Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great | Page 7

turned out a little good copy, and this made life
endurable, for was it not Robert Louis himself who gave us this
immortal line, "I know what pleasure is, for I have done good work"?

He was going to her. Arriving in New York he straightway invested
two good dollars in a telegram to San Francisco, and five cents in
postage on a letter to Edinburgh. These two things done he would take
time to rest up for a few days in New York. One of the passengers had
given him the address of a plain and respectable tavern, where an
honest laborer of scanty purse could find food and lodging. This was
Number Ten West Street.
Robert Louis dare not trust himself to the regular transfer-company, so
he listened to the siren song of the owner of a one-horse express-wagon
who explained that the distance to Number Ten West Street was
something to be dreaded, and that five dollars for the passenger and his
two tin boxes was like doing it for nothing. The money was paid; the
boxes were loaded into the wagon, and Robert Louis seated upon one
of them, with a horse-blanket around him, in the midst of a pouring rain,
the driver cracked his whip and started away. He drove three blocks to
the starboard and one to port, and backed up in front of Number Ten
West Street, which proved to be almost directly across the street from
the place where the "Devonia" was docked. But strangers in a strange
country can not argue--they can only submit.
The landlord looked over the new arrival from behind the bar, and then
through a little window called for his wife to come in from the kitchen.
The appearance of the dripping emigrant who insisted in answer to their
questions that he was not sick, and that he needed nothing, made an
appeal to the mother-heart of this wife of an Irish saloonkeeper.
Straightway she got dry clothes from her husband's wardrobe for the
poor man, and insisted that he should at once go to his room and
change the wet garments for the dry ones. She then prepared him
supper which he ate in the kitchen, and choked for gratitude when this
middle-aged, stout and illiterate woman poured his tea and called him
"dear heart."
She asked him where he was going and what he was going to do. He
dare not repeat the story that he was a stone-mason--the woman knew
he was some sort of a superior being, and his answer that he was going
out West to make his fortune was met by the Irish-like response, "And

may the Holy Mother grant that ye find it."
It is very curious how gentle and beautiful souls find other gentle and
beautiful souls even in barrooms, and among the lowly--I really do not
understand it! In his book Robert Louis paid the landlord of Number
Ten West Street such a heartfelt compliment that the traditions still
invest the place, and the present landlord is not forgetful that his
predecessor once entertained an angel unawares.
When the literary pilgrim enters the door, scrapes his feet on the sanded
floor, and says "Robert Louis Stevenson," the barkeeper and loafers
straighten up and endeavor to put on the pose and manner of gentlemen
and all the courtesy, kindness and consideration they can muster are
yours. The man who could redeem a West Street barkeeper and glorify
a dock saloon must indeed have been a most remarkable personality.
[Illustration: FANNY OSBOURNE]
* * * * *
To get properly keelhauled for his overland emigrant trip across the
continent, Robert Louis remained in New York three days. The kind
landlady packed a big basket of food--not exactly the kind to tempt the
appetite of an invalid, but all flavored with good-will, and she also at
the last moment presented him a pillow in a new calico pillowcase that
has been accurately described, and the journey began.
There was no sleeping-car for the author of "A Lodging for the Night."
He sat bolt upright and held tired babies on his knees, or tumbled into a
seat and wooed the drowsy god. The third night out he tried sleeping
flat in the aisle of the car on the floor until the brakeman ordered him
up, and then two men proposed to fight the officious brakeman if he did
not leave the man alone. To save a riot Robert Louis agreed to obey the
rules. It was a ten-day trip across the continent, filled with discomforts
that would have tried the constitution of a strong man.
Robert Louis arrived "bilgy," as he expressed it, but alive. Mrs.
Osbourne was better. The day she received the telegram was the

turning-point in her case.
The doctor perceived that