THE MAN WITH THE COUGH
Thad seemed quite agreeable.
"Do you know I've never come in close contact with any tramp," he went
on to remark, as they turned their faces toward the patch of trees
where the smoke arose, "and I've always wanted to watch just how they
managed. I note that this fellow has a couple of old tomato cans
he's picked up on some dump, and they're set over the fire to warm
up some coffee, or something he's evidently gotten at a back door.
Perhaps he'll be sociable, and invite us to join him in his
afternoon meal. I guess they eat at any old time, just as the notion
seizes them, eh, Hugh?"
"They're a good deal like savages in that respect, I understand,"
the other told him. "You know Indians often go a whole day without
breaking their fast; but when they do eat they stuff themselves until
they nearly burst. There, he has seen us coming in, for he's shading
his eyes with his hand, and taking a good look."
"I hope we haven't given him a scare," chuckled Thad, "under the
impression that one of us may be the sheriff, or some indignant
farmer who's lost some of his chickens lately, and traced them feathers
to this camping spot."
The hobo, however, did not attempt to run. He watched their approach
with interest, and even waved a friendly hand toward the two lads.
"Why, evidently he's something of a jolly dog," remarked the surprised
Thad, "and there are no chicken feathers around that I can notice.
Hello, bo', getting your five o'clock tea ready, I see."
At these last words, called out louder than ordinary, the man in the
ragged and well-worn garments grinned amiably.
"Well, now, young feller," he went on to say in a voice that somehow
was not unpleasant to Hugh's ear, "that's about the size of it. I
haven't had a bite since sun-up this morning, and I'm near caving in.
Out for a walk, are you, lads?"
"Oh! we live in Scranton," Hugh explained, "and I had an errand up
beyond. We went by another road, and came back this way, which is
why we sighted your smoke. Fact is, Thad, my chum here, has never
seen a knight of the railroad ties cooking his grub, and he said
he'd like to drop in and learn just how you managed, because he's
read so much about how splendidly tramps get on."
"That's all right, young feller," said the other, cheerily. "Find
seats on that log yonder. I ain't got much in my larder today,
but what there is will fill a mighty big vacuum in my interior,
let me tell you. This here is coffee in the first can---mebbe
not just what you boys is accustomed to at your breakfast tables,
but good enough for me when it's piping hot. I don't take any frills
with wine either, in the way of cream and sugar, leaving all that
for those that sit at white tablecloths and have silver as well
as china dishes. In this other can I've got some soup. Never mind
where I got it; some ladies, bless their hearts, are pretty kind;
and I always make it a point to carry several empty tomater cans
with me wherever I go. Besides that, in this newspaper here I've
got some bread, and two fine pieces of bologna sausage that I bought
in a village I came through. So altogether I'm expecting to have
a right swell feast pretty soon."
Thad looked interested in these things. He even peeped into the two
cans, and decided that wherever the tramp got that coffee it certainly
could be no "slops," for it had the real odor. The warmed-over soup,
too, smelled very appetizing, Thad admitted. On the whole, he
concluded that tramps were able to make out very well, when they knew
the ropes of the game, and how to beg at back doors.
Hugh, on the other hand, was more interested in the man himself than
in his limited possessions. He saw that the other was past middle
age, for his face was covered with a bristly beard of a week's growth,
verging on gray. His cheeks were well filled out, and his blue eyes
had what Hugh determined was a humorous gleam about them, as though
the man might be rather fond of a joke.
He was the picture of what a regular tramp should be, there could
be no getting around that, Hugh determined. He rather believed
that, like most of his kind, this fellow also had a history back
of him, which would perhaps hardly bear exploiting. Doubtless there
were pages turned down in his career, things that he himself seldom
liked to remember, giving himself up to a life of freedom from care,
and content to take things each day as they came along, under the
belief that there were always sympathetic women folks to be found who
would not refuse a poor wanderer a meal, or a nickel to help him along
his way.
Apparently he had been just about ready to sit down and make way
with his meal at the time the boys arrived on the scene; for he now
took both tin carts from their resting places over the red embers of
his fire, and opening the package produced the bread and the bologna.
This latter looked big enough to serve a whole family of six; but
then a tramp's appetite is patterned very much on the order of a
growing boy's, and knows no limit.
Having spread his intended food around him as he squatted there, the
hobo gave the boys a queer look.
"You'll excuse me if I don't ask you to join me, youngsters," he went
on to say. "I'd do the same in a jiffy if the supply wasn't limited;
besides, I don't know just what sort of a reception I'm going to meet
with in your town."
"Oh! no apologies needed, old chap," said Thad, quickly. "We had
our lunch only an hour or so ago and couldn't take a bite to save us
now. But say everything seems mighty good, if the smell counts for
much. So pitch right in and fill up. We'll continue to sit here
and chat with you, if you don't mind, Bill."
