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 MILES FOR 
 
THE CURSE OF TRAMP LIFE 
 
 BY 
 
 THE FAMOUS TRAMP 
 
 A TRUE STORY OF ACTUAL TRAMP LIFE 
 WRITTEN BY HIMSELF. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED BY THE FAMOUS ARTIST 
 JOSEPH EARL SHROCK. 
 
 SEVENTH EDITION 
 
 Price, 23 Cents. 
 
 COPYRIGHT 1912 
 
 BY 
 
 THE A-No. 1 PUBLISHING CO. 
 
 All subject matter, as well as all illustrations, and especially the ti^de <)f this 
 
 book, are fully protected by copyrights, and their use m any form 
 
 whatsoever will be vigorously prosecuted for infringment. 
 
 (trade mark) 
 
 ERIE, PENNSYLVANIA 
 *=-=..^ U. S. A. ., v^-5) 
 
/^3 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 ;4 /^ — - 
 
 IN presenting this, my third tramp-story to the public, I do 
 so with the assurance that this book is absolutely suited 
 to be read by the most delicate child as well as the 
 most dainty lady, as not a single objectionable word nor 
 phrase is written therein. It is certain to be of abounding 
 interest to any person, young or old, as it gives the public 
 an actual insight into the true life of the tramp, tearing 
 to shreds the glamor thrown over his miserable existence 
 by romancing writers. 
 
 Primarily, its object is to prove to boys and men of 
 restless dispositions, that by their heeding the "Lure of 
 the Wanderlust," they not only wreck their own futures, 
 but very often the lives and happiness of their parents, 
 and sometimes those of their families as well. 
 
 Secondarily: It shows to intending "runaways" what 
 terrible punishment they must expect, should they be 
 caught beating their way upon railroad trains. 
 
 Thirdly: It calls the attention of the humanely in- 
 clined public to the class of penal-institutions scattered 
 from the Atlantic to the Pacific, which under the names of 
 convict-quarries, convict-farms, convict-turpentine works, 
 convict-lum.ber mills, etc., etc., only too often duplicate 
 the terrible conditions I herein describe as existing in a 
 "convict-chain-gang," in which murderers and runaway 
 youths, hardened criminals and first offenders, are chained 
 together and are treated in such a revoltingly inhumane 
 manner, that instead of reforming them, by far a large 
 majority are turned loose upon society, to wreak their 
 vengeance for these absolutely unnecessary and senseless 
 brutalities, which have been condemned and discontinued 
 by all modern penal institutions. 
 
 I hope that this 1912 volume will meet with as good 
 a reception as my book of 1910: "Life and Adventures of 
 A No. 1," and my book of 1911: "Hobo-Camp-Fire-Tales," 
 and can assure the readers that I shall endeavor to earn 
 their good will and approval with aU future productions 
 of my pen. 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 
ANNUALLY 
 350,000 
 
 BOYS RUN AWAY FROM HOME. 
 
 35,000 
 
 BECOME CONFiaMED TRAMPS. 
 
 7^000 
 
 ARE CRIPPLED BY ACCIDENTS. 
 
 3,500 
 
 ARE KSLLED BY THE CARS 
 
 OR 
 
 THROUGH EXPOSURE. 
 
 TO THE READER. 
 
 i^flCR reading this very interesting book, please 
 Wf remember that ftsily 1 50,000 of the 200,000 
 J tramps, who aimEessly roam the coyntry to-day 
 
 were young boys, who ran away from their homes. 
 
 Will you not please do your share to assist human- 
 ity at Barge, and the Railroad Companies especially, to 
 solve the tramp problem, by explaining to every boy 
 you find at your door asking for a lunch, what a fool 
 he is, trying to lead all his days, the life I am picturing 
 in this book, from my personal experiences as a tramp ? 
 
 Can you not take the time and patience, and do by 
 him the same as you would pray some other person to 
 do by your own son, brother or relative, should he run 
 away from his home, leaving behind him a broken 
 hearted mother to mourn, while waiting perchance for 
 the return of that very same wandering, wayward boy, 
 who had knocked at your door ? 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 
To Every Young Man and Boy 
 
 Who Reads this Book, the Author, who Has 
 Led for Over a Quarter of a Century the 
 Pitiful and Dangerous Life of a Tramp, 
 gives this Weil-meant Advice: 
 
 DO NOT 
 
 Jump on Moving Trains or Street Cars, even if 
 only to ride to the next street crossing, be- 
 cause this might arouse the *' Wanderlust," 
 besides endangering needlessly your 
 life and limbs. 
 
 Wandering, once it becomes a habit, is almost incur- 
 able, so NEVER Rim AWAY, but STAY AT HOME, as a 
 roving lad usually ends in becoming a confirmed tramp. 
 
 There is a dark side to a tramp's life : — for every mile 
 stolen on trains, there is one escape from a horrible death ; 
 for each mile of beautiful scenery and food in plenty, 
 there are m.any weary miles of hard walking with no food 
 or even water — through mountain gorges and over parched 
 deserts ; for each warm summer night, there are ten bitter- 
 cold, long winter nights ; for every kindness, there are a 
 score of unfriendly acts. 
 
 A tramp is constantly hounded by the minions of the 
 law; is shunned by all humanity, and never knows the 
 meaning of home and friends. 
 
 To tell the truth, it is a pitiful existence all the way 
 through, and what is the end? 
 
 It is an even ninety-nine chances out of a hundred 
 that the end will be a miserable one — an accident, an 
 alms-house, but surely an unmarked pauper's grave. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 "Where is My Wandering Boy To-Night." 
 
 ^^O RAXTON MANOR," the palatial, stately home 
 IJ of one of Kentucky's proudest families, built 
 like a castle upon the apex of a gently sloping 
 hill, in the midst of a well kept park of giant oaks, loomed 
 like a specter into the moonless, balmy summer night, while 
 stretching away to the valleys below and the hills beyond 
 where broad, fertile acres, that gave up bountiful harvests 
 to add annually a golden tribute to the wealth of the Brax- 
 tons. Off to one side, some distance from the manor are the 
 "Negro quarters," that section set apart on every large 
 southern estate, for the humble homes of the colored house 
 servants and farm laborers. The most pretentious one of 
 these was the home of the manor's expert cook, "Old Aunt 
 Dinah," as "her folks up the hill" affectionately called the 
 trusty old-timer who was considered part and parcel 
 of the Braxton family. 
 
 She had just entered the log cabin and had deposited 
 upon the ricket}' table a large wicker basket filled with all 
 the left-overs from the manor's supper table, which was 
 hers by right of a long established "before the war" custom. 
 After cautioning her pickaninnies — some her own and others 
 adopted — to "hush up and behave," she turned to her 
 husband and said, "Joe, pore Missus Braxton shore had 
 another one of her crying spells to-day. My pore Missus! 
 How sorrow is eating out her pore heart evah since her boy 
 ran away." Then she wiped a tear away that had strayed 
 down her ebony cheek and continued, "Just to think, that 
 evah since that boy squalled the first time, I was his 'Mam- 
 my.* Watched him grow up to be a fine boy, and now. 
 Oh! Lawd, bring him back to my Missus up the hill, 
 
6 The Curse of Tramp Life. 
 
 as she shore will grieve herself to death if he does not come 
 home purty soon." This she followed with an audible 
 sigh, and then she opened her wicker basket and handed 
 each pickaninny, ranging in all colors and sizes, a generous 
 "snack," that constituted their daily supper. 
 
 Later on the neighboring darkies, the one-time slaves 
 of the "quality folks up the hill," as they characteristically 
 called their former masters, came visiting "Old Aunt Dinah," 
 their society leader, and soon the clear, care-free notes of 
 a violin, the happy songs of the darkies, their laughter and 
 th^r shouts of pleasure filled the air, while the red dashes 
 of flame sputtering from the oak log burning even on this 
 warm July night, in the cabin fire-place, furnishing both 
 light and heat, gave a touch of color to this scene of absolute 
 contentment. 
 
 This revel kept up until far into the night, then the 
 darkies wended their ways home to their own firesides, and 
 soon complete silence and darkness reigned supreme. 
 
 But look! There upon the hill amongst the majestic 
 oaks, in the upper story in the left wing of the Manor, a 
 lighted lamp v/as moved from room to room. It was held by 
 the hands of the lady of the manor, Mrs. Braxton, clad in 
 her night gown, who now entered the spacious library where 
 she held the brightly burning lamp high before the large 
 picture of a handsome, manly boy of about seventeen, and 
 with her handkerchief she carefully brushed away every 
 particle of dust that might have adhered to the painting 
 and then gazed long and longingly at that beautiful, life-size 
 portrait of her own, only child, her runaway son, Buford. 
 
 Tears were streaming down her pallid cheeks and wearily 
 she set the lamp upon the heavy oaken library table, and 
 sank into a chair and placing her head between her hands 
 she wept bitterly. All alone with her sorrow, the mistress 
 
The Curse of Tramp Life, 7 
 
 of a grand manor, and of wealth, and yet — only a broken- 
 hearted mother mourning for her runaway boy. 
 
 What thoughts must have passed through her mind! 
 For years the Braxtons had been childless, then came a 
 welcome little stranger to turn the cold, lordly manor into 
 a happy home. They named the boy after a beautiful 
 little town in Georgia, Buford, as there, passengers upon 
 the same train, the Braxtons had first met and had prompt- 
 ly fallen head over heels, victims to Cupid. She remem- 
 bered each happy hour with the cooing baby, the complete 
 happiness of its proud parents and their relatives; the 
 devotion of the negro servants, who would have had them- 
 selves torn into shreds to protect his tiny body against 
 harm and how they called him "Marse Buford" even 
 while he was still in the daintily carved cradle, dressed in 
 swaddling clothes. Oh, how happy were those days! Then 
 he grew up, the only child of doting parents, went to school 
 and then — here she sobbed out aloud — came that night which 
 she cannot efface from her memory, w*hen he slipped into her 
 bedroom all dressed up in walking clothes, put his arm 
 around her neck and kissed her with such a strange fervor 
 as she had never known him to pet her before, and while 
 she was arousing herself to ask him what his queer actions 
 meant, he was gone and she heard him close the door of 
 his own bedroom and thought that the divine love of a 
 child for its mother had caused him to show his affection 
 to her at such an unearthly hour of the night. 
 
 Then broke the dawn of the fateful day. She seemed 
 to awake unusually early, impelled by a strange restlessness, 
 and arose to hear the first notes of the birds as they warbled 
 songs of happiness to their little ones in their nests scattered 
 under the eaves of. the manor and ever;^^where throughout 
 the park. 
 
 Then the breakfast bell rang, and she and Mr. Harold 
 
8 The Curse of Tramp Life. 
 
 Braxton repaired to the dining room and seated themselves 
 to the well-laden table, wondering why Buford, never 
 late, and always ready to bid them a friendly morning's 
 greeting, had not put in an appearance. 
 
 Jim, the old-time negro waiter, was dispatched to 
 the boy's room to inquire the reason why he had failed to 
 join his parents at the breakfast table. Jim knocked and 
 then cautiously opened the unlocked door, and with only 
 one glance at the untouched bedclothes, bolted down the 
 stairway, and ashen-gray, trembling like a leaf, he blurted 
 out: "Marse Braxton, Marse Buford has not gone at all 
 to bed last night and is not in his room." She remembered 
 how she had to hold onto the table to keep from sinking to 
 the floor, and how she felt her heart jump up into her throat 
 as she thought of that last embrace of him, whom she loved 
 best in all the world. 
 
 A hasty search of his room was made and everything 
 only proved too plainly that he had run away, as he had 
 dressed himself in his best Sunday clothes, carefully fold- 
 ing his discarded garments, and had only taken such things 
 as a boy going out upon a camping trip into the woods 
 and hills would need. 
 
 The darkies were sent through the neighborhood and 
 a thorough search of all the camping grounds and shady 
 nooks for miles around was made. The relatives and au- 
 thorities were notified by dispatches to be on a lookout 
 for him; but all this was in vain. Only one faint clue was 
 found. An old negro woman passing the Manor, com- 
 ing home from a late sick visit, saw a rough-faced, heavily 
 built man standing in the darkness of the trees near the 
 main entrance-gate, and to whom, darky fashion, she bid 
 a "good evenin', Massa," receiving only a rough grunt as 
 an answer to her humble greeting. 
 
 She remembered that awful first night, when she was 
 
The Curse of Tramp Life. 
 
 
 Sobbing as if iier heart was breaking, Mrs. Braxton arose at 
 
 all hours of the night to gaze at the picture of 
 
 hftf runaway boy. 
 
10 The Curse of Tramp Life. 
 
 yet strange to the fearful waiting that, since that day has 
 extended over, oh, such a long stretch of solid sorrow! 
 The first day passed, then the next one and as she gave up 
 hopes to see him soon again, she prayed through all the 
 long weary hours of the dreary, restless nights for just a 
 lihe, just a single word from her wandering boy. But 
 none came, although Mr. Braxton had assured her that 
 runaway boys never write nor send a word to their homes 
 until they are so far away that even a quickly sent telegram 
 will not cause their being held by the authorities. 
 
 Weeks passed on weeks, and she failed in health, from 
 a happy woman she became an aged, haggard and broken- 
 hearted wreck of her former self. That longing for her 
 boy became her one overpowering passion, and she in- 
 duced Mr. Braxton to offer a reward of five hundred dollars 
 for information or apprehension of her boy, and an equal 
 sum for the capture of the scoundrel who had enticed him 
 from home. 
 
 Gradually the picture upon the library wall, the only 
 true likeness of her Buford, became her shrine. She did 
 not feel so lonely when gazing at that mute portrait, and 
 many times, sobbing as if her poor heart would break, she 
 would rise, at all hours of the night to gaze at the picture 
 of her runaway boy. 
 
 She was as proud of that boy as only a mother could be. 
 And, too, had not his preacher, his teachers, his class-mates 
 and play-mates praised him many times to her for his 
 manly qualities? He was a favorite with everybody he 
 came into contact with, and now that he was gone, his 
 mother, more than ever realized her loss. 
 
 On another part of the library's wall hung a large 
 calendar. She arose heavily out of the chair to count the 
 months, the weeks and the days since his disappearance, 
 
The Curse of Tramp Life, 11 
 
 when suddenly with a loud thud, she fell heavily in a dead 
 faint upon the floor. 
 
 Mr. Braxton, awakened by the noise, rose from his 
 bed and seeing through the wide open door of the library 
 the brightly burning lamp, investigated and folind the 
 limp form of his wife stretched out upon the hard floor. 
 He tenderly lifted her upon the lounge and while tears of 
 anguish were streaming down his face, he pitifully sobbed : 
 'Toor, poor Helen! Oh! if only Buford could be home at 
 this moment and see what he has done to his poor mother, 
 he would never have run away, or at least would have 
 written her a single word to allay her fears!" Then he 
 dashed some cold water into her face and as she gradually 
 revived, he made her as comfortable as possible. 
 
 When Mrs. Braxton gained full consciousness, she 
 pointed her trembling hand at the calendar, and between 
 sobs, muttered: "Look, Harold, to-night, just one year ago, 
 Buford gave me his last kiss, his sole reward, for the long 
 seventeen years I slaved for him to make of him what he was 
 the day he left! Oh, Harold, I only w^ished that some other 
 mother would do for my Buford the same as I did for that 
 little runaway boy who knocked a month ago, asking for a 
 lunch, at our door. Oh! Harold, if only some other mother 
 would feel for me as I did for that lad's mother. I gave 
 him all his starved insides would hold and then commenced 
 to tell him what a fool he was, trying to leave his home to 
 become a restless, good-for-nothing, homeless tramp, shun- 
 ned and despised by all humanity and constantly hounded 
 by those who represent the law. I spoke to him about his 
 home, as I inwardly wished that someone would talk to 
 our own boy, and described to him the sorrows of his own 
 good mother and kept on in that vein until he finally com- 
 menced to cry and turned so homesick, that he gave me his 
 true address and I notified his mother, who promptly 
 
12 The Curse of Tramp Life. 
 
 answered to hold him for her arrival. Do you remember, 
 Harold, when she came, how she was all dressed in silks 
 and diamonds and yet picked up that little ragged and 
 bedraggled looking boy and almost hugged and kissed him 
 to death? And those letters we receive now and then tell 
 a story of a satisfied mother's love, and are these letters 
 not a far greater reward to us than all this world's gold?" 
 And then Mrs. Braxton had another weeping spell. 
 
 To console her Mr. Braxton remarked: "Buford will 
 come home some of these days, Helen. He merely had his 
 heart full of boyish dreams and longings to see the world 
 that he had heard and read so much about and that he 
 had been so eager to see, so when the rascally stranger the 
 colored woman had seen at midnight, prowling in the shad- 
 ows of the trees near the entrance-gate, no doubt promising 
 to show him the cities and the countries he had longed to 
 visit, the temptation to see these sights with his own eyes 
 mastered his prudence and as he did not dare to ask for 
 our consent, he ran away." "I remember, wife," he con- 
 tinued, "how my grandfather used to tell me how he too, 
 ran away from his parents when a small boy and landed in 
 the big city of New York with just two single silver dollars; 
 how he found a job as cabin-boy on a 'clipper', then the 
 fastest sailing vessels in the world, which was bound for 
 the gold regions of California; how he landed four months 
 later, after racing down the Atlantic, around Cape Horn 
 and again up the Pacific, at San Francisco; how he re- 
 ceived sixty dollars for the trip and deeming himself 
 wealthy, found after landing on shore, that a pair of 
 rough boots made of rawhide cost him twenty-five of his 
 hard earned dollars and everything else in equally steep 
 proportions. He became a pony express rider, conveying 
 the mails to the Pacific Coast over the Overland Trail, 
 by means of fastest horses and quickest relays. Later on 
 
The Curse of Tramp Life. 
 
 IS 
 
 'Oh God! Bring back our wandering boy before his 
 mother loses her mind." 
 
14 
 
 The Curse of Tramp Life, 
 
 he went into business, prospered, sold out, then returned 
 with his fortune to Kentucky, purchased this farm and 
 built this, our own house. Who knows, perhaps our boy 
 has the restless blood of his great-grandfather coursing 
 through his veins? So, Helen, dearest wife, do not worry, 
 Buford will be with us soon, something strange seems to 
 tell me that he is right now on his way to beg our pardon 
 for his boyish prank." 
 
 Under these soothing words Mrs. Braxton's grief 
 gradually subsided, and with her husband assisting her, 
 and holding the lamp at such an angle that she could not 
 again see the fateful date on the calendar, he led her to her 
 bed-room, where, after affectionately kissing her upon her 
 forehead he gently closed the door and returned to his own 
 room. He did not go to sleep, but there, by the side of his 
 bed, that strong, proud man prayed upon his bare knees for 
 long hours to his Creator, to take from him this cross, that 
 not only had robbed him of his child, had ruined his 
 wife's health and happiness, but came dangerously near 
 destroying the mind of her whom he loved better than life 
 itself. 
 
The Curse of Tramp Life. 15 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 The Call of the * Wanderlust." 
 
 HARDLY ever had the streets of Cleveland, Ohio, been 
 more crowded with promenading people, than on 
 the same July night mentioned in the first chapter. 
 All during the sweltering day preceding it, people who had 
 no important business to transact, requiring their personal 
 attention, kept indoors, but now as the night with the cool- 
 ing breezes off Lake Erie reduced the furnace-like 
 temperature, they were crowding upon the streets, to give 
 vent to the surplus of energy accumulated during an all 
 day's imprisonment behind sun-baked walls. 
 
 Everywhere the all-day complaint about the terrific 
 heat gave way to animated conversation and laughter, and 
 the crowds, as they eddied up and down the streets, seemed 
 to have completely forgotten that perhaps the morrow 
 meant only a repetition of the dreadful heat of the day just 
 passed. 
 
 In the midst of this human whirlpool, leaning against 
 a lamp-post, stood the Author of this book, whose general 
 appearance, dressed as he was in a natty business suit, 
 would never have revealed to the casual observer that the 
 wearer followed the dangerous life of a professional tramp. 
 
 I had landed in Cleveland at an early morning hour, 
 after having crossed in almost record time, the snow-clad 
 mountains, the deserts and plains which separate California, 
 where I had wintered among the palms and orange trees, 
 from the' East, and during the withering heat of the day, 
 I had taken a much-needed rest in a park, stretched out in 
 the shade of a tree. 
 
 All about me was animated life and motion! The 
 
16 The Curse of Tramp Life. 
 
 swiftly moving street-cars, the hurrying automobiles, the 
 racing police-patrols and ambulances, the rattling horse- 
 drawn vehicles, the swirling, gayly-dressed throng of 
 human beings supplied action, while the clanging of the 
 street-car's gongs, the warning blasts of the auto-horns, 
 the loud calls of the street- venders, the merry chatter and 
 laughter of the passing crowd enlivened the picture. 
 
 And there I stood, staring with wide-open eyes, and 
 yet I did not see, with hearing ears and yet I did not hear — 
 seemingly I was alive, but in fact in dreams. I did not 
 hear the tumultuous noises of the City, but I heard a voice 
 within my innermost self, as it whispered into my ears, 
 louder than all the noises of the streets, "Get out of this, 
 A No. 1, this is no place for you. Go where action is real 
 action, and life is made worth keeping! Come on, get out 
 of Cleveland! You have been already here too long! Go 
 where you hear real noises, the pounding of the wheels, the 
 clicking of the rails! Get out amongst the woods and hills, 
 away from these simmering man-made walls! Come now, 
 let us go where motion is motion, to the very limit of human 
 achievement." 
 
 Thus the voice whispered, implored, then threatened 
 and finally seemed to choke me at the throat, and the more 
 I fought against its ceaseless torment, the more I realized 
 how fearfully I, too, like so many others, had become en- 
 snared by this strange something, the * Wanderlust," so 
 subtle and yet so strong, that whosoever follows its call 
 more than once, always stays its victim, to be driven forth 
 from destination to destination, mercilessly, without let-up 
 and rest, hither and yon. 
 
 In vain I tried not to hear its voice, tried to escape 
 its clutch, tried to move away from the lamp post, but 
 seemingly my feet were rooted to the ground. Try all I 
 might to hear the riot of noises about me, that strange voice 
 
The Curse of Tramp Lif&, 17 
 
 within me, shrieked far above it all! Then, unable to 
 longer refuse to obey, I listened to its implorings, and Lo! 
 a strange sickening feeling of oppression overcame me, the 
 mighty City of Cleveland had suddenly became too small 
 to hold me, so small indeed, that I could hardly breathe, 
 and then some one seemed to push me away from the lamp- 
 post and the next moment, with a bound, I was racing down 
 the street, as if hounded by a fiend, to where I had hidden 
 my overalls and snatching these, I ran to the New York 
 Central Terminal. There I stopped long enough in its 
 shadow to pull my overalls completely over my better 
 clothes. Then, protected from observation by the stacked 
 baggage I slipped through the baggage-room into the train 
 shed, where, hiding behind the truck of an empty baggage 
 car, I gave vent to a loud sigh, the sign of relief from the 
 oppressive feeling, which only now, that I obeyed the ^'Call 
 of Wanderlust," left me. 
 
