EARLY TRAMPING EXPERIENCES
Hoboland--Gay-Cat Country--The Road--what memories these names bring to
mind! Years ago they stood for more than they do now. There were not so
many _bona fide_ out-of-works or tramps as at present, and the terms
described distinct territories and boundaries. Now, the hang-outs are
overcrowded with wandering "stake men," and the real hobo, the
"blowed-in-the-glass-stiff," more often than not has deserted the old
haunts and built for himself new ones, hidden away in bushes or
concealed in woods. I think, too, that the real article, as he existed
in my day, is giving way, more and more, to the army of casual workers
and itinerant day laborers. Whether he has "squared it" and lives
respectably, or whether he has broken again into criminal ranks and is
trying once more for the final grand "stake" that is to make him
independent and comfortable, I cannot say. It is several years now since
I have been on the real Road, in the United States, and I only
infrequently look up old acquaintances in cities, where many of them are
stationary the year round. The Road of twenty years ago, however, I
learned to know during those eight months of travel, as probably few
boys of my years and bringing-up ever did know--or will know it. The
word Road was used as a generic term for the railroads, turnpikes, lanes
and trails which all wanderers, professional and semi-amateur, followed
for purposes of travel, "graft" and general amusement. Hoboland was that
part of the Road which the "blowed-in-the-glass-stiffs" were supposed to
wander over--the highways and byways where the men who would not work
and lived by begging alone were found. Gay-Cat Country, as undefined in
the geographical sense as was Hoboland, for it stretched all over the
United States, was the home and refuge of those tramps who _would_ work
on occasions--when winter came on, for instance, and box-cars grew too
cold and cheerless. In spring, like the modern "stake" men, they gave up
their jobs, and went merrily on their way again, the Road having become
hospitable once more. Both Hoboland and Gay-Cat Country dovetailed into
each other after a fashion--one "hang out," for example, often had to
serve both sets of vagabonds--but the intersecting was almost entirely
physical. The same railroads and highways were as open to the Gay-Cats,
provided they were strong enough to assert their rights, as to the
hoboes--the "hang-outs" also at times; but here the association
stopped. The hobo considered himself, and really was, more of a person
than the Gay-Cat, and he let the latter know it. Consequently, although
both men in a year's time often covered pretty much the same territory,
each one called this territory by a different name, and held himself
pretty well aloof from the other--the hobo, on account of pride and
caste, the Gay-Cat because he knew that he was unwelcome in the
"blowed-in-the-glass" circle. To-day, I make no doubt that the Road is
tramped over by a hundred different species of vagrants, each having its
own particular name, and, perhaps, even territory. The world has its
shifts and changes among the outcast's as well as in the aristocrat's
domain, and I hear now of strange clans of rovers that had not yet been
organized when I began tramping. So it is with everything, and I should
probably have difficulty now in finding the old sign posts and
"hang-outs" that I once knew so well.
My first appearance on the Road proper, 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.
Once over the State line, I made for Wheeling. There was no particular
reason in heading for that town, but in tramp life there is no special
reason for going anywhere. Time and again I have started north or south
with a well mapped out itinerary, and plans fixed and set. Along came
some roadster with a more interesting route to follow, or what seemed to
be such, and my route, or his, was discarded in a moment. Thus it ever
was during the eight months; one day Chicago might be my objective, and
I fancied that I knew exactly what was necessary to be done there. In a
hundred miles, as likely as not, something far more important, as I
thought, required my attention in New Orleans. _Die Ferne_ has seldom
had her wild calls more carefully listened to by me than they were at
this time. There was no home that I dared go to, the world was literally
my oyster, and all I had to do, or knew how to do, for the time being,
was wander. Roadsters, who railroaded as persistently as I did, seldom
stopping for more than a day or so, at the most a week end in any one
place, are called victims of the "railroad fever."
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."
The town had the conventional academy and other educational institutions
which my dream had always included in the career I had in mind, and
there was a hospitality about the people which promised all kinds of
things. I got my dinner at the home of a well-to-do widow who very
sensibly made me work for it, chopping wood, a task that I was careful
to perform behind the house so that my companions, real hoboes, every
one of them, should not see me breaking one of their cardinal rules. The
work over, I was invited into the dining room for my meal, during which
the good hostess asked me rather minutely about my life. For some
reason, I was in the "self-made man" mood at the time, and told the
woman about my desire for an education, and later, a professional
career. She came over to my seat, examined my cranium, and then, turning
to her daughter--a sightly miss--said: "The head is not at all badly
shaped. He _may_ be bright."
