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With all of his power of enduring disappointment and changing a shadow to a spot of sunshine, there yet come days of loneliness into the life of the commercial traveler–days when he cannot and will not break the spell. There is a sweet enchantment, anyway, about melancholy; ’tis then that the heart yearns for what it knows awaits it. Perhaps the wayfarer has missed his mail; perhaps the wife whom he has not seen for many weeks, writes him now that she suffers because of their separation and how she longs for his return.

I sat one day in a big red rocking chair in the Knutsford Hotel, in Salt Lake. I had been away from home for nearly three months. It was drawing near the end of the season. The bell boys sat with folded hands upon their bench; the telegraph instrument had ceased clicking; the typewriter was still. The only sound heard was the dripping of the water at the drinking fount. The season’s rush was over. Nothing moved across the floor except the shadows chasing away the sunshine which streamed at times through the skylight. Half a dozen other wanderers– all disconsolate–sat facing the big palm in the center of the room. No one spoke a word. Perhaps we were all turning the blue curls of smoke that floated up from our cigars into visions of home.

The first to move was one who had sat for half an hour in deep meditation. He went softly over to the music box near the drinking fount and dropped a nickel into the slot. Then he came back again to his chair and fell into reverie. The tones of the old music box were sweet, like the swelling of rich bells. They pealed through the white corridor “Old Kentucky Home.” Every weary wanderer began to hum the air. When the chorus came, one, in a low sweet tenor, sang just audibly:

“Weep no more, my lady,
“Weep no more to-day;
“We will sing one song, for my old Kentucky home,
“For my old Kentucky home far away.”

When the music ceased he of meditation went again and dropped in another coin. Out of the magic box came once more sweet strains–this time those of Cayalleria Rusticana, which play so longingly upon the noblest passions of the soul.

The magic box played its entire repertoire, which fitted so well the mood of the disconsolate listeners. The first air was repeated, and the second. This was enough–too much. Quietly the party disbanded, leaving behind only the man of meditation to listen to the dripping of the fount.

Not only are there moments of melancholy on the road, but those of tragedy as well. The field of the traveling man is wide and, while there bloom in it fragrant blossoms and in it there wax luscious fruits, the way is set with many thorns.

During the holidays of 1903 I was in a western city. On one of these days, long to be remembered, I took luncheon with a young man who had married only a few months before. This trip marked his first separation from his wife since their wedding. Every day there came a letter from “Dolly” to “Ned”–some days three. The wife loves her drummer husband; and the most loved and petted of all the women in the world is the wife of the man on the road. When they are apart they long to be together; when they meet they tie again the broken threads of their life-long honeymoon.

As we sat at the table over our coffee a bell boy brought into my friend letter “97” for that trip. His wife numbered her letters. Reading the letter my friend said to me: “Jove, I wish I could be at home in Chicago to-day, or else, like you, have Dolly along with me. Just about now I would be going to the matinee with her. She writes me she is going to get tickets for to-day and take my sister along, as that is the nearest thing to having me. Gee, how I’d love to be with her!”