I was taken downstairs and locked in a cell; I saw no more of the “bull
pen” where I spent the night. My cellmate was a handsome, smiling young
fellow about twenty-two or twenty-three. He looked like a country boy,
rugged, red-cheeked, blue-eyed, sandy-haired. He seemed to be well
acquainted in the jail.
Some one sang out, “Who’s the fresh fish, ‘Smiler’?”
“Another vag,” he answered. “Fifteen days.”
I told him about my case at once. I felt outraged.
“Forget it, kid. Your fifteen days will be in before your name’s dry on
the commitment. They won’t put you on the gang. You’ll get a trusty job.
I’m just finishing ten days, haven’t been out of this cell, goin’ out
this afternoon and out of this man’s town, too,” he smiled. “Let’s eat.
You’ve got money in the office. I’ll send for a messenger.”
“All right,” I said, “do it.”
A trusty took my name and our orders. Smiler ordered tobacco and papers
also. A messenger came in an hour with two meals and the “makings” of
smokes. I signed my name on the check and he was paid at the office.
After we ate, Smiler sang songs, danced, or stood at the door waiting to
be released.
“I’m going West, kid; hope I see you on the road so I can return that
feed,” he said, when the trusty came to release him.
I liked “The Smiler” and wished I could be with him. In the morning
coffee and stale bread were served in the cells. Fifteen minutes later
there was a banging of doors. Some one shouted “Chain gang.” My door was
opened.
“Outside, kid,” said a trusty.
I followed other prisoners down the corridor to a big, open room where
they washed up in running water at a sink and dried themselves with
handkerchiefs. The trusty came with my hat.
“You won’t need your coat, kid. I’ll look out for it.”
An officer opened a door to the street and stood inside; another was
outside; the chain gang filed out and climbed into an open wagon with
seats on each side facing each other. A crowd of curious men and boys
stood around the wagon. When my turn came, instead of getting into the
wagon I dashed down the street, instinctively, like a wild animal. The
guards didn’t chase me for fear the others would escape. The crowd
shouted and cheered me on. I was free.
There was nothing in my room. I didn’t go near it. I had no money, and
hunger seized me at once. I walked out of town, walked all day and till
dark, when I found myself exhausted at a bums’ camp twenty miles away,
on the outskirts of a small town. Confidently I walked up to the fire.
I was one of them. I had escaped; I was hungry; I was ready for
anything; I belonged around the fire. I heard an exclamation. A form
rose up from the fireside and grabbed me with both hands. It was Smiler.
“That’s doin’ time, kid, what! Did you beat it? Where’s your coat?”
“Yes. My coat’s in the jail.”
“Take a rest for an hour, and we’ll go up to the burg. I’ll get you
one.”
On our way into the town he explained. “There’ll be a train through here
about ten o’clock, kid; I’ll kick in the first private house that looks
good. We’ll surely find a coat and maybe a few dollars and something to
eat if we have time.”
He looked about sharply at the houses. Across the street we heard a door
slam. A woman and man came out the front gate, the cottage was dark. We
walked around the block and back to the cottage. Smiler walked
confidently in the front gate, I followed. He rang the doorbell, no
answer. We went around to the back where he found a kitchen window open,
climbed through, and unlocked the door for me.
“Look around for some chuck, kid, and stay right there till I come
back.” He disappeared. In a minute or two I could see about me, and
explored the pantry. I found bread and meat and tied them in a cloth.
Smiler returned from the front carrying a bundle of clothes, and we went
out. I found a coat that fitted passably. We left the balance, and
departed unseen.
The train was pulling in and we made a run to the water tank where it
had to stop, and by the time we found a car we could get into it was
pulling out.
The lunch was spread out on a paper and quickly disappeared. Smiler had
some cheap jewelry, an old silver watch, and a few dollars in cash. He
divided the money, and after inspecting the other plunder threw it out
the car door. “That junk would get us five years, kid, if we got grabbed
with it, and it ain’t worth two dollars.”
