Oak ST: HDSF UNIVERSITY Ur ILLINOIS LIBRARY AT URBANA-C'rW/PAIGN bookstacks The person charging this material is re- sponsible for its return on or before the Latest Date stamped below. Theft, mutilation, and underlining of books are reasons for disciplinary action and may result in dismissal from the University. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016 https://archive.org/details/lifeadventuresofOOIivi LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF +JEL-NE1* AMERICA’S MOST CELEBRATED TRAMP WRITTEN BY HIMSELF FOURTH REVISED EDITION COPYRIGHT 1910 BY THE A-No. 1 PUBLISHING CO. AH the subject matter, as well as the illustrations contained in this book are fully pro- tected by copyright, and their use in any form whatsoever will be vigorously prosecuted for Infringement. THE) PUBLISHING OO. CAMBRIDGE SPRINGS PENNSYLVANIA U. S. A. To Restless Young Men and Boys Who Read this Book, the Author, who Has Led for Over a Quarter of a Century the Pitifully Hard and Dangerous Life of a Tramp, gives this Well-meant Advice: a D O NOT JUMP ON MOVING TRAINS, even if only to ride to the next street crossing, because this might arouse the “wanderlust,” besides endan- gering needlessly your life and limbs. Wandering, once it becomes a habit, is almost incur- able, so NEVER RUN 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 many 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 un-marked pauper’s grave. Preface. P ERHAPS some may think that a man who has attained only the age of thirty-eight years has hardly enough accrued experience to justify him in writing an autobiography, but as I look back over the crowded years since I first became a tramp, I feel that the thousand and one odd and peculiar experiences (such as never fall to the lot of the ordinary mortal who is anchored in the city, village or country) will justify publication. Were other men of my age to write their life’s story, it could ordinarily be summed up with Caesari- an brevity: “I was born; I learned a trade, and I am beginning to have money in the bank.” But for a man who has been wandering since his eleventh year, and has been leading the life of a tramp, to try and tell his experiences, is quite a different under- taking. I wish the readers of this book, especially those who are personally acquainted with me, would re- member that this is the true story of a blasted life, and I hope that these friends will not lose their good will towards me, as I will tell only the exact truth of my past existence. I might mention that many pages of this book have been written while the author was in transit from place to place, in jolting, rattling box-cars. To those interested in the eUmination of the tramp and his restoration to the respected membership of society, I would call attention to Chapter XII on page 63: “Why Permit Men to Become Tramps?” In which chapter I advocate an effective and almost expenseless solution of the tramp problem. This book is filled with funny adventures, as well as sad features, and I beg my readers to re- member that a person cannot be a tramp and an angel at the same time. Yours truly, THE AUTHOR. Contents, Chapter Page I Leaving Home . 5 II Going to Sea 13 III Deserting the Ship . 16 IV In a Tropical Mahogany Camp 20 V Tramping Through Central America ... 25 VI In Partnership with a Burglar 32 VII Tramping Overland to Florida 39 VIII Why I was Called “A-No. 1” . . 44 ✓ IX Tramping in Europe 49 X A Homeless Outcast 57 XI Robbed by Tramps 60 XII Why Permit Men to Become Tramps? 63 XIII Trying to Reform 74 XIV Charity Up-to-Date 78 XV Beating It to South America 91 XVI Tramping Across South America 97 XVII Tramping to the Klondike 119 XVIII Conclusion 136 Chapter I. “Leaving Home.” I WAS born on the 24th day of August, 1872, ii^ San Francisco, California, where my parents, respected and well-to-do residents, owned a pretty home. To outline the history of my childhood would be trying to my readers, at it differed in no material respect from that of any other boy, petted and cherished as an only child. At six I was sent to school. At eight I could speak fluently three lan- guages — my father being a Frenchman and my mother a German, they taught me their mother tongues. To these I added Spanish later in years, making four languages that I speak at present. Years rolled by, and everything seemed to point to a future as bright as any fond parents could desire for the boy who was the idol of their hearts. Then came the turning point in my life. I passed my eleventh birthday and received many presents — toys, books, everything a boy could wish. A one hundred franc note came from an uncle in Paris, and father told me it was worth twenty dollars in any bank. The next day I was sent home from school for ill-behavior and entrusted with a note from my teacher, which I was directed to give my father for his signature thereon. To return home in disgrace the day after my birthday, when I had received the tokens of love and made resolutions and promises to 6 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF A-NO. 1, do right, was discouraging. It hurt my sense of manliness and pride, even though I was but a boy. I loitered about the streets until the regular hour for returning home, and then decided to wait until morn- ing to present the note, with its story of my wilfulness to my father. I was standing at an upstairs window thinking about my troubles, which seemed very great to my childish mind, when I saw my teacher approaching the house. Surmising the object of his mission, I stole quietly into my mother’s room and secured her purse, which contained twenty-eight dollars and my one hundred franc note. Then I ran to my own room, caught up my twenty-two caliber rifle, ran down the back stairs and out of the rear door, scaled the high fence and dropped into the alley outside. Then with all speed I ran to the har- bor and arrived there just in time to board a river- steamboat bound forCalifomia’s capital, Sacramento. Next morning on arriving there, hotel hacks of all kinds were waiting at the landing stage. I se- lected the prettiest painted one, whose porter shout- ed the loudest: “ Golden Eagle Hotel! Come to the Golden Eagle!” It surely was a fine place — the Golden Eagle Hotel. The clerk asked me : “ Sonny do you want a room with a bath?” “ Of course,” I said. My! what fine, fancy food they served there, and the waiters were the blackest Congo “niggers” I ever saw. I remained there four days, and would have been content to stay on indefinitely if some- body had not told me there were bears to hunt in the Sierra Nevada, eighty miles east. I went to the clerk and asked for my bill — twen- ty dollars for four days ! At five dollars per diem, and America’s Most celebrated Tramp, 7 8 Life and Adventures of A-No. 1, one dollar additional for the ride in the hack from the landing-stage to the hotel. Only then I found that I had stopped at the highest priced hotel on the Pacific Coast. I remember that I paid my bill with apparent unconcern, but there was a queer little homesick feeling in, my heart as I realized that I had only a few dollars left. I decided to convert the one hun- dred franc note into cash and entered a bank for that purpose. As I stepped' up to the cashier’s window he gave me a keen glance and said : “ Sonny, where did you get this bill?” My throat filled up, and I felt the smart of tears in my eyes, but I found my voice to answer: “ From my pa.” “Where is your pa?” said he. “ Oh, he is out here, and I will go and fetch him,” I answered. I caught up my little rifle and walked out of the door, not to find my father, but to run with all haste to the depot, leaving my note behind. I was too scared to wait for a train, being afraid of arrest. So after making inquiries I walked out of Sacramento on the tracks of the Southern Pacific Railroad, and it was seventeen long miles east before I reached a station, and there, with the money I still possessed, I purchased a ticket to a small place called Colfax. I remember that in conversation with the agent I told him my parents were dead, and that I was going to make my way to Chicago to find an uncle. So, with my rifle, a small box of cartridges and a little lunch the kind agent gave me, I left on the next train . I arrived at Colfax late in the afternoon, abso- lutely penniless, but resolutely I swung my little America’s Most celebrated Tramp. 9 rifle over my shoulder and walked out of the town headed East, where before me towered the gigantic snow covered peaks of the Sierra Nevada. Three miles from Colfax all trains took on water from a tank, and I arrived there just as a train rumbled in view. It came to a stop and a brakeman looking for hobos and hot boxes asked me what I was doing. I told him the same story I told the ticket agent. “Say, kid,” he said, “climb on the bumper and give me your rifle for the ride to Truckee, California.” I was more than glad to make the trade with him, and then took my first unlawful ride. We had two engines ahead and two pushing behind going up the Sierra Nevada from an elevation at Colfax of 1000 feet to the summit of the mountain range, 7700 feet above the sea level. Every twenty miles I helped to load wood on the tender of the engine — wood be- ing used in those days all over the West as fuel. It took twelve hours for the train to reach Truckee, where I arrived after midnight. Going up the track alongside the train I met the brakeman once more. . “Kid,” said he, “did you have your supper?” “No,” I replied. He gave me all he had left in his dinner pail, and hardly had I finished the remains of his lunch when the Overland Limited came to a stop in front of the depot. The brakeman took me to a tourist sleeper, and while the porter was not watching, hid me under one of the berths and I dropped asleep — this is how I beat my first passenger train. In the morning I was discovered and was put off the train at Winnemucca, Nevada, 450 miles from San Francisco, in a desert. io life and Adventures of A-No. 1, Winnemucca, in those days, was the largest town between Sacramento and Ogden, Utah. It con- sisted of a few Mexican “ Dobee ” houses, built of dried clay and brick, and almost all were either saloons or gambling houses. I was dead broke and hungry. I had passed the few years of my life in a home of cul- ture, surrounded by tropical vegetation and hand- some residences. Here in the dreary desert town I lost my courage. I was bitterly homesick. The station agent’s wife spied me as I sat on the platform with the tears running down my cheeks. Her woman’s heart responded to the sight of a nicely dressed small boy in trouble, and she came to me and asked me if I was hungry. I nodded my head, I could not speak. She invited me up into her home which was over the depot. When she had placed a good warm meal before me, I started to tell her the whole truth, about my leaving home and how I came to be in that lonely place. “Hush, child,” she said, “You are half starved. Talk after you eat.” Courage came with the food. When I had finished my meal, instead of telling her the truth, I related my manufactured story, the one I told the ticket agent in California. This was the third time I had told it, the story of how my parents died, and how I was trying to reach my uncle in Chicago. I must have improved wonderfully in lying, for she began crying and lamenting the hardships of my young life. She took me down stairs to her husband, the agent, and I had to repeat the old yam over again. He, too, was kind hearted, and after asking me a lot of questions, told me to return for supper and stay at their home over night. America’s Most Celebrated Tramp. u While I was dreaming that night about all that had happened to me thus far, the kind-hearted agent and his wife went among their friends in the town and collected money to send me farther East. Next morning after breakfast they gave me a ticket to Omaha, Nebraska, and five dollars for expenses. Half the town was down to the depot to see the “Poor little Orphan Boy” leave Winnemucca. In those days trains covered only six hundred miles every twenty-four hours, and it took three days for me to reach Omaha. The Overland Limited races now-a-days thousand miles a day, and it takes less than forty-eight hours to cover the same distance. Arriving in Omaha I tried to find a job, but was refused everywhere, being too small to work even for my board, and meeting with unkindliness and re- buke, I resolved there and then to hustle about with- out employment, as I had an idea that this world owed me, a living, work or no work. That afternoon I managed to hide myself among the sheep in a fast stock train bound for Chicago, where I arrived next morning. The little money I had left was soon spent, and by sneaking into saloons and helping myself at the free lunch counter, I managed to live quite well. For lodging I crawled, after dark, under the bushes in the public parks, where other homeless people and stray dogs were my bed-fellows. I was forced to associate with the off-spring of the slums, and quickly forgot the refined English used in conversation at home, and in its stead acquired the argot of the toughs. Towards the end of October, the nights began to get frosty, and having heard so much about the Sunny South, I caught a freight train on the Illinois 12 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF A-NO. 1, Central, bound for New Orleans. Once on this trip a kind-hearted engineer gave me fifty cents, but instead of buying something useful, boy fashion, I purchased candy, chewing gum and peanuts. Between Chicago and New Orleans four different families wanted to adopt me. At Tangipahoa, Louisiana, I had to climb out of a window to get away from a widow who wanted to adopt me as a son. I did not mind the 'adoption part, but she had fat pork and turnip greens three times a day regular, and also wanted me to pick cotton from sun up until after sun down, so there was little temptation for me to stay with her. I arrived in New Orleans on Christmas Day, 1883, a sight to look at. I was dirty and ragged to the last degree, with toes sticking out of my shoes. But the climate was fine, and there was plenty to eat, such as it was. By stealing bread from the house fronts, left by the bakers in the early morning, and by cleaning milk and cream pitchers, and dipping this bread into the molasses leaking from syrup barrels piled upon the wharves, I managed to live. For lodging at night I crawled under the tarpaulins covering the cotton bales stored on the wharves. America’s Most Celebrated Tramp. 13 Chapter II. “ Going to Sea.” A LL went fine for a week.buton New Year’s Day, 1884, while strolling along the wharves, I spied a large steamer just arrived from Cuba unload- ing bananas. Ropes were stretched to keep people from interfering with the laborers employed in the trans- fer of the fruit from the ship to the railroad cars. A ripe banana dropped out of a bunch, and as I was hungry, it only took a second for me to dart under the rope and grab the fruit. A watchman employed by the company for just such offenders, caught me and started from the wharf with me to turn me over to a policeman. I begged him hard to let me go, and told him “my uncle story,” this being about the hundredth time I had told it since leaving home. While he stood listening to me, a man came up and wanted to know what was going on. The watch- man told him and they conversed for a time. The outcome was, that the newcomer introduced him- self as Captain Williams, commanding a three mast- ed schooner, the “Laura Jane,” bound on a trading trip for Central American ports. He needed a cabin boy, and offered me a job at five dollars a month. Betwixt jail and the schooner, I chose the latter, as this afforded a chance to travel on a salary, with board and lodging assured. This, in my friendless end needy condition, seemed a great opportunity, and I gladly accepted. 14 Life and adventures of A-No. 1 , The captain, after having me sign some papers at the British Consulate (the “Laura Jane” was registered under the British flag) took me to a store that dealt in all sorts of marine supplies. He fitted me up with a complete sailor outfit, pants that looked like umbrellas on the bottom, sailor’s blouse, a neat cap — in fact when I was dressed up I looked like a “salt-water dude”. After a visit to a barber shop, where my hair — that looked like a chrysan- themum — was cut short, we went aboard his vessel, the “ Laura Jane ”, where I soon felt at home. Every body petted me, and some of the men told me all I needed to do was to watch the sea gulls and flying fish. The same afternoon we were towed down the Mississippi River by a tug, and when I awoke early in the morning we were out on the blue Gulf of Mexico, with nothing but water on all sides of us. There was just a little to do here and there, and for a couple of days all went well. Then the cook, as black a nigger as I ever saw, spoiled all the fun — he wanted me to peel potatoes. I made a disrespect- ful reply and refused. He became angry and I talked back and called him names. He picked up a piece of rope and gave me a beating such as I had never felt before. At last he tired and I darted away into the captain’s cabin with the cook at my heels. I tried, between my sobs and cries of pain, to tell what had happened. The cook, who was in a better talking condition,- stated his side of the case, and the captain directed him to take me out again and give me another good thrashing. That evening I peeled potatoes and washed dishes and did everything that was asked of me. This is how I was taught to obey orders aboard the “Laura Jane”. America’s Most Celebrated Tramp. 15 But after this first beating (as up to then I was rather saucv anyhow) all the other sailors took a hand in cuffing me; so looking at sea gulls, dol- phine and flying fish was not all I had to do by any means. They (the captain, mate B four tough sailors and that cook) kept me busy from early morning till late at night, and I often wondered what my mother would have said if she could have seen her son scrubbing decks, washing clothes, splicing ropes, patching sails, climbing up and down the rope ladders and out on the bowsprit, "The Captain directed the cook to take me his feet Washed by the and give me a good thrashing.” WaV6S. The captain was hardly ever sober, and the rest of the crew drank their share of the “booze”. One day, when receiving unusually bad treatment, I told the cook that I would desert the ship the first chance that offered itself. He repeated my threat to the crew, and they kicked and beat me more severely than ever. After a fortnight cruising against head winds we reached Progresso, Yucatan, Mexico, and took on a load of dye wood and cocoanuts. The captain bought a pair of fine young parrots, intending to 16 Life and Adventures of A-No. 1, take them home as a present to his wife. They could not speak a word and as the dealer had told him they would talk quickly, he was very cross and spiteful, thinking he had been fooled. He uttered a long string of oaths every time he looked at the birds. For a few days they were very quiet, then they began talking, and the way they used “cuss words” was something awful. No one was greatly shocked, however, for aboard the “ Laura Jane” every second word was a curse, anyway. While here the captain bought another big supply of “mesqual” (Mexican brandy) a beverage which drives the drinker crazy. The night after leaving Progresso, while a little too happy, he in- vited the rest of the crew to help themselves; it needed only a little while for them all to be in a beastly condition. A squall struck the schooner, and the cook’s presence of mind in slashing a hole in the mainsail was all that saved the ship from turning turtle. Chapter III. “Deserting the Ship.” O NE week after leaving Progresso we cast an- chor in the roadstead of Belize, the capital of the British crown colony of British Honduras. The cook had me row him to the town , 'where he was to purchase supplies, and while he was gone I could not resist the temptation to desert. Keeping along the shore until I reached the shelter of the jungle, several Mas# mmmmSmM^ fft&mhm Sfflg^ 9 » # U $’Q#q%n #feP!q_PrI iMF% ®8ob#^#™Rpi^^ MI mw°£¥^Mrx%!^98e k i 3 &H < % mt raw crabs and fish seg^gn^j l ^ Qdi90ai& moilJ The schooner evidently did not receive a cargo, fdbWbd# roofed ori’tb^thM'hboMing sbd'w&fTgone. l^T^olfevptegeity '©(mig^^&fioeldtt^eagy dhpi tdhhbldsgsy %®*it§n«^-i Th# ^hipp^iTrst^^d?