 From Cleveland's public thoroughfares, free to be 
 used by anyone, where the man who wears the City's 
 blue uniform with its bright brass buttons and badge, was 
 to me, only a guardian of the street-crossings, I had now 
 landed with both feet at once, into the middle of the net 
 stretched by the law over all railroad property and whose 
 first command is: ''Thou shalt not trespass," and at this 
 moment every policeman — -called in the vernacular of the 
 road "John Law" — had become my deadly enemy. But 
 I laughed at the very idea of one of those heavy-pouched, 
 blue-clad fellows catching hold of an agile fellow like I was, 
 who had on more than one occasion acrobated from the 
 engine's tender back to the rear end of the caboose, by 
 swinging and vaulting from truck to truck, underneath 
 long freight trains running at top speed, with no member 
 of the ever-alert train crew having discovered him. A 
 tramp fears this class of ''John Law," as a tiny mouse fears 
 
18 Tlie Curse of Tramp Life. 
 
 a bulldog, merely as an undesirable man to meet, but the 
 detective employed by the railroads represents to him, the 
 "cat'* in the mousing business. 
 
 There, as I was crouching behind the empty coach 
 waiting for a chance to leave Cleveland, I fully realized 
 the pitiful existence I was leading. I well knew, that a 
 few days of honest employment and a little saving, w^ould 
 provide me with ample funds to gratify any sane desire to 
 travel, and travel at that like a gentleman and be treated 
 as one, while here I was hiding like a hounded criminal 
 risking every moment, my liberty, limbs and life — a slave 
 of the "Wanderlust." I was a victim of circumstances 
 and had been so often arrested and punished for trespassing, 
 that now I felt a bitter resentment against these who rep- 
 resent the law, and especially against those crafty, railroad 
 sleuths, who v/ere not only employed to protect their 
 company's property, but actually my own and every other 
 trespasser's life, against disaster and loss. 
 
 Just then the "Cincinnati Limited" pulled into the 
 train shed. I watched from behind my hiding place two 
 burly tramps lazily climb down from the "Blind Baggage" 
 (the first platform behind the engine's tender). All of a 
 sudden these tv/o smoke-begrimed fellows seemed to come 
 to life! They had espied a civilian dressed stranger running 
 swiftly towards the front section of the "Limited" and their 
 instincts must have warned them that he was their natural 
 enemy — a railroad detective. In this they were not mis- 
 taken, for the way they ran down the tracks, their flying 
 coat tails followed closely by the stranger, who, altho he 
 was only one-half the size of each of them, yet represented 
 the majesty of the law, was a rare sight. Forgetting my 
 own danger, I jumped out from my hiding place and joined 
 the crowd of people, who, standing in the brightly arc- 
 lighted train shed were watching the chase after the 
 
The Curse of Tramp Life. 
 
 19 
 
 JO£CPH V^ftRt SHPOCi; 
 
 The two burly hoboes were chased by their sworn enomy, 
 the railroad poUce-officer. 
 
20 
 
 Tlie Curse of Tramp Life. 
 
 tramps, who gradually distanced the officer, making a 
 "clean get-away" from the "John Law." 
 
 After a few moments the officer returned, angered at 
 the escape of the burly hoboes and at the smiles the 
 other people gave him for his failure to capture them. 
 He kept close to the front section of the train, and standing 
 close to me, he cast his eyes in the direction of my "Derby" 
 hat, which, dressed as I was, otherwise in a regulation 
 engineer's uniform, except the usual cap worn by all, 
 caused his suspicions — that uncanny sixth sense every 
 special agent seems to have — to rise, until his ill-disposed 
 glances made me wince, and to allay his doubts, I stepped 
 up to the engineer, who was just then engaged in giving a 
 thorough oiling and inspection to his monster machine, 
 and tapping him on his shoulder, on turning about I "glad- 
 handed" him and said: "Brother, your 'old girl' is certainly 
 well dressed for her next trip.'* These flattering words, as 
 to the spick and span condition of his engine, spoken in 
 the vernacular of the "eagle-eyes" of the rails, made by a 
 man dressed in overalls, seemed to please him, and soon 
 we were engaged in conversation concerning the merits and 
 demerits of different makes and "brands" of locomotives, 
 while now and then I would find a chance to glance at the 
 detective, who gradually must have come to the conclusion 
 that I was a new engineer of the road, for he turned his 
 whole attention to the guarding of the train. 
 
The Curse of Tramp Life, 21 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 "The Song of the Rail." 
 
 THE train shed certainly was a noisy place. The bells 
 of the switching engines were clanging; the car in- 
 spectors — the human fireflies of the railroad service 
 — ^were calling out orders and numbers, while inspecting the 
 running gears of the glossily polished Pullmans. The shouts 
 of the mail, baggage and express handlers vied with each 
 other, the exhaust valves of the engines sent steam-plumes 
 hissing into the air, while the rattle of the express and baggage 
 trucks put the finishing touches to the deafening racket. 
 But hark! Those shrill peals you heard above the din were 
 the station bell-signal for the ^'Limited" to leave. The 
 conductor's stentorian voice shouted "All aboard.** The 
 engineer, after looking at his watch, climbed into the cab, 
 released the air-brakes, opened the throttle, and with the 
 bright electric headlight showing the way, the ponderous 
 machine's drive wheels, gripped the steel rails and the 
 "Limited" commenced to move. 
 
 The engineer gave me a friendly nod, still thinking I 
 was a "brother," while the special agent, ever anxious to 
 catch a "pesky hobo," swung himself upon the "Blind 
 Baggage.** Theheavy train began to gather speed. When 
 the front part of the train entered upon a short curve, plac- 
 ing the detective's ever-watchful eyes at disadvantage, I 
 made a sudden dash to the side of a Pullman, grabbed 
 hold of one of the truck chains, and with cat-like agility, 
 I swung myself upon the slender rods that upheld the 
 center of the heavy sleeper and stretched across them as 
 comfortably as only a tramp under such strenuous cir- 
 cumstances could do it. 
 
22 The Curse of Tramp Life. 
 
 Yes, here in the darkness, hanging under the Pullman 
 betwixt life and death, at last I found what only seemed to 
 satisfy that devilish something. There, so close to death, 
 that a mere slip would have put a sudden, horrible finish 
 to my career, at least the "Wanderlust'* seemed not to 
 prod me, and as I watched those wheels ahead and in the 
 rear of me slowly revolve, squeaking as they passed the 
 many cross-overs and switches, I at last felt that I had 
 given up everything but life itself, to please that bane of 
 my existence. The faster those wheels revolved, the easier 
 I felt, and as we passed beyond the electric lights of the 
 City and the train gathered speed from a soft purring and 
 murmuring, they began to sing, and when top speed of a 
 mile a minute and over was attained, they fairly screamed 
 with joy. There, hanging on with only those 
 weak, human hands, out of reach of any possible succor, 
 speeding through the night, I felt at peace with all the 
 world. The inky darkness was only broken when the lamp 
 rays of some isolated farm house glimmered in the distance, 
 or the lights of the stations, towns and cities we passed 
 flying through, cast their weak glares, like far away beacons 
 at sea, down there in the darkness of hell's own kitchen. 
 
 Hanging to those slender steel rods, I was merely a 
 frail human being whom a sharp curve, a piece of dropping 
 steel, a broken bit of rock or a thousand and one other 
 causes could easily have cast under those whirling, scream- 
 ing wheels while the heavy car above me danced, jolted, 
 bounced and lurched. 
 
 Now I looked over at the wheels. In the darkness I 
 only faintly discerned their blurred outlines, but I could 
 plainly hear their thumping as they took the curves, their 
 growling where the track was too tight against their rims, 
 and their strange snarling as we climbed the grades, to be 
 turned into a joyous screaming as we dropped down the 
 
The Curse of Tramp Life. 
 
 n 
 
 Wh I 
 
 
 H 
 
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 Cj 
 
 jj 
 
 OX 
 
 'C 
 
 bfl 
 
 
 
 'CJ 
 
 j5 
 
 
 <L) 
 41! 
 
 0) 
 
 -*-> 
 
 It 
 
 G p 
 
 "i^ 5=1 
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24 The Curse of Tramp Life. 
 
 inclines. Now we entered upon a level stretch of track. 
 There was something uncannily strange about these man- 
 made masses of rotating steel that no mere pen could de- 
 scribe. Seemingly they had come to life! As they raced 
 over the shiny rails they commenced to sing "Clickity 
 click" and "clackaty clack," which was echoed and re- 
 echoed from truck to truck throughout the length of the 
 train, and the faster the speed, the more playful their 
 bouncing across the rail joints and the more jubilant their 
 strange ode: "The Song of the Rails." Just then I looked 
 at the wheels! I saw bright, fiery sparks fly from each 
 one's rim! The engineer had applied the air pressure 
 and like a horrid spider in the night, alongside of me, I 
 felt and heard, but could not see the moving levers of the 
 airbrake, pulling with might and main on the brakes, which 
 in turn, like so many giant hands, clutch the twirling wheels, 
 and now with a screeching, scraping noise, ground off 
 their steel substance at the point of contact. 
 
 I heard two short blasts! I knew the signals of the 
 road and took an extra strong grip upon the rods, for pres- 
 ently, crashing as if the finish had come, we flew over a place 
 where another railroad at the same grade crossed our tracks. 
 Again the compressed air did the work, a net work of rods 
 and levers moved about, the brakes were released and soon 
 we were rushing at top speed, onward. 
 
 Through the long reaches of the night we flew, adding 
 mile upon mile, until a shriek of the w^histle, a suffocating 
 smoke that shrouded the whole train, as the engineer closed 
 the throttle, which deprived it of its steam support that 
 had hurled its deadly fumes high up into the air; the slack- 
 ening of the speed and the gradually working of the air- 
 brakes, announced a stopping place. Now we entered the 
 belt of bright electric lights that illuminated the environ- 
 ments, then we pulled up to the station, and another eighty 
 
The Curse of Tramp Life. 25 
 
 miles have been added to my record. I crouched as close as 
 possible against the bottom of the sleeper above me, but I was 
 almost certain of not being discovered, as well I realized 
 that no one would suspect a human soul to ride down there 
 in Hades. Only a few minutes to take on water, and we 
 moved away again to repeat the twisting of the car-body as 
 we swung around the curves, the same thundering when 
 crossing bridges and embankments, the same "Song of the 
 Rails" until the next station and the others beyond were 
 reached. 
 
 Gradually as the night grew older, the everlasting same 
 rhythmic thumping of the wheels became hypnotic by its 
 monotony; nature too, demanded its toll of rest, my eyelids 
 began to droop, only to be jerked open by a sudden effort. 
 Again and again they closed! Although I realized that the 
 least slackening of my hold meant a horrible death under- 
 neath those ghostly wheels behind me, which now, like arch- 
 fiends with wide-open, slobbering maws were only waiting 
 to grind and crush me into a scattered mass of quivering, 
 bloody pulp; yet it seemed almost impossible for me to 
 resist the all overpowering drowsiness and keep awake 
 another moment. Again my eyelids drooped! With almost 
 superhuman effort once more I roused myself, I pinched my 
 limbs, in terror I rubbed my eyes, I commenced to sing, but 
 even the singing became a mere stupefied effort of a man 
 who faced his inevitable doom. Gradually my eyelids 
 drooped again, I could not open them, I dreamed of happy 
 childhood days, I felt my helpless hands relax their hold, 
 I felt my tired body slide between the slender rods, down, 
 down, down . 
 
 But hark! What was that strange call that seemed to 
 force my consciousness back to activity? I listened and I 
 heard shrilly shrieking, marrow-shivering cries above the 
 roar of the rushing train. Slowly, half-conscious, I opened 
 
26 
 
 The Curse of Tramp Life. 
 
 my eyes and gazed about me and then, there in the darkness 
 I heard the wheels scream louder and louder, "Keep, awake, 
 keep awake, keep awake!" until, in utter horror at the 
 thought of the ruin I so narrowly escaped, trembling like 
 an aspen in a storm, I shrieked back as a reply to their warn- 
 ing: "I am awake, I am awake, I am awake," and the 
 faster and louder they called, the quicker I replied, until I 
 again aroused my full reasoning faculty, and then I thanked 
 high heaven that at the last moment I had more correctly 
 interpreted the "Song of the Rails" than had the un- 
 countable other victims of the "Wanderlust" who fell under 
 the wheels and had "greased the tracks." 
 
The Cwrse of Tramp Life, 27 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 "The Kentucky Kid." 
 
 IT was broad daylight when the "Limited" stopped in the 
 center of the train shed at Cincinnati, and I had added 
 
 another two hundred and sixty miles to my total 
 mileage of slightly over a half a million, all of which I had 
 traveled in the same and even more dangerous fashion I have 
 just described. The "Wanderlust" in me had been now 
 satisfied, at least for the time being, and completely exhaust- 
 ed I climbed out from the "lowest berth" of the Pullman 
 I stopped a moment to stretch my aching limbs and to brush 
 off the heavy layer of dust that during the long ride had 
 gradually covered my overalls. I looked about to find a way 
 to the street, but look, who was coming here running 
 towards me as if life depended on it! One other look — 
 I espied a badge pinned to his coat, and down towards the 
 yards I ran as fast as my tired feet would let me, while the 
 other fellow's shouts for me to stop, only made me run 
 all the faster. On I went, and he after me, but only for 
 a short while I could keep up the gait, as, by his foot-falls, 
 I could hear that he was gaining on me every step — and 
 believe me, it's a mighty big difference seeing some one 
 getting chased, than when that some one is one's own 
 sweet self. 
 
 I did not even dare to look back over my shoulder, 
 but I knew he was only a few feet from me, constantly 
 yelling at the top of his voice: "In the name of the law, 
 stop!" which caused me to push my exertions to escape 
 to the limit of my departing strength, as I hated the very 
 idea to spend six months in the Cincinnati Workhouse. 
 But I could not last much longer, as I had battled all 
 
28 The Curse of Tramp Life. 
 
 through the long night without a wink of rest with grinning 
 death himself, and now this fact told against me. Just 
 as r decided to "stand and deliver" my luck played a trump. 
 Across the tracks a passenger train pulled out of the shed. 
 With one last effort I dashed over the rails and panting 
 like a hunting hound, with the last vestige of my strength, 
 I sv/ung upon the rear vestibule of the last coach, then 
 turned around to see the foiled officer v. ith shouts and wind- 
 mill arm-motions trying to have some one stop the train, 
 but my luck held out — the mouse by a scant hair's breadth 
 had escaped the cat. 
 
 Before I could travel beyond the, for me, dangerous 
 vision of the special agent, the train was running too fast 
 to risk jumping off, but as it is almost as risky for a 
 ticketless, soot-begrimed trespasser to be caught by the 
 conductor I had to make somehow, a hasty ''get-away." 
 
 So I climbed upon the rickety safety-gate of the ves- 
 tibule and while the train crossed the Ohio River — I had 
 crossed the same bridge many times before — I swung 
 myself upon the roof of the lurching coach, out of sight and 
 out of reach of everybody aboard the train. 
 
 But such is the bane of the "Wanderlust" that within 
 a few minutes after my narrow escape from the "hook of 
 the law" I had completely forgotten it, as adventures of 
 all classes follow each other in rapid succession on the road. 
 
 We were now steaming through Cincinnati's suburban 
 towns, through railroad yards and then out into the open, 
 amongst the blue grass farms and the hills of Kentucky. 
 I was still resting in a cramped position upon the rear-cap 
 of the vestibule and now that we had left the settlements 
 with their "finger-pointing" — the "give-away" sign for the 
 tramp — population behind, I straightened a bit and cast 
 a hasty glance over the top of the speeding train. 
 
Th$ Curse of Tramp Life. 
 
 20 
 
 iJflSePHEARlSHSOCK' 
 
 I dashed across the rails and swung myself upon the rear vestibule 
 of an outgoing train — the mouse by a scant hair's breadth 
 had escaped the cat. 
 
30 The Curse 0} Tramp Life. 
 
 There ahead of me, stretched full length upon the roof 
 of the coach, his head covered by his pulled-up coat to keep 
 the red-hot cinders, thrown out by the engine, from enter- 
 ing his eyes, lay another tramp. "Say, A No. 1," I chuckled 
 in glee, "here is a sure-enough partner, do go over and get 
 acquainted." 
 
 Ever on the alert for telegraph wires, bridges and 
 tunnels, all of which mean a sudden finish to a tramp if 
 picked up by them, I slid alongside the stranger and shouted 
 a greeting at him, but the roar of the train was such he 
 did not hear me, and playfully I poked a finger into his 
 ribs to call his attention to my presence, but this caused 
 him from sheer fright to almost roll off the swaying car, and 
 as he pulled away his coat, I saw that the "fellow-Bo'* was 
 only a lad. 
 
 "Hello, Kid! Got scared?" I shouted at him above 
 the noises, as I saw that he had turned pale and was sus- 
 piciously eyeing my overall railroad uniform. "I am a 
 'Scenery Tramp', I am A. No. 1, the Rambler," I greeted 
 him in accordance with the usage of the road. "I am the 
 'Kentucky Kid'," he replied, proving by his prompt answer 
 that he was a "Road Kid." "Been out long?" I asked. 
 "Just an even year to-day," was his response. "Which 
 way for you?" I, in turn inquired. "Home as fast as I can 
 reach it," he replied. "Where do you call your home?" 
 I asked. "Eight miles out in the country from the next 
 station," he rejoined. "Homesick, eh?" I asked, and looked 
 him straight into his eyes, and with a peculiar twang in 
 his voice, he abruptly replied : "Yes." "Good boy," I said, 
 "you are wise; look at me, over a quarter of a century on 
 the road and now I have not even a home." 
 
 And then, while the train was clipping scenery out of 
 the landscape at a mile a minute rate, he confided to me 
 
The Curse of Tramp Life, 
 
 31 
 
 that he had left his good home just a year ago, had a 
 spell of remorse and was now returning. 
 
 Just then the engineer gave a long whistle for a station. 
 "This is where I get off. Good-bye Bo," he said, and 
 paused, then he continued, "Good-bye the 'Road' and the 
 cursed 'Wanderlust', it's 'Home, sweet Home' and mother 
 after this for me!" And then we shook hands and just as 
 he clambered down the rear vestibule, while the brakes were 
 gripping the wheels, he shouted back; "I wonder if mother 
 will love me as well as she did a year ago?" And he was 
 gone. While the train came to a standstill I pictured the 
 happy mother, a happy boy and their happy reunited home. 
 
Z2 The Curse qf Tramp Life. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 "In the Toils of the Law." 
 
 I moved over to the uttermost edge of the off-side of the 
 roof from the station, so as to be as much as possible 
 
 out of the view of the passengers, and patiently waited 
 for the train to pull out and on again, when a gruff voice, 
 directly below me on the ground called out: "Hey, there, 
 you hobo, come down from your perch and be quick about 
 it." 
 
 I looked and to my horror found that it was a "John 
 Law," who, with one of his hands entwined around the neck 
 of the Kentucky Kid, held in his other hand a large caliber 
 pistol, pointed threateningly in my direction, while repeat- 
 ing his command. "All right," I meekly replied, and rising, 
 I crawled to the rear end of the train — I knew that the "cat" 
 had caught a "mouse" this time. 
 
 I clambered down the coach's vestibule amidst the 
 yells and jeers of several dozens of the homeliest "Reubens" 
 I had ever seen. "Holdon tohim, Joe!" I heard the officer 
 commanding another fellow to take charge of me, "I reckon 
 we have got the whole family! An old 'Bo' and a young 
 one." Then a coarsely dressed "Cy" took hold of me to pre- 
 vent any attempt to escape. Then, as if a public exhibi- 
 tion of his vigilance was required, they marched us through 
 the streets to the office of the "squire," as they called the 
 police judge. 
 
 "Time is money!" for while yet the merry whistling 
 of the train that brought us could be heard in the distance, 
 we stood in front of the bar of justice, a decrepit 
 and shaky table, at which "his honor" the squire was 
 seated. 
 
The ^urse of Tramp Life, 
 
 33 
 
 
 
 ■'^^^ 
 
 aiiscl^isftsiu'i^soeii- 
 
 
 --^ 
 
 'Hey there, you hobo, come down from your perch and 
 be quick about iti** 
 
34 The Curse of Tramp Life. 
 
 I had been through this ''mill" of justice many times 
 before and had only eyes for the "squire" so as to "unveil" 
 for him an excuse that would match exactly with my ob- 
 servations as to his personality. He was an elderly, 
 white-bearded, one-armed man and looked "respectable" 
 to me, but there was one fault I promptly noted, he 
 could look no one straight into the eyes, a palpable sign 
 that their owner was absolutely unprincipled. 
 
 Now the officer carefully searched our clothes. In 
 mine he found a peck m.easure full of a complete assortment 
 of all necessities a tramp needs on the road to keep in 
 "shape," while only a handkerchief was found in the boy's 
 clothes, but while searching him, the officer pUvShed up the 
 boy's left arm coat sleeve, and there discovered a tattooed 
 monogram consisting of two intertwined "B's" on his 
 forearm. "B , B." the 'John Law' remarked, "Are those 
 your initials?" But the Kid did not answer his question. 
 
 Then came the trial. My assumed name was regis- 
 tered and when the squire wanted to know if I wished to 
 plead guilty or not guilty to the charge of trespassing, and 
 if I had anything to say, I entered a plea of guilty, 
 as we were caught "dead to rights," and then gave the ex- 
 cuse I had framed beforehand that I thought would arouse 
 the squire's leniency. Then the squire, never looking in 
 my direction, but busy with the bible on which we had 
 sworn to tell the whole truth, said briefly: "Five dollars 
 and the costs of the court, or sixty days at hard labor on 
 the chain-gang. Next case!" Thus he sentenced me, 
 finished my trial and commenced that of the Kid with the 
 same breath. 
 
 The Kid stood up and the ofHcer had to pull his cap 
 from his head, his fingers too were twitching, and his eyes, 
 riveted to the floor, proved conclusively that this was his 
 first experience facing the kw. "Your name,*' curtly 
 
The Curse of Tramp Life. 35 
 
 asked the squire. "Billy Brown," answered the boy with 
 a hardly audible voice. "William Brown you meant." 
 promptly corrected the squire. "No, sir," stammered the 
 lad, and after pushing up the coat sleeve he pointed at the 
 tattooed monogram of tha intertwined "B. B." and said: 
 "My name is Billy Brown." 
 
 "Well, that does not make any difference to the court, 
 but how do you plead to the charge of trespass — guilty or 
 not guilty?" retorted the squire and the lad commenced to 
 shake and cold beads of perspiration exuded from his fore- 
 head, as he seemed to realize the portent of the question. 
 He wavered a moment, then, there in the midst of the 
 snickering court room audience he sank upon his knees 
 and pleaded with the squire not to place the "stamp of 
 shame" upon his young life by sending him to the chain- 
 gang, where in all his life he had never been before, but 
 to permit him to depart so he could reach his mother, who 
 was waiting for him and he solemnly promised if given this 
 one chance in all his life not only never to beat another 
 train, but never to leave his home again. And while he 
 pleaded the tears he shed plowed white furrows through 
 his soot-begrimed face. 
 
