AN OFFER OF PARTNERSHIP
HAD Joshua Cole been aware that the other tramp who rode on top of the
train had “squared things with the brakeman,” he would not have been so
surprised at the long ride he made without being ordered off by some
train official. But he knew only that he was not disturbed throughout
the entire night, as he lay in one corner on the hard floor, his head
pillowed by an arm that ached when he awoke from time to time.
Joshua had talked with many boys in the House of Refuge who had been
tramps. In fact, it seemed that the greater portion of the inmates had
been committed because they had run away from home to seek adventures
on the road. The stories that they told had fascinated him, and he had
stored away much information as to how to conduct oneself in Trampdom.
Thus it came about that, while having no practical knowledge of the ups
and downs of the vagrant life, he was theoretically fitted for his big
adventure.
In the middle of the night the train rolled into Pittsburgh and
continued on, and still the traveler remained undisturbed. When morning
arrived, however, his first knowledge of daylight came when the side
door creaked open suddenly and let in a flood of sunlight, while the
train was at a standstill.
“Here, you!” came a challenging voice. “Where you goin’?”
Joshua rose from the floor of the car, tucked his telescope and tripod
under his arm, and went toward the door. The head and shoulders of a
man showed there, as he looked in from the ground.
“Come on! Make it fast, Jack! Get outa here!”
Joshua’s blue-gray eyes studied the man as he stood back well out of
reach.
“Huh!” grunted the trainman. “Who’s road-kid are you?”
“Nobody’s,” Joshua replied. He knew what a road-kid was in the parlance
of Trampdom--a boy who travels with an older tramp for his “jocker,”
for whom the boy begs and steals, and is paid in brutal kicks and
cuffs. They had told him about “punks,” or “road-kids,” and “jockers”
in the House of Refuge.
“Well, get out and stay out!”
Joshua watched his chance, and, clutching his burden firmly under an
arm, ran to the door and jumped entirely to the ground. The brakeman
aimed a kick at him as he struggled to rise from the stooping posture
in which he had alighted, but he avoided the man and darted up the
tracks toward a little town.
And in this undignified manner did Joshua Cole begin his tour as a
lecturing astronomer.
All day long he remained hidden in the willow-screened bed of a river
that paralleled the railroad tracks, hungry and afraid to venture
forth. He slept a little, making up for his oft-interrupted slumbers of
the night. His bones ached like the bones of an old man, for the boxcar
floor had been even harder than the straw mattresses of the House of
Refuge. But when darkness came he sallied out and sought the main
street of the village, where men lazed in the moonlight under wooden
awnings, and girls and women, garbed in flimsy lawns, paraded back and
forth, with arms encircling waists, through a flower-perfumed night in
early summer.
At the principal corner the hungry waif set up his tripod, adjusted his
telescope, and trained it on the rising moon. Then his courage, cowed
by hunger, bade fair to desert him, and to make him forget the speech
that he had been rehearsing all day. But he girded up his loins, and in
a squeaky, stage-frightened voice addressed a number of loafers who had
been viewing his operations in silent wonder.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he quavered, “to-night the mu--moon is in the
last quarter, and the black, pointed shadows of the towering peaks of
the lunar Alps are--are very clear. To-night you can see plainly the
longest mountain range on the moon. This great range is four hundred
and sixty miles in length, and is called the Apennines. Three thousand
sharp peaks in this range rise abruptly from the _Mare Imbrum_ to a
height of from twelve thousand to twenty thousand feet. These are
plainly visible to-night through this telescope that I have here.
You may look at them for ten cents apiece, and each observer will be
allowed three minutes at the telescope. While you look I shall explain
the various moon objects that are of interest to you. Now, who--who’ll
be the first?”
He looked, as he stood there timidly regarding them, like some young
disciple of the eternal stars, sent on earth to scatter the fogs of
prejudice and superstition. The pale light of the moon fell softly
on his lean, ascetic features and threw them in sharp relief. His
coal-black hair accentuated the steel-cut lines in the picture of his
face. Even in the half-light those earnest, tolerant, gray-blue eyes
seemed to plead; and at last a man, whispering to his neighbor, screwed
himself sidewise and reached a hand into his trousers pocket.
“Le’s see what the kid’s got up his sleeve,” he suggested, and walked
toward Joshua with his dime.
Being instructed, he placed his eye to the eye-piece. There followed
a moment or two of silence, and then Joshua’s first patron breathed a
deep sigh and fervently muttered:
“Gysh A’mighty!”
Wonders of which he had never dreamed suddenly were revealed to him.
His phlegmatic soul had been whisked away from his game of horseshoes
of the afternoon, his heavy supper of fried pork and gravy and
baking-powder biscuits, and was borne up, up, up, as light as the
perfume of the flowering night, to a mystic region that his imagination
never could have pictured.
“Gysh!” he breathed again.
“Whatcha see, Henry?”--from the shadows under the awning where the man
had rested.
“Huh!”
“See anythin’ o’ the cow that Bud Shamleffer lost last week up there?”