This adventure fascinated me. I gave no thought to the burglary. It
seemed right that I should have a coat and food. My money was behind in
the jail. I couldn’t buy them. I had stolen them. Somehow I felt
satisfied, as if I had got even with somebody.
“How do you like this racket, kid?” Smiler asked as we rolled up our
coats for pillows.
“It’s great. How long have you been doing it?”
“Oh, a couple of years. Ever since the coppers run me out of my home
town, Detroit. That was a snide little caper we cut back there and I
wouldn’t have touched it only you had to have a coat. How would you like
to be a prowler, kid?”
I liked him, always smiling, for his ready help when I needed it and his
companionable ways.
“I think I would like it; it’s exciting.”
“All right, kid. When we get to Salt Lake I’ll show you the real thing.”
“Good,” I said. “How long will it take us to make Salt Lake?”
“About a week at this rate.”
“Let’s ride the passenger trains,” I said, anxious to take my first
lessons in burglary.
“We’ll get a passenger train out of Cheyenne, kid, if we can duck Jeff
Carr,” said Smiler. “Never heard of him? He’s a railroad bull and he’s
‘bum simple’—simple-minded on the subject of killing bums. If you run
he’ll shoot you; if you stand he’ll get you six months, and he’d rather
have you run.”
I learned all about Carr later, and his feud with the bums. They made
many efforts to kill him, but never succeeded. He was later put in
charge of the railroad’s train-robber detail, but he never killed any
train robbers and the bums rambled through Cheyenne in peace.
We got a train out without falling foul of the murderous Carr and rode
the baggage into a division point where there was a twenty-minute stop
for dinner. Looking around for a place to get coffee, we passed a
jewelry store. The jeweler was working at his bench in front. When we
got to the alley, Smiler said: “We’ll make that tray of watches in the
window, kid. You get a handful of rocks, go around to the back, and
throw them against the jeweler’s door till he opens it. When he does,
I’ll make the front. Don’t throw them too hard and scare him.
Easy—just enough to make him curious.”
I followed instructions and was preparing to throw the fourth rock when
the door opened. The jeweler stepped out and took a good look around. I
walked down the alley to the street, and soon caught up with Smiler, who
was stepping away briskly.
“We’ve got to plant this junk, kid. We can’t take chances luggin’ it
around.”
We were in the yards now and Smiler was looking at the cars curiously as
we passed between them. He stopped beside a car of coal and looked at
the card tacked on it. “Billed to Butte, Montana,” he said, “this’ll
do.” He tied the watches, which he took from his coat pocket, in a big
handkerchief. We climbed up on the car and the parcel was planted in
one corner and plenty of coal put back on top of it. On the ground
again, Smiler tore off a corner of the destination card. “Don’t forget
that, kid; in case anything happens to me you’ll know this car.”
This was all accomplished in less than twenty minutes, and we had plenty
of time to catch our passenger train, which we did, leaving our plunder
behind but sure to follow.
“He may not miss that junk till he goes to close up, kid, or he may have
missed it already. Anyway we’ll sure be stuck up and frisked at
Evanston. All we have to do is tell the truth, say we rode this rattler
out of Cheyenne and never left the yards at Rock Springs. And they won’t
hold us. They can’t figure that we could touch that joint and go out on
the same train. We’ll stop at Evanston anyway and wait for our coal car.
Then, instead of going to Salt Lake, we’ll ride the freight over the
cut-off to Pocatello and I’ll get the coin on that junk in an hour from
Mary.”
“Who’s Mary?” I asked.
“Wait till you see her, to-morrow. She’ll buy anything from a barrel of
whisky to a baby carriage.”
It was a warm night, and riding the front end of the baggage was
pleasant enough. “If the bulls grab us off, kid, you say nothing; I’ll
talk and tell them who we are and where we’re going. You listen, that’s
all.