^ y^ftajhgt $bwh. -sBfeT^nw&STspi t@W8.sdf> Jpeifeapi t^bMiy'the^hdrihfi^^nt^/ali^ th63g§o$l# tee’fifldd ' ijeddr t(^fe^etfe^^lt^te»p^©h(tgcv?ith a&clAmericatt tratnpp^oxn ni rftnom js aiallob trlgia sagjsw aa sr/bx&t tsq fitWf a<^'#h^ P ! hi|uirerfdffa littld edld 0 ffirfefif ^' : Mhd? < KfeSr^S 3 l^l^ 'dbblhhid §nP£M"%&V'& ine # s ^fcle , few ^t^^^^h^-fehe told me, belonged tSMhcfCSto^^K^tioii stffi&a |dek&bcb , te fibd’sbi^ bfie Shd fils# g^^dftddiioiie^ tb pay f 6r* bh r vhi^ J 'lny'haib' cd¥; -hhd ’ 'wfren I returned from the barber shop she caught°i 1 fre£'%i ber r a&rtsf; is Life and Adventures of A-No. l, large store. When he came home that evening he was so startled at my resemblance to his dead son that he could not bear me in his presence, so he sent me to a small boarding house nearby, and here I wrote a letter home, telling my people of my whereabouts, and asking their forgiveness for my wrong doings. This was the first time I had communicated with them since the day I left home. Out of a population of nearly twenty thousand in Belize, nineteen thousand were negroes, who earned their living by cutting mahogany trees in the interior. Each Christmas day they return and spend the earnings of a year in riotous living. Late in January they start again for the camp in dugouts — boats made by burning out large cotton-wood trees. They receive as wages eight dollars a month in money, and seven quarts of flour and four pounds of pork per week, and are obliged to sign a contract and receive three months’ pay in advance to hold them. I discovered this before I was in Belize many days, and made plans to secure this advance money to pay my way back to New Orleans on a steamer which stopped at Belize every week. Every mahogany camp had a commissary store, and as I could read and write, I offered my services to Senor Gonzales as bookkeeper for such a camp, assuring him that I could be useful in keeping ac- counts. He tried to persuade me not to go, but I insisted, and finally after signing a contract he gave me the three months’ pay as an advance on my wages. This $24.00 was to be used to supply the outfit necessary for a stay of eleven months “ up the bush.” America’s Most Celebrated Tramp. 19 This was Monday, and as the fare to New Or- leans was only $8.00 in the steerage of the steamer that sailed every Thursday, I started out, boy fashion to have a good time with the surplus money on the principle: “That easy comes — easy goes”, and man- aged to spend the sixteen dollars quickly, treating everybody to candy, ice cream and other such things. At ten o’clock Thursday morning the steamer cast anchor down the bay. The water being very shallow, closer to the shore, they had large flat bottomed barges loaded with freight, bananas and cocoanuts, ready to leave the wharf to discharge alongside the steamer. I climbed on one of these, and as soon as the gang plank was laid on reaching the steamer’s side, started on board to buy a ticket to New Orleans. I was met by a soldier from the West India regiment who stood with gun and fixed bayonet barring the way, and in no uncertain words ordered me off the steamer. On the barge I made inquiries and learned to my consternation that a lady had died the pre- vious night of yellow fever, and that the steamer had “declared quarantine.” (Quarantine in this case meant that if a person from an infected place should find passage on a steamer, the same would be held fourteen days for observation on arrival in the States, thus causing great expense and total loss of the fruit cargo.) I returned to the landing, and taking refuge behind some large boxes, I had a good healthy cry; it seemed fate was surely giving me a hard deal. There I was, thousands of miles from home, a small uneducated, friendless boy in a foreign country, and at that in a yellow fever infected city, surrounded on all sides by miles of mangrove swamps infested by 20 1 legftri ¥^f{ afiifl&r# Sfc&iS® wds ' dbfe WilMl to l^ i ^ a ri^a%8§ffl^^M 3 l f HaQP4|n^^9 §§Hfc«HpI prisM'for’W fVkPM(y&& ^W^ () «)A» : « tel- I 2 mKf ^tm furaffl tfif i agr£6ffierits^^°* u P ai^IIoL naataxa adt bnaqg ot bogs c6ttia m$m s^©M^^s^a£A p^itellybr^f 'iMfier db^bSw, • to ; df« lo^t^ifeebtt daifa^^f-Ttfre mpSe^; 4 r HidW Ed^v& > 3ftfed fo^{K0 i 1 ^feM J hira f(3i‘ i aSi?o , fd'6f'' 1 ofrHJslitrge stdfe ?<8? aft bdtfit'. n Heg^^tnfe orieV&dd 3 I^WfiMa ^!M s mff€ldtih2ig>aiM ' oUftSr^^atfeg?* 93101 * B 'V jd ctbiaod no ^biata ,abx 3 tnamigat axbnl teaVT adl mo'il taxbloa a yd tarn saw 1 srlt gntnad tanoyad bexh bits m/g dtiw boots od'rr adt Bo am baiabxo a hinvx . n. Lrhsomr on ni beta ,yavr barnaal bns aahxxxpor absm I ogtad arlt nO .toxnaala -atq axit baxb bad ybal a tadt noxtamatanoo vrrx ot tamaaia arft toftybos navel -jwqflay lo tdgin axxor/ ^MpteXtMs&sp bataloab!* bad noataq a lx tadt injjanx aaap gxdt ni a a no s^WMWf fi f^( c^i r ttia : - ffigan^'trpds' I ^6th gB VdftiifiebtiEbtSs J 'dljbQt t^wenf W6id£ x; ’l^aeliS cbdsfete^d{%'b^ffi§in^a"di^iiogddy bxxfeitP^afM Ibrty negrb feiaPfPife jl '#itSL TM^captaid dr‘-bYefy<§br r ! 1<^t r fctJS^tfiafrasS -’flaasifecf * ‘‘^dptafe ’^^JdbeSP 1 a j j ©elrfti&laP nIggerX’ s ^d 3 ^dlSd' t SfettHdryt6kd ;: ' ddf* ^Mtd 3 }d§ '4*^ J nStta^pl^^^Wa^p^d^as a : d^l^y pbsfeiBl^ dpdld'bd- yg$t?n&]y ?p»FW 8 «as>f^ovWteRfr^dy/tQjlea^ %fe? ea^j^grp^^cts -qrr wife itocdqbfefe S^Kfeen^^itiiMi^d fffi#^ifei&r®>a^gj^ $W^t®80S -tW3®e ah^^^S^WJial.M^llrfegSg^v^ 4#g# JS^i^iteiffffi^^fA|i0ei jkb^ijdiWnjfegeifejl W# ^ftOWgibotos dfe^Mvgdt^-fe^ei# ^^Lilg.rg jphjij^ lv^d{tng,xi^Mfih, p$4i»g 4M|nB§hl Qe&RetaL My J;jfefeW©y Qf t i^©-fe; 'cgg&>il& $fe§ji ^jwogp&n . gfi^wa%»ad&ti r <^^rsife^sc^ ^bMSG^grf^g^ig^ . difficult for him to find a woman. Out of the jojty couples in our camp, twenty-eight had common law 9 WfSmiS a Sfefflfff fe.Mxf c^fldren #ifi°fflgp$&fe Mite mBW tftflfW#’ d? s aft ( Mplf £m i# 5 fSft'W or %ahq3 9ilt ni so no wen wotg of IM ribas msrif yaw sWe?fiid^^feddinl4>^cMg-c^3a?fljo5yi9^ftiB<^lij- a|aea{id±*g^ j4>uadbt^£aff©e^op^Mwiq g$c.-,.f£ed .'paddkd iBjJhtibje IfiiojHonded lliVftefn ; §$yep.]r ^a'ssingfthrough [matJgrosife swathp y?et c^na^^P)|igher ^uaufEKhnand stfcsrM&mnly-jf^ttMo^ ig©ks§^s^fep sniyegrfcic&m^tcfogked, £S&a%i®I a^Mdii^fe^ 's9®iia. -s^gajtioaB -aadd®Jfi ohmousMf&a ■4@FES'the r fes ! gfe jasi w©-r hpprbachedi rthgmj and Ml^igfetsW^hq^ irafftp@4yabtia€ fiiyeob^©lc^r9itipdjthe i fe$s f {5?fe ^}# fbe^trtberisjaes, bipa^bm-, JBOts&^^efiSn 'Wil# ■*§$$, 4mn\asQ& of'&kSffi? J storids;tthl& byothe-i. negroes! idf : fe4rfbrefi.d4y / e§qapes rtKey haririrostthe of thejunglfet kW&h&dlbm ijight 22 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF A-NO. 1, to keep the fires burning briskly as a protection against attack. After nine days of hard work we reached a clearing, our destination, and soon every- body was busy building huts of palm leaves, using thin vines to fasten them. My room was in Cap- tain Jones’ shanty, and as I boarded with him, fared well, as a part of everything anybody killed while hunting was always brought to the captain. Thus I became acquainted with roasted baboons, fried par- rots, turtle and armadillo stews, tapir steak, iguana (an enormous and ugly tree lizard) , monkey soup, etc. They even fried and ate snakes, but I drew the line there. In the fall the mahogany hunter climbs the highest tree he can find, and looking about easily discovers the mahogany as it is the only tropical tree that changes the color of its leaves, and casts them each fall to grow new ones in the spring. With the aid of a compass and machete he makes his way to it. A peculiarity of the mahogany is, that always a single tree only will be found, and another may not be discovered for miles. The tree hunter' continues blazing from tree to tree, until he has found a. suf- ficient number to keep the gang busy during the season. The regular task for each laborer is to clear a path two hundred feet long and one hundred feet wide each day, with the exception of Sunday, so that after the mahogany is cut and squared, oxen can pull the logs to the river to be floated during the rainy sea- son to Belize, from where they areexportedto all parts of the world. These laborers are very skillful with the machete, and only the largest trees are cut with axes, then sawed up and rolled out of the way. AMERICA’S MOST CELEBRATED TRAMP. 23 My duties consisted of keeping the accounts of the laborers. A sick day counted one dollar against the laborer’s wages, machetes, if broken, two dollar (they cost twenty-five cents each) ; axes, two dollars and a half (they cost seventy-five cents). If any- thing was bought of the commissary department they had to pay enormous prices — common brown sugar, twenty-five cents a pound ; calico, thirty-five cents a yard ; molasses, a dollar a gallon ; coffee sell- ing at Belize for ten cents a package was sold here for fifty cents. In fact everything at that rate, even matches, coal oil, etc. Here I received a letter from home, telling me how anxious my parents had hunted for me and given me up for dead, and how glad they were to hear from me again. I sent a reply, and told them what I was doing, and asked them to send money to pay my way home. But I had the time of my life — fishing, hunting, eating new kinds of fruit, guavas, breadfruit, etc. I saw butterflies of gorgeous colors ; birds more strange and beautiful than I ever im- agined could exist, some of them with bills larger than their entire bodies. Captain Jones was very kind to me, in fact I could not have been treated better by anyone. The laborers were good to me, too, and I soon made myself popular by giving them over- weight, and when they purchased goods from the store, charged them less on their accounts. They in turn presented me with many pretty souvenirs. But everything, good and bad, has an end, and on awakening one morning I found that I could not open my eyelids nor move a single finger. I was deathly sick and turning black from the effects of that most dangerous of tropical diseases — the Black a% ij fi^al' 4 here |^efr ‘Own ;te, ^ttfeahrtO lU« g,f%gl* 3 ^ 4 ± (I might mention here that the?irftu4hS fas %e!P : a^ J thO aScili^l 9 ^ >wfth''thi hos- feft'hl^Wer^WioiteS;" ah® ^thfey^^Ogfbdnfeifyf funny lii %^&^hli^^Mtg 0 ^atefenl^?h'^q|ii^trh'gSf® do ret h^iv^’fe^ifESr- 'f teiS 'h^'hatenf^^ithi (an -enclosed dtaft^ftfP way 'td-the J StlSs^i < M^: 9rf ^ri I ctoS .amoif yjv/s yra \&q ' ZK ' u W4o^W $Tdrk dM^^te^yOnowdevO^'find 5 the i§ seafwort Ol'^ijiMt^nM^ ^h^fiS^i^acih^feOast; ;A shSal. o£dri pt)£^ 7 a <¥fl^But^fe^rc81y feifOht^-fiye dOOt Ibhg, roiittd- $8itvtR, %hhVadSi v 6hly T 8il§^Jfi!3 a • hMf ihches ; thieft W i®,^fe&.§s8 'Kea^ify dhSt"ioifly{SbOilt rj eight --ifieh'es 1®'V^ q ab?^ o ihJ ) ^^, w #aXMtie r t0*'saii' f t8 £S^Bg^ and'^fBM yfflxeite d‘ h6uld £ i^<^^0haffipfefiho^o^^la‘fl ; dt Finn ,bna rte 3B.n .had bna Jboog .grurthfisvs' JnSl ton blnoo I tedt bxmol I grrimom sno gninadawe no saw I .lagrtrt elgnia b evocn -ron abitaya vm naqo lo atoaJb arft moil Jfoakf gnimi/J Lab dais yhiteab ioalS axij — aaasaatb laoiqoit lo anoiagrusb taom tarft 'S fJVfOBTrXlEEBBRAIIEB TRAMP. 025 93 «bos>cT .boisbrmol Inod 9x11 lx am tB9 ylotna binow oini am Jterralrighl ar/ril bnB .tteiblirio bartebxq varlJ nnola aril arioid ya^gA .atiofb nipimhaqrfa teomlB abinwoT .rigid g tmapter i;^ri*iii Jrrd .babiadrra laJiB airrori lUoi-Yinswi bnB , or tea xrriBO b gninava oJ itel adi YlIb'teoBoq anoxia aaoiO rnariiixoB oxlT .bnaxlB air avhb e % i /f^? 3 ($^A&E& "mt ! 00 tfact £; / rinS } dMrritiged : vBtl? the* biviffdr* - 'a’fid Briik^ rx ti^§ril^^aSsefi^er £fef J Ri&r$n PtiMd^rdd, %m%r miles south. ,BlBmaiBu0 lo o rit v&beM terivTO ’ctecJc^OThile ol Jwasr asleep, .the sky abeofoa^ welcasli.tdiid the^aptedn ’awoke mertoibifelp cfeimireef dkeasaili oWe.had terdlyafiaished jwheh Idle ' Windsishegafa italMdwriayhubrieimeYia'rid theixW|der d^fimleditq.Jb©^. ljkeiriicaldrena /Fhegwadeb indoeaaed mshcb bqeatari Hl^x'mQuhtains';sl%htniiii'g affldvthupufer ^esslpifess^edba Plain qjfcuBedtdlft^ rapi;ay dfcdwdrxfejttt .temiisttfei) cocldBshelksiiSK&hm ciMalkatln tpaUblrrthxiew thet wateEi QyBrboaird?,!:; thris ihe^piqgitHe jfikptatoatoj^edpiifj affeartted Ijetfoegatarto .pffia ! y ) f®330«ut ffliMj'/rqpeat p<feflsiqs^xmqldm^f alksorts , fcfe®E®mises tbiieadrp;bqtter life iihewas §aved.rioMe .tTiedj 1pGpM§hrSQm©:>qkithe , cargo (iMeibogxrd^i buifbthe xfeftTE^§ wfeire/ftote hefivylVtoi handle, Iri^Bfaeih 1 1 atsHd xbixbaiSin^ jfcfe cQptdkt tdld -.nie - ihershanks, dmpweife waiting in the deep water beneath us.aad^sajidlfcpey 26 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF A-NO. 1, would surely eat me if the boat foundered, because they preferred children, and thus frightened me into almost superhuman efforts. As day broke the storm subsided, but the sea was yet rolling high. Towards evening a calm set in, and twenty-four hours after the storm started there was not enough wind left to drive us ahead. The Southern Cross shone peacefully overhead, and the water of the Gulf seemed like molten gold. Dark as the night was, I could see fish enveloped in a golden hue swimming in the depths of the Gulf. The captain explained to me that the white folks said minute animals caused that color- ing, but his old mammy told him it was the dissolving gold from trading ships that were lost centuries before on the old “ Spanish Main”. Four days after leaving Belize we landed at Livingston, the Atlantic seaport of Guatemala. As we stepped on shore, we were met by the “ Commandante ’ ’ of the port. He had four gorgeous ly dressed officers with him, two generals and two captains. They, speaking in broken English, told me that Livingston was a military post, and that they were the officers in charge. Later, when visiting their barracks, instead of finding a regiment, I discovered that their entire force consisted of only six soldiers, each an ex-convict, “pardoned” to join the army. Their uniforms were made up of sandals with strings between the big toes to hold them, a pair of dark blue pants, a helmet and a white cotton shirt. Each man, however, was equipped like an arsenal, with a long sword, a gun, a bayonet and a big pistol. Here I bought some books to study the Spanish language, and as I spoke French fluently, I made rapid progress. AMERICA'S MOST CELEBRATED TRAMP. 27 While looking about one day, I made the ac- quaintance of a Mr. Rich, a wine merchant. This gentleman may have sold good wines, but his method of manufacturing and selling whiskey was a caution. He imported German potato alcohol worth about ten cents a gallon, then diluted it by adding two parts of water and a little burnt sugar to give it color. This mixture was labeled and sold for two pesos, per quart bottle. Providing his business has kept up, his bank account ought to equal that of John D. Rockefeller by this time. One morning just after daybreak I started afoot on the road to Guatemala City, two hundred and twenty miles away with nothing but a mule path and a telegraph wire to guide me. The country is very mountainous and pack trains only are used for transportation. I had covered about fifteen miles when the discovery of a mountain lion trailing be- hind greatly alarmed me. He followed me for quite a distance, but aside from scaring me nearly out of my senses did not harm me. It was ten miles to the nearest hacienda (cattle ranch) and I traveled the greater part of this distance with my face turned over my shoulder, with eyes riveted on the path behind, instead of in front of me. Everybody was kind to me at the hacienda, and after I had related my adventure, the ranch owner told a boy to take me on horseback to the next hacienda. In this manner, and by receiving Spanish recommendations, I had only very few miles to walk. After passing early one morning over a low ridge, I found myself looking down on one of the grandest panoramas this earth could furnish. I shall try to picture the sight that met my eyes. -OB oft W&8fjfis!t ^feteroai!© $(»td ddlenfl dW front ^Sfi'yne .m^bti^onfedestyriisi)^ .Wo blaek/vofeaboep, fMflMth aftgswd ^0<4i7MQw^tb®si©i?goS ye^iBmetetasgt Jte&isa5il^fifti^5S: OSl'^^jBigbffe [§t^(fe^vwitbrt^fekii51g ^^saBxirteetgMa|i^^Mt-4fe5 sunWJtft^tf AiteTnjoum^j- ^p^gfewrifriihjftbeo^f fewfer eM ,the reflection of the sun’s eiBpl^iilolditisia«0e sms W&fea and M%oJt JSflflW &®§r .^kjySJiSWS^ro 1 ^.# 33 hftv<^ n ^. f§WMrjfea^rvfas aW%(P3#SI?^?539# #feh^?^g%a§ -read ^tetnfetifeo^^dat £^9§o bM*¥ n oiiupl expected-’toEflAdH mosfrihbaMtifel cai^A^t wafe toety cmfletedisapppintei, feribufiside pi(iiie'$«lacfe of ddi©oRrasids»tws$ ^ate^oal^iitHecl-Qath^ralaand dhe ffibera-r H&tfeet^t^datfeBlP»^dsfcndrs«p4r3d®dviiy ike Igowemojeh^ixlrlimldnitj Jbdh&h$ttag twosJ^ «df- rfnirjngd j B®rfcjj©aahed my ^t'ekeQfcianddound-fthat the very same qt®raMihfio , staai fliaMsiEwfl , iQffihfckfe ^ifeiG^i^o^ta^jprfe^Q^tirfc^^ll^Sbfe^/ljaving dtppsargd- .omjnovbB yen holster barf I rotia bns txon Jtij-tafcris saT oJkd&b n^ihM©amer,^ixidays-ifimti (GMtppe^ieo'iQr ^aBi Jose ,de rlSu&temflla- Ito rehohrSah .©jandsco.hand' dfr^ifer^ feoQBaiyf tv&ifljy r dotesaooofc l9^)ime?foluE lefjg> jp>to^ib©fore/feeye^ihea^eid.tlhe dGitpjO^ Mdxi^o. onB'hadrffcocifti^jfcltojf Srs^mvfcdaott (tjwefeeffei^dfredfih^ mules and extmvho^stiixE'tei. jcodntry d js oiike i <£ Am£RIOA j & MOST! GBO:HR«TEDi9k'C&skefco£tnd;Bsandala. I I triedotoobuj?: ahl i^aj^e^iobt!^;^6d^ owiddlffl^&nicte imthe gfejre^'»n& asi IbdidpffcoflajrantQ shgwim^sgftfri viifcli f la^oMiesacEn hoilukfifeibdBbre. arihitfe ipeeple^'vl bite oHS4erbri^htr4(|ea3S:Miegdihd{hia,-3cityt' giiSetnry to M^cOvCitypah&2b,yoeagyiQgiithei(lGfei3imti'/> faiPwM a to TT ” -! ' J *feto$ 9 §d$u$&m> $ sl »% mw; BfitpAdferw WP$ff?fc:G I sortahpcTxa shit js&ss-pvGiLwai tod 4 t^qPWd^l\ JM> rt8»»jg or 1 Yifrtx taw W4:4 ( %.?P#telff&P^ e ^i a uu«u x wuu «m $h$m %Mm. mfim f ?£? tef5^*§6fe$ M^BiWiCMfi-bsri ii zb .Itfit srfd' ctf orn bmadsir bits ,9§bfid ovhtoajob a orfJ as .sm isarr.e oi raid iol vsnora down os btrj; asw t.s! £ ot asm oo tinodvr poxiaiortib o a sbsmsiaxid wsl § nr/m A .adlol qu-awotg bits nsiblrrb rmwcted ,33l sidT Abo ydjfd bos shsb s ni era bodaol 9x1 pieidj- oj It A I Lae .s^JJj^ip^fSO^lJ^qxa 3 aid yen axxw bamssa megs aonabivm'I inS .gmddos bits gni^io b .rtBmoiWjjg Pj&tafalgls&is with 1 & Butglard^ooto-i' ; or ,Y$lo aat m siote j-aqiBo 3§7sl 5 grrirrwo ,giwIl3H ,lM T:M TOUteaTOw I oi knt as^a e^m§nmis WMm&& 8 $$ 9 £ a-a^QSMant |{b#^«8PP9^», ke V3$M ffifcnaPfs W/jasS^fflfoiw l&yft ilc^Pni cg§&ftM ppi|rt&t bfe^^b¥|Sf °£: advent^ Mi&tfP&SI fflPbfeSvr AMERICA’S MOST CELEBRATED TRAMP. 33 tunes and tramp with him to Florida — the more he told me that there were plenty of “lemonade springs” “rock-candy-mountains” and “cigarette groves” there. That afternoon- we walked twenty miles towards the south, just that many miles away from my own parents and home. We had only covered a small part of the distance, when I unburdened my heart to my new-found friend, telling him the story of my past experience. He listened very attentively, then he began unfolding the story of his own life. First of all, he told me, never to call him any- thing but “Frenchy, ” as he was of that nationality, although bom in New Orleans. His age was twenty- seven years and two days previous to our meeting he had been discharged from the State penitentiary at San Quentin, California, after “doing” a five years’ term for the crime of holding up a stage, or, to be more exact, for highway robbery. He spun the tale so earnestly and so quietly that I never dreamed him to be anything but a genuine hero (according to my ideas of a hero at that time). It was twenty miles before we , reached a tank where all trains would stop for water. Arriving there we found around a camp-fire a short distance away, six big fellows, each resting on a big roll of blankets. They seemed to be very neat in general appearances, and were apparently laborers out of employment. When they spied Frenchy, one of them came up and asked him for a match. “Chase yourself, you Gay Cat! Go and work for your matches,” was the reply he received, and a look showing how disgusted Frenchy was even to talk to the man. 34 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF A-NO. 1, Frenchy took me on the other side of the tank and said : “ Kid, I don’t want you to mix with these 4 Gay Cats.’ ” I inquired what he meant by “Gay Cats”, and he commenced to laugh. “You have been travel- ing the ‘pike’ for a solid year, and don’t know what a ‘Gay Cat’ is? Get out, Kid, you are joshing.” I told him I did not know, and then he ex- plained to me: “A Gay Cat,” said he, “is a loafing laborer, who works mayb,e a week, gets his wages and vagabonds about, hunting for another ‘ pick and shovel’ job. Do you want to know where they got their monica (nickname) ‘Gay Cat’? See, Kid, cats sneak about and scratch immediately after chumming with you and then get gay (fresh). That’s why we call them ‘Gay Cats’.” With this he pulled a revolver, and walking over to the “outfit, ” kicked their can of coffee over into the fire, and ordered them to pick up their rolls and hike (walk). They made no resistance, but just slung their bundles over their backs, marched down the track, Indian file, without even turning to look back. “You see,” said Frenchy, “they are cowards. They can bawl a fellow out when they are working, but are worse than dogs when you meet them on a sidetrack or tank.” After this I could have done anything for my partner, for hadn’t he made six big, husky fellows walk at his command? With their disappearance Frenchy ’s good temper came back again, and he was soon telling me just how Gay Cats would turn a poor fellow “up” just to see him hang, and with an oath AMERICA’S MOST CELEBRATED TRAMP. 