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 THE LIFE STORY 
 
 OF 
 
 BROTHER TOMMY" 
 
 Told by 
 
 - KE - KE 
 
Class 
 Book. 
 
 
 
 W .- " 
 
 Copyright^ . 
 
 COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 
 
TOMMY F. ANDERSON 
 ("SCOTTY KID") 
 
SCOTTY KID 
 
 The Life Story of " Brother Tommy 
 
 Told by 
 
 "LI-KE-KE" f^mA- 
 
 w 
 
 Godfathered by 
 FATHER ENDEAVOR CLARK 
 
 59 
 
 THE ABINGDON PRESS 
 NEW YORK CINCINNATI 
 
-BV4-T5 5" 
 
 Copyright, 1917, by 
 T. F. ANDERSON 
 
 AUG 24 1917 
 
 CLA473705 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 chapter page 
 
 Introduction 7 
 
 Godfathering of Father En- 
 deavor Clark 11 
 
 I. His Start in Life 15 
 
 II. "Con. No. 2173" 46 
 
 III. How They Get Dope 54 
 
 IV. Prison Fare and Discipline 61 
 
 V. Good Things in the Pen 83 
 
 VI. Free from the Law 90 
 
 VII. Traveling 97 
 
 VIII. Drawbacks to Bumdom 114 
 
 IX. The Birth of Brother Tommy . . . 121 
 
 X. A Dope Fiend under a House. . . . 139 
 
 XL Restitution 146 
 
 XII. A "Geed" Neck 154 
 
 XIII. As an Evangelist 163 
 
 XIV. An Interrupted Trip to Scotland. 172 
 XV. Brother and Sister Anderson ... 177 
 
 XVI. In Honolulu 184 
 
 XVII. A Scholar Too! 189 
 
 XVIII. From Pahoa to Hakalau 192 
 
 L'Envoi 212 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Tommy F. Anderson ("Scotty Kid") 
 
 Frontispiece ^ 
 Facing Page 
 Group of Spanish and Portuguese at 
 
 Pepeekeo 68 
 
 Pahoa Mission 68 
 
 The Anderson Party in Hilo 100 
 
 Ready for Service 100 l 
 
 Audience at Dedication of the Spanish 
 
 Mission at Hakalau, November 5, 1916 198 * 
 
 Chapel for Spanish Work at Hakalau, 
 
 Dedicated November 5, 1916 198 ^ 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 There are many enthusiasts who look for 
 a new science which is to be called eugenics. 
 That it is in sight as yet few believe. It will 
 expect to demonstrate at least the possibility 
 of building up a race of mankind by follow- 
 ing the laws that apply to the successful 
 breeding of lower animals. 
 
 The analysis of the word is significant. 
 Eugenics calls for a birth under favorable 
 conditions in an up direction. 
 
 The life story of Brother Tommy calls for 
 quite a different modus and direction. It 
 would never have been written, were it not to 
 impress the old story that the real science 
 is "Anothengenics" — "birth from above." 
 Moreover, it dares to affirm that even un- 
 favorable conditions are in a large degree 
 negligible. Given a real "birth from above," 
 and the superhuman element transforms 
 anything it touches, starting, if need be, from 
 the very lowest stratum of human life. 
 
 Eugenics lays particular stress on a class 
 
 7 
 
8 INTRODUCTION 
 
 called the unfit, which must be eliminated 
 and prevented. It talks of the Jukes family, 
 and society's right, as well as duty, to rid 
 itself of such, 
 
 Anothengenics points to One who hung on 
 a tree who is able to save to the uttermost — 
 even the unfittest of the unfit. An incredible 
 remedy — this looking and living — like the 
 foolishness of preaching, and yet there are 
 untold armies of twice-born men to substan- 
 tiate it. Just one Jerry McAuley, with a 
 life well-nigh ended in bitter degradation, is 
 able to roll up such a glorious posterity on 
 earth and in heaven as to dwarf into com- 
 parative insignificance the blighting influ- 
 ence of the mother of the Jukes family. 
 When a genuine heaven-birth takes place, 
 bigger towns than Sychar in Samaria are 
 turned upside down, five husbands and one 
 paramour notwithstanding. God, what 
 glorious tidings for the "unfit" ! 
 
 It serves here but to call attention to the 
 irreconcilable conflict between the two the- 
 ories of race betterment and to the signifi- 
 cant element of direction. We must bear in 
 
INTRODUCTION 9 
 
 mind that it has always been the ambition 
 of the human race to rise by its own efforts, 
 and whereas the verdict of history proves the 
 hope a vain one, and that "our help cometh 
 from above," still does the pride of man 
 aspire to a godhood unhindered and unaided 
 by any but himself. There are not lacking 
 those who affirm that on this world-old issue 
 are to meet in final conflict the great con- 
 tending forces for the supremacy of this 
 planet. 
 
 Meanwhile, this Brother Tommy story 
 aims to be a genuine portrayal of facts only 
 relating to his "birth from above" and its 
 far-reaching consequences. Not to be tire- 
 some as to this peculiar downward tendency 
 of the "new" birth, nevertheless it must be 
 confessed that the wide difference of the after 
 stories of "twice-born" people may be ac- 
 counted for by the varying degrees in which 
 the divine element "gets down" and envelops 
 all the springs of action. 
 
 To get at Brother Tommy while he was 
 the "Scotty Kid" God must needs come 
 down very low into human experience, by the 
 
10 INTRODUCTION 
 
 will and consent of the Kid himself. If the 
 story does not prove that, it is as worthless 
 as a romance; proving that, it ranks with 
 other truth and should be worth the telling. 
 
 "Li-ke-ke." 
 
GODFATHERING OF FATHER 
 ENDEAVOR CLARK 
 
 "Though your sins be as scarlet, they 
 shall be as white as snow; though they be red 
 like crimson, they shall be as wool." No 
 better sermon on this text was ever written 
 than the life of Scotty Kid. Heredity and 
 environment did nothing for him. Accord- 
 ing to all the laws of eugenics, he should have 
 died in the slums near which he was born. 
 Many another man, with every advantage of 
 birth and breeding, has ended his life where 
 Scotty, with every disadvantage of birth and 
 breeding, began his. The reason is plain. 
 They were once-born men, Scotty was twice- 
 born. 
 
 Such a book is a marvelous quickener of 
 
 the faith. If we are tempted to believe that 
 
 the age of miracles is past, that there will 
 
 never be another day of Pentecost, that the 
 
 era of old-fashioned conviction of sin and 
 
 conversion from sin ended with the death of 
 
 Finney, Nettleton, and Moody, let us go to 
 
 11 
 
12 GODFATHERING 
 
 a rescue mission in any great city and listen 
 to the testimony of former drunkards and 
 harlots; see their clean, wholesome faces, 
 exchanged for bleary eyes and dirt-blotched 
 skin ; note their good clothes, exchanged for 
 rags, and we shall be sure that there is one 
 power in the world that can conquer habit, 
 appetite, and environment ; that there is such 
 a thing as conversion ; in a word, that Christ 
 is mightier than the devil. 
 
 The same certainty of the power of God, 
 of the transforming might of a Saviour's 
 love, can be gained by reading the story of 
 Brother Tommy, 
 
 Such a book is particularly needed in cir- 
 cles where conversion is supposed to be 
 merely a matter of culture or nurture, and 
 where joining the church means only getting 
 into good society. Here too is found en- 
 couragement and hope for the conscious 
 sinner. If God can make a drunkard, a dope 
 fiend, a tramp, a thief, a " jail-bird" into a 
 successful and devoted missionary, what can 
 he not do for any individual soul ! 
 
 The happy and vivacious way in which the 
 
GODFATHERING 13 
 
 book is written makes the old phrase "As in- 
 teresting as a novel" seem a tame description 
 of the story of the transformation of Scotty 
 Kid into Brother Tommy. I believe there 
 are in this book possibilities of untold good. 
 
 Francis E. Clark. 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 HIS START IN LIFE 
 
 To look at Brother Tommy now it is easy 
 to see why he was called "Scotty." He has 
 the light blue eye and the facial contour of 
 a Scot. And, indeed — since he is somewhat 
 undersized — the term "kid" was by no means 
 inapplicable. In truth, the world of bum- 
 dom is marvelously accurate in its nomen- 
 clature; its very jargon of a language, fol- 
 lowing all the laws of human speech, is vivid 
 and meaningful. 
 
 But the name "Scotty Kid" no longer be- 
 comes the man who is known in certain reli- 
 gious circles from Texas to China as 
 "Brother Tommy." It would be a fascinat- 
 ing business (but one that would kill this 
 story deader than a peace proposal in these 
 piping times of submarines) to inquire what 
 had "got into" the "Scotty Kid"— or what 
 had gone out of him. Any sort of the "yegg- 
 man" "pussy tail," or "gunman" of the old 
 
 15 
 
16 SCOTTY KID 
 
 days would know "right off the bat" that 
 the purposeful face — rather grim at times — 
 no longer belongs to "Seotty Kid." In fact 
 —and here is a good joke on some one, per- 
 haps his wife — a certain photograph sent by 
 a jailer and declared to be that of Convict 
 No. 2173, under an alias selected by the same 
 "Seotty Kid," was repudiated by Mrs. 
 Anderson as not that of her husband, and 
 we won't blame her. 
 
 And yet the "Kid" must have been a win- 
 some young daredevil. We have had just the 
 Th P « least bit of a fear that his tempest- 
 cination uous career might prove a wee bit 
 of the too attractive for general reading 
 
 as to moral effect. Right in this 
 connection it should be said that "Brother 
 Tommy" himself had no desire to elevate 
 into attractiveness the bum or the criminal. 
 He knew perfectly well that it is perilous 
 for even an advanced "Brother Tommy" to 
 revel in the droll escapades of Seotty Kid. 
 There is a charm even yet that lingers in the 
 trickery, holdups, and get-aways in that not 
 too distant kidhood. Perhaps it were not 
 
HIS START IN LIFE 17 
 
 well to open up those sealed chambers with- 
 out due precaution as to contagion. That 
 was Tommy's idea. There is something in 
 it too, for there was a fellow we knew, a 
 reformed man, who seemed so tremendously 
 tickled over the recounting of his roaring old 
 sprees that we were afraid for him, and told 
 him so. The tumble was "coming to him/' 
 as the boys say. He got it soon and severely. 
 
 We confess to have had a strong tempta- 
 tion, though, to address this book to boys, 
 An and then we were going to call it 
 
 Abandoned "Bother Tommy, and How He 
 TitIe Won His <R.' " It would have 
 
 been a bit of a "f ake," perhaps, to attempt to 
 make the boy reader imagine that here prob- 
 ably was a school athletic story with a 
 sweater to be adorned with the school initial 
 — and all by prowess. However, it is a more 
 wondrous business and infinitely more cap- 
 tivating than bucking the line, this watching 
 a man who was the worst sort of a "bother" 
 become a "brother." 
 
 So the simple title "Scotty Kid" holds 
 out lure enough for us, happy if there may 
 
18 SCOTTY KID 
 
 be revealed at least the fact of a miracle, 
 though the how of it we surely may not know. 
 
 The portion of his life before he was 
 Scotty Kid is by no means negligible. 
 
 You cannot ignore a Scotch mother and 
 a Scotch home, the more so that some of the 
 Stepping- happenings there so plainly con- 
 stones tributed to his poor start in 
 illiteracy America. To be sent to buy beer, 
 ale, and spirits at the corner gro- 
 cery might be matter of course enough and 
 not so harmful; but if a boy stops and 
 samples the goods, keeps doing it right 
 along, some community has a job cut out 
 for it. There was plenty of good stock be- 
 hind him. His father and uncles were sea 
 captains, and the boys must have inherited 
 sound constitutions to have stood up to the 
 experiences they had. 
 
 We are chiefly concerned, in those early 
 days in Scotland, to note that he had very 
 little of the common-school education that 
 the state provides, and through no fault of 
 the state. What they call truancy over 
 there we were wont to designate "playing 
 
HIS START IN LIFE 19 
 
 hookey," and it is probable that Tommy 
 was an adept in avoiding intrusion on his 
 mental forest reserve. There was very little 
 cutting of even the underbrush. The trick 
 of lying in wait for the boy who carried the 
 note home from the teacher, and the "swip- 
 ing" of it, is probably as old as ancient 
 Babylon. We cannot make much signifi- 
 cance out of that. But of this we feel sure. 
 The destruction of the king's English attrib- 
 utable to Tommy from that time to this 
 very day bears distinct relation to the "play- 
 ing hookey" episode; certainly, it is in no 
 wise to be charged to the Scotch school- 
 marms. 
 
 We (Brother Tommy and the writer) 
 were discussing this matter of bad grammar 
 The Merit recently, just ordinary gross vio- 
 inBad lations of common English, and 
 
 Grammar we j^^ a g ree( j ^j^ there was no 
 
 signal virtue in it — a man could be a good 
 and useful man without such. There was 
 just a suspicion in our minds (as we talked) 
 that before an audience of a certain class of 
 men, distorted plurals, abnormal past tenses 
 
20 SCOTTY KID 
 
 might be a bit welcome — might, indeed, put 
 the hearers at their ease. We finally con- 
 cluded, however, that there was very little in 
 it. The Western politician who attempted 
 to make capital out of the fact that he wore 
 no socks may have made a bit of a "hit" with 
 the farmers at first, but maturer considera- 
 tion robbed the advertising scheme of its 
 value. The possession of socks or their lack 
 is a trifle, almost immaterial. More rele- 
 vant than socks surely is it to speak one's 
 own tongue correctly, and it ought to be no 
 special road to favor to vaunt one's ignor- 
 ance or independence of rules of speech. No, 
 Brother Tommy says when he gets the time 
 he is going to go after English, even as he is 
 now pursuing — but we will get to that later. 
 But if the start in Scotland was not pro- 
 pitious (we should have added that he just 
 Crime's escaped arrest and imprisonment 
 Call to the for poaching, on his promise to go 
 Immigrant to California), that in America 
 was far worse. His father died quite early 
 in his life, and as many of the brothers had 
 already gone on to America it was not unnat- 
 
HIS START IN LIFE 21 
 
 ural that Tommy should drift to the West 
 to the care (?) of his elder brother. The 
 beginnings there but emphasize the perils 
 so often pointed out to us, besetting the 
 paths of the young aliens who come into 
 America, It is quite unavoidable here that 
 we refer to the brother. He was a saloon 
 man and gambler — to be more exact he 
 promoted gambling more than he gambled. 
 To be sure, Tommy says that on one 
 evening's play his brother once won a very 
 good house and lot. Again a twelve-acre 
 orange grove was a part of his winnings. 
 This must have made an impression on 
 Tommy, for he tells us that each of the trees 
 on that ranch produced about fifteen boxes 
 of oranges, and of such quality as to take a 
 prize (first) at the Chicago World's Fair. 
 
 Now, imagine a boy of fifteen in that sort 
 of atmosphere. He was early tutored that 
 to work was demeaning. He found that all 
 of his brother's friends "got by" in affluence, 
 without having to work. They told him that 
 it was a matter of brains. 
 
 His brother had taunted him a great deal 
 
22 SCOTTY KID 
 
 on his greenness. The boy had been incau- 
 
 _ . . T tious enough to admit that when 
 Which &..'.. 
 
 Easier— he landed in New York the nice, 
 to Work or smooth wooden toothpicks had 
 seemed to him things intended to 
 be eaten, and there were doubtless many ad- 
 missions of a like nature. However, in com- 
 mon with the rest of humanity, he did not en- 
 joy being laughed at, and early formed the 
 resolution to "show" his brother that his 
 provincialism was not much more than 
 freckle-deep. Meanwhile he was getting his 
 opportunities. He was freely admitted to 
 the "games" his brother was running. It 
 was his business to take the bags of coin to 
 the roulette men and faro bankers — osten- 
 sibly running the games under their own 
 names, but really in the employ of Anderson 
 senior. He was the only boy allowed on 
 the premises and was thoroughly acquainted 
 with the way the mechanism was "fixed." 
 He "bucked the tiger" himself (though not 
 the roulette kind), and appears to have won 
 considerable money in some of the all-night 
 houses, where not everyone was admitted. 
 
HIS START IN LIFE 23 
 
 Shooting craps and playing poker were, as 
 might be expected, a part of his education. 
 
 The underworld does not look nice when 
 you peer down under the cover. There may 
 illusions b e some glamour about the life of 
 of the a gambler, for example, but it is 
 
 Half -Word g 0ne w h en you know him. A 
 
 gambler is not a gambler, and only that, 
 neither does a saloon man or "yeggman" 
 stick (as a rule) to just that particular line 
 of exploiting his fellow man. The whole 
 wretched matter of vice is inextricably mixed 
 up. Tommy tells of one individual who 
 got most of his money to start on from a 
 legacy left him by a prostitute. Aye, and 
 that most of the men he knew were in league 
 with fallen women, many of them deriving 
 their income or a part of it from houses of 
 ill fame. 
 
 And now we find him in a new role. Did 
 we say that he was part Irish? To forget 
 s , that would be to lose a genealog- 
 Education, ical line on him. Come to think 
 
 Primarily f it, it is hard to see which 
 of the Feet . • i i . • . • j 
 
 national characteristics predom- 
 
24 SCOTTY KID 
 
 inate. Perhaps, after all, it was his name 
 that won him his sobriquet "Scotty." Now 
 he needs must learn a profession, and he is 
 fortunate in being Scotch and Irish. A 
 stage dancer has taken him in hand, and 
 his ambition is to kick and clog his way into 
 that portion of his affluence that does not 
 come to him still easier. This was before 
 the days of the various "trots" and it was 
 alone — as a soloist if you will — that he was 
 to draw down some weekly emolument. So 
 he learned the Horn Pipe, Irish Reels and 
 the Highland Fling, together with such 
 song-and"dance specialties as were popular 
 in the dance halls and saloons. It was no 
 easy business, this tutoring of the feet. 
 There is a vivid picture in my mind of the 
 early attempts at the house of "Poker Davis" 
 to get the steps. But all this noise and vibra- 
 tion annoyed the same Poker D., and so a 
 shed was made in the back yard. There one 
 hour per day at least there was hard work 
 for the fellow who aspired to escape work. 
 It meant soreness of limb, rubbing down with 
 coal oil, but it ended with fancy tights and a 
 
HIS START IN LIFE 25 
 
 bit of glamour. And there was competition 
 with other Scotch and Irish laddies at pri- 
 vate homes, at rooster fights and bulldog 
 fights. This meant a free dispensing of 
 drinks, but the boy had long since become 
 used to that. 
 
 Here's a song of the times : 
 
 Good-by, Mike; good-by, Pat; 
 
 Good-by, Kate and Mary; 
 For the anchor's weighed, 
 And the gangplank's swayed, 
 
 And I'm bound for Tipperary. 
 
 — which all goes to show that Tipperary was 
 even then destined to lure mankind, though 
 a "long way" off. These songs, you see, were 
 followed by the clogs, the real origin of the 
 song and dance. At least the clog had the 
 merit of being danced alone. 
 
 There had to be a row with the older 
 brother: moreover, it must needs be a pretty 
 A Celtic hot one - That Tommy should 
 Family need a licking would be clear 
 enough, and that he should avoid 
 it was most natural. He says he was "wise" 
 to the purpose of his brother, and when he 
 
26 SCOTTY KID 
 
 stole into the room armed with knotted ropes, 
 Tommy was dressed waiting for him. It 
 was in the dining room where a lounge had 
 been placed for the boy's bed, and that sort 
 of a fiery Celt had the best kind of weapons 
 of defense all ready to his hand. "Touch me 
 with that rope and I will lay your head open 
 with this plate." Doubtless he would have 
 tried; at any rate, the brother regarded it 
 as not unlikely and retired, not without some 
 words vitriolic on both sides, The next 
 morning in the saloon it was even worse, and 
 Tommy is off for himself, each brother hav- 
 ing sent the other to hell most cordially. 
 
 However desirable or undesirable work 
 may be, it makes a good-stepping stone to 
 E meals — with any regularity. So 
 
 Hunger or Anderson works. It is not long 
 
 Medium before an easier way to meals is 
 Work 
 
 shown him by an acquaintance, 
 
 and here we enter — not too deeply — into the 
 
 mystery of hypnotism. One hates to be 
 
 always qualifying one's assertions, but in the 
 
 hypnotism we are to deal with is no mystery 
 
 at all. It is most palpably plain sailing. Let 
 
HIS START IN LIFE 27 
 
 no one suppose that we wish to have it in- 
 ferred that all hypnotism is as simple. By 
 no means. The writer is quite willing to 
 acknowledge the dreadful occult reality of 
 the "real thing" and then give it as wide a 
 berth as he would a ship infested with bu- 
 bonic plague. Tommy merely came into the 
 commercial sort, which is perhaps only as 
 harmful as other quackery. He himself 
 pays tribute to the genuineness of some me- 
 diums, but says that the "framed-up" kind 
 are the most interesting and hence the more 
 profitable to the showman. As far as we 
 know, public hypnotism is no longer popular 
 or profitable. In California ten or fifteen 
 years ago there was money in it, and here is 
 where Tommy came in — an important part 
 of the show. He describes how he was put 
 through the preliminaries — the training that 
 was to make him valuable. Docility is the 
 first essential. The ability to stand any- 
 thing, without sign or move, is the first asset. 
 Then the willingness to relax completely at 
 the wish of the demonstrator. Now Tommy 
 earned his money ; he was a treasure. 
 
28 SCOTTY KID 
 
 It was at a demonstration before business 
 and professional men in Los Angeles. 
 
 "You see this boy ! He is absolutely dead 
 
 to the world. See how limp he is. When I 
 
 Control drop him he makes no attempt to 
 
 for a Con- protect his head, nor does he feel 
 sideration any ^^ g^ j wffl pun ^ 
 
 needle through his lips" (he actually does it) 
 "and you will not note a quiver." ( Tommy 
 sets his face like a flint and kills the quiver, 
 thinking of the "V" that awaits only the 
 audience's dismissal. ) 
 
 "Now, this kid can be made to believe that 
 he can dance. What will you have — a reel 
 or a hornpipe? See how awkwardly he 
 starts, but you will soon see the real thing." 
 (Real enough to be sure; what's in one's 
 early training if Tommy can't reel?) "Now, 
 boy, a song and dance!" (Whoop! but the 
 Kid is right in his element. This beats the 
 needle and lip test.) 
 
 It is not all over yet. Here's the supreme 
 test and it must come close to the end of the 
 program, for obvious reasons. 
 
 "Now, to show how even the involuntary 
 
HIS START IN LIFE 29 
 
 action of the muscles is in my contral I 
 will give this boy a vile drink and 
 
 the Goods *ell ^™ ^ * s *^ e mos t palatable 
 wine. I will mix this sweet oil, 
 quinine, mustard, pepper, and so forth, and 
 see him smack his lips over it." 
 
 Now, Tommy, you certainly have deliv- 
 ered the goods. "It's nae sae easy," but it is 
 only a short test of nerve after all. A hur- 
 ried exit, two fingers thrust down into the 
 throat a ways, and the "goods" — . And he 
 claims that a glass of beer or two could wash 
 away the taste. That's the really queer part 
 of it, isn't it? 
 
 "But," some one asks, "what was the motif 
 for private lectures in hypnotism to profes- 
 Th sional men and merchants?" You 
 
 Economic must remember that we are talk- 
 Value of [ n g f things that took place fif- 
 Hypno tism - 
 
 teen years ago, otherwise we are 
 
 self-convicted of romancing. No idle curi- 
 osity this. Think of the advantage to the 
 salesman, for instance, if he could in some 
 way gain the ascendancy over the will of the 
 man to whom he wants to sell goods. Would 
 
30 SCOTTY KID 
 
 not a lawyer give a pretty penny if he felt he 
 might at will sway the minds of twelve men 
 in a jury box? And the detective — the third 
 degree dealt to suspected men is nothing to 
 what he might expect to get from real hyp- 
 notic influence. Experimental psychology 
 tells the same story. And the teacher — but 
 the mind is fairly dazzled with the possibil- 
 ities in almost legitimate ways for the exer- 
 cise of the occult science. As to opportu- 
 nities for graft and chicanery there is no 
 limit. In that audience of people inquiring 
 for possible roads to further some end, imag- 
 ine, if you please, a minister of the gospel. 
 He has the best reasons in the world to get a 
 hold on the imagination and will of the 
 people to whom he appeals; can he borrow 
 anything from this smooth vender of plaus- 
 ible short cuts? "Surely, it may not be of 
 the devil; and if it were, how smart a trick 
 to win on him — beat him at his own game!" 
 What think you of it? 
 
 Here comes an almost necessary digres- 
 sion. Do you know Los Angeles? Is there 
 any city in America more friendly to cults 
 
HIS START IN LIFE 31 
 
 of all sorts? Is there any phase of human 
 
 belief that has not found some congenial soil 
 
 for its propagation in the City of 
 The City 
 of Angels Angels? You can't escape "Los" 
 
 in this story. Brother Tommy 
 figures in a number of different attitudes of 
 mind, and he must needs come back to Los 
 Angeles for almost every start. Nor is he 
 alone in this experience. We have in mind 
 a number of other men who have spread out 
 their hands or hearts at one or another of 
 the blazes that have promised heat, and quite 
 frequently it has been in Los Angeles. 
 
 Apparently, the hypnotic graft was soon 
 worked out, or else the desire for variety was 
 First Ap- operative (not ignoring the pain- 
 pearance ful price paid for the "V" afore- 
 as"Vag" mentioned), but Tommy moves 
 on. A friend shows him how to work his 
 way on cars, and he makes for the north. 
 This riding on cars, the successful beating 
 of one's way, is a high art and demands 
 separate treatment. So far has Tommy pro- 
 gressed that he can conceal himself in a 
 freighter and ride on lumber cars. This is 
 
32 SCOTTY KID 
 
 the mere kindergarten of the business; the 
 high-school course will come later. Yes, and 
 he cannot pass up even in the lower grades 
 without being "plucked." On the way up 
 to Frisco, after a ride on the rods near the 
 bumpers, some rest and refreshment being 
 desirable, he goes across the lots to a rail- 
 road sand house, and when he awakes is 
 confronted by the town constable. This costs 
 him three days in the local jail — the first 
 of many to come for greater offenses. 
 Arrest and imprisonment for vagrancy is 
 interesting business and might excite not 
 fruitless speculation as to its economic value. 
 Tommy doesn't seem to set much impor- 
 tance to the event, but it is just possible that 
 he underestimates the significance of that 
 first inside view of a "cooler." 
 