 When the lad had finished and had risen from his 
 knees, complete silence, broken only by his sobs prevailed 
 in the court room. Then the squire asked the boy to tell 
 him what place he called his home and under the heavy 
 grime covering his face, a vivid red appeared, as he re- 
 plied: "Atlanta, Georgia, sir." 
 
 Then the squire turned to the officer and asked him 
 what he thought would be the best to do, and I heard this 
 leather-hearted scoundrel whisper: "I do not care a snap 
 for that strange boy, nor do I believe his sworh-to story, 
 but as I do not receive a salary, I certainly need the.-iee 
 the court pays for ^is conviction," and then^ as he noted 
 
36 The €iirse of Tramp Life. 
 
 that some of the audience had overheard his callous answer, 
 he added, "and too, my son John needs medicine." 
 
 And then the squire pronounced the boy's sentence. . 
 "The law provides that every crime be punished. You 
 have pleaded gulh'y to a crime under the statutes of this 
 state and I assess you a fine of one dollar and the costs of 
 the court for trying your case or five days at hard labor 
 on the county chain-gang." 
 
 This was all he said, but I could tell by the way the 
 sentence affected the Kid, that a death sentence might just 
 as well have been pronounced upon him. 
 
 I had a few dollars in my pockets and thinking that 
 such a small matter of merely taking a couple of trespassers 
 down the street and sentencing them, v/ould hardly cost 
 more than the funds I commanded, I inquired of our cap- 
 tor concerning "the costs of the court," and he tartly in- 
 form.ed mc: "Only twenty-two dollars." 
 
 So, had we had the cash we would have satisfied the 
 stern law by a payment of six dollars or sixty-five days at 
 hard labor, while it took forty-four dollars of the taxpayers* 
 money to settle the bills of those who administer the law. 
 
 (The costs of court vary from $2.00 to S35.00 in dif- 
 ferent states. Had a railroad detective, who always re- 
 ceives a salary from his company, made the arrest and 
 passed judgment, it would not have cost the taxpayers a 
 single cent. Is it then a wonder when the farmers (also the 
 Railroad Companies, who are as a rule the heaviest tax- 
 contributors) who must foot these court bills, and who 
 know all about the cost of the products of their fields, 
 but are densely ignorant as to the money paid out in 
 "court costs" marvel as to the cause of their ever-increas- 
 ing burdens of taxation, which would be greatly reduced 
 if all officials were placed upon a straight salary basis, as 
 
The Curse of Trawp Life. 
 
 37 
 
 this is done in all progressive communities, instead of the 
 costly and antiquated: "We pay you so much cash, 
 each time you can manage to make a conviction.") 
 
 ^'"^ '^^^S^,'^^"' 
 
 
 
S8 The Curse of Tramp Life. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 "The One Place Where *Home, Sweet Home' is 
 Never Sung." 
 
 4i/^0ME, you fellows, hold up your hands, so I can 
 \^ place bracelets on them," roughly commanded 
 the officer, putting an end to the court — a tragedy 
 as far as the Kid was concerned, who stood listlessly and 
 all crumpled up as if in a dream — and he shackled one of 
 each of our hands into a pair of steel handcuffs and pushing 
 the lad, who was almost paralized at this additional shame, 
 ahead of him until we reached the sidewalk, he marched 
 us, followed by town hoodlums, with whom our guardian- 
 angel exchanged coarse jokes at pur expense, right through 
 the "Saturday crowd" upon the streets to the county jail, 
 as this town happened to be the county seat. 
 
 It proved a veritable "Road to Golgotha" for the Kid, 
 who, with low-bowed head, concealed all the more his 
 soot-begrimed features from possible recognition by friends 
 of his family or even relatives as we passed through all 
 those prying eyes on the crowded streets. 
 
 When we entered the jail, I, trying to cheer the Kid, 
 jested: "Kid, five days will quickly pass. In again! Out 
 again! Gone again! That's the way of the 'road'." But 
 all he answered was: "But the disgrace will never fade 
 away." 
 
 When the jailer had us exchange our clothes for the 
 zebra-striped suits of shame, which he handed us, the Kid 
 drew a small locket from his pocket, which he hastily 
 opened, and while I glanced over his shoulder, I could see 
 him kiss a picture in it, the portrait of the most beautiful 
 
The Curse of Tramp Life. 39 
 
 woman I had ever seen, and then he carefully hid the locket 
 in the striped habiliments furnished by the authorities. 
 
 Now the jailer marched us to the cell-house and there 
 locked me into an empty cell, while in the adjoining one — 
 separated only by a thin steel-plate partition — he locked 
 the Kid. But hardly had the jailer left him, a relaxation 
 from all he had gone through came, and there all alone, 
 as if the cold prison-cage were a high altar in a grand church, 
 he prayed, moaned and sobbed. 
 
 "Say, Kid, what is the use to take anything like this 
 so to heart!" I tried to comfort him, speaking loudly through 
 the thin partition. "You should not worry so, because all 
 will be well when you get out and land safely at your home." 
 He made no answer, but his sobbing increased all the louder, 
 and I knew that not the short five days imprisonment, but 
 the shame of it was eating at his heart. 
 
 A little later, I again attem.pted toconsolehim. "Kid," 
 I shouted, "you should be jolly instead of sobbing, if you 
 remember that I was handed sixty days for the same offense 
 and that I am glad I did not get six months." But not 
 until close to the hour, when on Saturday, the chain-gang 
 prisoners, who had to v/ork during the week upon the pub- 
 lic roads, were brought in to bathe, wash and rest, the Kid 
 found his composure. 
 
 At dusk the other prisoners arrived and all were locked 
 into the different cells, in pairs. A lanky, sober-faced 
 fellow became my cell-mate, who, after we briefly exchanged 
 greetings, sank down upon the hard pine board — our bed — 
 completely exhausted by the work in the chain-gang dur- 
 ing the week just passed. 
 
 Through the bars of my cell I could see the jailer lock 
 a swarthy, ugly pug-faced, heavy-set fellow into the cell 
 with the Kentucky Kid. A mom^ent later, in sharp con- 
 
40 The Curse of Tramp Life. 
 
 trast to my own v/earied cell companion, he boisteroUvsly 
 shouted, so it could easily be heard all over the cell-house: 
 "Hello, Kid, how goes it?" And in less time than it takes 
 to tell, he had Billy Brown talking, nay, actually loudly 
 laughing, as he repeated to him funny experiences of the 
 jail and the chain-gang, carefully avoiding to mention the 
 dark side of that terrible life. 
 
 Through the thin partition, I could hear him adroitly 
 questioning the lad as to his past, but Biliy Brown told 
 him the same story he told in court and that Atlanta was 
 his home. 
 
 Then came the fellow's turn to give the boy his reason 
 for being a prisoner. He told him — proudly as if he was 
 a hero — how he had been caught red-handed, burglarizing 
 a store, but with the means furnished by his pals, a sm.art 
 lawyer was engaged, who through shrewd dickerings v/ith 
 the "Powers that be" managed to have the burglary cliarge 
 reduced to one of simple trespass, for which the one- 
 armed squire had condemned him, without the alternative 
 of paying his fine, to thirty days on the chain-gang — but 
 had not forgotten to assess the usual costs of the court as 
 a reward for the trouble of sentencing him. And 
 thus the scoundrel finished his story: "Money and a lawyer 
 can do much! The law is flexible and justice can easily 
 be blindfolded. Hurrah!" he gleefully shouted, "five days 
 more and I v/ill be at liberty and shall make a bee-nne tor 
 the gold regions of California!" 
 
 Now the Kid informed him that he, too, would be set 
 free on the same day. "What are you going to do, my lad, 
 when you get out of here?" inquired the crook. "I am go- 
 ing home as 'quickly as I can, Sir," replied the boy, "We 
 do not 'Sir' and 'Mister' each other in a jail, my boy," the 
 Kid was instructed by the other fellow, in the ethics of 
 the pen, we are all 'brethren of trouble', so call me by my 
 
The Curse of Tramp Life. 41 
 
 first name 'Jack' or my monicker 'Railroad Jack." You 
 are going home, Kid?" he resumed the conversation after a 
 pause, "but what are you going to do at home, after all these 
 other fellows here have become your 'friends', who, when 
 they again meet you will blackmail and tell all, that you 
 have been here, a striped prisoner." "Tell on me?" 
 innocently replied the Kid. "What can they tell on Aie? 
 I only beat a train to reach my home, and — he paused in his 
 sentence — ^Atlanta is far away.". "Say, Kid," was Rail- 
 road Jack's ready reply, "if you were to hide yourself half 
 way around the world ill luck always sends its messenger, 
 some day, perhaps years later, one of these fellows will 
 meet and recognize you, and hound you from pillar to post 
 with blackmail, and then when you are tired of it all — tell 
 their story." It seemed as if these words struck complete 
 terror into the Kid's mind, for presently he feebly inquired: 
 "What shall I do. Jack, if I cannot go — ?" The rest of his 
 question was drowned in the turmoil the hungry prisoners 
 made, as just then the supper bell rang, clamoring for their 
 scanty food, which was shoved to them upon tin plates 
 through an opening at the bottom of the steel barred doors. 
 Our food, as all that served in the future to us, was of the 
 coarest, unhealthiest imaginable kind, but what can a 
 prisoner expect to receive from a sheriff, who is paid to 
 "feed" him, but does not receive a cent for this work? 
 
 Supper over, we were turned out to exercise into the 
 "Bull-ring," the open space about the cells, and forty pris- 
 oners, charged with all the different offenses upon the crim- 
 inal calendar tried to amuse themselves as best they could, 
 shut off from the outside world in a cold, damp county 
 jail. 
 
 "Railroad Jack," by reason of his crime, the latest of 
 a long criminal career, as I later discovered from the other 
 prisoners, who knew each other's pedigrees as only an ex- 
 
42 The Curse of Tramp Life, 
 
 pert business man knows his own business or profession, 
 was the recognized leader — as it is always the rule among 
 criminals — of the jail and proposed that each one of us 
 should sing a song to pass the time. After he had made' an 
 open space amongst them, he sang — no doubt prompted by 
 his not distant discharge from custody — "There will be a 
 hot time In the old town to-night," while all joined in sing- 
 ing the lively refrain. When he finished he was given a 
 round of applause. Pleased at this acclamation, Rail- 
 road Jack called upon Billy Brown to sing the next song. 
 At first the Kid refused to sing, but after all the other 
 prisoners begged him to do so and every one had become 
 a silent listener, he stepped into the open space and then, 
 clear as glass bells came the first words of that beautiful 
 song: "Home, sweet Home." Then bedlam broke loose! 
 It was not as if sane men, but dangerous lunatics had been 
 the listeners, such a storm of cat-calls, shouts^ yells, even 
 curses put a stop to the Kid's efforts to please the prisoners! 
 
 Poor Billy Brown! With tears streaming down his 
 face, forced out by such a rough demonstration by men he 
 had considered well-disposed towards him, turned to Rail- 
 road Jack, who explained to him the lamentable error he 
 had committed to attempt singing the one song that is 
 never, under any circumstances, permitted by prisoners 
 in any penal Institution in the world to be sung, that song 
 of songs, "Home, sweet Home." There was no further 
 singing that evening, but from that moment on Railroad 
 Jack, the criminal, was considered by the Kentucky Kid, 
 the harmless, runaway boy, his protector and best friend. 
 
 At the stroke of nine v/e were locked up for the night 
 and stretched upon my bed — the hard pine board — until 
 in complete weariness I closed my eyes, I could hear that 
 scoundrel Railroad Jack by well chosen words, argue the 
 resolution to go back to his home, out of the boy's head 
 

 The Curse of Tramp Life. 43 
 
 iiiil 
 
 i,,.,_,|l||!i:,,)|j!ll!!|:,^.l||f^^^ 
 
 The boy commenced to sing "Home, Sweet Home." Then bedlam 
 
 broke loose, as this "song of songs" is never, under any 
 
 circumstances, permitted bv prisoners to be 
 
 sung in any penal institution in the world. 
 
44 The Curse of Tramp Life. 
 
 by picturing to him the terrible disgrace that would not 
 only shame him, but his mother and his family as well, 
 should he ever be recognized. 
 
 Sunday, all through the long day and far into the night, 
 after again we had been locked up he preached to the boy, 
 from every possible point of view the self-same sermon, 
 and just when I turned over in my hard bunk to go to 
 sleep, disgusted v/ith Jack's strange notion to keep the boy 
 from going home, I heard the lad sob out aloud this question : 
 "Jack, what can I do to escape this awful exposure you tell 
 me about?" And then Railroad Jack quickly answered: 
 "Billy, my boy, I neither can stay here after what I have 
 done; 'Misery loves Company', so let us go together to 
 the gold regions of California and make our fortune. When 
 we are rich we will return — and rich men do not need fear 
 exposure," he paused, then said, "Good-night, Kid, let's 
 go to sleep," 
 
 All during the night, the Kid kept me awake by wild 
 shrieks, he uttered in his dreams, and by listening to his 
 incoherent mumblings I knew that he was dreaming of 
 the riches he would gather in the Pacific- West to place at 
 the feet of his mother — instead of returning' there now, 
 altho he had only been disgraced by having worn the zebra- 
 garb of the felon, for just five short days. 
 
 Luckily for the Kid it rained Monday, and we were 
 not taken out to labor upon the road; Tuesday it rained 
 some more and Wednesday it was considered too wet to 
 do anything, so the prisoners were given the freedom of the 
 jail, permitted the liberty of the bull-ring from dawn to 
 dusk. 
 
 And every moment through all this time Railroad 
 Jack and the Kid were inseparable companions, always 
 planning and plotting how to win fortunes for themselves 
 
The Curs$ of Tramp Lif$. 46 
 
 out "West"; altho at that moment Railroad Jack had only 
 a few dollars to his name — ^which he had kept out of the 
 clutches of his lav/yers — and the Kid had not one red cent. 
 Late on Wednesday evening, almost at locking-up 
 time, I had my first chance to speak to the Kid alone, 
 while R.ailroad Jack was "visiting" another prisoner who 
 was sick in his cell. "Kid," I inquired, "whatare you going 
 to do?" And as he did not reply quickly, I continued: 
 "Billy, it's only eight miles to your home. Why not do 
 as you prayed to God when they placed you in the lonely 
 cell on Saturday?" "Mum is the word on the road and 
 mum is the word in this jail, everybody to m.ind his own 
 business!" he crankily replied, and then added, "and what 
 is the use to go home now a penniless ex-convict, when I 
 can first go to th^ gold regions of California, make a for- 
 tune and return like a gentleman?" "Remember Billy, 
 my own fate," I pleaded, "go homxe now and make a new 
 start in honest life, safe from the curse of the 'Wanderlust' 
 that had almost claimed you." "No, no," he replied, and 
 just that moment Railroad Jack was loudly calling for 
 him, "it's me for the West and a quick fortune first, and 
 home and mother later," and he was gone. 
 
 That night an angry fist pounded against the partition, 
 arousing me out of my slumber, and when I demanded what 
 was wanted, a voice threateningly growled : "Say, you fresh, 
 gray-haired guy! What's that to you if this Kid goes with 
 me to California or not? You ain't his pa, are you?" It 
 was the voice of Railroad Jack, and no doubt the guileless 
 boy had repeated to him my well-meant warning against 
 the "Wanderlust." A minute later he again pounded 
 against the weak partition, and this is what he said to my 
 response as what more he wished to know: "It's your luck 
 that I and Billy will be let out of the jail before you others 
 
46 
 
 Tke Curse of Tramp Life. 
 
 are permitted to leave your cells, or what I would do to 
 you, be plenty." 
 
 Next morning at the break-of-day, Railroad Jack and 
 the Kentucky Kid were discharged in company — one a 
 confirmed criminal, the other only five days previous, a 
 runaway, but homesick boy, who was then trying to reach 
 his home. 
 
The Curse of Tramp Life. 47 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 **The Prayer of the Convicts." 
 
 BREAKFAST over we were told to "fall in line," and 
 a long chain studded with handcuffs, which, two 
 feet apart, were riveted to it, was brought forth and 
 into these the prisoner's wrists were clasped, the left wrist 
 of one to the right one of the other, ten pairs of prisoners 
 to each chain and two chains to hold all. 
 
 We were loaded upon two road-wagons, and then 
 hauled through the main streets of the town, so that every 
 human being got a good look at each prisoner, and as on 
 each Saturday, v/ith that day's crowd upon the 
 streets, the prisoners were hauled back to the country-jail 
 for their Sunday's rest to return on Monday, every prisoner 
 for the balance of his life was a "marked" man. 
 
 One could easily tell by watching the prisoner's be- 
 havior, the length of time each one had been in the chain- 
 gang. Look at those down-cast eyes of the young fellow 
 in the front wagon! His name is Carson, who had been a 
 prisoner only a single week, and who too, is a runaway boy 
 with a home somewhere awaiting his return. He had 
 been caught by a deputy sheriff ten miles from any railroad, 
 while sleeping in an unused, tumbled-down barn, where he 
 had found shelter for the night, after having in vain searched 
 during the day for employment amongst the farmers. He 
 even had a few dollars in his pockets when he was arrested 
 and this prevented him to be charged with vagrancy. But 
 what amounts this fact to an unsalaried officer, who must 
 make convictions — or go to work like other folks! 
 
 Carson was charged with trespass, and the one-armed 
 
48 Tlic Cii-rse- of Tramp LiJ&. 
 
 squire had sentenced him, to a fine of two dollars and the 
 costs of the case or six months on the chain-gang as punish- 
 ment for his one night's rest in an empty barn, and again 
 twenty-two dollars, the "court-costs" had been divided 
 amongst the ''powers." Poor Carson, as I saw him staring 
 into the bottom of the wagon, I only too well know, that in 
 a fev/ days, the guard, who was sitting along side the driver — 
 also a convict and chained to the seat — ^with his back turned 
 to the mules and with a loaded, ever-ready Winchester 
 laying across his lap, will have ample opportunity before 
 long to threaten to "whip" the lad if he did not stop taunt- 
 ing the public. Such is the result of this "public-show" 
 system in vogue in many states, that it kills the last spark 
 of reform and gives the hardened, long-term criminal 
 companions of any harmless convict an unusually good 
 chance to turn the latter into a vicious enemy of society. 
 
 Ten miles we were carried before. we stopped at the 
 "convict-camp." It was laid out in a glen of a woodland 
 and consisted of the prison-van, our sleeping quarters, 
 three tents — the largest the headquarters of the guards, 
 the second the camp kitchen and the third a shelter for the 
 convicts during rainy days — a kennel with four blood- 
 hounds, a pen with a fat hog and a wooden shed to store 
 the utensils used in working the public road. 
 
 We were unloaded and then unshackled. I was the 
 only new-arrival, and the camp-trusty, a convict, who by 
 divers means — good conduct, by telling on his fellow- 
 prisoners, etc. — had been given by the guards the privilege of 
 the freedom of the camp, besides better food and treatment, 
 took me in hand to instruct me in the rules of the camp. 
 Pointing at three tall pines standing in a triangle at the 
 farthest points of the camp-grounds, he said: "That is 
 the 'dead line,' do not step over that imaginary line, be- 
 
The Curse oj Tramp Life. 49 
 
 cause the first time you do so, you get a "paddling,' the 
 next time a 'beating' and the third time a 'skinning.' " 
 
 Then he showed me a large empty barrel and explained 
 to m.e that across it the prisoners were staked while being 
 whipped, he also let me handle the strap with which the 
 paddling, beating and skinning was accomplished. It was 
 a heavy piece of hide two and one-half inches across, three 
 feet long and fastened into a wooden handle. It looked 
 more like a harmless razor strop of large proportions, than 
 the terrible instrument of torture as I later discovered it to 
 be. (The frequent use of it by brutal guards and over- 
 seers had more to do to turn the prisoners into vicious brutes 
 than had the more humane method of starving a "bad" 
 man into submission, been employed.) 
 
 Now he took me to the dog kennels and showed me the 
 blood hounds, trained to trail escaped convicts. 
 
 Up to now the trusty's voice had been one of command, 
 but the nearer we approached the hog-pen the more friendly 
 he spoke, and as. we reached its side he pointed at the fat 
 porker and quickly said: "Say, Bo, got any money?" 
 I understood, he meant for me to give him a tip, which he 
 would repay with favors. I slipped a dollar into his hand 
 and remarked: "I expect you to do the square thing by me." 
 to which he replied: "I am your friend and will do all I 
 can to help you." Then we returned to the others, joining 
 them at their dinner — the same bill of fare every day, year 
 in, year out, of the coarsest food imiaginable. 
 
 Dinner over, we were taken out to work on the road, 
 watched by two guards with Winchesters, while held in 
 leash by the trusty were two bloodhounds, ever ready to 
 follow anyone attempting to escape. I was handed a shovel 
 and was told to "dig away." There in the hot July sun 
 I dug away with the heavy shovel until my hands commenced 
 
50 The Curse of Tramp Life. 
 
 to swell, then to blister and at last to bleed. I stopped a 
 moment to rest. "Hey there, you fellow, take hold of that 
 shovel," came the cry from the guard. He had commanded 
 and I obeyed, I remembered the barrel, the strap and the 
 "skinning" and dug away. 
 
 Again I stopped! My ph^^sical capacity to labor had 
 been exhausted, I felt I had not sufficient strength to do 
 another stroke. Then the gun butt of a guard was driven, 
 without a word being spoken, into my back — and I dug 
 away. But within me was created a boundless hate, so 
 furious that it gave me superhuman strength to complete 
 my task, a hate for the human brutes, who for a pittance 
 of wages and almost the same quality of food doled out to 
 the prisoners, were in turn permitted — not by the law, but 
 by the closed eyes and ears of their superiors — to maltreat, 
 nay, often coldbloodedly murder defenseless prisoners. 
 
 When just before dusk we were marched back to the 
 camp, I was a complete shadov/ of my former self. All 
 the "Wanderlust" had flown, a worn-out, sick-at-heart 
 wreck — a maltreated convict was left. 
 
 Our supper, the self-same food as before, was handed 
 us upon tin-plates. I placed mine before me, pulled out 
 my handkerchief and covered my face a moment while in a 
 faint — just a moment, but when I looked at my plate 
 every morsel was gone, devoured by the others, who like 
 hungry wolves were staring at me as if waiting for more — 
 they were actually starving, just enough food being doled 
 out to them to keep their souls within their bodies, their 
 hands able to lift the picks and the shovels; the guards, the 
 barrel and the strap — fear, not kindness — did the rest. 
 
 An hour later we were laid side b}^ side, like so many 
 sardines, upon the bare floor of the prison-van and our 
 ankles were shackled to a large chain strung across its 
 length. 
 
The Curse of Tramp Life. 
 
 51 
 
 And there we laid on the bare floor, side by side, the sick against the 
 healthy; the murderer against the runaway boy — all 
 indiscriminately mingled. 
 
B2 Th$ Curse of Tramp Life. 
 
 One illy-smelling lamp gave a sickly gloom, and four 
 small iron-barred windows, a scant air supply to this foul 
 inferno, while in the corner adjacent to the door, was a 
 chair upon which a guard with ready whip and loaded 
 pistol would sit, locked in, himself, by the others from the 
 outside, to watch us through the night. 
 
