I hope that woman in Reno will read these lines and forgive

THE ROAD

by

JACK LONDON

(New York: Macmillan)

1907

TO

JOSIAH FLYNT

The Real Thing, Blowed in the Glass

CONTENTS

CONFESSION

HOLDING HER DOWN

PICTURES

"PINCHED"

THE PEN

HOBOES THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT

ROAD-KIDS AND GAY-CATS

TWO THOUSAND STIFFS

BULLS

"Speakin' in general, I 'ave tried 'em all,

The 'appy roads that take you o'er the world.

Speakin' in general, I 'ave found them good

For such as cannot use one bed too long,

But must get 'ence, the same as I 'ave done,

An' go observin' matters till they die."

--Sestina of the Tramp-Royal

CONFESSION

There is a woman in the state of Nevada to whom I once lied

continuously, consistently, and shamelessly, for the matter of a

couple of hours. I don't want to apologize to her. Far be it from me.

But I do want to explain. Unfortunately, I do not know her name, much

less her present address. If her eyes should chance upon these lines,

I hope she will write to me.

It was in Reno, Nevada, in the summer of 1892. Also, it was fair-time,

and the town was filled with petty crooks and tin-horns, to say

nothing of a vast and hungry horde of hoboes. It was the hungry hoboes

that made the town a "hungry" town. They "battered" the back doors of

the homes of the citizens until the back doors became unresponsive.

A hard town for "scoffings," was what the hoboes called it at that

time. I know that I missed many a meal, in spite of the fact that I

could "throw my feet" with the next one when it came to "slamming a

gate" for a "poke-out" or a "set-down," or hitting for a "light piece"

on the street. Why, I was so hard put in that town, one day, that I

gave the porter the slip and invaded the private car of some itinerant

millionnaire. The train started as I made the platform, and I headed

for the aforesaid millionnaire with the porter one jump behind and

reaching for me. It was a dead heat, for I reached the millionnaire at

the same instant that the porter reached me. I had no time for

formalities. "Gimme a quarter to eat on," I blurted out. And as I

live, that millionnaire dipped into his pocket and gave me ... just

... precisely ... a quarter. It is my conviction that he was so

flabbergasted that he obeyed automatically, and it has been a matter

of keen regret ever since, on my part, that I didn't ask him for a

dollar. I know that I'd have got it. I swung off the platform of that

private car with the porter manoeuvring to kick me in the face. He

missed me. One is at a terrible disadvantage when trying to swing off

the lowest step of a car and not break his neck on the right of way,

with, at the same time, an irate Ethiopian on the platform above

trying to land him in the face with a number eleven. But I got the

quarter! I got it!

But to return to the woman to whom I so shamelessly lied. It was in

the evening of my last day in Reno. I had been out to the race-track

watching the ponies run, and had missed my dinner (_i.e._ the mid-day

meal). I was hungry, and, furthermore, a committee of public safety

had just been organized to rid the town of just such hungry mortals as

I. Already a lot of my brother hoboes had been gathered in by John

Law, and I could hear the sunny valleys of California calling to me

over the cold crests of the Sierras. Two acts remained for me to

perform before I shook the dust of Reno from my feet. One was to catch

the blind baggage on the westbound overland that night. The other was

first to get something to eat. Even youth will hesitate at an

all-night ride, on an empty stomach, outside a train that is tearing

the atmosphere through the snow-sheds, tunnels, and eternal snows of

heaven-aspiring mountains.

But that something to eat was a hard proposition. I was "turned down"

at a dozen houses. Sometimes I received insulting remarks and was

informed of the barred domicile that should be mine if I had my just

deserts. The worst of it was that such assertions were only too true.

That was why I was pulling west that night. John Law was abroad in the

town, seeking eagerly for the hungry and homeless, for by such was his

barred domicile tenanted.

At other houses the doors were slammed in my face, cutting short my

politely and humbly couched request for something to eat. At one house

they did not open the door. I stood on the porch and knocked, and they

looked out at me through the window. They even held one sturdy little

boy aloft so that he could see over the shoulders of his elders the

tramp who wasn't going to get anything to eat at their house.

It began to look as if I should be compelled to go to the very poor

for my food. The very poor constitute the last sure recourse of the

hungry tramp. The very poor can always be depended upon. They never

turn away the hungry. Time and again, all over the United States, have

I been refused food by the big house on the hill; and always have I

received food from the little shack down by the creek or marsh, with

its broken windows stuffed with rags and its tired-faced mother broken

with labor. Oh, you charity-mongers! Go to the poor and learn, for the

poor alone are the charitable. They neither give nor withhold from

their excess. They have no excess. They give, and they withhold never,

from what they need for themselves, and very often from what they

cruelly need for themselves. A bone to the dog is not charity. Charity

is the bone shared with the dog when you are just as hungry as the

dog.

There was one house in particular where I was turned down that

evening. The porch windows opened on the dining room, and through them

I saw a man eating pie--a big meat-pie. I stood in the open door, and

while he talked with me, he went on eating. He was prosperous, and out

of his prosperity had been bred resentment against his less fortunate

brothers.

He cut short my request for something to eat, snapping out, "I don't

believe you want to work."

Now this was irrelevant. I hadn't said anything about work. The topic

of conversation I had introduced was "food." In fact, I didn't want to

work. I wanted to take the westbound overland that night.