35 told me not to let him catch me talking to any one of them, if I wanted to avoid trouble. Just then a train whistled in the distance, and crouching behind some bushes we waited until the brakemen were busy looking into box cars for hoboes and hunting hot axle boxes. Now we made a dash and quickly swinging ourselves into an open box car door we closed it quickly and crouched into the farth- est comer. We were not discovered, and rode forty miles to Modesto, a small town, that toFrenchy, look- ing through a crack, seemed to appear a good place to stop. We climbed out, and as we intended to travel on a passenger train that night, we walked up the track, and finding a shady place underneath some trees, we were soon sound asleep. As a train was not glue till 11 p. m., we slept till about 5 p. m., then Frenchy, who had a few dollars left from the sum they give at San Quentin to dis- charged prisoners to reach their homes with, sent me up town to buy provisions. On my return he had a camp-fire burning, and had collected some empty tin cans, and we cooked ourselves a generous supper. At eight P. M. he told me to stay quietly at the camp while he went up town to prowl (look for some- thing to steal). When he returned at 10 o’clock, I hardly recognized him. He had broken into a sheep herder’s corral, and while the herders snored in slumber, had exchanged his clothes for theirs in the same room where they slept. He also helped him- self to eighty dollars of their money and four watches, then hurried away to rejoin me. After relating his experience and telling me of his lucky haul, Frenchy directed me to lay quiet until we should hear the passenger train in the dis- 36 Life and Adventures of A-No. 1, tance. When the far away whistle reached our ears we walked quickly towards the depot, and arrived there just as the train came to a stop. I had rid- den the front end of baggage cars many times, but when Frenchy took me back to the Pullman, and told me to sit underneath on the v narrow wooden brakebeam, I nearly fainted. Frenchy had no time to lose talking about it, however, but just grabbed me and made me sit down on the beam. To encourage me, he sat on the sameoneand warned me to hold on. A moment later the train started. First the wheels turned slowly, then faster and faster, and after awhile the whirling noise became deafening. People riding in coaches on rock ballasted roads cannot imagine how it feels to be rushing through space fifty miles an hour over a loose sand ballasted track seated upon a brakebeam.'- Soon my eyes were filled with dust so that I could not open them. My ears were becoming deaf from the grinding and whir- ling noise. My mouth and throat were as dry as a parchment. And there I held on, while Frenchy kept his arm around me to keep me from falling off. The train went faster and faster over a perfectly level road, but light rails and as the night was very dark, I felt as though I was shut up in a barrel full of sand and rocks, which someone was rolling down an endless stairway, so terrible was the jolting and jumping at every joint of the rails. The train’s next stop, ten miles away, was soon reached, and as it slowed up and I had a chance to open my eyes, I took courage again. When Frenchy praised me for my display of nerve to ride that way and told me he never saw a kid of my age and size display so much courage the first time “under- AMERICA’S MOST CELEBRATED TRAMP. 37 Death,” I forgot all my terror and almost laughed, thinking what a coward I had been. I told Frenchy how my mouth and throat were parched, and he handed me a small piece of plug tobacco, telling me to chew it, when the dust should choke me again. He then climbed on a brake beam of the rear truck, and left me alone on the front one, thus giving me more room to hang on. Soon we were flying again and the dust be- came thicker and thicker. I put the tobacco in my mouth, but just then there was en extra hard jolt, caused by a real bad joint in the rails, and before I had time to think, I swallowed that piece of tobacco. It was the first chew of the weed I had ever taken in my life. Soon I was deathly sick, and I nearly lost my grip on the truck, which was all that lay between me and death. Further explanation of the situation is unnecessary. I can truthfully add, that never since that night and ride have I touched tobacco in any shape or form. At the next stop I slid out from beneath the car and ran back to tell Frenchy how ill I felt. He crawled out too, and after shaking the dust from our clothes we went to a hotel and paid for a lodging. The landlord showed us to the room and after we entered Frenchy bolted the door. Then the strangest, but for my own future most vital occurence happened. Picking me up and seat- ing me upon his knee, Frenchy asked me in a kind voice : “ Say, Kid, when did you say your evening prayer the last time?” Shamefaced I confessed that I had forgotten to thank Providence for protecting me soon after leaving home. Now Frenchy, the highway robber, burglar and ex-convict had me kneel 38 Life and Adventures of A-No. 1, down and repeat the following words : “I solemnly promise never to associate with anyone in whose company I would be ashamed to pass my mother’s home in broad daylight.” Amen. After this strange prayer he put me to bed, and I was soon sound asleep. Every night after this' first one, no matter if we were sleeping in hotels, bams, box cars or camping out by a fire in the woods, I had to kneel and repeat this odd supplication, and after we parted company, even to this day, I repeat it every evening and am convinced that these few, strange lines have pre- vented my joining that army of tramps whose in- evitable destination is the “Abyss”. AMERICA’S MOST CELEBRATED TRAMP. 39 Chapter VII. “Tramping Overland to Florida.” EXT morning Frenchy bought enough provi- sions to last us during the day, and we camped in the woods by a cool spring, just like hunters would, n washing our clothes and taking things easy. That afternoon we saw the same company of Gay Cats that Frenchy had chased away sin- gle-handed at the tank, passing [our hiding place on a freight train . We could see them in the distance leave the train and walk up town. That evening Washing Our Clothes in a Cool Spring. when Frenchy Went down town he discovered the Gay Cats in a saloon, seated around a table drinking beer. He walked into the place, and being differently dressed they did not recognize him. When they were not watch- 40 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF A-NO. 1, ing, just for a joke, he appropriated their blanket rolls, and came to our meeting place loaded down like a wagon with the six Gay Cats’ “ feather beds We did not take trouble to untie any of them, but just cut the cords. One contained a Bible, some had underwear and overalls, but all had good warm blankets, and we piled them up and crawling between were soon sound asleep, not even waking to make the passenger train we arrived on the night before, and that it had been our intention to ride the beams underneath again. In the early morning we set fire to our bed and soon there was nothing left. We walked down to the depot to buy some more pro- visions, and there we met the six big, husky Gay Cats, sneaking around the depot, goggling everybody and looking underneath the platform and other hid- ing places trying to discover their blanket rolls. The way they sized up Frenchy was a cau- tion. No sooner did they recognize him than all Started across the street where a policeman stood. We did not wait for him to interview us, but walked down the track as fast as possible, for Frenchy’s favorite proverb was: “Better be sure than sorry.” After this lesson in riding brakebeams under Pullmans I soon became an expert, and as Frenchy, for good reasons and remembrances didn’t like Cali- fornia, we quickly crossed the Colorado River into Arizona at Yuma. At Yuma is an Apache Indian Reservation, and the government’s laws against selling liquor to its Red wards are strictly enforced. The informer re- ceives one-half the fine, and Frenchy came near breaking into another penitentiary. It happened thus : A big Apache approached while we were loaf- America’s Most celebrated Tramp. 41 ing about the depot, and calling us to one side said to Frenchy : “ White man want to make some money?” He replied in the affirmative. “Well, here is two bits (25 cents) , go get Indian some liquor, bring him back, me give two bits more, then you give me liquor.” Frenchy, without a second thought went into a saloon and bought the liquor. Returning where I was waiting with the thirsty Red-skin, he pulled the cork out of the bottle, so he could take first a good drink himself, when a man stepped up to him and whispered in his ear: “Say, stranger, don’t let that greasy Indian beg you for a drink, as he is a government spy and arrests strangers who give him booze. Why, he got fifty dollars only last week for sending a poor hobo to the penitentiary for two years.” Frenchy just let the bottle drop, and it smashed into a thousand pieces. Then that Indian com- menced to cuss and wanted Frenchy to buy him some more booze for the other twenty-five cents, but Frenchy told him he wanted to make a dollar, and that if he gave him a dollar to buy more liquor he would do so, but the Apache had nothing smaller than a ten dollar bill in his bead purse. That, he finally handed to Frenchy and then waited patiently in front of the saloon for our return with the booze. Frenchy and myself made our exit through the rear entrance of the saloon, and we skipped across the bridge spanning the Colorado River back into Cal- ifornia, and laid low until after dark, when we caught a train and left Yuma and a poorer but perhaps wiser Redskin behind us. We traveled across the deserts to San Antonio and Frenchy’s propensity to appropriate property 42 Life and Adventures of A-No. 1, belonging to other people kept us well supplied. That even thieves have comical experiences may be new, but here is one I remember well, for I never saw Frenchy more disgusted on our whole trip. At Rosenbufg Junction, a few miles west of Houston, Texas, Frenchy grabbed a large steel- hooped trunk from a railroad truck. He carried it to our meeting place, and then being afraid we would be surprised, we both carried the two hundred pound affair for a solid three miles on a stony rail- road track in a dark and rainy night to a small wooden trestle. On the way we tried to guess its contents. I thought we had found a gold mine, but Frenchy said he would be satisfied if it contained old silver plate and the like. At the trestle he tried to ' open the treasure box with his jimmy (chisel), but in vain, as the trunk was all covered up with steel bands, and a padlock as large as a good sized mail box. Not until we had wasted nearly two hours in trying to pry it open did he manage to loosen the bottom of the trunk sufficiently to get at the con- tents. It contained garden and grain seed, probably the property of some Dutch immigrant who had brought them from the old country. This suprise 'and disappointment was what made Frenchy so disgusted. We passed on to New Orleans where we stopped for a few days. After leaving there we had hard luck and began walking again, hoping to turn up a job by which Frenchy could make a few dollars, but luck was against us, and we were soon dead broke. Frenchy was a nervy thief, but in begging food he was a failure. Up to this time he had paid all our expenses, but now was my turn to do the right America’s Most Celebrated tramp. 42 thing by him according to the unwritten “Rules of the Road.” I had to. go to houses and ask for food and bring it to him. As I was small, and had had a year's experience in bumming it was fun, the more so because the people treated me well and gave plenty. After leaving Mobile, Alabama, we found the country more and more sparsely settled, and when we neared the Florida State Line, houses often were miles apart. At times I found it hard even to bum enough for myself, let alone supply my partner. Then I hit on a clever plan. Whenever a kind lady gave me a pie, a piece of roast, some cold, hard bis- cuit or tough old corn bread, I would appropriate ■ the pie, roast and maybe a biscuit and bring him the rest. Poor Frenchy! How often he said to me: “ The last kid I had always brought me pie, roast and cake, while you never bum anything better than com bread and old, hard biscuits.” He tried to make me feel as if I ought to bring him something better. I was getting fat while Frenchy surely lost in weight by this operation, called in the tramp- argot: “Robbing the Mail.” We arrived at Pensacola two days before Christ- mas, and being broke went to a sailor “boss” (sailor employment agent). This man hired sailors, board- ed and clothed them and kept them in small sums of money, which was taken out of their wages later with big interest. We didn’t have any idea of going to sea, but we surely felt in need of a good rest, and after all the biscuits and fat pork, a good “square” Christmas dinner. I received a nice new sailor uni- form and the promise of a job as cabin boy. Frenchy was given a nice outfit, and the promise of a eook’s 44 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF A-NO. 1, job, as he had learned cooking in the California State Penitentiary. Christmas morning Boss Davis (that was the agent’s name ) invited all to have some egg-nog, and soon the other fellows were dead drunk. Only about four of the whole housefull of sailor boarders were fit to eat their Christmas dinner, cooked for at least twenty, and I can truthfully say that this was the first and last Christmas dinner where I had more roasted turkey legs than I could master. Next day the boss came to Frenchy and told him he had a job for him, to serve as a cook on a sailing vessel bound to South American ports. Frenchy was obliged to accept the offer, but as the ship was not to sail until after New Year’s there were plenty of chances for him to come back to the shore and join me at some other place. Chapter VIII. Why I Was Called “A-No. 1.” B EFORE leaving, Frenchy came to me and gave me his final instructions. “ Listen, Kid,” said he, “ Every tramp gives his kid a nickname, a name that will distinguish him from all other mem- bers of the craft. You have been a good lad while you have been with me, in fact been always ‘ A-No. 1 ’ in everything you had to do, and, Kid, take my advice, if you have to be anything in life, even if a tramp, try to be ‘A-No. 1’ all the time M I want you to be ‘A-No. 15 in whatever you do and wherever you are.” 46 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF A-NO. 1, and in everything you undertake.” Here he paused a moment as if thinking, then he con- tinued: “By the way, Kid, I believe I have a good and proper nickname for you, one never borne by any other tramp, I am going to call you ‘ A-No. 1 and I want you to live up to its meaning in what- ever you do and wherever you are.” Then he gave me his final instructions: “Leave Pensacola to- night and catch a ride as far as the next water tank then start walking. Walk about a mile a day and on each mile post mark ‘A-No. 1.’ Mark also under your monica the date, and below it an arrow pointing in the direction you were travelling, so I can find you quickly when I make my “get-away.” Further he made me promise to repeat the prayer he taught me every night and that I would not travel with another partner for a whole year under pain of death should he meet me. He did not need to scare me for I knew how desperate he was. That evening I took French leave from “ Boss ” Davis, from Pensacola and from my partner “Frenchy”, whom I have never met in all my travels since. I rode to the next tank and then on every mile post I put the mark he told me — “A-No. 1”, and kept putting that mark everywhere since that date, thus winning my world-famous alias — “A-No. 1.” Arriving one morning at Funiak Springs, a place in Western Florida, I picked up a small piece of paper that had this printed on it : “ One thousand dollars reward — Wanted by the U. S. authorities at Pensacola, Florida — Cook named Murphy, 5 feet 6 inches, blue eyes, Irish descent, speaks English with foreign accent, for robbery. Crime committed in Pensacola harbor, on board full-rigged sailing AMERICA'S MOST CELEBRATED TRAMP. 47 ship “Anna Lee,” of New York, by dosing crew and captain on New Year’s eve, 1885, with knock-out drops, and robbing the captain’s safe of 3,000 pesos, Mexican currency. Any information wire promptly to United States Marshall, Pensacola, Florida.” Slowly I followed the railroad toward the east. I hoped to hear from Frenchy, and of his whereabouts but none of the newspapers contained any reference to his capture, nor did I see his sign anywhere along the road. Reaching Jacksonville, Fla., I found a letter from home waiting for me ; father told me mother’s heart was breaking and that she wanted me to come home. He begged me to give up the roving life and warned me that the end would be a pitiful one. It was very cold, and not wanting to write for money to return home by rail, I promised to come back in the summer. After loafing about Jacksonville and Savannah for a couple of weeks, I went to Atlanta, Ga., and by selling newspapers paid my expenses. While thus making a living and a little above, one day I struck up an acquaintance with a young man named Fred Philpot — who at present owns one of the largest grocery stores in Georgia. Fred wanted to join me on my trip home, as he thought he could . pick up gold in California. I had only a few dollars and when he told me that if I would first go to Savannah with him, he could maybe raise fifty or one hundred dollars from his uncle, who was then the mayor of that beautiful city, and as the prospects for us to pick up a little easy money seemed bright, we tramped to Savannah. Arriving there we separ- ated, as Fred thought he could work his uncle better 48 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF A-NO. 1, single-handed. He returned after a short absence* not with cold cash or crisp currency, but with his face wreathed in smiles, and told me that his uncle had been overjoyed at the unexpected appearance of his nephew, and that he just ached to meet his nephew’s partner, and had sent Fred to fetch me to his presence. I had not a tiny inkling that any- thing should be wrong and followed him to the City Hall. His uncle, Mr. McDonough, was the Mayor of the city sure enough, and also judge of Municipal Court; and no sooner had I entered the building, than a large policeman grabbed me and took me up to the court room. His Honor, the Mayor, Judge and Fred’s uncle all combined, was waiting especially for me, for I could see blood in his eyes. After answering several questions he asked me how much money I had. I answered: “Seven dollars and twenty cents.” “Now then” he continued, “young man, I cannot put a charge of vagrancy against you, but my nephew here says you induced him to leave a good home in Atlanta to hobo down here, and it is the sentence of this court that you pay his way back, or work thirty days breaking stone, convicted on the charge of being a dangerous and suspicious per- son in the city limits of Savannah.” I paid six dollars and eighty cents for my part- ner’s ticket home. Instead of us getting fifty or one hundred dollars, I nearly received thirty days, for that fool fellow told his uncle that I enticed him from home. I was thirteen years old then, he was over eighteen, and nearly a foot taller than myself. I was afraid to go back by the way of Atlanta, as I. AMERICA’S MOST celebrated tramp. 