Homepage
Login
Profile
BookClubs
dmBox
Read this ebook for free! No credit card needed, absolutely nothing to pay.
Words: 70764 in 18 pages
This is an ebook sharing website. You can read the uploaded ebooks for free here. No credit cards needed, nothing to pay. If you want to own a digital copy of the ebook, or want to read offline with your favorite ebook-reader, then you can choose to buy and download the ebook.
roper, after so unceremoniously leaving brush factory and schoolroom, took place, one night, at some coke ovens near the State line toward which I was traveling. My boots had been exchanged for shoes, the old cap had given way to a better one, and the ragged coat had been patched. In this fashion I climbed to the top of the ovens and said "Hello!" to some men who were cooking their coffee in a tomato-can over one of the oven openings. I do not recall now whether they were Gay-Cats or hoboes, but they were at any rate very hospitable, which must be said of both classes of men when separated. Thrown together they are likely to be on their dignity--particularly the hoboes.
Coffee was given me, also bread and meat, and I was shown how to fix some planks across the edge of the oven for sleeping purposes. My inexperience became only too apparent when I told the men that I had "just beat the Ref." The look they gave one another after this confession was a revelation to me at the time, and remains in my memory still as one of the earliest typical hobo traits I remarked. What it meant to me at the moment is not clear any longer; I probably simply made a note of it, and resolved to know more about it later on. Thinking it over, it seems to me that it epitomized in a glance all the secret clannishness and "ear-wigging" tendencies which the travelers of the Road possess in such large and abundant measure. The "ear-wigging"--listening--was plain to see when the men stopped talking themselves, and gave heed to me, practically a kid; the secrecy, when one of them kindly advised me not to spread the news of my escape too promiscuously; and the clannishness in giving a fellow roadster such practical counsel.
That night on the coke ovens was uneventful, except that all of us had to be careful not to roll off our perches into the hot fires beneath us, which fact calls to mind an experience I had later on in a railway sand-house in Ohio. The sand was just comfortably hot when I lay down to sleep, but I forgot that the fire might brighten up during the night, and I lay close to the stove. What was my dismay in the morning, on brushing off the sand, to find that the seat of my best trousers had been burned through over night. Fortunately I had two pair on, otherwise my predicament would have been no laughing matter.
In West Virginia I heard of a country district between the State line and Wheeling where it was easy to "feed," where, in fact, travelers on the highway, when meal-time came, were beckoned into the cabins by the mountaineers to have a bite. Such localities are called by tramps "fattenin'-up places." What with the nervousness, incident to the escape, and the following severe travels, I had become pretty thin and worn-out, and the country district in the hills took hold of my fancy. There is nothing of particular interest about the locality or my stay there to call for especial comment here, except that the mountaineers were so friendly and hospitable that I was able to build up my strength very considerably for the struggle of existence in inhospitable places further on. It was also a capital hiding-place until the excitement over my departure from the school, if there had been any, should subside.
In my other writings I have told pretty minutely what I learned about tramp life during the eight months' trip as well as on later excursions. There is consequently not much left to tell on these lines except of a pretty personal nature and as it affects the general progress of this autobiography. I shall therefore have to skip hurriedly from district to district relating such incidents as illustrate my position and experience in Hoboland, and estimating what this strange country accomplished for me and with me.
During the first month of my wanderings I was bedless, and frequently roofless. Indeed, when I finally did rest or try to, in a bed, the experience was so strange that I slept very little. A box-car, a hay-stack, a railway tie drawn close to a fire--these were my principal lodging places during the entire eight months. It may have been a hard outing, but it toughened and inured me to unpleasantness which would certainly seem very undesirable now. In a way, they were undesirable then. I always laugh when a tramp tells me that he is happier in a box-car than in a bed. He merely fancies that he is, and I certainly should not like to risk offering him my bed in exchange for his box-car. Yet at the time in question I was able to sleep uncommonly well in box-car or hay-stack, and except when traveling at night, eight hours' good rest constituted my regular portion. In general, I kept track of the names of the different States and large cities I visited, but, when asked to-day whether I have been in a certain town, I am often at a loss for an answer; I simply do not know whether I have been there or not. On the other hand, certain "stops" at comparatively insignificant places have clung in my memory when much larger places that I must have seen are dim and hazy. All told, I traveled in the great majority of the full-fledged States of that period, and visited many of the large cities.
At one of these minor "stops" in Michigan, I probably had a chance to experiment with that tantalizing dream of earlier years--the notion that to amount to anything I must go secretly to some place, work my way into a profession, and then on up the ladder until I should be able to return to my people, and say: "Well, with all my cussedness, I managed to get on."
"You're a nice fellow!" I said to him in no uncertain tones of disgust. "Couldn't even look back to see where I'd fallen, huh?"
"I did look back," he returned in an aggrieved manner. "I saw the whole business. What was the use o' gettin' off when I saw 't you was all to the good? Besides, I want to make Erie for breakfast."
Such are the "blowed-in-the-glass-stiffs." When in a hurry and a meal is in sight, even nations can clash and fall without influencing a hobo's itinerary one iota. Even had my hand been crushed under the wheels, it is doubtful whether "Slim" would have gotten off the train. Erie once reached, and a good breakfast added to his assets, he would doubtless have bestirred himself in my behalf. One learns not to complain in Hoboland about such trifles. I have also been guilty of seeing companions in danger, with a calm eye and a steady lip.
My first "baptism of fire," when the "Song of The Bullet" was heard in all its completeness, took place in Iowa, or western Illinois, I forget which, this forgetfulness being another testimony to the cold-blooded indifference of the Road and its travelers as to time, place and weather. Five of us were very anxious to "make" Chicago by early morning of the next day. Ordinarily, we had plenty of time, but we failed to consider the railroad we were on--the C. B. and Q., or the "Q," as it is more familiarly known. Some years previous the great "Q" strike had taken place, affording so-called "scabs" from the East, who were very liberally introduced into the "Q's" territory, an opportunity to manage things for a time. Their lot was not an easy one, and to be called "scabs" incensed them not a little.
We determined to ride on an afternoon "freight" at least far enough to land somewhere nicely about time for supper. I certainly remember catching the train in Iowa, but whether the "Song of the Bullet" was sung there or on the Illinois side of the Mississippi, I am at a loss to say. On one side or the other the crew discovered us, and insisted on our "hitting the gravel," getting off the train. We demurred.
Free books android app tbrJar TBR JAR Read Free books online gutenberg
(0)More posts by @FreeBooks