"You wouldn't work if you had a chance," he bullied.

I glanced at his meek-faced wife, and knew that but for the presence

of this Cerberus I'd have a whack at that meat-pie myself. But

Cerberus sopped himself in the pie, and I saw that I must placate him

if I were to get a share of it. So I sighed to myself and accepted his

work-morality.

"Of course I want work," I bluffed.

"Don't believe it," he snorted.

"Try me," I answered, warming to the bluff.

"All right," he said. "Come to the corner of blank and blank

streets"--(I have forgotten the address)--"to-morrow morning. You know

where that burned building is, and I'll put you to work tossing

bricks."

"All right, sir; I'll be there."

He grunted and went on eating. I waited. After a couple of minutes he

looked up with an I-thought-you-were-gone expression on his face, and

demanded:--

"Well?"

"I ... I am waiting for something to eat," I said gently.

"I knew you wouldn't work!" he roared.

He was right, of course; but his conclusion must have been reached by

mind-reading, for his logic wouldn't bear it out. But the beggar at

the door must be humble, so I accepted his logic as I had accepted his

morality.

"You see, I am now hungry," I said still gently. "To-morrow morning I

shall be hungrier. Think how hungry I shall be when I have tossed

bricks all day without anything to eat. Now if you will give me

something to eat, I'll be in great shape for those bricks."

He gravely considered my plea, at the same time going on eating, while

his wife nearly trembled into propitiatory speech, but refrained.

"I'll tell you what I'll do," he said between mouthfuls. "You come to

work to-morrow, and in the middle of the day I'll advance you enough

for your dinner. That will show whether you are in earnest or not."

"In the meantime--" I began; but he interrupted.

"If I gave you something to eat now, I'd never see you again. Oh, I

know your kind. Look at me. I owe no man. I have never descended so

low as to ask any one for food. I have always earned my food. The

trouble with you is that you are idle and dissolute. I can see it in

your face. I have worked and been honest. I have made myself what I

am. And you can do the same, if you work and are honest."

"Like you?" I queried.

Alas, no ray of humor had ever penetrated the sombre work-sodden soul

of that man.

"Yes, like me," he answered.

"All of us?" I queried.

"Yes, all of you," he answered, conviction vibrating in his voice.

"But if we all became like you," I said, "allow me to point out that

there'd be nobody to toss bricks for you."

I swear there was a flicker of a smile in his wife's eye. As for him,

he was aghast--but whether at the awful possibility of a reformed

humanity that would not enable him to get anybody to toss bricks for

him, or at my impudence, I shall never know.

"I'll not waste words on you," he roared. "Get out of here, you

ungrateful whelp!"

I scraped my feet to advertise my intention of going, and queried:--

"And I don't get anything to eat?"

He arose suddenly to his feet. He was a large man. I was a stranger in

a strange land, and John Law was looking for me. I went away

hurriedly. "But why ungrateful?" I asked myself as I slammed his gate.

"What in the dickens did he give me to be ungrateful about?" I looked

back. I could still see him through the window. He had returned to his

pie.

By this time I had lost heart. I passed many houses by without

venturing up to them. All houses looked alike, and none looked "good."

After walking half a dozen blocks I shook off my despondency and

gathered my "nerve." This begging for food was all a game, and if I

didn't like the cards, I could always call for a new deal. I made up

my mind to tackle the next house. I approached it in the deepening

twilight, going around to the kitchen door.

I knocked softly, and when I saw the kind face of the middle-aged

woman who answered, as by inspiration came to me the "story" I was to

tell. For know that upon his ability to tell a good story depends the

success of the beggar. First of all, and on the instant, the beggar

must "size up" his victim. After that, he must tell a story that will

appeal to the peculiar personality and temperament of that particular

victim. And right here arises the great difficulty: in the instant

that he is sizing up the victim he must begin his story. Not a minute

is allowed for preparation. As in a lightning flash he must divine the

nature of the victim and conceive a tale that will hit home. The

successful hobo must be an artist. He must create spontaneously and

instantaneously--and not upon a theme selected from the plenitude of

his own imagination, but upon the theme he reads in the face of the

person who opens the door, be it man, woman, or child, sweet or

crabbed, generous or miserly, good-natured or cantankerous, Jew or

Gentile, black or white, race-prejudiced or brotherly, provincial or

universal, or whatever else it may be. I have often thought that to

this training of my tramp days is due much of my success as a

story-writer. In order to get the food whereby I lived, I was

compelled to tell tales that rang true. At the back door, out of

inexorable necessity, is developed the convincingness and sincerity

laid down by all authorities on the art of the short-story. Also, I

quite believe it was my tramp-apprenticeship that made a realist out

of me. Realism constitutes the only goods one can exchange at the

kitchen door for grub.

After all, art is only consummate artfulness, and artfulness saves

many a "story." I remember lying in a police station at Winnipeg,

Manitoba. I was bound west over the Canadian Pacific. Of course, the

police wanted my story, and I gave it to them--on the spur of the

moment. They were landlubbers, in the heart of the continent, and what

better story for them than a sea story? They could never trip me up on

that. And so I told a tearful tale of my life on the hell-ship

_Glenmore_. (I had once seen the _Glenmore_ lying at anchor in San

Francisco Bay.)