 Of the next year in the city of San Fran- 
 cisco there is not a very detailed account 
 
 preserved. That Tommy was 
 Song and , -, ... 
 
 Dance sunk deeper in vicious ways is 
 
 clear enough. Money seems to 
 have been easy, mostly earned about restau- 
 rants and saloons. A song and dance is paid 
 
HIS START IN LIFE 33 
 
 in a variety of ways, sometimes by a free 
 drink, again by a cigar, and quite frequently 
 by a "free-will offering." (We wonder now 
 why Tommy used that term — whether per- 
 haps it is in the light of later religious expe- 
 riences. It smacks of the camp meeting.) 
 Anyway, he got sometimes as high as three 
 dollars or four dollars in the hat at one time. 
 It seemed to take but about one year of 
 this to arouse him to further travel. It is to 
 c • ' ai Portland, Oregon, now that he 
 Celebrities takes himself. Portland at that 
 and Their ti me seemed to be infested with 
 criminals of a real sort. There 
 were "Frisco Pat," "Red Devine," "K. C. 
 Jimmie," and "Baldie," "Slim," etc., all pres- 
 ent masters in the art of getting something 
 for nothing, though, after the peculiar nature 
 of things, there was not a man of them who 
 did not pay enormous prices for every clever 
 job he did. Here's where Tommy got his 
 name. He merges into Scotty Kid, a name 
 doubtless written in many a tramp's album, 
 in sheds, on railroad cars and bridges and 
 water-tanks all over the United States. The 
 
34 SCOTTY KID 
 
 date that goes with the autograph is pretty 
 old now and no present-day tramp cares 
 when he sees "S. K. 3-10-05" whether the 
 arrow points west or east, for the Kid is off 
 the road with no pal on his track. 
 
 Here we break into professional robbery. 
 Frisco Patsey is easily the leader, and is 
 worth considering in reference to some of his 
 separate exploits, but just now we follow 
 him with Scotty Kid as the gang "does" the 
 States of Oregon and Washington, breaking 
 into stores, shops, and private houses, and 
 finally into jail. Portland seems to have 
 been the best place to dispose of goods 
 secured by this process: barbers' supplies, 
 bolts of cloth, muffs and furs, wraps for 
 women — all sorts of things which the Kid 
 himself could not begin to remember. 
 
 The method of concealment was very 
 
 simple and very effective. Everything was 
 
 Getting wrapped in an ordinary sleeping 
 
 Away with blanket or bed quilt, all tied up 
 the Goods with ropes tQ look like the bundles 
 
 which all farm hands must carry from place 
 to place with them. You wouldn't expect 
 
HIS START IN LIFE 35 
 
 such hand baggage to travel with the own- 
 er (?) on a Pullman. It was the approved 
 fashion, however, to go de luxe. That the 
 conductor did not detect the rider is excus- 
 able on the ground of the very general belief 
 among trainmen that only one tramp out of 
 a thousand would dare to ride in such a 
 Riding dangerous place. In the middle 
 Fourth- of the night, on the opposite side 
 from the station, two men get 
 under one Pullman. (Incidentally, this 
 shows how the Kid is progressing in the 
 tramp grades.) There is a bar about three 
 feet long and two inches wide to sit on, so 
 that one could put his feet on the air-brake 
 rod. This was right between the wheels, 
 mind you, and the bundles were crammed up 
 between the axles and cross beams of wood 
 which form a sort of frame. When the train 
 stopped, off come your riders (it would seem 
 as though they earned the title "rough 
 riders" before the Cuban war), and they 
 crouched down behind the car wheels till the 
 train moves on again. 
 When once in Portland each separate 
 
86 SCOTTY KID 
 
 plunderer tries a separate pawnshop, and an 
 observer of any one of them would most 
 likely say, "There goes a ranch hand look- 
 ing for work." But seventy dollars to one 
 hundred and fifty dollars is the sale price of 
 one of those bundles, all eventually finding 
 itself in the red-light district, "blown in" for 
 the benefit of bums and tramps, who ac- 
 knowledge their fraternity in their times of 
 affluence. It is not all harmony, however; 
 fights and brawls are quite the inevitable 
 denouement; afterward arrest with five or 
 ten days' sentence to top off with. 
 
 Then starts the merry round again. The 
 Kid had two and a half years of this. Its 
 Frisco en d was brought about by the not- 
 
 Patsey, quite-enough skillfulness of the 
 Specialist king of his business> "Frisco 
 
 Patsey." He could go into houses at night, 
 says the Kid, and tell you the next day the 
 number of the people in the family, the color 
 of their hair, the kind of sleeping robes they 
 wore, with some shrewd guesses as to their 
 ages thrown in. Of course it was part of his 
 business to note the kind of furniture and 
 
HIS START IN LIFE 37 
 
 other stage settings. He boasted a knowl- 
 edge of the use of chloroform, just how much 
 to apply to the noses of the sleepers to deepen 
 sleep without risk of fatalities. 
 
 Here follows the Kid's description of the 
 program of a day not far from being the last 
 Arranging °f *^ s phase of his professional 
 for a career. The Kid seems to have 
 
 Repast been regarded by the gang as 
 peculiarly adapted for the work of scout 
 and provider. They are in a new town. 
 The gang is largely in hiding in what they 
 call "the jungle," doubtless a bit of heavy 
 brush in the vicinity of the woody portion of 
 the town. They are in hiding for almost 
 obvious reasons : in the first place, their work 
 is to be in the night, and the less they are seen 
 the better; then they must needs sleep in 
 preparation for it. Hence the Kid's mis- 
 sion. He goes to the butcher and begs a 
 piece of meat, and then to the grocery for 
 "spuds" — never bought where they can be 
 begged, and the strange part of it is that 
 they seldom need to be bought. Coffee 
 comes from a private house and milk from 
 
38 SCOTTY KID 
 
 a dairy. It must be understood that each 
 article is hid before approaching the next 
 place, or the plea of starvation would not 
 look well. After a fruit cannery house has 
 supplied the desert for the repast, the last 
 step is to get a gunny sack which frequently 
 can be half filled with the collected articles. 
 There is a fire waiting in the jungle with 
 fairly proficient cooks all ready with impro- 
 vised materials — coal stolen from the rail- 
 road, a shovel for a frying pan, and tomato 
 cans for cups (they have even been washed 
 too). 
 
 It was at Centralia, Washington, where 
 took place all the foregoing to a bit of drama 
 which Frisco Patsey had staged for the even- 
 ing. The Kid was the "forerunner," as he 
 himself puts it. A prosperous saloon is 
 picked for a "killing," and Scotty spends his 
 evening there. He must keep his eyes open 
 while he earns his nickels and dimes with his 
 songs and dance. He acquaints himself with 
 the lay of the room, the number of steps 
 from the door to the bar, the position of the 
 window. He casually gets informed as to 
 
HIS START IN LIFE 89 
 
 the hour of closing, while his eye is locating 
 the till and he forms some notion of the con- 
 tents of the bag therein. The habits of "bar- 
 keeps/' their looks and potential prowess — 
 all data on these subjects — will not come 
 amiss to the captain of finance awaiting him 
 in the jungle. It is near twelve when Frisco 
 Patsey sallies forth armed with all the in- 
 formation the scout can give him, plus his 
 forty-four caliber and a hat he has appro- 
 priated on the way, slit to form a mask. A 
 coat taken from a line was also a handy addi- 
 tion to his wardrobe, and he is near the 
 saloon at about twelve. Looking through 
 the window, he sees the "barkeeps" washing 
 up and donning their coats preparatory to 
 leaving. Quickly entering, with back to the 
 door he accomplishes the usual holdup, with 
 this variation, namely, that he makes both 
 "barkeeps" turn toward the wall with their 
 arms stretched up thereon as far as they can 
 go. Patsey 's request for "Hands up" car- 
 ries conviction that he will most certainly 
 shoot if denied. People know almost in- 
 stinctively the voice of the man who means 
 
40 SCOTTY KID 
 
 business. Now it is a simple thing to back 
 toward the door, cautioning the figures on 
 the wall to be deliberate in abandoning their 
 decorative postures. So he makes his "get- 
 away" to the woods, and there is rejoicing 
 in the gang. 
 
 Retribution is swift on the heels of ac- 
 complishment. The net will close on some 
 one for this, and we wonder if F. P. ever felt 
 anything but exultation that it was not he 
 that must "fall for that job/' 
 
 The Kid is up in the morning to approach 
 the town for some necessary purchase, and 
 How he meets the marshal almost face 
 
 Scotty to face, who with a constable is 
 
 patrolling the town. They 
 "cover" him almost instantly, fearing that 
 he may be armed, and his hands go to twelve 
 o'clock quite automatically it would seem. 
 They march him off for a preliminary hear- 
 ing, where he swears to his innocency, but 
 is bound over for trial. Circumstantially 
 everything is against him, and when it comes 
 to the trial the barmen evidently do not pro- 
 pose to let escape the only man in sight, so 
 
HIS START IN LIFE 41 
 
 they swear positive identification, claim to 
 recognize his Irish brogue (not remarkable 
 in view of his singing in the afternoon) and 
 the whole thing ends with a sentence of three 
 years for burglary. Meanwhile he has not 
 been put into very safe keeping. He was 
 committed to the jail where he had been stay- 
 ing for the three weeks, awaiting his trial. 
 Too energetic to have been idle during this 
 time, he makes some history and tells it in 
 nearly his own words, as follows : 
 
 "With one of the case knives, given me to 
 eat with, and a poker, I endeavored to poke 
 "out— ou * a k°^ e * n the side of the wall. 
 Will Be It was nearly two feet thick and 
 Back made of very strong wood. I 
 
 worked on this every day in a 
 place behind the bowl of the toilet which had 
 become saturated with water and was easier 
 to cut and burn with the red-hot poker. It 
 being cold weather, we were allowed a fire 
 in this jail room, and I would unscrew the 
 toilet bowl and take it off, putting it back 
 after I got through, so that the hole was com- 
 pletely hid. Twice a day the jailor came to 
 
42 SCOTTY KID 
 
 feed me, and he never noticed the hole. On 
 the day of the sentence the hole was almost 
 large enough to let me through, for I had 
 tried it. A few more inches had to come 
 off to let my shoulders through. So that 
 afternoon, after returning to the jail, and 
 expecting to be shipped next morning to the 
 penitentiary, I worked hard on the hole. It 
 was finally finished and I prepared to make 
 my getaway as soon as possible, for at any 
 moment the sheriff might come to take me 
 away, or put steel shackles on me for over 
 night, or put me in a steel cage for safe keep- 
 ing. Therefore I could not wait until it was 
 dark or my chance might be gone, so I pulled 
 down the toilet bowl and got down on my 
 knees and flat on my belly, and twisted my- 
 self out of the hole. The jail was facing the 
 county clerk's office, and as I climbed over 
 the fence some one saw me from the public 
 office and sent in the alarm to the sheriff's 
 office that there was a "jail-break." In the 
 meantime I was running for four blocks 
 down a side street and as I turned to see 
 what was doing I discovered men on horse- 
 
HIS START IN LIFE 43 
 
 back and a big crowd of citizens running 
 in my direction. I turned a corner, know- 
 ing that I must act quick and conceal my- 
 self. There was an empty building just 
 about there, and I ran under it, as the 
 house stood off the ground, and hid in 
 about the center. Just then the men on 
 horseback galloped past with the crowd 
 of excited citizens and a sheriff's posse com- 
 ing behind, red-hot after the jail-breaker. 
 As I was thinking that the crowd had about 
 passed and I had better slip out and get 
 away, I had a streak of dog-gone luck. A 
 little terrier happened to run under the 
 building where I was, and he started to run 
 out when he saw me, barking enough to 
 attract the attention of some of the men. 
 Very soon the building was surrounded by 
 a gang who stood with leveled guns. I saw 
 that they meant to shoot under the house so 
 I crawled out and gave myself up." It was 
 a bit inglorious, after all the heroic effort. 
 Not like that of Frisco Patsey on the rail- 
 road to the penitentiary, which may get the 
 telling. 
 
U SCOTTY KID 
 
 Now comes the lockup in the cage, with 
 handcuffs and feet shackles in addition. The 
 ThePrid Scotty Kid is more dangerous 
 of Near- than he looks and deserves sharp 
 Achieve- attention. Would not any of us, 
 perhaps, regard this tribute to our 
 prowess as a cheering attestation of progress 
 in our chosen profession ? Lest he be swollen 
 with pride, the next step is Walla Walla, a 
 real, old-time penitentiary. 
 
 An embezzler in this jail tells a thing that 
 fails to fit in very well with the rest of the 
 A Song story, but as Tommy vouches for 
 and its it, we record it. "It was during 
 ngm the last night before I was sent up 
 
 that something seemed to come over me, and 
 I sang [very beautifully so the embezzler 
 
 said], 
 
 'Rock of Ages, cleft for me, 
 Let me hide myself in thee/ 
 
 At that time I could not understand why I 
 sang it — a religious song and me such a 
 rascal." He adds later, "But since, I can see 
 that the hand of God was on my life trying 
 to win me." There will be those who would 
 
HIS START IN LIFE 45 
 
 not like to contradict this last pious utter- 
 ance who may well challenge the biographer ; 
 after this wise perhaps: "Yes, but somewhere 
 in the past there must be the materials for 
 such a song by such a singer. You did not 
 tell us of any religious episodes in the early 
 days." Never mind, you may be sure they 
 were there. That Scotch mother was re- 
 sponsible for more than the sending him for 
 beer and spirits. She even dreamed a dream 
 concerning her wayward youngest, which an 
 old Scotch neighbor had ventured to put in 
 the form of a prophecy, none other than that 
 her boy Tommy would be a preacher. This 
 argues some other things concerning her 
 habits that only He who saw Nathanael 
 under the fig tree could see. Tommy has 
 some material concerning his mother's proph- 
 ecy which we may not be able to use, which 
 is nevertheless interesting. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 "CON. NO. 2173" 
 
 To the writer what is called slang is in- 
 tensely interesting. Buffoonery and vul- 
 garity may figure largely in the terminology 
 of the bum and criminal, but the vividness 
 and realism of some of the words give them 
 almost a place in language. Hence in telling 
 the Kid's story many of the Kid's words 
 quite naturally appear with enough glossary 
 to make them intelligible. 
 
 "When I came into the Big House [pen- 
 itentiary] I was given into the mits of the 
 chief screw [jailer] and he took 
 Dialect me first* after frisking [examin- 
 ing] my rags good in every 
 pocket, to the mug studio. Here they 
 take me, side and front view, in my citizen's 
 rags in which I came to the stir [prison]. 
 Then comes the bath room, a pool of water 
 eight by twelve, where I shed my rags and he 
 gives me a bar of bum soap with a strong 
 
 46 
 
"CON, NO. 2173" 47 
 
 odor. I scrub, dry, and dog myself [dress 
 myself] with a suit of striped 'con.' 
 clothes numbered 2173. Then come a pair 
 of kicks [shoes], clumsy, lowcut, and stiff, 
 that are about like wooden ones. Next 
 comes the barber shop, where they shear my 
 wool with clippers and scrape my mug with 
 a shive [razor]. Then I must have another 
 photo togged in 'con.' clothes. I sure looked 
 like a zebra. 
 
 "My next move is to the screw's office, 
 where I strip naked while he marks down all 
 Matricula- scars, birthmarks, and tattoos, 
 tionand takes account of missing or de- 
 Bequire- formed wings, hide, etc. (all my 
 ments fingers and toes are there) . Then 
 
 come measurements of height, waist, etc., 
 color of your blinks [eyes], length even of 
 your snoot [nose], questions as to people 
 and whereabouts. Then come the 'con.' rags 
 again, and he puts you into a drum [cell] 
 in a corridor of many other steel drums, all 
 separated by a steel wall. Here I am locked 
 in. In the drum are a heavy iron bucket and 
 two tin cups holding about a quart of water 
 
48 SCOTTY KID 
 
 each. There are two swinging hammocks 
 for the two cons, who are to flop [sleep] 
 here. One hammock is hung above the other 
 in this room, eight by six. The first guy I 
 drummed with was a horsethief doing a two- 
 spot [two years' sentence] for swiping a nag. 
 This big stiff used to make me sick. He was 
 always yelping about the time he had to 
 spend in the stir, or stories about old sick 
 cows or sheep he had stolen. Such wind- 
 jamming did not interest me at all, and his 
 whining about the one year he had still to do 
 in the pen, while I had three to do, gave me 
 the blues. I did not even care to know the 
 days of the week or month; I wanted to for- 
 get it, time goes so slow in the stir. 
 
 "My next day is spent in the Jute Mill, 
 where they make string and gunny sacks 
 from jute. [Here follows some description 
 of the working of a jute mill.] Up above 
 our heads on one side of the wall was a caged 
 balcony, where three screws walked up and 
 down with gats [guns] on their shoulders, 
 and when any of us cons, wanted to get a 
 drink, out on the same floor we would have 
 
"CON. NO. 2173" 49 
 
 to wave our mit at the gat screw, who would 
 "Pen" shake his noddle at us 'Yes. 5 
 
 Peace Ne- Sometimes cons got in a scrap and 
 gotiations wou i(j be digging into each other 
 
 bad. The screw then blazed in the air, and if 
 there was no split [separation], then he 
 would shoot for fair, peppering them in the 
 wings or legs to split them. This breaks the 
 mix-up and they are glued [caught] and 
 taken to the hospital, where their wings are 
 treated. Then they stay in their drums until 
 they get well, feeding on hospital grub, 
 which is better than ordinary chuck. Then 
 comes the 'hole' with bread and water for six 
 days. They never see light there, and sleep 
 on a cold steel floor with no bedding. So 
 many a man gets rheumatism." 
 
 He tells how he himself "mixed it" with a 
 "foxey bum called Red Wing Mikey." It 
 
 "Battins " a PP ears ^hat ^he casus belli was 
 "Kicks," nothing more than a guying which 
 ^ in the Kid refused to "stand for." 
 
 He says that the war critics of the 
 time accredited him (Scotty K.) with hav- 
 ing given him of the Red Wing "his battins," 
 
50 SCOTTY KID 
 
 which it is safe to infer was something in the 
 way of a licking. The whole action appears 
 to have taken place before the screw "got 
 wise," but it was reported to the chief screw. 
 "That night the door of my drum was un- 
 sloughed." (There's a word for you — "un- 
 sloughed." It sounds like a real good old 
 English, though a trifle unwieldy for the 
 bum dialect). "Come out, Number 2173, 
 without your kicks." This meant "the hole" 
 for two days and two nights, with water and 
 "punk" once a day. He claims that his lower 
 wings were rheumatic afterward. (This 
 "wings" figure destroys for us a very good 
 line of poetry to the effect that "Wings are 
 for angels and feet for men.") 
 
 This wasn't the Kid's only experience in 
 the hole. He received a day and a night for 
 
 being suspected of stealing oil out 
 Hole °^ ^e mill for his "glim." You 
 
 see, all the inmates have lamps in 
 their cells, but if they have no cash in the 
 office, where their accounts are kept, they 
 get no oil. He claims that many a night he 
 and others have sat in their dark cell because 
 
"CON. NO. 2173" 51 
 
 they had no money for oil. Whatever else it 
 may be called, it is not coddling. As a 
 matter of opinion, if Sherman had occupied 
 one of those drums, and without Standard 
 Oil connections, we believe he would have 
 classed this sort of life just about as he did 
 war. It is barely possible that in the minds 
 of many, such is the function a jail ought to 
 subserve. We will not argue the matter. 
 
 As to oil; if there is oil, then reading is to 
 be enjoyed. A sort of censored reading 
 
 matter is allowed (you will re- 
 Censors member that all this is more than 
 
 fifteen years ago), and old maga- 
 zines get into the cells, and even old news- 
 papers with all criminal matter cut out. As 
 to letters, they must first be read by the 
 jailer, and if there is objectionable or even 
 suspicious matter in the letters, they never 
 reach the addressee. The same might be 
 said concerning outgoing letters. Brother 
 Tommy thinks that all this was not so much 
 to keep unsullied the streams of influence 
 upon the minds of the State's wards as it was 
 to cover up all disciplinary methods and to 
 
52 SCOTT Y KID 
 
 guard the administration's free hand in deal- 
 ing with the men. 
 
 Having got this eighteen-year-old Scotty 
 K. in the "stir," we find it enough fascina- 
 tion to stay with him awhile. Hearing his 
 view of the life after being out for a number 
 of years, it is evident enough that he regards 
 the whole system as the pitting of wits of the 
 con. against those of the screw. There did 
 not seem to have been at that day anything 
 of the sort of thing that Osborne, of Sing 
 Sing, appears to have successfully put into 
 operation, wherein a prisoner is regarded as 
 human and by no means hopeless, but, rather, 
 able to take an intelligent part in his own 
 regulations. 
 
 Doubtless any "system" past or present of 
 caging a criminal would err in about the 
 System same way, but now and then a 
 and a man gets into the equation, and 
 
 whereas he may not exactly create 
 a new system, there is thenceforth a totally 
 new element injected into the problem; there 
 is now a man dealing with men. A man 
 
"CON. NO. 2173" 53 
 
 will always find manhood in other men any- 
 where. That's a big enough proposition to 
 deserve the restating. 
 
 In the Kid's day, the "stir" was a nest of 
 vice, and partly, no doubt, because it was all 
 N . in the game of beating the screws, 
 though, of course, not altogether. 
 For instance, there is the opium game. It is 
 not easy to get it, in the first place, and 
 there's no end of fascination in that. But 
 there is a lure in the dope itself. There's 
 surcease from unpleasant memories, a per- 
 petual sea (provided one can get a continu- 
 ous supply) to drown some very real sor- 
 rows and forget some most dreary stretches 
 of days. Besides, it helps to kill hunger, and 
 of the two methods, killing or assuaging 
 hunger, the killing method is more practi- 
 cable. Food is not plentiful except to trus- 
 ties, Tommy says. Read De Quincey and 
 see how sleep and most delicious dreams 
 would loom up big to a caged-in human. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 HOW THEY GET DOPE 
 
 Here is a game of almost infinite variety. 
 It amounts to this : the avenues of approach 
 are determined by the number of allies. 
 Some cons., convicted of petty larceny, have 
 the stuff sewed into their clothes, where it 
 will not be found by ordinary searching. 
 Here's another way illustrated: Fat Kelley 
 was an engineer, doing ten years for robbing 
 a safe. He was what they call a "peat man" 
 (a peat being a safe) , and during the last two 
 years of his time, while acting as head engi- 
 neer, he was made a trusty. That meant that 
 he might go to the railroad station where he 
 had business in connection with machinery 
 and implements needed inside the walls. Of 
 course there were other trusties besides Fat 
 Kelley, and it will have to be admitted that 
 under almost any "system" all trusties are 
 not to be trusted. There was the trusty that 
 took care of the bloodhounds, ready at any 
 
 54 
 
HOW THEY GET DOPE 55 
 
 T v. time to slip their leashes when an 
 
 and Their escaped con. needed trailing. An- 
 d °p® other looked out for the lawns out- 
 
 side of the walls ; another was the 
 warden's cook, and so on. Some one of 
 them is outside of the walls without a guard 
 at all hours of the day and night. Here are 
 a fine lot of avenues for incoming dope. In 
 the hours that all hands get together on Sun- 
 day, a prisoner soon to be released arranges 
 on behalf of some friend inside to be at a 
 certain place with the "stuff," there to meet 
 a trusty who will bring it in. Any old ren- 
 dezvous will do; some old can, under some 
 tree or bush "two bottles of white stuff" 
 (morphine) and "one pound of black 
 stuff" (smoked opium or "yen shee" — the 
 vilest cheap stuff procurable). Our friend 
 Kelley has to be guarded in his handling this 
 stuff of course. He must do it in spoonful 
 packages, and on that Sunday when they are 
 all together, in the lavatory or other more or 
 less guarded place, he can hand it out. 
 
 Here is another clever way. It requires 
 two newspapers of the same date. The 
 
56 SCOTTY KID 
 
 ANew friend outside cuts out a column 
 
 Use for of one paper, say an item concern- 
 Advertising ing « Help Wanted# » He sprin- 
 kles very fine white "stuff" on this por- 
 tion of the uncut paper corresponding and 
 pastes the cutting over it. This takes neat- 
 ness and a hot iron, which when skillfully 
 used leaves no trace, save a slightly thicker 
 paper, not discernible by ordinary handling. 
 Of course, if the screw were wise enough to 
 hold the paper up to the light, the ruse would 
 be patent enough. The opium that has 
 "gotten by" that way is an indirect evidence 
 to the fact that there are other things for 
 jailers to do besides looking into convicts* 
 mail. We asked how much could come in 
 that method, and were told that there was 
 enough for more than ten good doses, de- 
 pending, of course, on the size of the "ad" 
 doctored. 
 
 A "wipe" is a handkerchief of course. 
 Philologically the word is a saving of sylla- 
 The bles. ^ half dozen "wipes" sat- 
 
 "Wipe" urated in dissolved morphine, or 
 Method - coke /' an d then dried and ironed 
 
HOW THEY GET DOPE 57 
 
 can be mailed to the pal inside. He can 
 easily get what he wants from them. 
 
 It must have been a good deal harder for 
 this kind of dope fiend to manage. He must 
 The Light shoot it into himself. Of course, 
 Artillery when free and on the outside, he 
 has his hypodermic needle. Oc- 
 casionally a "hypo man" can manage to keep 
 a "gun," or get it through a trusty, but if 
 not, a big pin or "shive" (knife) will do. 
 He must punch some sort of hole, and then 
 with a medicine dropper he must shoot in the 
 dope, and in a short time he will get its 
 effects. 
 
