Chapter I: Front Matter

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

Looking down from Kersey Coates Drive, one
sees ... the appalling web of railroad tracks,
crammed with freight cars, which seen through
a softening haze of smoke, resemble a relief
map--strange, vast and pictorial 289

Colonel Nelson is a "character." Even if he
didn't own the "Star," ... he would be a
"character."... I have called him a volcano;
he is more like one than any other man I have
ever met 304

Mr. Fish informed me that the waters of
Excelsior Springs resemble the waters of
Homburg, the favorite watering place of the
late King Edward--or, rather, I think he put
it the other way round 322

We strolled in the direction of the old house,
that house of tragedy in which the family lived
in the troublous times.... It was there that
the Pinkertons threw the bomb 328

It was Frank James.... He looks more like a
prosperous farmer or the president of a rural
bank than like a bandit. In his manner
there is a strong note of the showman 335

The campus seems to have "just
growed."... Nevertheless, there is a sort of
homely charm about the place, with its
unimposing, helter-skelter piles of brick and
stone 353

Even at sea the great bowl of the sky had
never looked to me so vast 368

The little towns of western Kansas are far
apart and have, like the surrounding scenery,
an air of sadness and desolation 373

In the lobby of the Brown Palace Hotel we saw
several old fellows, sitting about, looking
neither prosperous nor busy, but always
talking mines. A kind word, or even a pleasant
glance, is enough to set them off 380

"Ain't Nature wonderful!" 405

I was by this time very definitely aware that
I had my fill of winter motoring in the
mountains. The mere reluctance I felt as we
began to climb had now developed into a
passionate desire to desist 412

The homes of Colorado Springs really explain
the place and the society is as cosmopolitan
as the architecture 417

On the road to Cripple Creek we were always
turning, always turning upward 432

We were invited to meet the President of the
Mormon Church and some members of his family
at the Beehive House, his official residence 452

The Lion House--a large adobe building in
which formerly resided the rank and file of
Brigham Young's wives 461

The Cliff House has a Sorrento setting and
hectic turkey-trotting nights 468

The Salt-water pool, Olympic Club, San Francisco 477

The switchboard of the Chinatown telephone
exchange is set in a shrine and the operators
are dressed in Chinese silks 496

We believed we had encountered every kind of
"booster" that creeps, crawls, walks, crows,
cries, bellows, barks or brays, but it remained
for the Exposition to show us a new specimen 504

New York--Everyone is in a hurry. Everyone is
dodging everyone else. Everyone is trying to
keep his knees from being knocked by
swift-passing suitcases 513

STEPPING WESTWARD

ABROAD AT HOME