I was an English apprentice, I said. And they said that I didn't talk

like an English boy. It was up to me to create on the instant. I had

been born and reared in the United States. On the death of my parents,

I had been sent to England to my grandparents. It was they who had

apprenticed me on the _Glenmore_. I hope the captain of the _Glenmore_

will forgive me, for I gave him a character that night in the Winnipeg

police station. Such cruelty! Such brutality! Such diabolical

ingenuity of torture! It explained why I had deserted the _Glenmore_

at Montreal.

But why was I in the middle of Canada going west, when my grandparents

lived in England? Promptly I created a married sister who lived in

California. She would take care of me. I developed at length her

loving nature. But they were not done with me, those hard-hearted

policemen. I had joined the _Glenmore_ in England; in the two years

that had elapsed before my desertion at Montreal, what had the

_Glenmore_ done and where had she been? And thereat I took those

landlubbers around the world with me. Buffeted by pounding seas and

stung with flying spray, they fought a typhoon with me off the coast

of Japan. They loaded and unloaded cargo with me in all the ports of

the Seven Seas. I took them to India, and Rangoon, and China, and had

them hammer ice with me around the Horn and at last come to moorings

at Montreal.

And then they said to wait a moment, and one policeman went forth into

the night while I warmed myself at the stove, all the while racking my

brains for the trap they were going to spring on me.

I groaned to myself when I saw him come in the door at the heels of

the policeman. No gypsy prank had thrust those tiny hoops of gold

through the ears; no prairie winds had beaten that skin into wrinkled

leather; nor had snow-drift and mountain-slope put in his walk that

reminiscent roll. And in those eyes, when they looked at me, I saw the

unmistakable sun-wash of the sea. Here was a theme, alas! with half a

dozen policemen to watch me read--I who had never sailed the China

seas, nor been around the Horn, nor looked with my eyes upon India and

Rangoon.

I was desperate. Disaster stalked before me incarnate in the form of

that gold-ear-ringed, weather-beaten son of the sea. Who was he? What

was he? I must solve him ere he solved me. I must take a new

orientation, or else those wicked policemen would orientate me to a

cell, a police court, and more cells. If he questioned me first,

before I knew how much he knew, I was lost.

But did I betray my desperate plight to those lynx-eyed guardians of

the public welfare of Winnipeg? Not I. I met that aged sailorman

glad-eyed and beaming, with all the simulated relief at deliverance

that a drowning man would display on finding a life-preserver in his

last despairing clutch. Here was a man who understood and who would

verify my true story to the faces of those sleuth-hounds who did not

understand, or, at least, such was what I endeavored to play-act. I

seized upon him; I volleyed him with questions about himself. Before

my judges I would prove the character of my savior before he saved me.

He was a kindly sailorman--an "easy mark." The policemen grew

impatient while I questioned him. At last one of them told me to shut

up. I shut up; but while I remained shut up, I was busy creating, busy

sketching the scenario of the next act. I had learned enough to go on

with. He was a Frenchman. He had sailed always on French merchant

vessels, with the one exception of a voyage on a "lime-juicer." And

last of all--blessed fact!--he had not been on the sea for twenty

years.

The policeman urged him on to examine me.

"You called in at Rangoon?" he queried.

I nodded. "We put our third mate ashore there. Fever."

If he had asked me what kind of fever, I should have answered,

"Enteric," though for the life of me I didn't know what enteric was.

But he didn't ask me. Instead, his next question was:--

"And how is Rangoon?"

"All right. It rained a whole lot when we were there."

"Did you get shore-leave?"

"Sure," I answered. "Three of us apprentices went ashore together."

"Do you remember the temple?"

"Which temple?" I parried.

"The big one, at the top of the stairway."

If I remembered that temple, I knew I'd have to describe it. The gulf

yawned for me.

I shook my head.

"You can see it from all over the harbor," he informed me. "You don't

need shore-leave to see that temple."

I never loathed a temple so in my life. But I fixed that particular

temple at Rangoon.

"You can't see it from the harbor," I contradicted. "You can't see it

from the town. You can't see it from the top of the stairway.

Because--" I paused for the effect. "Because there isn't any temple

there."

"But I saw it with my own eyes!" he cried.

"That was in--?" I queried.

"Seventy-one."

"It was destroyed in the great earthquake of 1887," I explained. "It

was very old."

There was a pause. He was busy reconstructing in his old eyes the

youthful vision of that fair temple by the sea.

"The stairway is still there," I aided him. "You can see it from all

over the harbor. And you remember that little island on the right-hand

side coming into the harbor?" I guess there must have been one there

(I was prepared to shift it over to the left-hand side), for he

nodded. "Gone," I said. "Seven fathoms of water there now."

I had gained a moment for breath. While he pondered on time's changes,

I prepared the finishing touches of my story.

"You remember the custom-house at Bombay?"

He remembered it.

"Burned to the ground," I announced.

"Do you remember Jim Wan?" he came back at me.

"Dead," I said; but who the devil Jim Wan was I hadn't the slightest

idea.

I was on thin ice again.

"Do you remember Billy Harper, at Shanghai?" I queried back at him

quickly.

That aged sailorman worked hard to recollect, but the Billy Harper of

my imagination was beyond his faded memory.

