted to the universities and high schools of America and the life they represent. He has almost completely changed his constituency from the “ladies’ club” and the heavy society of Mr. and Mrs. Leo Hunter and is now a poetic voice of young germinal America. He has “covered the map” of the United States singing his songs to college youths. And in return college youth recognises him quickly. He is a natural favourite among those who run the “chalets.” And they all wanted him to “sing” to them.
Not that the visitors do not also make friends with us and we with them. Such coats of sunshine as we have make ordinary sunburn pale and give us much glamour. Souvenir huntresses grab us from a “big ballyhoo” Western town. Likewise, a girl from Chicago, pronounced in three facial contortions. And when we set off to vagabondise for some days we were followed by a beautiful creature who wished for a minute to come with us to the world’s end.
The tramps have gone to sleep
Nearer to the skies;
Oh ladies, sweet ladies,
Do stop rolling your eyes.
The tramps have gone away