ABROAD AT HOME
by
JULIAN STREET
* * * * *
THE NEED OF CHANGE
Fifth Anniversary Edition. Illustrated by James Montgomery Flagg. Cloth, 50 cents net. Leather, $1.00 net.
PARIS A LA CARTE
"Gastronomic promenades" in Paris. Illustrated by May Wilson Preston. Cloth, 60 cents net.
WELCOME TO OUR CITY
Mr. Street plays host to the stranger in New York. Illustrated by James Montgomery Flagg and Wallace Morgan. Cloth, $1.00 net.
SHIP-BORED
Who hasn't been? Illustrated by May Wilson Preston. Cloth, 50 cents net.
ABROAD AT HOME
Cheerful ramblings and adventures in American cities and other places. Illustrated by Wallace Morgan. Cloth, $2.50 net.
For Children
THE GOLDFISH
A Christmas story for children between six and sixty. Colored Illustrations and page Decorations. Cloth, 70 cents net.
* * * * *
ABROAD AT HOME
American Ramblings, Observations, and Adventures of Julian Street
With Pictorial Sidelights by Wallace Morgan
New York The Century Co. 1915
Copyright, 1914, by The Century Co.
Copyright, 1914, by P. F. Collier & Son, Inc.
Published, November, 1914
TO MY FATHER the companion of my first railroad journey
The Author takes this opportunity to thank the old friends, and the new ones, who assisted him in so many ways, upon his travels. Especially, he makes his affectionate acknowledgment to his wise and kindly companion, the Illustrator, whose admirable drawings are far from being his only contribution to this volume.
--J. S.
New York, October, 1914.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
STEPPING WESTWARD
I STEPPING WESTWARD 3
II BIFURCATED BUFFALO 21
III CLEVELAND CHARACTERISTICS 40
IV MORE CLEVELAND CHARACTERISTICS 48
MICHIGAN MEANDERINGS
V DETROIT THE DYNAMIC 65
VI AUTOMOBILES AND ART 77
VII THE MAECENAS OF THE MOTOR 91
VIII THE CURIOUS CITY OF BATTLE CREEK 105
IX KALAMAZOO 121
X GRAND RAPIDS THE "ELECT" 127
CHICAGO
XI A MIDDLE-WESTERN MIRACLE 139
XII FIELD'S AND THE "TRIBUNE" 150
XIII THE STOCKYARDS 164
XIV THE HONORABLE HINKY DINK 173
XV AN OLYMPIAN PLAN 181
XVI LOOKING BACKWARD 187
"IN MIZZOURA"
XVII SOMNOLENT ST. LOUIS 201
XVIII THE FINER SIDE 221
XIX HANNIBAL AND MARK TWAIN 237
XX PIKE AND POKER 253
XXI OLD RIVER DAYS 267
THE BEGINNING OF THE WEST
XXII KANSAS CITY 275
XXIII ODDS AND ENDS 291
XXIV COLONEL NELSON'S "STAR" 302
XXV KEEPING A PROMISE 313
XXVI THE TAME LION 323
XXVII KANSAS JOURNALISM 337
XXVIII A COLLEGE TOWN 345
XXIX MONOTONY 365
THE MOUNTAINS AND THE COAST
XXX UNDER PIKE'S PEAK 379
XXXI HITTING A HIGH SPOT 400
XXXII COLORADO SPRINGS 417
XXXIII CRIPPLE CREEK 434
XXXIV THE MORMON CAPITAL 439
XXXV THE SMITHS 454
XXXVI PASSING PICTURES 465
XXXVII SAN FRANCISCO 474
XXXVIII "BEFORE THE FIRE" 488
XXXIX AN EXPOSITION AND A "BOOSTER" 498
XL NEW YORK AGAIN 507
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
The St. Francis at tea-time.--With her hotels San Francisco is New York, but with her people she is San Francisco--which comes near being FACING the apotheosis of praise. Frontispiece PAGE
I was moving about my room, my hands full of hairbrushes and toothbrushes and clothes brushes and shaving brushes; my head full of railroad trains, and hills, and plains, and valleys 5
A dusky redcap took my baggage 12
What scenes these black, pathetic people had passed through--were passing through! Why did they not look up in wonderment? 17
We made believe we wanted to go out and smoke. And as we left our seats she made believe she didn't know that we were going. 23
The gentleman who favored linen mesh was a fat, prosperous-looking person, whose gold-rimmed spectacles reflected flying lights from out of doors 26
In a few hours there was enough shame around us to have lasted all the reformers and muckrakers I know a whole month 32
My companion and I made excuses to go downstairs and wash our hands in the public washroom, just for the pleasure of doing so without fear of being attacked by a swarthy brigand with a brush 35
I was prepared to take the field against all comers, not only in favor of simplicity, but in favor of anything and everything which was favored by my hostess 38
Chamber of Commerce representatives were with us all the first day and until we went to our rooms, late at night 43
It is an Elizabethan building, with a heavy timbered front, suggesting some ancient, hospitable, London coffee house where wits of old were used to meet 46
In this charming, homelike old building, with its grandfather's clock, its Windsor chairs, and its open wood fires, a visitor finds it hard to realize that he is in the "west" 53
Down by the docks we saw gigantic, strange machines, expressive of Cleveland's lake commerce--machines for loading and unloading ships in the space of a few hours 60
In midstream passes a continual parade of freighters ... and in their swell you may see, teetering, all kinds of craft, from proud white yachts to canoes 71
The automobile has not only changed Detroit from a quiet old town into a rich, active city, but upon the drowsy romance of the old days it has superimposed the romance of modern business 74
Of course there was order in that place, of course there was system--relentless system--terrible "efficiency"--but to my mind it expressed but one thing, and that thing was delirium 97
Never, since then, have I heard men jeering over women as they look in dishabille, without wondering if those same men have ever seen themselves clearly in the mirrored washroom of a sleeping car 112
"Can that stuff," admonished Miss Buck in her easy, offhand manner 117
She was saying to herself (and, unconsciously, to us, through the window): "If I had played that hand, I never should have done it that way!" 124
Rodin's "Thinker" 145
Chicago's skyline from the docks.... A city which rebuilt itself after the fire; in the next decade doubled its size; and now has a population of two million, plus a city of about the size of San Francisco 160
Two rabbis, old bearded men, performed the rites with long, slim, shiny blades 177
As I stood there, studying the temperament of pigs, I saw the butcher looking up at me.... I have never seen such eyes 192
The bold front of Michigan Avenue along Grant Park ... great buildings wreathed in whirling smoke and that allegory of infinity which confronts one who looks eastward 196
The dilapidation of the quarter has continued steadily from Dickens's day to this, and the beauty now to be discovered there is that of decay and ruin 205
The three used bridges which cross the Mississippi River at St. Louis are privately controlled toll bridges 212
The skins are handled in the raw state ... with the result that the floor of the exchange is made slippery by animal fats, and that the olfactory organs encounter smells not to be matched in any zoo 221
St. Louis needs to be taken by the hand and led around to some municipal-improvement tailor, some civic haberdasher 225
We came upon the "Mark Twain House."... And to think that, wretched as this place was, the Clemens family were forced to leave it for a time because they were too poor to live there 240
At one side is an alley running back to the house of Huckleberry Finn, and in that alley stood the historic fence which young Sam Clemens cajoled the other boys into whitewashing for him 244
Never outside of Brittany and Normandy have I seen roads so full of animals as those of Pike County 253
Mr. Roberts is a wonder--nothing less. There's a book in him, and I hope that somebody will write it, for I should like to read that book 268