A TIGHT SQUEEZE;
OR,
THE ADVENTURES OF A GENTLEMAN,
WHO, ON A WAGER OF TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS,
UNDERTOOK TO GO FROM NEW YORK TO
NEW ORLEANS IN THREE WEEKS,
WITHOUT MONEY,
_AS A PROFESSIONAL TRAMP_.
By "STAATS."
BOSTON:
LEE AND SHEPARD, PUBLISHERS.
NEW YORK:
CHARLES T. DILLINGHAM.
1879.
COPYRIGHT,
1879,
BY GEORGE M. BAKER.
_All Rights Reserved._
Stereotyped by C. C. Morse & Son,
Haverhill, Mass.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I. THE PRODIGAL AND THE WAGER
CHAPTER II. THE START
CHAPTER III. PROFESSIONAL ADVICE
CHAPTER IV. OUR HERO MEETS HIS DESTINY
CHAPTER V. OUR HERO EATS THE BREAD OF CHARITY
CHAPTER VI. UNDER THE CYCLOPEAN EYE
CHAPTER VII. THE PULLMAN BOX CAR
CHAPTER VIII. A BLOCK IN THE WAY
CHAPTER IX. A GLIMPSE OF DEATH
CHAPTER X. THE MARCH TO FORT DUQUESNE
CHAPTER XI. A MYSTERY
CHAPTER XII. THE GREAT TRAMP RENDEZVOUS
CHAPTER XIII. INTRODUCES THE EVANGELIST
CHAPTER XIV. AN UNCOMFORTABLE NIGHT
CHAPTER XV. THE HOTEL DE LOG
CHAPTER XVI. THE EVANGELIST INVESTS IN A HORSE
CHAPTER XVII. LICKSKILLET HAS A SENSATION
CHAPTER XVIII. JUDGE LYNCH HOLDS COURT
CHAPTER XIX. THE GREAT HARVEST RANGE
CHAPTER XX. OUR HERO REACHES ST. LOUIS
CHAPTER XXI. A SHAVE WHICH HAS A RESULT
CHAPTER XXII. OFF FOR NEW ORLEANS
CHAPTER XXIII. A NIGHT ON DECK
CHAPTER XXIV. BEN WALKS THE PLANK
CHAPTER XXV. OUR HERO TAKES A SWIM
CHAPTER XXVI. THE CASTAWAYS
CHAPTER XXVII. CRUSOE LIFE
CHAPTER XXVIII. DEATH SHAKES HANDS WITH THE CASTAWAYS
CHAPTER XXIX. THE CRUISE OF THE "ROARER"
CHAPTER XXX. BEN LOSES HOPE AND TURNS NAVIGATOR
CHAPTER XXXI. NEW ORLEANS, 10 A.M., OCT. 2D
CHAPTER XXXII. THE LITTLE PARTNER
CHAPTER XXXIII. IN AT THE DEATH
CHAPTER XXXIV. CONCLUSION
A TIGHT SQUEEZE.
CHAPTER I.
THE PRODIGAL AND THE WAGER.
"Wasson, what is a _tramp_?"
"Dunno."
"Cleveland, what is a _tramp_?"
No answer.
"Wasson, accommodate me, if you please, by introducing the extremity of
your boot to Mr. Cleveland."
"Ouch! What in thunder are you kicking me for, Wasson?"
"I'm not kicking you; extremes meet, my boy, and there was a natural
repulsion. Hough wants to know what a tramp is!"
"How do I know! Ah! here comes Smythe; he will tell you."
"Ah, Smythe, my boy, just in time! Wasson don't know any thing,
and Cleveland won't tell what he does know; what's a tramp? There
now--that's a good fellow--don't open your mouth so; you'll injure your
neck,--just tell me all you know about them."
"What's a which? Tramp!"
"Don't be a poll parrot, Smythe. Tell me what they are. You've been
to college and learned to row, and box, and play base ball, and ought
to know nearly every thing. Here I am continually reading about them.
Every paper you pick up is full of them. Tramp, _tramp_, TRAMP, from
one end of the paper to the other. There is not a chicken purloined
off a roost; a man killed; a house fired; a train ditched; virtue
outraged, vice embellished, or deviltry of any kind perpetrated, but
this omnipresent scape-goat of the nineteenth century appears to be at
the bottom of it all. Now I want to know what a tramp is."