"Of course you remember Billy Harper," I insisted. "Everybody knows

him. He's been there forty years. Well, he's still there, that's all."

And then the miracle happened. The sailorman remembered Billy Harper.

Perhaps there was a Billy Harper, and perhaps he had been in Shanghai

for forty years and was still there; but it was news to me.

For fully half an hour longer, the sailorman and I talked on in

similar fashion. In the end he told the policemen that I was what I

represented myself to be, and after a night's lodging and a breakfast

I was released to wander on westward to my married sister in San

Francisco.

But to return to the woman in Reno who opened her door to me in the

deepening twilight. At the first glimpse of her kindly face I took my

cue. I became a sweet, innocent, unfortunate lad. I couldn't speak. I

opened my mouth and closed it again. Never in my life before had I

asked any one for food. My embarrassment was painful, extreme. I was

ashamed. I, who looked upon begging as a delightful whimsicality,

thumbed myself over into a true son of Mrs. Grundy, burdened with all

her bourgeois morality. Only the harsh pangs of the belly-need could

compel me to do so degraded and ignoble a thing as beg for food. And

into my face I strove to throw all the wan wistfulness of famished and

ingenuous youth unused to mendicancy.

"You are hungry, my poor boy," she said.

I had made her speak first.

I nodded my head and gulped.

"It is the first time I have ever ... asked," I faltered.

"Come right in." The door swung open. "We have already finished

eating, but the fire is burning and I can get something up for you."

She looked at me closely when she got me into the light.

"I wish my boy were as healthy and strong as you," she said. "But he

is not strong. He sometimes falls down. He just fell down this

afternoon and hurt himself badly, the poor dear."

She mothered him with her voice, with an ineffable tenderness in it

that I yearned to appropriate. I glanced at him. He sat across the

table, slender and pale, his head swathed in bandages. He did not

move, but his eyes, bright in the lamplight, were fixed upon me in a

steady and wondering stare.

"Just like my poor father," I said. "He had the falling sickness. Some

kind of vertigo. It puzzled the doctors. They never could make out

what was the matter with him."

"He is dead?" she queried gently, setting before me half a dozen

soft-boiled eggs.

"Dead," I gulped. "Two weeks ago. I was with him when it happened. We

were crossing the street together. He fell right down. He was never

conscious again. They carried him into a drug-store. He died there."

And thereat I developed the pitiful tale of my father--how, after my

mother's death, he and I had gone to San Francisco from the ranch; how

his pension (he was an old soldier), and the little other money he

had, was not enough; and how he had tried book-canvassing. Also, I

narrated my own woes during the few days after his death that I had

spent alone and forlorn on the streets of San Francisco. While that

good woman warmed up biscuits, fried bacon, and cooked more eggs, and

while I kept pace with her in taking care of all that she placed

before me, I enlarged the picture of that poor orphan boy and filled

in the details. I became that poor boy. I believed in him as I

believed in the beautiful eggs I was devouring. I could have wept for

myself. I know the tears did get into my voice at times. It was very

effective.

In fact, with every touch I added to the picture, that kind soul gave

me something also. She made up a lunch for me to carry away. She put

in many boiled eggs, pepper and salt, and other things, and a big

apple. She provided me with three pairs of thick red woollen socks.

She gave me clean handkerchiefs and other things which I have since

forgotten. And all the time she cooked more and more and I ate more

and more. I gorged like a savage; but then it was a far cry across the

Sierras on a blind baggage, and I knew not when nor where I should

find my next meal. And all the while, like a death's-head at the

feast, silent and motionless, her own unfortunate boy sat and stared

at me across the table. I suppose I represented to him mystery, and

romance, and adventure--all that was denied the feeble flicker of life

that was in him. And yet I could not forbear, once or twice, from

wondering if he saw through me down to the bottom of my mendacious

heart.

"But where are you going to?" she asked me.

"Salt Lake City," said I. "I have a sister there--a married sister."

(I debated if I should make a Mormon out of her, and decided against

it.) "Her husband is a plumber--a contracting plumber."

Now I knew that contracting plumbers were usually credited with making

lots of money. But I had spoken. It was up to me to qualify.

"They would have sent me the money for my fare if I had asked for it,"

I explained, "but they have had sickness and business troubles. His

partner cheated him. And so I wouldn't write for the money. I knew I

could make my way there somehow. I let them think I had enough to get

me to Salt Lake City. She is lovely, and so kind. She was always kind

to me. I guess I'll go into the shop and learn the trade. She has two

daughters. They are younger than I. One is only a baby."

Of all my married sisters that I have distributed among the cities of

the United States, that Salt Lake sister is my favorite. She is quite

real, too. When I tell about her, I can see her, and her two little

girls, and her plumber husband. She is a large, motherly woman, just

verging on beneficent stoutness--the kind, you know, that always cooks

nice things and that never gets angry. She is a brunette. Her husband

is a quiet, easy-going fellow. Sometimes I almost know him quite

well. And who knows but some day I may meet him? If that aged

sailorman could remember Billy Harper, I see no reason why I should

not some day meet the husband of my sister who lives in Salt Lake

City.

