The Henson Journals

[53]

Wednesday, June 2nd, 1909.

Breakfasted at 7.30 a.m. Train running through Ohio, pleasant country, undulating and wooded at intervals. We lunched on the train, & arrived in Chicago at 4.15 just an hour earlier than Washington time. Thus we missed Mrs Mann. We were hustled across the station for Minneapolis, & then went to the Congress Hotel. There Mrs Mann came to us: & relieved by her appearance, we dined royally (!) to the tune of 6 dollars!! So much for economy. The rain, which threatened during the afternoon fell heavily as the night came on. Chicago had a damp & hang–dog expression. We have now been six weeks in this country, & are spending our 2nd night in a hotel. This speaks well for the hospitality of the people.

We retired to our rooms about 8.30 p.m.: but not [54] to rest; for almost immediately the telephone bell started ringing. It was a reporter. I went down & interviewed him – a mild and dangerous youth. Then when actually undressed, the bell started again; & no less than 7 more reporters & clergymen attacked me with inquiries civil or curious. But I would no more go down. There is a good bit of the naïve inquisitiveness of the savage or the child about the American: persisting in sadly distorted form in the insistent questioning of their ubiquitous reporters. Similarly their extraordinary hospitality is the abiding legacy of the indispensable camaraderie of the ruder time, when the settlers just arrived in the land.

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