"Well, I must be off," he added, and pointed to the bucket.
"You've got a gang of men working up above?"
"Yes. I'm bossing them for the State. A good job it is too, good money, and I don't have to work much."
"I should say you'd make a kind boss!"
"Yes. I never do anything against them. I get a good day's work out of the men, but I never put myself above them. I've got authority, that's all—it doesn't make me better'n they. I've got to boss them, they've got to work. That's how it's turned out.... Well, I must be off to water my hands!"
And he hastened away down the hill, whilst I put my things together and shouldered my pack.
The strange thing about this American journey was the diversity of nationality I encountered, and the friendly terms in which it was possible for me as a man on the road to converse with them.
On leaving Clearfield I fell in with Peter Deemeff, a clever little Bulgarian immigrant, and spent two days in his company. He was an unpractical, rebellious boy, a student by inclination, but a labourer by necessity, nervous in temperament, and alternately gay and despondent. He was thin-bodied, broad-browed, clean-shaven, but blue-black with the multitude of his hair-roots; he had two rows of faultless, little, milk-white teeth; an angelic Bulgarian smile, and an occasional ugly American grimace.
We tramped along the most beautiful Susquehanna road to Curwenville, and then through magnificent gorges to the height of Luthersburg.
"Ho! Where you going?" said one of a group of Italian labourers at Curwenville.