 Chapters might be written as to the effect 
 of the dope on different people. The Kid 
 took it for a matter of nine years, so he says. 
 He was always working for what he calls 
 "sensations." In the first place, a "fiend" 
 has poor digestion, or, putting it colloquially, 
 his stomach is on the bum; he always feels 
 "geed" (sickly) unless he is loaded with 
 "white stuff," or "coke." Right appropriate 
 is the word "coke," seeing it is the scrapings 
 of the pipes of the Chinese smokers. To use 
 
58 SCOTTY KID 
 
 this last is to "coal up." The appetite (?) 
 of the fiend is abnormal enough. Note the 
 following bill of fare which the Kid vouches 
 
 Th D ^ or as a ^ s * °^ *^ e on ^ t em pti n g 
 
 Fiend's viands presented by the sick im- 
 Dinner agination of a fiend. Cream puffs 
 — not so bad! Tea and greasy- 
 pork chops and candy. (Now the potpourri 
 begins to distress us a little.) Sometimes 
 soft-boiled eggs were welcome. Then, again, 
 custard pie and tea served finely. The rule 
 is, says the Kid, never to drink cold water 
 when full of dope, for it kills the sensation, 
 and even sometimes "makes a guy feel as 
 though he would croak." 
 
 "It gees a man in his tank to scoff [eat] 
 heavy chuck." Taken as a text, the fore- 
 going may be regarded as a lesson in temper- 
 ance in the matter of foods, but it is partic- 
 ularly addressed to the "guy" who "coals up" 
 on "black stuff." But why "scoffing" should 
 be the term for eating is not made clear by 
 your bum philologist. 
 
 But, having eaten our heavy meal, we are 
 to observe whether there is any post-pran- 
 
HOW THEY GET DOPE 59 
 
 Sensation dial touch which Lady Nicotine 
 !?• . . can administer. The dope man 
 Hence— should not despise any of the 
 the "But" lesser aid of sister drugs. "So," 
 says Scotty, "give me plenty of good old 
 buts of cigs with lots of nic in them to 
 smoke." The word "nic" is easy. It is the 
 present-day familiarity with a lady which 
 makes it admissible to call her by her first 
 name after an hour's acquaintance. The 
 Kid's acquaintance with Lady Nicotine is 
 much greater, and he, if any one, should have 
 the privilege of calling her "Nic." Now, as 
 this picking up of "buts" is not strictly san- 
 itary, we can assume that the real fiend over- 
 looks hygiene somewhat to get his "sensa- 
 tion." Anyway, a cigar or cigarette "but" is 
 much stronger when smoked down to the 
 end, and Scotty says that it stirs up the 
 "white stuff" in a fiend and gives him a very 
 pleasant feeling. Just what that gathering 
 in the tank of the fiend portends from a phys- 
 iological standpoint — when "Nic" holds col- 
 loquy with the "coal" — we cannot say. Ex- 
 perimental psychologists are working on 
 
60 SCOTTY KID 
 
 abundance of this material and are at 
 liberty to take Scotty on the stand any 
 time* 
 
 It is not amiss to say that if one were 
 looking for an excuse for Scotty's nine-years' 
 dope experience, his "geed" neck would do 
 better than most people's excuses. To put it 
 in his own speech: "The croakers said I had 
 a form of con [purely lazy contraction of 
 consumption] broke out in my neck." This 
 story comes later. In fact, to the jail may 
 probably be laid the blame for it all. Tuber- 
 culosis is no joke, but particularly that which 
 attaches to the gland of the neck. You may 
 count on our not ignoring it in our treatment 
 of S. K. 
 
 Would to God there were no worse things 
 in jail than dope ! Of this we may not speak. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 PRISON FARE AND DISCIPLINE 
 
 The Kid now invites us to a meal with 
 him. We are more than doubtful whether 
 "Putting hi s privileges cover the entertain- 
 UsUpat ment of many guests or whether 
 the Club" we mus t k e out-of-town people, 
 
 or whether we register, etc. Surely, it is "up 
 to us" whether we ever go with him again, 
 after we have enjoyed the club's privileges 
 once. We prophesy just one meal; we could 
 name the very day. 
 
 First we note that our hosts have emerged 
 from their cells at the sound of the whistle. 
 Originally aroused at five thirty, they have 
 swept and garnished their cells, and are now 
 carrying cell buckets to the place of running 
 water, to be left there. And now for the 
 meal that on the outside suggests the break- 
 ing of a long fast, but to many of the cons it 
 is only a slight fracture of the fast — not a 
 
 61 
 
62 SCOTTY KID 
 
 break surely. No sauntering, if it please 
 you. There's a correct procedure, a more- 
 than-form involved in our approach. Put 
 your right hand on the shoulder of the man 
 in front of you and your left on your belt. 
 Nay, this is no joyous college "walkaround." 
 This is the famous lock step. Most for- 
 tunate are you if you ever really forget it and 
 walk like other men. For not only to meals, 
 but to work and in all your "social" (?) 
 goings and comings must you sway in 
 rhythm with this chain of striped forked 
 animals. But come on in whether you have 
 any appetite or not; the real con. (it is 
 claimed) never has anything else but ap- 
 petite, unless he is doped. You are formed 
 in companies of about thirty-five men to a 
 
 table, filing in and standing until 
 Manners a ^ are * n place. A bell rings and 
 
 all are seated, and the door is shut 
 and locked. The guards are standing on the 
 outside of the door — all but one. Up in a 
 steel cage about nine by nine at the side of 
 the wall sits a lone — what shall we call him? 
 Not "reoc bibendi" nor toastmaster, but as- 
 
PRISON FARE 63 
 
 suredly he is master of the feast (or fast). 
 His loaded rifle is pointed somewhat signifi- 
 cantly downward, and it almost seems as 
 though there might be some justification for 
 it, since under the beneficent "system" occa- 
 sionally some one acts "mean," and the 
 loaded gun pointed at him has a quieting 
 effect. Not that it alone is sufficient ; the re- 
 calcitrant one needs the meditation that the 
 "hole" affords, maybe one day or more, in 
 accordance with aggravated symptoms. Lest 
 we might be tempted to connect misconduct 
 with menu, here is what you are to eat this 
 morning. One cup of tea — a trifle bitter we 
 fear, but the best we can do for you this 
 morning— and plenty of dry bread. Please 
 get that combination and then speculate, if 
 you please, on how anyone can go hungry. 
 One plate of oatmeal with a teaspoonful of 
 brown sugar, with milk "mixed with much 
 
 water." O Lord, make us duly 
 A GracG 
 at Meals thankful for the food we have just 
 
 received, which most of us, espe- 
 cially we visitors, do by no means deserve. 
 This, we feel sure, is quite a new company 
 
64 SCOTTY KID 
 
 we are taking to dinner, and now "lock- 
 stepped" in, and under the benign supervi- 
 sion of our "gat" friend in the proscenium 
 box on the side wall, we will discuss the fol- 
 lowing: First course, stewed meat with thick 
 gravy interspersed with occasional parsnips, 
 potatoes, and carrots, with our inevitable tea 
 (still bitter) , and "bread of affliction," as the 
 prophet Jeremiah hath it. 
 
 It is evening; the hard day's work is now 
 ended, and we should be ready to sup with 
 appetites sharpened by jute-mill 
 Prunes! experience. A plate of rice 
 brightens the bill of fare, together 
 with "six prunes," not altogether bereft of 
 their natural juice. Let no man wonder at 
 this feat of memory that fixes the number of 
 those prunes as irrevocably six. Officialdom 
 need not err in a little matter of prunes. 
 Having settled that six is a better number, 
 say, than five, why vary? Let the steward 
 see to it then that each prisoner confidently 
 expects his six prunes. "Such thjngs are 
 great to little men." We know not whether 
 to laugh or cry when we think of how little 
 
PRISON FARE 65 
 
 is the span of many an imprisoned life, within 
 or without stone walls, whose daily monotony 
 is daily ticked off in terms of prunes. Am I 
 a "six-prune" man? If so, may I still be 
 thankful for the bitter tea and dry bread. 
 
 Why not look forward to Sunday? It is 
 a day of rest, in the first place — and, by the 
 •'The wa y> h°w in the world did this 
 
 Better the happen? Secondly, we eat, not 
 Better * more often than on other days — 
 the"— one meal less in fact — but the 
 Scoffing qua lity suggests "Day of all the 
 week the best." On Scotty Kid's bill of fare 
 we notice "a piece of tough steak" and wish 
 the Kid had not put in the word "tough." 
 For what do you expect in a restaurant of 
 the sort? There are necessarily few tender- 
 loins in steaks, and the board charged here is 
 not exorbitant. Moreover, there is the cup 
 full of red beans, suggesting that in the early 
 days of the "system" there might have been 
 a warden whose New England memories 
 helped him to enforce the necessary relation 
 between beans and Sunday breakfast. 
 Great is New England! Nor will we our- 
 
66 SCOTTY KID 
 
 selves fail her in our own weekly tribute of 
 beans. But what is this "colored substance 
 which they called coffee" ? And you say that 
 it was so bitter that the convicts called for 
 cold water, "which was their privilege." 
 Any man (who has tried to make coffee) 
 ought to know what bad coffee is. Anyway, 
 you exercised your privilege, "Let your vic- 
 tuals stop your mouth!" We are glad, 
 though, to record this humane privilege. 
 
 The only real criticism that counts heavily 
 is that, with the exception of the trusties, 
 
 "G mf rt no one ^ e * s enou £>h to eat. The 
 Comfort. "bum" stew and the six prunes 
 Scorned of an( j ife r j ce come very short of 
 Devils" . 
 
 filling up a man, but perhaps 
 
 Scotty, you and the rest of you hungry mal- 
 contents, are only paying part of the price 
 with your empty stomachs. It may be that 
 the luxury of a full meal is one of your de- 
 privations, an experience distinctly "coming 
 to you" and corrective in character. As for 
 us, we do not know the peculiarity of that 
 particular system, and do not feel like sit- 
 ting in judgment. Much depends upon the 
 
PRISON FARE 67 
 
 reasons for which society puts men in such 
 places and what society expects of them 
 when they come out. We confess to have 
 had no experience in keeping a prison, al- 
 though we have brought up some children (a 
 confessedly different thing with occasional 
 parallels), and we are not so cock-sure 
 about certain punitive measures as we used 
 to be. Leastwise hunger is not to be pooh- 
 poohed, and our smile is a bit awry when we 
 recall the queer conceit of prisoners that each 
 man has a "tape." Is not this expression, 
 said to be common among the cons., rather 
 pitiful? — "My tape [worm] got fed, but I 
 got none. It takes all I get to satisfy the 
 tape, and there is none left for me." Alack, 
 to have an enemy within the walls ! And to 
 have it thrive in perfect safety! Scotty 
 leaves his testimony as follows : "For a year 
 I went to bed hungry and woke up hungry — 
 wanted more but could not get it." If this 
 is a part of the punishment of prison, it is 
 no inconsiderable element in discipline. 
 
 The ambition of the college youth is ex- 
 pressed most frequently in such terms as, 
 
68 SCOTTY KID 
 
 "Making" "I am S°^ n S *° tr Y to make the 
 the crew, or the football team, or 
 
 Hospital j un i or society." The con. has his 
 ambition. He too has his heart set on mak- 
 ing a place above his fellows, and, like the 
 collegian, he must pay his price for it. It will 
 not be a matter of athletic training to become 
 physically fit. Quite the contrary, he must 
 qualify as an unfit. His objective point is 
 not so much otium cum dignitate — a free- 
 dom from hard work and difficulty of the 
 jute mill — but it is simply hospital "scof- 
 fings" (do you regard it as remarkable that 
 the bum dialect is so rich in words for eat- 
 ing?). You have to get by the "croaker" to 
 get into the hospital. It is to be presumed 
 that he is no fool (the doctor), and that he 
 will guard the commissary department as 
 well as he can. In fact, he can be relied on 
 to lean a bit in the other direction — toward 
 conservatism — when it comes to the deter- 
 mining as to whether a con. is sick enough for 
 the hospital. The eating of a bit of soap 
 may make a man unhappy enough "under 
 his apron" to desire the conveniences of a 
 
GROUP OF SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE AT PEPEEKEO 
 
 (see page 211) 
 
 PAHOA MISSION 
 
 (see page 201) 
 
PRISON FARE 69 
 
 hospital, but the "croaker" may regard the 
 case as one serious enough only for an emetic, 
 and he may order the con, to go down to the 
 mill, and he will send down some medicine 
 later. That must be a disappointment, the 
 keener that the price paid in real physical 
 discomfort is high, to be followed by a dreary 
 stretch of the old malady, hunger. But there 
 is another road to the hospital. Here come 
 the long line of men swinging along in lock 
 step. They are bound for the mill. Out 
 steps one man from the line — the privilege of 
 the sick — and the doctor looks him over. He 
 is a sick man even in the eyes of the most 
 adverse critic. He must go to his drum, and 
 soon he will be in the hospital. Not at first 
 will he appreciate any of the advantages of 
 his change ; he is paying his price, but in the 
 glorious convalescent period he has his re- 
 ward in eggs, meat, and even pie and coif ee 
 — such "good scoffings." 
 Kerosene, And the secret of it all lay in 
 
 Hi^Pri sirapk coa l oil. How it was that 
 of Food *h e ^ rs t man °f them came to try 
 Stuffs it, guessed that to inject some 
 
70 SCOTTY KID 
 
 kerosene into his arm would bring about a 
 poison to his system, we do not know. 
 "Risk?" Of course, that is a part of the 
 game. Incidentally, see how the "tape" is 
 triumphed over. The hospital scoffings actu- 
 ally provide for both. Stated colloquially, 
 "His tape gets a good square, also himself." 
 All the roads lead to this food question, 
 for here in our notes we observe that the Kid 
 
 enviously refers to trusties as be- 
 Clover m S the only well-fed, together 
 
 with the expert men in various 
 departments — carpenters, engineers, chief 
 laundrymen. Shoemakers, and the like. 
 Extras are added to their rations, and they 
 have no inducement to try and "make the 
 hospital." The Kid too looks back on his 
 period of plenty. For a year and a half his 
 job was in the dining room as waiter. It 
 was a delectable company of choice spirits 
 who were his contemporaries. Talk of your 
 aristocracy by virtue of achievement ! There 
 was the cook, in there for murder. The com- 
 missary man was likewise a murderer, while 
 the head dishwasher was doing time for rape. 
 
PRISON FARE 71 
 
 And was not the Kid himself a robber? The 
 chief bookkeeper was in for arson, but re- 
 member this: this group of experts (may we 
 not say Rotarians?) were all getting enough 
 to eat. 
 
 And the talk of the pen, what of that? Of 
 the sort such men must needs talk of. God 
 
 pity the Kid, if there be any gen- 
 " Getaway" . 
 
 Glory u ^ ne Kid; in that number he will 
 
 surely never emerge a Kid, nor 
 did the Scotty Kid fail of his liberal educa- 
 tion in crime, though he was no infant when 
 he went in. First of all subjects of interest 
 to the penned-in human animal is his freedom 
 and how to regain it. All this sort of talk 
 will be in terms of "getaway." Every man 
 will have his own theory. One will tell you 
 that the electric wires that go over the wall 
 with a rope thrown over them would stand 
 the weight of a man. Another claims that 
 the little donkey cart that daily carries the 
 refuse from the prison outside the walls 
 would make a right glorious chariot to free- 
 dom. A man could cover himself with a 
 variegated garment of garbage and ride out 
 
72 SCOTTY KID 
 
 safe enough until he reached the pile and 
 then a dash — malodorous perhaps; but, 
 surely, the prison hounds would have a run 
 for their money. But there are stories 
 enough of actual accomplishment. The old 
 walls are alive with traditions of successful 
 getaways, many of them embellished by the 
 retelling till scarcely recognizable. Not one 
 of the men inside but dreams some time of 
 an exploit like that. Not every one of them 
 would have the nerve, say, of one "Whitey 
 Collins," for failure may well spell death; at 
 any rate, has not every one heard what is 
 meted out to the man who is brought back? 
 As for Whitey, he was no common man. 
 The beau ideal of a venturesome, keen, pol- 
 ished and successful con. — willing to "get 
 it all in a trick or croak [die] in the act if 
 he had to." 
 
 Of the time he "copped a jug" in Seattle 
 we need say little (save that it was robbing a 
 Whitey bank), or that he made his lam 
 Collins, with ten thousand dobbies, tipped 
 "Pen" the s hack and rode on the blind to 
 
 Frisco, only that you may want to 
 
PRISON FARE 73 
 
 know that the "shack" is a brakeman and 
 that the "blind" is the door of the mail 
 car that is never supposed to be opened, and 
 between there and the engine is safe harbor- 
 age which sometimes may be purchased for a 
 dollar or two. How he gets his sister to hide 
 the cash, and in his joyous confidence goes 
 from dump to dump sloppin' up — all this is 
 commonplace enough. It must sound good 
 to anyone that a bum has such a good name 
 for a saloon as a "dump"; why, bless you, 
 we couldn't, with all our fond regard for 
 the place, do better than that ourselves; and 
 as to "sloppin"— glorious ! This "sloppin" 
 business loosens his tongue while it fastens 
 him in other respects, for soon two "flies" 
 "glue" him and, ignoring protestations of 
 innocence, put bracelets and jewelry on his 
 mits and wings — "How like the fond em- 
 bellishment of a lovely demoiselle," says one. 
 There are distinct differences, but here is 
 where Whitey shows to advantage neverthe- 
 less. The "flies" know they have 
 Personally , M ,. 
 
 Conducted here a man as smar t as they 
 
 make them," hence the jewelry, 
 
74 SCOTT Y KID 
 
 and the sheriff sits close on that ride up 
 through Oregon on the "rambler." It was a 
 warm night; the two "flies" may go over into 
 another car for a drink, but the sheriff sits 
 close and the air comes in not too coolly 
 through the open window while the train is 
 rambling along through the "jungles" of 
 Oregon. Whitey has his lamps on the sheriff 
 and sizes him up as a big stiff of a hoosier, 
 and evidently makes no mistakes, where an 
 error may mean everything. He rises and 
 looks out of the window while his blinks are 
 glittering a path into the darkness. There is 
 a crash, a rattle of chains ; somehow the win- 
 dow has shut with a slam, but Whitey has 
 leaped out into the night and on rushes the 
 rambler. The whole car is in uproar; the 
 two "bulls" notify the shack, who stops the 
 train far past the place of tremendous impact 
 where fell to earth this manacled, desperate 
 convict. Back perhaps a quarter of a mile 
 go the small band of drummers, farmers, and 
 hangers-on, headed by the sheriff and detec- 
 tives with flickering lanterns, and it is an 
 hour and a half of time and a mile away from 
 
PRISON FARE 75 
 
 the track that they finally find Whitey with 
 hand-shackles off and one leg free, A few 
 minutes more would have done the whole 
 thing. Expecting to find him maimed and 
 broken, they are amazed to see nothing seri- 
 ously the matter with him, and once more, 
 but even more securely manacled, they bear 
 him back to trial and conviction 
 
 But they have not broken his spirit. 
 Never does such a man give up hope. It is 
 "All Con- in the pen now, where Scotty Kid 
 
 siderable g rs |. k nows an( j admires him, that 
 Men — , ' 
 
 Forbear to Collins makes one more dash for 
 
 Babble" freedom. It is singular, when 
 one thinks of it, that although these men talk 
 freely of their past to one another, encour- 
 aging and abetting each other in all sorts of 
 crime, yet when it comes to a "getaway," 
 your sly con. keeps his own counsel. And 
 well he may, seeing that the risk is tremen- 
 dous, and he has all too much reason to doubt 
 the conscientious scruples of the trapped 
 fox who is his mate. 
 
 Now we will let Whitey figure again. 
 The gang is on its way home from the jute 
 
76 SCOTTY KID 
 
 mill. Their march takes the men through 
 a narrow lane with a fifteen-foot smooth 
 board fence on either side. At the lower end 
 of this, on a bridge over the top, sit two gat 
 screws with loaded guns, while on the hill end 
 is a tower manned with watchful guards. 
 To make a getaway there seems the height 
 of folly. It is sure death or failure— which 
 perhaps is quite as bad. 
 
 One night the herd is winding slowly up 
 the hill. A pair of keen eyes have noted an 
 „ irregularity in this even surface 
 Between of board fence. Those same keen 
 Death and e y es have marked the relation of 
 certain knot holes to each other, 
 also about how big they are. In the jute 
 mill, some time, it has been contrived to 
 whittle short pegs ; how long they had to be 
 secreted one does not know. That afternoon 
 was the time to use them and only this keen- 
 eyed criminal could have told why. Out 
 from the gang a man quickly detaches him- 
 self and the line closes up and goes on un- 
 concernedly, with perhaps never a backward 
 glance. The man quickly puts peg after 
 
PRISON FARE 77 
 
 Over the P e & * n pl ace > r * ses swiftly and 
 Fence noiselessly with no false move, 
 
 Is Out an( j - s oyer ^ e f ence before any 
 
 unusual motion has been detected bv the men 
 on the wall. Now the gang has come up to 
 the prison in apparent unconcern, though 
 under every striped shirt is a consuming curi- 
 osity to know how fares it with him who was 
 recently one of them, and now — . The reg- 
 ular counting takes place, in routine dullness 
 at first, but with keen apprehension when it 
 is discovered that one is short, but who? A 
 roll call shows number 2274 absent. "Who is 
 the guy?" It is Whitey Collins's cell which 
 is vacant, and shortly the big steam whistle 
 screeches out its summons to search parties 
 and a warning to the outside world which 
 can be heard for miles around that a con- 
 vict has escaped. 
 
 And Whitey? He is scuttling toward the 
 railroad; in a near roundhouse he soon man- 
 
 _ m ages to steal a set of lumpers 
 
 The Nerve , & „ x , . ... J , , ^ 
 
 that Wins (overalls) and is citizen-clad save 
 
 that he has no "lid." None but a 
 
 seasoned crook would have thought of going 
 
78 SCOTTY KID 
 
 right into town for it. He looks like a "jerry 
 boss" (section overseer) or a farmer, but who 
 would have thought of going right to the 
 "can" and asking a "bull" for a "lid"? It is 
 a plan of daring that succeeds. He gets a 
 hat and then mopes away into a barrel house, 
 which, of course, proves his undoing, as it 
 did before. (By the way, "barrel house" is 
 a bit less odious than "dump," but the func- 
 tion of the places is the same.) A fool is 
 found willing to treat — there always are 
 some — but this one pays more speedily for 
 his folly than do most. He is taken into a 
 back room in confidence, struck between the 
 eyes with a piece of wood, and soon Whitey 
 is reclothed in better stuff than overalls, 
 while the frjend who would treat awakes 
 later to an unpleasant dream. But Whitey 
 is now out on the main stem (street) like any 
 citizen of the burg. There is a reward out 
 The Folly ' or him dead or alive, and all the 
 that "bulls" of the town are on the qui 
 
 Frustrates ^ But what careg Whitey? 
 
 A bigger fool he than his late victim. He 
 has so many "slops" that his secret is oozing 
 
PRISON FARE 79 
 
 out all over him, and what does he care? He 
 has played a frightful game with death and 
 nearly won, only to fall like a common drunk 
 when a cop jumps out from behind a stair- 
 way. He simply is too "sloppy" to meet the 
 situation and he is soon led back like a beaten 
 cur to the "Big House." 
 
 And now is the trial of nerve. You have 
 played and lost, Whitey Collins; can you 
 grin and cash up ? They strip him 
 Collinsf* anc * wash him and throw him in 
 the hole for that night, none too 
 gently you might imagine. It will be strange 
 if our sympathies are not largely with the 
 screws on this occasion, but they may shift 
 again. First the warden must give him a 
 "balling out," whatever that is. (Perhaps 
 we will have to put ourselves in the warden's 
 place to know just what to say to Whitey 
 during this conversation.) He surely is a 
 nuisance, but we fear it will make very little 
 difference what we say. Handcuffed, tied 
 up against the wall of an empty cell, face 
 backward, he gets the next dose of his reme- 
 dial medicine, as with body bared he shivers 
 
80 SCOTTY KID 
 
 in apprehension. Probably he can sense the 
 meaning of the shuffling feet and can hear 
 the very rustling of the huge water hose 
 against the floor. He knows instinctively 
 that the croaker is standing there (how queer 
 that a croaker should be a doctor, and that to 
 croak should mean to die! Is this, then, a 
 wholesale judgment on an honorable pro- 
 fession?) This croaker has his watch in 
 hand, and two cons, are placing the nozzle in 
 the hands of the head jailer. Then, in 
 strength to "redden his hide," out comes a 
 stream of cold water on his back. For fifteen 
 or twenty minutes this remorseless weight 
 of cruel water seeks along his spine for the 
 weak spot that is sure to be there, and when 
 it finds it, there comes the unsuppressible 
 yell, and soon, exhausted, Whitey lands limp 
 and senseless against the wall. Now comes 
 the function of the croaker. He feels the 
 pulse of the prostrate man, watches the re- 
 turn of consciousness, figures in his mind how 
 soon he may stand another dose, and soon — 
 we will not say how soon — up against the 
 wall, his teeth set and lips pressed till they 
 
PRISON FARE 81 
 
 are white, does Collins make his expiation. 
 Will he "bring forth fruits for repentance"? 
 Not he. If we could see inside that seething 
 brain, we should certainly discover, Spartan 
 though he appears, a grim, implacable hatred 
 of the powers he is fighting. He must spend 
 time in the "hole," there to contract rheu- 
 matism and to brood in fierce re- 
 P^j volt. Some day he will have an- 
 
 other chance, and finally on a 
 scaffold in a neighboring State he will render 
 up his misspent life at the demand of society, 
 which doubtless could have made a useful 
 citizen of him but failed. 
 
 Apropos of punishments, look at one, 
 Goat-Island Tommy by name. He too is no 
 Th Sunday school superintendent. 
 