 And there we laid on the hard floor side by side, the 
 sick against the healthy; the young against the old ; the mur- 
 derer against the runaway boy; the confirmed criminal 
 against the harmless offender — all indiscriminately mingled! 
 
 And just at twilight when dusk turns into darkness, 
 inside this van, began the "Prayer of the Convicts." 
 
 "Oh! Lord, punish those who so unmercifully punish 
 us! Oh! Lord, punish those, who so unmercifully punish 
 us!" pleaded those tired, wearied lips in unison, repeating 
 over and over these self-same words, which were only 
 silenced when the guard entered, who took his seat upon 
 the chair and was locked in, to watch us throughout 
 the night. 
 
 Night after night, week after week, and year after 
 year this "Prayer of the Convicts" is in unison repeated 
 wherever prisoners are starved and maltreated, and the 
 many plagues and pestiliences, which were unknown to 
 the forefathers, seem to bear out the solemn fact, that God, 
 the Almighty, heeds these strange prayers coming as they 
 do from the utmost humility of human beings in sore dis- 
 tress, and dreadfully scourges those who permit and often 
 abet this fearful shame. 
 
The Curse of Tramp Life, 53 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 *'At the Mercy of Human Fiends." 
 
 FORTY days had passed since my sentence, and I had 
 become calloused to the constant "driving" of the 
 guards and accustomed to the monotonous labor 
 demanded of a convict on a chain-gang. I had seen "old 
 hands," whose time had expired, discharged and "new 
 hands," often times "repeaters," enter our ranks, while, 
 with only one-third of my time to "do," I had become 
 reconciled to my fate. I already counted the days till my 
 discharge, and made plans for my future journeys, but 
 especially how to get as quickly as possible out of 
 Kentucky. 
 
 We were at work blasting away a rocky ledge with 
 dynamite, that projected into the right-of-way of the road. 
 We had drilled the holes into the hard granite, .he charges 
 of dynamite had been driven home and when the attached 
 fuses sputtered, the guards gave orders to us to seek places 
 of safety from the flying fragments. The explosion came, 
 we returned to clear away the debris, w^hen suddenly we 
 were ordered to fall in line, and then, flanked by the guards, 
 who menacingly fingered their cocked Winchesters, we 
 were marched back to the camp — a convict had escaped. 
 
 Arriving there we were locked — chained and shackled — 
 into the prison-van. Then the guards had the bloodhounds 
 smell a garment belonging to the escaped prisoner, which 
 then were taken back to where we worked, straining at their 
 leashes, while the guards — no less eager to recapture the 
 escaped prisoner, as they would have to pay out of their 
 
54 The Curse of Tramp Life, 
 
 meager salary, the $50.00 reward offered for his apprehen- 
 ^sion — followed. 
 
 The man-hunt then commenced. We could hear in 
 our prison-van, the yelling and cursing of the guards, 
 following the hounds, who by the sound of a peculiar note 
 in their baying had found the scent and were trailing their 
 prey. Gradually the echo of the man-chase died in the 
 distance and we fervently hoped that the prisoner, who was 
 none other than Carson, the young, harmless fellow who, 
 no doubt, thought that fifty days of practical slavery was a 
 sufficient atonement for a one night's rest in another 
 man's empty barn, would make a clean "get-away." 
 
 Dinner was served to us in the prison-van in which we 
 ate, chained to the floor. The day lengthened and we 
 actually congratulated ourselves that at least one of us 
 had the courage to get away from our cruel task-masters. 
 
 But all our hopes were shattered, for late in the after- 
 noon they brought the poor fellow in, with his zebra- 
 striped suit all torn and here and there spotted with blood 
 where the thorns, the teeth of the hounds and the lashes 
 of the guards had made the blood jump out of wounds. 
 
 They chained the boy to a tree in the center of the 
 camp, rolled the "skinning" barrel into an open space, let 
 us, still chained and shackled, out of the prison-van, made 
 us sit in a circle around the barrel, and then the chief of 
 the guards ordered the poor lad to be "pulled over the 
 barrel." 
 
 When they unchained him from the tree, I could see 
 the poor fellow pale as death, yet with defiance in his eyes, 
 bite his lips to keep from screaming as two of the guards 
 roughly dragged him to the barrel and after baring his back, 
 "staked" him across it. Then the chief of the guards — 
 "Flogging Master" is his official title — with bared arm, 
 grabbed the strap, which had previously been soaked in 
 
The Curse of Tramp Life. 
 
 55 
 
 
 Then the "Flogging Master" grabbed the heavy strap, which had been 
 
 soaked in water, pulled it through the sand of the camp 
 
 ground, and then with an awful switch it came down 
 
 with a resounding whack upon the bare 
 
 back of that poor helpless boy. 
 
56 
 
 The Curse of Tramp Life. 
 
 water, pulled it through the sand of the camp ground and 
 then with an awful switch it came down with a resounding 
 whack upon the bare back of that poor, helpless boy, whose 
 pitiful shrieks of mercy were promptly followed by blow 
 after blow at the hand of the inhumane "flogging-master'* 
 until the unconscious, bleeding form of the little lad made 
 further punishment useless. 
 
 V/e, who had been forced to witness this inhumane 
 spectacle, knowing the trifling cause of their poor victim's 
 presence in the miserable chain-gang, instead of a lesson to 
 permit our cruel taskmasters to maltreat us all the more, 
 sat silenced by the horror of it all, looking on, at the same 
 time within us we were snarling like tigers at every lick 
 of the strap as it fell upon the poor boy's bared back. 
 
 That evening, after we were returned to the van and 
 time for our own united prayer came, we could hear chok- 
 ing sobs in the darkness, and the prayer itself could have 
 never been repeated with more fervor in the grandest 
 cathedral, than in our foul prison, while poor, young Car- 
 son, unattended by anyone, was lying unconscious upon a 
 bundle of filthy rags, screaming in his delirium for his 
 mother to come and help him — screams which cut all of 
 us others to the quick. 
 
The Curse of Tramp Life. 57 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 "Honesty is Always the Best Policy." 
 
 A few days later, the **trusty" who, ever since the day 
 of my arrival at the convict camp, when he, while in- 
 structing me as to the rules and regulations, accepted 
 the dollar I slipped to him, and who since that first time, had 
 made several other "financial" calls upon me, which he repaid 
 by permitting me privileges granted, to none of the other 
 prisoners, called me aside, and after the transfer of an ad- 
 ditional half a dollar, he procured for me the coveted job as 
 "water-boy," which meant that I would have to supply 
 the chain-gang while at work with drinking water, a 
 far easier job, as compared with the digging and rock 
 pounding on the road, as now, equipped with a couple of 
 pails, all I had to do was to bring water from the wells 
 or pumps in the yards of neighboring farm houses. 
 
 Faithfully day after day I did this work, which of- 
 fered me many chances to escape, but with only a few 
 days ahead before unrestricted liberty would be my own, 
 I felt no inclination to take the least chance, as I had seen 
 with my own eyes and heard with my own ears what the 
 trusty meant when he spoke on the first day of paddling, 
 beating and skinning. 
 
 And then, too, why should I run away now, that almost 
 daily the good farmer folks at whose houses I filled my pails, 
 gave me toothsome tidbits, such as pies, cake and bread 
 spread with butter, all of which and all others, except 
 unhealthy half-cooked cornbread, greasy salt pork and 
 
58 The Curse of Tramp Life. 
 
 badly baked biscuits, I had not tasted since I commenced 
 to serve my sentence. 
 
 I also secured some old newspapers, which were con- 
 sidered "contraband", and which by stealth I slipped in 
 the camp, giving several life-termers a chance to read after 
 many days for the first time, real news from the -outside 
 world, as the only book permitted to be read, was the 
 "Holy Bible." 
 
 One day, while on the public road going after a fresh 
 supply of water, a faint sparkle in the dust caught my eye, 
 perhaps the reflection of the sun upon a piece of broken 
 glass, I thought; I do not know why, but as if by mag- 
 netic power, I stepped out of my intended route and gave 
 the supposed piece of dust covered glass a kick. 
 
 But look! What was I kicking? What were those 
 millions of sparkling rays that hurt my eyes, and that 
 golden lustre I saw beneath the dust? I stooped and picked 
 it up and held in my hand a heavy, diamond-encrusted 
 bracelet. With the next move I had it safely hidden from 
 view in the bosom of my prison suit, then I looked carefully 
 about, to see if some one had not seen me making my find. 
 My next thought was to rush back and hand my valuable 
 find over to the guards. "No, no, A No. 1," I said aloud, 
 as I felt my innermost self rebel against this, "those scoun- 
 drels will murder you for it." But what to do? I pulled 
 the bracelet out of its hiding place and after removing every 
 speck of dust, I took a sly look at my unexpected find and 
 the more the rays of the diamonds penetrated my eyes, 
 the more I became resolved to take fullest advantage of 
 my newly acquired wealth. 
 
 "A No. 1," I chuckled aloud, "you are the luckiest 
 kid under the sun. First you slaved two long months upon 
 this road, and now it yields up its pay. Diamonds and 
 
The Curse of Tramp Life. 59 
 
 gold are easily convertible into good dollars! Pick out 
 the diamonds, melt the gold into a nugget and convert both 
 without a possible chance of discovery, into ready cash!" 
 I paused to take another look at my precious find, then 
 continued with embittered ^oice: "In a few days they will 
 turn you loose upon this community, a stranger among 
 strangers and every one against you, a despised ex-convict; 
 almost broken in health by reason of the disgusting food 
 they made you "feed" upon, while you gave for their 
 benefit the last ounce of human endurance, and now on top 
 of all, they will turn you out to make the 'new start' the 
 law promised you, after you atone for your trans- 
 gression, a penniless beggar. No, no, A No. 1, nix on giving 
 up this real 'new start' you found." And following suit 
 to the spoken words, I hid my treasure beneath the root 
 of a willow growing by the roadside. 
 
 Keeping the whole affair a profound secret, I attended, 
 as if nothing had ever happened, to my convict- watering 
 duties. Only once each day, to assure myself no one had 
 lifted it, I took a peep at my treasure trove. 
 
 Two days later, just before we were to knock off work 
 in the evening, while I was filling my pails for the last 
 tim.e at a negro cabin's well, I overheard the colored woman, 
 whose cabin-home it was, tell how a lady had lost, while 
 upon an automobile trip, somewhere along the road, a 
 very valuable diamond-studded bracelet, and how she had 
 offered a reward to its finder and how the whole country 
 side had for days^been searching for the jewelry, but that 
 all efforts had thus far been in vain. 
 
 No sooner had the woman finished than I inquired 
 where this lady resided, and she told me, tv/o miles from her 
 cabin. Knowing I would never be permitted to leave the 
 camp, without a second thought, I told the colored woman 
 
60 The Curse of Tramp Life, 
 
 to go and tell the lady that, I, a convict, had found her 
 bracelet, and that she could have it by calling at the con- 
 vict-camp. "Lawd," she exclaimed and down the road 
 she went as fast as her bare, black feet would carry her to 
 deliver my message. 
 
 With my water-filled pails I hurried back to the "gang" 
 which, ready to march to camp, was waiting for my return, 
 and as expected, one of the guards, ever ready to take every 
 advantage to satisfy their craving for brutality, gave me 
 a staggering blow with the butt of his gun, threatening at 
 the same time, amid vile curses, to keep me "over-time" 
 on the chain-gang. 
 
 We marched in and "supper" finished, after the usual 
 brief rest, we were chained, shackled and locked up for 
 another night, only three nights lacking to be my last one. 
 
 While repeating our convict prayer, we heard the 
 loud hubbub, made by an automobile stopping alongside 
 our sleeping quarters. Loud orders rang out, the door 
 of the prison-van was thrown open, the chief of guards, 
 holding high a lighted lamp, entered, followed by a negro 
 woman and a richly dressed white lady, who, no sooner had 
 she sniffed the foul atmosphere and seen how we unfor- 
 tunates were manacled, turned to her husband, who had 
 just squeezed himself into the small door, and exclaimed: 
 "Oh! Harold, why cannot these poor wretches, who so 
 greatly improve our roads, be at least quartered like human 
 beings and not like wild beasts! I shall call in the morning 
 upon 'their friend' the squire, and direct his attention to 
 this horrid shame." 
 
 Now the colored woman, assisted by the chief of guards, 
 carefully scanned our faces, and with the lamp's rays 
 showing full into my face, when she came to look at me, 
 she yelled, "Fo' de Lawd's sake. Missus, here shore he is!" 
 
Th& Curse of Tramp L'^e. 
 
 SI 
 
 I found a diamond-encrusted bracelet in the dust-covered public 
 highway. 
 
62 % The Curse of Tramp Life, 
 
 Then the chief unshackled me and I was taken into 
 his tent and there had to repeat to the visitors how I had 
 found the bracelet in the open road and I finished by of- 
 fering to guide them to its hiding place. But, would you 
 believe it, the chief of guards, before we climbed into the 
 automobile to be whizzed in record time to the willow, 
 locked my wrists into a pair of handcuffs, just as if to prove 
 to the visitors how absolute w^as the power he exercised 
 over "his" prisoners. 
 
 When we arrived at the willow I was taken out of the 
 automobile, and after the "chief of brutal scoundrels" had 
 removed his steel "bracelets" from my wrists I was permit- 
 ted to dig out from underneath its roots the diamond 
 bracelet, which, like a "hero of old", I handed to the lady 
 in the auto, who, no sooner had she got her fingers on it, pro- 
 nounced a very curtly sounding "thank you," and ordered 
 her chauffeur to "return home" and a moment later they 
 were cutting a hole through the atmosphere while the chief 
 quickly clasped his bracelets again upon my wrists and with 
 a sneering "that's the proper way to pay convicts" ordered 
 me to march back to the camp. 
 
 I do not know what v/as going on in his mind, but it 
 seemed somehow he felt ill-humored, for presently he cut 
 a stiff switch from the road-side and drove me, like I have 
 seen boys drive geese, back to the camp, where he quickly 
 shackled me to the chain in the prison- van, and I was soon 
 sound asleep, dreaming what queer people sometimes those 
 who lose diamond bracelets are. 
 
 The next day, the other prisoners, to whom — the latest 
 piece of camp gossip — I had related my experiences, taunted 
 me for giving up a "diamond mine" for a mere "thank you," 
 while I, the same as if nothing had occured, kept attending 
 strictly to my duties as water boy, filling my pails and 
 quenching their thirsts. 
 
The Curse of Tramp Life. 63 
 
 When the dinner hour approached — as was customary 
 when we worked not too distant — we marched back to the 
 camp. After we finished our "feed," the chief of guards 
 called me into his tent, and before I could say a single 
 word handed me a dish full of dollars and bills with these 
 words: "The lady whose bracelet you restored, sent her 
 servant down here this morning to pay you these one 
 hundred dollars as a reward for your honesty," and then 
 pausing a moment, the "Flogging Master" continued, his 
 voice sounding for all the world like a cat's soft purring, 
 "And, my dear boy, what are you going to do with all that 
 good money?" 
 
 My chance had come at last! I told him to call up 
 the squire over the telephone and inquire how much money 
 it would take to set me free. This he meekly did. The 
 answer came back and was to the effect that my five dol- 
 lars fine should be remitted, but that I must pay the "costs 
 of court" to gain my liberty — plainly indicating which 
 thoughts were ever foremost In the squire's mind. I paid the 
 "costs of court", twenty-two dollars, for which I gained 
 just three days of precious liberty, having served fifty-seven 
 out of the sixty day's sentence. I also paid twenty-four 
 dollars to buy the liberty of poor Carson, who was still 
 limping, unable to work, about the camp. 
 
 We quickly exchanged our prison suits for our own — 
 they were kept in a locker in the guard's tent — and after 
 throwing a handful of silver dollars amongst the surprised 
 wretches we left behind us, we two happy fellows made 
 haste to reach the town. 
 
 We must have covered half the distance, when sud- 
 denly I felt there was something lacking to complete my 
 happiness — I had omitted to thank the lady who had so 
 generously rewarded me. 
 
64 
 
 The Curse of Tramp Life. 
 
 I stopped, and after explaining to Carson my reasons 
 for wishing to return, I handed him a sum of money for 
 his expenses, besides which I gave him a lot of good advice: 
 to hit a bee-line for his home and mother before the ** Wander- 
 lust" could claim him, too, as a victim, and to shun the 
 road in the future as he would rank poison. This he 
 solemnly promised me to do and then we parted, he to 
 return to his home to forget his frightful experiences, while 
 1 set out to find and thank my benefact -.ess. 
 
The Curse of Tramp Life. 66 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 "Strange Discoveries." 
 
 IT was late in the afternoon when I stopped at the 
 cabin-home of the colored woman, whose conversation 
 
 had brought to me my good fortune, to inquire of 
 her the direction to the home of the bracelet's owner. 
 
 The poor negro "mammy" threw up her horny hands 
 in surprise, when she recognized me in my civiHan clothes, 
 looking so different, than when she picked me out amongst 
 the sleeping zebra-dressed convicts, and exclaimed: "Fo' 
 de Lawd, Massa! You sut'nly is de same man! Massa, 
 but dem folks'es wah sut'nly tickled to death, when ah 
 told dem yo' al had foun' dem di'mons an' den dey hitched 
 up de automobile, and made me clime in wid dem! An' fo' 
 deLawd! Yo'all ought to hab' seen me whiz by de o'der 
 cullu'd folks'es cabins, wid dem niggah's all cranin' deir 
 necks to see what dis yere cullud woman is doin ridin' wid 
 'quality-folks,' jest like Elisha in his chariot." 
 
 Then she gave me the required information, and be- 
 fore an hour had elapsed, I entered a well-tended park, 
 through which a winding path led me to the entrance of 
 a grand mansion. 
 
 Faltering I stood before its portal, just an ex-convict, 
 cowed to the very earth — instead of uplifted to the level 
 demanded by society — by the hideous abuse I had passed 
 through, and timidly I rang the bell. 
 
 - A moment later, a liveried darky opened the door and 
 when I told him I wished to meet the lady of the house, he. 
 
66 The Curse of Tram-p Life. 
 
 haughtily asked for ''my card." "My card?" I queried, 
 "I am now free to — ," and caught my words. Then I ex- 
 plained to him my errand, but hardly had I finished my story, 
 waiving all empty formalities, the darky bade me follow 
 him into the house, where, after we had mounted to the 
 next floor, he knocked on a door, and which, on being 
 bidden to enter, he opened, and then he almost pushed me 
 into the center of a briliiantly lighted, beautifully furnished 
 library, in which, seated at a book-laden table was a most 
 handsomely dressed lady, whom I instantly recognized as 
 the automobile-lady of the preceding night, who so very 
 curtly thanked me for returning to her my valuable find. 
 But now she arose out of her chair and while I, in complete 
 confusion, commenced to stammer words of gratitude, she 
 cut me short with most gracious civility by inviting me 
 to be seated, and after taking my hat out of my trembling 
 hands, she introduced herself as "Mrs. Harold Braxton," 
 and bade me to be welcome at her home — "Braxton Manor." 
 Fearful that my "hobo-monicker" would offend her, I gave 
 her, as my name the one that at that moment came into my 
 mind. "Albert Jones is my name," I replied, introducing 
 myself, and then I tried again to thank the lady for her 
 generosity, but she kept on lauding my honesty to the 
 skies, and repeating, how at last, the seemingly impossible 
 had happened — something that the squire and others of his 
 stamp had so frequently preached to her: "that a man, once 
 a convict in a chain-gang, was no better than the worst 
 of them." 
 
 Thus she continued, never giving me a blessed chance 
 to utter a single word of the speech I had framed up during 
 the long seven miles' walk back to her home, past laborers 
 at work in the fields; past people in gardens, and upon the 
 porches of their homes; past playing children, who all 
 
The Curse of Tramp Life. 
 
 67 
 
 mmi 
 
 "Yo'all ought to hab' seen me whiz by de o'der cullu'd folk'es cabins 
 
 wid dem niggahs all cranin' deir necks to see what dis yere 
 
 cullud woman is doin' ridin' wid 'quality-folks', jest 
 
 like Elisha in his chariot." 
 
68 The Curse of Tramp Life. 
 
 proved by their frowning, sneering faces, as soon as they 
 cast their eyes upon my features, that the daily and weekly 
 exhibitions in chains and of brutality, had been well 
 absorbed by them, and that even year-long, complete 
 humiliation would be any ex-convict's share, who should 
 dare to efface by honest toil and endeavor the "Cain's 
 Mark" of the chain-gang, by living amongst them. 
 
 The lady only ended her praises when she discovered 
 in the course of her inquiries that I had not jeaten supper, 
 and then excusing herself, she left the library to order a 
 meal prepared for me. 
 
 A few minutes later she returned, accompanied by a 
 gentleman, whom she introduced as her husband, and now, 
 for the first time since I entered the library, I had a chance 
 to thank both for their generosity. After I had finished, 
 and a few pleasant words had been interchanged, Mr. 
 Braxton casually asked what I intended to do with the 
 hundred dollars. And then I repeated to them, how they 
 had not only given freedom to one convict, but also to a 
 second one, and pictured to them, the joy and happiness of 
 poor Carson, the runaway boy, at his release. Now the 
 lady had me repeat the experiences the boy had gone through 
 since he became a member of the chain-gang; how he had 
 been maltreated; had escaped, had been recaptured, and 
 how, on the night after he had been "skinned over the 
 barrel" with the strap, while unconsciously rolling in de- 
 lirium upon the filthy rags, he had so pitifully screamed for 
 his mother to help h'm in his agony — , and then, — Mrs. 
 Braxton fainted away. Her husband with the assistance 
 of the colored butler, who had just entered the library 
 with my supper upon a tray, which he placed upon the 
 library table, lifted the good lady up and carried her out 
 of the room. 
 
The Curse of Tramp Life. 69 
 
 For a moment I sat in complete astonishment, mar- 
 veling why the lady should have fainted while listening to 
 my only "tame" recital of the actual conditions existing 
 in the chain gang, and while I pulled my chair close to the 
 library- table, upon which my supper was waiting me, I 
 wondered what would have been the result had she seen 
 with her own eyes and heard with her own ears, the baying 
 of the fierce bloodhounds; poor Carson's return from his 
 foiled escape; the laughter and taunts of the guards; the 
 blood covered barrel; the seared, bared back and the pierc- 
 ing screams of the boy ; the loud switch as the heavy water 
 soaked strap cut through the air; the circle of chained and 
 snarling prisoners, and the hundred and one accompani- 
 ments which worked daily, making cowardly fiends out of 
 prisoners, supposed to be punished and reformed for their 
 transgression of the law by the deprivation of their liberty 
 under strict, but not antiquated, inhumane conditions, and 
 then I commenced to clear away to the last bite the bounti- 
 ful supper, after I had missed so many meals — not "feeds." 
 This was the first time after two long months that I had 
 used a knife and a fork while eating. In the prison camp 
 only spoons and the bare fingers were used, ever impressing 
 upon the convicts, even while eating their poor rations, that 
 they were considered brutes. 
 