On the other hand, I have a feeling of certitude within me that I

shall never meet in the flesh my many parents and grandparents--you

see, I invariably killed them off. Heart disease was my favorite way

of getting rid of my mother, though on occasion I did away with her by

means of consumption, pneumonia, and typhoid fever. It is true, as the

Winnipeg policemen will attest, that I have grandparents living in

England; but that was a long time ago and it is a fair assumption that

they are dead by now. At any rate, they have never written to me.

I hope that woman in Reno will read these lines and forgive me my

gracelessness and unveracity. I do not apologize, for I am unashamed.

It was youth, delight in life, zest for experience, that brought me to

her door. It did me good. It taught me the intrinsic kindliness of

human nature. I hope it did her good. Anyway, she may get a good laugh

out of it now that she learns the real inwardness of the situation.

To her my story was "true." She believed in me and all my family, and

she was filled with solicitude for the dangerous journey I must make

ere I won to Salt Lake City. This solicitude nearly brought me to

grief. Just as I was leaving, my arms full of lunch and my pockets

bulging with fat woollen socks, she bethought herself of a nephew, or

uncle, or relative of some sort, who was in the railway mail service,

and who, moreover, would come through that night on the very train on

which I was going to steal my ride. The very thing! She would take me

down to the depot, tell him my story, and get him to hide me in the

mail car. Thus, without danger or hardship, I would be carried

straight through to Ogden. Salt Lake City was only a few miles farther

on. My heart sank. She grew excited as she developed the plan and with

my sinking heart I had to feign unbounded gladness and enthusiasm at

this solution of my difficulties.

Solution! Why I was bound west that night, and here was I being

trapped into going east. It _was_ a trap, and I hadn't the heart to

tell her that it was all a miserable lie. And while I made believe

that I was delighted, I was busy cudgelling my brains for some way to

escape. But there was no way. She would see me into the mail-car--she

said so herself--and then that mail-clerk relative of hers would carry

me to Ogden. And then I would have to beat my way back over all those

hundreds of miles of desert.

But luck was with me that night. Just about the time she was getting

ready to put on her bonnet and accompany me, she discovered that she

had made a mistake. Her mail-clerk relative was not scheduled to come

through that night. His run had been changed. He would not come

through until two nights afterward. I was saved, for of course my

boundless youth would never permit me to wait those two days. I

optimistically assured her that I'd get to Salt Lake City quicker if I

started immediately, and I departed with her blessings and best wishes

ringing in my ears.

But those woollen socks were great. I know. I wore a pair of them that

night on the blind baggage of the overland, and that overland went

west.

HOLDING HER DOWN

Barring accidents, a good hobo, with youth and agility, can hold a

train down despite all the efforts of the train-crew to "ditch"

him--given, of course, night-time as an essential condition. When such

a hobo, under such conditions, makes up his mind that he is going to

hold her down, either he does hold her down, or chance trips him up.

There is no legitimate way, short of murder, whereby the train-crew

can ditch him. That train-crews have not stopped short of murder is a

current belief in the tramp world. Not having had that particular

experience in my tramp days I cannot vouch for it personally.

But this I have heard of the "bad" roads. When a tramp has "gone

underneath," on the rods, and the train is in motion, there is

apparently no way of dislodging him until the train stops. The tramp,

snugly ensconced inside the truck, with the four wheels and all the

framework around him, has the "cinch" on the crew--or so he thinks,

until some day he rides the rods on a bad road. A bad road is usually

one on which a short time previously one or several trainmen have been

killed by tramps. Heaven pity the tramp who is caught "underneath" on

such a road--for caught he is, though the train be going sixty miles

an hour.

The "shack" (brakeman) takes a coupling-pin and a length of bell-cord

to the platform in front of the truck in which the tramp is riding.

The shack fastens the coupling-pin to the bell-cord, drops the former

down between the platforms, and pays out the latter. The coupling-pin

strikes the ties between the rails, rebounds against the bottom of the

car, and again strikes the ties. The shack plays it back and forth,

now to this side, now to the other, lets it out a bit and hauls it in

a bit, giving his weapon opportunity for every variety of impact and

rebound. Every blow of that flying coupling-pin is freighted with

death, and at sixty miles an hour it beats a veritable tattoo of

death. The next day the remains of that tramp are gathered up along

the right of way, and a line in the local paper mentions the unknown

man, undoubtedly a tramp, assumably drunk, who had probably fallen

asleep on the track.

As a characteristic illustration of how a capable hobo can hold her

down, I am minded to give the following experience. I was in Ottawa,

bound west over the Canadian Pacific. Three thousand miles of that

road stretched before me; it was the fall of the year, and I had to

cross Manitoba and the Rocky Mountains. I could expect "crimpy"

weather, and every moment of delay increased the frigid hardships of

the journey. Furthermore, I was disgusted. The distance between

Montreal and Ottawa is one hundred and twenty miles. I ought to know,

for I had just come over it and it had taken me six days. By mistake I

had missed the main line and come over a small "jerk" with only two

locals a day on it. And during these six days I had lived on dry

crusts, and not enough of them, begged from the French peasants.

Furthermore, my disgust had been heightened by the one day I had spent

in Ottawa trying to get an outfit of clothing for my long journey. Let

me put it on record right here that Ottawa, with one exception, is the

hardest town in the United States and Canada to beg clothes in; the

one exception is Washington, D.C. The latter fair city is the limit. I

spent two weeks there trying to beg a pair of shoes, and then had to

go on to Jersey City before I got them.