 Expiation He is implicated in a jail break, 
 of Goat- where broken iron bars in the jute 
 mill are in evidence. He must be 
 summarily dealt with. See him there. He is 
 hanging from something closely resembling 
 a cross. Nay, there are no nails, simply 
 fastenings, wherebj^ his feet are a few inches 
 from the ground and his hands tied to his 
 
82 SCOTTY KID 
 
 side, while his weight is suspended by fasten- 
 ings to shoulders and waist. Hung out in 
 the open, he is exposed to the sun, and flies 
 swarm unmolested over his face for six hours. 
 The first hour may not have been so much 
 to stand, but O, the next five! 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 GOOD THINGS IN THE PEN 
 
 Certainly there were ! One could hardly 
 expect all cons, to say so. No great num- 
 ber of them make the right-angle turn of 
 Brother Tommy, and naturally the old 
 enmity against prison regulations over- 
 shadows all else. But, man alive ! how about 
 Christmas? Society must have forgotten its 
 bitter grudge against you on that day at 
 least. The plentiful good food ought to 
 stand out in your barren dietary, if nothing 
 else. How about the plentiful supply of 
 good beef and potatoes? What a time the 
 "tape" must have had with the puddings and 
 pie! Then, aside from the "scoffings" re- 
 member the sports, the races, the very re- 
 spectable vaudeville, which talented inmates 
 were well qualified to give. Even the "mass" 
 of CHRIS T-mass somehow re- 
 
 ChristMAS „ . 
 
 in the Pen fl ec * s something better than our 
 
 poor humanity could have in- 
 
 83 
 
84 SCOTTY KID 
 
 vented. To be sure, to many the Christ-child 
 
 has never grown up into the suffering, and 
 
 finally risen and triumphant CHRIST. 
 
 Such never know him in any other capacity 
 
 than that of the Babe in the manger. A 
 
 tragic loss this, to the individual and the 
 
 world, but better, far better for that world, 
 
 to have known him only in the manger than 
 
 not at all. Thus a little light from the Star 
 
 pierces the prison walls and the still more 
 
 impenetrable breast of the cons. 
 
 Among the other good things must be 
 
 mentioned the shortening of sentences on 
 
 account of good behavior. Think 
 For Good n i /*» 
 
 Behavior °* getting six months off on a 
 
 three years' sentence! Still finer 
 is it to have eight whole years off a twenty 
 years' sentence — a little lifetime to the pris- 
 oner of the pen. (Is it beginning to dawn 
 on you that this word "pen" is perhaps the 
 word derived from the term used in corral- 
 ling animals?) Tommy mentions in this 
 connection his great appreciation of the per- 
 mission given him two months before his 
 release to grow his hair and comb it, "so that 
 
GOOD THINGS IN PEN 85 
 
 it will look like a man's instead of being 
 shorn like a sheep." 
 
 It would seem too as though convicts were 
 encouraged to make good use of their spare 
 Made in— ti me - Very cleverly done is some 
 Walla of the curio work in the way of 
 
 Walla canes, picture frames, boxes inlaid 
 
 with abalone shells, and various things made 
 of bones. A curio case is maintained at the 
 showroom, and visitors are glad to buy 
 things, many of which have intrinsic merit. 
 Each man gets full credit for all sales, and 
 everything is deposited to his credit, to be 
 drawn on from time to time for materials or 
 personal purchases. It is not infrequently 
 the fortune of men to have a fund of one 
 hundred dollars to their credit when dis- 
 charged on which to begin anew. The State 
 too makes a little contribution to a man's new 
 start. He gets his suit, a new one, though 
 made of what the cons, call "bulls wool" — 
 which becomes greenish-yellow after a little 
 wear. The derby hat is all right, as is also 
 the five dollars in cash and a ticket in any 
 direction covering two hundred and fifty 
 
86 SCOTTY KID 
 
 miles — enough to take one into the next 
 State, says Tommy, which in this case hap- 
 pened to be Idaho. 
 
 We get a good word about the Sunday 
 
 services* It appears that at this time there 
 
 were no chaplains, and volunteers 
 
 Audiences conducted services every Sunday, 
 
 None too and all the convicts were expected 
 
 Dtepowd to he P resent in the lar S e din " 
 ing hall. It is easy to imagine 
 
 the bitterness that burned in many a breast, 
 and there is little doubt that the very men 
 who have won the kindly thought of Brother 
 Tommy (from his new point of view) are 
 anathematized in the most vitriolic manner 
 by many another. Even Jesus Christ had 
 just as wide a variance of judgment passed 
 upon his utterances — another illustration 
 of the parable of the different grounds 
 on which the seed fell. This is to account, 
 partly at least, for the savage things that 
 are said by ex-convicts and visitors con- 
 cerning the sermons of prison chaplains. 
 The salutary message is by no means pleas- 
 ing to all hearers. Singing is always wel- 
 
GOOD THINGS IN PEN 87 
 
 come — which fact, by the way, by no means 
 determines its religious value. This might 
 be stated as a corollary of the preceding 
 proposition, as follows: The message pleas- 
 ing to all hearers is by no means salu- 
 tary. Perhaps a larger application of this 
 truth might be made of church choirs. 
 
 So you have preachers "that put the cons, 
 to sleep." Heigho! And whose fault is 
 Responsi- that? It is too late to inquire. 
 
 Sleep f ° r We mi S ht " share and share alike " 
 During in the odium involved in that 
 
 Sermons statement, and let the volunteer 
 preacher off with only his fifty per cent of 
 blame. Meanwhile any of us who are dis- 
 posed to occasionally tell a message to con- 
 victs may be pardoned for thanking God that 
 we do not have to do it every Sunday. 
 
 But there was "that elderly woman known 
 as Mother Smith." Many years of loving 
 
 ltr% . . service had earned for her the 
 
 Plain and 
 
 Common right to the name "Mother." 
 
 Mother "Plain and common" the boy said 
 
 she was, like the very best things 
 
 we have in life. And she was not afraid to 
 
88 SCOTTY KID 
 
 pray and preach and sing the good news in 
 the plainest, tenderest way. "The wonder 
 of it is that the cons, would sing for her and 
 with her?" No, that's not the wonder; it 
 would be far more wonderful if they did not. 
 Not the first six months, mind you. Doubt- 
 less Mother Smith had her times of perilous 
 "try-out" while these wolves of society were 
 determining in their sordid minds what sort 
 of game she was trying to play, and to beat 
 
 her to it. The counterfeit sort of 
 Mothering "mothering" which well-disposed, 
 
 sentimental women have tried to 
 pass on convicts is trampled under foot 
 while ravenously the herd turn and do what 
 rending they may. No, this "mothering" 
 business is perilous. The real kind has paid 
 its price for maternity ; it knows a suffering 
 of sympathy. Hers was readily accepted at 
 full value in the pen. So Mother Smith has 
 a wider sonship than any one knows unless 
 she herself has gone over to the other side, 
 where she may safely bear the knowledge. 
 Just before she casts her crown at the feet of 
 Him who loved her and gave himself for her, 
 
GOOD THINGS IN PEN 89 
 
 some winged "minister" may enjoy her 
 wonderment when he shows her the number 
 of stars in it. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 FREE FROM THE LAW 
 
 There's the five dollars. What will he 
 do with it? What would you do with five 
 
 dollars under the circumstances? 
 Spend It? ^^ e choice would determine much 
 
 concerning your bent and f urnish 
 a fair basis for judgment as to just how you 
 would turn out — the net effects on you, say, 
 of that beneficial system called the pen. As 
 for the Kid, he wants two drinks of whisky, 
 and gets them forthwith. It is a good long 
 time since he had one even, and number two 
 must have been sheer bravado, the intoxica- 
 tion of freedom. Next on the bill of wants 
 comes a sack of Bull Durham — we have no 
 Tobacco desire to advertise that particular 
 and Booze, brand, so are constrained to say 
 Copartners ^&\ ^ e association of the two ar- 
 ticles is all too frequent. A reformed drunk- 
 ard once said that he had never known a con- 
 firmed drunkard who was also a tobacco user 
 
 90 
 
FREE FROM THE LAW 91 
 
 to break away successfully from the drink 
 habit without cutting loose from the tobacco 
 habit also. If he did not cut out the weed, he 
 almost inevitably fell to the booze. There 
 are psychological grounds for such a belief. 
 But to return to the Kid "blowing in" that 
 five dollars: next came the cigarettes, and 
 then (significant of the opium fiend) he must 
 have chocolate candy, soft and rich. We 
 have friends, not all feminine, who after an 
 enforced diet such as we have outlined at 
 Walla Walla, would have put some of their 
 five dollars into chocolate creams, quite irre- 
 spective of the dope fiend's excuse. 
 
 Are you happy, O Scotty? "Aye, to be 
 free." He is restive, however, as he tells us, 
 in the thought that somehow the world has 
 moved on ahead of him, and in the suspicion 
 too that everybody knows him to be a re- 
 leased con. 
 
 It is characteristic of his devil-may-care 
 
 How Unac- kind that he must blow in all the 
 
 customed fiye doUars first rfd in « on cush „ 
 
 Affluence 
 
 Breeds ions" as far as the ticket would 
 
 Profligacy ta fc e> \fc e a "bum sport/' before 
 
92 SCOTTY KID 
 
 resorting to the old methods. Three years 
 taken out of any profession would render 
 hesitant any, even the most expert practi- 
 tioner. Beating one's way on trains re- 
 quires nerve, and that may have suffered 
 some deterioration in our recently sheltered 
 existence. Nevertheless, there is nothing for 
 it, but that we must beat our way to Green 
 River, Wyoming. Did you think that a man 
 on a careful diet for three years— we trust 
 that we made it plain that the Kid dieted — 
 could take the Walla Walla mixture (his 
 first purchase) and "get away with it"? 
 
 Only as far as Wyoming. Now 
 Paying the J . • i.- u n 
 
 Price we P a y the price which was all 
 
 down on the list, had we but 
 
 known it. The Kid is terribly sick, and with 
 
 weakness, nausea, and painful neck spends a 
 
 few wretched days, begging mostly for 
 
 money. The first dollar goes to a Chinaman 
 
 for yen shee opium to be eaten, partly to 
 
 deaden pain and partly to inspire him with 
 
 illusions which appeared to be something 
 
 like courage. 
 
 At this point comes in the "geed" neck and 
 
FREE FROM THE LAW 93 
 
 the doctor. This breaking out on the neck 
 
 _ into offensive looking sores is 
 
 Compensa- ° 
 
 tion, Even tubercular, so the doctor says. 
 
 ina"Geed" jj e did no ^ sa y so then, but it was 
 Neck 
 
 the general testimony of physi- 
 cians elsewhere that the sort of tubercular 
 glands which Scotty had was quite incurable. 
 But, at any rate, he advised this patient to 
 go to the Hot Springs in Arkansas and take 
 the treatment. He did more ; he helped with 
 money and supplied a testimonial letter — 
 "To whom it may concern" ; and the Kid saw 
 to it that it concerned a goodly number. It 
 was urged that all kindly people might help 
 the poor, afflicted one to the Hot Springs, 
 and added that he was "worthy." "The 
 Worthy, or doctor must have been a prophet 
 Just when he used that term 'worthy,' 
 
 Needy? say you. Ah, this "worthy" busi- 
 ness is difficult. Who is, pray? If it is 
 "needy" you mean, the Kid can qualify, 
 which remark applies likewise to the seedy 
 bum who frequently comes into your office. 
 He claims to be worthy, while he is simply 
 needy, even as you and I. As to indiscrim- 
 
94 SCOTTY KID 
 
 inate giving, that is another thing, but the 
 Associated-Charities people have dinged that 
 bogy into us till we are all happily justified 
 in keeping our reluctant dollar in our willing 
 pocket. Anyway, the letter helped the Kid 
 mightily, so that by the aid of the daily con- 
 coction of yen shee (varied by a little cocaine 
 sniffed up the nose) he reached Colorado — 
 in the direst want? Not at all. He never 
 made less than five dollars a day including 
 his meals. At Trinidad, Colorado, they 
 
 m%. « ±<u seemed to be "wise" to the Kid's 
 The Path to 
 
 Freedom— industry. He was there arrested 
 Unsightly f or begging in every store on the 
 main street. It is probable that 
 another use for the "geed" neck occurred to 
 him here. The police looked at that neck and 
 considered possible doctor's bills, not to 
 speak of contagion, and they concluded that 
 it would be cheaper to give the offender 
 forty-eight hours notice to quit their town 
 than to punish. The obvious moral is that 
 we all are tempted to "pass up" our prob- 
 lems to some one else. The problem in this 
 case was only too glad to be passed on, save 
 
FREE FROM THE LAW 95 
 
 that he had done a good business there and 
 liked every one, as he says, "except the bull 
 that pinched me." 
 
 Through Texas in a boxcar, fast asleep by 
 virtue of the yen shee, stopping at various 
 towns, and finally into Arkansas, the account 
 makes interesting reading, had we the space 
 for it. 
 
 No more railroading for a while. The 
 program now calls for bathhouse treatment. 
 The bums there said that only 
 paupers were admitted free to the 
 Government Hot Springs for treatment. 
 All right : it is easy to swear to being a 
 pauper, and soon he has a month's ticket 
 which entitles him to a bath every morning. 
 This means an hour of a hot pool in company 
 with others suffering from long-standing dis- 
 eases. There is some of the water to be taken 
 internally, and then, when one is cooled off, 
 there is the whole afternoon for one's chosen 
 profession. Now, besides the oldtime lux- 
 uries to be obtained by begging there must 
 be added certain blood medicines. Quite 
 luxurious beggary this, and three months and 
 
96 SCOTTY KID 
 
 a half of it. Then, not cured but very much 
 better, comes a trip through Oklahoma and 
 the Indian Territory — what shall we call it? 
 — a professional side trip. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 TRAVELING 
 
 This tramp business is rambling even to 
 tell about it. It is sordid too, and leads to 
 Wander- no greater respect for one's kind, 
 Lust but it was the Kid's life and not 
 
 without human interest. It is conceivable 
 that there are statistics of these Bedouin 
 tribes in America, with some more or less 
 artificial classification of them. They all 
 travel, both to avoid changes of temperature 
 and work. In the approach of winter most 
 of them migrate. To be caught by snow 
 and ice while still "on the road" is to court 
 being called a "y a P>" which signifies that 
 such a one must be "soft in the nut." To be 
 sure, not all go to warmer climates. Some 
 of the wisest old guys hire a joint with sim- 
 plest sort of outfit and stock up with food 
 and tobacco and other luxuries and wait for 
 spring. Such, of course, have to save for it 
 out of their earnings ( ?) during the summer. 
 
 97 
 
98 SCOTTY KID 
 
 The Well able are some of them to do 
 
 Law of so. The majority, perhaps, make 
 
 Migration for Lower California) or New 
 
 Mexico, or even Florida. In summer, back 
 streams this flotsam (or is it jetsam?) north- 
 ward, where under open skies, which look 
 down now and then on friendly haymows, 
 foraging may be done in the neighborhood of 
 prosperous and industrious society. In the 
 wake of this army (it perhaps resembles an 
 army of worms more than anything else) 
 can be traced robbery and all sorts of crime, 
 while the streets of the city are infested with 
 quite varied efforts to get something for 
 nothing. 
 
 Somewhere on the mainland is a town 
 called Muskogee. Here it was that the Kid 
 
 Capitalist, experienced that which we will 
 but tell somewhat as he relates it. "I 
 
 ungry was plinging on the stems of 
 Muscogee for nearly one day. I had 
 bummed seven plunks, and that night I went 
 to the express office and got an order for 
 seven dobbies, so that I would have it when 
 I rambled back to Hot Springs to boil out 
 
TRAVELING 99 
 
 my disease. With the permit I had for free 
 baths I could cash this order to pay for my 
 floppins and scoffings. So after I had the 
 money order all my money was gone and I 
 discovered I was very hungry. It was a very 
 crimpy [cold] night and freezing, and there 
 were very few people on the stems, so I tried 
 my best to bum me a few cents to get me a 
 flop. But I failed, so I said, 'I will hunt me 
 up a bull and ask him to let me 
 
 in a Storm ^°P * n a can over n ight, as it is too 
 crimpy to railroad out of the 
 burg/ A bum would croak on a night like 
 this on a rambler. So I moped around and 
 finally I met a bull. The way I knew him 
 he had his tin can stuck on his chest [that 
 was merely his official star] with his number 
 on it, and the sheriff was with him. Then I 
 begged both of them official guys for a place 
 to sleep in the can — told them too of my geed 
 neck. The sheriff turned his spark on it to 
 see. Then he said: 'Kid, we can't put you 
 in the city jail, it is crowded. But there is 
 a restaurant up on a certain street. You go 
 up there and sit in the sitting room by the 
 
100 SCOTTY KID 
 
 stove and behave yourself and you can stay 
 there all night/ 
 
 "That was kind of the bull, so I went up 
 to the dump [you will remember that was a 
 Fools that saloon] while the sheriff tele- 
 "s m ff»° phones up to the chuck house 
 Remained guys, preparing them for my com- 
 to Pay jng. By and by I got there and sat 
 
 up close to the smudge [fire — it does not 
 somehow sound complimentary] in the main 
 room. There was a place partitioned off like 
 a box, where people sat to scoff [this does 
 not mean offensive ridicule; it is just plain 
 eating], when in come some Tommies [fast 
 women] and sports. The call for oysters, 
 some stewed, some raw and fried. Say, by 
 this time I was tired and sleepy and would 
 liked to have flopped in a bed, and now the 
 smell of the oysters made me most hungry. 
 I didn't have a bean to buy with, and I didn't 
 have the gall to ask the chuck-house man, 
 afraid that he might think I was a particular 
 bum and that I was lucky to be at the smudge 
 and out of the crimpy night. In comes the 
 waiter where I was, and by this time I was 
 
THE ANDERSON PARTY IN HILO 
 
 (see page 210) 
 
 READY FOR SERVICE 
 
TRAVELING 101 
 
 groaning inside for raw oysters. My nerve 
 The Lure was coming back, and I braced the 
 of the waiter and told him how sleepy 
 
 I was, and that I could not rest 
 my geed neck on that chair by sitting up 
 straight. I asked him if I could not get over 
 in the corner and flop under a table — all the 
 time I was honing for raw oysters. I could 
 not ask for them, and in the meantime an- 
 other order came for them, which made me 
 all the hungrier. After the waiter came back 
 he said: 'Say, Bum, I will let you flop over 
 in that little room where we store the chuck, 
 and you can put the old clothes on the floor 
 and make a pillow for your nut. I will call 
 you at 6 a. m. before the day shift comes on/ 
 Then he said good night and closed the door. 
 Then I flopped down, still crazy for those 
 raw oysters. I hadn't been down on the 
 floor but a few minutes when I found that 
 at my head on the floor was an open keg. 
 It was full of raw oysters. There I lay and 
 ate oysters till I could eat no more. At 
 times the waiter would come into that same 
 room and poke his mit into that same keg 
 
102 SCOTTY KID 
 
 and get some oysters, I suppose for orders 
 [thank God you and I were not eating there 
 that night], and whenever he came I made 
 out that I was sound asleep. After he was 
 gone I would reach out my hand and get my 
 heart's desire [we concede that the difference 
 between your heart and your stomach was 
 not appreciable in those days, Brother 
 Tommy]. Next morning I woke up and 
 The had a little breakfast just for a 
 
 Disillusion stall. Couldn't eat much — told 
 o atiety ^ e g U y that I was sick to my 
 stomach." And well you might be. That 
 "stall" figure is not so hard. It must have 
 been rather burdensome business covering 
 the tracks of the oyster raid with a half- 
 hearted attempt at breakfast. The next day, 
 like a good many others, is a chronicle of 
 rambling on a rattler, but it is not pleasant 
 to think of possible effects on the patrons 
 of that "chuck"-house, even before people 
 knew enough to be hygienic. 
 
 There is nothing really "nice" about the 
 bumming business. We must get used to all 
 sorts of downright meanness and trickery if 
 
TRAVELING 103 
 
 Preying on we S° further. How is this, for 
 the Sym- instance ? Suppose you had 
 pat etic worked in the railroad line, had 
 "braked" it for a while, enough to entitle you 
 to become a member of a union. If you 
 could make a line of talk in connection with 
 railroading you could get a job for a week 
 or two once a year. You could get along the 
 rest of the time, but would you? There's 
 the union card. We do not pretend to say 
 what could be done with one now, but at the 
 time of the story, a con. could travel all over 
 the State of Texas and other States, "flash- 
 ing" the union card to his brothers and show 
 perhaps a "wrapped" arm, purposely fixed 
 to capture the sympathy of the big-hearted 
 railroad "brothers." By the way, the tech- 
 nical name for this sore arm is a "bug." It 
 is fixed with a little acid and salve put on it. 
 The "bug" is a well-known institution and 
 it would bring more money daily than a good 
 mechanic could earn. Maybe working the 
 "brotherhood" dodge is not so easy as it was, 
 but it never was anything but contemptible. 
 To be sure, the "geed" neck of the Kid was 
 
104 SCOTTY KID 
 
 no "bug" in the truest technical sense, but he 
 used it as though it were. Not only did he 
 use the Doctor's certificate, as told above, 
 but it was easy to show the neck itself, the 
 very loathsomeness of which could hardly 
 fail of promoting sympathy, and be it ad- 
 mitted by all of us that to give money is the 
 easiest and quickest way to express sym- 
 pathy and at the same time rid ourselves of 
 any further responsibility in the matter. 
 Think of getting from three dollars to as 
 high as fifteen dollars in one day — all ex- 
 pressing that queer mixture of human senti- 
 
 The Cheap- ment > namel y> V^Y* abhorrence, 
 est (Most and desire of complete riddance, 
 harmful) The Kid tells us later that he 
 
 Getting learned to inflame the neck and 
 Rid of a bring out its worst features to en- 
 large his revenues. Of this more 
 anon. Just now we are horrified to find that 
 the creation of side partners and helpers in 
 this loathsome trade, brought into being a 
 systematic effort to entice boys into the same 
 sort of life. To a boy listener it is not hard 
 to throw a glamour over the roving free exist- 
 
TRAVELING 105 
 
 Leading- ence, freedom from work and re- 
 Boys straint. Then generous distribu- 
 Astray ^ Qn Q £ can( jy 5 i ce cream, and 
 
 even cigarettes, gets the entree, and the 
 stories of travel and wonders of the world 
 (some imaginary, such as "lemonade 
 springs" and "cigarette groves"), and much 
 flattery, finish the business. Suggestions of 
 easy money, "cracking a peat" (which you 
 will remember is getting into a safe, with 
 some of the crudeness of the crime eliminated 
 by the figurative language) — all this stirs 
 up the cupidity of the boy, and the first 
 lesson in beating his way on a train comes 
 next perhaps. He is getting to be rather 
 proud of his relations with his "Jocker," or 
 master bum, and he is ready perchance to 
 have the "bug" burned into his arm with 
 acid. It is no difficult step for him to go 
 from house to house with his "hard-luck 
 story" to the effect that he has no people and 
 wants to get some money to see a doctor. 
 He gets considerable money, of course, folks 
 being tender-hearted to a surprising extent, 
 notwithstanding the number of times they 
 
106 SCOTTY KID 
 
 have been imposed upon, and the "Jocker" 
 (or is it joker?) drinks it up at the saloon. 
 After traveling with this sort of company 
 the boy soon "falls" for some misdemeanor 
 or crime and lands up in the pen or asylum, 
 to finally develop, perhaps, into the most 
 hardened criminal, and maybe end his life 
 on the gallows. 
 
 It takes more than ordinary talent to bum 
 in a big city like Chicago. It is something 
 Rising in even to get there. The Kid 
 One's "floated into Shi" inside of a box- 
 
 _ onto car - The seal had to be forced, 
 Chicago and he rode quite comfortably on 
 some sacks of wheat. He had his prefer- 
 ences for certain streets while he honored the 
 city with his presence. He liked the "stem" 
 called Clark, where he hung out in a "dump" 
 — please do not lose sight of that most fra- 
 grant name for the saloon. Heard ye ever 
 of "Mulligan Stew"? This White Palace 
 supplied it, as a sort of free lunch — to be 
 technical, "free with every scoop he slopped." 
 Was there not even a greater "barrel house" 
 in Shi called "Hinky Dink's," noted not 
 
TRAVELING 107 
 
 only because it contained the largest bar in 
 the city, but because you could meet the fin- 
 est assortment of bums, yeggmen, cats, 
 rough-necks, and blanket stiffs and "Indians 
 of every tribe." 
 
 As suggested before, the Kid did his 
 
 "plinging" on Clark stem, Van Buren, and 
 
 Canal. Oak Park, the resort of 
 
 "Bu*" the " sweU S u y s " was not tot ally 
 
 ignored in his professional experi- 
 ments. Many a day he says he has begged 
 from three dollars to six dollars a day out 
 there, "plinging on the strength of my gen- 
 uine bug;' (What! Proud that the "bug 5 ' 
 is genuine and no counterfeit ! Assuredly no 
 professional is immune from pride.) He 
 recounts a bet he made with a "stiff" (no 
 meaning — just a playful way of referring 
 to any third person) that he could ramble 
 down the stem where the Tommies were and 
 get two bucks quicker than any yegg or 
 "throw-out" in Chicago. ( That "throw-out" 
 needs explanation. He is a variety of yegg- 
 man who is able to put himself in temporary 
 contortions — leg or arm out of joint — for 
 
108 SCOTTY KID 
 
 begging purposes. It is clever business, net- 
 ting big returns.) He started to pling, 
 and in half an hour he had his two dobbies. 
 The performance brought him into rather 
 dangerous notoriety; quite a crowd of guys 
 gathered, which brought the bull on the heels 
 of the crowd, who forthwith threatened to 
 arrest the chief performer — the Kid. You 
 see, he was blocking the sidewalk. The curi- 
 ous were gazing on the "geed" neck, and now 
 the magic of it must be enlisted, to work on 
 a new subject. The cop too will gape on the 
 wounds (the arch-faker says he "flashed" on 
 him the "geed" neck) and then he pays his 
 reluctant tribute. "He turns his head like 
 as though he was sore and mopes away." 
 Now, there is nothing for the Kid to 
 do but keep the appointment with the 
 "stiff" and slop at his expense at the barrel 
 house. 
 