 Then I sank into a soft rocking chair, awaiting the 
 return of host and hostess to bid them farewell. I waited 
 long and patiently and just at the moment, when I intended 
 to take "French leave," thinking that Mrs. Braxton's 
 illness was entirely too serious to permit attention being 
 paid to my presence, the door opened and the colored 
 butler entered, holding a silver candlestick with a burning 
 candle in his hand and then opening apart the heavy sllding- 
 doors separating the library from an adjoining room bade 
 me to follow him and placing the candlestick upon a small 
 
^0 The Curse of Tramp Life. 
 
 table standing in the center of this room, a grandly furnished 
 bed-chamber, he v/hispered: "Massa Braxton begs to be 
 excused, as Missus is so ill, but he shore would feel honored, 
 if the ge'man will stay with us over night." Then he bowed 
 himself out and closed the sliding-doors behind him. 
 
 I almost tumbled into a soft-upholstered chair and then, 
 realizing that good fortune was overwhelming me, altho I 
 felt sorry for having caused the gracious lady's fainting 
 spell, I commenced talking aloud: "Skeets, A No. 1, your 
 luck is rolling up in chunks," I said, and then I rubbed 
 my eyes to make sure all was not a mere dream. "Honesty 
 always pays big rewards," I continued my musing, "but 
 I am certainly getting more than is due to me," and then 
 I glanced at the splendidly appointed bed, that was to be 
 my resting place. I arose out of my chair, walked up to it 
 and as I fingered the silken cover, the lace-embroidery and 
 all the rest, I came to the odd conclusion, that this was 
 altogether too grand a bed for an ex-convict, who had been 
 used to the hard floor for his bed and the ceiling for a cover- 
 ing, and I pulled off my coat, made it into a pillow, 
 placed it upon the floor alongside the bed and a moment 
 later, stretched full length upon the velvety carpet, after 
 having repeated — impelled by sheer habit — the convict- 
 prayer, adding to it a plea for God to bless the Braxtons for 
 befriending a poor convict, I promptly fell asleep. 
 
 About midnight* in my slumber, I thought I heard a 
 voice. As it is customary to call in the chain-gang's prison- 
 van, when one prisoner wishes to turn over, to permit him 
 to do so, all others follow suit, so I turned over; then I 
 heard a voice again and once more I drowsily turned over; 
 again another voice and when I turned this time, half 
 angered at the constant calls for turning, T aroused myself 
 and stretching my feet I missed the "feel" of the shackles 
 and then I sat up and gradually remembered my lucky 
 
The Oursc of Tramp Life. 71 
 
 change from the convict-van to a bed-chamber In a grand 
 mansion. • 
 
 But hark! What was that I heard? I listened, and 
 there in the darkness of the bed-chamber, I could distinctly 
 hear a muffled voice in the adjoining library. What could 
 it mean? A burglar prowling through the house, and I 
 accused in the morning of having robbed my benefac- 
 tors? "Good God!" I exclaimed in my thoughts, as I 
 realized my perilous position and pictures of the one-armed, 
 fee-hungry squire, a long term in the chain-gang, the brutal, 
 illy-paid guards, and the prison-van flashed through my 
 suddenly wide-awake mind, and I noiselessly crawled 
 upon my knees to where I thought the sliding-doors met, 
 and then, after I felt for and. found it, I carefully placed my 
 ear against the crack — and sure enough, I heard a voice, 
 and all atremble I quietly slid the doors, just a wee bit 
 apart, looked through the tiny opening and saw, by the 
 aid of a lighted lamp w^hich stood upon the library-table, 
 a lady dressed like a ghost in her white night-gown, with 
 her back turned towards me, upon her knees, sobbing while 
 pleading with God to save her own son from the fate that 
 I had described during the previous evening was the reward 
 of all runaway boys, who like young Carson, had left their 
 homes to become tramps and as I looked, I could see by 
 the reflection in a large, bevelled French mirror reaching 
 from the library's floor to its ceiling, that the lady was 
 none other than Mrs. Braxton. I carefully shut the sliding 
 doors and crawled back to my form.er resting place upon 
 the floor and there I lay and thought what a queer lady, 
 after all, Mrs. Braxton was, first when she said so curtly, 
 "Thank you," and then paid me a big reward for returning 
 her property; then she had fainted dead away when she 
 listened to poor Carson's story, something that happens 
 daily on every chain-gang, and the climax was reached 
 
72 The Curse of Tramp Life, 
 
 now, when in the dead hours of the night, she crawled 
 about the library on her knees sobbing and pleading with 
 God, not to release those other three runaway boys, I left 
 behind slaving, scarcely two miles from the Manor, in the 
 chain-gang, but to save her own son from their and 
 Carson's fate, which young man I had not the least doubt, 
 was at this moment peacefully snoring on the floor above 
 or the one below me, in an equally luxurious feather-bed, as 
 the one they had furnished for my night's rest, dreaming 
 of baseball, bathing, dancing with pretty soft-eyed girls 
 and other such bliss, that goes to make royal dreams 
 for youngsters — and while yet wondering, I fell asleep. 
 
 Convicts rise at break of day, and in the morning, 
 through force of habit, I found it impossible to sleep be- 
 yond the regulation time, so arose, washed and brushed 
 myself and placing a chair before an open window I watched 
 the sun rise. But the discipline of the chain-gang as the 
 time came "to fall in line" arrived, would not let me sit 
 quietly upon the chair, so, queer as this may seem, I com- 
 menced to march — down the roadway — around the room, 
 and while so marching, my eyes fell upon the unused bed, and 
 remembering that its unused condition might cause sus- 
 picion, and that I was an ex-convict, I pulled back the 
 covers and jumped and rolled about the bed. Then I 
 marched around the room until I heard some one knock 
 on the sliding-doors and sinking quietly into a chair, I 
 bade the party to enter. 
 
 The doors were pulled aside and in came the colored 
 butler holding in his hand a tray upon which a dainty cup 
 of coffee was served, which he placed upon the table, and 
 then noting that I was already dressed, he remarked: 
 "Massa, you all sut'nly is an early risah, the othah ge'men 
 nevah rises till nine," and then he bowed himself out of 
 the open doors and left them ajar. 
 
The Curse of Tramp Life. 73 
 
 And then I drank the coffee! Real coffee with real 
 sugar and real cream! "Lord," I chuckled, "the guards 
 never had cream nor sugar in their coffee, and the convicts 
 never taste real coffee!" After I had cleaned up the mocha, 
 I once more stretched my limbs, and then, odd as it may 
 seem, I longed for my water-pails, just for the sake of 
 having something to do to while away the time. Finally 
 an idea came. Why not read a book? I entered the library 
 to select a suitable one from one of the many shelves. 
 While looking for a book, I admired the many beautiful 
 paintings hanging about the walls and my eyes were at- 
 tracted by a veiled portrait above the fire-place, and through 
 the veil I thought I could discern the likeness of some 
 famous ancestor of the Braxtons. Impelled by idle curi- 
 osity I lifted the veil, and was almost stunned when I 
 looked at, what I thought was a life-true oil portrait of 
 "Billy Brown." 
 
74 The Curse of Tramp Life. 
 
 I 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 "Clearing the Mystery." 
 
 ALMOST screamed aloud, so suddenly was I taken aback 
 by this strange discovery! With a reeling head — it was 
 only this which kept me from rushing into the hallway 
 and loudly proclaiming my find to all the manor — I sank into 
 a chair, and then commenced gradually to pick up the 
 scattered threads of memory which had become unwieldy 
 from the two month's sojourn on the chain-gang. 
 
 Perhaps after all I was mistaken, for how could a scion 
 of the Braxton family be identical v/ith Billy Brown, the 
 Kentucky Kid? Was it possible that my failing eyes 
 played tricks on me? I arose from my chair and stepped 
 in front of the portrait, lifted the veil again and stepping 
 back as far as my arm would permit, I carefully scanned 
 every line. There could not be a mistake, it was the pic- 
 ture of "Billy Brown." 
 
 While looking I remembered, too, Billy's words, that 
 his home was eight miles from the station and Braxton 
 Manor, altho I had arrived by a round-about route, was 
 just this distance from the railroad. But perhaps after 
 all I might be wrong and cause a lot of ridicule for me, 
 should I attempt to tell the Braxtons, that their son, who 
 perhaps at this very moment was sipping his morning coffee, 
 looked like the "hobo-kid" I had met several months ago. 
 Oh no! That would not do, I must have a better proof 
 than this mere likeness between tv/o boys! 
 
 . I rang the library-bell. The colored butler opened the 
 door and asked my wishes. I bade him enter and after 
 closing the door behind him I placed him in front of the 
 portrait and then lifted the veil, and curtly demanded to 
 know if it v/ere not Mr. Braxton's portrait, painted when he 
 was a school boy? 
 
The Curse of Tramp Life, 75 
 
 What was there so strange about this picture that 
 the butler did not promptly answer? Why should he be 
 stricken dumb and look into the fire place? Why should 
 tears commence to drop down his dark-lined face? I 
 repeated my question, while he fumbled in his pocket and 
 pulled out his handkerchief with which he wiped away his 
 tears. "Massa," he sadly replied, "my Braxton folks done 
 tole me not to tell of Marse Bufo'd, but seein' that it's 
 such a nice ge'man as yo'all, I is gwine to tell yo'all the 
 truth. Fo'teen months ago to-morrer, Marse Bufo'd, the 
 only child of my Marse and Missus, de fines* boy yo'all 
 evah saw, dis'peahed 'bout midnight from dis yere manah 
 and now, aftah a Ian' wide search, we'all othahs hab gibben 
 him up fo' lost, only my poah Missus, who prays all 
 the time to de good Lawd above, to bring him back to her 
 and make us all happy." Then he sobbed so loud he could 
 not say another word, and I dismissed him from the library. 
 
 Hardly had he shut the door behind him than I again sank 
 into the chair and became absorbed in my thoughts. What 
 if, after all, I was at error? But no, that v/as not possible. 
 
 Piece by piece I connected tlie facts I had, thus far 
 found, and all pointed to the loss of a son of the Braxtons. 
 
 At this moment, too, I understood the reason why 
 poor Mrs. Braxton had fainted away, when she heard me 
 tell how poor Carson, in his delirium screamed for his 
 mother's assistance, and only too well I knew now the 
 cause, which made her rise in the ghostly hours of the night 
 to plead upon her knees in the library with God to save 
 her son from the fate of young Carson — it was a mother's 
 love for her offspj^ing. 
 
 Then a devilish idea made me chuckle! I thought 
 how the chain-gang until the preceding evening held less 
 interest for the Braxtons than even their neighbor's hog- 
 pen, but since their own flesh and blood, "Master Buford," 
 
76 The Curse of Tramp Life. 
 
 the butler had called the son, was in danger of joining the 
 "gang," how mightily that changed the matter! Ah' 
 what a difference this made! 
 
 Once more I chuckled as an odd thought crossed my 
 mind. What would happen, I thought, if the one-armed 
 squire and other fellows who permit such barbarous shame, ' 
 could only be forced to play convict for just one single 
 week, to slave during the hot day, to feed upon filthy food and 
 then to sleep at night in a foul-aired, vermin-crawling 
 box, chained to a consumptive murderer, as I had been on 
 the last night I slept in the prison-van? 
 
 Another thought! What if there had not been those 
 twenty- two dollars "cost of courts?" The chances would 
 have been good, that the squire would have ordered this 
 and other runaway boys sent home, a by far less expensive 
 method than wasting twenty-two dollars upon a farce, 
 which turns — oftener than thought possible — harmless 
 chaps into vicious criminals. 
 
 "Yes," I mused "it is not yet too late to incorporate 
 into every state-code a law making it compulsory upon 
 every judge to notify parents of runaway boys of their 
 detention. Had this rule been in force this very moment 
 "Billy Brown, the Hobo Kid" would be once more "Master 
 Buford of Braxton Manor," and then — I looked very care- 
 fully about the room to make sure no one had, unawares, 
 entered the library — I added loudly, "he could have never 
 strayed very far away before he had been caught and re- 
 turned to his anxious parents; could have never for a whole 
 year been the companion of a grown-up tramp; could have 
 never returned within eight miles of his good home only 
 to wear the so-easily-changed, but never-to-be-forgiven 
 striped garb of the felons; could have never been shut up in a 
 narrow steel-barred cell with a criminal to follow this 
 scoundrel out of the jail, to become lost in the wide, wide 
 
The Curse of Tramp Life. 77 
 
 world, and there would be, never again, a poor broken- 
 hearted mother, pleading with all, and God above, for the 
 return of her wandering boy," and then I wiped away a 
 tear that would not stay confined. 
 
 "Perhaps after all I am correct," and it is your duty 
 to tell the Braxtons where their son went," I remarked 
 and I arose out of the chair, crossed the spacious library, 
 took hold of the door-knob — and then let it go, to return 
 to my former seat. "No, No! A No. 1, you must not make 
 a fool of yourself or make infinitely worse what is already 
 bad enough," I said aloud. 
 
 But thought followed thought, I was so plagued by 
 them that I could not sit quietly, I walked about the library 
 repeating word for word Billy Brown's utterances and word 
 for word they fitted with "Master Buford's" disappearance 
 and whatever I had heard and seen thus far in the manor. 
 Once more I lifted the veil and gazed at the handsome face 
 of "Master Buford" and recalled inch by inch the features 
 of Billy Brown. "No, no, it could not be him! Altho 
 they resembled each other! Roughly spoken, illy-dressed 
 Billy Brown could never be thispicture'soriginal," I reasoned. 
 But then, I remembered my own past days on the road, when 
 a charitable lady soused me with a garden hose, so dirt- 
 covered had I become. Certainly the "road" is not a 
 cozy corner in a manor's library. I reflected on and weighed 
 the consequences of telling the Braxtons what I knew. 
 "A No. 1, better leave well enough alone! Why should 
 you bother yourself with other people's troubles when 
 this world is so large?" I said aloud and with these 
 words I finally dismissed all the strange occurrences from 
 my mind and resolved to bid the Braxtons farewell and 
 to leave this neighborhood as quickly as possible. 
 
 To change the train of my thoughts, also guided by 
 curiosity, I opened a large heavy-clasped photograph- 
 
78 The Curse of Tramp Life, 
 
 album, which laid in the center of the library-table. Idly 
 I turned page after page, filled with pictures of friends and 
 relatives of the Braxtons. 
 
 There were many unmounted ones between its heavy- 
 leaved pages, and among these I picked out a small one, 
 which showed "Master Buford" in the act of jumping 
 high, holding a tennis-racket in his outstretched bared arm, 
 while trying to catch a ball. Carelessly I threw the picture 
 upon the table alongside a glass pitcher filled with water 
 and continued looking at the others. 
 
 Several pages farther and I picked up some minia- 
 ture photographs of ladies, made with a tiny camera. I 
 scanned each one separately but just as I fingered the last 
 two which happened to be duplicates, I turned around and 
 looked at the veiled portrait as there seemed just then, 
 something so uncanny about it that I stepped to it, lifted 
 up the veil and gazed at it. It seemed its unanimated 
 mouth had called me and those eyes, what caused them 
 to look at me so strangely? "It's a mere whim," I thought, 
 and dropped the veil and went back to the album again. 
 C)nce more I looked at those two little duplicates and 
 wondered who the lady was! "Oh no, they v/ere not Mrs. 
 Braxton's pictures," I mused, "the year written on their 
 nm, '1905' had only passed two years! No, she was hag- 
 gard, and oh, so pallid, while those pictures' original looked 
 full of life and happiness! That merry twinkle around the 
 eyes was not sad-faced Mrs. Braxton's." I put the 
 pictures dov/n, but quickly picked them up again. I 
 scrutinized them more closely and then I held my hand 
 to my forehead absorbed in deep thoughts. It could not 
 be! Yet there was no doubt! I had seen the very same 
 picture before! Where? Good God, I now remembered, 
 it was the day when I saw poor Billy Brown kiss that 
 picture in the small locket he so carefully guarded. 
 
The Curse of Tramp Life 
 
 79 
 
 K 
 
 m^'^' 
 
 
 
 'mo "M m 
 
 
 It could not be! Yet there was no doubt! I had seen th* very 
 same picture before! 
 
80 The Curse of Tramp Life. 
 
 The sun's rays were playing upon the water-pitcher, 
 I happened to look in its direction and saw beyond through 
 the pitcher the distorted, magnified picture of "Master 
 Buford" in his tennis-suit. It looked so odd, all distorted 
 out of shape by the play of the rays. I looked and laughed — 
 but what was that, which up to now I had merely taken for 
 a blurred spot-fault in the film? I looked at the many times 
 enlarged bared arm, and I distinctly saw what hitherto age, 
 and years of hardships, digging at their roots had not per- 
 mitted my naked eyes to discern — the same monogramed, 
 entwined "B. B." that I had seen on Billy Brown's fore- 
 arm in the squire's court-room. What more proof than 
 these were required? Wealthy Mrs. Harold Braxton and 
 Billy Brown, the Hobo Kid, were beyond mistake mother 
 and son! 
 
 I now knew all — I, alone in all the world held the key 
 to their secret — but what would my knowledge as to Bu- 
 ford's whereabouts benefit the Braxtons. What would it 
 help, but merel}^ open for far worse results, heart-wounds 
 merciful time had already commenced to heal? No doubt, 
 they had searched with large rewards and other methods 
 the world in vain for fourteen long months to find the 
 missing boy. I knew the ways of runaway boys better 
 than to try those antiquated schemes, as I had, when a 
 boy, taken "five hundred mile jumps" traveling at night 
 on top and underneath the passenger trains and during 
 the daylight hours, sleeping in less apt to be molested 
 box cars in running freight trains, to snatch a "hand- 
 out" bite while waiting at some lonely siding for other 
 trains to pass. "What could I do to repay my benefactors 
 for their kindness?" Again and again these thoughts of 
 gratitude passed through my active brain. I heard 
 footfalls in the hall, the manor's folk were rising. 
 
 I sank back into the chair, but I could not find rest. 
 
The Curse of Tramp Life. 81 
 
 Aloud I repeated over and over the very words poor Mrs. 
 Braxton used when in her mother's anguish, she so pitifully 
 pleaded upon her knees before God, to protect and safely 
 return to her, her only child. 
 
 I picked up her small picture and held it where the sun's 
 rays fully strike it. "Great God! could it be possible? While 
 I looked, it seemed my own dear old mother had come to me 
 in Mrs. Braxton's features and now pleaded with her eyes, 
 for me to atone for her twenty-nine years of hopeless wait- 
 ing for the return of her own wandering boy, by rescuing 
 another mother's wayward son." 
 
 Overcome, I sank upon my knees and made a solemn 
 oath, that it would be I, the ex-convict Mrs. Braxton had 
 befriended, who would find for her, her runaway boy, and 
 then I kissed the little picture far more fervently than I 
 had seen Billy Brown kiss its duplicate at the jail, and 
 then I hid it carefully in my clothes. 
 
 At this moment someone knocked on the door and 
 the butler, carrying a tray with my breakfast, entered and 
 after he set same upon the library table, delivered the fol- 
 lowing message: **Marse Braxton begs to excuse his ab- 
 sence as Missus Braxton is so very ill, that a doctah is 
 now in her room, and he wishes yo'all the best of fortune 
 io' yo future and good speed upon yo' journey." 
 
 After the butler had bowed himself out of the library, 
 I ate a few hasty bites and then I left the grand manor, 
 resolved to fulfill my solemn oath and to follow, to find 
 and to return ^'Master Buford.'* 
 
 I quickly passed through the park, and as I shut its 
 entrance gate, and v/hile I took one last glance at the splen- 
 did surroundings of the grand manor, I remarked: *'Merci- 
 ful God, I never realized until now what pitiful wrecks 
 runaway boys make out of their homes," 
 
82 The Curse of Tramp Life, 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 **The Trail of the Monicker." 
 
 IT was well after the dinner hour when I reached the rail- 
 road station, as I had made a wide detour around the 
 
 town to avoid the staring eyes of its inhabitants, who 
 by this time had become more than pleasantly acquainted 
 with my countenance. 
 
 In an unobserved place I went over my finances and 
 found that I still had forty dollars of the reward-money on 
 hand. Three ten-dollar bills of this sum I sewed — tramp- 
 fashion and handy in case of an emergency — into the ends 
 of my necktie, making it a very valuable adornment. 
 
 Then I stretched in the shade of a tree to map out a 
 tangible plan to follow Railroad Jack — for well I knew 
 to discover him meant to find the boy, as on the road, more 
 than any where else, theold saying: "Misery loves Company" 
 is proven to be true, as shunned by everybody, a comrade 
 is a very welcome partnership for a tramp, the more as each 
 tramp is supposed to gather in his own "handouts" and 
 then too, traveling in pairs, viewing the scenery in the 
 summer and often almost freezing to death in the winter 
 is far more pleasant in company. 
 
 Then to find Railroad Jack meant almost with cer- 
 tainty to solve my problem. But Jack and the Kid went 
 to California, for that v/as what they planned to do upon 
 their discharge — so all I had to do would be to follow 
 them there, rake over the gold mines and camps and 
 presto! in a few days I should have the Kid on his way 
 back to his home! 
 
 But there was not one single chance in a thousand that 
 Jack went to California, because it is a saying among 
 
The Curse of Tramp Life. 83 
 
 tramps, that old Adam told Eve this, as his first joke, be-t 
 cause in the East it is the cowboy-ranches and the gold 
 mines of California and in the West the orange groves and 
 lemonade springs of Florida which is used by tramps as 
 "common" bait to entice boys from their homes. 
 
 But where could I find this scoundrel amongst the 
 250,000 odd miles of railroads, which cover the United 
 States like a gigantic net and upon each one of which he 
 might at this moment be hoboing, walking or camping? 
 
 Perhaps, at least the ticket agent would remember the 
 direction he went, so I approached the ticket window and 
 in the most polite manner I inquired if the gentleman re- 
 membered a dark-haired man and a light-haired boy hav- 
 ing purchased tickets from him two months ago, and — 
 down came the shutter with a crash, but not too quickly for 
 him to sneer through the closing opening: "I only talk 
 business with ex-convicts." Jack, after all, did not tell 
 an untruth when he warned the boy against the "Cain's 
 Mark" that those striped suits left behind them. 
 
 But what next could I do? Perhaps Jack had left 
 behind him his "monicker," the "name-de-road" left be- 
 hind by every tramp signed, painted or carved upon the 
 stations, out-houses and water-tanks, after he is through 
 viewing the scenery, just as an artist places his signature 
 in the corner of a finished picture. 
 
 Carefully I scanned the outside walls of the station; 
 then I crossed the tracks, to look the freight house over; 
 then I inspected the sheds and out-houses and finally the 
 water-tank, and altho I saw many another tramp's monicker . 
 I did not find one left by Jack. I walked back to the 
 station, from which the now thoroughly suspicious agent 
 had followed with his malevolent eyes my every move. 
 
