Read Ebook: The mill of silence by Capes Bernard

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Ebook has 3789 lines and 117943 words, and 76 pages

The interior is the oldest looking thing in the United States--Goose Creek Church 344

A reminder of the Chicago River--Atlanta 353

With the whole Metropolitan Orchestra playing dance music all night long 368

The office buildings are city office buildings, and are sufficiently numerous to look very much at home 376

The negro roof-garden, Odd Fellows' Building, Atlanta 385

I was never so conscious, as at the time of our visit to the Burge Plantation, of the superlative soft sweetness of the spring 396

The planters cease their work 400

Birmingham--the thin veil of smoke from far-off iron furnaces softens the city's serrated outlines 408

Birmingham practices unremittingly the pestilential habit of "cutting in" at dances 424

Gigantic movements and mutations, Niagara-like noises, great bursts of flame like falling fragments from the sun 437

A shaggy, unshaven, rawboned man, gray-haired and collarless, sat near the window 444

Gaze upon the character called Daniel Voorhees Pike! 456

The houses were full of the suggestion of an easy-going home life and an informal hospitality 465

Her hands looked very white and small against his dark coat 480

As water flows down the hills of Vicksburg to the river, so the visitor's thoughts flow down to the great spectacular, mischievous, dominating stream 485

Over the tenement roofs one catches sight of sundry other buildings of a more self-respecting character 492

Vicksburg negroes 497

On some of the boats negro fish-markets are conducted 504

The old Klein house 512

Citizens go at midday to the square 520

Hanging in the air above the middle of the stream 536

These small parks give Savannah the quality which differentiates it from all other American cities 556

The Thomas house, in Franklin Square 561

You will see them having tea, and dancing under the palm fronds of the cocoanut grove 576

Cocktail hour at The Breakers 581

Nowhere is the sand more like a deep warm dust of yellow gold 588

The couples on the platform were "ragging" 600

Harness held together by that especial Providence which watches over negro mending 613

It was a very jolly fair 616

The mysterious old Absinthe House, founded 1799 620

St. Anthony's Garden 632

Courtyard of the old Orleans Hotel 641

The little lady who sits behind the desk 656

The lights are always lowered at Antoine's when the spectacular Caf? Boulot Diabolique is served 664

Passing between the brilliantly illuminated buildings, the Mardi Gras parades are glorious sights for children from eight to eighty years of age 672

THE BORDERLAND

O magnet-South! O glistening, perfumed South! O quick mettle, rich blood, impulse and love! good and evil! O all dear to me!

WALT WHITMAN.

AMERICAN ADVENTURES

ON JOURNEYS THROUGH THE STATES

On journeys through the States we start, ... We willing learners of all, teachers of all, lovers of all.

We dwell a while in every city and town ...

--WALT WHITMAN.

Had my companion and I never crossed the continent together, had we never gone "abroad at home," I might have curbed my impatience at the beginning of our second voyage. But from the time we returned from our first journey, after having spent some months in trying, as some one put it, to "discover America," I felt the gnawings of excited appetite. The vast sweep of the country continually suggested to me some great delectable repast: a banquet spread for a hundred million guests; and having discovered myself unable, in the time first allotted, to devour more than part of it--a strip across the table, as it were, stretching from New York on one side to San Francisco on the other--I have hungered impatiently for more. Indeed, to be quite honest, I should like to try to eat it all.

Months before our actual departure for the South the day for leaving was appointed; days before we fixed upon our train; hours before I bought my ticket. And then, when my trunks had left the house, when my taxicab was ordered and my faithful battered suitcase stood packed to bulging in the hall, my companion, the Illustrator, telephoned to say that certain drawings he must finish before leaving were not done, that he would be unable to go with me that afternoon, as planned, but must wait until the midnight train.

Had the first leap been a long one I should have waited for him, but the distance from New York to the other side of Mason and Dixon's Line is short, and I knew that he would join me on the threshold of the South next morning. Therefore I told him I would leave that afternoon as originally proposed, and gave him, in excuse, every reason I could think of, save the real one: namely, my impatience. I told him that I wished to make the initial trip by day to avoid the discomforts of the sleeping car, that I had engaged hotel accommodations for the night by wire, that friends were coming down to see me off.

Nor were these arguments without truth. I believe in telling the truth. The truth is good enough for any one at any time--except, perhaps, when there is a point to be carried, and even then some vestige of it should, if convenient, be preserved. Thus, for example, it is quite true that I prefer the conversation of my fellow travelers, dull though it may be, to the stertorous sounds they make by night; so, too, if I had not telegraphed for rooms, it was merely because I had forgotten to--and that I remedied immediately; while as to the statement that friends were to see me off, that was absolutely and literally accurate. Friends had, indeed, signified their purpose to meet me at the station for last farewells, and had, furthermore, remarked upon the very slight show of enthusiasm with which I heard the news.

The fact is, I do not like to be seen off. Least of all, do I like to be seen off by those who are dear to me. If the thing must be done, I prefer it to be done by strangers--committees from chambers of commerce and the like, who have no interest in me save the hope that I will live to write agreeably of their city--of the civic center, the fertilizer works, and the charming new abattoir. Seeing me off for the most practical of reasons, such gentlemen are invariably efficient. They provide an equipage, and there have even been times when, in the final hurried moments, they have helped me to jam the last things into my trunks and bags. One of them politely takes my suitcase, another kindly checks my baggage, and all in order that a third, who is usually the secretary of the chamber of commerce, may regale me with inspiring statistics concerning the population of "our city," the seating capacity of the auditorium, the number of banks, the amount of their clearings, and the quantity of belt buckles annually manufactured. When the train is ready we exchange polite expressions of regret at parting: expressions reminiscent of those little speeches which the King of England and the Emperor of Germany used to make at parting in the old days before they found each other out and began dropping high explosives on each other's roofs.

Such a committee, feeling no emotion at seeing me depart, may be useful. Not so with friends and loved ones. Useful as they may be in the great crises of life, they are but disturbing elements in the small ones. Those who would die for us seldom check our trunks.

Flattered to befuddlement, I greeted them and started with them automatically in the direction of the concourse, forgetting entirely the driver of my taxicab, who, however, took in the situation and set up a great shout--whereat I returned hastily and overpaid him.

This accomplished, I rejoined my companions and, with a radiant dark-haired girl at one elbow and a blonde, equally delectable, at the other, moved across the concourse.

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