“Say,” he said suddenly, “take off that coat and let me look at it.” He
went over it closely by the light from the engine. It was tailor-made,
and he found the owner’s name on a piece of white cloth sewed in the
inside pocket. He ripped it out, and I put the coat on.
“You never can be too careful, kid. We ought to have looked at that
before. If Jeff Carr had picked us up at Cheyenne you might have been
charged with that lousy burglary by now.”
How could a boy help admiring such wisdom? I was flattered to be taken
up by one so experienced, so confident and active about his work, and
withal, so carefree, happy, and smiling.
We were not molested at Evanston, where we got off and waited for our
freight train. It came along next day, and that night we dropped off it
at Pocatello, Idaho.
Pocatello, at that time, was just a small railroad town. A famous
stopping-off place for the bums bound East, West, North and South. There
was a grand jungle by a small, clean river where they boiled up their
vermined clothes, or “rags” as they are always called, cooked their
mulligans, or, if enough bums got together, held a “convention.” These
conventions, like many others, were merely an excuse for a big drunk.
Sometimes they would end in a killing, or some drunken bum would fall in
the fire and get burned to death, after which they would silently steal
away. Oftener, the convention lasted till there was no more money for
alcohol, the bums’ favorite drink. The bums then began “pestering the
natives” by begging and stealing till the whole town got sore.
The town marshal would then appear with a posse armed with “saps,” which
is short for saplings, young trees. He stood guard with a shotgun, while
the posse fell upon the convention and “sapped up” on those therein
assembled and ran them down the railroad track and out of town.
We found our junk without trouble, and hastened to “Mary’s.”
If I knew more of composition and writing and talking I might do justice
to Mary, the fence, and friend of bums and thieves.
It’s an injustice to the memory of Mary, or, as she was lovingly called
by the bums, “Salt Chunk Mary,” to try to crowd her into a few
paragraphs or even a chapter. She should have a book.
“Did you eat yet?” was the first thing you heard after entering her
house. “I have a pot of beans on the stove and a fine chunk of salt pork
in them.” She invariably produced the beans and “fine chunk of salt
pork” and always ate as heartily of them as any of her famished guests.
Her principal business was selling wine, women, and song to the railroad
men and gamblers. She ruled her half dozen “girls” with a heavy hand.
Her house on the outskirts of the town was a dingy, old two-story frame
building with a couple of rooms added to one side of it where she lived
and received her friends from the road.
Smiler knew her and we were welcome. The feed of beans and salt pork was
spread for us. She locked the door and, while we ate, this most unusual
woman estimated the value of our loot, spread out on one end of the
oilcloth-covered kitchen table where we sat.
Salt Chunk Mary put no acids on the watches, nor pried into the works.
She “hefted” the yellow ones with a practiced hand and glanced but once
at the white ones.
I surveyed her as I ate. She was about forty years of age, hard-faced
and heavy-handed. Her hair was the color of a sunburned brick, and her
small blue eyes glinted like ice under a March sun. She could say “no”
quicker than any woman I ever knew, and none of them ever meant “yes.”
She went into the adjoining room and returned with a roll of bills.
“Four hundred dollars, Smiler.”
“Good! Give us small bills, Mary.”
He divided the money equally between us and we got up to go.
“Let’s go in and buy a few bottles of beer for the girls, kid, just by
the way of no harm.”
“No, don’t drag that kid in there—and here’s something else, listen,”
said this plain, blunt woman to Smiler. “I guess that kid is all right
or he wouldn’t be with you. If I’m grabbed with this junk I’ll rot in
jail before I put the finger on you, and if either of you gets grabbed
(she was looking at me), and thinks he can get a light jolt by turning
me in, he’s wrong. I’ll throw it in the river, and he can rot in jail.”
We got a room to rest up, and before going to sleep decided that Salt
Lake was too small for us. San Francisco was better. Smiler had never
been there, and was as anxious to see it as I. Buying tickets was
throwing money away. So we “beat it” down to Ogden and over the Southern
Pacific, riding the front end of passenger trains at night, making long
jumps, avoiding bums’ camps, paying for our meals, and stealing nothing.