"I am sorry that I cannot enlighten you, Hough, but--"
"But," exclaimed Wasson, interrupting Smythe, "if I am not very much
mistaken, here comes a gentleman who can!" And as the lawn gate swung
to its place, with a clang of the latch, there appeared walking up the
gravelled walk, a being, whose every square inch of superficial surface
indicated a _bona fide_, unadulterated specimen of the genus vagabond.
A frock coat,--guiltless of buttons, (save the two in the rear, where
they were of no earthly use)--with half a frock gone, and the remainder
of the garment mottled like unto the celebrated garment that got Joseph
in a hole, was fastened at the neck with a glittering horse-shoe nail.
A pair of pants, fantastically fringed with ragged ends about their
extremities, higher up bore the brands of many a camp-fire. Their
original color had long since struck to the over-powering allied forces
of wind and weather, mud and grease. In a landscape they might have
looked a subdued maroon, etched with lampblack. Below the fantastic
fringe work appeared a pair of feet encased in a boot and a shoe.
The shoe had evidently seen better days, and seemed to shrink with
humiliated pride from the forced companionship of the boot, which
was a plebeian of the Stogie family. The shoe was long, narrow and
pointed. The boot was coarse, thick and stubby. The toe of the boot
had an air-hole in it, extending clean across the upper. The shoe was
intact, and had a brass buckle the size of a door plate, which give
it an air of fallen greatness. But the boot was in proud possession
of a heel, while the shoe had none, equalizing matters. In glaring
contrast to this tatterdemalion attire, the hat, that completed the
picture, was a new straw affair, and looked like a bright, fresh,
shingle roof, clapped on a very dilapidated, old building. The face
beneath the hat was round and plump, very dirty, quite keen, frescoed
with tobacco-juice and embossed with a short, stumpy beard. As the
figure drew nigh the group on the lawn, boot, shoe, pants, coat and
face seemed to blend into an animated object, while the bran new hat
kept calling out, like a side-show man on a fair ground, "Here we
are! Now you have us! An epitome of Hard Times! A parody on financial
acumen! A caricature on the fat of the land! What aint rags is dirt,
and what aint dirt is bugs! We're the remnant of other days! We're the
breaking-up-of-a-hard-winter! We're a pariah, a scavenger, an outcast!
That's what we are, and we want you to know it. Here's your prodigal
for you! Kill your fatted calf of kitchen fag-ends and serve up the
banquet on the back door step. Bring out the purple and fine linen of
your ragbags. Here's your prodigal, and he's come back hungry!"
But though the hat said this, as plain as a hat could, the figure
beneath the hat spoke quite differently. Having, with a faltering step
and a pronounced limp in the shoe foot, approached the four gentlemen
who were enjoying their after dinner cigars on the lawn, the figure
with a keen, swift glance took an inventory of each person before him,
and then pulling off the new hat--to the great joy of a lot of hair
that appeared relieved from the constraints of good society--it said,
in a mumbling voice:
"Gentlemen, this is the saddest moment of my life. I am no professional
beggar, but the victim of misfortunes, and reduced from comfort to my
present state of want by calamities over which I had no control. If you
could give me some assistance it would be a great blessing to me, and
a noble act for you; for I have not had a bite to eat for _four days_,
and my clothes would drop off of me with starvation if they were not
falling off from raggedness."
"Four days!" exclaimed all.
"Four days," solemnly reasserted the figure.
"And you still live!" said Hough.
"I still live," returned the figure, as solemnly as before, but with a
shrewd, covert little glance at Hough accompanying the answer.
Wasson noticed the glance, and laughed. Cleveland looked up and the
prodigal greeted him with a benignant smile. Smythe withdrew his hands
from their repose in his pockets, and, with open mouth, gazed first
at the patrician shoe, then at the plebeian boot, then at the subdued,
maroon colored, landscape pants, then at the skirtless coat, and at
last fastened his attention on the fascination of the brilliant,
galvanized-iron, horse-shoe nail.
"Are--are you a--TRAMP?"
"No, Sir!" emphatically and indignantly replied the prodigal.