"Let us hope so, for his sake anyhow," was the daughter's rather
doubtful comment. Before leaving, the mother was rather insistent on my
calling at the office of a local lawyer who was reported to be "much
interested in young men, and their welfare." I promised to look him up,
but somehow his time and mine did not agree--he was not at his
office--and perhaps I lost another chance to be a legal light. As the
weeks and months went by, the dream of "self-madeness," as I once heard
a tramp describe it, became less and less oppressive; at any rate, I
noticed that merely because a town or village harbored an academy and
college, and possibly a philanthropic lawyer, did not suffice to tempt
me out of the box-car rolling through the locality. Nothing else in
particular had come to take its place, that I recall. But certain it is
that the box-car, on a bright, sunny day, rolling along, clinkety-clink,
chunkety-chunk, possessed temporary attractions which dreamy
self-madeness could not offer. This particular time in my wanderings
probably saw the height of the railroad fever in me. It burned and
sizzled it almost seemed on occasions, and the distant whistle of a
"freight" going my way, or any way, for that matter, became as sweet a
sound as was ever the dinner call or the recess bell. To-day I can laugh
at all this, but it was a very serious matter in those days; unless I
covered a certain number of miles each day or week, and saw so many
different States, cities, rivers and kinds of people, I was
disappointed--Hoboland was not giving me my share of her bounteous
supply of fun and change. Of course, I was called "railroad crazy" by
the quieter roadsters in whom the fever, as such, had long since
subsided, but I did not mind. Farther, farther, _farther_! This was what
I insisted on and got. In the end I had seen a great deal, of course,
but altogether too much of it only superficially. Later tramp trips,
undertaken with a serious purpose and confined to narrower limits, have
netted me much more lasting information and amusement.
Of accidents during my whirl-wind travels I am thankful to say that
there is very little to report. While other men and boys were breaking
legs, getting crushed under wheels and falling between cars, I went
serenely on my way unharmed. There is a world of significance to me now
in the words: "Unknown man among the dead," printed so often in
connection with freight-train wrecks. They usually mean that one more
hobo or Gay-Cat has "cashed in" and is "bound out." Perhaps I came as
near to a serious mishap in western Pennsylvania as anywhere else. I was
traveling with a tall, lanky roadster, called Slim, on the "Lake Shore"
Railroad. We had been on the train the greater part of the night in the
hopes of reaching Erie before daylight. The "freight," however, had met
with a number of delays, and dawn found us still twelve miles out of
Erie. We were riding "outside," on the bumpers, and on the tops of the
cars. When the train stopped to take water we cautiously hid in the long
grass near the track, so that the trainmen would not discover us. Pretty
soon the whistle blew and the train moved on again. "Slim," my
companion, was the first to climb up the ladder, and I soon followed
him. By this time the car we were on had reached the watering-plug,
where the fireman had carelessly left the swing arm pointing toward the
train. There was plenty of room for the train to pass without touching
it, but while climbing the ladder I let my body swing backward some
distance to see whether the crew in the caboose were watching us. "Slim"
was already on top. Suddenly the arm of the watering apparatus caught me
on the hip, and I was swung completely over it, falling luckily on my
back, hands and feet on the ground below, but with my left hand within
about three inches of the rail and wheels. I was so frightened that at
least two cars went by me before I ventured to move. Then I slunk over
to the grass to see how badly I had been hurt. There was not a bruise or
a scratch on me. In a moment I was back on the train again, looking for
"Slim."
"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 ("Chi") 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.
"Get off, you dirty tramps," the conductor ordered.
We were not particularly dirty, and although we might be called tramps
and live up to the "calling," we believed that even as such, we were
higher in the social scale than were "scabs." The crew numbered four. As
I have said, we were five strong. Finally, losing our tempers and
judgment, we told the conductor that we would not only ride in his
train, but his caboose as well, and we scrambled for places on the
platform. He tried to kick at us first, but fright at our numbers soon
overcame him, and, with an oath, he ran into the caboose, shouting back,
"I'll soon see who is running this train." We knew only too well what
his actions meant, and dropped off. In a minute he appeared on the back
platform with a revolver and opened up on us. Fortunately, his train was
moving ahead at a fair pace and he was a poor shot. As I recall the
incident none of us was particularly frightened, and there was no such
"Pingh-h" in the "Song of the Bullet" as I have so often heard
described. The "Pingh-h" indeed I have never heard anywhere. The bullets
that the conductor sent our way went over our heads and around us, with
a whizzing whine. As Bret Harte suggests in his bullet verses, it was as
if the disappointment at not reaching us was overwhelmingly acute.
