Page:Memoirs of Henry Villard, volume 1.djvu/42

16 the country, and maybe my perhaps too genteel appearance, were against me. I received, indeed, my first lesson in the advantages which immigrants accustomed to manual labor enjoy over all classes in this country.

While I did not feel at all sure of being made welcome by my relatives, I still had a faint hope of an encouraging reply to my letter. But it had nearly become extinguished when, one evening in the third week of my stay, on entering the hotel in a very discouraged mood, the office-clerk handed me a letter post-marked Belleville, Illinois. It was the expected answer. For some time I did not dare to open it, lest its contents should prove disappointing. It turned out to be a letter from my great-uncle Theodor, couched in cautious language, and telling me, in response to the intimation of my intention to visit Belleville, that my relatives did not desire to see me until they clearly understood the reason why I came to America. As an offset to this rebuff, I unfolded from the letter a draft for fifty dollars.

The next day I made up my mind what to do. Having repaid the twenty dollars I had borrowed, I resolved to try and reach the West with the remainder. As it was already the latter part of November, and as I had nothing but an overcoat in the way of winter clothing, I invested one-third of the balance in a cheap, but warm suit. Thus equipped, I left New York on November 19, with eighteen dollars in my pocket and all my other possessions in a large hand-bag. I had decided to go via Philadelphia and Pittsburg to Cincinnati. My reason for choosing this city as my destination was solely the fact, gathered from my guide-book, that it had a large German population, including a considerable percentage of Bavarians.

There was no direct railway connection between New York and Philadelphia at that time. I took the principal route of travel, by boat to Perth Amboy and thence by rail to Camden on the Delaware, opposite Philadelphia. The boat and train were crowded with emigrants, among