49 did not know what other reception I would receive from Fred’s people. So after I had paid his passage home seated in a comfortable passenger coach, I walked out of Savannah as quickly as I could and headed for Charleston, S. C. Chapter IX. “ Tramping in Europe.” O NE day soon after my arrival in Charleston, while lounging about the wharves, the steward of a German steamer accosted me and offered me a job as waiter on his vessel. I told him that I thought I would be too small for the job and further that I never waited on tables in all my life. “ Ach, mine Gott,” the steward assured me, “ it is such a nice pleasant job ; I’ll see that you don’t have to wait at all, but I want you to give me half of your pay when you get it in Hamburg where we are going.” I thought “Dutchy” as I will call him, was looking for graft and accepted. He took me to the captain and told him that I was the new waiter. Says Dutchy, “Ya, ya, Captain, he says he is one fine waiter, and I gives him a job.” The captain promis- ed me fifteen dollars for the trip across and a pass back to the States. In a couple of days the steamer finished loading her cargo, consisting of phosphate rock and we 50 Life and Adventures of A-No. 1, steamed out of the harbor. Her tonnage was about 2500, and her speed not over eight knots an hour. No sooner were we out on the rough Atlantic Ocean, Dutchy ordered me to serve coffee to the officers upon the bridge. I had never served anything in the line of glassware on solid soil, and with the old tub of a steamer making monkey motions in four different directions underneath my feet at one and the same time, suddenly I let go the tray of china- ware, silver and glass in four different curves, all smashing into ten thousand different pieces. “Mine Gott, mine Gott,” lamented Dutchy, so loudly that the captain heard him and came rushing back and cussed me terribly for my awkwardness. “Ach, mine Gott, Captain,” lamented Dutchy, “he told me he was a waiter of the first-class, and now he smashed everything.” The finish was that I had to make a clean confession that I never waited on any table in my life, and as a consequence they put me to work as a coal passer in the hot boiler room. I had not shoveled coal for more than ten minutes before I discovered by listening to the Ger- man conversation of the firemen, that the captain tried to hire a coal passer in Charleston, but none would work on the leaky old tramp steamer, and that Dutchy, the steward, really hired me, not to work as a waiter, but to pass coal. It took this tub of a steamer four and a half weeks to reach Hamburg, and the way I looked and the condition of my clothes can be imagined, after passing coal from the coal bins to the firemen four- teen hours a day in a dark and hot boiler room dur- ing the entire trip. Arriving in Hamburg, the captain had the cheek to hand me a ten mark bill America’s Most celebrated tramp. 51 (two dollars and fifty cents) with the remark: “ Mine boy, you had better make yourself thin, or I will have you arrested as a stowaway, and you may be sentenced to jail for a couple of years.” I never expected to receive even the ten marks, and as I had small desire to get the rest of that pay I made myself “thin.” I met Dutchy that same afternoon and he was rather drunk. I was a small boy and he a very large man, so revenge, less than murder, was impossible, and so I made friends with him. “Ach, mine Gott,” he confessed, “that cap- tain was a big pig, he promised me five dollars if I gets him a coal passer, and now he only gives me two dollars and fifty cents, as he says you was too small.” (And he laughed about his cuteness and my mis- fortune until the tears trickled down his face. I jnever forgot this lesson, and made good use of my new hard earned knowledge later on. I hunted for a rooming house, and after finding one to suit, handed the landlord twelve and one- half cents (fifty pfennig in German money), the price he asked for a week’s lodging ; for a nice clean room, as well as everything else is cheap in Europe. He took my money and asked me to show him my papers, I stared at him in amazement, and he then explained that he would be fined ten cents every day he kept a person who was not registered at police headquarters. As I did not have any papers to show him, he promptly called a policeman, and at head- quarters they wanted me to explain how I happened to land in Hamburg, and all in rags at that. My knowledge of the German language taught me at lome while a little kid, came handy, and I could do this in their own tongue. UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY 52 Life and adventures of A-No. l, After pumping and finding out all they could from me they handed me a cardboard about six by six inches, all stamped upon and spaced off, and having my description on it, my whole past and present (according to the story I told them) out- lined in detail. With this card in my possession I returned to my landlord, and after glancing over my printed pedigree he seemed kindness personified. At his place I made the acquaintance of some German tramps, who told me thrilling stories about the beautiful interior. After I had spent my last penny I struck up a partnership with one of them, and we started to walk to Berlin, first having our papers stamped. My partner had a “wander” card as it was called, just like mine, only his was all stamped up so that it could hardly be deciphered. In Germany, a hobo, if caught, gets one year at hard labor for walking on the track, and I believe it is life for riding on trains. Hence the German tramps never ride. They all walk the pikes, which are nicely kept and are centuries old, and we met hundreds daily. Everywhere we were received kindly, especially when my partner told them I was an American. I found that nearly all had relatives in the States, and such questions as these were usual- ly popped at me: “Do you know Henri in Minne- sota, and Jacob in New York, and John in Chicago, and one old lady wanted to know if I knew her nephew ‘Herman,’ in California”. Of course I I knew them all, and they were getting rich, so by saying this they all treated us nicely and we had plenty to eat, but very little money as all they give are coppers, and it takes four of these to make an America’s Most celebrated tramp. 53 honest American cent. We were stopped every few miles by mounted police, who would put their mark or stamp on our cards. These cards entitled us to stay twenty-four hours in one place but no longer, unless hunting a job, and further they gave us a night’s lodging in every municipal lodging house, and what was best, allowed us to beg without moles- tation, “as we were supposed to be out of work.” The German tramp is about the meanest piece of humanity I ever met. They have no friendship for one another, and are so low that they will keep part of their hand-outs and sell them to others, less fortunate, for a few coppers at the lodging places. A pipe full of tobacco, matches, cast-off rags, and even old cigar stumps have a money value. The maxim of the German tramp is to look as ragged as possible so as to show his hard luck from the outside, and thus to be pitied the more by the people. Ragged American Gay Cats look like dudes compared with the German brand. They walk from morning till night, and I don’t blame their government for keep- ing trace of them, as they might become lost. There is no honor or kindness among them — everybody for himself. After more than two weeks of tiresome walking we reached Berlin at last, but had hardly passed the city limits when we were picked up by a policeman and taken to headquarters. As we were unable to show that we had been employed anywhere recently, they gave us each forty-eight hours in jail as pun- ishment for too much loafing. They treated us well however. It was more like a home than a jail. We were given five meals a day, and after two days’ experience along these lines they turned us loose, 54 Life and Adventures of A-No. 1, not forgetting to add their record to our cards by the addition of a few more pretty seals. They also gave us twenty-four hours in which to hunt for work, after which time we would have to leave the city. As luck would have it, while passing through a park I overheard two gentlemen speaking English. They happened to be Yankees just arrived from the other side. I told them my experiences thus far in Europe, and they each handed me a five dollar bill, forty marks in German money, four thousand of those coppers all in a bunch. If ever Providence turned up a good thing for me it happened right there. I skipped my German partner, and went down to the railroad station, exchanged my money into German currency and bought a ticket (fourth-class) to Hamburg, one dollar and twenty-five cents for two hundred and thirty-five miles! It was cheap — a fourth-class passage needed to be. First-class had velvet; second-class, leather; third-class, wooden seats; but fourth-class had no seats at all, and no springs either, and the windows are barred to keep people from falling out or trying to escape from the rattling torture “wagons,” as passenger coaches are called in Germany, very appropriately. Cheap rate, but oh, how slow! Ten hours on a rough track Upon reaching Hamburg I applied for a room at my old place, but the landlord would not take me in again, as I had added a genuine jail stamp to my record. I loafed about Hamburg until the middle of June, getting plenty to eat and small sums of money from crews of English, French and American steamers and sailing ships, there being hundreds in port all the time. I saved every cent possible, so as to have America’s Most celebrated Tramp. 55 enough money to pay my way back to the States. I had nearly the necessary sum to start for New York as a steerage passenger, when one day a man who hired ship labor, inquired if I could wait on tables. I thought there was another chance to be buncoed, so for the fun of it I answered in the affirmative. Next day a steward of a cattle steamer bound for Boston called at my lodging house. He looked me over and told the other man he thought I was too small. He asked me to try and find him a waiter. The pay was five dollars for the trip across to Boston. I would have gone for nothing, even in the coal hole, if I could have thus landed back in the States, as the twenty-three dollars I had saved would fix me up nicely with new clothes on the arrival there. I took the steward to one side and told him what a fine waiter I was, and how I could juggle a tray full of dishes, and how I had been a waiter at one time on, , a German tramp steamer, etc., etc. He would not listen, but when I offered him one-half of my wages for the chance, he bit. Next morning he called again at my rooming house and made me sign a contract, only my pay was to be seven dollars and fifty cents for the trip, thus making his own one-half share worth more. I car- ried a canvas bag full of my belongings aboard, and that afternoon we left Hamburg and Europe, bound for Boston. I waited on the table that evening, and as long as we steamed down the Elbe for nearly a hundred miles to its mouth and had smooth river water underneath all went well, ’though I was a little awkward ; but as we passed into the North Sea, the stormiest part of the Atlantic, I became awfully seasick, and could not stand on my feet, let alone 56 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF A-NO. 1, juggle trays and had to go to bed. When I com- menced to get over the sickness, I remembered a receipt Frenchy used when he was in State’s Prison, and didn’t feel like working; I dissolved a little soap in a glass of water and swallowed it. It made me sick, and I soon began to look so much like a ghost that they put me into a good nice, clean cabin, and provided me the best of food to save me from dying. I must acknowledge I wasn’t feeling very fine, for soap and water isn’t intended for human diet. Still, sick as I was, I enjoyed the trip to Boston, an even twelve days. A waiting ambulance took me to a naval hospital, but before leaving the ship the purser paid me seven dollars and fifty cents. The steward seeing he could not filch a cent of the money, gave me a cheerless send-off, as he had to play waiter himself all the way across tfie Atlantic besides at- tending to all his other duties. I had the twenty- three dollars that I had sewed into the fining of my pants besides, and after remaining in the hospital a couple of days to get over the effects of the soap and water diet, I took French leave. I had surely squared my account with Dutchy, and the coal passer lesson, six months previous, turned to some good after all. I hit the Boston & Albany, bound for home, happier than a bird, and the way I jumped on and off the cars while in motion was a caution; one brakeman thought I was turning crazy, but it was only to get myself limbered up for the overland trip. In just two weeks after leaving Boston I landed in San Francisco. My parents were overjoyed to have me back safe and alive. As I had yet a few dollars left, and had lots of stories to relate they forgave me. America's Most Celebrated Tramp. 57 For two weeks I stayed at home and enjoyed my- self to the limit, then the ‘ 4 Wanderlust ’ ’ made me dis- satisfied and restless, and, to appease my craving to move on, I took a trip to Victoria, British Columbia. Chapter X. “A Honjeless Outcast.” P to this time I had good parents and a comfort- able home to be sent to should I have an acci- dent or other unforseen serious troubles, but through my own pranks I spoiled this last refuge. I drifted about in the Pacific-Northwest until one day I met a commercial traveler inPortland, Oregon, who ■was acquainted with my parents and upon his in- quiries, what I was doing so far away from San Francisco, I told him that I was “stranded” among strangers without a cent to my name. He insisted on my accepting twenty dollars from him to pay for my ticket home, besides this, he bought for me a lot of nice clothes, meals, etc. Instead of going home, in my boyish foolishness, I figured that where such “easy” money came from in such unexpected man- ner, there should be plenty more to be gathered. I recalled that father had a wealthy cousin living in Salem, Oregon, and I made the first train to that city, and reiterated to him my hard-luck tale with the result that he gave me twenty-five dollars. I met many other people and worked them all, first having been promised that they would not 58 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF A-NO. 1, reveal my plight to my parents and that I should 1 repay the loans without their ever knowing about my temporary difficulty. Money came thick and fast; everybody wanted to help me. I borrowed every chance I found, and my parents being prom- inent in society and wealthy, it was only natural that all tried to do the square thing. To my sorrow I found out later that every one of these persons wrote to my people, telling how they met me begging, starv- ing and dead broke, and what they each had done for me to send me home. When I returned to San Francisco in September, 1885, I found my parents at home, and my father called me into the library, and closing the door after I entered addressed me thus : “ Well, sir, you are a disgrace to the good name of our family — a family hitherto respected by all. I will give you just one hour to leave the city. If you have not taken your- self out of my sight by that time I will have you arrested and placed in a reform school, there to re- main until you are twenty-one years old. Do not attempt to enter this house again. There is the door. Now, get! ” Thus I was turned from my father’s door, my future ruined through wild and heartless pranks. They are still residents of San Francisco, respected and wealthy; I, their only son, am an outcast, homeless and nameless tramp. After this unpleasant interview with my father I knew it would be useless for me to beg forgiveness, or to promise to behave myself and to do better in the future. He was very stern, once his anger was aroused, and he would surely keep his promise and send me to the state reformatory if I did not leave. AMERICA’S MOST CELEBRATED TRAMP. 59 With a heavy heart I went to my room to pack up the few belongings I wished to carry away with me. While thus engaged my mother quietly entered. “Leon,” she said, “you are our all; you are break- ing my heart, but I am ready to forgive you. Have we not done our duty by you? Have we not done everything to teach you the straight path? You had everything money could command, still you are turning to the bad. Why should you do this and bring dishonor to our old age?” Her sorrow was pitiful. Oh, how I longed to have father give me one more chance. “Mother,” I sobbed, “ Darling mother, forgive me the evil deeds I have done, and I will try and make amends. I confessed to her that I had tried to settle down to a steadier life many times, but that every time I did so, it was only a matter of hours before I felt the “ Wanderlust ” prodding me until I ran away to other sights and scenes. I promised her I would try hard to stop roving, and if I did to let her hear from me. “Why not now, Leon?” she pleaded with her arms around my neck. I hesitated a moment, then answered sorrowfully; “No, mother, not now. I can’t. The ‘Call of the Road’ is urging me on- ward so strangely and strongly, that I cannot resist, but some day, mother, I will stop roaming, and then I will take care of you.” Hardly had I uttered the last word, when with a scream she reeled and fainted. I hastily picked up my little bundle, and kissing mother for the last time on the forehead, I ran down to the kitchen to tell the cook mother was sick up in my room, to hurry and help her. Then I hastily left the house. 60 Life and Adventures of A-No. 1, Letters I wrote came back unopened. They were never answered, and never to this day have I been able to hear from home. Twenty-five long years of remorse; twenty-five long years of re- pentance ; twenty-five long years trying to keep the promise I made mother long ago. What a terrible punishment to be condemned to flit restlessly over the face of the earth hither and yon, a homeless, nameless wanderer. Chapter XI. “Robbed by Tramps.” ITHOUT a single idea which way to turn I left San Francisco. I caught a train going towards Los Angeles, intending to put as many miles between myself and home as possible. After two days out I made the acquaintance of two neat looking young fellows bound for the same city. That evening, while we were riding in a box car, they grabbed me from behind, and tied my hands and feet. After that they took every cent I had, my hat, shoes and the suit of clothes I had on. Then they tried to throw me out of the door while the train was running fast. I begged them for my life, as only one could who is about to be killed, and they took pity on me. They gagged me by stuffing a red handkerchief into my mouth, and then dragging me into a comer left me helpless, while they jumped from the car at the next stopping place. AMERICA’S MOST CELEBRATED TRAMP. 61 There I lay until two o’clock in the afternoon of the next day, when a railroad man, who by chance happened to look into the car, discovered me and cut the cords which bound me. I told him what had hap- pened, but he told me to keep quiet about it, as I could never get the fellows convicted. “Further- more,” he added, “if we could catch them, you would have to wait here three or four months, until the next trial, and possibly they would lock you all into one and the same cell together, so you better keep quiet.” After this experience I became even more care- ful, and hardly ever spoke to or traveled with tramps. The railroad man gave me a suit of greasy old over- alls and an old cap, and thus equipped I started for Los Angles. I was in the Mojave Desert and unable to beg even a pair of shoes. Upon reaching Bakersfield, Cal., early one morn- ing I saw a tramp at a camp-fire, and went over to warm myself a little. “Kid,” said the tramp, “where did you leave you shoes?” I told him I was held up, and he gave me a good pointer. “ I will put you wise, Kid,” he said, “if you will give me the booze they hand you.” I promised to do so, and he continued: “The county jail is a ‘boodle proposition,’ and say, Kid, you get yourself pinched and they will do the square thing by you.” Acting upon his advice, I approached the first deputy sheriff I saw and begged for my breakfast. He asked me how I would like to be arrested. I blinked my eyes and told him I was next, and willing to take the chance. He took me to the jail, and gave me a nice warm breakfast, made out some papers and then took me to the judge’s office. The judge, a 62 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF A-NO. 1, white haired, solemn looking rascal sentenced me to a fine of thirty dollars and thirty days in jail for vagrancy. The deputy took me back to jail and locked me in a cell. I commenced to feel uneasy, and thought maybe I had fallen into a trap again. An hour passed away that seemed ages, then the deputy returned and after cautioning me not to speak, he took me to a shoe store where he bought me a pair of nice shoes, then on the way back to the jail he gave me a dollar and a big bottle of whiskey, and told me to hustle out of town by side streets and alleys as quickly as possible, and not to forget to call again some other time. I was overjoyed, for I now had shoes and a dollar besides. I hustled back to the camp and delivered the booze to the tramp who had told me what to do. “Well”, he asked, not satisfied with the booze alone, “ didn’t they hand you any dough ?” I denied having received money. “We big ones,” he con- tinued, “usually get a five dollar note, but they are getting scared, as some of us have been pinched too often.” I asked him why the officials did this, and he explained it as follows: “Ah, Kid, you aint wise at all. They have these boodle jails all over the United States. It’s graft, Kid, don’t you see? They fined you thirty dollars and thirty days ; you can’t pay the thirty dollars, but the sheriff gets one dollar a day for every day you are supposed to be locked up; the judge, five dollars for your sentence; the lawyer, five dollars for your conviction; the clerk, five dollars for your commitment, and the deputy- sheriff five dollars for arresting you, so you see it is all America’s Most Celebrated Tramp. 