"That's all right, governor, only my name don't happen to be Bill,
even if I belong to the tribe of Weary Willies. I'm known far and
wide as Wandering Lu; because, you see, I've traveled all over the
whole known world, and been in every country the sun shines on.
Just come from the oil regions down in Texas, because, well, my
health is failing me, and I'm afraid I'm going into a decline."
At that he started to coughing at a most tremendous rate. Thad
looked sympathetic.
"You certainly do seem to have a terribly bad cold, Lu," he told
the tramp, as the other drew out a suspicious looking red handkerchief
that had seen better days, to wipe the tears from his eyes, after he
had succeeded in regaining his breath, following the coughing spell.
The man put a dirty hand in the region of his heart and winced.
"Hurts most around my lungs," he said, "and mebbe I've got the con.
I spent some time in a camp where fifty poor folks was sleeping
under canvas down in Arizona, and I'm a whole lot afraid I may have
caught the disease there. So, being afraid my time would soon come
I just made up my mind to look up a sister of mine that I ain't
heard a word from for twenty years or more, and see if she was in
a position to support me the short time I'd have to live."
Thad heard this with evident interest. At the same time it occurred
to him the stalwart tramp was hardly a fit subject for a speedy death;
indeed, he looked as though he might hold out for a good many years
still, except when he fell into one of those coughing spells, and
seemed to be racked from head to foot with the exertion.
Hugh saw that the fellow had an engaging manner, and a smooth tongue.
He was trying to make out just what sort of a man this same Lu might
be, if one could read him aright. Was he crooked, and inclined to
evil ways; or, on the other hand, could he be taken at face value
and set down as a pretty square sort of a fellow?
"Listen, young fellers," remarked the still eating hobo, later on,
"didn't you tell me you lived in the place called Scranton, when
you're to home?"
"Yes, that's so," Thad assured him. "Know anybody there, Lu, and do
you want us to take him your best compliments?"
The tramp grinned amiably.
"I reckon you're something of a joker, younker," he went on to say.
"Now, about the folks in Scranton, I suppose you boys know about
everybody in town?"
"Well, hardly that," Hugh told him, "since Scranton is a place of
some seven or eight thousand inhabitants, and new people are constantly
coming in."
"All the same," added Thad, "we do know a good many, and it's just
as likely we might be acquainted with your friend. What's his name,
Wandering Lu?"
"First place, it ain't a he at all, but a lady," the other explained,
looking a little serious for once.
"Oh! excuse the mistake, will you?" chuckled Thad, highly amused at
the airs the disreputable looking grizzled old chap put on when he
made this statement. "Well, we have some acquaintance among the
ladies of the town also. They're nearly all deeply interested just
now in helping Madame Pangborn do Red Cross work for her beloved
poilus over in brave France. I suppose now you've traveled through
that country in your time, Lu?"
"Up and down and across it for hundreds of miles, afoot, and in
trains," quickly replied the old fellow, "and say, there ain't any
country under the sun that appeals more to me than France did. If I
was twenty years younger, hang me if I wouldn't find a way to cross
over there now, and take my place in the trenches along with them
bully fighters, the French frog-eaters. But I'm too old; and
besides, this awful cough grips me every once in so often."
Even the mention of it set him going again, although this time the
spasm was of shorter duration, Hugh noticed; just as though he had
shown them what he could do along such lines, and did not want to
exhaust himself further.
"But about this lady friend of yours, Lu, would you mind mentioning
her name, and then we could tell you if we happen to know any such
person in Scranton?" and Thad gave the other a confiding nod as
if to invite further confidence.
"Let's see, it was so long back I almost forget that her name was
changed after she got hitched to a man. Do you happen to know a
chap who goes by the name of Andrew Hosmer?"
The boys exchanged looks.
"That must be the sick husband of Mrs. Hosmer, who sews for my mother,"
remarked Thad, presently. "Yes, I remember now that his first name
is Andrew."
"Tell me," the tramp went on, now eagerly, "is his wife living, do
you mean, younker, this Mrs. Hosmer, and is her name Matilda?"
"Just what it happens to be," Thad admitted. "So she is the lady
you want to see, is she, Lu? What can poor old Mrs. Hosmer, who
has seen so much trouble of late years, be to you, I'd like to know?"
The man allowed a droll look to come across his sun-burned face with
its stubbly growth of gray beard. There was also a twinkle in his
blue eyes as he replied to this query on the part of Thad Stevens.
"What relation, you ought to say, younker, because Matilda, she's
my long-lost sister, and the one I'm a-hopin' will nurse me from
now on till my time comes to shuffle off this planet and go hence!"
The two boys heard this stunning announcement with mingled feelings.
Thad looked indignant while Hugh on his part tried to read between
the lines, and understand whether there could be any meaning to the
tramp's declaration than what appeared on the face of it.