But to return to Ottawa. At eight sharp in the morning I started out

after clothes. I worked energetically all day. I swear I walked forty

miles. I interviewed the housewives of a thousand homes. I did not

even knock off work for dinner. And at six in the afternoon, after ten

hours of unremitting and depressing toil, I was still shy one shirt,

while the pair of trousers I had managed to acquire was tight and,

moreover, was showing all the signs of an early disintegration.

At six I quit work and headed for the railroad yards, expecting to

pick up something to eat on the way. But my hard luck was still with

me. I was refused food at house after house. Then I got a "hand-out."

My spirits soared, for it was the largest hand-out I had ever seen in

a long and varied experience. It was a parcel wrapped in newspapers

and as big as a mature suit-case. I hurried to a vacant lot and opened

it. First, I saw cake, then more cake, all kinds and makes of cake,

and then some. It was all cake. No bread and butter with thick firm

slices of meat between--nothing but cake; and I who of all things

abhorred cake most! In another age and clime they sat down by the

waters of Babylon and wept. And in a vacant lot in Canada's proud

capital, I, too, sat down and wept ... over a mountain of cake. As one

looks upon the face of his dead son, so looked I upon that

multitudinous pastry. I suppose I was an ungrateful tramp, for I

refused to partake of the bounteousness of the house that had had a

party the night before. Evidently the guests hadn't liked cake either.

That cake marked the crisis in my fortunes. Than it nothing could be

worse; therefore things must begin to mend. And they did. At the very

next house I was given a "set-down." Now a "set-down" is the height of

bliss. One is taken inside, very often is given a chance to wash, and

is then "set-down" at a table. Tramps love to throw their legs under a

table. The house was large and comfortable, in the midst of spacious

grounds and fine trees, and sat well back from the street. They had

just finished eating, and I was taken right into the dining room--in

itself a most unusual happening, for the tramp who is lucky enough to

win a set-down usually receives it in the kitchen. A grizzled and

gracious Englishman, his matronly wife, and a beautiful young

Frenchwoman talked with me while I ate.

I wonder if that beautiful young Frenchwoman would remember, at this

late day, the laugh I gave her when I uttered the barbaric phrase,

"two-bits." You see, I was trying delicately to hit them for a "light

piece." That was how the sum of money came to be mentioned. "What?"

she said. "Two-bits," said I. Her mouth was twitching as she again

said, "What?" "Two-bits," said I. Whereat she burst into laughter.

"Won't you repeat it?" she said, when she had regained control of

herself. "Two-bits," said I. And once more she rippled into

uncontrollable silvery laughter. "I beg your pardon," said she; "but

what ... what was it you said?" "Two-bits," said I; "is there anything

wrong about it?" "Not that I know of," she gurgled between gasps; "but

what does it mean?" I explained, but I do not remember now whether or

not I got that two-bits out of her; but I have often wondered since

as to which of us was the provincial.

When I arrived at the depot, I found, much to my disgust, a bunch of

at least twenty tramps that were waiting to ride out the blind

baggages of the overland. Now two or three tramps on the blind baggage

are all right. They are inconspicuous. But a score! That meant

trouble. No train-crew would ever let all of us ride.

I may as well explain here what a blind baggage is. Some mail-cars are

built without doors in the ends; hence, such a car is "blind." The

mail-cars that possess end doors, have those doors always locked.

Suppose, after the train has started, that a tramp gets on to the

platform of one of these blind cars. There is no door, or the door is

locked. No conductor or brakeman can get to him to collect fare or

throw him off. It is clear that the tramp is safe until the next time

the train stops. Then he must get off, run ahead in the darkness, and

when the train pulls by, jump on to the blind again. But there are

ways and ways, as you shall see.

When the train pulled out, those twenty tramps swarmed upon the three

blinds. Some climbed on before the train had run a car-length. They

were awkward dubs, and I saw their speedy finish. Of course, the

train-crew was "on," and at the first stop the trouble began. I jumped

off and ran forward along the track. I noticed that I was accompanied

by a number of the tramps. They evidently knew their business. When

one is beating an overland, he must always keep well ahead of the

train at the stops. I ran ahead, and as I ran, one by one those that

accompanied me dropped out. This dropping out was the measure of their

skill and nerve in boarding a train.

For this is the way it works. When the train starts, the shack rides

out the blind. There is no way for him to get back into the train

proper except by jumping off the blind and catching a platform where

the car-ends are not "blind." When the train is going as fast as the

shack cares to risk, he therefore jumps off the blind, lets several

cars go by, and gets on to the train. So it is up to the tramp to run

so far ahead that before the blind is opposite him the shack will have

already vacated it.

I dropped the last tramp by about fifty feet, and waited. The train

started. I saw the lantern of the shack on the first blind. He was

riding her out. And I saw the dubs stand forlornly by the track as the

blind went by. They made no attempt to get on. They were beaten by

their own inefficiency at the very start. After them, in the line-up,

came the tramps that knew a little something about the game. They let

the first blind, occupied by the shack, go by, and jumped on the

second and third blinds. Of course, the shack jumped off the first and

on to the second as it went by, and scrambled around there, throwing

off the men who had boarded it. But the point is that I was so far

ahead that when the first blind came opposite me, the shack had

already left it and was tangled up with the tramps on the second

blind. A half dozen of the more skilful tramps, who had run far enough

ahead, made the first blind, too.