“H’m-m!”
And now Joshua, encouraged by the awe in the man’s voice, began
speaking. He told in his soft tones of wondrous plains and craters
and sea bottoms, and instructed his pupil where to look for them. The
other men left the whittled bench and stood around, silent, listening
intently to every word. Women stopped in their parade, and halted at
the edge of the little throng. Some held youngsters by the hand. Girls
giggled at they knew not what.
“Hush, Albert!” came a shrill voice. “Listen to what the young man is
saying, can’t you? Yes, it’s a spyglass, and Mr. Haddon is looking at
the moon. How much does it cost to look, Pa?... Yes, if you’ll be good
and keep still Pa’ll let you look through it. Won’t you, Pa? Albert
Washburn, if you don’t keep still Pa’ll--”
“The awe-inspiring Sea of Serenity embraces an area of one hundred
and twenty-five thousand miles. It is almost entirely surrounded by
mountains. The oddly twisted range seen running for--”
“Albert Washburn, will you hush?”
“--hundreds of miles along its western floor suggests the action of
water, as does also the wrinkled plain of _Mare Tranquilitatis_. Note
how marvelously interspersed are the light and dark regions--”
“C’mon away, Haddon, an’ give somebody else a look. Yer three minutes
is up long time ago!”
So for more than an hour and a half the telescope followed the moon
across the heavens, while the villagers found dimes and braces of
nickels with which to buy a glimpse of the wonder thereof. Albert had
had his yelled-for observation and was carried away squalling for more,
unquieted by dire threats of what would happen to him when he reached
home. But finally interest waned, and then the young astronomer folded
his tripod and lashed it to the telescope, and sought a restaurant on
the point of closing. In his pocket were sixteen dimes and six nickels,
the first money that he had earned since he taught roller-skating
back in Hathaway. And Beaver Clegg had called Science an indifferent
paymaster!
Then a man slipped in after Joshua and took the stool beside him at
the counter. He gave his order in a low mumble and sat with bowed head
awaiting its coming. Joshua glanced at him and gave a start. Beaver
Clegg had been ugly of face, but the great heart of him had glorified
that ugliness. The man who sat at Joshua’s side was a living horror.
He wore disreputable clothes, topped by a black Stetson hat with a
round, narrow brim. Dust and sweat had made a gray ring about the hat
where the brim and crown were joined. There was a long livid scar on
his right cheek, slick and red and hairless. But about it stood a
week’s growth of stubble, which made the mark more hideous. The ugly
mouth, twisted grotesquely to one side, was nothing short of repulsive,
and as the dark little eyes looked up ratlike into Joshua’s the boy
almost shivered.
“Say, Jack,” ventured the pitted lips, “dat was a nifty little
performance youse put on for de hicks dis evenin’. W’ere’d youse get
next to de look-see?”
Joshua was obliged to request an interpretation.
“De telescope--w’ere d’youse glom it?”
“Why,” replied Joshua, “it was given to me by my instructor in--in
school.”
“She’s one nifty little money-getter,” vouchsafed the other. “I was
lampin’ youse from acrost de drag. How much d’youse glom, Jack?”
Joshua knew now that he was speaking with a tramp. He realized, too,
that here was an old-timer, one of the breed known in Trampdom as John
Yeggs. To be called Jack bespoke all this, and Joshua became wary at
once.
“I took in nearly two dollars,” he made reply to the direct question.
“Dat’s goin’ some! Cheese, I didn’t make four bits wid de skeletons dis
afternoon! But dey’re woiked to de’t’ anyway dese days.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” said Joshua.
“De skeletons? Say, ain’t youse never seen a guy woik de skeletons on
de hicks? Dere’s two of ’em, youse savvy, and youse set on a street
corner an’ make ’em dance on a black clot’ by pullin’ a black t’read.
De hicks usta fall fer dem, but not so much lately. Dat’s me graft,
Jack--one of ’em. I got sever’l good lines. But dat telescope racket
looks good to me. Say, youse’re only a kid an’ youse need a jocker.
Youse’re on de road, I know, ’cause I see youse take a sneak from a
boxcar to-day and hide in de jungles. Now, lissen, kid--youse’re new on
de road an’ don’t savvy wot’s wot. I do--I’m an ol’-timer meself. I
c’n put youse wise, an’ youse’n’ me’ll make all kinds o’ jack wid dat
telescope. Youse c’n run ’er an’ make de spiel, an’ I’ll mooch ’round
and chase de hicks to youse. We’ll make it all over de country. Dat’s
wot youse want, kid--youse wanta see de worl’, an’ I c’n show it to
youse. Get me? Dey call me De Whimperer, an’ I’ll tell youse more about
dat later. Wot d’youse say youse’n’me hook up togedder? Youse’ll be
me road-kid, an’ I’ll perteck youse from a lotta dese no-good stiffs
youse’ll be meetin’ in yer travels. An’ we’ll make a good livin’ wid no
woik, an’ have a helluva time. What d’youse say, kid?”