Since that experience other bullets have whizzed and whined about
me--not many, thanks!--and it seemed to me sometimes that they went
purring on their flight, and then again whining. Perhaps the purring
bullets found soft lodgment after passing me, but I hope not if the mark
was a human being.
An experience that I had in a railroad sand-house in Wisconsin
illustrates the definiteness with which the hobo must frequently assert
his rights. A man, called "Scotchy" by some, "Rhuderick" by others, was
my companion at the time. We were the first-comers at the sand-house,
and wholly ignorant of a Wisconsin collection of rovers, nick-named "The
Kickers." These Kickers, it appears, had been in the habit of running
all available tramp "stops" (sleeping places) to suit their own
nonsense, and if their so-called "spots" at any "stop" were found
appropriated by others on their arrival, no matter how late, they
proceeded to drive the alleged interlopers out, if they felt strong
enough. They were hoboes of a kind, but they were careful to travel
_incognito_ when alone. "Scotchy" and I quite unwittingly took three of
the Kickers' places in the sand-house in question, and were comfortably
asleep when the Kickers appeared.
"You got yer nerve on," said one of the burly brutes to "Scotchy,"
tickling him none too gently in the ribs with his toe-tip. "Get out o'
there, an' give yer betters their rights." The rasping voice and the
striking of matches wakened me also. Somehow, it may have been tramp
instinct, for certainly the Road develops such things, I felt impelled
on the instant to grab and capture the poker, and "Scotchy" secured the
sand-bucket.
"Me betters, huh?" cried "Scotchy," ominously swinging his bucket. "This
for you," and he brought the bucket perilously near one of the Kickers'
heads. Matches were being struck on all sides, and it was not difficult
to see. The Kickers framed closely together for their attack. They
forgot, or did not know, about my poker. Pretty soon another match was
struck. The Kickers had coupling pins, and looked formidable. I was in a
shadow. They consolidated their forces against "Scotchy." His bucket,
however, stretched one Kicker flat before he had time to defend himself.
Total darkness and silence followed. Then a Kicker ventured another
match. This was my chance. The long poker shot out, and the point must
have hit hard in the temple; at any rate, the wounded Kicker sat down.
The remaining Kicker risked still one more light, but on seeing his
disabled pals, he made for the door. Too late! Other hoboes, not
Kickers, had arrived, "dope" lights were secured, and the story was
told. The poor Kickers were "kicked" out of that sand-house as never
before or since, I am sure.
Such aggregations of tramps are met with throughout Hoboland, and there
are constant clashes between them and itinerant roadsters traversing the
gangs' districts. The only thing to do is to fight shy of them when
alone, and if in force, to fight them; otherwise they become so
arrogant and despotic that no one, not even the mere short distance
trespasser, is left unmolested.
In spite of all the chances to get hurt, in feelings as well as
physically, that Hoboland offers to all comers, I must repeat that I was
able to explore its highways and byways with very few scratches to my
credit or discredit. A small scar or two and some tattoo figures
constitute all the bodily marks of the experience that I carry to-day.
There were opportunities without number for fisticuffs, but, as I have
declared, I had long since joined the peace movement, and regularly
fought shy of them.
A thirty days' sentence to jail, toward the close of the eight months'
trip, hurt and tantalized me more than any of the wrecks on railroads or
disputes with bullies. It came unfortunately, in June, the hoboes'
favorite month. Sleeping in a box-car at night was my crime. I have
described the arrest and general experience in one of my tramp books,
but I cannot forbear saying a few words about the judge who sentenced
me. At the time, 1889 I think was the year, he was police judge in
Utica, N. Y., where in company with a friend, I was caught. The night's
batch of prisoners were brought before him at one and the same
time--drunks, thieves, runaway boys, train-jumpers, _bona fide_ hoboes
and Gay-Cats. The court-room was a dingy little place with benches for
the prisoners and officers, and a raised platform with a desk for the
judge. I shall never forget how the latter looked--"spick and span" to
the last degree in outward appearance, but there was an overnight look
in his face that boded us ill, I feared. "Just ez if he'd come out of a
Turkish bath," whispered an unfortunate who had been found asleep in the
streets. The judge certainly paid little enough attention to our cases
to have come from anywhere, but a Turkish bath ought to have left him
more merciful. We were all punished according to the _judge's_ whims and
the law's limitations, the overnight look on the face of our persecutor,
as we considered him, deepening, it seemed, with each sentence. My
"thirty-day" fate rolled as easily from his lips as did the five and
ten-day pronouncements for the "alcoholics"; he did not seem to know any
difference between them. Perhaps, in the years that have intervened, he
has been enlightened on this point. I hope so for his sake, at least.