 No less reprehensible is the story of work- 
 ing a town in Iowa. This time kicks [shoes] 
 
 were made the excuse. The 
 K'^ks scheme is to get a number of pairs 
 
 for sale. At first there must be a 
 
TRAVELING 109 
 
 very bad pair which the ingenious collector 
 must put on and show from house to house. 
 His story runs somewhat like this: "Please, 
 lady, can you let me have a better pair of 
 shoes than these? I am applying for a posi- 
 tion as a clerk and am hindered by the looks 
 of my shoes — my only pair/' Of course 
 she will. Here's an excellent pair of her 
 husband's that hurt his feet a little. Will 
 they do? Aye, they will. It should come 
 easy for a man half Irish to thank her 
 warmly for the kindness and also for the 
 extra bit of small change which is apt to come 
 with it. A little "cache," or hiding place, is 
 the next need quite easily arranged for. 
 Then is our plausible visitant ready for a 
 talk of the same kind at the next house. This 
 kindly little Iowa town furnished the Kid 
 with eight pairs of good kicks (that they 
 might have been the real thing, applied where 
 they would do the most good !) and all in two 
 hours. Out of this number the new owner 
 may fastidiously note the points of merit and 
 appropriate to his own uses one pair — sort 
 of promoter's preferred stock. All the rest 
 
110 SCOTTY KID 
 
 can be taken — were taken — to a cobbler's 
 and sold for fifty cents per pair. 
 
 Another picture, perhaps the last of its 
 kind. It is the triumph of the yeggman's 
 art. This one belongs to Colton, Cali- 
 fornia, and after a few hours our hero 
 (though there is little of the heroic about 
 him) in the pursuit of his profession had 
 secured six dollars from stores and business 
 houses. (It can readily be deduced that 
 women in the kitchens are not the only sof i- 
 hearted prey of the beggar.) Some of this 
 money was obtained by reclining— quintes- 
 sence of indolence— on the street, technically 
 called "flopping." (Now we are all taking 
 stock of our experiences to see whether we 
 were ever "taken in" in that way. "Guilty," 
 say you. "Same here," say I.) At four 
 Pinched o'clock a bull "glued" him, and he 
 for was charged with vagrancy. 
 
 opping "y a g ranC y| an d h e with good 
 
 money on him!" It seems that quite unnec- 
 essary impertinence on the part of the Kid 
 in his answers to the judge aggravated the 
 sentence, and he got "thirty days" — a nom- 
 
TRAVELING 111 
 
 inal sentence, as we shall see. His time was 
 to be "done" in San Bernardino, which name 
 seems to have evolved a show of elephantine 
 playfulness on the part of the bums, who 
 affectionately dubbed this town "Sand Bag 
 McGinness." So that night, over went the 
 Kid in custody of the bulls to "S. B. M." 
 which institution at that time swarmed with 
 "cats" et al.j doing small sentences. The 
 Kid's plan must have matured after the 
 second day, for it was then that he hollered 
 about his "geed" neck. "I made up my mind 
 to put the fear in all the cats and bums in the 
 can ; then later to let it work on the can offi- 
 cials." The first chance came on the way to 
 work to "flash" the sores on all the "cats." 
 "What is it?" said some. It is this, that, and 
 the other thing, from consumption to the 
 common and nameless price of unclean liv- 
 
 A Master- in g> the y said - "Queer ideas," 
 piece of thinks the Kid. Anyway, they 
 Finesse are g e n[ n g a j^ timid and may 
 
 soon be stampeded. "So I went and 
 washed my sores in sight of them where 
 they drink. On my tin can I wrote 'Poison' 
 
112 SCOTTY KID 
 
 on a piece of paper and warned the bums, on 
 pain of getting my disease, not to use my 
 cup." Then comes the protest. Why not? 
 Have not even the "cats" the right to at least 
 one life (not liberty; surely not the pursuit 
 of happiness, unless such pursuit is confined 
 within the somewhat narrow limits of Sand 
 Bag McGinness?) 
 
 Let us see what will come of this. "Say, 
 them cats and stiffs made a holler. It got to 
 the ears of the can bulls quick enough and 
 the jailer got scared." The croaker must be 
 called. He (the doctor) was frankly not 
 pleased with the thought of this patient in 
 his hospital, and he of the "geed" neck was 
 persona non grata to the bums who represent 
 all there is of public sentiment in the can. 
 Now, Mr. Sheriff, the matter is "up to you." 
 Trained in a school of politics, this man 
 Move On! kn° ws what to do. "He called me 
 before the city bulls with their tin 
 cans shining on their chests and said, 'Kid, 
 if you will get out of town we'll let you out 
 of jail/ Was it manifestly none of the 
 sheriff's concern where he went after that? 
 
TRAVELING 113 
 
 Let the next sheriff see to it. Marvelous it 
 is too, to note the perfect accord of the Kid 
 and the sheriff. Negotiations are soon con- 
 cluded for a complete and final separation. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 DRAWBACKS TO BUMDOM 
 
 Before we leave the bum it is due us to 
 get his real opinion of the game. "Not all 
 sunshine and roses?" we ask. 
 
 "Say, it is fierce when a fellow gets ditched 
 from a train [this means put of], especially 
 in a desert, ten or fifteen miles from a town 
 in Arizona or Mexico, where it is one hun- 
 dred and thirty degrees — say around 
 Phoenix or Yuma. And then you are 
 hungry too, can't get a thing, for there are 
 no houses on the railroad, Only cactus and 
 Sunshine sagebrush as far as the eye can 
 but No reach. Coyotes howling at night. 
 Then is when a bum will be glad 
 to pick up orange peelings or an apple which 
 has become crisp in the hot sun since it was 
 dumped out of some train. How good those 
 peelings taste when a man is hungry [this 
 reflection suggests the suspicion that we have 
 never been really hungry], and how glad one 
 
 114 
 
DRAWBACKS 115 
 
 is to suck a piece of cactus as a substitute 
 for water, and so thirsty that your tongue 
 gets thick. Then there are the soles which 
 burn like fire, the balls of the feet tender 
 
 from counting the ties with each 
 Tear step. How stiff and sore the legs, 
 
 hips, and ankle bones become! 
 And the shoes get cut to shreds on the sharp 
 rocks. Then there are the splinters to be 
 picked up from the ties, while the stomach 
 raves like a starving bear for chuck." 
 
 We wonder, if it often occurs to most of 
 us, how unpopular the tramp really is. 
 
 Here's a picture the Kid paints: 
 Love Me "How those city and country 
 
 Moss Backs are sore at harmless 
 greasy coats like you and me! How they 
 stick up shingles at house doors or on the 
 fence with this written: 'Beware of the Dog,' 
 'Tramps keep out, 5 'No tresspassing,' etc. 
 They have the dogs all right. You stand 
 for the vicious bulldogs, and the little rat 
 terriers are biting at your kicks as you pass, 
 while some of the shepherd dogs have been 
 known to tear men's coats and to bite off 
 
116 SCOTT Y KID 
 
 some of the buttons from his strides." 
 (These last are trousers, if it please you — 
 just "pants" to the bum.) "Even the school 
 children have been taught that if they meet 
 a poor, harmless tramp on the road, they 
 must turn and run a half mile in the other 
 direction to keep from meeting him." 
 (Hold hard, Scotty. Maybe that word 
 "harmless" is begging the question a bit. 
 May there not be plenty of authentic cases of 
 not so very harmless encounters to give 
 ground for some of that fear, which, as you 
 say, "turns them greenish yellow like a 
 corpse, with their little hearts beating in 
 their breasts as if they had met the devil." 
 Nay! One of the blessings of a land we 
 know— not so far away — is that this trafcnp 
 fear — justified or causeless — is well-nigh re- 
 moved from our children. Twenty-one hun- 
 dred miles of ocean pathway affords poor 
 tie-counting facilities.) 
 
 Again, as an evidence that the life is no 
 
 incon- sinecure all the time, be it remem- 
 
 venient bered that our nomad must be on 
 
 ermnals ^ move sometimes in the rainy 
 
DRAWBACKS 117 
 
 season. "Many a time, beating it on a 
 train, I have jumped off into a pool of water 
 three or four feet deep. This was just before 
 reaching a freight yard to keep from being 
 glued by the railroad fly bull." (Strange 
 confusion of language, or is it the choice of 
 two evils — this getting a good soaking to 
 avoid getting stuck up?) In Canada and 
 Minnesota he tells us that blizzards are not 
 friendly to foot travelers, and we unhesitat- 
 ingly believe it, and let it go at that. In 
 Texas and Oklahoma are the sand storms, 
 filling hair and eyes and causing the face to 
 burn like fire and keeping your blinks sore 
 and bloodshot for days. 
 
 Perhaps the worst trial of all is the fre- 
 quent sentences for vagrancy. Five to 
 twenty days in a city jail may not look so 
 bad on paper; but if there is no fresh air 
 and the cell is filthy; if you have to sleep 
 between dirty greasy blankets which are as 
 populous as a monkey, perhaps no bum is 
 quite indifferent to such a state of things. 
 "He breathes the filthy odors. Ofttimes 
 he gets some disease, and when released 
 
118 SCOTTY KID 
 
 slips easily into a potter's field or an insane 
 asylum." 
 
 A Personal Episode 
 
 "One time I was bumming a ride under a 
 passenger in Arkansas. I had a few pennies 
 - .. in my strides. While the train 
 
 nessof dashed on through the darkness 
 
 Railroad an( j j}y e ra i n? we smashed right 
 
 into a big bowlder that had fallen 
 on the track, part of which was shoved off 
 by the cowcatcher, while pieces of it got onto 
 the rail and were crushed over. The train 
 was stopped. Part of that bowlder had 
 struck the air-brake rod and bent it, near 
 my head, where I was sitting on the rod be- 
 tween the two wheels of the Pullman. The 
 trainmen came to look under the Pullman. I 
 jumped out, and they went in there with 
 tools and straightened out the rod, while the 
 conductor said to me in his gruff voice, 'Say, 
 you bum, keep off this train or I'll knock 
 your block off. 5 I felt bad, for I was very 
 sick that night. My neck pained me bad. 
 I heard some one say that it was about ten or 
 
DRAWBACKS 119 
 
 fifteen miles from Little Rock and here we 
 were in the woods. 
 
 "I thought to myself, 'My God, if I don't 
 get a chance to ride this train, I will die out 
 here. 5 No houses, cold, dark, and 
 raining fiercely/ 5 Something said 
 'Pray,' and I prayed. Mother had told 
 me when I was a wee tot of a boy that God 
 hears and answers prayers. So I prayed. 
 I said: 'My God, I'm so sick. Help me get 
 into the city of Little Rock. Amen.' The 
 superficial and obvious thing about that 
 prayer is its brevity. But you can depend 
 upon it, there's not enough virtue in brevity 
 to draw down a good-sized answer from even 
 an All-Merciful Father. Here was a case of 
 absolute human extremity. 'Out of the 
 depths, I cried unto thee.' 
 
 "In a minute or so the engineer came along 
 and said to me, 'Kid, where are you going?' 
 I said, 'To Little Rock.' 'Are you sick?' 
 I answered, 'Yes, sir, and in much pain.' He 
 said, 'Get up there in the cab' — which I did. 
 So I rode on the engine between the engineer 
 and fireman into Little Rock." 
 
120 SCOTTY KID 
 
 Here's the way the Kid perorates: (We 
 should have said "Tommy"; the Kid never 
 had any such notion.) "I claim that God 
 answered a sinner's prayer in this case." 
 
 There are two propositions involved in the 
 foregoing, to neither of which do we care to 
 dissent, namely, that the answer was prob- 
 ably genuine, and, secondly, that the peti- 
 tioner could have laid no claims to sainthood. 
 And the reason for the answer to the prayer 
 may lie in the far-seeing, purposeful mercy 
 of God. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE BIRTH OF BROTHER 
 TOMMY 
 
 And now, having another story, we ought 
 to have another style. This would mean that 
 if we were Isaiah I in the first in- 
 fo ath' stance, we should clearly be Isaiah 
 II at this break in the theme and 
 narrative. Alas! Here is no Isaiah at all* 
 and likewise little of the breathing of the holy 
 impulse that characterizes the sacred writ- 
 ings. We could less presumptuously hope to 
 follow the lead of one of the many Kiplings 
 in the matter of style. 
 
 However, we have a birth and a "new 
 
 creature." Let us do the telling of it as best 
 
 we may. Here we are confronted 
 
 Demanded ^^ some enormous difficulties. 
 It is demanded of this "Brother 
 Tommy" that he be a genuine miracle. He 
 has got to be vitally different from that cast- 
 off skin he has quitted which we called 
 
 121 
 
122 SCOTTY KID 
 
 "Scotty Kid." Maybe you will tell us that it 
 takes years to change people, that growth is 
 "first the blade, then the ear, after that the 
 full corn in the ear," It isn't growth we are 
 to talk about ; the miracle is the birth. We 
 simply disavow any consideration of the 
 problem of changing Scotty Kid. We 
 couldn't do it in aeons of evolution. We do 
 not even feel sure that Almighty God could 
 or would. Our miracle is the existence of 
 a new creature. Here's the proof in as brief 
 a form as possible. 
 
 Scotty was a dope fiend, drunkard, thief, 
 trickster, and lazy past the telling. Tommy 
 "New- Was born with diametrically op- 
 
 birth" posite traits. He did not develop 
 
 Marks them, in the important sense, 
 
 though they have grown with the using. 
 The time element was not appreciable in this 
 miracle; it is not in births of the ordinary 
 sort. Take a concrete instance of the new 
 nature. You might concede that it were pos- 
 sible for the Kid to drop all of his worst vices 
 under the impulse, say, of a new emotion, 
 but would you expect to find Tommy in- 
 
BIRTH OF TOMMY 123 
 
 tensely energetic, which implies a positive 
 virtue? In other words, would not the old 
 tendency to "lie down" and let some one do 
 the work — to bum his way along — tempt him 
 to some soft religious "snap"? Nay, per- 
 haps it is for the Almighty now to be sending 
 ravens perpetually in the form of "brother 
 this" or "brother that." On the contrary, we 
 emphatically affirm that Brother Tommy 
 was born with the sycophancy left out of his 
 composition, and he has been the epitome of 
 unselfish energy ever since. 
 
 Solomon says, "There is a time to be 
 born." Doubtless too there must be a place, 
 
 even some cattle shed if there be 
 Birthplace « . , . „ m , 
 
 no room in the mn 8 1 ommy s 
 
 entrance into life was a little rescue mission 
 in Los Angeles. A man by the name of 
 Trotter (it could hardly have been Melville) 
 conducted this place,* and the Kid had been 
 here once or twice before. The circum- 
 stances were briefly these : 
 
 "One night, after begging nearly all day 
 in a town called Redondo, about twenty miles 
 
 • The Union Mission of Los Angeles. 
 
124 SCOTTY KID 
 
 The Last from Los Angeles, I returned 
 
 of the with about nine dollars clear of 
 
 "Old Man" t x. 4. 
 
 my expense. 1 went to my room 
 
 and dressed in a fine black suit of clothes and 
 
 came out and met a few bums, all of whom 
 
 I took into a barrel house and treated to 
 
 drinks twice, which amounted to eighty-five 
 
 cents. (Some took whisky and some beer.) 
 
 Then I said good-by to them, and told them 
 
 I would see them later. I probably had from 
 
 eight to ten dollars in my pocket." 
 
 This is worth noticing. No coffee and 
 sandwich convert this. What he wanted was 
 "to sit down and get quiet and hear some- 
 thing different from bum talk — the guff 
 which they deliver when half drunk, and their 
 continual building of castles in the air." He 
 insists that all of this air was "hot"; in the 
 good old phraseology of the camp meeting, 
 this man was "under conviction," or already 
 in the pangs of childbirth ; but why he, rather 
 than his late companions of the barrel house, 
 who will say? We dare venture a guess, as 
 may you. 
 
 "So I went and sat down. The music 
 
BIRTH OF TOMMY 125 
 
 seemed to appeal to me. But there was a 
 Not lady singing a special song that 
 
 Artistic, seemed to grip me." He does not 
 Spiritual sa y that the singer was of the fin- 
 Singing ished-artist type. We fancy not, 
 and pay our glad tribute to just an ordinary 
 voice laid on the altar of consecration and 
 made the vehicle of a noble appeal set to 
 melody. Another effective ministry : "There 
 was a young woman who at times handed me 
 a songbook and spoke gentle words to me, 
 as though she were not afraid of me. This 
 somehow made me feel at home, and it 
 worked on me, and I thought that at least 
 some one was perhaps interested in mf life, 
 though she seemed utterly unconscious that 
 her kindness was having any effect. 
 
 "There were many good testimonies that 
 night from all sorts of men — mechanics, and 
 even lawyers and bookkeepers. Then there 
 were some that had been bums and drunk- 
 ards and dope fiends. This got me inter- 
 ested, and I commenced studying as to 
 whether some of the things they said might 
 not be imagined rather than facts, and [he 
 
126 SCOTTY KID 
 
 naively adds] whether they only spoke to 
 hear their brains rattle, 
 
 "There was one man in particular who 
 
 started to testify, and he told how God had 
 
 The really given his mind and heart a 
 
 Efficacy of rest and peace that he never had 
 
 es imony eX p er i ence( j before and which was 
 
 beyond him to express in words. This man's 
 talk seemed to convince me more than any- 
 thing else that I heard. I took note of the 
 phraseology he used, and it was clear that he 
 was an ex-bum, and an educated one. He 
 said that he had been saved from a life of 
 robbery. He had been a habitual drunkard 
 too, as well as a smoker. He had been in 
 many pens and State prisons, and he told 
 how he was so disgusted with that criminal 
 life that one night he was on the verge of 
 taking his life. Somehow he stepped into 
 this very mission and heard some of the boys 
 testify to that wonderful rest of God. He 
 needed rest, so he went to God and found 
 his rest by simply repenting and believing in 
 Jesus Christ. This man is to this day a good 
 Christian, and it was his testimony that God 
 
BIRTH OF TOMMY 127 
 
 used to convince me and get me seeking sal- 
 vation. 
 
 "Well," I thought to myself of the last 
 bum that spoke, "if God did that for him, he 
 
 can do it for me." So I went up 
 and See" *° *he a ^ ar when the invitation 
 
 was given and got on my knees 
 and prayed to God: 'Save me from sin and 
 change my life. Amen/ " (If that was all 
 the prayer, and it seems likely, it was even 
 more laconic than the other one we men- 
 tioned.) "Then I believed that God had 
 saved me, because [how refreshingly matter- 
 of-fact is this!] that prayer I prayed I meant 
 with all my heart. Then I arose from my 
 knees, and the leader who was in charge that 
 night — a man by the name of Green, I think 
 — said, 'Well, did you get saved?' I said, 
 'Yes.' Now, I had no outward demonstra- 
 Factsln- tion; nor did I shout or jump, as 
 dependent some have been known to do. It 
 o eeing wa§ nQ ^ SQ ^ m y convers i on- J 
 
 was very quiet and looked like any other 
 man, but I felt within me that I had done 
 a manly thing when I prayed and meant 
 
128 SCOTTY KID 
 
 business. I felt though that some there 
 thought, 'That bum is around for a feed — 
 something in the loaves and fishes line/ so 
 common among mission bums. But no, I 
 had the wherewithal to buy the loaves and 
 fishes if I wanted them. What I was really 
 after was to have my life changed. I went 
 home with the little Testament that was 
 given me, and that night I slept as sound as 
 a baby. This was in November, 1905." 
 
 That is no very extraordinary tale. One 
 like it, save in minor details, could be told 
 Marvelous, thousands of times every year 
 
 though throughout the world. That does 
 It Happen p 
 
 Every not kill the wonder of it, as Car- 
 
 Minute ]yj e reminds us. The chief marvel 
 in a case like this of Tommy's is the tremen- 
 dous contrast between that which preceded it 
 and that which followed. It's the next morn- 
 ing we are thinking about, and the morning 
 after that, till the mornings stretch out into 
 the years. 
 
 "Next morning when I woke up I had no 
 pains and aches that a dope fiend usually has, 
 and, more than that, I had no desire for 
 
BIRTH OF TOMMY 129 
 
 dope or the pill of morphine which 
 Morning I usually took in the morning." 
 (You may figure it, Tommy, that 
 it was a sort of special Providence in 
 your case, for many a man, equally sincere, 
 has waked up in the morning with the same 
 old pains and a raging appetite as usual. 
 To such a man would have to come the try- 
 ing experience of walking by faith and not by 
 sight, until such time as the full deliverance 
 was vouchsafed.) "I did not even smoke a 
 cigarette, which before I always did, and I 
 caught myself wondering, 'Such strange ac- 
 tions for a dope fiend, not to take a pill or a 
 smoke/ Then something seemed to say: 
 'Why, last night you gave your heart to God. 
 That's why you have no desire for these 
 drugs/ Then I thought to myself, 'That's 
 so. I did ask God to save me, and he must 
 have done it. 5 " 
 
 Does some one ask, "What is all this 'sav- 
 ing' business?" It is a wonderful transfor- 
 mation, to be sure, and it takes a 
 Still Jacob good-sized vocabulary to cover it. 
 The word "saved" is all right. 
 
130 SCOTTY KID 
 
 Overuse of it may have dulled its signifi- 
 cance. Have you a better word? However, 
 in talking about the "new creature" that 
 woke up that morning, no other phraseology 
 seems quite as satisfying as that which 
 startled the night-inquirer Nicodemus. It 
 was a born-from-above baby Tommy that 
 started out that day, wondering much, doubt- 
 less, at the strangeness of occupying a body- 
 tenement malodorous with the suggestion of 
 its former occupant, Scotty Kid. Nor will 
 the infant always succeed in banishing his 
 predecessor once and for all, as the Israel in 
 him has ahead more than one night battle by 
 the brook Jabbok before Jacob is thrown out 
 neck and crop and is known no more. 
 
 What are we going to expect of an infant? 
 "Not too much," say you? "Let him pule 
 Th and wriggle, but of all things, 
 
 Tragedy of keep him quiet. You mustn't 
 Perpetual expect coherent talk." To which 
 we reply, "For God's sake, let us 
 not expect too little." We are always do- 
 ing that very thing, and the poor, flabby, 
 helpless creature never grows up, a mon- 
 
BIRTH OF TOMMY 131 
 
 strosity terrible to contemplate — a perennial 
 infant. 
 
 No, your Paul, born on the Damascus 
 road, is certainly not Saul, but he is some- 
 Birth thing vigorous as soon as he gets 
 —New his eyes open. The first thing no- 
 
 Compan- ticeable about him is that he is 
 classified differently as to his 
 friends and companions. We all might as 
 well notice that the new birth brings one right 
 off and inevitably into a new family. This 
 calls for separation. If it were not for that, 
 the new birth might almost hope to be pop- 
 ular among the butterflies of society and all 
 triflers. Despite the efforts of the "modern 
 theologians" to read it out of the process (if, 
 to them, there be any birth process), the im- 
 pression will prevail that it costs that very 
 painful price, separation, to be "born from 
 above," and we have good authority for it, 
 that no Way can be termed popular that is 
 called "strait" or difficult. 
 
 "After my conversion I cut out the old 
 associates — would meet them on the streets 
 at times, speak a moment or two with them, 
 
182 SCOTTY KID 
 
 Heaven- an( * then get away from their 
 
 Taught company. It was because I knew 
 Caution that if j stayed with them j 
 
 would soon have to smoke or take a beer 
 with them, and that I was afraid to do. It 
 was clear that if I gave in on the smaller 
 temptations, say one glass of beer, in a few 
 hours I would be backslidden proper ["back- 
 slidden proper" — that's a contradiction in 
 terms for you], so I associated with Chris- 
 tians." Now, that caution in a newborn babe 
 is difficult to account for. How would it do 
 to call it Christian instinct, seeing he was 
 born with it? 
 
 "I started to read the New Testament, 
 and I could not understand parts of it." 
 "Hard to What a comfort it is to have the 
 be Under- doughty Saint Peter saying the 
 same thing, or what perhaps is 
 tantamount to it, when he writes of his "be- 
 loved brother Paul's" letters, "in which are 
 some things hard to be understood." 
 
 Here's a phenomenon concerning the eye- 
 sight of the newborn that has been often 
 noted. "The heavens and the earth seemed 
 
BIRTH OF TOMMY 138 
 
 new to me. That next day after 
 
 c** 6 s " m y convers i° n *h e grass, the flow- 
 ers, and the trees seemed more 
 beautiful. Even the horses in the express 
 wagons were changed for the better. And 
 the old greasy-coated bums from the slums 
 with their tough looks, red noses, and blood- 
 shot eyes, were different. There was some- 
 thing in me that seemed to look beyond their 
 dingy outward appearance, with a wish to 
 God in me that they might be saved/' 
 
 It was not all plain sailing though. There 
 was to be no perfect record of veering off 
 from all dangerous or piratical craft, save 
 for friendly aid and salvage. It seems to us 
 we have read in some old book about a people 
 passing along into an up-country who were 
 warned not to mix with the quite attractive 
 folk who lived along the road. 
 