63 graft. None of them receive a regular salary, so an officer has to steal all the fees he can to make a living.” Chapter XII. “ Why Permit Men to Become Tramps ? ” I KNEW after listening to his explanation of this graft- jail, that the man was of a more superior intelligence than the average tramp, and think- ing that perhaps I could get some valuable informa- tion, I sat down to the camp-fire. After he had taken several hearty pulls out of the bottle I had delivered, he remarked: “Kid, if I were in your hide, I would beat it ‘hot foot’ off the road, for we older ones know there is no stopping once you get a good start.” I assured him that I would take the very first job offered, and he patted me on my shoulder and said: “That is right, Kid, make a man out of yourself before it is too late.” To change the subject, I asked if all jails were as easy as this one? “Ah, no Kid, this one is an exception. You see, not many tramps have lately travelled up and down this line, so they have to ‘double up tramps’ to draw enough money out of the county treasury to meet their grocery bills or go to work the same as other folks do. Where many tramps pass along they give sentences from ten to sixty, with an average of thirty days, the only dif- 64 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF A-NO. 1, ference between these two methods is, that the first gang of grafters steals outright, while the other gang has an actual expense of perhaps five cents a day feeding ‘ slops ’ to the tramps, so you see there is no difference in the game, only that the ‘honest’ grafters pay cash to the tramps, while the crooked bunch feeds them a similar amount gradually, and usually mistreat their poor victims besides; but you see the latter style of grafting is the safest, as it is done under the pretense of lawful punishment.”' Here I asked : “ If those thirty days imprison- ment did not reform some of the tramps?” This innocent inquiry roused his ire. “Nixie Kid, ” he retorted, “Reform? None of such wise talk from a little ‘Gunsel’ (young boy) like you. Reform a fellow by locking him up for thirty days and never speak one word of encouragement to him all this time ; never give him advice for his future good ? No, none of that, but on the contrary, turn him out after his time is up, lousy as a cuckoo ; almost certain to be infected with some dangerous disease; hungry as a starved wolf; ragged and filthy to the very limit; without a cent, without a job or friendly lift of any kind, and branded an ex-convict in the eyes of society. Do you call this reforming him? Nixie, Kid,. instead of reform they stamp indelibly upon his mind the words of the avenger from the Genesis of the Holy Bible: ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,’ and instill a lasting hate against those who counte- nance such humbug, under the guise of antiquated laws, and with a vengeance he spreads the vermin and diseases to repay society for his incarceration.” And he added: “Many a case of tuberculosis in ■ 1 i |i AMERICA’S MOST CELEBRATED TRAMP. 65 66 Life and Adventures of A-No. 1, wealthy families can be directly traced back to a tramp who had been imprisoned in an unsanitary jail.” Here I interrupted him again by asking if he thought the “rock-pile” and other kindred punish- ments would prevent tramping? “ Nixie, Kid,” he re- plied, “there is absolutely no cure for tramping except a tramp quits himself in disgust. Some folks,” he continued, “ come to tramping just as natural as others to hunting elephants and lions ; playing golf, racing horses or automobiles; swimming, hunting, preaching, fishing, go crazy on baseball and prize fighting, smoking and chewing tobacco, dipping snuff and enjoy these and thousands of other strange notions to the limit, each of which would cause the ‘tired feeling’ if not disgust in a different set of people, who in turn have other faults of their own, and let me tell you, Kid,” he added with emphasis, “ it’s another queer fact that one fellow always spots the other fellow’s faults, fibs and fancies and over- looks that he is demented on one or more subjects himself. And about the rock-pile and farm-colonies being reformatory and a detriment, I guess not my lad. For scores of years down in the Southern States they have sentenced tramps and ‘out-of works’ to months and even years at the most dan- gerous and hardest labor under revolting conditions, in coal mines, farms and lumber camps owned by wealthy individuals or corporations who permit their superintendents to mistreat these poor ‘American’ slaves with such beastly inhumanity that the United States Government has put many of the inhumane taskmasters for long terms into federal penitentiaries, where their fellow convicts plague them into com- mitting suicide or if half a chance offers itself, beat America’s Most celebrated Tramp. 67 them to death. Despite this wanton cruelty to human beings there are more tramps than ever known before in the Southern States, and what is worse is the fact, where formerly only three per cent, of the tramps' were of Southern parentage, now 90 per cent, of these form the tramp element ‘down in Dixie.’” Here I interrupted him by asking if there yras not some remedy to curb or stop tramping? He quickly replied: “You bet there is, Kid, and a remedy so absolutely cheap that it never will be advocated by grafters and thpse loathsome wretches, who make a living collecting money under the pretense of assisting and reforming tramps, as there is no money to be made in its application. And, Kid,” he continued, do you know that the special agents of the railroads, the ‘railroad cops’ as we call them, have applied this remedy for mQre than a score of years and have prevented thousands of lively kids becoming tramps, and a burden upon the communities in one form or another? Yes,” he continued, earnestly speaking, when he noted an incredulous expression flitting across my face, as Frenchy had preached to me daily that the rail- road police were the tramps’ sworn enemies, “the railroad cops are the only real friends the tramps have, and not until you become an habitual tramp will you realize this fact, for they apply the only sane and effective remedy to stop tramping, and at least reduce the numbers of wanderers to the mini- mum by tackling the problem by its root, and not like all others do, at its tail end. Just wait, my boy until I have another ‘ pull ’ out of this ‘ old reliable ’ before I put you wise.” 68 Life and Adventures of A-No. 1, While he handled the whiskey bottle, I waited anxiously for him to resume his lecture, for had he not said he knew a cheap, sane and effective manner to stop or at least reduce the tramp horde? This seemed strange to me, for that it is the public’s money these other reformers are after, is easily proven by the fact that in one place tramps are “ hunted ” and arrested, while perhaps a mile farther, or towards the end of the month in the same place, he is not molested. “Before I give you the whole business, Sonny,” he commenced his lecture again, “ let me tell you of an example that is far better than all the printed, scientific receipts I ever saw. “No exhibit ‘A’ and ‘B’ for mine,” he con- tinued, “ only plain unspoiled facts I will hand you. Do you know over on the good ‘ N. Y. C.’ (New York Central Railroad) there is a railroad cop at Pough- keepsie, New York, who has done more single-handed to stop tramping than all the rest of the reformers put together. His name is Furlong, and let me give you a tip, Sonny, if you give him a chance to pinch you, you will some day be a Rockefeller, Carnegie or Morse instead of a tramp.” Here he laughed at his witty remark and continued: “Actually, Kid, at not a single cent’s expense to the tax payers, he does it, and does it without imprisonment and other senseless and old-fashioned methods.” Here he stopped to resume with added emphasis: “He pinches every kid under sixteen coming from New York City up the ‘N.Y.C.’ who has the crazy notion he must see the world via the box car route, but does not know the pitfalls nor the dangers of the ‘Road’, but when Furlong gets hold of him, its America’s Most Celebrated Tramp. 69 only a matter of hours before his address is known, his parents notified and he is sent home on the next fast train making no stops between Poughkeepsie and the City, but not before Mr. Furlong has given him a heart to heart lecture that would have melted a rock. Should his parents refuse to pay for his transportation, the ‘N. Y. C.’ does it, but has a special agent on his arrival in the city wait- ing to escort the youngster home, and there are mighty few American parents so unnatural as not to try their level best to keep the run- away kid home instead of permitting him to de- generate into a confirmed vagabond. Yes,” he continued, “ Furlong sends annually on an average 500 lively lads back to their homes, while the com- bined ‘catches’ of all railroad cops must number into thousands, many of whom are sons of the wealth- iest and best families ; sons of millionaires, preachers and all other professions are represented, but all are of a caliber to make first-class citizens, who are returned home before they even become acquainted with ‘A’ of the tramp’s ‘A. B. C.’, and Furlong not alone saves the country at large 500 recruits to the tramp army, but deprives 5,000 additional lads of their teachers, for instead of telling their playmates ‘ around the comer’ how he did it and how it is done, the story usually runs in this vein: ‘Kids, you see the guy up on the N. Y. C. chased me home twice now, my^seat has been licked so blue and black each time I return, I reckon I cannot stand any other home com- ing, so I guess I will stay home and behave myself, i “Don’t you think, Kid,” he added, “that this method is cheaper otherwise, for even if the kid had to be sent home at the taxpayer’s expense four or 70 Life and Adventures of A-No. 1 , even ten times, it is far cheaper in the long run than to have to expend $30.00 on a trespass trial to punish him with a jail sentence averaging 30 days, or perhaps still later in the future have to pay a jury $24.00 per day and all the other costly items connected with a criminal court trial, and when he is an old man, there is always the certain expenditure for keeping him for years in some alms house, a pensioner of society, to end there his useless career. So you see, my lad, that Furlong and all the other railroad cops are doing the right thing all around, and if the civil and railroad officers would combine to send minors under sixteen, home, it would be a long step toward solving the tramp problem by striking at its root — * The Kid Tramp.’ ” After a pause and several hearty drinks out of the bottle he commenced again: “There is another source of tramp supply that could be closed up without trouble and expense to anyone for the lasting benefit of all humanity. It would prevent at least 75 per cent of tramps from becoming tramps ; in fact it would close the biggest source that makes the lowest class of tramps and bums out of grown-up people, and these are the ‘dives’ and ‘hang-out’ saloons in the slums of all the larger cities. Look at me, my lad,” he rose showing his superb physique, “I used to be a mechanic earning over $5.00 a day, and now I am a tramp and a ‘Distillery Tramp’ at that, because booze and the tramping ‘Wanderlust’ have both claimed me. Do you know, my boy, how I managed to fall down this low? Listen and I will tell you. I used to drink many a glass of beer in certain saloons on South Clark Street in old Chicago. I never would have thought in those days that I America’s Most celebrated Tramp. 71 would be just as low as 'those filthy ‘ Sods ’ I saw hanging around those slums. One day we went out on a strike, I didn’t have much money to waste, so drifted down to the free lunch counters of my favor- ite saloons and there came in close contact with those sodden bums who made their way easier through life than I thought I did, and had no strikes to contend with. I struck up an acquaintanceship with one of the cleanest, who himself had been a good mechanic in his day. I watched how he turned the trick, imi- tated him and forgot my honest trade for the fife of a saloon sod. When summer with its hot days made things unpleasant in those slums, I followed the others out on ‘the road’, and now I am a ‘ Distillery Tramp ’ for the rest of my life, because while away from booze and the city I feel more like a human being. Laughing, are you, kid?” he hotly re- marked when he noticed me smiling at the strange story of how he became a tramp. “ Kid, you don’t realize yet what this strange something, the ‘Wander- lust’ means until it holds you so tight you cannot break away.” I became strangely silent and thought of my poor mother at home, and the promise I had made to quit the “road”. He continued, “ I always travel alone my lad, but if the officers would chase away gangsof ‘Distillery Tramps ’ hanging around stock-yards or thickets close to towns and cities often for weeks, as fast as they spot them, they would do another long step towards the elimination of. the tramp, as the camp-fire bums draw all the loafers and truants for miles around to their hangouts and give the kids their practical initiation into the mysteries of tramp life.” 72 Life and Adventures of A-No. l, , After another pause he continued: “You see, Kid, there are the ‘Kid Tramps,* the ‘Distillery Tramps,’ and last the ‘Scenery Tramps,’ that's the scale of my figuring. Send the Kid Tramps home by return mail, not to jails or reformatories, as that will spoil them beyond recovery. Keep the Dis- tillery Tramp constantly on the move, forcing him to return, disgusted with tramping to his breeding place, the slum saloons, that were permitted to make him and thus force him to prey upon the city which permits these shameless dens and dives to exist and even collects license money from them in return for being protected.” “What sort of a tramp is the ‘Scenery Tramp’ you mentioned as being the third and last tramp class?” I questioned the tramp. • “ Well, Kid,” he replied, “I call a ‘ Scenery Tramp’ a confirmed rover, who is so absolutely restless, that even offers of a good home, easy employment at large wages, or any other inducement have no at- traction for him, as he craves only for a constant change of scenery. He always acts as if someone , was hunting him, misses meals and sleep to reach a destination, and no sooner arrives there, than he is off for the next one. Many a ‘ Scenery Tramp ’ is bom, with a touch of the ‘Wanderlust.’ His parents, perchance having had prenatal intentions to change their home to some other locality, etc., and if these parents, while their restless kids are young, would have them enlist in the U. S. Navy, many a fine lad, instead of being a restless drummer, circus fol- lower or tramp, would be a good sailor, wearing the beautiful uniform of Uncle Sam’s proud navy.” I AMERICA’S MOST CELEBRATED TRAMP. 73 “How can you stop the ‘Scenery Tramp?’” I inquired. ‘‘Well, Kid,” he replied, ‘‘he is a ‘goner’, and as long as he keeps on the move and harms no one, let him wander, as he is a confirmed victim of the- ‘Wanderlust,’ and money spent on him in any shape or form is absolutely wasted, as 75 per cent, of them are the grown-up ‘ Kid Tramps ’ who were permitted to run away from home.” Here I asked him about the yeggmen. “Say, Gunsel,” he retorted, “them guys are not tramps at all, they are gun toters, a real tramp loves his liberty too well and has no excuse anyhow to carry a gun; so, my lad, when you hear of these yeggmen throw- ing tramps naked off moving trains after taking their ‘duds’ (clothes) from them, you know what ‘good’ tramps they are.” And he added: “I did wish that every tramping or camping tough-looking gun-toter would be sent to the penitentiary for life, as this would put a mighty sudden stop to post- office, box-car, depot and bank robberies and pre- vent many wanton murders of citizens as well as tramps.” He took another drink out of the bottle, empty- ing it and after he smashed it with a curse against the rails he finished: “I have known these railroad cops to feed many a poor fellow they picked up tres- passing, and even give them lifts on the sly to leave town without walking their feet sore, and they always discriminate between the man in search of employment, the harmless tramp and the tough, never molesting the first, helping to move on the •second and making things unpleasant for the third 74 Life and Adventures of A-No. 1, class, because they receive regular salaries from their companies and do not benefit financially by adding unnecessary burdens upon the communities as for instance these grafters in this ‘Burg’ do right here in broad daylight.” The campfire had almost died down during the tramp’s recitation, and while he went to forage for some material to rekindle the fire, I took the chance to leave him. I resolved then and there to accept the very first chance offered to go to work and thus escape the drama he had protray ed, and he had said was in store for all those who follow “The Call of the Road.” Chapter XIII. “Trying to Reform.” I SWUNG on a brakebeam under the very first passenger pulling out of the depot toward Los Angeles, and after several days of hard travel over the Mojave Desert landed in that city in my greasy overalls. The first thing I did was to try and beg some garments and by chance made the acquaintance of a benevolent looking captain of the Salvation Army. I told him the true story of my misfortunes and how I came to look so wretchedly dressed. He took me to a corner in a business part of the city, and made an appeal to the public for funds to help dress me up. He told them my story and asked all to chip in. He America’s Most Celebrated Tramp. 