"I said that this change hurt me, and so it does. You may be surprised
to hear that anything can hurt the feelings of a tramp, but that is
because you don't know him. He is looked upon as an outlaw in the
cities, but ever since he took the road there has been a sort of
bond between him and the dwellers outside. He has paid his way or
been willing to. He has asked for little and done little harm. The
newspapers have made thousands of farmers tell hard stories about the
tramp, but it has been in the newspapers alone. The two have worked
together harmoniously.
"Have you got any idea of how the professional conducts himself on
the road? No? Well, it won't happen once in a week that you will find
one without a little money. It has been earned by hard work. When he
stops at a farmhouse he offers to work for a meal. If there is no work
he pays cash for what he gets. If he has been padding along for three
or four days he will stop and work for half a week if the chance is
offered him. In his work he keeps up with the hired man. He washes
before he eats. He knows what forks are made for. He carries a clean
handkerchief oftener than the man he works for. The average tramp can
dress a chicken, kill a pig, empty and fill a straw bed, whitewash
a kitchen, paint the house or fence, hoe corn, dig potatoes, run a
cultivator, drive a team, split fence rails, dig a well, shingle a
roof or rebuild a chimney. He is a handy man. He eats what he gets,
sleeps where he is told to and brings the farmer a bigger budget of
news than any two of his county papers. When his work is finished he
slings his hook and is told to stop again. That's the tramp and that's
the farmer just as they have been for the last forty years, and that's
the reason I bemoan this change in the farmer. He has been victimized
by men he thought were honest, he has been robbed where he trusted,
and in changing his feelings toward mankind he must include the tramp,
who has never wronged him.