 Pilgrim's (We do much the same with our 
 Progress x 
 
 children.) It comes to us now 
 
 that these — sojourners they called them — 
 were forever forgetting and paying the price 
 of it. So Tommy had a precedent, if no ex- 
 cuse, for the following: 
 
134 SCOTTY KID 
 
 "One night about two weeks after my eon- 
 version, I met a friend of mine, a thief. I 
 
 had 'done time' with him. He 
 Beer "* loved me and I loved him. I told 
 
 him of my conversion and the 
 great change in my life, and he seemed glad 
 to hear it. And to prove to me that he was a 
 friend he said, 'Come in and have a beer in 
 a private box/ " (How perfectly natural 
 all that was! So much so that some reader 
 may say, "Aye, and quite irreprehensible, 
 too, save to a Puritan fanatic." Mark what 
 follows, what is well-nigh sure to follow.) 
 "I went in and had a beer with him, and when 
 I came out I got terribly convicted, and I 
 told him I had done wrong in yielding to the 
 temptation." Two wonderful things: an in- 
 ward monitor and a sensitive soul. And 
 Friend Thief seemed to recognize the diffi- 
 culty in part and said he "was sorry I had 
 gone against my religion, though he could 
 not see much harm in the social drink I took." 
 New Taste (No, man. You can't "see." It 
 as Well as is partly eyesight. Then, again, 
 Sight y 0U j iaye no ligh^ because one has 
 
BIRTH OF TOMMY 185 
 
 to be bom into this new world of sight and 
 light.) "I felt bad in my heart that I had 
 grieved my God and Jesus Christ, who had 
 done so much for a rascal like me. As I 
 walked home I bitterly repented and asked 
 God to have mercy on me and that he would 
 reclaim me. And he did, for I felt in my 
 heart the moment he had forgiven me. As 
 for the beer, that was the last, and I have 
 never had a taste for it since." 
 
 Look at this evidence of a still unobliter- 
 ated streak of human nature, belonging to 
 this time : "One day I wanted a street car to 
 stop for me at a certain corner and take me 
 on. This time I had my arms full of gro- 
 ceries and was on my way to my room where 
 I kept 'bach/ intending to cook my supper. 
 
 I was feeling bad in my diseased 
 Again— or neck and much out of sorts, but 
 is it Just right with God in my heart. The 
 Ji^? 11011 Hiotorman seemed to ignore me 
 
 and the car passed on, leaving me 
 standing in the rain. Before I thought I 
 cursed that man, sending him to perdition 
 and still some. I did not realize what I had 
 
136 SCOTTY KID 
 
 done till after I had ripped it all out. Then 
 I felt very sorry. I asked God to forgive 
 me as I walked down the street, and I am 
 sure that he did." 
 
 It would appear futile enough to attempt 
 to analyze the above experience — "Right 
 with God" in one breath and hell's 
 anathemas in the next! The law 
 of human gravitation can accomplish marvels 
 of downward flights from our peaks of exal- 
 tation in an inappreciable fragment of time. 
 That is part of the peril of spiritual moun- 
 tain-climbing, for fear of which no true and 
 hardy son of heaven will content himself with 
 low levels. 
 
 DIGRESSION 
 
 We are not concerned with sequence in 
 this narrative. It is consequence that most 
 interests us. A real chronicler might tell you 
 what happened next. You will content 
 yourself with the reflection that you have to 
 do with a narrator who is obsessed with the 
 idea that what came along in this man's life 
 had to happen as a consequence of sure- 
 
BIRTH OF TOMMY 137 
 
 enough " anothengenesis" (Perhaps this is 
 the last time we will dare to use this pedantic- 
 looking word, and we do it this time to revive 
 our slumbering antagonism to the word "eu- 
 genics," and partly to relieve our "born- 
 from-above" expression, lest perchance it be 
 worn by overuse.) 
 
 A babe, just born and intensely eager to 
 pass along the word of his new life ! This we 
 A dare affirm is the necessity of 
 
 Spiritual genuine rebirth. It is the very 
 Bed-Tester j tch of the Rew j if e to share it with 
 
 others. "Not so fast," do you say? "Why 
 such an evident exception among new con- 
 verts? Do they all do so?" 
 
 What we would like to do is to put the bur- 
 den of proof on any of you when you claim 
 that your hundreds of converts are "born 
 from above." Are they, then? Let them 
 make proof. Does torch after torch get its 
 blaze from this new one ? Otherwise, where- 
 fore alight? 
 
 Tommy glows and burns and kindles little 
 conflagrations. "The darkness compre- 
 hendeth it not" — and cannot put it out. 
 
138 SCOTTY KID 
 
 How he earns a living we hardly know. 
 From the old point of view, what he gets is 
 not a "living." He knows real scarcity 
 often, such as the Kid, in his bumdom plenty, 
 hardly dreamed of. He is hardening and 
 toughening himself for the real fight of life, 
 and occupied with real mission work the 
 whiles, testifying wherever called for and 
 making considerable trips into suburbs to 
 help meetings. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 A DOPE FIEND UNDER A HOUSE 
 
 If we were permitted a text for the fol- 
 lowing, we would make it "Condescend to 
 men of low degree." Should a medical justi- 
 fication be wanting, we have that of homeop- 
 athy ready at hand, "Similia similibus cur- 
 antur" which, being liberally interpreted, 
 reads, "It takes a dope fiend to catch a 
 dope fiend/' Here follows Tommy's nar- 
 rative : 
 
 "A Christian worker told me one day of 
 a poor old bum who stayed down under a 
 Way Down, house. It was a woman who tried 
 and to influence him, and he took no 
 
 Nearly Out no tj ce f h er# g j we nt down to 
 
 the place, which was a large rooming house, 
 in the rear of which was an alley, where were 
 lots of swill barrels with garbage boxes and 
 tin cans. Refuse from a store near by was 
 piled here. But underneath the house was a 
 
 139 
 
140 SCOTTY KID 
 
 cellarlike place which seemed to be about the 
 size of the floor of the house, and it was very 
 dark. The height was about three feet and 
 it was full of cans, cobwebs, and trash. 
 There a pale-faced bum lay. He 
 Too looked like a corpse lying there 
 
 in a stupor by a sewer pipe. My 
 pride seemed to get in the way to keep me 
 out of that dark, dirty place, since I had to 
 crawl on my hands and knees, there being 
 no room to stand up. Finally I mustered up 
 courage, and in I went on my knees, burst- 
 ing through the cobwebs. 
 
 "When I reached my man I discovered 
 that he was a dope fiend of the worst type, 
 using morphine and cocaine, and that he was 
 now full of dope. He appeared dazed that 
 a man dressed up should come into a place 
 where a pig would hardly live. I shook his 
 hand and told him I was his friend and had 
 come to help him. I told him too that I had 
 been a fiend and had been saved, and that 
 the desire for dope and the habit that bound 
 me had been taken out of my life. He then 
 started to talk to me, telling me his troubles 
 
A DOPE FIEND 141 
 
 and how the dope had degraded him. He 
 said he had been a showman and a gambler 
 and at one time quite well off. I came to 
 find out that he knew my own brother, and 
 was in the gambling business with him years 
 before. 
 
 "Then he asked me, ' What got into you to- 
 day, and made you come into such a low, 
 Aye> filthy place as this?' I told him 
 
 What's in that God had made me come and 
 You? that I was interested in his life 
 
 and could yet see hope for him in restoration 
 to manhood. I asked him if he was hungry. 
 He said 'A little bit.' Then I said I would 
 get him some nice 'scoffings,' such as cream- 
 puffs, buttered toast, and hot tea, also a sack 
 of good candy. Meanwhile, while I was talk- 
 ing to him, he lit cigarettes and took a shot 
 of cocaine into his arm. I never minded, but 
 kept on talking, trying to win his confidence. 
 'By the way, would you like some nice, well- 
 done, greasy pork chops?' He answered 
 'Yes/ so I went out from his den and bought 
 some cream-puffs and a small lard can full 
 of hot green tea, some greasy pork chops, 
 
142 SCOTTY KID 
 
 and a sack of soft marshmallows with a little 
 chocolate mixed. With my arms full of grub 
 I came back to my fallen brother — a wander- 
 ing star, as I used to be." 
 
 Peril ftps & 
 
 Meteorite (What an astonishing figure!— 
 "Wandering" to be sure! well- 
 nigh totally eclipsed, there under the house) . 
 "There I put the stuff at his feet, and he 
 thanked me with tears in his eyes, and seemed 
 to enjoy the food. 
 
 "While he was eating I told him how God 
 had saved my life from habits similar to his, 
 Stars Not and that God would do the same 
 Always f or jj^ Then I prayed for him 
 Beckoned briefly, gave him a little change, 
 Oa and said good-by. At the mission 
 
 I made a request for special prayer for 
 him and made him a visit every day at his 
 place under the house. After four days I 
 made a date with him to take him to a pri- 
 vate room I had rented for him, where he 
 could wash up and put off his old greasy 
 rags. I was at the corner after dark where 
 I had agreed to meet him, but he never came. 
 Next day I visited him again under the house 
 
A DOPE FIEND 143 
 
 amongst the tin cans, took him something to 
 eat, and made another date with him for the 
 next day* I was not at all discouraged, be- 
 cause I knew that one of the greatest weak 
 points of a dope fiend is not to keep his word. 
 Full of dope, he sleeps and forgets. So I 
 exercised a lot of charity and patience with 
 him, as I understood, being at one time in 
 the same boat myself. I made six dates with 
 him altogether, seeing him each day after 
 each one. I fed him daily and talked to him 
 
 on the Christian life. Finally I 
 The Law of , . , -, .., 
 
 Winning gave up trying to make dates with 
 
 him, though I never gave up be= 
 lieving and praying for his restoration and 
 salvation. 
 
 "In the meantime I went away to Canada. 
 Later I returned to southern California, and 
 one night in a mission a bright-looking, dark- 
 haired, neatly dressed man came and shook 
 my hand. He said, 'I am now saved from 
 sin and dope.' He was the man I used to 
 feed and pray for under the house among the 
 cans and cobwebs." 
 
144 SCOTTY KID 
 
 DIGRESSION 
 
 "This day is salvation come to thy house/' 
 What is the proof of it? Go back a bit, "If 
 The Res- I have taken anything from any 
 toration man by false accusation, I restore 
 Test him fourfold." Yes, Zacchaeus's 
 
 job was by no means easy, nor is it usually 
 done in just that whole-souled way. Still 
 (though we hesitate to grudge to Zacchaeus 
 his meed of credit), at least he had enough 
 to pay back in the princely way he offered to. 
 Moreover, it is fairly clear that he meant it, 
 or the Master's words had never been spoken 
 and Salvation had stayed away. But what 
 if he had no money when Salvation came? 
 
 This is Brother Tommy's problem. Those 
 bum-gleaned dollars were soon gone and Sal- 
 in Lieu of nation was more than knocking at 
 the "Four- his door. Salvation has arrived 
 fold " and is going to stay. It is a dif- 
 
 ferent problem from that of Zacchseus, but 
 we are going to see whether the out-crop- 
 pings of this same Salvation are not very 
 similar. There have been things taken from 
 
A DOPE FIEND 145 
 
 "any man," and the "restoring" begins to 
 weigh on the mind of the man who has Sal- 
 vation for a house-guest. "Fourfold" pay- 
 ing is out of the question. Mayhap the pay- 
 ing of principal without interest is even more 
 than this son of Abraham can do. [We 
 would do well not to overlook Tommy's 
 claim to kinship, for is not Abraham rightly 
 called the patriarch of the whole Faith 
 family?] 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 RESTITUTION 
 
 The following is the story of Tommy's 
 restitution : 
 
 In the first place, the word is his. We 
 have not put it into his mouth. Again, as far 
 as we can understand, the idea is his. No 
 man appears to have inspired the restitution 
 obligation. Just how soon the Salvation 
 guest stirred up the sensitiveness in his soul 
 we do not know, but he says : "About a year 
 and a half after I was saved I started to 
 write letters and make restitution. There 
 were some things I could not make right 
 (like water spilt on the ground, which could 
 not be gathered up again), but in answer to 
 my questions, Bible teachers told me that 
 what I could not make right — things not 
 within my power — God would overrule. As 
 to money, I used to say, 'You can't get blood 
 out of a stone.' So I summed up the mileage 
 
 146 
 
RESTITUTION 147 
 
 that I had beat out of many railroads in the 
 United States, which amounted to thousands 
 of miles. How much money it was worth 
 was beyond my calculating powers. You 
 see, sometimes I rode on passenger trains, 
 sometimes on freighters. So I started to 
 write to the officials of these roads, telling 
 them that I had stolen rides on their roads 
 
 Computing ^ or e ^ eyen years, but that I had 
 Transpor- lately been converted. I said I 
 tation ji^ no j. j iave an y mone y i p a y f or 
 
 the rides and was sick in my body, so I could 
 not work to make money. I felt, though, 
 that I ought to confess my faults to them, 
 and I did not intend to hide anything from 
 them. God had saved me from a criminal 
 life." 
 
 It must have been a fantastic confession, 
 not without its humor. It covered rides 
 among cattle and steers, sheep and pigs. It 
 involved jockeying along on the back of a 
 sheep or shivering in a refrigerator car in 
 company with fruit. There was even less 
 happy environment, like that of an oil car or 
 coal bunker. Freight cars were ridable top- 
 
148 SCOTTY KID 
 
 side and underneath, and the "blind" of 
 which we have spoken was varied with com- 
 plete prostration under passenger seats. 
 
 Nor did he stop there: he intimated that 
 as he could not pay, he was willing to stand 
 any sort of punishment the railroads cared 
 to inflict, and gave them his name and ad- 
 dress. 
 
 And what sort of an answer would you 
 have given to that sort of a letter? You 
 might have said, "The fellow is a crazy fool." 
 Again, you might have been suspicious of 
 some pious dodge whereby you were likely to 
 be victimized. Some of us would have 
 laughed and forgotten it. 
 
 "Well, some of the railroad companies did 
 not answer my letter. Something gave me 
 We Wish ^ ie assurance that I had done my 
 You Well, part, and that there was no 
 further restitution possible toward 
 those companies that did not answer. God 
 would take the will for the deed. One day I 
 received a letter from the Santa Fe It. R. 
 Co. from Chicago. The writer, who was the 
 president, said he had read my letter and he 
 
RESTITUTION 149 
 
 was glad in the change in my life. He said 
 that my confession was the best of its kind 
 he had ever witnessed, and he said that the 
 Company held nothing against me; and he 
 wished me success and the good will of all 
 
 men. Signed, R ." That one reply was 
 
 contributive evidence of the sincerity of 
 Tommy's letter. He goes on: "So you see 
 how God worked on those railroad officials 
 to get me out of a terrible debt. The devil 
 could no more accuse me and throw it at my 
 head that I was crooked and not converted 
 —that I had beaten the railroads and never 
 could pay the debt. All scores were off." 
 
 Others besides the railroads had to be kept 
 in mind if this restitution business was to 
 A Sensi- amount to anything. A sensitive 
 tivised soul develops a memory for things 
 
 Memory j Qn g s j nce outlawed. "I also had 
 
 to write to owners of grocery stores in my 
 old home town, Kirkcudbright, in Scotland, 
 and confess to them how I had stolen fruits, 
 soap, eggs, whisky, and tobacco, perfume, 
 fish, and meat. They wrote back forgiving 
 me." 
 
150 SCO'TTY KID 
 
 Another confession came nearer home and 
 was not so easy. "I confessed to my sister 
 how I used to steal out of her dry goods store 
 [here follows a long list], besides money out 
 of her till. She wrote back forgiving me all 
 and wishing me Godspeed." 
 
 Does it look a bit easy, and even sancti- 
 monious? Then note the following: "I had 
 No Grand- *° confess to the robbery of my 
 stand niece's and nephew's savings bank 
 
 y of a few dollars, all in nickels and 
 
 dimes and red cents, and I sent bach the 
 amount/ 3 Please get that. Just how that 
 money was earned he does not say, but it 
 was not easy. "This was a terrible cruci- 
 fixion, but God gave me grace to do it, and 
 then he blessed me for it. The way that 
 thing worked out was wonderful. Those 
 children became confident in the genuineness 
 of my profession and they certainly believe 
 to this day that their uncle is a real Christian, 
 and the last I heard of them they were at- 
 tending Sunday school regularly. 
 
 "The rabbit skins do not come before my 
 face any more when I pray." That is the 
 
RESTITUTION 151 
 
 r bb't P^ °^ *^ e W ^°^ e b us i n ^ss. A real 
 Skins and prayer is susceptible to atmos- 
 
 a Clear pheres and obstructions. It must 
 Look Aloft tiii! j 
 
 be clear ahead, or heavenward — 
 
 otherwise the situation is no better than once 
 when the writer tried to look through the 
 Lick Observatory telescope in a snowstorm. 
 There it was little snowflakes that shut out 
 heaven. A rabbit skin may obscure the 
 vision. Even a wretched little shilling piece 
 may do it. The rabbit skins were those he 
 stole from a junk dealer in Scotland and 
 sold for a few shillings, and it took a letter 
 of confession to clean that window of the 
 soul. The answer came in the unobscured 
 heavens, not in any reply from Scotland. 
 God has his own mail service, and no registry 
 division is necessary to prove delivery at 
 either end of the line. 
 
 Just think of the burglary, graft, and petit 
 larceny that seemed to be crusting irrepa- 
 rably this man's vision. Think you that he 
 would have ever won any clear way to the 
 sunlight had he not dug and cut at the litter 
 of obscuring things that were even worse 
 
152 SCOTTY KID 
 
 than rabbit skins? "I never heard from any 
 of my victims, and I felt that God was over- 
 ruling the whole thing, for he knew that the 
 few red cents I had to my name would never 
 pay for all my stealing." 
 
 "But there were small sums of money that 
 were within my power to pay, and I paid 
 
 TheResur- ^em, some to folks that never 
 rectionof expected to get a bean. You 
 A* eDea ts can 't imagine how the paying of 
 those bills worked on them." 
 (We can. It was as though one were to 
 arise from the dead.) "It made them have 
 confidence in me, 'A man of God F they told 
 me so; 'To God be all the praise!'" To 
 which we say, "Amen." A veritable resur- 
 rection of dead debts is one of the proofs of 
 the genuineness of the William A. Sunday 
 campaign. New-born men want to pay their 
 debts. New birth is as wonderful as resur- 
 rection anyway. 
 
 DIGRESSION 
 
 As far as the facts are concerned, most 
 any reader might have been willing to follow 
 
RESTITUTION 158 
 
 us thus far, provided he is allowed to account 
 for the phenomena in his own way. The 
 facts themselves are not so very astounding, 
 but that any sort of a modern rationalist 
 (especially if he be equipped with a psycho- 
 logical training) could readily account for 
 them. But what will happen, we wonder, 
 when the facts claimed transcend the realm 
 of ordinary probability, and the conse- 
 quences of the "birth from above" 
 to Our are ma de to extend into other than 
 
 Conserva- the emotional and spiritual realm? 
 Friends Now, Brother Tommy, maybe 
 you have been long since relegated 
 to the company of the "fanatics/' and maybe 
 you don't care. But we have the ordinary 
 hesitancy to let an entirely new company of 
 people call you that name, and besides we 
 ourselves are just a little sensitive yet lest 
 perchance we are so classed. Shall we tell 
 them about that "geed" neck of yours ? Sup- 
 pose we warn any that look for the manifes- 
 tation of God only in the world of spirit, to 
 just skip this part, for we honestly would 
 like to have them join us later on. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 A "GEED" NECK 
 
 First strip yourself to the waist. "What 
 is the blue and white-and-mottled effect all 
 over your chest and neck? Why, man, you 
 are a mass of grizzly scars, as though you 
 had been scalded and blistered all over your 
 body/ 5 
 
 Without telling him anything about our 
 purpose, we inquired of one of the most 
 What the reputable surgeons in our city, 
 Doetor sending down Brother Tommy 
 M with a letter asking for an exam- 
 
 ination. The following was the reply: 
 
 Dear Mr. R— — : 
 
 This young man has had a most severe tubercu- 
 losis of the neck glands, scrofula. He has recovered 
 entirely. I think he has had also some pulmonary 
 tuberculosis at the apex of the right lung, but both 
 lungs are now sound. His heart is normal and very 
 slow, only 55 instead of 72, which also shows that 
 he is free from any tubercular lesion; . . . but 
 the man is now in good physical condition. 
 
 H , M.D. 
 
 154 
 
A "GEED" NECK 155 
 
 This opens the story. Now, Tommy, 
 speak up ! You have said considerable about 
 that neck. Let's be done with it. Fortu- 
 nately for you, there are witnesses in plenty 
 or we would have none of you ourselves, de- 
 spite those desparately bad scars. 
 
 "For six months after my conversion I 
 was sick in my body from tuberculosis, which 
 
 had been afflicting me for about 
 Isn't It? eight years. I had contracted it 
 
 in my three-years' term at the 
 penitentiary, and it was all over my body in 
 running sores, around my neck, down each 
 of my shoulders. It seemed to be spreading 
 and poisoning and eating into my flesh. 
 Broadening like a young grape vine, it was 
 broken out on both of my legs, and one sore 
 the size of a dime came out on my cheek. 
 These sores were always discharging and 
 were very weakening, the pains at times 
 seemed as though they would drive me mad. 
 Many a time I wished to God I was dead, 
 and, like Job, that I had never been born. 
 I had been using remedies right along. At 
 the time I speak of I had been in the hands 
 
156 SCOTTY KID 
 
 of an Australian specialist for nearly a year. 
 At the end of the treatment I was no better/' 
 
 There were other forms of suffering. It 
 seems before and after his conversion he was 
 Socially shunned as a sort of pariah. 
 Ostracized "They would not allow me in 
 restaurants, nor could I get a bed 
 in lodging houses, as the people were all 
 afraid that I had a contagious disease. My 
 appearance terrified some. Why, I have 
 been refused a drink in a saloon, although I 
 had the money to pay for it. Even the bums 
 shunned me, because they said I made them 
 sick. So in the old bum days I traveled a 
 good deal by myself and slept in box cars, as 
 I felt freer there. There was no hotel boss to 
 reproach me nor tourists to criticize me. 
 That's one reason [as we have said] why I 
 used drugs and opiates to kill the pain and 
 keep me from going mad. There were times 
 I was so discouraged that I was tempted to 
 suicide — just a simple plunge into the water, 
 or an overdose of some of the poisons I 
 knew." 
 
 Of course this talk of drugs applies only 
 
A "GEED" NECK 157 
 
 to the unconverted life, for "Never one time 
 
 did I use drugs after I became a 
 
 Many Christian. God gave me power 
 
 Things of and grace to stand the pains of the 
 
 -* 11 * . disease, and I was delivered of 
 Physicians 
 
 drugs at conversion. But I was 
 not delivered of the disease. Finally I lost 
 all confidence in medicines or doctor's 
 remedies. I had spent nearly all I had for 
 eight years and none had helped me. I be- 
 lieve that many of those doctors had done 
 their best, but, after all, they themselves were 
 at sea, as far as being able to bring about a 
 cure for me. You see, I had tried them fair. 
 Sol made up my mind that I would cut them 
 all out, even the little home herbs cures that 
 were no better than the rest. I had been 
 thinking for a long time since conversion that 
 God would heal me, but probably through 
 some medicine as an agent. At last I got 
 convinced that the agent through whom God 
 wanted to heal me was Jesus Christ. Then, 
 when it was done, the real agent would get 
 the credit, and not a drug or a bottle of medi- 
 cine. 
 
158 SCOTTY KID 
 
 "Now I know that God does permit people 
 who have not the faith for healing to be cured 
 Faith or by medicines. [Here he quotes 
 Fanati- what will be conceded are au- 
 cism? thentic cases of the use of remedies 
 
 in the Scriptures, and he goes on.] My 
 conviction was that God wanted me to fully 
 trust him for healing without the aid of a 
 physician or medicine. If I did, he would 
 increase my faith and give me my healing, 
 or cause others to have faith for me. I saw 
 that healing was taught in the Bible, so I 
 finally decided to have the elders of the mis- 
 sion pray for me, lay their hands on me, and 
 anoint me with oil. 
 
 "I did it. The congregation also joined 
 and prayed also for my cure, and from that 
 time I started to feel better. In outward ap- 
 pearance it seemed as though I was not 
 better, but from the inside I was being 
 healed, and at times I would testify that God 
 was my healer and that he was healing me. 
 0n9 Many good people thought I was 
 
 Thing I out of my head. They said I was 
 Know presumptuous in saying that I was 
 
A "GEED" NECK 159 
 
 being healed. But that did not stop me 
 from believing that God was healing me. 
 This gradual healing kept up for six months, 
 and at the end of that time I declare to you 
 and to all the world that my healing has been 
 complete up to this day. If I had to do day 
 labor of any kind, I am certain that I could 
 perform it and enjoy it too. For over four 
 years I have not taken any medicine." 
 
 Tommy adds: "Many friends have made 
 apology to me now that they see I am really 
 Imagined healed. Instead of its being pre- 
 or sumption on my part, it is theirs, 
 
 Genuine £ or ^^t faith on my part, and 
 
 that exercised by Christian friends, through 
 the Lord Jesus Christ, brought health to my 
 body." And Tommy adds this sententious 
 novelty: "Presumption is that thing that 
 brings nothing but fear." 
 
 But was it tuberculosis? Two reputable 
 surgeons and physicians in the vicinity of 
 Los Angeles, when written to, to confirm 
 their previous statement concerning his con- 
 dition, write as follows : 
 
160 SCOTTY KID 
 
 March 13, 1912. 
 To Whom it May Concern: 
 
 I first met Mr. Thomas Anderson six years ago 
 at Los Angeles Camp Meeting, and afterward on 
 various occasions. He was suffering from a very 
 aggravated ailment in the neck and throat — scrofu- 
 lous glandular tuberculosis — one of the worst cases 
 I have seen since practicing medicine fifty-two years. 
 At times it appeared to partly heal up, but would 
 return again with suppurating sores, accompanied 
 by pain and great physical exhaustion. I have not 
 seen Mr. Anderson for some years and, therefore, 
 cannot say professionally what his condition now is. 
 He was to my mind a hopeless incurable. If such 
 conditions have now passed away, I can only believe 
 that a higher poweT than man has taken his case 
 in hand. S— S— , M.D., B.A. 
 
 Again. 
 
 May 30, 1912. 
 