75 kept on speaking, singing and begging, and told them how blessed it was to clothe the naked and feed the hungry, and he collected over thirty dollars, as he had me to substantiate his plea. He took me to a clothing store and bought me a four dollar suit of clothes, a twenty-five cent cap, fifty cents worth of underwear and a twenty-five cent shirt, and told me to go and be a good boy. I was thankful enough for what he did, but I often wondered what became of the balance. Perhaps he bought a twenty-five dollar tailor made suit for himself. After thus coming into possession of a new out- fit, I resolved to find a job. I found an advertise- ment in a paper calling for a bell-boy. I was ac- cepted and my salary was to be $3.50 a week and board. One of the other bell-boys told me I could make every day a dollar in tips, and I was glad to have the chance to break my roving disposition and earn money besides. But the food was miserable — mutton stew for every breakfast; veal stew for every dinner and beef stew for every supper. I had to work twelve hours daily, running up and down stairs, as there were no elevators in those days. The week I lasted I received just thirty-five cents in tips, had to pay $2.00 for my own room, and had just twenty cents left at the end of the week. I quit and tried for another job. Next I landed as an apprentice in a door factory at $5.00 per week. I had to work and hustle from seven a. m. until six p. m. At the end of the week I had saved a dollar, but on the following Monday a little boy working be- side me had his hand sawed off by a band saw, and I heard the manager, when he told the foreman to hire another boy, say : “ Don’t get a fool like the 76 Life and Adventures of A-No. 1, last one, he hollered too much when he got hurt!” Before I secured this job, I had to sign a paper which prevented me from recovering any damages should I meet with an accident. Now I saw what that meant — when a lad was crippled for life in their establishment they objected even to his screams. Disgusted I quit the job. Next I found employment at two dollars a day, picking and packing oranges at an orange grove. ■ In my dreams, and in my waking moments also, I imagined I saw two dollar bills flying through the air. After I had worked three days, rain set in, and I had to be idle a whole week before returning to work. Then the railroads forgot to give us empty cars in which to ship the fruit, and tons upon tons already picked and packed, decayed. Of course I could not wait, so quit. Next I found a job with a rancher. His ranch was thirty miles across a mountain range, and he wanted me to do chores around his place. “ Why, Kid,” he told me, “ I’ll give you three dollars a week, and your job is a dead easy pne ; all you- have to do is to help my wife, ride ponies, go hunting and fishing. You bet you’ll like it all right.” After a drive on a prairie schooner for two days, up and down mountain trails, we at last reached his ranch — low board shanties for houses and bams. My chores started at four a. m. the next morning. I had to cut wood, milk the cows, clean the stables, in fact was busy until nine at night. The only water around was a small well, so between catching fish out of it and hunting, tired to death, my bed in the hay loft, as he didn’t have room for me in his own shanty, I had nothing but hard work. But to cap the climax AMERICA’S MOST CELEBRATED TRAMP, : ' ' U - ' Wmm After a drive on a prairie schooner up and down mountain trails/' 78 Life and Adventures of A-No. 1, at the end of the first week, the rancher, thinking perhaps I would be afraid to walk back to the city through the coyote infested country, handed me fifteen cents, saying at the same time: “That he reckoned my work was not worth more.” I indignantly refused to accept this small sum and quit right there and then, after having done the hardest week’s work in all my life, and walked back to Los Angeles, almost broken hearted at the treat- ment people seemed to accord me everywhere, I attempted to treat them on the “square” in my efforts to quit the road. Chapter XIV. “Charity Up-to-Date.” I T was a lojig walk, and, as the road was sandy, I had a hard time to drag my poor tired body into the City of Los Angeles, where I arrived not only weak from hunger but crushed in spirit. It was after supper time, and as I did not have accent to pay for food, I applied at different palatial residences for the privilege to work for a few bites to eat. I rang door bell after door bell in vain, as the servants seeing my ragged apparel, worn so from hard and rough jobs, wouldn’t even open the door, but with frowns on their faces would, through the glass, order me to vacate. America’s Most Celebrated Tramp. 79 At last, when nearly on the verge of fainting, a heathen Chinese, who, in California, is the “ Irish cook,” not being so hard-hearted as his Christian white sisters, opened the door, and I told him I wanted to see his mistress. “Boss send you?” he inquired. I told him: “Yes”. “ Boss, him all right, him send you, you all right. Velly well, you wait, me call missus.” With a rustling of fancy silks, the lady of the stately mansion came down the stairs, evidently just ready to go to some ball, astonished at seeing a little tough and rough looking lad. , I told her I was starving and wanted to work for some food. She sent her Chinese cook up-stairs for her pocket- book. I saw visions of one of Uncle Sam’s quarters; perhaps she would give me a whole dollar. I would have been thankful even for a nickel — the smallest coin then in circulation in California. He brought the purse, she opened it and after handing me a small card, remarked; “Don’t bother me, I have no time to look after beggars, but pay annually $10.00 to a charity society that will investigate your case and treat you scientifically.” Then she closed the door, with a bang. I studied the card. On one side were the words printed: “The Lord loves a cheerful giver. Good for one meal if de- livered to The Charity Society. Mr. Jones, Secretary.” On the reverse side was this legend: “Thou shalt earn thy bread by the sweat of thy brow.” There in plain words was “good for one meal” printed on my card and directions to find the kitch- en. I took new courage and inquired of a passer- so Life and Adventures of A-No. 1, by the way to the place — only eighteen blocks south and four east. I started on my walk. Visions of a steaming hot supper; promises to some day to repay them and other societies a hundred fold for this timely aid came before me. It was after seven o’clock when I found the building^ over the entrance of which was a bright brass sign: “The ..Charity Society, Mr. Jones, Secretary. The Lord loves a cheerful giver.” I rang the door bell and a seedy dressed old gentle- man slowly opened the door, looking carefully through the crack, demanding to know what I wanted so late at night? I asked to see Mr. Jones, then he wanted to know if I had money for Mr. Jones, and not understanding him correctly, I ans- wered in the affirmative. At this he permitted me to enter and told me to wait in the office while he called Mr. Jones. That office was sure a dandy one. Fitted up more like the office of a royal prince than that of a mere secretary of a society having the legend “Charity” on its cards. Beautiful and soft velvet carpets covered the floor, the furniture was made of solid mahogany, there was also a type- writer, a very costly machine in 1885, and in fact nothing was missing to make it a marvel of luxury. Just then a nicely dressed, benign looking, clean shaven gentleman entered and very kindly asked me what I wished to see him, Mr. Jones, about. I handed him my card and his demeanor changed to a frigid one. His first question was : “ Why I didn’t have money to pay for my meals?” When T told him truthfully how the rancher had swindled me, he dryly remarked: “The same old lie, only a new variety.” At this he pulled out of a drawer a large America’s Most Celebrated Tramp. 81 sheet of printed paper and read at least a hundred questions to me, that he marked according to the answers I gave. I only remember that I told him my parents were dead, and that I was alone in the world, with no one to look after me, as I could very truthfully assert. After writing and crossing out here and there on the big sheet, he rang a bell and the same seedy, hungry looking individual who opened the door for me entered, carrying his hat meekly in his hands. He was told by Mr. Jones to take me out in the wood yard and have me saw a “little ’’wood. “ Of course you want to earn your supper and a night’s lodging, my boy. Begging kills ambition, and the good Lord told us to ‘ earn our bread by the sweat of our brow’.” To such argument I could find no reply. Hun- ger hurts, and I was only too willing to do a little work for a meal. The man took me into the rear of the building, which was surrounded by a high wall and lighted by lamps, and I was told to start. I had to saw old tough redwood ties into stove lengths, and then split these into pieces. For three long hours, with my hands nearly bleeding and covered with water blisters, I labored, hoping every minute to be called. At last I rebelled and knocked on the door. The janitor opened meekly and re- marked : “ Well, boy, you are a good sawyer, nearly cut a cord of ties.” He took me into the kitchen and gave me a large bowl of cold coffee and two large slices of dry bread. He excused the poor meal on account of lateness. Only a moment and bread and coffee had disappeared. I asked for another slice of bread, and he told me the cook had the keys 82 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF A-NO. 1, and had gone home. Then he took me up stairs and gave me a cot, and soon I was sound asleep, dreaming of what a strange proposition I was up against. At six a. m. I was awakened and told to go into the wood yard again. Again I sawed away for three hours, and thus earned my breakfast. The secre- tary called me into the office and told me he didn’t ’ have a job for me just then, but to return at dinner time, and he would try and find one during my absence. While in search of a job I observed an elderly lady planting flowers in her home front yard. I asked her if I could not assist her in exchange for a meal. She readily consented and in less than a quarter of an hour I had finished my task to her entire satisfaction. She called me into her kitchen where, after washing myself, she gave me a nice dinner. Questioning me concerning myself, I told her I had to split wood at the “Charity Society” that morning during the very hours I ought to have been hustling for one of the jobs advertised in the morning papers. “Oh my dear boy,” she said, “there have been many poor fellows here applying for work who were treated the same by the Society. I have cancelled my own membership, and instead of having the fellows work over there have them do chores around my house and feed them myself, as I find this not alone to be cheaper, but also I do not believe in handing a poor fellow a stone when he asks for bread.” At 2 o’clock P. M., unable to find any kind of employment, I went back to the Charity Society. There I was told that if I wanted my dinner to go out and saw some more logs, but I said I was not AMERICA’S MOST CELEBRATED TRAMP. 83 hungry. Mr. Jones asked me if the clothes I wore were all I had, and I told him they were. He took me up to the third floor and opened a door. In the room several old ladies were busy repairing old garments. We entered and he said to one of them: “Jane, have you got a suit to fit this kid?” After a search, she found a dandy one and only had to shorten the pants to make it fit me. She also found a pair of fairly good shoes and a shirt. The secretary made me dress up and sending me back to the wood pile said : “ If you cut wood until supper, you can keep the suit, if not you will put on your old gar- ments and get out.” I understood now why those high, smooth walls with the iron spikes on top of them were around the yard. I worked slowly, but by the time I was called to supper a quantity of wood had accumulated higher than myself. After a poor supper, I was called into the office. In those days I was a rather good looking lad, and as I saw my new outfit in the large mirrors of the secretary’s bookcase, I couldn’t help being pleased with my appearance. Just then a benevolent-look- ing lady came in, and he turned to her and said: “ Mrs. Jackson this is the suit Mrs. Jamison sent here, and I gave it to this boy free of charge, see how glad he is. Don’t you think our society is doing a blessed work?” For the benefit of every lady calling, after Mrs. Jackson left, I had to go through the very same performance. Oh, how I wished every time I could have shown them the insides of my poor hands, all blistered and swollen from the hard job. I was only a small boy in those days, so kept quiet, and the secretary cut short my chance of speaking by order- 84 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF A-NO. 1, ing me after each such exhibition into the kitchen to help wash dishes to earn my night’s lodging. Another thing struck me as strange was that no men ever called on the secretary, but only ladies, except one old decrepit “General”, whom Mr. Jones would introduce to every lady as : “ Mr. General John Garrett, the famous Indian Scout and ‘Honorary’ President of our glorious society for the elimination of poverty.” This same “General’s” name was printed in heavy type upon all the society’s station- ery, and also in each first place on the long list of special committees. When, with boyish curiosity, I asked the Janitor who had become my friend and instructor, why Mr. Jones made so much fuss about the “old General”, he told me candidly : “ See, Kid, some people are as ‘luny’ about charity as others are about religion, temperance, hunting and so forth, and Mr. Jones uses the ‘General’ as a drawing card and bait to catch new members for ‘our’ Society.” Next morning before breakfast, Mr. Jones called me again into his office and offered me a job for my board with the Society until something better turned up. This offer I gladly accepted, as I was homeless and friendless, and thought that perhaps I could learn something to help me earn a living later on. At nine o’clock he told me to take out a covered wagon, pulled by a rather nice looking horse. He gave me directions and a list of people to call upon for donations of old clothes to give to needy persons. As the streets are all numbered I had only to remem- ber the cross streets, and was soon on my way. The first house called at, a lady came to the door with a large bundle and said to tell Mr. Jones that was all America’s Most Celebrated Tramp. 85 she had. The 'next one said: “Please tell Mr. Jones a poor tramp called this morning and I gave him all I had in the line of old clothes.” The next one gave the same excuse, only she gave him enough to fill my wagon. At the next place a small package was given. At most every house I was told that tramps and poor women “had been given all there was.” It was after four o’clock when I returned to the Society headquarters with only half a load. Mr. Jones called me into the office, and asked for my list, each name being marked according to the answer given me. Of the twenty-eight ladies approached, nineteen told me tramps had called, two were not at home and my seven bundles vouched for the rest. Then the secretary lost his temper. He looked so clerical, I didn’t have any idea he could “cuss” the way he did. That evening he penned a note to the newspaper office and I could see these words plainly over his shoulder : “ Police ought[to arrest all beggars. Vagrants over-run the town. People are molested by suspicious tramps. Professional beggars are haras- sing ladies and collecting clothes.” I had to take this note to the paper office and the editor told me to thank Mr. Jones for his contribution. Next morning it appeared sure enough in the leading papers under flaring head-lines, warning people to be on the look- out for impudent imposters. H had to laugh, reflect- ing how queer this world treats wolves. Soon Mr. Jones rang for me again and ordered me to drive down to the railroad track with a note from the superintendent to the section foreman, telling him to load all the old ties he and his men could find upon my wagon. They soon had such a load on it that the wagon actually rode upon its 86 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF A-NO. 1, springs. These redwood ties were donated gratis to “help the poor.” During the afternoon I delivered two rather small loads of split wood at different houses, and received at one place $5.00 cash, and at the other a check for $3.00 for these loads. It was only about one-third the quantity I had sawed, and I began to figure that Mr. Jones made about $3.00 cash out of a three cent meal. All the time I was at the Society, men out of employment were applying for jobs, assistance, etc., etc. They all had to imitate my wood-cutting job, only a much longer time. This Mr. Jones would call the “Working Test”, as he said a “real” tramp wouldn’t work at all, and that was the only way to find out if the poor devil was a tramp or not, by “working him” for all he could after the usual criss- crossing on the paper sheets. He would tell all who would stop to talk, after exchanging hours of the hardest sort of manual labor for a couple of slices of stale bread and a cup of weak coffee, to be sure to call again on Wednesday at two o’clock, as he would have a job for them by that time. Men residing in the city who applied for aid, were treated much kinder; several were even handed a quarter. One old lady in dire need, but handy with the needle, was given a job repairing old clothes for her board, “until Mr. Jones could find her a good job”, the same as he had promised the old ladies who were working up- stairs, for God only knows how long a time already. That afternoon I was sent to a bakery for a load of stale bread, and to a market for other rather old material for the kitchen that was donated. AMERICA’S MOST CELEBRATED TRAMP. 87 Several lady members of the Society called on the secretary, and as his office door was always open, I could hear their conversation. “ Ah ! You don’t say? Mr. Anderson has gone on a vacation, and you have spoken to Mrs. Anderson about the need of old clothes to help the needy and afflicted. You are surely a good Samaritan.” After the ladies left, he called up Mrs. Anderson over the telephone : “ This is Mr. Jones of the .Charity Society. Ah, indeed! I am glad, as a poor man with eight chil- dren just called and inquired for some old garments. Yes, we take old blankets. You say you have some old bedsteads? We just need them for our bed- rooms. Yes, we can use the preserves to give to the needy. Best thanks. The Lord blesses the cheerful giver.” Next morning I brought a load of old stuff from Mrs. Anderson’s, and also a check for $25.00 for the old gentleman with the eight children. That after- noon I delivered loads of split wood and helped John repaint the old furniture. Saturday I delivered four large boxes containing old clothes at the depot. He told me to paste the labels on them there, they read: “Isaac Goldstein, 1110 Market Street, San Francisco, Cal., Dealer in New and Second-Hand Goods.” The same evening I delivered several chairs and tables and one of Mrs. Anderson’s reno- vated bedsteads to a rooming house on Main Street, and received a check for $18.00. Every Wednesday afternoon at 2 o’clock was the weekly meeting hour for the Society. Every lady member had some important place on one or more of the committees, and thus had to be on hand to make her reports. 88 life and Adventures of A-No. 1, It seemed as if the “elite” of society had de- scended upon Mr. Jones, suchacrowd of bediamonded, silk dressed ladies took possession of the lower floor of the charity headquarters. Many came in beauti- ful carriages and had liveried coachmen waiting in front of the building to do their bidding. All this plainly showed how the shrewd Mr. Jones managed to interest the wealthiest people in his plans “for sweet charity’s sake.” In the wood yard, back of the main building was a big crowd too, but in sharp contrast to the well- groomed and well fed “sisters” in the parlor, they were hollow eyed and high cheeked men, showing the indelible stamp of poverty upon their pallid features. These were the same poor fellows whom Mr. Jones, during the preceding week had promised employment should they call again on Wednesday at 2 o’clock in the afternoon. Just then I heard Mr. Jones in the parlor thank loudly the assembled ladies for the interest they took in the “glorious” society, and explain to them how hard he worked to relieve distress, how he found jobs for all those out of employment ; sent milk, groceries, eggs and other dainties (all donated gratis) to the sick and the afflicted ; in fact was busier than a bee from early dawn until late at night, battling with other people’s troubles. Then as a grand “finale” to his tale of human woe, he caused the “sisters” to stampede to the window leading to the woodyard and dramatically pointing at the ill-clad, starved fellows outside, exclaimed: “See ladies, look for yourselves what noble work we are performing. See how these poor people, often with their wives and many in- nocent children too, crowd me at all hours. Now, America’s Most Celebrated Tramp. 89 “See here, ladies, look for yourselves what noble work we are performing. 90 Life and Adventures of A-No. 1, don’t yon think our ‘glorious’ Society is doing blessed work?” While Mr. Jones was working the money con- tributing division of the Society on the inside of the building, the janitor had the time of his life to keep the poor fellows in the wood yard from mobbing him, as he had told them “Mr. Jones had a job for each one.” After the ladies left, Mr. Jones raised the wood yard window and gave the unfortunates alecture filled with scientific words, telling the poor fellows how they ought to be ashamed to be out of employment and funds, and that had they lived on macaroni like “Dagoes” or rice like Chinese; or bread and cheese like Russians and Austrians ; had slept in tents out- side the city limits to save rents and avoid taxes; had dressed themselves, wives and children on clothes sold at the Society’s periodical rummage sales, they would never had to beg for jobs. He told them how sorry he was not having been able to find a single job for them, as other fellows had been provided ahead of them, and giving them more sound advice he finished by inviting all who would like to enjoy a “ nice, hot supper” to saw and split redwood ties into smaller sections. Then he closed the window. I was only a poor calculator, but I figured that Mr. Jones took in about $100.00 per week and dis- bursed not over $10.00 weekly for charitable pur- poses, and dispensed his doleful mites in such a manner that all Los Angeles heard through the news- papers about it. The following morning when returning from an errand, just when about to enter the Society build- ing, a seedy looking fellow, who had perhaps seen me around the building before, called' me over to AMERICA’S MOST celebrated tramp. 