"Then we're lost!" exclaimed all four, and Hough continued, "Had you
been a tramp I'd have given you a dollar."
The prodigal looked surprised--a trifle suspicious. For the first time
in his life he found his vagabondage quoted at a premium.
"Gentlemen," he said, "pardon me if my native modesty prompted me
to deny the truth. I will confess that, having spent my substance
in assisting the miseries of others, I am, through the fault of my
own generosity and moral rectitude, at last brought to that sad
phase of mortal existence comprehended by the name "tramp." I _am_ a
tramp--and I do not say it boastingly--; Heaven forbid!" And with a
smile of ineffable sweetness, in which dirt and "native modesty" were
harmoniously blended, the prodigal meekly folded his hands and rolled
his eyes skywards.
"Found, at last!" exclaimed all.
The incidents of this chapter occurred one sunny August afternoon, on
the lawn in front of Smythe's summer cottage on Long Island Sound, not
far from the lovely little village of Greenwich.
Smythe's cottage was a pretty little piece of carpenter work in the
Swiss chatelet style--so delightfully expensive and romantic.
Algernon Smythe was the son of his father. A clear understanding of
this matter is necessary inasmuch as the ancestral Smythes bore the
name of _Smith_, and the one immediately preceding Algernon had _his_
"Smith" decorated with the prefix Josiah. Josiah Smith drifted away
from the cobble stones of Connecticut--where the _Smith_ family had
long been at warfare with the rocks about the possession of a few acres
of sterile, sorrel-trodden, ground,--at an early age, and found his
way to New York City. With him came the customary solitary shilling.
But this _Smith_ shilling was an inflationist. It swelled itself into
houses and lots, and stocks and bonds, and shaved notes and fore-closed
mortgages, and fifty per cent. premiums on seven per cent. loans, and
kept itself so busily employed that when Josiah Smith retired from
active life and took up a permanent residence in Greenwood, his only
son and heir found himself sole master of a million of money. This
was too much wealth to be comfortably worn by the name of Smith. Why,
Algernon could remember when he was a little fellow, sanding sugar and
dusting spices in his father's store, familiar little boys,--who were
manœuvering for raisins,--used to affectionately call him "Smiffy!"
As a consequence when Algernon returned from Paris (_Pahree_ he called
it) he no longer intruded the private "i" into the public eye, but
put a "y" in place of it. Then, that his name might be parted in the
middle,--to match his hair,--he tapered off the "i"-less creation with
an "e"; adopted a coat of arms; selected a motto; wanted to know if
Connecticut was not somewhere in Massachusetts "you know"; always said
_brava!_ at the opera; and bought him a yacht!
Of the other guests at the cottage; Mr. Hough was the relative
appendage of a City Savings Bank. He drew $3,500 per annum from the
bank and several thousand from other sources. Mr. Wasson was generally
supposed to be an artist. He was always going to have a picture
finished for the next exhibition. "A thing that Church or Bierstadt
might be proud of." Meanwhile a doting father, who, in a distant
Massachusetts town, had first made shoes on his own knees, but now
made them on the knees of some five hundred of his fellow men, kindly
furnished him with a liberal means of subsistence until his profession
was established on a paying basis.
Benjamin Cleveland was a young fellow, but little more than
twenty-three. His mother had belonged to an old Boston family.
When Ben was ten years old his widowed mother died leaving him to the
tender care of his uncle, with a legacy of twenty thousand dollars.
By means of this inheritance he had obtained liberal educational
advantages,--attaining his majority shortly after graduating (without
any honors) at Yale. (Bostonians take honors at Harvard.) After
leaving college he diligently applied himself to the problem of life.
He had determined upon making his mark in the world. Nearly all young
men do so determine. The "mark" up to the opening of this narrative
was neither a very prominent or promising one. On his twenty-first
birth-day his uncle, who neither understood or sympathized with
him,--in fact rather disliked him,--paid into Ben's hands $15,450,
the remainder of the legacy left by his mother, and bade him "God
speed";--a fashion some people have of shifting on to God's shoulders
responsibilities that belong on their own. For a couple of years Ben
enjoyed himself looking around among his fellow men, and at the age of
twenty-three had $10,400 left to his bank account. He was fond of good
living, fond of adventure, fond of sport, fond of being his own master,
fond of a congenial laziness, and fond of every thing pertaining to
good health save hum-drum work, and money-making by the "plod" process.
