The Englishwoman In America By Isabella Lucy Bird
























































































































 -  I met continually
with these acts of hearty unostentatious good nature. I mention these in
justice to the lower classes - Page 60
The Englishwoman In America By Isabella Lucy Bird - Page 60 of 249 - First - Home

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I Met Continually With These Acts Of Hearty Unostentatious Good Nature.

I mention these in justice to the lower classes of the United States, whose rugged exteriors and uncouth vernacular render them peculiarly liable to be misunderstood.

The conductor quite verified the good opinion which I had formed of him. He turned a chair into a sofa, and lent me a buffalo robe (for, hot though the day had been, the night was intensely cold), and several times brought me a cup of tea. We were talking on the peculiarities and amount of the breakage power on the American lines as compared with ours, and the interest of the subject made him forget to signal the engine-driver to stop at a station. The conversation concluded, he looked out of the window. "Dear me," he said, "we ought to have stopped three miles back; likely there was no one to get out!"

At midnight I awoke shivering with cold, having taken nothing for twelve hours; but at two we stopped at something called by courtesy a station, and the announcement was made, "Cars stop three minutes for refreshments." I got out; it was pitch dark; but I, with a young lady, followed a lantern into a frame-shed floored by the bare earth. Visions of Swindon and Wolverton rose before me, as I saw a long table supported on rude trestles, bearing several cups of steaming tea, while a dirty boy was opening and frizzling oysters by a wood fire on the floor. I swallowed a cup of scalding tea; some oysters were put upon my plate; "Six cents" was shouted by a nasal voice in my ear, and, while hunting for the required sum, "All aboard" warned me to be quick; and, jumping into the cars just as they were in motion, I left my untasted supper on my plate. After "Show your tickets," frequently accompanied by a shake, had roused me several times from a sound sleep, we arrived at Rochester, an important town on the Gennessee Falls, surrounded by extensive clearings, then covered with hoar frost.

Here we were told to get out, as there were twenty minutes for breakfast. But whither should we go when we had got out? We were at the junction of several streets, and five engines, with cars attached, were snorting and moving about. After we had run the gauntlet of all these, I found men ringing bells, and negroes rushing about, tumbling over each other, striking gongs, and all shouting "The cheapest house in all the world - house for all nations - a splenderiferous breakfast for 20 cents!" and the like. At length, seeing an unassuming placard, "Hot breakfast, 25 cents," I ventured in, but an infusion of mint was served instead of the China leaf; and I should be afraid to pronounce upon the antecedents of the steaks. The next place of importance we reached was Buffalo, a large thriving town on the south shore of Lake Erie. There had been an election for Congress at some neighbouring place the day before, and my vis-à- vis, the editor of a Buffalo paper, was arguing vociferously with a man on my right.

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