 Just then I heard a north-bound freight train v/histle 
 in the distance. "Wanderlust" was speaking as plainly as 
 
84 The Curse of Tramp Life. 
 
 jever: ^'Better get out of this than take chances with another 
 term in the chain-gang. They may not want you now 
 after they got your labor, but who can tell, your skin is 
 worth twenty-two dollars hard cash to them and groceries 
 cost money." This time sensible it spoke and I heeded 
 its advice. I slipped into the waiting room, and while I 
 pulled on my overalls, I looked at a Great Northern Rail- 
 way map hanging upon the wall and wondered how that 
 enterprising railroad sent its literature so far, but while 
 I was scanning its lines spread all over the North-West 
 my eyes fell upon some pencil scribbling on its margin. 
 I stepped closer and lo! it read: 
 
 7. lio^ ^HO?' — 
 
 ^ ^wl^ c //vc * 
 
 Jack had left his ''name-de-road", his "monicker," 
 behind him, which plainly told me that "Jack and the Kid 
 on July 16th, had walked (X) North (N) towards Cincin- 
 nati. 
 
 The freight train stopped at the station to take on 
 water. When it pulled out, I let it get good headway and 
 then made a quick swing upon the long "gunnels" (truss- 
 rods) under a box car and waving my hand at the same 
 ofhcer, who had arrested me just two months ago, and who 
 came running at full speed towards the station bent upon 
 pinching me a second time, I left the "town of troubles" 
 behind me bound for Cincinnati. 
 
 Arriving there I was lucky to find upon a water-tank 
 at the edge of the railroad yards where I had "unloaded" 
 to keep out of the hands of the slick "Louisville and Nash- 
 
The Curse of Tramp Life. 85 
 
 ville" detectives, Jack's monicker, which told me that Jack 
 left there on the 18th of July for St. Louis, Mo., via the 
 "Baltimore and Ohio." Evidently Jack was not much of a 
 traveler for it took him two days to "make" this far. 
 
 Next morning at daybreak I climbed out from under 
 the observation car of the "Royal Blue Limited" the crack 
 flyer of the "B. & O." at the East St. Louis station, 340 
 miles from my "loading" place, and when I walked across 
 the famous Eads Bridge into St. Louis I found painted 
 in large black characters upon a coping of the bridge, Jack's 
 monicker. It told me this story: Railroad Jack was bound 
 North to St. Paul — the gold mines of California had been 
 switched to the harvest fields of the North-West — and I 
 followed. 
 
 Jack must have taken haste slowly for I found his 
 monicker scattered all along the route north, I even picked 
 up information from several of the "profesh," that he had 
 stopped "by the way," and had been seen camping with 
 "Jungle Buzzards," the lowest class of tramps. 
 
 One evening late, after having been "fired off" a train 
 at a lone siding and been forced to walk to a near-by water- 
 tank to catch another ride, passing in the darkness where 
 the tracks crossed over a high embankment, I could see 
 down below me, around a brightly burning camp-fire, a 
 camp of "Jungle-Buzzards." There were three frayed and 
 mangy adult specimens of these sodden outcasts holding 
 hand by hand, one between each, three young boys, all 
 dancing around the fire, howling like fiendish Indians upon 
 the warpath, while quart bottles of diluted, deathly al- 
 cohol were scattered about the' camp. It does not take a 
 prophet to forecast the finish of those three "runaways" — 
 for no human mother would voluntarily hand her child over to 
 those "jungle-buzzards" to be taught to become vagrants and 
 addicted to the terrible alcohol-habit and marked for cer- 
 
g^ The Curse of Tramp Life, 
 
 tain perdition — as it will be merely a matter of easily com- 
 puted months before the fiery fluid will have corroded the 
 lining out of their stomachs and pull them, after an inde- 
 scribable agony, into an early grave, if not a delirium of 
 the worst class ere this accomplishes this end. 
 
 When I slunk back into the darkness of the night and 
 left this savage orgy behind me, I shuddered when I thought 
 of what the mother of each of these boys would have to say, 
 could she have witnessed this one of only too many dark 
 sides of the road, which her restless boy never dreamed of 
 when he left his best friend and home behind him to see 
 the world by the "box car route." 
 
 Three days more and I reached the city of St. Paul, 
 the "Key-City of the North-West." There I lost all track 
 of Jack's monicker. I looked in every cranny and corner of 
 St. Paul as well as the neighboring city of Minneapolis, 
 for his registered "name-de-road" so I could read in what 
 direction he had left the city, but all in vain. 
 
 I carefully, altho fruitlessly, scanned the walls of the 
 Salvation Army's and other lodging houses, where 
 "drifters," for a dime "roost" for the night. By every 
 means known to the "profesh" I tried to get in touch with 
 his whereabouts, but it actually seemed Jack had been 
 swallowed by the earth, leaving not a trace. 
 
 One day, after I had already wasted two full weeks 
 in vain efforts, I met on the streets of St. Paul, old "Alaska 
 Slim," whose name had been derived from a trip to the Arc- 
 tic North on a whaling ship, long before the Klondyke was 
 ever thought of. I inquired of him if he had heard of 
 Railroad Jack, or seen his monicker somewhere. Herubbed 
 his head, then said: "A No. 1, I know I have seen Jack's 
 monicker some place! Seen it only recently! Let me see! 
 Oh, yes, I remember now! It's on the wall of the city 
 
The Curse of Tramp Life. 
 
 87 
 
 
 liii 
 
 m^^ liilil 
 
 is* 
 
 «lfl]IKiSfl(!ii!l!M. 
 
 And I found among the many monickers left by 
 tramp prisoners, Jack's "name-de-road". 
 
88 The Curse of Tramp Life. 
 
 jail where I saw it. They had me cooped for two days for 
 begging upon the streets — you know a fellow gets hungry 
 once in a while. Sure, that's where I saw it! He's registered 
 on the white- washed walls in St. Paul's city jail." 
 
 I tried my best to make him repeat to me the date 
 and the direction written below the monicker, but "Alaska 
 Slim's" memory was not as sharp as when he first hit the 
 road, as he could not recall it. To make doubly sure he 
 was not mistaken having seen it there, I acted as if I doubt- 
 ed his words, which made him so angry that he left me 
 standing in the street. 
 
 So, there it was! Behind the steel bars of St. Paul's 
 city-calaboose! Safe out of my reach and I helpless on 
 the outside with a dozen trunk-line railroad systems branch- 
 ing like a steel net in every direction of the compass. To 
 read that monicker meant a quick solution of the riddle 
 that I had thus far been unable to solve — in which direction 
 Jack left St. Paul. 
 
 But where there is a will, is a way! A moment later 
 playing "possum drunk," I reeled so hard against a blue- 
 coat, who was standing against a lamp-post at the corner, 
 idly fanning with his mace flies off his brass badge, that I 
 sent the cop spinning into the street. He picked himself 
 up and grabbed me by my coat collar, demanding at the 
 same time to know if the sidewalk was not wide enough for 
 me? I, acting maudlin, handed this to him: "Ah, go 'way! 
 (hie) Chase yourself! (hie) I don't like blue lobsters!" 
 (hie) — and within five minutes I had, what I was wishing 
 for — a swift ride in a police patrol. A few moments later, 
 charged with disturbing a policeman's peace, I was locked 
 up in the city-calaboose, and soon I found among the many 
 monickers, left by tramp prisoners, Jack's "name-de- 
 road". It read: 
 
The Curse of Tramp Life. 
 
 - 6. 28. tH(>7, — 
 
 89 
 
 
 which told this story: 
 
 "Railroad Jack was held here on Sept. 2Sth, five days 
 for further investigation upon a charge of being a suspicious 
 character." 
 
 He had been a prisoner in the jail alone, or otherwise 
 he would have certainly registered the boy's name-de-road 
 below his own, and the moment I missed the Kid's sign, I 
 realized that Jack and the Kid had parted company, and 
 that, altho I had found here the end of the trail Railroad 
 Jack's monickers had left for me to follow, him thus far, I 
 had now completely lost all track of the Kentucky Kid. 
 
90 The Curse of Tramp Life, 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 "The Path of Blasted Hopes." 
 
 FIVE days was the sentence the police- judge imposed up- 
 on me for butting the guardian of St. Paul's peace 
 into the street, and when the morning of my discharge 
 came around, I, with twenty others, whose time had expired, 
 after we had been lectured to get out of the city with the 
 least possible waste of time, unless we wished to enjoy 
 another term on the meager "bread and water" diet, made 
 haste to comply with this admonition, as there is no other 
 method so efficient to rid a community of its drunkards, 
 "jungle-buzzards" and other undesirable citizens, and at 
 that, at the least expense to the taxpa3^ers, than a few days 
 of enforced rest upon reduced fare. 
 
 During those five days I had carefully sifted every 
 known method to again find a trace of the Kentucky Kid 
 and had finally decided to follow the "spider-web" plan, 
 which is carried out by circling in ever increasing distances 
 about the last place a tramp's monicker had been seen, 
 until one of a more recent date is found, which is then 
 followed. 
 
 A street car not only took me beyond St. PauFs 
 "hunger" limits, but also beyond those of the adjoining 
 city of Minneapolis and four miles farther to Northtown 
 Junction, where all westbound trains of the Northern Pacific 
 Railroad stop to receive orders. 
 
 Here I met another westbound tramp. It was old 
 "California Dan" who, altho he had been chased by the 
 "Wanderlust" criss-cross the Union for almost forty years, 
 had escaped as if by a miracle the usual fate beneath 
 the wheels. He was headed for the Pacific North-West, 
 
The Curse of Tramp Life. 91 
 
 hence he would drift, to pass the winter, to the Mecca of 
 of all ramblers — Southern California. 
 
 We climbed upon some railroad ties which were stacked 
 alongside the road and we were soon busy, while waiting 
 for a westbound train, exchanging the latest gossip of the 
 road. We had hardly commenced interchanging road 
 news, when v/e were "spotted" and arrested by one of those 
 ever-watchful Northern Pacific R. R. detectives. He 
 made us hold up our hands and then "frisked " our pockets 
 for concealed weapons. We explained to him that we were 
 "laborers" bound for the Dakotas to help the farmers 
 gather their ripening crops. This excuse kept us out of 
 jail, as he gave us the chance to "beat it" off the railroad 
 company's property. 
 
 Over the right-of-way fence we went and out upon 
 the public road until we had ample space between ourselves 
 and the sleuth, then we returned to the railroad track, to 
 do what every tramp does, when they are chased out of a 
 town: walk to the nearest water station, where trains stop 
 to fill their tenders. 
 
 We followed the path, which can be seen when standing 
 upon the rear platform of any passenger train, now to the 
 right, now to the left, now flush with the tie-ends and then 
 again climbing down the embankments or up the steep cuts, 
 but ever paralleling every one of the two hundred and fifty 
 thousand miles of railroad track covering the United States. 
 
 The railroads have not built this path, altho it parallels 
 upon their property across the parched deserts, through 
 fertile valleys and over snow-clad, rock-ribbed mountain 
 ranges, the steel-railed lines they have built. In fact, no 
 railroad man ever uses this path, as the only pedestrian 
 among railroad employees is the track walker who inspects 
 the track, walking between the rails, upon the ties. 
 
 Indeed, the railroad companies only too often drive 
 
92 The Curse of Tramp Life. 
 
 stakes and place other obstructions to spoil the passage, 
 and when ballasting the road bed, tons of coarse material 
 are dumped upon its length, but altho obliterated, it is 
 merely a matter of a few days before a thin line across or 
 around the obstruction shows where a new path is in course 
 of formation, and within a few weeks a smoothly worn 
 path is again in evidence. 
 
 While Dan and I trudged along this path, freight trains 
 laden with hoboing harvesters, some of whom were going 
 west to search for employment; others with the earnings 
 of many long-houred days laboring in the dusty harvest 
 fields, were returning to add their share of turning the 
 "Twin Cities" nights into days, but all of them as they 
 passed, had only derisive shouts for us wanderers. 
 
 They did not know, those especially who yelled the 
 loudest, the fellows with the starched shirts, who held 
 cigarettes between their teeth, that they too must soon 
 follow the path if they did not beware. 
 
 For not the railroads with steel picks and shovels 
 have shaped those quarter of a million miles, but the feet 
 of the "Old-Timer" tramps have cleared its length. Too 
 feeble to swing and hold themselves upon the lurching 
 trains, unable to resist the call of the road, homeless, 
 friendless and penniless, wrecks of the years and of expo- 
 sure, they now drag their bodies from place to place, one 
 "Old-Timer" following the other from early dawn until 
 the stars twinkle overhead, shaping with the footprints 
 of their weary feet, this endless, narrow path. 
 
 This path is known amongst the tramps as the "Path 
 of Blasted Hopes," and it is the "Old-Timer" silent, yet 
 ever present warning to those who might undertake to 
 follow their footsteps. 
 
 "Dan," I almost shouted — ^he was walking ahead — 
 as I felt a shivering cold violently shaking me, when my 
 
The Curse of Tramp Life. 
 
 93 
 
 Hoboes, passing upon freight trains, had only derisive 
 shouts for us wanderers. 
 
94 
 
 The Curse of Tramp Life^ 
 
 thoughts came to the pitiful finish of all tramps — the 
 Potter's Field, and I looked at the path beneath my feet, 
 "I wonder if those harvesters think that you and I are 
 already too old to ride the cars?" 
 
 "A No. 1," replied Dan, without answering my ques- 
 tion, but showing what thoughts were crossing his mind, 
 "have you heard that old 'Omaha Bill', you know the 'Old- 
 Timer,' who back in the sixties beat the first train the Union 
 Pacific sent west across the plains, has found his end? 
 "A freight train 'side-swiped' him four miles west of Fargo, 
 sitting upon the end of a tie, having fallen asleep while 
 taking a rest. In the cars, under the cars, even upon this 
 'Path of Blasted Hopes,' this cursed 'Wanderlust* col- 
 lects its uncanny dues from our ranks." 
 
 He stopped a moment in the journey, turned and 
 when I gave him an affirmative nod, his eyes had a peculiar 
 look. I understood, he was an "Old-Timer" himself and 
 now day after day, while adding mile upon mile to his final 
 record, he rued the very hour he started on the road. 
 
 Then he again plodded ahead upon the "Path of Blast- 
 ed Hopes" and erelong I heard Dan faintly whistle the 
 refrain of "Home, sweet Home." 
 
The Curse of Tramp Life, 95 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 "The Vampires of the Road." 
 
 WHEN we reached, after a weary twenty-seven mile 
 walk, the water station at Elk River, the full 
 moon was rising on the cloudless firmament, 
 casting her fairy, silvery white light over the silent landscape. 
 
 Luck was with us, for only a few minutes after our 
 arrival at the water tank we heard the whistle of a west- 
 bound train, which proved, as it pulled up to fill its tender, 
 to be a long freight train made up of empty stock cars. 
 
 Hidden from their view behind some sheds which 
 stood close to the track, we watched the train's crew look 
 for "hot boxes" under and for hoboes inside the empty 
 cattle cars, as ready to cool the ones, as to bounce the 
 others. 
 
 Soon the engineer gave the starting signal, then with 
 many jerks and unearthly noises, slowly the heavy train 
 commenced to move away. 
 
 "Come on, A No. 1," Dan shouted, when he noted that 
 the train men were not watching, and we dashed across 
 the tracks and swung ourselves into the open door of an 
 empty stock car. The moment we entered we stretched 
 ourselves flat upon its floor, so as to be out of view of any 
 member of the train crew who might still be standing on 
 the right-of-way. We were not discovered, and as we 
 passed beyond the last switches of the station we arose 
 to take a survey of the car. 
 
 V/e found we were the only occupants of this car, but 
 in the one ahead of us we counted more than a dozen fel- 
 lows, who too, had lain flat upon the floor, but now were 
 
96 The Curse of Tramp Life, 
 
 walking about. They were "harvesters" bound for the 
 wheatfields of the North-West. 
 
 The train made "good time," as we stopped only at 
 water tanks and Junction points. 
 
 The night wore on and gradually weariness got the 
 best of us, and altho the windstorm, swept through the open 
 cars by the speed of the train, made this a difficult feat, we 
 soon failed to rise — we had dozed away. 
 
 Mile after mile we were adding to our records, when 
 we were aroused from our slumbers by loud commands, 
 emanating from the adjoining car. 
 
 Dan, who was a lighter sleeper than I, put his arm 
 across my body and while he held me tight to the floor, 
 whispered with bated breath into my ear: "The Vampires." 
 
 This v/as all he said, but it was all I needed, to be 
 suddenly roused to full wakefulness, and I even shuddered 
 before I could squeeze Dan's hand in recognition of our 
 mutual peril. 
 
 [As human vultures follow armies into battles to rob 
 the unprotected slain left upon the battlefields; as in- 
 carnate fiends pillage the dead whenever a catastrophe de- 
 stroys human lives; as ghouls at midnight in an isolated 
 cemetery despoil the graves of their gruesome contents, 
 so the "Vampires" of the Road rob tramps of spoils so 
 pitifully small considering that a hobo has not even at 
 night a place to rest, that human vultures, incarnate fiends 
 and even the ghouls of the grave yards are gentlemen if 
 compared with these cowardly, absolutely heartless" vam- 
 pires," who are the transition of the "Jungle Buzzard" 
 into "yeggmen." These vampires travel in gangs. As 
 many as a dozen of these black-shirted, slouch-hatted 
 scoundrels can be found camping in the woods together, 
 too lazy to beg their food, too cowardly for cleaner exploits. 
 
The Curse of Tramp Lije. 
 
 97 
 
 These black-shirted, slouch-hatted scoundrels camp during the 
 
 daylight hours in the woods, to sally forth as "Vampires 
 
 of the Road" during the night. 
 
98 The Curse of Tramp Life. 
 
 they sleep during the daylight hours to sally forth at night 
 v/ith their ever-ready revolvers. Some of these vampire- 
 gangs have attained national attention by their revoltingly 
 inhumane ferocity. 
 
 The "Lake Shore Gang" less than half a dozen years 
 ago, completely terrorized the Lake Shore & Michigan 
 Southern Railway. It was not thought anything unusual 
 when weekly from one to ten murdered victims of these 
 scoundrels were found stretched out in death beside the 
 railroad track, some of them denuded even of the last 
 stitch of their clothing. They became so emboldened that 
 "pay day" on this system meant from one to two dozen 
 employees losing their earnings — if not their limbs and lives, 
 to this gang, every cent of it to be promptly converted into 
 alcoholic drink. 
 
 The railroad company organized a detective service 
 to cope with these scoundrels and within a few months 
 after commencing operations they had every one behind 
 the bars for life-terms or upon the gallows, while their 
 leader "Erie Slim", committed suicide, when at bay in a 
 barn surrounded by these officers. 
 
 The "Trenton Gang" operating over the Pennsylvania 
 Railroad between Trenton, N. J., and Pittsburgh, Pa., 
 less than a decade ago, murdered hundreds of harmless 
 tresspassers. They too, were sent to the gallows by that 
 railroad company's special service. 
 
 Only recently, near Reno, Nevada, a brakeman, a 
 deputy sheriff and a squire received life terms for playing 
 "vampires" on the Southern Pacific Railway. There are 
 at present several other vampire-gangs operating in differ- 
 ent sections of the Union.] 
 
 No wonder then, that Dan and I sat as quiet as mice 
 for whom a hungry cat is waiting, straining our eyes to see 
 
The Curse of Tramp Life, 99 
 
 as much of the "hold up" as the moonlit night would per- 
 mit in the semi-darkness of the adjoining car. 
 
 We counted four masked vampires, who no doubt 
 had swung themselves from the roof into the open door of 
 the car. They had with the aid of their threatening 
 revolvers lined the harvesters up, and now were busily 
 engaged, amidst fearful curses and threats, emptying the 
 pockets of their victims, who with their hands above their 
 heads were completely at their mercy. 
 
 These vampires must have been desperate fellows to 
 hold up laborers going to the harvest-fields, as only return- 
 ing laborers could be apt to carry sums of money, but the 
 constant "toting of their ever-ready revolvers — the same 
 reason that causes nearly every murder — make's them 
 callous against the consequences that they know will be 
 theirs if they are caught. They, as well as the yeggmen, 
 are merely the outgrowth of a foolish notion to sentence 
 gun-carrying tramps, who always have a plausible excuse 
 ready, to only a few days in jail or assess against them only 
 a nominal fine. 
 
 "Hey, there," we heard a rough command in the other 
 car, "take off them shoes, I reckon they will fit me." The 
 fellow so addressed must have refused to comply with 
 the vampire's orders, for the next thing we heard was 
 a storm of bullets fired from their revolvers whistling 
 over our heads. Then a few sudden shrieks; then some 
 groaning; then all quietness and last a gruff voice ordering 
 with curses the other harvesters to "pick up and throw" 
 something out of the open door of the cattle car. Then all 
 was silence, only interrupted now and then by the threats 
 of the vampires as they continued searching through the 
 other fellows* pockets. 
 
 We were now climbing a steep grade and as the train 
 commenced to slacken speed, Dan whispered into my ear: 
 
100 The Curse of Tramp Life. 
 
 "Here is our chance! Let's jump before they get to us." 
 We crawled to the open door, and altho the train was still 
 running at a dangerous rate, we made a headlong dive out 
 of the car, which sent us sprawling down the embankment. 
 
 When the train had passed us, we climbed back upon 
 the track and we congratulated ourselves escaping the 
 clutches of the vampires. Then Dan remarked: "Say, 
 A No. 1, do you know what they pitched off the train?" 
 I knew, but replied: "Maybe it's the loot." "Oh, no," 
 he replied, "it's not loot. Let's go back and see, I have 
 been in 'vampire* stick-ups before." 
 
 Silently we walked back, carefully scanning the right- 
 of-way. Soon we heard weak calls for asssistance, then 
 loud moanings and presently we stood by the side of the 
 almost lifeless form of a poor fellow, whose face had been 
 pounded beyond recognition, while his clothes were com- 
 pletely saturated by his life's blood, which spurted from 
 several bullet wounds, while his shoes were missing from 
 his feet— the vampires had added one more tramp-victim 
 to their list. 
 
 We made the poor fellow as comfortable as possible. 
 Then Dan climbed over the right-of-way fence and ran 
 for assistance to a farmhouse. In a few minutes a lighted 
 lamp coming across the fields showed that his mission had 
 been successful. 
 
 When the farmer arrived we carried the now uncon- 
 scious fellow to the farm house where we laid him upon the 
 lawn. We tried our best to get his name and address from 
 him, but he was too far gone and merely mumbled inco- 
 herent words, but now and then he would loudly exclaim : 
 "Mother!" 
 
 This farm house had no telephone connections, but 
 of what value would it have been to call the authorities? 
 At the next grade or stop the vampires would have left 
 
The Ctirse of Tramp Life. 101 
 
 the train and the railroad ; would have hidden their masks, 
 revolvers and loot and the next day a few harmless looking, 
 black-shirted fellows, camping out in the woods around a 
 hobo-camp-fire would have been all that posses, searching 
 for the vampires would have found. 
 
 None of the harvesters or tramps who had been held 
 up could be induced to appear in court against them, 
 because this would have meant a longstay in the same jail 
 and perhaps even to be locked in the same cell with these 
 murderous scoundrels until the day of the trial arrived. 
 So they were comparatively safe to murder as they pleased, 
 while the newspapers almost daily chronicled the fact, that 
 one or more unknown tramps "fell out" of a moving 
 train and were horribly mutilated by a "cruel" railroad 
 company. 
 
 When daylight permitted this, we carefully searched 
 the clothes of the poor fellow, who was only a youth of 
 about eighteen, but failed to find the least scrap that would 
 reveal his identity. 
 