[Illustration: Oliver Atherton Willard. Josiah Flynt's Father.]
The sentencing over, we prisoners were taken to our different
destinations, mine being the jail at Rome, the Utica prison being
crowded. There is little to add here to what I have long since told in
print about my stay there; but perhaps I have never emphasized
sufficiently the tramp's disgust at having "to do time" in June. From
May till November is his natural roving time, his box-car vacation; in
winter, jail, even the workhouse is often more of a boon than otherwise.
The Rome jail consequently harbored very unwilling guests in the persons
of the few tramps lodged there. However, even thirty summer days,
precious as they are on the "outside," pass away sooner than one at
first expects them to, and then comes that glorious moment--thunder,
lightning, not even a pouring rain can mar it--when the freed one is
his own master again. There may be other experiences in life more
ecstatic than this one, but I would willingly trade them all temporarily
for that first gasp in the open air, and that unfettered tread on the
ground, which the discharged prisoner enjoys.
Of my status as a tramp in the general social fabric in Hoboland,
perhaps enough is said when I report that before quitting the Road, I
could have at any time claimed and secured the respect due to the
"blowed-in-the-glass" wanderer. Yet I could make myself quite as much at
home at a "hang-out" of the Gay-Cats as among the hoboes. Begging for
money was something that I indulged in as little as possible; at the
start, it was impossible for me to ask for "coin." My meals, however,
lodging and clothes were found by me in the same abundance as the
old-timer's. I had to have such things, and as asking for them was the
conventional way of getting them, I asked persistently, regularly and
fairly successfully.
There is nothing to be said in defense of this practice. It is just as
much a "graft" as stealing is; indeed, stealing is looked upon in the
Under World as by all odds the more aristocratic undertaking. But
stealing in Hoboland is not a favorite business or pastime. Hoboland is
the home of the discouraged criminal who has no other refuge. His
criminal wit, if he had any, has not panned out well, and he resorts to
beggary and clandestine railroading as the next best time-killer.
Punishment has tired him out, frightened him, and the Road looms up
before him spacious and friendly.
I have often been asked seriously, whether the Road can be looked upon
as a necessary school of discipline for certain natures; whether, for
instance, as an anxious mother of a wayward boy, once put the query to
me, "is there enough that is worth while in it, if looked for, to
overbalance that which is not worth while?" It depends both on the boy
and the treatment he gives to and gets from his pals. In general, the
Road is not to be recommended--not for morals, comfort, cleanliness, or
"respectability." It is a backwater section of our civilization; it is
full of malaria and other swampy things. Yet, with all its miasma, this
backwater district has sent many a good man back to the main Road, which
we all try to travel. In my own case, I can certainly say that many
desirable truths were revealed to me while in Hoboland which it seemed
impossible for me to grasp until having had the Hoboland experience.
But to speak seriously of the Road as a recuperating place for
deteriorated morals, or as an invigorator for weak natures, I can only
say--in general, don't try it. There are too many "building-up" farms
and "nerve strengthening" sanatoriums to make it necessary to-day for
any one to have to resort to Hoboland to be put right again. Yet the
Road will probably be with us, for better or for worse, after the
soothing farms and disciplinary sanatoriums have dwindled away; I mean
such as may be patronized, say, in the next thousand years or so. There
were tramps thousands of years ago, and I fear that they will be on the
earth, if there be an earth then, thousands of years hence. They change
a little in dress, customs and diet as the years roll by, just as other
people change. But, for all practical purposes, I should expect to find
the ancient Egyptian hobo, for instance, if he could come to life and
would be natural, pretty much the same kind of roadster that we know in
our present American type. Laziness, loafing, _Wanderlust_ and begging
are to-day what they ever have been--qualities and habits that are
passed on from generation to generation, practically intact.
My longest _Wanderlust_ trip came to an end in the much maligned city of
Hoboken, N. J. Some work done for a farmer, near Castleton on the Hudson
River netted me a few dollars, and, one night in September, in company
of an aged Irishman, I drifted down the river to the great city on a
canal boat. The Irishman got separated from me in the crowded
thoroughfares in New York, and I drifted alone over to Hoboken, bent on
an important errand, but doubtful about its outcome. Little did I
realize then what a hard task there was ahead of me, and how great the
change in my life was to be, the task once finished.