He could lie on his back and build castles in the air all day long. But
it is doubtful if he would have undertaken the exertion of going twenty
rods to get one of the foundation stones to commence one of his castles
with. He was something of a _dreamer_. Not much of a _doer_. He ignored
the past; enjoyed the present; neglected the future.
Several moments elapsed in silence, while the lawn party surveyed the
_rara-avis_ before them. The prodigal was the first to speak. Extending
his hand toward Hough, he suggestively remarked, "Where are you, boss?"
"Here is your dollar," replied Hough, presenting him one; "you have
earned it, my friend, by your truthfulness. Now, my friend, tell me
what a tramp is?"
"Why, a tramp's a tramp," replied the prodigal.
"Concise, if not lucid," remarked Wasson.
"Yes, but _what_ are they, who are they, where are they, what do they
do and where do they go?" persisted Hough.
The prodigal quietly picked a gravel stone out of the gaping toe of
the boot, and answered, "They're _tramps_; that's what they are.
Dead-brokes; bums; beats; codjers; hand-out solicitors; cross-tie
sailors; free-lunch fiends; centennial rangers; square-meal crusaders!
They're everywhere, they do every thing, and go all over. They're
the great American travellers of the nineteenth century. Explorers.
Progressionists. Agrarians. I'm one of 'em myself, I am! I'm just from
New Orleans, and going to Boston," and the prodigal stopped to request
a donation of tobacco.
"But where do they live?" asked Wasson.
"Great Blazes! They live where they eat! What a question!" And the
prodigal completely annihilated poor Wasson by rolling his eyes upon
him in supreme astonishment.
"Yes, but what do they eat? You know they must eat, or they would not
live;" and Smythe felt that he had cornered him.
"True for you sir. Well they eat mostly at different places. When
in New York some of them like to stop at the Astor, and others
again prefer rooming in the lumber piles and taking their meals at
Delmonico's. The Fifth Avenue is good enough for me though;" and he
smiled upon Smythe, and Algernon opened his eyes and mouth to their
fullest extent.
"Don't you ever work? Do you never care to earn money at labor?" asked
Wasson.
"Work! Labor! Me! I'm not used to it, but I don't stand back from it
on that account. No sir. I love to work. Do you know of any body that
wants a hand to help cut ice, or can strawberries, or take astronomical
observations? If you do, tell me, for I'm their man. Work! I _adore_
it!" and his face expressed his adoration.
"How long did it take you to come from New Orleans?" asked Hough.
The prodigal studied a moment, and then replied, "I left New Orleans on
the 20th of last month. I made St. Louis in eight days and it's taken
me two weeks and a trifle more to come from St. Louis here."
"Why, that is over one hundred miles a day! You're a fast walker," said
Hough.
"Walk! Who said anything about walking? Not much. I walked when I felt
like it, and I rode when I felt like it."
"You had money, then?" asked Wasson.
"Money!" exclaimed he of the maroon pants, disdainfully. "Money! Nary
red. What did I want of money. Any fool can travel with money. I beat
my way!" and a look of conscious pride illumined his face.
"Came from New Orleans here in three weeks, without any money!" And the
magnitude of the undertaking so overwhelmed Mr. Smythe that he viewed
the tramp as a second Humboldt.
"Step around to the kitchen and tell them to give you something to
eat."
"No, I'm obliged to you, stranger. I just had two squares and three
hand-outs, and I couldn't eat another morsel. I'm sorry, but such is
the fact," replied the prodigal to the utter neglect of his assertion
that for four days he had not tasted food.
When Wasson reminded him of it, he coolly remarked that it was true
enough, and arose from his having a terrible toothache that prevented
his tasting any thing.
"I must tear myself from you, gentlemen," he continued. "Time is
precious, and although I enjoy your society, I must not neglect
business. I'm much obliged for the dollar, mister. I'll spend it
usefully and judiciously. Ta, ta!" and with a free and easy wave of
his hand, the tramp turned and walked jauntily down the gravelled walk
without the slightest sign of the limp he entered with.