91 him, and after I told him the 'true story of my attempted reform, he wisely said: “Sonny, keep out of this building for your mother’s sake, for they will make a professional beggar out of you before you realize it.” I took his advice, perferring to be an honest tramp to the disgusting beggar-life I had led for a week, and quit right there and then, not even blessing Mr. Jones the way I had heard other unfortunates do, to whom he had doled out a mite. I hied myself to a public park, and sitting on a bench I pondered over my case and recognizing that reform, after all these samples of “kind assistance, ” was out of the question, and that I, a poor homeless lad, had been working hard for almost a month for the benefit of some of the biggest rascals, I resolved to hit the road again until I should be large enough to command “clean” employment at a good salary. Chapter XV. “Beating It to South America.” I LEFT Los Angeles and quickly dropped into my old tramp life again, only I was now better pre- pared as the lessons learned - at the Charity Society by actual practice, kept me not alone well supplied with food, but plenty of money, which I used in helping other poor fellows (without chopping wood). 92 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF A-NO. 1, But the promise I made mother at home was continuously ringing in my ears, and as every letter asking forgiveness had a line written in mother’s hand on it, such as : “ Settle down. Be ashamed. Be somebody, etc., etc.,” when it returned to me unopened, it worked upon me stronger than mile long sermons ever could. While in just such a sad mood I picked up a newspaper and read how people in Brazil, South America, became rich over night in the newly dis- covered diamond fields, and in my childish fancy I thought that would be just the place for me to land on, as I could make a fortune in a “jiffy”, return to San Francisco and show the “old man” as I called father, “a trick or two”. I went to the city library, and sitting before a large map of the world, I began to study and scheme. Brazil was a long way off, still, even a little fellow can go a long way in little jumps, as I learned on the railroads. From Florida to Cuba, from Cuba to the Lesser Antilles, from there to the northern coast of Brazil seemed not so bad. “Leon,” I said to my- self, “that’s dead easy, from one to another, and after awhile you will reach those diamond mines.” That afternoon, hanging to a brakebeam, underneath a Pullman, I left California across the continent for Florida, bound for Brazil. At Sierra Blanca, Texas, 900 miles from Los Angeles, I helped a stockman load a car of cattle.. He asked which way I was going, and, as the cattle were to be shipped to the market at San Antonio, Texas, and he had no one to go along to look after them, he made the agent give me a pass to accom- pany them as a drover. At Del Rio, Texas, where America’s Most Celebrated Tramp. 93 they stopped to unload, feed and water the stock, one of the steers became unmanageable, broke away, and with uplifted tail made a bee-line for the desert. An employe came to me and told me that I would have to wait at least twenty-four hours before a cowboy could be found to rope the steer and return him. As I had only a few cents left, and was anx- ious to reach San Antonio, .1 pulled out my pass and taking him on the side told him that my .boss would surely have him discharged if the steers were de- layed, as they had to reach the market immediately. In the pass it read “ 28 head of cattle, more or less,” and I just put a seven there, and it now read : “ 27 cattle, more or less.” Thus we were both satisfied, and I soon was again on my way, rolling towards the East. When morning came, we had reached our destination, and I made myself thin. I stayed around the pretty city of San Antonio a few days, until one morning I picked up a paper, and there in plain black and white was a long article describing how the railroad com- pany had discovered a new method for stealing cattle. The article told how the company was looking for a young drover, who, with the aid of unknown con- federates, had stolen a valuable steer out of a car- load entrusted to his care. I dropped the paper and took a bee-line out of the town without waiting to bid anyone good-by. Cattle and horse stealing bring worse punishment than murder in that State, and I did not feel sure that my life was my own until I left the Texas State line behind me. After many hardships I reached Tampa, Florida. At the harbor a steamer was ready to sail for Havana, Cuba, and I tried to work my way across, but neither 94 Life and Adventures of A-No. 1, that nor to stowaway would work, and -so, after coming 3,000 miles, my efforts were in vain even to reach -Cuba. But they had a very nice City Mayor there, and to hunt him up and tell him I had an uncle across in Cuba waiting for me, did not take long, and he gave me a pass good on the steamer, but to be paid by the City of Tampa, and thus it came that a city once paid my transportation. After a stop at Key West, I reached Havana, the capital of Cuba, then under Spanish “misrule”. I looked the city over, and then tried to find a steam- er which would take me farther south, but could only find a small lumber schooner that carried me to Santiago, in return for my working for the passage. We made the trip in two weeks, and I remained there nearly a month, trying to secure transportation farther south, but could not find a single chance. No other way being open, I finally walked from east to west, the whole length of the Island of Cuba, from Santiago back to Havana, four hundred and ninety miles. When I reached Havana, I found that a yellow fever epidemic was raging, and that there was no chance at all to leave. Hunger hurts, and sleeping out in the tropical rains is not at all funny, so I hunted up the American Consul, Mr. Williams, and told him one of my choicest stories. All he said in reply was: “Young man, you came here, stopped here, and now get out the way you came, and by all means don’t bother me.” Next I hit the German Consul. I told him I was a German cabin boy, ship-wrecked and broke. He gave me an order for a few week’s board and room. After that was used I went to see the Consul from AMERICA'S MOST CELEBRATED TRAMP. 95 Austria, and told him I came from Vienna and had lost all in a shipwreck. I told him how the waves had dashed me on shore and every detail as vividly as possible. He believed my yam, and gave me a ticket to New York, and order for a ticket from New York to Vienna, and twenty dollars in money for my expenses. Three days later I was aboard a Ward-line steamer, the “Niagara”, bound for New York. We landed there after a very rough journey of four days, finding a genuine blizzard awaited us in contrast to the tropical climate we left behind in Cuba. I sold my voucher for a ticket to Austria to a ticket broker for ‘ $40.00. It thus happened that even the Imperial Austrian government paid for some of my travels. I now had a pocketful of money and again scanning the map, found Brazil could be reached overland via Mexico and Panama, so at an age when other boys were at school studying, I picked out a route to reach Brazil, over 7,000 miles away, on an overland trip, undaunted by the failure to reach the diamond mines by sea. From New York City I made my way, free of fare of course, to St. Louis, then to Dallas, Texas, and from there to El Paso, where I crossed the boundary into old Mexico. Four hundred miles south I reached San Luis Potosi, where I had another strange adventure occur. Arriving there late at night and hunting around for a place to sleep, I climbed into an empty passenger coach standing on a side track. Hardly had I closed my eyes when suddenly I found myself looking into a lighted burg- lar lamp, and a big revolver pointed at my head. I was ordered in Spanish to hold up my hands. Sud- 96 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF A-NO. 1, denly the light was turned away, and, almost scared to death, I found myself hugged by a big Mexican, who in broken English explained : “ Meester, me dee watchman from Mexico Ceety ; me sell robas (clothes) for you ; you bum, me sell, savez (understand) ? A bueno amigo mio (good friend) como esta usted (how are you) ? ” To my joy I had met by chance my old watchman, the same one who used to sell old clothes I begged around Mexico City, and divided the money with me, and who had been transferred to this place. He carried me to his house and entertain- ed me for a couple of days on the best he could fur- nish. From San Luis Potosi, I reached the City of Mexico and from there to Vera Cruz, the seaport. As luck would have it, I found employment on a German schooner loaded with lumber bound for Venezuela, as cabin boy, thus saving a 2,000 mile tedious overland trip through Central America and over the Isthmus of Panama. After two weeks of fast sailing before a fine breeze, we reached our destination, the harbor of La Guayra, the port of entry for Carcas, the capital of Venezuela, fifty miles by rail to the interior across a mountain range. The country was in the throes of a revolution, and the military was much in evidence. Having unloaded our cargo and taken on a ballast of sand, we set sail for Maracaybo, where the captain ex- pected to load a cargo of coffee for New York. Aided by favorable breezes and a smooth sea, after a week’s fast cruising among beautiful tropical islands, we reached Maracaybo, which city is situated at the mouth of the gulf of the same name. It is an AMERICA’S MOST CELEBRATED TRAMP. 97 important shipping point, and the commerce is nearly all in the hands of large German mercantile houses. Here were warehouses full of coffee, rubber and bark. This bark is the kind quinine is made from and is very valuable. Mahogany logs are exported, also ebony and dye woods. I ran away, just as our schooner was ready to leave, as I had no desire to return to New York. Chapter XVI. , “Tramping Across South America.” I WAS offered several nice jobs on account of my knowledge of languages, but that section being very unhealthy and swampy I refused, and made plans to reach Brazil. Here I made the acquaintance of Tom Hanrahan, a boy of my own age, from Harris- burg, Pennsylvania. He had also deserted a vessel, and was loafing about waiting for a chance to re- turn to the States. Being unable to speak Spanish, he was nearly starved to death. I had him soon thinking my way to go to Brazil and try to make fortunes as others had, and to prove to him that I could manage things pleasantly for both, I began “mooching” among the padres (priests ), German storekeepers, clerks and their wives. In two hours I returned to him with 60 bolivars ($48.00). Tom had not had a square meal for two months, and see- ing my success we were soon devoted chums. 98 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF A-NO. 1, For two bolivars apiece, we purchased two nice burros, riding being more preferable than walking, as we had a long journey ahead of us. Maracaybo is the shipping point for Bogota, the capital of the Republic of Columbia, 475 miles south, and as there was a single telegraph wire strung from tree to tree all the way, we planned to follow it to Bogota. At Maracaybo whole ship loads are trans- packed on the backs of pack mules and burros, and thus transported all over the interior. The narrow path, beaten deep by countless hoofprints, and the telegraph wire as guide, were all we had to lead us into an unknown country. Ropes for bridles and empty coffee bags for saddles, thus equipped and happy we started on our journey, camping at night, and living high on what the people provided. My Spanish opened the houses for us, and the story of “our uncle in Rio de Janeiro, who was rich,” the same old yam with only the des- tination changed, seemed to touch their tender hearts. The rich coffee planters send their children (following the precedent set by the rieh German merchants) to Germany to be educated. Of course they are as proud as peacocks to speak the German language on their return to South America, and ehre my graft came in, for we hardly left a settlement without some kind of collection being taken up to help us reach “our uncle.” Our burros, being used to carrying loads nearly their own weight, seemed to enjoy our company, and more so, because we treated them more kindly than did the cruel natives, who overload and beat them with clubs. We made good progress, even when crossing the high mountain ranges. AMERICA’S MOST CELEBRATED TRAMP. 99 The country is like a paradise down there, trop- ical and cooled by the winds from the Gulf of Mexico. The rich planters are very rich, but the peons are pitifully poor. The latter work for one bolivar and one aroba of com (about 80 pounds) a month. On this, they and their often large families exist, but of course fruit is cheap and game plentiful. Every woman knows how to weave panama hats from bleached palm leaves. The best grade often re- quires a month to finish and brings only twenty-five cents. The kind that sells in the States for $5.00 is worth here only ten or fifteen cents apiece. Every time a baby is bom there is a feast. The padre, doctor, druggist, etc., have to be paid, and at all times something turns up that demands ready cash. The father has to go to the “ Haciendero” to borrow the amount, thus getting deeper into debt. The law makes children responsible for debts con- tracted by parents, so it is simply pure slavery to all. Tom and I had a hard time hiding our many bolivars, which we could not exchange for gold or paper here in the interior. We received letters of recommendation from one hacienda to another, the same as I had in Central America, and everybody was anxious to provide us with the best and help us on our journey. It took nearly a month to reach Bogota, a small ugly town of old Spanish architec- ture. Every second building is a church property. There are convents, cloisters, schools, churches and chapels alternating, all built low and heavy with barred windows in Spanish fashion. Here, 8,000 feet above the sea, the climate is delightful. Sum- mer all the year. Gorgeous butterflies, flowers, birds ioo Life and adventures of A-No. l, and snakes abound; parrots flying overhead and chattering monkeys everywhere. After taking our usual collection, we left for Quito, the capital of Ecuador, 450 miles farther south. We had now reached the end of the telegraph wire, and had not even this means to guide us through a rough and mountainous country on the eastern slope of the Andes, the Rocky Mountains of South America. * The country became more and more desolate, with dangerous tfails up and down steep mountain sides ; wire bridges swinging in the wind over gorges and chasms, we crossed often. From hacienda to hacienda we had to carry our provisions, and had bundles of alfalfa for saddles to feed our burros. We were nearing the equator and the sun was very hot, but during the nights we nearly froze. We met many native South American Indians, and as most all white men down there are badly tanned, they seemed to enjoy opening our shirts to admire our white skins. Their foreheads are all elongated, caused by their mothers tying boards on them while babies, thus giving them' an ugly appearance and expression. Their dress, for male as well as female consists of a loin cloth and poncho. This is a blan- ket woven from the wool of the lama. It is water- proof and has a hole in the center for the head, thus serving the purpose of blanket, overcoat and rain protector combined. After two months of travel, we at last reached Quito, another ugly Spanish built settlement, but surrounded by sublime scenery. From our stop- ping place we could see the volcanoes, Cotopaxi and Chimborazo, 20,000 feet each above sea level, and AMERICA’S MOST CELEBRATED TRAMP. 101 102 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF A-NO. 1, hundreds of other peaks, all covered with eternal snow, that stood out well against the dark blue trop- ical sky. At night the Southern Cross and the stars seemed ever so much brighter, though very much less in number than in the northern firmament. We found at Quito another colony of German mer- chants, and the commerce of the Republic is here, as well as in other places, totally in their hands. The standard coin in use here is the Peruvian “sol”, , and I managed to collect 185 of them in one day, the luckiest streak I ever had in all my life. I sent Tom to tackle two Americans here, a dentist and a sew- ing machine agent. His part was ten sols, so be- tween us we cleared 195 sols, about $155 in American currency. We had now covered 900 miles with the aid of our little burros and had plenty of adventures. Tom had a large 44 calibre navy revolver tied to a rawhide belt, while I carried an old canvas money bag full of cartridges. At Bogota a merchant made each of us a present of a pair of new shoes, but when we crossed the first stream, and they became damp, the paper soles let go, and we were compelled to use the sandals of the natives, made of a piece of tanned tapir hide, imported from the delta of the Orinoco. They were an inch and a half thick and were fastened to our feet by a rawhide string running between the toes. We hobbeled along after the fashion of a Chinese woman until we found a chance to buy new shoes. Quito is very healthful, being nearly 9,000 feet above the sea level, and is right under the equator. Only 100 miles west is the port of entry, Esmeralda on the Pacific, a miasmatic pest and fever hole at all AMERICA’S MOST CELEBRATED TRAMP. 103 seasons. Earthquakes occur here often, and all walls are from three to four feet thick, and the houses only one story high. Hot springs gush everywhere, and on the road here we passed many places where crude oil had soaked the ground. Gold in placers is plentiful, but only handpans are used; other min- erals abound. Transportation is made on the backs of natives, mules and burros, and is of the poorest. The trails are crossed and recrossed by others, and we often lost ourselves. Everybody is armed with large pistols and knives. Amber is valued highly and worth more than gold, as hearts and crosses made from this material are sold to the natives as sure amulets against the evil eye or sickness. We ex- changed our three hundred odd bolivars for Brazilian paper money, and thus became rid of a load that was becoming a burden. Superstition is common among the natives. In epidemics, especially smallpox, they carry saint’s pictures and holy bowls and march in procession through the streets, chanting prayers and beating themselves with cords and sticks, as I witnessed several times. Marriage laws demand that a civil marriage shall be performed, and before entering the church a magistrate performs the cere- mony, then inside, the padre finishes the job with church rites. After a rest of three weeks at Quito, we left, bound for Brazil. We crossed a branch of the Andes over the Tambo Pass, midway between the Coto- paxi and Chimborazo, 14,000 feet above sea level. For four days we were riding through snow and ice and desolation. Monks keep stations every few miles all the way across, and as the weather was fine 104 Life and Adventures of A-No. l, and clear, and they absolutely refused to take money for supplying us with food and lodging at night, we fared well. When nearly on top we were shown a tiny spot above us in the sky. The monks told us it was a condor, the largest buzzard and the highest flying bird on earth. Through a very strong telescope I could hardly recognize the circles he made. The monks estimated the height 10,000 feet above our heads. The descent on the eastern slope is so steep that eight hours after leaving the summit we reached Tambo, a small settlement among orange and coffee groves and other tropical vegetation — quite a wel- come change. After covering another 250 miles, we entered a small place named San Juan on the Rio Napo, a tributary of the “Rio Amazones” (the Amazon), the longest and largest river on earth. The Rio Napo is only a small stream full of rapids and falls, still it is navigable with canoes. We traded our friends, the two little burros that had carried us 1,250 miles, for a canoe large enough to carry us and provisions. It was made from ironwood, strong as iron yet light as cork. After buying, bumming and trading together, provisions, cooking utensils, flint and steel for fire making, two muzzle loading rifles and ammunition, in fact a regular camping outfit, one morning we started on our journey, 3,000 miles as the crow flies, 5,000 miles following the crooked streams and the Amazon itself into unknown dan- gers, into a country where my knowledge of Spanish was useless, Portugese only being spoken, with only the craving to travel and explore to drive us on. And at that time I was just 15 years old. Drifting, paddling and camping on the Amazon in South America. 