 To Whom it May Concern : 
 
 This is to inform you that five or more years 
 ago I became acquainted with Brother Tommy F. 
 Anderson, and I can say that he was in a horrible 
 condition, most especially about his neck, which 
 was covered with sores, abscesses, and scars, being 
 brought on by scrofula, a tubercular-glandular con- 
 dition of the system. It was so bad that he would 
 have to resort to the surgeon's knife for relief from 
 
 pus and pain. . . . 
 
 M E S , M.D. 
 
A "GEED" NECK 161 
 
 There you have it. Take it or leave it, 
 as you like! "But why," says one of old 
 time, "should it be thought a thing 
 Enough incredible with you that God 
 should raise the dead?" Why, 
 indeed? In these days particularly, wherein 
 a monstrous system claiming for its sire the 
 Christian Scriptures (though damned by 
 any reputable science), is swallowed holus 
 bolus by thousands — by millions according 
 to Mrs. Eddv. Do not her faithful tell us 
 that she herself had not succumbed to that 
 nonexistent thing called "death" were it not 
 that she spent the last few days in her life 
 
 • ii 99 o 
 
 in error i 
 
 Yet are there left a thousand or two who 
 will believe in Him by whose stripes we are 
 
 _ healed — even (at least sometimes) 
 
 "Will He without remedies. God knows it 
 Find ^ i s a grievous experience to have a 
 bad dollar passed on one, but is it 
 not the sincerest tribute to a good, ringing 
 silver coin that there are dull lead things in 
 plenty to counterfeit it? So while many 
 present-day "isms" offer bodily healing in 
 
162 SCOTTY KID 
 
 their bargain-counter lure of inducements, 
 Jesus Christ not infrequently speaks his "I 
 will, be thou clean," apart from any human 
 intervention. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 AS AN EVANGELIST 
 
 It is no great step from mission worker to 
 traveling evangelist. It may be even easier 
 
 to carry a fiery message from 
 A Voice . 
 
 Crying place to place, than in duller rou- 
 
 tine to feed and nurture Chris- 
 tians in a mission. One must have a fund of 
 material to dispense a nightly ministry in the 
 same place for very long. A hurrying call 
 in the night for repentance and good works 
 may be sounded while one runs. What 
 matters it if the call be couched in the terms 
 of last night, as long as it startles into quick 
 obedience to-night's hearers? So Tommy is 
 "on the road," as the drummers say. 
 
 We read of one experience that sounds 
 like an old-time Methodism: "I was asked 
 to a place near Graham, Texas, where plans 
 were being made for a camp meeting. When 
 I arrived several ministers and workers were 
 
 soon busy cutting brush and stumps from a 
 
 163 
 
164 SCOTTY KID 
 
 clearing, where in a little were to be benches, 
 tables, and camp fixtures, including a big 
 stove to cook the meals for the whole crowd. 
 Afterward the elders met and elected 
 T. F. A. as superintendent of the meetings, 
 which were to be run for ten days. Mrs. 
 Anderson, the baby, and I lived with a well- 
 to-do farmer, where we had a chance to do 
 much personal work. During our stay there 
 
 every member of that household 
 Picking except one was won for the Lord, 
 
 and one of the daughters to this 
 day is an active worker for the Lord. Many 
 ministers and country school teachers ait- 
 tended this meeting. How the farmers and 
 their cowboy help crowded to us! In the 
 camp grounds were scores of wagons, saddle 
 horses, and mules, some coming from ten to 
 twenty miles distant. Altogether there must 
 have been six hundred people. But the unity 
 of the meetings was more wonderful. Con- 
 viction rested upon the people. Scores lined 
 
 up for the Lord. I never saw 
 A Godly r . . , 
 
 Sorrow anyone so convicted as one young 
 
 lady on her knees by a bench, 
 
AS AN EVANGELIST 165 
 
 crying so bitterly. I said, 'Sister, what is the 
 trouble? Why do you cry so?' She said, 
 'Because I am so sorry for my past sinful life 
 and I want God to save me/ It was not more 
 than a few minutes before the great change 
 came, and she was shouting with the joy of 
 the Lord. Nor were conversions the only 
 sign of power. Christians were deepened in 
 their spiritual life. The pastor of the local 
 church took on more faith and showed more 
 power with God." Brother Tommy alleges 
 that here, as elsewhere, the powers of dark- 
 ness were strong in opposition. "But Jesus 
 and his power rode high over his foes, and 
 Texas is feeling and enjoying to this day the 
 effects of that good old country camp meet- 
 mg. 
 
 Los Angeles: Here it was that Brother 
 Tommy had some responsibility in the con- 
 duct of the camp meeting. He 
 Pitch and , , .* i i 
 
 Power preached sometimes, but was busy, 
 
 so he says, in making announce- 
 ments, starting songs, opening the meetings, 
 "and seeing that all others were busy on their 
 jobs." As to the starting of the songs, we 
 
166 SCOTTY KID 
 
 pay tribute to the stentorian power of that 
 voice, while we deprecate, just a wee bit, 
 any praise of its musical qualities. What of 
 it? The chief value of a "starter" is to get 
 a song on the right pitch and with enough 
 volume to get it going and then straightway 
 be drowned out and merged into the praise- 
 f ul whole. Tommy could do that. He says : 
 "More than fifty ministers were in attend- 
 ance from Canada, Oregon, Chicago, and 
 from foreign fields. I saw not less than 
 nine hundred souls come to the Lord from all 
 classes — tramps and fallen women, business 
 and professional men. Just as grafters and 
 bums follow the circuses, so did old Satan 
 have his grafters in that camp ground, 
 'knocking 5 the preachers, saying the work 
 was not genuine. However, the work of the 
 Lord did prevail, and the powers of dark- 
 ness were made to take to their heels and beat 
 it." (Something like this we copied from 
 his notes concerning the Graham experience, 
 only without the reference to "beating it," 
 which is admittedly unconventional treat- 
 ment of a religious situation. We rather like 
 
AS AN EVANGELIST 167 
 
 it.) We should have said of this gathering 
 
 ._ ., . that there were some two hundred 
 Money Not 
 
 Solicited tents for sleeping purposes and in 
 
 Nor a large tent were supplied meals 
 
 Discussed . fii n i t M 
 
 tor hundreds of people daily. 
 
 The unique thing about the meeting was its 
 financing. No collections were ever taken, 
 nor were any mentions made of needs at the 
 meetings. Boxes were hanging in the taber- 
 nacle for free-will offerings. "It was won- 
 derful how liberal the people were." Fifteen 
 hundred people met every night in the big 
 tabernacle. 
 
 Chicago: It was in 1908 that, in company 
 with the Rev. William Durham, he did mis- 
 sion work where three hundred 
 Back Trail P eo pl e every night were in atten- 
 dance. It was in this city that he 
 had a chance to give his testimony in the 
 Great Pacific Garden, where Monroe was in 
 charge. Here was heard from the lips of 
 many a down-and-out the story of how they 
 had been transformed by the Lord. And all 
 of this territory was the scene of many an 
 exploit of the one-time bum and yeggman, 
 
168 SCOTTY KID 
 
 Scotty Kid. "It was near Hinky Dinks's 
 great booze emporium that I had well-at- 
 tended street meetings, where some of the 
 dear old greasy coats had a chance to hear 
 my testimony. Some business men now got 
 it straight that Scotty Kid was no longer 
 hunting and fishing for the dimes and 
 quarters for free drinks. He is now a hunter 
 and a fisherman for the souls of his brothers 
 and sisters living in slumdom." 
 
 Winnipeg: Here was a convention in 
 1908. "The thermometer was below zero 
 As in an d the people were wearing furs 
 
 Genesis like bears. These winds seemed 
 like they were dividing asunder 
 my flesh and bones, and at times I fairly 
 cried because of the cold. But I had to 
 stand it. Such a change from sunshiny Cali- 
 fornia! Later the Lord made people give 
 me felt shoes and furnish me with furs." 
 We are willing enough to give the Lord the 
 entire credit for that. It isn't done to mis- 
 sionary workers where we live, at any rate. 
 
 How is the following for worldly wisdom? 
 "Some people gave me some extra cash and 
 
AS AN EVANGELIST 169 
 
 a r i suggested for me to eat plenty of 
 
 for good Winnipeg apples and wild 
 
 Increasing ducks, and by so doing I would be 
 able to stand the weather. This I 
 did, and soon began to take on health and 
 weight." Furs, apples, and wild ducks, for- 
 sooth ! Who ever heard of such a recipe for 
 health and weight? When we go to Winni- 
 peg we propose to try it. 
 
 Brother Tommy prizes this Winnipeg ex- 
 perience for the fine friendship it brought 
 him with one of Canada's distinguished men 
 of letters and churchmen. This man hum- 
 bled himself to draw inspiration from 
 Tommy's exuberant Christian experience, 
 and together as little children, they used their 
 freedom of the kingdom of heaven to wander 
 amid its flowers and talk of its beauty. 
 Their acquaintance was renewed some years 
 after in Hawaii, where one of them stopped 
 over on a trip to China. 
 
 The same conflicts and conquests took 
 place here in Winnipeg, and on goes Tommy 
 to other fields, with just barely money 
 enough to get him to the next destination, 
 
170 SCOTTY KID 
 
 and always supplied in some unexpected 
 way, suggesting (whatever it please to you) 
 to Tommy the direct hand of God. 
 
 Fort Worth: It was in 1911 that a State 
 camp was in session. More than fifteen hun- 
 Long- dred people were gathered for a 
 
 Meter ten days' meeting. More than a 
 
 oxo ogy score f ministers from the 
 Southern States were on the platform and 
 Brother Tommy had the privilege of preach- 
 ing four times. "Scores came every night 
 to the altar, and every morning there was 
 Bible study, while at any hour you might 
 hear people holding special prayer in their 
 tents for the welfare of the meetings. Meals 
 were supplied on the grounds on the same 
 free-will plan. It was a beautiful thing to 
 hear hundreds sing their blessing over their 
 food. This eating on the grounds took away 
 the bother of cooking meals at home, and 
 there was more time to attend the meetings/' 
 
 A tax on your credence. There is a little 
 old lady living yet who could vouch for the 
 following story, and although it happened 
 
AS AN EVANGELIST 171 
 
 Gideon's early in Brother Tommy's evan- 
 Fleece gelistic experience, it will serve 
 
 Test as a kind of climax. He speaks 
 
 of it as a loving evidence of God's forgive- 
 ness and acceptance of his life of testimony. 
 
 He is alone doing evangelistic work in a 
 small California town, and while conducting 
 his meetings is the guest of an 
 Comci- elderly widow. The morning of 
 his expected departure he is tell- 
 ing his hostess of his past misspent life, and 
 in the conversation the recollection comes to 
 him that it was in this very town that he was 
 convicted and sentenced for vagrancy while 
 beating his way north, of which some ac- 
 count is given in the foregoing pages. The 
 startled widow exclaims, "Why, my husband 
 was the judge that sentenced you." If that 
 were not surprising enough, lo! the day of 
 the present conversation is clearly proved to 
 be an anniversary (the sixth or seventh, we 
 have forgotten) of the very day of sentence. 
 
 What do you make of that sort of "coin- 
 cidence," if not what Tommy did? 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 AN INTERRUPTED TRIP TO 
 SCOTLAND 
 
 "It was five years after I arrived in 
 America that my mother came to Los An- 
 geles from Scotland. There she lived with 
 my married sister for more than a year, and 
 then moved to San Francisco/' 
 
 It appears that the two lost all they had in 
 the earthquake fire in the way of clothes and 
 The "Far personal effects. The youngest 
 Country" son (at that time Scotty Kid) 
 Neglect Q £ course p a id no attention to his 
 
 mother, not so much as even to write a letter. 
 It is ever so with the sons in the "far coun- 
 try." It is not until they "come to them- 
 selves" that they so much as think of mother 
 or father. Such thoughts, if they intruded, 
 would be instantly banished, because serious 
 reflection is synonymous with unhappiness 
 in the "far country," where the sole ambition 
 
 172 
 
AN INTERRUPTED TRIP 173 
 
 is to banish care. We know. We boarded 
 there for some years. 
 
 "But mother still prays for this black 
 sheep. He is to her a son, just as much as 
 the others, and, say! it seems she loves that 
 prodigal." The marvel of that never dies, 
 though the story is well-nigh two thousand 
 years old. 
 
 "Well, the night I got converted her 
 prayers were answered, and one year later on 
 A "Call" God gave me a definite call into 
 to the the ministry, [you will under- 
 
 Ministry s t a nd that it was not the cut-and- 
 dried ecclesiastical kind he refers to] and 
 qualified me and gave me many souls for my 
 hire. Aye, and he supplied all my needs, and 
 all the congregations and missions felt I was 
 in my right calling. During this time mother 
 was in San Francisco and I wrote to her 
 often and visited her too. Say! you should 
 see what a happy mother I had. It seemed 
 that the good news of my conversion brought 
 not only joy but strength and made her feel 
 younger. When she and I talked together 
 of the Dear Master we fairly wept for joy. 
 
174 SCOTTY KID 
 
 "One year later I had a sum of money 
 given me, and I felt that I might take a trip 
 to Scotland with my mother to see our old 
 home town and kinsfolk. I had not been 
 there for sixteen years. Besides, when I got 
 there I expected to do some mission work. 
 I was already packed up and ready to start 
 to New York with my mother. For the week 
 previous to the start I had been preaching in 
 Oakland in a mission, while mother was in 
 San Francisco across the Bay. So I took the 
 ferry to San Francisco two days before we 
 would leave, so that I might look after 
 mother's baggage. When I arrived at my 
 sister's, where my mother was staying, she 
 opened the door when I knocked and took 
 me into a side room, whispering, 'Tom, your 
 mother is very sick. She became suddenly ill 
 this morning and she can hardly speak. The 
 doctor says to keep everything quiet/ 
 
 "It was a stroke of paralysis all down her 
 left side. I cannot express how I felt when 
 I saw my poor old stricken mother. It 
 seemed to me that I loved my mother more 
 than any of the others. I was her youngest, 
 
AN INTERRUPTED TRIP 175 
 
 and she called me her baby. When I ap- 
 proached she recognized me and made signs 
 with her hand in the way of welcome. She 
 shed tears when she could not make me 
 understand her by means of the voice. She 
 kept looking heavenward, as though she 
 meant to say, 'God understands me, if my 
 boy cannot, and his ways are best. 5 Think- 
 ing of my plan to take her to Scotland, the 
 last words she ever said were, 'Man proposes 
 but God disposes.' It was a sad sight. I 
 knew that mother was about to die, so I went 
 and canceled our railroad tickets, as I felt 
 I would need ready cash for the expenses 
 soon to come, for the rest of my brothers and 
 sisters were poor. Well, mother was sick for 
 three or four days, and the last of it all I 
 sat by her side and spoke to her about heav- 
 enly things and sang hymns, all of which 
 seemed to please her. I asked her if she 
 knew that her peace was made with God, 
 and whether she was ready to meet her Re- 
 deemer. By motion of her hands and lifted 
 head she signified 'Yes.' It seemed strange 
 that this one-time black sheep was the only 
 
176 SCOTTY KID 
 
 one of the family qualified spiritually to stay 
 
 by mother as she was entering the Heavenly 
 
 City. I say it very meekly, giving God all 
 
 the honor. 
 
 "We were speaking of the light of the 
 
 City, the last subject on which I spoke to her. 
 
 I then kissed her and said I hoped, 
 "My Ain 
 Gountrie" ^J God's grace, to meet her there. 
 
 She soon became unconscious and 
 
 died. I took all the railroad money and 
 
 buried her. It paid all the expenses. It 
 
 seemed that it was not God's good time for 
 
 me to go to Scotland." 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 BROTHER AND SISTER 
 ANDERSON 
 
 Now, what sort of a wedded helpmeet 
 would you have for such a fellow? Mind 
 . you, the eugenic people would 
 
 quityor have none at all. With regard 
 Provi- f or the nex t generation, how could 
 
 such a man marry? Aye, if it 
 were the Scotty Kid now, the position of the 
 challenger is well-nigh incontrovertible. But 
 it is the new-born, well-born Brother Tommy 
 that we are considering, and he says that 
 God showed him and a young woman doing 
 mission work where he was (He showed them 
 simultaneously, mind you!) that it was not 
 good for them to do mission work singly. If 
 there is any place for naturalistic theories in 
 matters of private inspiration, here looks to 
 be the place. Under the circumstances — we 
 will tell them and you can judge for your- 
 self — the Lord might as well have the direct 
 
 177 
 
178 SCOTTY KID 
 
 credit instead of some such naturalistic de- 
 vices as "natural selection," "propinquity/' 
 etc. However, why cavil? Here is the 
 story : 
 
 The present Mrs. Anderson was born in 
 Oklahoma and was an active mission worker 
 
 To the * n a m ^ ss i° n °f ^e out-and-out 
 
 "Greeks" sort (which we need not name) 
 
 Foolish- an( j jj. was j^pg j. Q v j s -|. j a ii s hog. 
 ness; to . 
 
 Us— We pitals, and to give tracts and hold 
 
 Keep Our street meetings. It was in 1907 
 Hands Off , , . ° . , 
 
 that this young woman, with an- 
 other of her age, an ex- Salvation Army cap- 
 tain, felt called of God to go to California to 
 a certain town to give a definite message. 
 Of the validity of that call we have nothing 
 to say. It was the teaching and experience 
 of that particular mission that people should 
 expect and follow definite leading of that 
 sort, so her people were not surprised and 
 put no obstacles in their way. These two 
 claimed that they were provided with means 
 to make their trip without any solicitation on 
 their part, and that subsequently upon arriv- 
 ing at California their wants were supplied. 
 
BROTHER AND SISTER 179 
 
 Be that as it may, they landed in Los An- 
 geles first, that astonishing Mecca of all sorts 
 of pilgrims. They worked in missions there 
 where big things were in progress in the way 
 of nightly conversions, thence to Whittier 
 and on to Tulare. Here their path was not 
 strewn with roses. Whatever may be said 
 of the sanity, reasonableness, and risks of 
 going on strictly "faith lines," it takes stern 
 stuff to pursue that road with any show of 
 consistency. The weaklings had better sheer 
 
 off; they must fall by the way- 
 Adventure s ^ e anyway. Let no fools cackle 
 
 their scorn of any sort of adven- 
 turers who go up that highway of holy enter- 
 prise. There are great fields of undiscovered 
 country beyond, and commonplace souls 
 hardly venture from their own doorstep. 
 Still, we can but shrink from the cost of the 
 endeavor, with pity for the pain. 
 
 Here are two young girls in a strange 
 town, believing in their message, though no 
 High one e l se did. Were they deluded? 
 
 Pressure Who dare say? Their money was 
 
 gone; they knew no one in the 
 
180 SCOTTY KID 
 
 town, but they believed that God would sup- 
 ply their needs. Theirs were such simple 
 basic needs too. They are hungry, and while 
 walking the street they see in the road a 
 fresh loaf of bread that has fallen from a 
 baker's cart. "Although very hungry, they 
 are ashamed to pick it up. This was a test." 
 Now, Tommy, what can you mean by that? 
 A "test" forsooth? Of hunger, pride, or, it 
 may be, a conscientious regard for the 
 baker's property? 
 
 But, anyway, they are compelled to seek 
 work in a raisin packing house, and all that 
 first day all these girls had for breakfast, 
 lunch, and dinner was raisins. 
 
 Such labor as this may be very defensible 
 on Pauline grounds, but doubtless seemed 
 very like a lapse to these knights 
 "Credit °f faith-errantry. Night comes 
 System." and with it a need for lodging, 
 Program which must be obtained on credit, 
 as also meals until pay day. Can 
 this "credit" business be called leaning on 
 the "arm of flesh," we wonder? If so, how 
 have we all leaned there, till some of us have 
 
BROTHER AND SISTER 181 
 
 well-nigh lost the confidence in the very 
 existence of any such beings as angels ( God's 
 ministering spirits) save those human "mes- 
 sengers" we can sense. 
 
 Stifling our propensity to moralize, the 
 story runs that they worked for a few weeks, 
 preaching on the street at night, though 
 many attempts to discourage them were 
 made by fellow roomers in their boarding 
 house. It certainly did not appear sensible. 
 Besides, it was cold at night, so that they 
 had to take the heavy floor rugs to pile on 
 the bed, as they had brought nothing with 
 them from warm Phoenix. We find in our 
 notes the sententious comment that "it made 
 resting rather uncomfortable." 
 
 There was money enough saved up finally 
 to take them to Fresno, where there was an- 
 other mission of their sort, with enough to 
 do; and hire enough, too, in the shape of 
 needed things for the worthy laborers. Then 
 comes Stockton, and after that Sacramento, 
 and here Brother Tommy comes back to his 
 place in the story. He was doing most of the 
 preaching in that mission at the time, and 
 
182 SCOTTY KID 
 
 was no stranger (through the medium of 
 mission reputation at least) to these young 
 women. There was no occasion for him to 
 fly out of Sacramento because these feminine 
 auxiliaries came, was there? After a few 
 weeks and he is called to Chico. How futile 
 to deny the right of Miss F. E. D. to be 
 called there too ! It is too late to remonstrate 
 anyway. She went to Chico. Here is where 
 Double ^e impression was made on the 
 
 Harness minds of those two young folks — 
 
 Extolled i. i j j. j 
 
 simultaneously, you understand. 
 
 Note the sum total of it: "It is not good 
 to be single in the work." (Now we do re- 
 member our faults this day. We never asked 
 Brother Tommy what became of that other 
 young woman. We fancy that she "just 
 naturally" faded out of the story.) 
 
 A word as to the ceremony. It took an 
 old Negro man who was impressed with the 
 By the need of helping, to get sufficient 
 
 Brook cash to supply the license fee. 
 
 The groom was the modest pos- 
 sessor of $1.50 at the time of the marriage, 
 and the wedding banquet was after this 
 
BROTHER AND SISTER 183 
 
 fashion : In a back room, just after the wed- 
 ding ceremony had been performed, stood a 
 table near an open window. (Now if you 
 are expecting a raven to feed this prophet 
 and his wife, we will try and not disappoint 
 you.) Upon this table was laid a platter 
 covered with a clean napkin, under which 
 were a chicken dinner and a nice big frosted 
 cake. This dinner was cooked and presented 
 by our good old Negro mammy neighbor. 
 Two quite sable ravens, while we are about 
 it! She was the wife of the good old man 
 who supplied the license money, and her 
 name was Powers. 
 
 Do the eugenists ask concerning the chil- 
 dren of this union? There are 
 Babies* » two of them — beautiful, healthy 
 children, with a glorious, unham- 
 pered future ahead of them. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 IN HONOLULU 
 
 Of the polyglot population of Honolulu, 
 perhaps the least hopeful from an economic 
 B N point of view are the few Porto 
 
 Means Ricans. That is to say, they came 
 
 "Show" with little capital, material or 
 mental, and have acquired very 
 little since they came. Brought to the Is- 
 lands to promote the sugar industry, not a 
 few of them have left the plantations and 
 have drifted to Honolulu, for much the same 
 reasons that congest our large cities on the 
 mainland. Religiously they were almost en- 
 tirely let alone. Their coreligionists, the 
 Catholic Portuguese, seemed to have no 
 interest in them, nor did the Roman Church 
 in general pay them any attention. 
 
 Here, in 1911, is where Brother Tommy 
 came in. He was on his way to China and 
 stopped off for reasons that may have been 
 partly financial before they were "provider 
 
 184 
 
IN HONOLULU 185 
 
 tial" — but suppose we do not allow any pri- 
 ority to either element. 
 
 In one of the most "submerged" portions 
 of the city there was a shack of utterly shift- 
 less and riotous Porto Ricans. 
 Reform Their children did not go to school 
 and scorned anything much in the 
 way of clothing. The institution of marriage 
 had been long since lost sight of; they were 
 living "huikau," as the Hawaiians put it 
 when they want to call domestic relations 
 "mixed.'' Now, the scientific reformer 
 would go at them with a number of beauti- 
 fully remedial agencies. If he could not se- 
 cure for them a "new grandmother" (con- 
 cerning which requisite Billy Sunday pays 
 his compliments) , he might supply the "clean 
 shirt." Then there are free milk for the 
 babies, a district nurse- — after the house has 
 been torn down by the Board of health, the 
 family being first evicted — and some dancing 
 classes. What Tommy and his people did 
 "The Weak soun ds as foolish as the seven- 
 Things of day trip around the Jericho walls, 
 e or and almost as effective. It was 
 
186 SCOTTY KID 
 
 perhaps somewhat before Tommy's arrival 
 that two simple-minded, quite illiterate men 
 of his brotherhood began to visit every night 
 that temple dedicated to squalor. They got 
 down on their knees and prayed — and that, 
 mind you, in a tongue foreign to the inmates. 
 At first the kneeling men had things thrown 
 at them, a similar "collection" to that of- 
 fered to Stephen after his notable sermon. 
 Then a perfectly unaccountable thing hap- 
 pened, certainly not easy of explanation 
 Cleaning save *° *^e well-trained, modern 
 Up the rationalist. These poor, neg- 
 enements l ec tedL, utterly careless people be- 
 gan to do a number of things all at once. 
 While they started to take some notice of 
 this praying business, interest was awakened 
 in them to clean up their house and clothe 
 themselves as decently as they might. 
 Drinking began to stop till it ceased quite 
 entirely. Parents of quite large families 
 sought marriage certificates. In a word, 
 that whole offensive little community was 
 transformed into a colony of most devoted 
 attendants on evening meetings that were 
 
IN HONOLULU 187 
 
 evangelistic of the most pronounced sort. 
 Such "settlement" work challenges your ex- 
 pensive modern plant. Can you beat it? 
 