At the next stop, as we ran forward along the track, I counted but

fifteen of us. Five had been ditched. The weeding-out process had

begun nobly, and it continued station by station. Now we were

fourteen, now twelve, now eleven, now nine, now eight. It reminded me

of the ten little niggers of the nursery rhyme. I was resolved that I

should be the last little nigger of all. And why not? Was I not

blessed with strength, agility, and youth? (I was eighteen, and in

perfect condition.) And didn't I have my "nerve" with me? And

furthermore, was I not a tramp-royal? Were not these other tramps mere

dubs and "gay-cats" and amateurs alongside of me? If I weren't the

last little nigger, I might as well quit the game and get a job on an

alfalfa farm somewhere.

By the time our number had been reduced to four, the whole train-crew

had become interested. From then on it was a contest of skill and

wits, with the odds in favor of the crew. One by one the three other

survivors turned up missing, until I alone remained. My, but I was

proud of myself! No Croesus was ever prouder of his first million. I

was holding her down in spite of two brakemen, a conductor, a fireman,

and an engineer.

And here are a few samples of the way I held her down. Out ahead, in

the darkness,--so far ahead that the shack riding out the blind must

perforce get off before it reaches me,--I get on. Very well. I am

good for another station. When that station is reached, I dart ahead

again to repeat the manoeuvre. The train pulls out. I watch her

coming. There is no light of a lantern on the blind. Has the crew

abandoned the fight? I do not know. One never knows, and one must be

prepared every moment for anything. As the first blind comes opposite

me, and I run to leap aboard, I strain my eyes to see if the shack is

on the platform. For all I know he may be there, with his lantern

doused, and even as I spring upon the steps that lantern may smash

down upon my head. I ought to know. I have been hit by lanterns two or

three times.

But no, the first blind is empty. The train is gathering speed. I am

safe for another station. But am I? I feel the train slacken speed. On

the instant I am alert. A manoeuvre is being executed against me, and

I do not know what it is. I try to watch on both sides at once, not

forgetting to keep track of the tender in front of me. From any one,

or all, of these three directions, I may be assailed.

Ah, there it comes. The shack has ridden out the engine. My first

warning is when his feet strike the steps of the right-hand side of

the blind. Like a flash I am off the blind to the left and running

ahead past the engine. I lose myself in the darkness. The situation is

where it has been ever since the train left Ottawa. I am ahead, and

the train must come past me if it is to proceed on its journey. I have

as good a chance as ever for boarding her.

I watch carefully. I see a lantern come forward to the engine, and I

do not see it go back from the engine. It must therefore be still on

the engine, and it is a fair assumption that attached to the handle of

that lantern is a shack. That shack was lazy, or else he would have

put out his lantern instead of trying to shield it as he came forward.

The train pulls out. The first blind is empty, and I gain it. As

before the train slackens, the shack from the engine boards the blind

from one side, and I go off the other side and run forward.

As I wait in the darkness I am conscious of a big thrill of pride. The

overland has stopped twice for me--for me, a poor hobo on the bum. I

alone have twice stopped the overland with its many passengers and

coaches, its government mail, and its two thousand steam horses

straining in the engine. And I weigh only one hundred and sixty

pounds, and I haven't a five-cent piece in my pocket!

Again I see the lantern come forward to the engine. But this time it

comes conspicuously. A bit too conspicuously to suit me, and I wonder

what is up. At any rate I have something else to be afraid of than the

shack on the engine. The train pulls by. Just in time, before I make

my spring, I see the dark form of a shack, without a lantern, on the

first blind. I let it go by, and prepare to board the second blind.

But the shack on the first blind has jumped off and is at my heels.

Also, I have a fleeting glimpse of the lantern of the shack who rode

out the engine. He has jumped off, and now both shacks are on the

ground on the same side with me. The next moment the second blind

comes by and I am aboard it. But I do not linger. I have figured out

my countermove. As I dash across the platform I hear the impact of the

shack's feet against the steps as he boards. I jump off the other side

and run forward with the train. My plan is to run forward and get on

the first blind. It is nip and tuck, for the train is gathering speed.

Also, the shack is behind me and running after me. I guess I am the

better sprinter, for I make the first blind. I stand on the steps and

watch my pursuer. He is only about ten feet back and running hard; but

now the train has approximated his own speed, and, relative to me, he

is standing still. I encourage him, hold out my hand to him; but he

explodes in a mighty oath, gives up and makes the train several cars

back.

The train is speeding along, and I am still chuckling to myself, when,

without warning, a spray of water strikes me. The fireman is playing

the hose on me from the engine. I step forward from the car-platform

to the rear of the tender, where I am sheltered under the overhang.

The water flies harmlessly over my head. My fingers itch to climb up

on the tender and lam that fireman with a chunk of coal; but I know if

I do that, I'll be massacred by him and the engineer, and I refrain.

