I left them staring into each other’s eyes in a sort of mesmerized
trance, and went into the next coach. When my eyes cleared of tears I
saw that the bright sunlight world beyond the car window was filled
with yellow butterflies. In their circling they made a great golden
wedding ring. The sweet prophecy seemed mine—not belonging to the
people I had left back in the other coach. At lunch they asked me to
come to their table, but I smilingly refused. When two people have
just been caught up in a golden chariot and given passage direct to
Paradise there is no room in the vehicle for outsiders.
I could not grind under the river and get out in the heart of the
city, as the advertisements say. I had to see the skyline from the
Jersey side. How wonderful it is as it glitters in the soft spring
light—a proud wonder city that rests on great, tossing waters. And
there lie the docks. I can read the names of the different lines on
the dark little houses. And far down the stretch of moving water
I see a gallant little tug assisting a great vessel out to sea. A
sort of trembling seized me. Like a vision that fades, all thought
of the life that lay behind me—John, mammy, the little mountain
village—slipped away. As the boat drifts near and nearer to that
white wonder city I want to fling the people huddled on the seats,
apathetic as sheep, into the water. I want to cry aloud, “City, city,
I am coming!” But they wake up at the dock. How alive they are! I am
alive, too. I am over the mountain wall. At last I am part of the
big, alive, throbbing world.
_April 16th._ 12 P. M.
Late yesterday afternoon when I ran up the steps of 30 West Twentieth
Street and the door opened and closed on me, my one sensation was
relief. I had taken a cab at the ferry and I had marvelled at the
dexterity with which the cabby turned and twisted through the
dingy streets. Safe, not kidnapped, money still in my bag, the
wonderful adventure of getting to my destination without adventure
accomplished, I stepped from that cab. The cabby took my trunk from
the top of his hansom, banged it on the sidewalk, accepted the dollar
we had agreed upon, and waited. I waited, too, politely. Suddenly he
turned very red and climbed to his perch, swearing roundly.
As I followed Miss Jackson up the stairs to the third floor I asked
her why he did that. She answered vaguely that they were rude.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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