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Page 50
How pleasing is our commuter's simplicity! A cage of white mice, or
a crated goat (such are to be seen now and then on the Jamaica
platform) will engage his eye and give him keen amusement. Then
there is that game always known (in the smoking car) as
"pea-knuckle." The sight of four men playing will afford
contemplative and apparently intense satisfaction to all near. They
will lean diligently over seat-backs to watch every play of the
cards. They will stand in the aisle to follow the game, with
apparent comprehension. Then there are distinguished figures that
move through the observant commuter's peep-show. There is the tall
young man with the beaky nose, which (as Herrick said)
Is the grace
And proscenium of his face.
He is one of several light-hearted and carefree gentry who always
sit together and are full of superb cheer. Those who travel
sometimes with twinges of perplexity or skepticism are healed when
they see the magnificent assurance of this creature. Every day we
hear him making dates for his cronies to meet him at lunch time,
and in the evening we see him towering above the throng at the gate.
We like his confident air toward life, though he is still a little
too jocular to be a typical commuter.
But the commuter, though simple and anxious to be pleased, is
shrewdly alert. Every now and then they shuffle the trains at
Jamaica just to keep him guessing and sharpen his faculty of judging
whether this train goes to Brooklyn or Penn Station. His decisions
have to be made rapidly. We are speaking now of Long Island
commuters, whom we know best; but commuters are the same wherever
you find them. The Jersey commuter has had his own celebrant in
Joyce Kilmer, and we hope that he knows Joyce's pleasant essay on
the subject which was published in that little book, "The Circus and
Other Essays." But we gain-say the right of Staten Islanders to be
classed as commuters. These are a proud and active sort who are
really seafarers, not commuters. Fogs and ice floes make them blench
a little; but the less romantic troubles of broken brake-shoes leave
them unscotched.
Of Long Island commuters there are two classes: those who travel to
Penn Station, those who travel to Brooklyn. Let it not be denied,
there is a certain air of aristocracy about the Penn Station clique
that we cannot waive. Their tastes are more delicate. The train-boy
from Penn Station cries aloud "Choice, delicious apples," which
seems to us almost an affectation compared to the hoarse yell of our
Brooklyn news-agents imploring "Have a comic cartoon book, 'Mutt
and Jeff,' 'Bringing Up Father,' choclut-covered cherries!" The
club cars all go to Penn Station: there would be a general apoplexy
in the lowly terminal at Atlantic Avenue if one of those vehicles
were seen there. People are often seen (on the Penn Station branch)
who look exactly like the advertisements in _Vanity Fair_. Yet we,
for our humility, have treasures of our own, such as the brightly
lighted little shops along Atlantic Avenue and a station with the
poetic name of Autumn Avenue. The Brooklyn commuter points with
pride to his monthly ticket, which is distinguished from that of the
Penn Station nobility by a red badge of courage--a bright red
stripe. On the Penn Station branch they often punch the tickets with
little diamond-shaped holes; but on our line the punch is in the
form of a heart.
When the humble commuter who is accustomed to travelling via
Brooklyn is diverted from his accustomed orbit, and goes by way of
the Pennsylvania Station, what surprising excitements are his. The
enormousness of the crowd at Penn Station around 5 P.M. causes him
to realize that what he had thought, in his innocent Brooklyn
fashion, was a considerable mob, was nothing more than a trifling
scuffle. But he notes with pleasure the Penn Station habit of
letting people through the gate before the train comes in, so that
one may stand in comparative comfort and coolness downstairs on the
train platform. Here a vision of luxury greets his eyes that could
not possibly be imagined at the Brooklyn terminal--the Lehigh Valley
dining car that stands on a neighbouring track, the pink candles
lit on the tables, the shining water carafes, the white-coated
stewards at attention. At the car's kitchen window lolls a young
coloured boy in a chef's hat, surveying the files of proletarian
commuters with a glorious calmness of scorn and superiority. His
mood of sanguine assurance and self-esteem is so complete, so
unruffled, and so composed that we cannot help loving him. Lucky
youth, devoid of cares, responsibilities, and chagrins! Does he not
belong to the conquering class that has us all under its thumb? What
does it matter that he (probably) knows less about cooking than you
or I? He gazes with glorious cheer upon the wretched middle class,
and as our train rolls away we see him still gazing across the
darkling cellars of the station with that untroubled gleam of
condescension, his eyes seeming (as we look back at them) as large
and white and unspeculative as billiard balls.
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