After his departure Hough broke out in a boisterous fit of hilarity.
"That's a _tramp_!" he exclaimed. "We have seen the elephant, now,
gentlemen, what do _you_ think of him?"
"What a supreme amount of _chic_!" said Smythe, whom, it will be
remembered, had been to Paris.
"Grand! Glorious! It's a fortune to him!" replied Hough, feigning to be
lost in admiration. And Cleveland said, meditatively,
"Three thousand miles in three weeks without a cent! By Jove!"
But Wasson rejoined that he did not believe a word of it.
"It can't be done," said Smythe, positively. "No man could do it. _I_
couldn't do it myself!"
"Yes it _can_ be done," cried Cleveland, "whether _you_ could do it or
not. _I_ could do it."
"You!"
"Yes, _me_!"
"I'd be willing to give you three months, and wager that then you could
not. You'd starve to death in three days, and commence telegraphing us
to come and bring you home before you crossed New Jersey," said Smythe,
contemptuously deriding the idea of Cleveland's undertaking the feat.
"Don't be too sure about that, Smythe," retorted Cleveland, warming up.
"What man has done, man can do. If that fellow came from New Orleans
here in a little over three weeks without a cent, I can go from here to
New Orleans in the same time on a like amount of money. I'll wager ten
thousand dollars I can do it!" And Mr. Benjamin Cleveland arose to his
feet and nodded his head in an aggressive manner, though he had not the
remotest idea his challenge would be accepted, and only made the boast
to support his assertion. Great then was his surprise--and a surprise
not untinctured with consternation, when Smythe quickly replied, "I
take the bet. Hough, Wasson, you heard Ben. It's a bargain. When will
you start, Cleveland?"
But Ben courageously backed his assertion by quickly replying,
"To-morrow!"
"Pshaw! Cleveland, don't make a fool of yourself," spoke up Wasson.
"Even if that fellow did really do as he says he did, remember, he is a
_professional tramp_, and you would be but a novice, at best. You will
lose your money, sure."
"I'm not urgent about the matter, only I do not like a man to be so
positive about a thing he knows nothing of. You can draw the wager if
you wish, Ben," said Smythe.
The manner in which he said it, however, nettled Ben, and though he
had made his wager thoughtlessly, and without a consideration of the
humiliations, privations, and hardships embraced in the proposed feat,
he refused to retract.
"No, Smythe ... I don't take water. The bet is made. Let it stand."
There was a peculiar stubbornness in Ben's nature that compelled him
after having made a boast to carry it out. Besides, the proposition was
attractive from its startling novelty. It was an excitement his nature
craved. In the quick communion of his mind the following thoughts
resolved themselves into argumentative forces. "I'm a worthless,
shiftless, good-for-nothing fellow anyway. I'm not rich enough to
support the life I would like to lead, and I know nothing about
'money-making.' I need a good, practical knowledge of the world more
than any thing else in it. A good shaking up. How to obtain it I don't
know. There are undoubtedly thousands of channels open, but they are
hidden from me. I have $10,400. If I lose my wager, I am young and the
world is before me. If I _win_, I'll have enough to take me to Europe
and see the sights for a couple of years. At all events, there are none
interested save myself. I am alone in the world; none dependent on me,
I'm dependent on none. Responsible to no one for my acts,--none to
console a misfortune--nor to share a triumph. I'll go!"
And go he did.
By the terms of the wager, duly drawn up that evening, Cleveland was
to start from the City Hall, in New York City, at six o'clock in
the afternoon of the 10th of September, without money or any thing
of value on his person. In this condition he was to make his way to
St. Louis and from there to New Orleans, at which last named city he
was to arrive, (and make known his arrival by a telegram from the
St. Charles Hotel,) at, or before ten o'clock, A.M., City Hall time,
October the 2d, making the tramp in twenty-one days from New York, with
four hours _grace_ on the 2d of October, thrown in at the suggestion
of Hough. It was further stipulated that at no time while performing
the feat, should he appeal for aid to friends, or use the influences
of relatives or name, either by reference or application, to assist
him. To recapitulate:--Benjamin Cleveland was to make his way from New
York to New Orleans, via St. Louis, in three weeks, as a penniless,
professional TRAMP!