Tramping on Life: An Autobiographical NarrativeKemp, Harry
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Tramping on Life: An Autobiographical Narrative
Kemp, Harry
Kemp, Harry, 1883-1960
The next morning I was at work in the bindery, smearing glue on the
backs of unbound books. My wage was three dollars a week and "found," as
they say in the West. Not much, but what did it matter? There was a fine
library of the world's classics, including all the liberal and
revolutionary books that I had heard about, but which I could never
obtain at the libraries ... and there were, as associates and
companions, many people, who, if extremely eccentric, were,
nevertheless, alive and alert and interested in all the beautiful things
Genius has created in Art and Song....
Derelicts, freaks, "nuts" ... with poses that outnumbered the silver
eyes in the peacock's tail in multitude ... and yet there was to be
found in them a sincerity, a fineness, and a genuine feeling for
humanity that "regular" folks never achieve--perhaps because of their
very "regularness."
* * * * *
Here, at last, I had found another environment where I could "let loose"
to the limit ... which I began to do....
In the first place, there was the matter of clothes. I believed that men
and women should go as nearly naked as possible ... clothing for warmth
only ... and, as one grew in strength and health through nude contact
with living sun and air and water, the body would gradually attain the
power to keep itself warm from the health and strength that was in it.
So, in the middle of severe winter that now had fallen on us, I went
about in sandals, without socks. I wore no undershirt, and no coat ...
and went with my shirt open at the neck. I wore no hat....
Spalton himself often went coatless--in warm weather. His main sartorial
eccentricity was the wearing of a broad-brimmed hat. And whenever he
bought a new Stetson, he cut holes in the top and jumped on it, to make
it look more interesting and less shop-new ... of course everybody in
the community wore soft shirts and flowing ties.
We addressed each other by first names and nicknames. Spalton went under
the appellation of "John." One day a wealthy visitor had driven up.
Spalton was out chopping wood.
"Come here, John, and hold my horses."
Spalton dropped the axe and obeyed.
Afterward he had been dismissed with a fifty cent tip.
He told the story on himself, and the name "John" stuck.
* * * * *
Working in the bindery, I began to find out things about the community
of Eos that were not as ideal as might be ... most of the illumination
of the books was done by girls, even by children after school hours. The
outlines of the letters and objects to be hand-illumined were printed in
with the text, the girls and children merely coloured them between the
lines.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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