 After the coroner, who had been notified, viewed the 
 corpse, we placed it into a roughly made pine board 
 box and buried him in a shallow grave in the corner of a 
 field. 
 
 Not a word was spoken, nor a prayer mumbled during 
 this burial of another unknown tramp, but, I, who had not 
 yet forgotten the faint calls for his mother, I thought of 
 this poor mother who from this hour on would be longing, 
 waiting and watching in vain for just one more sign of 
 life from her missing boy, whom the "Wanderlust" had 
 snatched from her side and henceforth every tramp who 
 knocks on her door will hear her pitiful plea, a plea a tramp 
 hears only too often, the very same plea every tramp's 
 mother repeats until her own grave is dug and which is: 
 "Oh, have you not seen somewhere, my missing boy?" 
 
102 The Curse of Tramp Life, 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 "In Wreck and Hospital." 
 
 SOON after we had consigned the poor fellow to his last 
 resting place, Dan and I walked back to the hill, where 
 we had the good fortune to swing ourselves into an 
 empty box car of a heavy freight train which barely crawled 
 up the steep grade and rode unmolested into St. Cloud, where 
 another one of those pesky detectives started to climb into 
 one of the open doors of our car, giving us just a bare 
 chance to dive post-haste out of the other one, to beat a 
 hasty "get-away" beyond the railroad property. 
 
 When again we found our breath, old Dan sourly 
 remarked: "A No. 1, the road is by far not what it used to 
 be! In my time a 'bo' could ramble from New York to 
 San Francisco and not even meet an officer, but nowadays, 
 by reason of the work done by vampires and yeggs, it's 
 being grabbed by one detective after another; into one 
 jail and out again into the next one. It's certainly a prob- 
 lem for a 'bo' to make his way upon the railroads." I 
 agreed with him, for certainly the road is not now what it 
 used to be in the past. 
 
 We kept shy for some hours and then, when we felt 
 that the officer should have moved to a different quarter, 
 we strolled into the station's waiting-room to inquire what 
 time the next tram would be due to leave for the West. 
 
 While Dan spoke to the agent, I espied upon the casing 
 of the ticket window this penciled monicker: 
 
 — /6. s: /9c'^ — 
 
 -^^v^^^^ \f^ ;5fc»— 
 
 iS" — KY. KiJ> 
 
 which sign read that Jack had been here on the fifth of 
 
The Curse of Tramp Life. 103 
 
 October and was rambling west looking for the Kentucky 
 Kid, and this sign told me too, that the boy had now two 
 tramps searching for him,onewho intended tospoilhisfuture, 
 while the other one v/as anxious to save him from the road. 
 Three days later, 600 miles farther west, I found his 
 monicker at Glendive, Montana, it read: 
 
 and proclaimed to me that Jack had "doubled up" once 
 more with the boy. I surmised that the lad had made an 
 appointment with Jack to meet him here. I felt sorry for 
 the boy, for I thought that he had become so ensnared with 
 Jack's tales of the "Golden West" that he now would not 
 voluntarily leave this scoundrel, as those five days Jack 
 had spent in jail should have given the Kid every opportuni- 
 ty to escape his clutches. 
 
 > When I reached Helena, the beautiful capital city of 
 the State of Montana, I was three days behind them, at 
 Drummond only two and when I reached Easton, Wash- 
 ington, their monicker was dated the day of my arrival 
 there, and a railroad man told me that I had just missed 
 them by an hour, as they left on the last freight train 
 preceding the one I took, hidden in an empty, but closed 
 box car, as at Easton is the eastern portal of the several 
 miles long tunnel, which dives under the Cascade Moun- 
 tains and through which no sane hobo could afford to take 
 chances of suffocating while passing through its length, 
 hanging on the outside of a train. 
 
 While I passed through the smoky hole, I chuckled 
 aloud in the darkness of the car, as I thought that I would 
 certainly find the boy at Seattle, just ninety miles beyond 
 
104 The Curse of Tramp Life. 
 
 the tunnel, after I had followed him by means of Jack's 
 monicker across the continent. 
 
 Just after we left the tunnel the train stopped for some 
 warning signal and I could plainly hear footfalls on the 
 outside of the car. I thought they were those of a brake- 
 man chasing tramps, but presently I heard the squeaking 
 of the door of the car ahead, and looking through a crack, 
 I caught a fleeting glimpse of some hoboes climbing into 
 this car, closing the door after them. 
 
 Presently the train pulled away and while the car 
 lurched, bounced and rattled, I rolled my coat up for a 
 pillow and was soon sound asleep. 
 
 But what was that? I felt myself bouncing high up 
 into the air, to be violently thrown back and forth as 
 if I were a mere rubber ball; the crashing, horrible jumping 
 of the heavy trucks below me, told me — I had been in many 
 wrecks before — that the car had jumped the track. There 
 was not a moment to waste! I made a jump and grabbed 
 the thin steel rods which hold the sides of the car rigidly 
 together, and there I hung betv/ixt top and bottom with 
 death grinning at me out of every corner. Now splinters 
 began to fly about, the car could not stand the strain 
 much longer, then — all was blackness. 
 
 When I awakened, as if from a long sleep, I gazed about 
 me, then closed my eyes once more, 1 did not wish to see., 
 anything just then. I opened my eyes again, when I felt 
 a soft hand stroke my burning forehead and heard a kindly 
 voice remark: "Poor fellow, he has a high fever." I 
 drowsily opened my eyes and recognized the sober raiments 
 of a Sister of Mercy, then I dropped off once more to sleep. 
 The electric lights were burning when I again awakened. 
 I tried to turn my aching head, I could not do it, but I 
 felt that it was all bandaged up, then I tried to move my 
 arms and hands, but they too were tightly bandaged. I 
 
The Curse of Tramp Life. 
 
 105 
 
 ';|''■;l!S?!!"l!!'^!!'!'ll['••^!'"|■^''i:Ki:^7:-^,^l^^ 
 
 liiaiiME 
 
 'Poor fellow," I mused, "I wonder what accident sent him U> this 
 hospital to keep me company?" 
 
106 The Curse of Tramp Life. 
 
 glanced about me and knew that I was in the surgical 
 ward of some hospital, then remembered the wreck and 
 once more dropped off to sleep. Later I was awakened 
 and medicine was given me, I asked the kindly faced 
 Sister who watched over me as if I were her own 
 brother instead of a strange, homeless tramp, how badly 
 I was hurt. "Hush, child, do not talk, you will be all right 
 again in a few days," she assured me. I went to sleep again. 
 
 When I awakened, I felt the fever had left and I was far 
 better, but for those bandaged limbs. I turned my head a 
 little to see who the poor fellow was who upon the next cot 
 was constantly repeating: "Oh! What will my poor mother 
 say when they bring me home like this?" I noted that the 
 other patient's head was all swathed up in snow-white ban- 
 dages, all but hisnose andhismouth. "Poor fellow," I mused, 
 "I wonder what accident sent him here to keep me company?" 
 
 The next morning I had so much improved that the 
 Sister of Mercy, one of whom was constantly watching my 
 every move and did my every bidding, spoke to me of 
 home and friends. Tears welled into my eyes, it seemed too 
 odd to hear a human being speak kindly to me — a cast- 
 away. I asked her what had brought me to their hospital, 
 and she told me that the freight train I was hoboing upon 
 had broken in two and dashing at fearful speed down the 
 steep mountain grade had jumped the rails and piled the 
 cars house-high in a deep ravine. Then I inquired if some 
 others had been injured or even lost their lives in the 
 wreck. "That boy upon the next cot and you," she 
 answered, pointing at the poor fellow writhing with pain upon 
 theadjacent cot, "were theonlytwoinjured. ThankGod,"she 
 added after a pause, and after she gave vent to a deep sigh , "this 
 was one wreck that brought no killed ones to the morgue." 
 
 This bit of news aroused my interest for my neighbor. 
 We were hurt in the same v/reck, were immured in the same 
 
The Curse of Tramp Life. 107 
 
 hospital and logically should become friends in misery. 
 He was still unconscious but for those oft-repeated calls 
 for his mother. All his other words were mere incoherent 
 babblings of a fever-scourged* intellect. 
 
 On the third day I had so much improved that the 
 doctors removed my bandages and found after a thorough 
 examination that I had not sustained fractures, but that 
 I was merely badly bruised from head to heels. 
 
 I inquired of a Sister what might be the name of the 
 other fellow, and she told me, altho his clothes were care- 
 fully searched, outside of the usual contents, not a scrap 
 was found, that would disclose his identity, but that his 
 hat had been purchased In Cincinnati. 
 
 He improved so rapldl}^ that during the afternoon I 
 heard him speak to the doctor. When the doctor left him, 
 longing for a converstaion to pass the long hours, I ad- 
 dressed him: "Hey, Bo, how do you like CIncinnatrs 
 Fountain Square? Nice benches they have there for tired 
 hoboes to bunk upon during the balmy summer nights! Hey?" 
 This chat seemed to interest him for he whispered: "Wish 
 I was there now. I would be quickly home with mother!" 
 Then he sank back into silence, from which my further 
 efforts could not rouse him. 
 
 A few days later and I had progressed so far that I 
 was permitted to stroll about the ward. For want of 
 something more entertaining, I watched the doctors dress 
 the other patients* injuries. They came to my neighbor, 
 who in all his bandages looked more like an Egyptian 
 mummy than a human being. They slowly peeled his 
 bandages from off his head. I shivered as I thought that 
 if some other boys could see these pitiful sights they would 
 not be so ready to run away from their homes. Now they 
 picked the absorbent cotton, sticking to the bruised, swollen 
 countenance, while the doctor, to allay the pains this 
 
108 The Curse of Tramp Life, 
 
 occasioned, remarked: "Say, boy, you're a lucky one, it's a 
 wonder that you did not get it just a wee bit worse — ^you 
 would then not have been in this hospital." I now watched 
 them how they carefully washed his features, I looked closer 
 and recognized — Buford Braxton. 
 
 Could it be he? I looked again so I could not be mis- 
 taken. It was he, but he was now too sick to withstand 
 excitement. Day after day I sat by his bedside. He did not 
 recognize me because my hair and mustache had been removed 
 by the surgeons, and too, Kentucky is so far away from Seattle. 
 
 I watched over him so tenderly that even the Sisters 
 of Mercy commended me for my zeal — they did not know 
 that I was wishing for him to get as quickly well as 
 possible so I could bring him back to his mother. 
 
 Gradually, as he improved, v/e struck up a firm friend- 
 ship and with my mission ever in view, I commenced to 
 speak about my home and mother, and how I yearned to 
 be again aniongst friends. One day he whispered, after 
 he had me place my ear almost against his mouth: "I 
 v/ish I, too, were hom.e!" This confession gave me an 
 opening wedge, and I continued to keep on in the same 
 vein so as to cause him to overcome the "Wanderlust," 
 and the ill-advice Jack had given him, by making him 
 homesick. 
 
 A few days later he had so far improved that the doc- 
 tors took off his bandages and permitted him to sit up on 
 liis cot. For the first time since the wreck he smiled, and 
 when the doctors had left us alone, he placed his hand upon 
 mine, as it was resting upon the edge of his cot and pressed 
 it. "Friend," he slowly said, "I feel better to-day, and 
 want to thank you for what you have done for me. You 
 have proven yourself a 'friend in need'!" Then he sank 
 back upon his pillow with his head turned away. I knew 
 what were his thoughts — how now, in extreme trouble he 
 
The Curse of Tramp Life, 109 
 
 felt so lonely and forsaken, just as every tramp did, 
 especially when the time comes that he realized that he 
 had wasted the best years of his life hearkening to the 
 "Wanderlust's" call to the road. 
 
 During the afternoon he again sat, propped up by the 
 pillows on his cot, and as he felt so much better and too, 
 his talk was more animated than ever before, I thought 
 the opportune time had arrived to reveal to him my identity. 
 "Do you recognize my face?" I asked. He stared into my 
 face, his mind was yet too muddled to recall ever having 
 seen me, and I added: "Do you remember Railroad Jack?" 
 This question revived his memory, and with widely opened 
 eyes he searched my features. "Do you know Railroad 
 Jack?" in complete amazement he parried my question. 
 "You bet," I hastily replied, "and do you remember Bill 
 Brown, the Kentucky Kid?" I continued my questioning 
 and again he looked at me in blank astonishment. 
 
 I rose and stepped away from his cot, then turned 
 around so he could see my face all the better and now an 
 almost deathly pallor, far paler than the wreck and pains 
 had left it, spread over his haggard face and he beckoned 
 me to come closer. "You are A No. 1, the tramp," he 
 said slowly, "have you come here to tell the good Sisters 
 that I am an ex-convict?" and heavy tears commenced 
 to trickle down his cheeks. "No, no, Billy," I replied and 
 stroked his trembling forehead, "I am your friend," and 
 then I made him lie down and cease talking until later. 
 
 After supper had been served he beckoned me to his 
 side and asked if I heard anything concerning Railroad 
 Jack. I explained to him how the Sisters and the doctors 
 had told me that no one besides we two had been injured 
 or killed in the wreck. "A No. 1," he quietly observed, 
 *' Railroad Jack, like almost all the others of his kind, did 
 not prove himself a 'friend in need', " 
 
110 The Curse of Tramp Life, 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 "What the Tramp did to the Boy.*! 
 
 THE following day, Billy assisted by his youthful 
 vitality, had rallied so far that the doctor permitted 
 me to push him, seated in a rolling chair about the 
 ward. When undisturbed by any listeners, I, anxious to find 
 out how Billy fared since leaving the jail with Jack, casually 
 remarked : "Kid, tell me how did Jack manage to get himself 
 arrested in St. Paul and spend five days in the city jail?" 
 I could tell by the astonished expression appearing in his 
 countenance that he tried to fathom how I came to knov/ 
 this secret and when I followed this first question up by 
 telling him that Jack and he had walked out of the Kentucky 
 town northbound upon the railroad track; had used 
 two days to reach Cincinnati and over two months to land 
 at St. Paul; how they had parted company to meet again 
 at or near Glendive, he gaped at me almost stunned by 
 surprise at the apparently superhuman revelations I made — 
 he was not yet "monicker-wise" as we tramps call it. 
 
 "Well, A No. 1," the Kid said, after he had caught a 
 second breath, "seeing that you know everything, just as 
 if you had accompanied us on our journey, I may as well 
 make a clean breast of all that happened since I met you 
 last." 
 
 "When we reached St. Louis, Railroad Jack proposed 
 that we first ramble to the northwestern harvest fields, 
 to make a "stake" that would insure us against starvation 
 when crossing the deserts and the snow-clad mountain 
 ranges, which lay between us and California. He, being 
 the leader, and also knowing the country better, I assented 
 and we rambled to St. Paul. On the way up he made me 
 
The Curse of Tramp Life. 
 
 Ill 
 
 A -«'"' ^f^^<^\ 
 
 
 'I do not mind helping a sober working man, but never 
 a drunken loafer!" 
 
112 The Curse of Tramp Life, 
 
 beg his food. He told me that every 'tramp kid' had to 
 do this for his partner and atho my Kentucky blood re- 
 belled against it, I provided him with the food I begged 
 from house to house. Don't blame me, A No. 1," he in- 
 terrupted his narrative when he noted a half disgusted 
 expression flitting across my countenance, "a kid away 
 from home in the hands of a grown tramp is like putty in 
 the hands of a painter. He can do, and does, anything 
 he pleases with a lad who has the misfortune to fall into 
 his filthy clutches." 
 
 Then he continued his original story: *'Long before 
 we reached St. Paul, his money had given out, and altho 
 we both were offered time and again, good jobs at the highest 
 wages, he would not allow us to accept one, always dangling 
 the 'better' jobs in the harvest fields before my vision. 
 After loafing from place to place, living off the trimmings 
 of other peoples' tables and chicken-coops, we finally 
 arrived at St. Paul." 
 
 ''Here he never looked for a chance of employment, 
 but when the food I begged for him, on account of close 
 competition, made by the 'Kids' of other tramps, became 
 insufficient to fill his lazy carcass, he proposed that I ap- 
 proach people upon the sidewalks and shamelessl}^ ask for 
 the price of 'meals and lodgings.* I absolutely refused to 
 do this, the more as every cent, ever since the day I brought 
 my first 'handout' to him was promptly converted into 
 beer and alcohol. He shamefully maltreated me, be- 
 cause I positively refused to degrade myself as low as I 
 have seen many other runaway boys do, who actually 
 supported in idleness and alcohol, able-bodied, low-lived 
 tramps." 
 
 *'One day, when under the influence of strong drink, 
 he changed his method. 'Come on, Kid,' he said, 'let me 
 just show you how easy it is to pick up dollars upon the 
 
The Curse of Tramp Life. 113 
 
 streets of any city.' He placed me at the corner of a street; 
 he walked a few steps and boldly accosted a benign-look- 
 ing gentleman who had just stepped out of a restaurant. 
 Actuated by the alcohol he had under his collar he made a 
 loud demand for 'the price,' and the next thing I saw was 
 the stranger pulling his closed fist out of his pocket and 
 giving Jack such an awful blow beneath his jaw that it 
 sent him sprawling into the gutter. Then the stranger 
 grabbed Jack by the coat collar, after showing him a detec- 
 tive badge which was pinned upon his vest and declaring 
 loudly: 'I don't mind helping a sober workingman, but 
 never a drunken loafer!' He dragged him to the nearest 
 police-box, where in a few minutes the police patrol car- 
 ried Jack to jail and away from me." 
 
 '1 did not know at first what would become of me. 
 Here I was, a thousand miles from home, but I still re- 
 membered Jack's admonitions about being recognized by 
 the other fellows, who had been in the jail with me, and I 
 decided to make a bee-line for California." 
 
 *'The second morning after leaving St. Paul, I arrived 
 at Glendive, Montana. I was flat-broke and at the first 
 house I knocked, offering to do work for a little lunch, the 
 'lady of the house told me where I could find a job dispens- 
 ing soda water in a drugstore. I applied at the place and 
 v/as accepted." 
 
 "It is not natural for a boy to voluntarily become a 
 common beggar and I found now that I earned honestly 
 my own keep that I was never more happy in all my life. 
 Before I had worked the first hour, I resolved never in all 
 my life to tramp again, but on the contrary, I promised 
 myself to save something out of my earnings each week 
 until I had accumulated enough to pay my fare back home." 
 
 Here he paused a moment and I took the occasion to 
 ask him: "Say, kid, don't you wish you were home this 
 
114 The Curse of Tramp Life, 
 
 moment with your mother?" I looked him straight into his 
 eyes while spea.king, and a peculiar twitching of the muscles 
 about his m.outh told the story — he was becoming homesick, 
 my efforts in the last few days, harping constantly how I, 
 myself, would like to be back home, had effected this change 
 in the boy, but I also knew that I could not afford to force 
 the boy to return to his home, for fear that he would dis- 
 appear from under my hands, making all my troubles vain 
 — never in all his days to be again reformed. It was my 
 aim to cause him to beg me to take him home, the only 
 chance I had to get him safely back to Kentucky. 
 
 He proceeded with his story: "I attended so well to 
 my work that the proprietor of the drugstore had only 
 praises for me. When store-closing time arrived on Sat- 
 urday night he handed me my pay-envelope. I opened 
 it, counted the money and found he had made an error, 
 giving me two dollars above my stipulated wage. I 
 called my employer's attention to the mistake, but he 
 merely patted me upon my shoulder and assured me that 
 the two dollars v/ere the reward of honestly attending to 
 my work." "Believe me, A No. 1," here his voice rose 
 high, '*I was at that moment the happiest boy in the whole 
 State of Montana. I bade him good-night and stepped 
 through the door into the street." 
 
 * 'Somebody nudged me and I heard a familiar voice 
 greet me: 'Hello, Billy Brown, how-do-you-do?' I turned 
 and almost fell down upon the sidewalk, for it was Railroad 
 Jack who spoke. Even before I could recover and say one 
 single word, he hissed into my ear: 'Give me the price of 
 a meal and a bed, Billy. I just landed here to-day. I 
 have been hunting you all the way from St. Paul and I am 
 glad I found you now.' I did not know then that he had 
 seen me at work at the soda-fountain in the store, so I 
 reached in my pocket and pulled out a dollar of my honestly 
 
 i 
 
The Curse of Tramp Life. 115 
 
 earned wagevS, which without a word, I handed him and 
 then managed to slip away from him into the passing 
 Saturday midnight throng. I was mortally certain that 
 he would hunt for me through the railroad yards, as I 
 knew by other tramps kids' experiences, who repeated 
 this to me, that a boy is a valuable asset to any tramp, 
 and if Jack did not find me there I was sure he would 
 'railroad' west to search for me, and thus I would be rid 
 of him." 
 
 "The next day, Sunday, I had to work in the forenoon. 
 When I arrived at the store it was not yet opened, but 
 Railroad Jack was waiting in front of it and greeted me. 
 'Good morning, Billy Brown,' he hissed, 'give me the price 
 of a breakfast.' I realized that I must save myself, now or 
 never, out of the hands of this scoundrel, so I resolutely 
 refused to assist him, giving as an excuse that I needed 
 every cent of my earnings to pay my expenses. He grabbed 
 me roughly by my wrist, and while twisting it so my ear 
 was forced close to his mouth he hissed: 'Your boss will 
 know this morning you are an ex-convict and that will be 
 the last of you and your job.' Then he turned my wrist 
 loose and without a blessed word being exchanged, I 
 dropped a half dollar piece into his waiting outstretched 
 palm." 
 
 "He himself had put the 'thumb-screws of shame' on 
 me, he, who had warned me against the others! When 
 dinner time rolled around he again was waiting for me and 
 forced me to eat my dinner with him, I paying for both. 
 I did not dare rebuff him for -he had his hand upon my 
 throat. 'I will tell your boss' as he constantly repeated." 
 
 "Sunday evening and Monday morning he did not 
 appear, and I commenced to breathe more freely. But I 
 was not yet 'wise' to the ways of the road, for at mid-day, 
 
116 The Curse of Tramp Life, 
 
 when from across the open street he beckoned me to come 
 to him, I obeyed." 
 
 '*I was sure now he would make his last 'blackmail' 
 demand — that was what it amounted to — he wanted me. 
 He ordered me, with a vile threat, to bring out my hat. 
 I could not help myself, unless I wished to be additionally 
 humiliated by the scoundrel revealing my secret to my 
 employer, so I brought the hat and he forced me to ac- 
 company him to the railroad yards. Oh! how I prayed 
 a detective would arrest us before it would be too late, 
 but we were not molested and caught a westbound freight. 
 I did not dare to demand assistance from any human be- 
 ing! I realized that I was an ex-convict and that the one- 
 armed squire's and the deputy sheriff's greed to earn a fee 
 had as completely wrecked my future as now this train 
 wreck has almost finished my henceforth useless life." 
 
 This was his story and after a brief pause he continued : 
 "What can I do, A No. 1, now? I am a penniless and sick 
 boy far away from home — " "And mother," I finished 
 his sentence and then, before the effect of my last words 
 would be lost, I added quickly,: "Buford Braxton, your 
 mother loves you just as much as ever, your darling 
 mother is waiting with open arms for you this moment. 
 She does not care if you are sick or well, poor or rich, a 
 beggar's boy or a millionaire, but her heart is breaking for 
 you to come back home to her." 
 
