"Give me a piece and a cup o' milk," said the foreigner.
"A Polander," said the farmer. "I guess I turn him over to the missus. Sue, here's a man wants a crust and some sour milk."
"Ee caant 'ave it," cried the farmer's wife.
"No go," said the farmer, and shook his head at the tramp.
The latter did not utter a word of reproach, but what was my astonishment to see him cross himself delicately, and whisper a benediction. A Russian, I surmised.
"It is not over-safe refusing them fellers," said the farmer. "They may burn your barn next night. I reckon Sue might have put him up something. Hear him curse as he went."
The old Russian was going eastward, I westward; but I resolved to turn back, carry him some bread, make some coffee, and exchange those tokens of the heart which are due from one wanderer to another upon the road. I hurried back and overtook him.
The old man was nothing loth to sit on a bank of grass whilst I bought a quart of milk at a farm. "Coffee, uncle," said I. "Russian coffee. Varshaffsky, such as you get at home in Russia, eh?" Uncle smiled incredulously.
"Twigs, uncle, sticks, dry grasses; we must make a fire," said I. Uncle got up and collected a heap of wood. My coffee-pot soon reposed on a cheerful blaze. The creamy milk soon began to effervesce and boil. In went six lumps of sugar and eight spoonfuls of coffee. Uncle recognised he was going to have a good drink when he saw that no water was to be added. It was a pleasure to see him with a mug of it in one hand and a hunk of good white bread in the other.
I learned that my friend was tramping his way to New York. At that city he would buy a ticket to Libau, and from Libau would walk home to his native village, or he would get under a seat in a train. He had come 250 miles of his journey from Minnesota in an empty truck of a freight train; perhaps he would get another good lift before long.