CHAPTER V A FARM HAND
Williamsport, Lycoming County, Pa.,
Saturday, 3 October, 1891.
From Wilkesbarre it was an easy day's march to the village of Pleasant Hill, which lies in the way to Williamsport. The only notable incident of the tramp was one which confirmed me in an early formed policy. I have avoided railways, and have walked in preference along the country roads, as affording better opportunities of intercourse with people. But in going on that morning from Wilkesbarre to the ferry which crossed the river to Plymouth, I took the advice of a gate-keeper at a railway crossing and started down the track on a long trestle as a short cut to the ferry. All went well until I was half way over, and then two coal trains passed simultaneously in opposite directions, and I hung by my hands from the framework at one side, while the engineer and fireman on the locomotive nearest me laughed heartily at the figure that I cut, with the side of each car grazing my pack, and my hold on the railing growing visibly slacker.
It was a little after nightfall when I reached the tavern at Pleasant Hill. Of my wages I had fifty cents left. I questioned the proprietor as to the demand for work in his community. He was quite encouraging. Only that afternoon, he said, one of the best farmers of the neighborhood had been inquiring in the village for a possible man, and to the best of his knowledge he had not found one. I said that I should apply at his farm in the morning, and then I broached the subject of entertainment. We soon struck a bargain for a supper and breakfast, and the privilege of a bed on the hay; but when, after supper, I asked to be directed to the barn, the landlord silently led the way to a little room upstairs, and there wished me good-night.
In the early morning he pointed out to me the road to his neighbor's farm, which I followed with ready success. I was penniless now, and had only an uncertain chance of work. And then, if the farmer should ask me, I should be obliged to own to inexperience, and the demand for farm-hands I thought must be limited, at a date so far into the autumn. But the morning was exquisite, and the buoyancy that it bred was an easy match for misgivings, so that it was with a light heart that I turned from the road into a lane which leads to the house of the farmer, whom I shall call Mr. Hill.
All about me were the marks of thrift. The fences stood straight and stout, with an air of lasting security. On a rising ledge above the lane was the farm-house, a small, unpainted wooden cottage, bleached to the rich, deep brown of a well-colored meerschaum pipe, and as snug and tight as a pilot's schooner. Near it was a summer-kitchen that seemed fairly to glow with conscious pride in its cleanness, and the very foot-path from the gate to the cottage-door was swept like a threshing floor.
On the door-step sat a girl in a calico dress of delicate pink, with a dark gingham apron concealing all its front. She was shelling peas into a milk-pan which rested on her lap, and the morning sunlight was in her flaxen hair, and showed you the delicate freshness of a pink-and-white complexion. Sober hazel eyes were fixed on me as I walked up the foot-path, and of us two I was the embarrassed one. I have not got over a certain timidity in asking for work, and each request is a sturdy effort of the will, with the rest of me in cowardly revolt, and a timid shrinking much in evidence I fear.
"Is this Mr. Hill's farm?" I ask, and I know that I am blushing deeply.