At the next stop I am off and ahead in the darkness. This time, when

the train pulls out, both shacks are on the first blind. I divine

their game. They have blocked the repetition of my previous play. I

cannot again take the second blind, cross over, and run forward to

the first. As soon as the first blind passes and I do not get on, they

swing off, one on each side of the train. I board the second blind,

and as I do so I know that a moment later, simultaneously, those two

shacks will arrive on both sides of me. It is like a trap. Both ways

are blocked. Yet there is another way out, and that way is up.

So I do not wait for my pursuers to arrive. I climb upon the upright

ironwork of the platform and stand upon the wheel of the hand-brake.

This has taken up the moment of grace and I hear the shacks strike the

steps on either side. I don't stop to look. I raise my arms overhead

until my hands rest against the down-curving ends of the roofs of the

two cars. One hand, of course, is on the curved roof of one car, the

other hand on the curved roof of the other car. By this time both

shacks are coming up the steps. I know it, though I am too busy to see

them. All this is happening in the space of only several seconds. I

make a spring with my legs and "muscle" myself up with my arms. As I

draw up my legs, both shacks reach for me and clutch empty air. I know

this, for I look down and see them. Also I hear them swear.

I am now in a precarious position, riding the ends of the down-curving

roofs of two cars at the same time. With a quick, tense movement, I

transfer both legs to the curve of one roof and both hands to the

curve of the other roof. Then, gripping the edge of that curving roof,

I climb over the curve to the level roof above, where I sit down to

catch my breath, holding on the while to a ventilator that projects

above the surface. I am on top of the train--on the "decks," as the

tramps call it, and this process I have described is by them called

"decking her." And let me say right here that only a young and

vigorous tramp is able to deck a passenger train, and also, that the

young and vigorous tramp must have his nerve with him as well.

The train goes on gathering speed, and I know I am safe until the next

stop--but only until the next stop. If I remain on the roof after the

train stops, I know those shacks will fusillade me with rocks. A

healthy shack can "dewdrop" a pretty heavy chunk of stone on top of a

car--say anywhere from five to twenty pounds. On the other hand, the

chances are large that at the next stop the shacks will be waiting for

me to descend at the place I climbed up. It is up to me to climb down

at some other platform.

Registering a fervent hope that there are no tunnels in the next half

mile, I rise to my feet and walk down the train half a dozen cars. And

let me say that one must leave timidity behind him on such a

_passear_. The roofs of passenger coaches are not made for midnight

promenades. And if any one thinks they are, let me advise him to try

it. Just let him walk along the roof of a jolting, lurching car, with

nothing to hold on to but the black and empty air, and when he comes

to the down-curving end of the roof, all wet and slippery with dew,

let him accelerate his speed so as to step across to the next roof,

down-curving and wet and slippery. Believe me, he will learn whether

his heart is weak or his head is giddy.

As the train slows down for a stop, half a dozen platforms from where

I had decked her I come down. No one is on the platform. When the

train comes to a standstill, I slip off to the ground. Ahead, and

between me and the engine, are two moving lanterns. The shacks are

looking for me on the roofs of the cars. I note that the car beside

which I am standing is a "four-wheeler"--by which is meant that it has

only four wheels to each truck. (When you go underneath on the rods,

be sure to avoid the "six-wheelers,"--they lead to disasters.)

I duck under the train and make for the rods, and I can tell you I am

mighty glad that the train is standing still. It is the first time I

have ever gone underneath on the Canadian Pacific, and the internal

arrangements are new to me. I try to crawl over the top of the truck,

between the truck and the bottom of the car. But the space is not

large enough for me to squeeze through. This is new to me. Down in the

United States I am accustomed to going underneath on rapidly moving

trains, seizing a gunnel and swinging my feet under to the brake-beam,

and from there crawling over the top of the truck and down inside the

truck to a seat on the cross-rod.

Feeling with my hands in the darkness, I learn that there is room

between the brake-beam and the ground. It is a tight squeeze. I have

to lie flat and worm my way through. Once inside the truck, I take my

seat on the rod and wonder what the shacks are thinking has become of

me. The train gets under way. They have given me up at last.

But have they? At the very next stop, I see a lantern thrust under

the next truck to mine at the other end of the car. They are searching

the rods for me. I must make my get-away pretty lively. I crawl on my

stomach under the brake-beam. They see me and run for me, but I crawl

on hands and knees across the rail on the opposite side and gain my

feet. Then away I go for the head of the train. I run past the engine

and hide in the sheltering darkness. It is the same old situation. I

am ahead of the train, and the train must go past me.

The train pulls out. There is a lantern on the first blind. I lie low,

and see the peering shack go by. But there is also a lantern on the

second blind. That shack spots me and calls to the shack who has gone

past on the first blind. Both jump off. Never mind, I'll take the

third blind and deck her. But heavens, there is a lantern on the third

blind, too. It is the conductor. I let it go by. At any rate I have

now the full train-crew in front of me. I turn and run back in the

opposite direction to what the train is going. I look over my

shoulder. All three lanterns are on the ground and wobbling along in

pursuit. I sprint. Half the train has gone by, and it is going quite

fast, when I spring aboard. I know that the two shacks and the

conductor will arrive like ravening wolves in about two seconds. I

spring upon the wheel of the hand-brake, get my hands on the curved

ends of the roofs, and muscle myself up to the decks; while my

disappointed pursuers, clustering on the platform beneath like dogs

that have treed a cat, howl curses up at me and say unsocial things

about my ancestors.