 "Buford Braxton," he muttered, and his fingers 
 twitched while his eyes were cast straight to the floor. 
 "Who, for God's sake, told you my name?" I did 
 not answer his question, but I pulled out my memorandum 
 book, picked out his mother's little picture and hid it 
 within the palm of my hand. "Buford, your mother's 
 heart is breaking," I said, and slowly I repeated to him all 
 that had occurred since I found the bracelet, and I especially 
 
The Curse of Trarap Life. 
 
 117 
 
 strongly portrayed to him how "old Aunt Dinah" and all 
 the other faithful darkies were yearning for his return, 
 and repeated word for word how his poor mother had plead- 
 ed alone with God, in the midnight hour in the library, 
 and then quickly placing Mrs. Braxton's small photograph 
 upon his knees, I waited. 
 
 First he stared at it for a moment in complete silence, 
 then he picked it up and kissed that little unanimated 
 picture as I never saw before a mortal kiss one, and then I, 
 with tears streaming down my face — so affected had I 
 become — said solemnly: "Buford Braxton, don't you wish 
 to make your darling mother once more happy? Don't 
 you wish to save her from going into an early grave from a 
 broken heart caused by her sorrowing for her wandering, 
 wayward boy?" He seemed to waver, and I added: 
 "Buford, don't you wish to return with me to her 
 and tell her that you love her now, as much as you loved 
 her the day you left your home and tell her that you do 
 not wish to end your days an outcast, despised hobo, but 
 instead will take your place again in the world as Buford 
 Braxton of Braxton Manor?" 
 
 Hardly had I spoken the last syllable than he threw 
 his arms around my neck and amid loud sobs begged me to 
 bring him back to his mother. When he again became 
 calm, I asked him to join me in a silent prayer to God for 
 him to help us to reach Kentucky in safety, and while he, 
 with closed eyes, murmured a fervid prayer, I thought of 
 poor Mrs. Braxton and how the Almighty Creator had 
 heard and answered her prayers. 
 
118 The Curse of Tramp Life, 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 "There is no Place Like Home." 
 
 IT was the fifteenth of November, 1907, when we bade 
 farewell to the good Sisters of Mercy, who had nursed 
 
 us back to our health without demanding and receiving 
 any other reward but our "thank you's" for their cares and 
 troubles. I still had the three ten dollar bills which I had 
 sewed into the ends of my necktie, but I knew that crossing 
 the deserts in midwinter would demand a full supply of 
 food, so did not dare to pay out a cent. I could have tele- 
 graphed Mr. Braxton to forward by wire a ticket to send 
 Buford back to Kentucky, but only too often I recalled 
 cases where returning runaway boys had lost their "nerve" 
 when it came to again face their parents and beg of them 
 forgiveness for their heartless pranks, and how many a 
 time "Wanderlust" snatched these returning boys from 
 the very threshold of their parents home to completely 
 disappear from view, perhaps to end their days as 
 "Jungle Buzzards." 
 
 At this season of the year all the mountain passes on 
 the northern routes were closed to us by zero weather, and 
 we had planned to strike out for San. Francisco, and from 
 there cross the continent over the more clement "Central 
 Routes." While making inquiries among some of the "pro- 
 fesh," concerning different matters, such as the detectives, 
 the jails, etc., etc., upon which every wise tramp must 
 throughly post himself, I was told that at the timber 
 wharf a schooner was taking on a cargo of lumber and was 
 made ready to leave early the following morning for Los 
 Angeles and that perhaps there would be a chance to work 
 our passage. 
 
 I 
 
The Curse of Tramp Life, 119 
 
 ''Here is our opportunity, Kid," I shouted to Buford, and 
 almost dragged him off his feet down Yessler Way, the most 
 beautiful street of Seattle, towards the water front, "let's 
 get in on this deal in a hurry for it means not only quickly 
 reaching the land of strawberries, oranges and ostriches, 
 but wages on top of all, and besides this. Kid, it's just like 
 rambling in the good old summertime, when you cross, 
 even in the midst of winter, the continent by the more 
 southern routes." 
 
 Within the shortest possible time we climbed aboard 
 the sailing ship, and after we explained to the Captain our 
 errand, he offered to "ship" me, but wouldn't hear a word 
 about taking Buford, as he declared the lad to be too young 
 to even earn his mere passage. So this chance went glim- 
 mering, and we left the schooner. 
 
 We stood upon the wharf watching the longshoremen 
 loading the heavy timber into the vessel's hold, when Bu- 
 ford remarked: "Say, A No. 1, if we were rats we could 
 hide in that hold and see a bit of the world, couldn't we?" 
 "What's the matter," I replied, "playing 'rats' right now?" 
 And with a "follow me" we sneaked into the hold, and in 
 the darkest place we could find we hid ourselves away. 
 
 Before daylight they finished the loading, and presently 
 we heard the play of the waves against the bow, as the 
 tug boat towed us through scenic Puget Sound, into the 
 Straits of San Juan and later, when we felt the seaway, 
 we knev/ we were out upon the broad Pacific. 
 
 For two days we kept quiet, even while passing through 
 heavy weather, judging by the way the schooner rolled and 
 groaned, then, almost famished by thirst and scared out of 
 our wits by the vessel's rats, whose squealing made our 
 blood curdle, we pounded with a piece of broken scantling 
 against the deck above us to attract the attention of the 
 ship's crew. We must have pounded fully an hour before 
 
120 The Curse of Tramp Life. 
 
 we were heard, and when at last a hatch was opened, the 
 captain was the first one to cHmb down the ladder and 
 pounce upon us. We pleaded with him not to hurt us, 
 but now came our surprise, for instead of licking the lives 
 out of us, he was actually pleased to discover us, as during 
 the storm the ship had sprung a bad leak and each additional 
 "hand" to man the pumps meant another chance for all to 
 be saved from worse trouble. 
 
 We had fair wind and passed the mouth of the Col- 
 umbia River with all sails set and on the third day out left 
 Cape Blanco behind us. But just off Eureka, California, 
 we struck a terrible storm, which opened the already 
 badly leaking seams of the schooner to such an extent that 
 first inch by inch, then foot by foot, the v/ater in the hold 
 gained on our pumps, until the ship rode so deep in the 
 trough of the sea, that mountain-high comber after comber 
 dashed tons of swirling ocean water upon our decks, twist- 
 ing off the masts, smashing our life boats and finally tore 
 open the hatches, and but for the buoyancy of the heavy 
 timber, which still held tight in the hold and kept us afloat, 
 we would have been drowned as were all the rats aboard. 
 
 We drifted about in the completely dismantled wreck, 
 and just as v/e heard the roaring of the breakers dashing 
 against the rocky coast, a boat sent out from a life-saving 
 station, which had observed our plight, boarded the derelict 
 and brought us safely ashore. 
 
 We were sent to Eureka, one of the prettiest cities in 
 the world, but not then reached by any railroad. Its 
 noble citizens made up a purse and not only were we sent 
 on the next mail boat to San Francisco, but all received a 
 complete outfit of clothes. 
 
 We left San Francisco the 25th of November,, and riding 
 the rods, we rambled through the high passes of the Sierra 
 Nevada amid a snow storm, and then, greatly hampered 
 
The Curse of Tramp Life, 
 
 121 
 
 Mountain-high comber after comber dashed tons of swirhng 
 
 ocean water upon our decks, twisting off the masts, 
 
 smashing our life boats and finally tore open 
 
 the hatches. 
 
122 The Curse of Tramp Life. 
 
 by wintery weather and the railroad detectives, the hobo's 
 greatest enemies, we landed on the first of December at 
 the grandest city of the Middle West — Kansas City, Mo. 
 
 Here we worked our passage upon a river steamboat 
 to St. Louis, from where we traveled on a coal barge to 
 Cairo, hence 'another steamboat brought us to the pretty 
 city of Paducah, Ky., where we hoboed over the Illinios 
 Central R. R. to Louisville and the Louisville and Nashville 
 to Cincinnati, where we landed on the twenty-fourth of 
 December, one day before Christmas. 
 
 Until here, Buford had been only too willing to return 
 to his parents, but now, with only a few miles betwixt 
 the road and his home, he became morose and every act 
 bespoke plainly that he was losing the courage that had 
 brought him all the way across the continent to beg for- 
 giveness of his parents for his boyish excapade. I tried 
 to have him write to his parents, pleading in advance for 
 their pardon, but he refused to do so, intending to surprise 
 them. 
 
 I had already purchased, with the last dollars of the 
 reward money which I had received from Mrs. Braxton, 
 two tickets for us, as we intended to reach — for more than 
 one good reason — his home railroad station as first-class 
 passengers. 
 
 We had several hours to wait until our train was due 
 to leave, so we checked our overall bundles at the ''Man- 
 hattan'* restaurant, where we had dined, and set out to 
 see the Christmas sights of Cincinnati. We entered a 
 department store and in the cru^h of the Christmas crowd, 
 the first thing I knew, Buford had vanished from sight. A 
 strange strangulating feeling seized me, like a flash it came 
 through my mind that, perhaps after all, my two months of 
 hardships and dangers would be. in vain, if I did not watch 
 
The Curse of Tramp Life, 123 
 
 out, and I dashed out of the store and raced back to the 
 "Manhattan." 
 
 I had surmised correctly, for there at the writing desk, 
 with his suit of overalls lying beside him on a vacant chair, 
 was Buford, busily engaged writing a letter, so intent that 
 he did not observe me, when I noiselessly stepped behind 
 his chair and glanced over his shoulder at his writing: 
 "Dear A No. 1," the letter read, "Forgive me that I left 
 you here, but I cannot go home, as I feel I am an ex-convict, 
 and do not wish to add shame to the injury I already in- 
 flicted upon the proudest name in all Kentucky, I have 
 decided not to see mother this time. I will tell you now — " 
 He looked up and while tears foUov/ed each other down his 
 face, he picked up the letter and crumpled it in his nervously 
 twitching hand and stared silently at me. 
 
 "Buford," I addressed him, "are you not ashamed to 
 attempt to spoil your good mother's best Christmas pres- 
 ent? Have you not love enough left for her to know that 
 she will not care if you were the most brutal murderer, 
 instead of a runaway boy who had been placed behind the 
 bars?" 
 
 He muttered something about hating to return home, 
 but I did not give him a chance to make apologies. I put 
 my arm through one of his arms and marched him down to 
 the station, where I never permitted him out of my sight 
 until I had him, safe from the "Wanderlust's" wiles, 
 aboard of the train, pulling out of the same train shed which, 
 only four months before we left as "roof of train" passengers. 
 i felt so strange, riding "the plush" after so many long 
 years, that when I heard below us the wheels, as they raced 
 the miles, sing their "Song of the Rails," that I turned to 
 Buford and said: "Buford, do you hear the wheels calling 
 you: 'Come along! Come along! Come along!' " He 
 smiled and nodded his head and I continued: "Buford, 
 
124 The Curse of Tramp Life, 
 
 v/ill you not solemnly promise me, never again to heed their 
 call to the road, never again to try to wreck your future 
 in trying to become a miserable, homeless rover?" He 
 did not answer, but, just then, as the engine whistled for 
 our station, he pressed my hand. 
 
 When the train stopped, the first fellows we saw, when 
 we stepped to the station platform, were the one-armed 
 squire and the deputy sheriff, who had arrested us. They 
 had their heads together, no doubt figuring out some new 
 scheme to dig their greedy fingers into the taxpayer's 
 treasury. We slipped past them and unobserved, went to 
 the telephone exchange and I called up Braxton Manor. 
 
 Mr. Braxton, himself, answered the call, and when 
 asked what was wanted, I answered: "Is this Mr. Braxton? 
 This is Albert Jones, the chain-gang convict who found 
 your bracelet." *'Well, what do you want of us now?" 
 came his impatient sounding voice across the wire. "I 
 wish you would send your automobile down to the 'Bartlett 
 Hotel' for us." "What? Do you think we have automobiles 
 to send for you and especially on Christmas Eve?" came 
 the now thoroughly annoyed voice over the telephone, and 
 then added, "but who are the 'us' you speak about?" 
 "The 'us' is your lost boy — Buford," I proudly answered. 
 "For God's sake man, are you telling the truth?" came the 
 now excitedly ringing voice from the other end of the line. 
 "Wait a moment," I replied, and called Buford to the tele- 
 phone. I could not hear a blessed word from the other end, 
 but Buford sobbed so loud, he could not speak, he only 
 repeated: "All right, all right," over and over again. 
 
 It was only a short wait until their automobile dashed 
 in front of the hotel and Mr. and Mrs. Braxton alighted. 
 A moment later the mother, who had so long and 
 patiently waited for her runaway boy's return, promptly 
 recognized her son, altho he had changed considerably by 
 
The Curse of Tramp Life. 
 
 12 b 
 
 
 t^'Wm\hm 
 
 I 
 
 ^/ 
 
 I noiselessly stepped behind his chair and glanced over his 
 shoulder at his writ ing. 
 
126 The Curse of Tramp Life, 
 
 growth and the rough out-of-door life, and with the ex- 
 clamation: **0h Buford! My boy!" to which he could 
 only answer: *'0h Mother! Forgive me!'* they were in 
 each other's embrace, unable for sobs, which came from 
 their hearts, to utter another word. Mr. Braxton stood 
 aside, seemingly stricken helpless by the relief this unex- 
 pected return of his only child and beloved son had 
 brought to him, but when he perceived the curious gazes 
 of others, who were watching this affectionate greeting, he 
 aroused himself and opening the door leading to the hotel's 
 parlor, he gently guided the mother and son into it, while 
 tears of inexpressible joy coursed down his face. Then 
 he turned to me and while pressing my hands he stam- 
 mered words of blessing for having returned to him, safe 
 and sound, the boy, whom by this time he had given up 
 all hopes to ever see again alive, and after he told me to 
 wait until he returned, he too entered the parlor, closing 
 and locking its door behind him. 
 
 It must have been almost an hour before they again 
 emerged from the parlor, and when I saw all three looking 
 as if heaven had come to them on earth, I felt fully repaid 
 for bringing the lad back home. They climbed into their 
 automobile and beckoned me to sit alongside the chauffeur 
 and in record time we whizzed to the Manor. 
 
 It would take volumes to describe the joy of the dar- 
 kies as they laid their eyes once more upon their "Marse 
 Buford," who, tanned like a berry from the rough out-door 
 life, had completely regained his usual health. 
 
 Christmas Eve — as it is the custom upon southern 
 estates — an immense Christmas tree was lighted in the 
 banquet hall of the manor and while the festivities were at 
 their height I overheard old Aunt Dinah exclaim: "Lawd, 
 ma good Missus shore looks ten yeahs youngah since Marse 
 Bufo'd come back!" It was long after midnight when the 
 
The Curse of Tramp Life. 127 
 
 happy throng dispersed, the darkles to return to the humble 
 log-cabins, while the white visitors were sent home in auto- 
 mobiles. 
 
 When everybody had left, Mr, Braxton called me into 
 the library, where Mrs. Braxton and Buford were already 
 awaiting us. "Mr. Jones," he happily said, when I entered, 
 "step over to Buford's picture and take down the veil. 
 It is no longer needed." Then I had to repeat v/ord for 
 word, how I trailed and brought Buford back to his now, 
 oh, so happy parents. 
 
 After I had concluded my storjr, Mr. Braxton opened 
 a drawer of the writing desk, took out and handed to me a 
 circular on which in large letters was printed: 
 
 REWARD 
 
 $500.09 
 
 Will be paid for information that will 
 
 lead to the return of 
 
 BUFORD BRiVXTON 
 
 and an additional 
 
 $500.00 
 
 Will be paid for the apprehension of the 
 
 scoundrel who enticed him away from his 
 
 home, etc., etc., etc. 
 
 I read the circular, and not understanding why Mr. 
 Braxton had handed it to me, I dryly inquired: "What 
 about it?" Now came my turn to be astounded, for pres- 
 ently Mr. Braxton opened a small silverware safe, which 
 was built into the library's wall and took out a money bag 
 and placing it in front of me upon the table, v/hile tears of 
 joy dropped down his cheeks, he said: "I have had the 
 full reward of a thousand dollars waiting all the long, 
 dreary months in yonder safe, to hand it over to the person 
 
128 The Curse of Tramp Life. 
 
 who would bring back to his mother our wandering Bu- 
 ford. Money can never fully repay what you have done 
 for our family. So take the reward, for you have certainly 
 more than earned it and may God bless you and all other 
 people as well, who return runaway boys to their homes." 
 
 Just then, before I had a chance to even say a single 
 v/ord, the colored butler entered the library with a lighted 
 candle and opened the sliding doors leading into the same 
 bed-chamber I had occupied on my previous visit at the 
 manor, and while he showed me to my bed, the Braxtons 
 filed out of the library. 
 
 After the butler had bowed himself out of the room, 
 I thought that this time I had certainly earned a good 
 night's rest and drew back the silken cover, but somehow 
 my conscience would not permit me to do otherwise — I 
 fell upon my knees alongside the bed and asked God to 
 forgive me for not having been back to my own dear 'Home, 
 sweet Home' for over a quarter of a century, and made my 
 own dear old mother, who had been waiting for me in vain 
 all these long, long years, more happy even, than I had made 
 Mrs. Braxton. 
 
 Not until New Year's Day, 1908, would Mr. and Mrs. 
 Braxton permit me to bid them farewell. 
 
 I had almost reached the main entrance-gate, when 
 Joe, the faithful butler, came running down the path and 
 shouted: "Marse Jones, Missus Braxton wants yo'all to 
 come back! She has not yet tole yo'all v/hat she wants 
 to tell yo' since yo'all brought Marse Bufo'd back to us." 
 I returned to the manor and she said — undoubtedly Buford 
 had, by this time told her about my monicker — *'A No. 1, 
 I want you to solemnly promise me Lhat whenever you 
 
The Curse of Tramp Life. 
 
 129 
 
 travel through this section of Kentucky, you will come and 
 visit us at our manor, as its door will always be open to 
 welcome you." 
 
 This I promised to do and then I went. When I 
 passed the convict-camp, on my way to town, I found the 
 poor fellows celebrating the holiday on cornbread, greasy 
 white meat and half-baked biscuits. I opened my money 
 bag and distributed more than fifty dollars amongst them, 
 so they could purchase some "extras" to their meagre 
 bill of fare, which act caused them to dance with joy. 
 
 When I arrived at the station a southbound passenger 
 train pulled just up to the platform and when it left I was 
 hanging to the rods under the observation car, and ^he 
 **Song of the Rails," the wheels sang, while they rolled 
 me towards fair Florida, where a tramp in the winter time 
 can travel in his summer clothes, sounded: "A No. 1, well 
 done! 'A No. 1, well done! A No. 1, well done!" 
 
139 The Curse of Tramp Life. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 "The Garse of Tramp Life." 
 
 IT was in the Spring of 1912, when returning north, via 
 the Louisville & Nashville Railroad, coming from the 
 
 sunny country bordering the Gulf of Mexico, where I 
 had wintered that I remembered the promise I had made 
 to Mrs. Braxton and stopping over at their railroad 
 station, I walked out to the manor. 
 
 When I arrived at the manor it was night and every- 
 body had already retired as the building was shrouded in 
 complete darkness, but the hunting hounds' loud baying — 
 I aroused their watchfulness as I opened the main 
 entrance-gate — caused a lighted lamp to appear at the 
 upper window and a voice called to know what was 
 wanted. I shouted back my monicker and a few moments 
 later I was told to enter at the front door — it had been 
 opened — and find my own way to the bed-chamber ad- 
 joining the library, as all the house servants had long ago 
 left the manor for their homes. 
 
 In the morning I opened the sliding-doors leading into 
 the library, but just as I noted that Buford's picture was 
 again veiled — this time with a black veil — and wondered 
 what this meant, behind me through the other door en- 
 tered Joe, the colored butler, carr3dng a tray with my break- 
 fast, and before I had a chance to ask him v/hy that black 
 veil now covered the portrait, vas gone. 
 
 Hardly had I finished my L..^akfa3t, when he again 
 entered and leading me to the front door, I found Mrs. 
 Braxton waiting in her automobile for me to accompany 
 her in, what I thought would be a morning drive about 
 tlie surrounding country. 
 
The Curse of Tramp Life, 
 
 131 
 
 *'Buford is beyond this hill," is all she said, and then she po3«tei 
 up the avenue of lofty elms. 
 
132 The Curse of Tramp Life. 
 
 My first question after I had quickly passed over the 
 story of the four years since I was last their guest, was: 
 "Where and how is Buford?" Mrs. Braxton did not seem 
 to have heard my words on account of the noise made 
 by passing over a newly graded piece of the road, and I 
 repeated my question more loudly, adding: "Is Buford at 
 home?" She understood this time, and with a, to me, strange 
 sounding flection in her voice, she answered my query: 
 "Yes, my darling Buford is at home, he will never leave 
 his mother any more," and she continued after a pause: 
 "Buford never tired telling us how much you did for him, 
 our poor boy." 
 
 This was indeed strange to me — "our poor boy," she 
 had said, I thought, perchance she had not yet re- 
 covered her full mental health from the anguish the run- 
 away boy, during his disappearance had caused her. 
 
 Presently we stopped at the entrance of a well-kept 
 cemetery. She motioned to me to climb out of the auto- 
 mobile, which I did, while she followed. Now she opened 
 the cemetery gate and beckoned me to follow her. "Bu- 
 ford is beyond this hill," is all she said, and then she pointed 
 up the avenue of lofty elms, while studded everywhere 
 about the blue-grass lawn, were handsome monuments 
 erected over the remains of departed dead. 
 
 I understood her — Buford was beyond the hill visiting 
 some friends, and she was taking me there to surprise him. 
 She walked ahead and I mutely followed. 
 
 But what was this? She suddenly stopped and almost 
 fainting she sank wearil}^ upon a bench beside a grave 
 that could only have been made recently, as yet no grass 
 had sprung up between the many flowers planted into its 
 moist soil. Now she steadied herself and while tears 
 commenced to roll down her pallid cheeks, and v/hile I 
 noted all the more the many deep wrinkles which clearly 
 
The Curse of Tramp Life. 
 
 133 
 
 mdicated the woeful sorrows she must have passed through, 
 she tremblingly pointed at the freshly-made grave and 
 sadly said: "Buford could not resist that monster, he has 
 so often called in our presence the * Wanderlust.* He could 
 not stay contentedly with us in his good home. Ever so 
 often he would almost rave, until he had another fling at 
 the road, then he would return to be once more as good a 
 son as God ever blessed parents with, until the next attack 
 of this strange something drove him forth to become again 
 a homeless tramp. Our pleadings were in vain! Once 
 too often he went, as they brought him back to us in a pine 
 box — killed under the cars by the 'Curse of Tramp Life' — 
 the Wanderlust.' " 
 
 Then she could not utter another word, as anguished 
 sobs, coming from the very bottom of her broken heart, 
 choked her voice. Presently the poor, lonely mother, 
 seemingly dragged to the earth by the weight of her in- 
 describable woe, sank upon her knees beside the little 
 mound — and I knelt too, and joined her in silent prayer. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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