Only God and the Commuter know how to get there, and they alone know why they stay.
Our Commuter has boarded a train for a nineteen-mile ride; then an electric car for five miles more, when he gets off, under a lone electric light, swinging amid the skeleton limbs of forest trees.
There are other legitimate ambitions, and the Commuter is not without them; but these few go far toward making home home, toward giving point and purpose to life, and a pinch of pride.
The Commuter is bound to see the stars nightly, as he goes down to shut up the hens.
The Commuter cannot live in the wild country, else he must cease to commute; and as for small-village life--I suppose it might be worse.
For three or four weeks, there, I was about the meekest commuter carried on the eight-three.
I'm just discoverin' that there's more tea fights and dinner dances and such goin's on out here in the commuter zone than in any five blocks of Fifth Avenue you can name.
How long would the commuter stand it if he had to mumble to himself for twenty minutes and use up the margins of his newspaper before he could figure out what was the next train after the 5:18?
But any one knowing the commuter well enough to call him "dearie" might tell him in slightly worn vernacular that he doesn't know the half of it.
In our small commuter garden we had been restricted by space limitations and had fallen into the habit of planting rows a good deal closer together than the directions on the packets said--an economy of ground, but not of toil.
The Brooklyn commuterpoints 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.
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 commuter has a chance to observe all manner of types among his brethren.
Such memories throng in the mind of the commuter as he surveys the dark form of his furnace, standing cold and dusty in the warm spring weather, and he cleans and drains it for the summer vacation.
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.
The commuteris often a figure both tragic and absurd; but he has a rubric and discipline of his own.
It is this reasonable and moderate temper that makes the commuter the seed wherewith a new generation shall be disseminated.
Now, on such an occasion the experienced commuter makes the best of a bad job, knowing there is little to be gained by trying to cherish and succour a feeble remnant of fire.
Once aboard the 5:37 the Commuter trails his way into the smoker.
Once, when some meddler violently assumed to change it into a 5:31, the Commuter was one of a committee who visited a terrified general passenger agent and had the course of time set right again.
It is an all-parlor-car train, the most luxurious suburban on the line, yet not one Commuter in a thousand knows a thing about it.
The baggageman was good-natured, for the Oldest Commuter was a generous fellow and never forgot Christmas-times and the like.
It makes train and Commuter both its concern, because that is the way it seeks to build up its profitable suburban traffic.
The first of these began years ago, when the Oldest Commuter began his habit of riding to and from town in the baggage-car.
No fire in the stove at Lenden Road,'--a long string of commuter troubles.
If the 5:37 should ever be stricken from the time-card the Commuter would feel as if the light had been extinguished.
When theCommuter slams his desk shut at the close of a busy day, he is fully aware that he is a superior being.
Other trains may be jumped about on the time-card, the Commuter is oblivious of their fate.
The Commuter is apt to settle his thoughts upon himself, to forget that he is but an infinitely small part of a mighty home-going army that nightly calls all the passenger resources of the railroad into play.
But let his 7:52 be ten minutes late into the big terminal three mornings in succession, and the Commuter begins to write letters to the papers and to the officers of the railroad.
The club car is one of the most elaborate developments of the entire Commuter idea.
The Illinois Central has been very progressive in its methods of handling the Commuter traffic.
It wasn't exactly jealousy; it wasn't exactly the expression of a beautiful female commuterwho has just missed her train.
But she went very swiftly and had upon her face the expression of a beautiful female commuter who has arrived at the station just in time to see her train pull out.
So there I was hung up in a rummy little commuter town where the chief industry is sellin' bungalow sites on the salt marsh.
Weather wisdom is necessary for the hunter; for the commuter it pays.
The commuter can go him one better by investing $10 (how finance will creep in!
When the commutergoes camping he rightly likes his comforts.
At the end of the row the commuter turned to a friend and said: "'Well, the P.
I have never known a commuter who told the truth about the time it takes him to cover the distance from his office-door to his front lawn.
But no commuter ever alludes to the fifteen minutes' walk at the other end.
He sat up straight as he realized for the first time that he was the only poorly dressed commuter of whom Meadeville might boast.
One handsome colonial home just built for a superintendent in one of the wire mills would be a credit to any commuter town.
Perhaps you are a commuter and journey to town by steam road.
It is obviously nothing for the daily commuter to attempt unless he is prepared to pay for the services of a competent hired man.
The average country commuter is a born optimist on this point and will unblushingly distort facts in a manner to put the most ardent fisherman to shame.
We mention this station trip of twelve miles as about the maximum for the hardy commuteralthough there are a few who take more punishment than that.
Here the fortunate commuter is free from exacting train schedules; a five or ten minutes' drive sees him outside the city limits, and another twenty or thirty may find him rolling into his own driveway.
In short, I seem to have picked on about the same things that a commuter on his summer vacation would choose to write of to a fellow-commuter who has staid at home.
Since I became a confirmed commuter I have sprained three watches and two of my legs trying to catch trains that are wild enough to dodge a dog-catcher.
The national emblem of the commuter is the lawn-mower.
One of the first rules for a commuter to follow after he locates the railroad station, and hikes there a couple of times to get in training, is to get a red and pink and blue hammock.
