Journeys Afoot in North America
Part I, Early Walks
In Chicago the dear left me to go home and make something of herself and what would she do with me in Portland? I got leave to return late to my research job and headed for Canada to walk off some despair.
In Northern Michigan, if the count was right, I walked my longest day ever, thirty-one miles. Across the Soo a man asked in the streets for someone to help drive to Montreal. In Montreal I hoped to see the World's Fair, where my friend had gone while I rambled. However, it was already dismantled. Bus drivers were striking but a horsedrawn carriage offered a lift to the outskirts. Out of a Russian novel, it had deep soft furs for sightseeing lovers. This was my last lift in Quebec as I tramped east.
La Belle Province is indeed beautiful with tall churches and many roadside shrines of Jesus and in the fall, crisp bright-red McIntosh apples. I walked on flowers; they paint fleurs-de-lis to mark the pavement edge. Eight days later in Quebec City I ate rose hips on the grounds of Laval University and wandered among epitaphs in the old English Church. Was so long without a lift a lesson for the years ahead?
When the St. Lawrence Riverway was opened, Chicago, Milwaukee, and Duluth became ocean ports. Wanting a ship back along the route just plodded, I failed in Quebec City but found a Dutch freighter in Montreal, after a train ride. It was a restful cruise then, up the wide river and through the Great Lakes. The Hollanders set a fine table, with thin-sliced cheeses and buttered bread for dessert.
On board, a sailor claimed his wooden shoes were warmer than leather against the steel decks. He wouldn't trade for my moccasins but told me I could get some in Holland, Michigan. At dock in Calumet, Illinois the aloof captain, who'd told me at table that I wouldn't be allowed to walk Dutch roads, shouldered my pack and walked with me to the gangplank.
Back on the university campus there was a stained-glass-windowed shrine where my friend and I had once sat together. Barefoot again, was she?
Blue is the color of adversity.
Only on the dullest day
In a dreary heart's rain
After the faithful janitor
Puts out the false lights
When green and yellow sleep
Through the Christian eye
Of Bond Chapel, Chicago,
Do we take the field.
Color--move!
To the left flank--blue
To the right flank--blue
To the rear--blue
Blue, at rest.