 Somewhere in this process Brother 
 Tommy happened along, and it was here that 
 he began his study of Spanish, and he quite 
 naturally fell into the leadership over this 
 little flock. By this time quite a group of 
 Spanish-speaking people had been brought 
 together, and the next thing was to get some 
 A kind of a meetinghouse. "So," 
 
 Gathering says Tommy, "we went to the 
 Place Government Building and told 
 
 the commissioner that we wanted a piece of 
 land for mission purposes. So he grants us 
 a piece near the U. S. Experiment Station. 
 We got $40 from the Porto Ricans (it seems 
 a marvelous fortune when one considers the 
 extreme poverty of this people) and about 
 $25 from friends in town." Then members 
 of the Hawaiian Board brought the sum up 
 to $150, and Japanese carpenters furnished 
 the lumber and the work and did the whole 
 job for that sum, because, they said, "It is a 
 mission for poor people." It was only a little 
 
188 SCOTTY KID 
 
 box twenty by thirty, and hot too, as the 
 writer can testify. But it was a sacred place 
 of worship to those earnest folk, who had 
 gotten together in a sort of "carpenter bee" 
 and had made the benches themselves. 
 
 Now comes the grand opening and dedica- 
 tion and "more than a hundred people 
 packed inside, children sitting and sleeping 
 on the floor. God did bless, and these brown 
 and black faces shone because old things had 
 passed away and all things had become new." 
 
 What if even the mission services waned 
 in their power and attendance after Brother 
 Tommy went to China. Much good came of 
 it all, and scattering members took to many 
 places on the islands the flame of exalted 
 spiritual devotion, to rekindle many another 
 little altar. 
 
 This China trip is unique and has much in 
 it worth the telling. In a life that had not 
 so many bristling out-of-the-ordinary points 
 in it, this missionary trip to China could 
 hardly escape notice, but somehow it strikes 
 us somewhat foreign to our purpose and we 
 omit further mention of it. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 A SCHOLAR TOO! 
 
 Not of English as yet. That will come in 
 
 time, as we intimated. To get to the Span- 
 
 „ „ ish-speaking people in Hawaii the 
 
 No Easy * -tip 
 
 "Short- language is needed ot course. 
 
 Cuts" to Not ordinary "pidgin" patois will 
 do. Brother Tommy wants to 
 speak correctly. One or two rather "tick- 
 lish" adventures with teachers cause him to 
 look in the direction of the correspondence 
 course, and few of their many pupils have 
 shown more conclusively that they meant 
 business. In the first place, to a man like 
 Tommy one hundred dollars (the cost of the 
 course) is no bagatelle. Then, despite the 
 novelty of a talking machine, drudgery can- 
 not be totally eliminated from language 
 study. There are thirty to fifty words to be 
 memorized in one lesson and sometimes as 
 many as twelve sentences to be committed to 
 memory. The test of proficiency comes 
 
 189 
 
190 SCOTTY KID 
 
 when the pupil recites back into the records 
 sentences made up of the materials already 
 presented for mastery. To what rank do 
 you think our quondam Irish hobo would 
 be likely to attain? Notice that he has to 
 write sentences, an exercise which from old- 
 school analogy we would denominate " Span- 
 ish prose." Thus eye and ear and hand are 
 trained by what seems to us to be a most effi- 
 cient method, to those really in earnest about 
 it. 
 
 We aver that Brother Tommy has a right 
 to considerable honest pride which may not 
 We Take escape detection in the following 
 Off Our quotation from his notes: "I am 
 at now in my thirtieth lesson — the 
 
 last of the course. My percentage marks 
 have never been less than ninety-six [we are 
 willing to admit that at times in our own 
 career our marks did fail to reach that low 
 level], while eight papers brought me ninety- 
 nine." Apart from our own somewhat dam- 
 aged scholarly reputation, of which confes- 
 sion has just been made, we know other men 
 who in the same subject and in the same cor- 
 
A SCHOLAR TOO 191 
 
 respondence course were satisfied if not com- 
 placent with a mark of seventy. So does 
 Brother Tommy's head seem to have profited 
 by the new birth too. He says: "It is easy 
 for me to get along in the everyday talk, read 
 and write some, and read some in the New 
 Testament. I have a vocabulary of about 
 sixteen hundred words, and some may think 
 I am well versed" — not many of us, Brother 
 Tommy — "but I realize that there is a great 
 deal for me yet to learn. So far I do not 
 know very much." Surely, but you could 
 hardly have given us better proof that you 
 would some day. 
 
 It is he that continueth to the end that is 
 saved in any line of work. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 FROM PAHOA TO HAKALAU 
 
 Thirty-five miles in extent is a fairly 
 good-sized parish. Not that the early mis- 
 01d sionaries in Hawaii did not have 
 
 Missionary larger ones. The celebrated 
 Trails "Father" Coan of Hilo compre- 
 
 hended a much larger area in his parish, 
 while "Father" Lyons thought nothing of 
 adding the Hamakua district and the valley 
 of Waipio, difficult of access, to his already 
 ample field of Waimea. Even the sight of 
 the map would make it difficult for you to 
 see how much this means, even in the days 
 before good saddle trails, not to speak of the 
 marvelous space-annihilating Ford. 
 
 Brother Tommy covers ground enough. 
 He began with Olaa and some of the neigh- 
 Where the boring camps of Hilo, and now he 
 Ford goes out in the other direction 
 
 Counts from Hil05 tQ Pepeekeo and Ha _ 
 
 kalrfti. Of course this would be quite a spas- 
 
 192 
 
PAHOA TO HAKALAU 193 
 
 modic and ineffectual thing to attempt with- 
 out the machine with which Tommy covers 
 his miles. As it is, Hilo is a good place in 
 which to live — a base of supplies, meaning 
 considerably more than gasoline and tires — 
 where there are excellent schools, good stores, 
 friendly neighbors, and, more than all, a 
 home, which last is perhaps the "Exhibit A" 
 of the Christian faith on the earth to-day. 
 Brother Tommy would not be much without 
 his home, which statement is commonplace 
 enough: few men would. Here too he 
 studies his Spanish lessons, prepares his ex- 
 amination papers for his correspondence 
 course, and, practicing on his wife, watches 
 his vocabulary grow. 
 
 Hilo is well taken care of in the matter of 
 churches and does not need much of his time 
 Back to anc * service. There is a meeting 
 Jail— by at the jail now and then, and 
 
 vitation B ro ther Tommy is at home there. 
 Some remarkable things have happened at 
 that jail when Brother Tommy has talked to 
 some of the most abandoned of all the pris- 
 oners, the Porto Ricans. 
 
194 SCOTTY KID 
 
 But where he is needed most is at the out- 
 lying plantations, where the Filipinos, Porto 
 Ricans, and Spanish are practically unserved 
 by any church. It will be at once objected 
 that certainly the Catholics look out for their 
 own, and all these people came 
 Catholics? f rom Catholic countries. To 
 which the plain answer is that reli- 
 gion and the priests have gotten themselves 
 in strong disfavor in the minds of most of 
 those coming from the Philippines, and the 
 Spanish and Porto Ricans on the Islands 
 have so far been neglected by the Catholics 
 to a large extent. So it is at Pahoa. 
 
 Now, Pahoa is a lumber camp. Not the 
 kind of a lumber plant that you have in your 
 mind, doubtless. It is hardwood 
 Hardwood *hey S e ^ ou ^ there, ohia and koa, 
 and it is more than probable that 
 these terms may not be so clear to most of 
 the readers. Certainly, the terms are not as 
 well known as the company would like to 
 have them. The ohia is used principally for 
 making railroad ties, and now hardwood 
 floors of ohia are quite "the thing," partly 
 
PAHOA TO HAKALAU 195 
 
 for their looks, and, what is still more to the 
 point, the dread "borer" ants do not eat them 
 as they do almost every other kind of wood. 
 The ohia grows very plentifully on all the 
 slopes of Hawaii, while there are large for- 
 ests of koa — a much larger tree, by the way 
 — in the vicinity of the volcano (Kilauea) 
 and on a belt of the same level nearly all 
 around the island. The market for koa has 
 not yet been created as the wood deserves. 
 Called by some the "Hawaiian mahogany," 
 it has been used much in Hawaii for making 
 furniture, and for finishing the more costly 
 houses. While it takes a wonderful polish 
 and is a beautiful hardwood, it is difficult 
 and costly to finish because it splinters in the 
 planing. 
 
 So much for the wood that makes Pahoa a 
 settlement, that literally places it on the 
 
 map ; certainlv, there would be no 
 Parasites 
 
 other excuse for the straggling 
 
 row of houses, the labor camps and populous 
 
 school. Garages, too (we saw a brand new 
 
 Cadillac of the latest model in one of them) , 
 
 and stores and even billiard parlors. The 
 
196 SCOTTY KID 
 
 Japanese and the Filipinos patronize this 
 last institution, so that there is money in it 
 for the promoters and penury for the Fili- 
 pinos. 
 
 When Brother Tommy first visited Pahoa 
 he was after the little brown Filipinos. 
 There was no place in which to gather them 
 and they did not want to be gathered any- 
 way. They were spending their leisure time 
 crap-shooting and billiard-playing, betting 
 on baseball games, and shaking dice. 
 Tommy says that he used to go in among 
 them and tell them that "they must come 
 Filipino an d hear the word of God." Of 
 Ap- course he told them this in Span- 
 
 proac es -^ w hich had an old familiar 
 sound to them, and they were willing to 
 come to the midst of the camp and listen. If 
 it rained, they would have to crowd on the 
 veranda of some small camp building. Here 
 is where Tommy learned what it meant "to 
 compel them to come." "They would not 
 come out into the main road so we had to go 
 after them, or we never would have held one 
 service." 
 
PAHOA TO HAKALAU 197 
 
 There were sixteen months of this sort of 
 
 effort, with a folding Estey to help (played 
 
 by Mrs. Anderson), and some- 
 
 _ co ^. times an accordion. The time was 
 
 Backing 
 
 by no means thrown away, you 
 may be sure. Doubtless the confidence of 
 these people was largely won in this way. 
 That grimly earnest, yet humorous face, plus 
 the big penetrating voice, must make their 
 impression Sunday after Sunday, for a year 
 and a half. Aye, the manager of the plan- 
 tation was being impressed too. There is a 
 commercial value to all this effort in the im- 
 proved condition of labor, but it was the 
 Scotch pluck of Brother Tommy that ap- 
 pealed to the Scotch manager. By the way, 
 most of the managers are Scotch, so that the 
 Hilo-Hamakua coast is sometimes humor- 
 ously spoken of as the "Caledonian coast." 
 
 So the Hardwood Company wants to have 
 a part in this welfare work. The manager 
 A offers the lumber (hardwood, by 
 
 Hardwood the way, which looks pretentious 
 xssion £ or a m j SS i on chapel) and the car- 
 penter and a piece of land. That constitutes 
 
198 SCOTTY KID 
 
 the larger part of the undertaking, so that by 
 November 15, 1915, the First Filipino Mis- 
 sion on the island of Hawaii is ready for use. 
 It is thirty-five by forty-six, and will seat 
 one hundred and fifty. But the getting of 
 the one hundred and fifty into it is quite an- 
 other thing. "We would start and play the 
 organ and sing, but they would not come in. 55 
 The next step was clearly to go out into the ' 
 camps and invite them to come. This was 
 done by Brother Tommy, and "they would 
 say, 'Yes, we will come/ and probably three 
 or four would show up." This was discon- 
 certing from every point of view. That 
 Brother Tommy's pride was involved, to- 
 gether with a much nobler passion, will ap- 
 pear from the following: 
 
 "One visiting minister, when he entered 
 the mission, said, 'This is a nice building, but 
 "Compel where are the people?' I replied, 
 Them to 'You wait for about ten minutes, 
 Come" J.JJJ j g an( j g e j. ^.j ie con g re g a . 
 
 tion.' " Thereupon he proceeded to go after 
 them "Bible fashion," as he calls it. Herein 
 does the "compelling" process become mani- 
 
f f 
 
 5% **£& 
 
 AUDIENCE AT DEDICATION OF THE SPANISH MISSION 
 AT HAKALAU, NOVEMBER 5, 1916 
 
 CHAPEL FOR SPANISH WORK AT HAKALAU, DEDICATED 
 NOVEMBER 5, 1916 
 
PAHOA TO HAKALAU 199 
 
 fest. The evangelist is not now a "fisher of 
 men"; he becomes a "hunter," though it all 
 sounds more like a game, a game of "hide 
 and seek" that the mischievous brown chil- 
 dren are playing, with Brother Tommy in 
 the role of "it." "They would hide behind 
 Churched doors, under beds, in the bath 
 
 —if house, some up between the ceiling 
 
 Caught and the roof> What fun these 
 
 little brown fellows are having with their 
 white preacher!" But when caught they evi- 
 dently were willing to pay up their forfeits 
 like men. "When we had found from six to 
 a dozen, we would march them to the mission 
 house and leave them in charge of a mission 
 helper." (This helper was often Mrs. An- 
 derson, and the "we" referred to compre- 
 hends a Filipino helper.) "Then out again 
 into the camp in a raid for more droves of 
 them. In this way we would collect from 
 sixty to eighty-five, which would make a fair 
 congregation for the beginning of our serv- 
 ice. Most of the message was given in Span- 
 ish to be translated into Tagalog." It hap- 
 pens that most in this particular camp under- 
 
200 SCOTTY KID 
 
 stand Tagalog, though this confusion of dia- 
 lects makes the Filipino work 
 Many 1 especially hard. There are the 
 
 Visayans to be dealt with, as well 
 as those of the Ilocano speech. Those of this 
 last dialect comprise some of the most enter- 
 prising and intelligent of the Filipinos in 
 Hawaii, and work for them very particularly 
 has hardly begun. It is fortunate that Span- 
 ish furnishes at least a gateway to their 
 understanding. That is why Brother 
 Tommy is working so hard at it. Those 
 speaking pure Spanish are numerically in- 
 considerable, though they are in his scheme of 
 things, as we shall see. 
 
 But to go back to that congregation : they 
 seemed to pay good attention, though their 
 singing was "terribly out of tune," but he 
 accounts for this on the ground that they 
 were "raw material." But we cannot free 
 ourselves from the suspicion that in view of 
 the nature of their invitations, they may not 
 have had their hearts in that singing. 
 
 "Many outsiders told us that they were a 
 wild people and that they never would be any 
 
PAHOA TO HAKALAU 201 
 
 good; that all the robberies and 
 Analogy murders are committed by them." 
 
 All of which Tommy admits, add- 
 ing to the indictment that there were "some 
 mighty bad ones among them." He goes on 
 to prove their worldliness by what seems to 
 us as "judging them in respect to meats," 
 or, rather, vegetables. He declares that they 
 are great lovers of leeks and onions. This 
 somehow suggests "Egypt" to us, and we 
 wonder whether Brother Tommy was not 
 straining at a scriptural parallel, thinking 
 of those poor whilom bond slaves yearning 
 so for the odorous garlic despite the hard 
 service in bricks. 
 
 "So now the Filipinos," says Brother 
 Tommy, "planted their biggest crop in leeks 
 From an d onions, and all around the 
 
 Garlic to mission house was planted a beau- 
 Rose tif ul crop of them." This pointed 
 
 in the direction of good works, so Tommy 
 thought; it was far better than weeds. "But 
 now" — note the triumph of it — "the leeks 
 and onions have been pulled out, and in 
 letters of small red flowers 'PAHOA MIS- 
 
202 SCOTTY KID 
 
 SI ON 9 has been planted, to be seen by all 
 passers on the public road, while on the sides 
 are fern trees, and some of the bird's-nest 
 variety, and roses, and on the edge, a row of 
 hibiscus. So now you see the gospel made 
 them change from leeks and onions to roses 
 and ferns." 
 
 What think you of that proof of the gos- 
 pel? Plantation men might not agree. 
 From utility to sentiment would spell no pro- 
 gression to them. As for us, the Egypt- 
 Caanan figure appeals, aside from some in- 
 herent prejudice against garlic. 
 
 "Also in front of their own houses they are 
 planting flowers and trees where before only 
 weeds and wild grass grew." This 
 Fruits"— * s conclusive. The same fruit of 
 the gospel has appeared among 
 the Japanese in the Islands, of which the Ha- 
 waiian Board records have much to tell us. 
 
 But there is a nobler fruit still: "Now they 
 come to services. We hunt for them no more 
 under beds and behind doors and between 
 ceilings and roof." It is either a new habit 
 or a new taste, or both. There is evidently 
 
PAHOA TO HAKALAU 203 
 
 something in that mission for which they 
 come. So much is clear. 
 
 "We have services every Sunday morning. 
 The Sunday school is conducted by Mrs. An- 
 derson (with the assistance of a charming 
 young woman who lives in Pahoa, and whose 
 part-Hawaiian antecedents make it possible 
 for her to assist in the Hawaiian tongue for 
 the Hawaiians who attend) , and the children 
 are made up of Japanese, Hawaiian, and 
 Filipinos." As for the adult Filipinos, many 
 of them have been baptized, and they make 
 good Christians and love to study their 
 The "Best Bibles. "More than forty New 
 Seller" Testaments have been sold to 
 Here Too them, and one man told me 
 that he had sold more than twenty-five dol- 
 lars worth of small dictionaries, and spellers 
 and letter-copy books at this one place. 
 There is a night school conducted four times 
 each week, and from fourteen to twenty are 
 studying English. We lost one of the best 
 of this company, who used to help me in 
 hunting up his countrymen. He is now pre- 
 paring himself in the Hawaiian Board 
 
204 SCOTTY KID 
 
 School to preach the gospel to his own 
 people." 
 
 In general, Brother Tommy regards the 
 Filipino outlook as very hopeful: "Whereas 
 Appraisal every month many of them are ar- 
 of rested for gambling and various 
 
 i ipmos crimes, hundreds of them are pre- 
 paring to become citizens of the United 
 States, studying the constitution, settling 
 down into business as plumbers, tailors, 
 hatters, bookkeepers, salesmen, court inter- 
 preters, officers in the national guards, etc," 
 In this last connection, it should be said that 
 in the late competitions for trophies among 
 the various companies of the national guard, 
 the best-drilled companies on both Oahu and 
 Hawaii were Filipino companies. When it 
 is noted that there are nearly five thousand 
 enrolled in the national guard in Hawaii, 
 comprising companies of Anglo-Saxon 
 Americans, as well as pure Hawaiians, the 
 success of the recent comers competing under 
 conditions that are less favorable, must 
 mean something in their favor. 
 
 That they take on other American ways is 
 
PAHOA TO HAKALAU 205 
 
 not to be wondered at, and one often wishes 
 they were not so apt pupils in picking up our 
 American vices. They are even intermarry- 
 ing with the Hawaiians, with what interest- 
 ing result in the way of race blending it is too 
 early to speak. Certainly, in ways of living, 
 Possible anc * even in appearance, there is 
 Race- no great dissimilarity in the two 
 
 Blend races. We recently came across 
 
 one of them preaching acceptably in the 
 Hawaiian tongue, which he had picked up 
 with more than ordinary fluency in his brief 
 stay in the Islands. In that same Hawaiian 
 church there were a number of Filipinos re- 
 ceived into membership, a good deal due to 
 his influence, although similar conditions 
 exist in other parishes. 
 
 Another interesting phase of work done 
 
 among the Filipinos, with which Brother 
 
 . Tommy is connected to some de- 
 
 vs. gree, is the citizenship teaching, 
 
 K.-of-H. first instituted under the auspices 
 Citizenship of ^ Y M c A as ^ Qut _ 
 
 growth of a league for that purpose. It is 
 marvelous how they are responding, large 
 
206 SCOTTY KID 
 
 numbers of the national guard especially tak- 
 ing out naturalization papers. Evangeliza- 
 tion seems to them to go appropriately hand 
 in hand with approaches to American citizen- 
 ship. Would that later no disillusionment 
 need to arrive! Americanism and Chris- 
 tianity convertible terms? What enlight- 
 ened patriot among us, however much he 
 might yearn for it, dare claim it to be true? 
 We once heard a famous Japanese evangelist 
 say he once thought so. It was a rude shock 
 when he came to America and found out that 
 the Sermon on the Mount was not operative 
 in America — nor yet in any country — be- 
 cause Christ was not King there. But the 
 Filipinos have been with us but a brief time, 
 and they welcome, especially on Maui, teach- 
 ing on American citizenship and Kingdom- 
 of-Heaven citizenship simultaneously. Or, 
 to be more exact, as one of our evangelists 
 put it, they would not have the citizenship 
 talks unless they had religion first. What a 
 heaven-ordained order! If national alle- 
 giance could brook that order, say in Europe, 
 to-day, what might we not expect? 
 
PAHOA TO HAKALAU 207 
 
 Hakalau Work 
 
 As one sails along the Hamakua Coast en 
 route to Hilo, he passes some dozen or more 
 plantations, stretching in beauti- 
 Sugar ftd g reen U P to the forest line, and 
 
 reaching down to the high bluff, 
 two hundred or more feet, from which issue 
 a superb succession of waterfalls to the sea. 
 The several mills for grinding and sugar- 
 making are either perched on this bluff or 
 nestle down in the deep gulches which quite 
 frequently mark the division line between 
 the plantations, Hakalau is one of these 
 companies some sixteen miles from Hilo. 
 
 Here Brother Tommy started a work 
 which is about two years old at the present 
 writing. Here is where the Spanish lan- 
 guage is a "stone to kill three birds/' as 
 Tommy puts it. That figure looks inapt 
 enough, since it is a "bread" with which he is 
 "enlivening" the Spanish, Porto Ricans, and 
 Filipinos. It is not often that the three na- 
 tionalities are to be found in the same planta- 
 tion in any numbers. In a Spanish camp 
 "the children were the noisiest bunch I ever 
 
208 SCOTTY KID 
 
 saw in my life." "When I entered the camp 
 
 there was a great shout, f El 
 
 in a Title maestro de salvacion viene!'— 
 
 meaning 'The teacher of Salvation 
 
 is coming.' " 
 
 He has this to say of this same "bunch," 
 to which we can attest, since we saw them and 
 heard them: "But in spite of their 
 Soap yells and dirty faces, how sweetly 
 
 they did learn to sing English and 
 Spanish hymns!" Just why he regards a 
 dirty face as a bar to singing we have not 
 learned of him. It was Artemas Ward who 
 said he once knew a man who was the best 
 player on a bass drum that he ever heard, 
 and yet he did not have a tooth in his head. 
 The humor lies in the absence of relation. 
 
 "Our services interrupted many a cock- 
 fight, as well as family dances. These are 
 popular diversions among the Spaniards. 
 For a long time the older people would not 
 attend our open-air or veranda meetings, but 
 recently they have been changing and come 
 quite freely. To be sure, they are very indif- 
 ferent to religion of any kind. As they are 
 
PAHOA TO HAKALAU 209 
 
 good housekeepers, steady workers on the 
 plantations, they are well pleasing to the 
 sugar companies. The Portuguese at the 
 camp are mostly Catholics and celebrate the 
 
 feast of the Holy Ghost. Here 
 Believe it? there is much music and dancing 
 
 and drinking of wine. Often the 
 celebration ends up in a drunken row. Gen- 
 erally, from two to four police attend to 
 arrest the drunken fighters and to protect 
 the others at the celebration who have not in- 
 dulged in the 'dago red.' (This last is a 
 sweet wine, quite palatable and not expen- 
 sive. It is known to the trade as unripe, or 
 untempered, and as it contains a large per- 
 centage of alcohol and is taken down like 
 "Dago water, it effects fearful results in 
 
 Red" and the shape of a "drunk/') "When 
 mnity we p ass one Q £ ^hese gatherings 
 
 some of the people, when drunk (sometimes 
 even when sober), shout out, 'Diablo' 
 [devil]. The Porto Ricans love to gamble 
 and drink, but there are some very good 
 ones among them and steady workers. But 
 the gospel is winning its way. The Span- 
 
210 SCOTTY KID 
 
 iards invite us in to eat and drink coffee. 
 They give us ham and eggs and sometimes 
 chicken soup with bread in it, red beans, and 
 chili peppers. 
 
 "Finally after two years of outdoor work, 
 the manager of the plantation has erected 
 for us a chapel twenty-eight by thirty-eight, 
 and we have been given the spot of land on 
 which it stands/' 
 
 As we are drawing this story to a con- 
 clusion, the word comes to us that Brother 
 Partaker Tommy and a goodly company 
 of the from Hilo have just dedicated the 
 
 rmts new chapel. On the first Sunday 
 
 of November, 1916, gathered a party of 
 pastors, including the eloquent leader of the 
 First Foreign Church of Hilo, and the 
 pastor of the Hilo Portuguese Church. Ad- 
 dresses were made by a number, and good 
 solos were rendered by visiting friends. 
 Brother Tommy read the Scriptures and 
 made the notices in Spanish, and then took 
 his place among the loquacious Spanish wo- 
 men to prevent their interrupting the serv- 
 ices with their frank discussions and ques- 
 
PAHOA TO HAKALAU 211 
 
 tions. The plantation manager and his 
 friends were at the dedication exercises, and 
 over a hundred from among the various na- 
 tionalities interested. The building will be 
 used freely Sundays for church and Sun- 
 day school, and during the week for social 
 purposes and night school. 
 
 Pepeekeo, a plantation not far away, is 
 another center of the Brother Tommy activ- 
 - ities, and the plantation author- 
 
 ities have promised him a building 
 which will doubtless soon be in the course of 
 construction. So spreads the fine contagion. 
 Death and disease have no exclusive rights 
 in the realm of "epidemics" : righteousness is 
 "catching." Given a man, filled with the 
 Spirit-life of the "from-above born," and we 
 have life springing up on whatever arid soil 
 he walks, bursting into flame from any dead 
 cinder he touches. God pity us that there 
 are so few men! 
 
212 SCOTTY KID 
 
 L'ENVOI 
 
 Taken literally, this term "L'envoi" is a 
 sort of "send off." To be sure, it comes at 
 the end of many narratives, but ought to 
 imply no complete finish. On the the other 
 hand, it might properly be equivalent to "un- 
 finished business." 
 
 How could we write "Finis^ to our little 
 narrative of Brother Tommy, who has by no 
 means reached the forty-year mark? By the 
 grace of Him who hath begun a good work 
 in him, there ought to be a score of good 
 years ahead to increase the marvel of the new 
 birth story. 
 
 Hence we wish him Godspeed to a trium- 
 phant Finis. 
 
 As to the merit of his life so far, "Honor to 
 whom honor is due." 
 
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