We got into Sacramento without mishap, rested up a couple of days, and
journeyed along toward “the city.” We got “ditched” off our train at
Port Costa, and crawled into a hay car for the night. There were a
couple of bums in the car already, and more came in later and flopped.
Early next morning we were aroused by a pounding on the side of the car.
“Come on out of there!” shouted a man with his head in the door, “yez
are all pinched.” We hit the ground, eight of us in all, young and old,
large and small. Two men were outside, carrying shortened billiard cues.
“March!” one of them ordered.
One of the bums started to march and the rest followed. He seemed to
know just what to do and where to go. A short walk across the tracks
brought us up in front of a big barnlike house with a hotel sign and
broad steps in front. The bum led us straight up the steps and into a
barroom, where he stood up against the wall opposite the bar. We did the
same. A stout, grayish, red-faced man with a very positive air was busy
serving drinks. He paused and spoke to one of our captors:
“What have you there, Mike?”
“Eight bums, judge.”
He served another round of drinks and turned to us again.
“Are you guilty or not guilty?”
The big bum that led us in immediately answered: “We’re all guilty,
judge, an’ hungry.”
The judge—and he was no less person than Judge Casey, famous and
celebrated in song and story for his speedy trials and the human quality
of his justice—waved a short, hairy, muscular arm toward the dining
room.
“Feed them first, Mike.”
We followed our leader into the dining room and all sat at one big table
where we had a substantial breakfast. When the last bum had his fill, we
marched back to the barroom and lined up against the wall again.
“All ready, judge,” said Mike.
The judge stopped dealing drinks and pronounced sentence. His voice
sounded tired, weary; there was a note of kindness in it.
“Oh, well, Mike, lave the big bums take tin days, and the little bums
five.”
He turned to his work. The big bum now led us out and to a near-by box
car that served as a calaboose. One side door was nailed up and both
end doors fastened outside. We crawled in and the other side door was
shut and padlocked on the outside.
Smiler sat down in the car and laughed. “What’s next, I wonder, kid?”
Some one answered out of the darkness: “They’ll hook this box car on to
the first freight and haul us over to Martinez, the county seat, an’
slough us in the county jail.”
I had told Smiler about cutting myself out of the car when my companion
was killed.
“Better get busy with your ‘shive,’ kid.” I started cutting on the side
opposite the boarding house. The bum that pleaded guilty for all of us
saw what I was doing and protested. “Hey, kid, lay off o’ that. You want
to get us all six months, destroyin’ railroad property?”
Smiler was on him like a tiger and cuffed him around till he whined. “Go
over in that corner and lie down, you greasy, big gay cat, or I’ll cut
your tail off.” The bum sat down and stayed quiet. In an hour we kicked
the boards out.
“You first, kid.”
I dropped out and Smiler followed. As we dodged across the yards I
looked back. Two more bums had wriggled out. The other four elected to
stay in the car, too lazy to run away.
We hid all day under a warehouse and at dark rode a freight into Oakland
where we got the ferry. We bought new clothes, rented a room, and got
cleaned up. San Francisco fascinated us. We spent days on the water
front watching the ships and sailors, or at the Cliff House where I
first saw the ocean, and in the park. Our nights were spent about the
“Coast,” Broadway and Pacific Street, at Bottle Koenig’s or the Bella
Union or downtown at Pete Dorsey’s and other dance halls.
Gambling was open everywhere; we experimented and lost. We wasted our
money around the shows, dance halls, and hop joints, which were open and
unmolested by the police. In a month we were almost broke, and ready for
the road. Salt Lake was decided upon where Smiler had something special
in view.
An uneventful week on the road put us into Salt Lake City.
Then swiftly came the tragic night that separated us forever—I to jail
and the kindly, lovable Smiler to his grave.