106 Life and Adventures of A-No. 1 , From the riding on slow jolting burros to the easy floating down a crystal current in a canoe on the Rio Napo was indeed a welcome change. The trop- ical scenery was beautiful as we were yet at an altitude of nearly 6,000 feet and the nights cool but pleasant. Here is a country hardly ever visited and never written about by Americans; everywhere are coffee plantations. We were treated as lords by the planters, and given assistance as far as was in their power. The Rio Napo has many falls and rapids and we had to carry our canoes as well as our little cargo down steep places to reload them and to repeat this tiresome task farther down. Some days we had to make three portages thus, and it was this very unpleasant job that prevented us making rapid pro- gress. It took us nearly a month before we reached the main stream, the Maranon (spoken, Marannjon), as the Amazon is called at the upper reaches, the latter name only being used after the confluence of the Rio Madera. After we entered the main stream at Jambo, a small settlement, we had a much wider stream to navigate. The rainy season was just coming to an end farther west, and as the river was still very high we were carried swiftly toward our destination. There were no portages to disturb our peace. We passed canoes, often very large ones, being poled and paddled up and down the stream, loaded with the products of the country, thus furnishing us com- pany, and an occasional change from the monoton- ous surroundings of a continuous tropical forest that lined the banks on either side. Parrots, monkeys and gaily plumed birds we encountered by the mil- lions. Every little hut along the banks had them AMERICA'S MOST CELEBRATED TRAMP. 107 for pets. To try and buy them only seemed to amuse the natives, and when we explained to them that each parrot would be worth $10.00 in the States, they seemed to think we were telling them yams, and nearly called us actual liars. Ten dollars is much money down there on the Maranon, in South America, far away from the path' of trade and civil- ization. Brazilian coins are only used in eastern Ecuador, the milreis, which has a market value of about 50 American cents and is subdivided into 1,000 reis. To send a letter to the States costslOO reis, still for 10 reis, the smallest copper coin in Brazil, we bought the finest .pineapples, or even whole bunches of ripe bananas — not the decayed article sold in the States — but bananas that have a delicious flavor and were ripened on the plant. There are plenty of long homed cattle, but transportation being so costly, the native cowboys, known here as “gauchos”, only skin off the hides and cut out the tongues of the animals, the meat and bones making food for the buzzards, and fertilizers for the already fertile soil. These “gauchos” "often join circuses traveling in the States, and by their horsemanship and dare-devil acts command applause but to see them perform here in their natural state on their small skin-and-bone ponies, give a better idea of their daring. We kept floating down the swift current until we reached Tabatingo, the frontier’s settlement of Brazil. Here custom officials, in approved Ameri- can style, searched our canoe and ourselves for duti- able property. This was our reception on entering Brazil. Down the swift river we proceeded ; but soon lost all interest in our journey. To be seated 108 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF A-NO. 1, cramped up all day, paddling and watching the stream for stumps, to have the hot tropical sun blister our backs from morning till night, day after day and week after week, was getting monotonous and a punishment. We could not move much, as a canoe will quickly turn turtle, and the alligators would have soon put a finish to us as the river fairly swarmed with them. At night we had to fill our canoe with water and tip it over to hide it from the natives, who even stole our paddles in broad daylight, until we watched care- fully. We had to keep a large campfire burning to keep the wild animals, snakes and insects away at night. Food, such as they had, was given to us freely, but money became harder to collect. As we left the Spanish speaking population of Ecuador behind us, and the farther we advanced into Brazil, the harder it was to make our wants understood — as Portuguese only is spoken, as Brazil used to be a colony of Portugal. Soon I found myself on a level, as far as this language was concerned, with my partner Tom. It used to be amusing to me in teaching him, trying to repeat some hard Spanish word, but now we both made funny faces, imitating monkeys, trying to mem- orize some beautiful “ Portugese expression”. The only people that had patience, a kind word and always a few milreis for us were the Catholic fathers and monks we encountered. Tom, being a Catholic, instructed me in the mystery of the rosary; taught me to repeat the Ave Maria and other Latin prayers that are used everywhere alike in the whole world by the Catholics; the making of crosses over ourselves with a saintly expression helped us very much. AMERICA’S MOST CELEBRATED TRAMP. 109 The hot sun of the day time changed off with u heavy, cold fog at night, heavy enough to make us wish for umbrellas. In the daytime we wore the lightest of garments, but at night the ponchos from Ecuador came handy. Except in moonlight nights we would prepare our camp before sundown, as in fifteen minutes after six, it would be as dark as mid- night, there being no twilight at all. We kept the fire up all night to protect ourselves, and soon slept soundly with nothing to disturb us, not even the calls and screams of the wild animals in a tropical wilderness. Thus drifting, paddling and camping we reached the confluence of the Rio Negro. We had selected our camp on a little elevation, and kept a fire going as usual to protect us from wild animals and mos- quitoes. It was on the night of July 1, 1887, when Tom awoke and arose to put a few more dry branches on the fire. Suddenly he screamed and awakening me I saw him stagger to the fire and kneeling over lie dazed on the ground. In a weak voice he told me that some poisonous snake had struck at him, which no doubt, attracted by the warmth of the dying embers of the fire, had crawled so close that Tom unadvertly had stepped on it. In haste I ripped open his pants leg and with my knife cut into the flesh, where two small spots showed where the fangs had entered, but it was already too late, as even then the blood would not respond, and in less than ten minutes and after awful convulsions, yet with his senses clear, turning purple-black, poor Tom died. His last words were to tell his mother that he thought of her, and to give her his rosary and prayer book. no life and Adventures of A-No. 1, Until daybreak I kept a dumb vigil, indeed I was nearly paralyzed myself, I felt so bad at losing Tom — he who had shared with me all the adventures thus far — the only friend I could speak to in my native tongue. There I was alone on the banks of the Amazon in the interior of far away Brazil. We had planned to stay and work in the diamond mines, had planned to return to the States, both rich, to take care of Tom’s mother, a widow whose only son he was. All this was cut short by this tragedy in the wilderness. Putrification had started at daybreak; the features had become distorted and swollen. I did not even have tools to dig a grave to bury him in the moist soil, I could only cover his body with branches, then kneeling by the side of all that was left of him on earth, I prayed, first silently and then aloud, as I never had done before — prayed until the tears ran down my cheeks — prayed until my words gave out and I only could sob, as I felt so lonesome, so lost, all alone in the wilderness far away from any human being. It took a long time before I was able to turn over the canoe and bail it out, then loading our little store of provisions, I left his poor body alone in the wilderness, while buzzards circled above in ever increasing numbers. It was September when I reached Santarem. The rainy season of the tropics was just beginning. Santarem is a very small settlement at the confluence of the Rio Tapajos, and here begins the navigation of the river by steamboats. When I left poor Tom at our last camp I was strong and healthy, but on reaching here I was only the shadow of my former self. I was worn out by sorrow, hardship and ma- laria. At this place I found a number of French AMERICA’S MOST CELEBRATED TRAMP. m merchants and agents and these had a benevolent society. Seeing the condition I was in, they sent me for treatment to a small hospital, conducted by Sisters of Mercy. It was not until May, 1888, that I was discharged. I tipped the scales at 37 pounds heavier than when I entered, thus giving a vivid idea of what a condition I must have been in. I was dark yellow, only skin and bone, and nearly dead. I found that to reach Diamontina, the place where all the mines were located, I would have to travel overland through a wilderness for 1,700 miles. I was told that since the discovery, syndicates had bought all the mining lands, and were using West Indian negroes to work them. So I gave this scheme up in disgust, and all the hardships and dangers were in vain. A German steamboat captain offered to pass me to Para for my work on the way, and I accepted. I was glad to leave this inferno, and nobody could imagine how I felt when our paddle wheels turned and I bid my last farewell to the Samaritans to whom I all but owed my life. The River Amazon now became wider and wider, and at Atmeirim we could not see the other shore. When traveling it seemed we were moving on a swiftly running lake. At the mouth of the actual Amazon, before it enters the Delta, its width for a distance of three hundred miles, is eighty miles and over, the distance from Rochester, N. Y., to Toronto, Canada, and thirty miles added. It took from June until August to reach 1 Para, the harbor of export for the immense Amazon basin. We had to load and unload at nearly every place, and had almost every night and even hours after day- break to anchor on account of thick fogs, thus tak- 112 Life and Adventures of A-No. 1 , ing this long time to travel the 2,000 miles. At Para I made many friends among the German, American, English, Spanish, etc., export houses, all engaged in V handling the cocoa, sugar, vanilla, mahogany, ebony, palm oil and a thousand other different items of export and import, arriving here from and for the interior. As the local papers printed my story I became popular in a hurry, and all vied in supply- ing me with everything needed. I found a job as steward on a small coast steamer which made trips to the Guianas. Our first port of call was Cayenne, the capital of French Guiana, and also the seat of the French penal colony. All criminals, convicted of grave crimes in France are deported here. On a low island in the bay was the prison where Capt. Dreyfus was confined later. The prisoners endure nameless agonies — exiled in a dead- ly climate. They are not allowed even the privilege of writing home, complaining about their hardships, as I was told by a guard and all letters are inspected, and the punishment to do so is being staked — unable to move — out in the hot sun, eaten nearly alive by the myriads of crawling and flying creatures, for a certain number of hours. They have only to wait until the fever puts an end to their sufferings and are soon forgotten. The next harbor we made was Paramaribo, the capital of Dutch Guiana. As chance would have it, I was offered a job on the palatial Hamburg-Ameri- can liner the “Rio de la Plata”, bound for Rio de Janeiro, the capital of Brazil. The first stop this steamer made was at Pernambuco, where for the first time since leaving Mexico I saw a genuine rail- road, a small narrow-gauge article built after the AMERICA’S MOST CELEBRATED TRAMP. 113 German pattern. We unloaded a large consignment of German merchandise, and took on nearly a full cargo of coffee; then we proceeded to Rio de Jan- eiro, reaching there after two weeks, covering a coast- line of over 3,000 miles. There I received my dis- charge and was paid 10 milreis ($5.00) for the trip. I found plenty to interest me in beautiful “Rio” as it is called by the Brazilians, opera houses, banks, the military war ships in the harbor; fine parks — in fact a European metropolis. Many Americans, Germans, Spanish and English residents, and also several genuine American tramps. I met some of the latter again in the States, thus plainly proving that they are not “tied” to railroads alone, as means of travel. I was offered different jobs, but being restless I wanted to work the people first, before the people worked me. But all fun and pleasure came to a sudden end, as on Christmas day I was conveyed in an ambulance to a hospital, suf- fering from yellow fever. It took only three weeks to be discharged, but three months to get over the after-effects, showing how dangerously near I came to dying. People, Europeans especially, were dying like flies, there being over 2,000 funerals from Sep- tember till May. On May 1, 1890, I stowed away in an Italian tramp steamer bound to Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay. The reception I received when I was discovered I will never forget. The Italians were nearly wild. Not alone would they have to lay a month in quarantine, if it was known that they carried a person from Rio de Janeiro aboard, but what was worse yet, they feared I would give them all the fever. I could not understand a word of their ii4 Life and Adventures of A-No. 1, jabbering, but by their gesticulations I could only see a choice between two things — one that they would throw me overboard; the other that they would chuck me into the furnace under the boilers alive. They proceeded to strip me of all my clothes and to examine them. I was almost scared to death with fear, when by chance they found the rosary and prayer book that I had promised poor Tom to deliver to his mother. All being devout Catholics, they treated me more kindly, even giving me the first food I had tasted in three long days, and the way I gobbled up the macaroni was a caution. After showing them that I could make myself useful by shoveling coal, they soon were my friends. When we neared Montevideo, they rowed me ashore, and by their motions gave me to understand that they would cut me up if I told how I reached that port. I had to walk about eighty miles before reach- ing the capital of Uruaguay, a pretty city in a cool latitude. Here again Spanish is the only language spoken and I soon forgot my faulty Portugese. From Montevideo I reached Buenos Ayers, the cap- ital of Argentina, and here I found many Europeans and Yankees. After loafing around for a long time I found a captain who was shipping a motley crew as caretakers on his steamer, loaded with steers for Lon- don. No experience being required, I signed a con- tract required by all seagoing nations, except the United States; I was to receive 40 shillings ($10.00) on arriving in London as wages. This money came as a windfall and thus made the trip far more pleasant. We sailed down the smooth Rio de la Plata to its mouth, and then crossed the storm-lashed Atlantic AMERICA’S MOST CELEBRATED TRAMP. 115 Ocean diagonally from south to north. We made a day’s stop at Funchal, the port of the Island of Madera, where we replenished our water supply. Then steaming along the coast of Africa and Portu- gal until we reached the English Channel, about three weeks after leaving Argentina, we encountered a genuine snowstorm and a terrific gale — the first genuine snow I had encountered since leaving the Andes of Ecuador in 1887. We reached London just in time to witness a procession of Queen Victoria going to open her Parliament. The forty shillings I received fixed me up nicely, as, of course, my South American outfit was all in rags. An employment bureau run by the British government, after a while found me a job as sailor on a steamer bound for New York. After a trip of another thre£ weeks, and after an absence of nearly four years, I found myself again on my native soil, humming sort of softly “ My Country ’Tis of Thee”, satisfied that the States, after all my own experiences abroad, was the only country where a tramp can tramp like a gentleman. I had yet the rosary and small prayer book Tom gave me when he died, which I had promised to deliver to his mother in Pennsylvania. I had car- ried them across oceans, and now when I arrived in New York City I decided to fulfill my promise. I railroaded from New York to Harrisburg, Pa., and after a long search found her residence. It was early in the morning, when knocking on the door, an old white haired lady, bent with years, opened the door and invited me into the parlor. An open Bible was on a small table, showing that she had just been reading it. She kindly asked me to be 116 Life and Adventures of A-No. 1 , seated. It was my intention to tell her my errand, but the words failed me. I didn’t have the heart to tell her how poor Tom died far away from home, alone with me in the wilderness on the banks of the Amazon. I told her only I had met him on the wharves of Maracaybo, Venezuela. “You have seen Tom alive? My boy Tom, my darling?” She would not believe me, and I had to describe tattoo marks; had to tell over and over stories he had told me, that only she could know — stories told to make the hours on our long journey pass quicker. I had to repeat how often he had spoken of his mother. Her eyes became moist, and she fell on her knees and prayed : “ She had waited three long years in vain; three long years to hear from her Tom; she had grieved and mourned all these years; had prayed to heaven for just a little sign from him, so she could know he was yet alive, was yet speaking, was yet loving his poor widowed mother, and at last the merciful Father had sent it, so Tom could comfort her in her lonely old age.” All this I witnessed and the tears came streaming down my cheeks. I tried to be brave and deliver those only tokens of a wandering boy to his old. widowed, lonely mother, but I couldn’t. I thought too much of her myself to destroy all and every hope for her. She wanted me to stay and tell her more, but I couldn’t. So bidding her farewell, I left the house while she again bent her knees in prayer. One hour later I was riding on a fast freight train toward Erie, Pennsylvania. When twenty- seven miles from Harrisburg our train stopped, the engine becoming out of order. While we were stand- ing there a light engine following us ran into the America’s Most Celebrated Tramp. 117 Her eyes became moist, and she fell on her knees and prayed. 118 Life and Adventures of A-No. 1 , caboose of our train. I heard the crash, and seeing the splinters fly, hastened back to see the cause. They were just laying the conductor of our train, the only person in the caboose on the grass. He was badly mangled but still alive. The trainmen flagged a passenger train going towards Harrisburg on the second track, and carefully lifted the dying: man into the baggage car. I volunteered to ac- company him, and as I was clothed in overalls, they thought I was a railroad "man and consented. While the train was flying towards Harrisburg, I heard the poor mangled conductor say to the baggage-master: “O, John, for God’s sake do a dying man a favor, send word to my dear old mother that I am hurt. Promise to do so. I will die more contented as I know mother will grieve if she is not told why I can’t come home again.” A moment later he had a hemorrhage, convulsions followed and then all was over. At Harrisburg, while they were unloading the remains, I walked quickly to Mrs. Hanrahan’s house, but upon reaching it I faltered. While waiting, undecided, a policeman passed and I stopped him. I handed .him poor Tom’s rosary and little tattered prayer book and told him the pitiful story of his death in the South American wilderness. Promis- ing he would deliver those tokens of love to the poor- mother and break the sad news to her as gently as possible, I watched him enter the humble cottage, and with tears streaming down my cheeks, sobbing broken-hearted, I hastily left, not wishing to add to her sorrows by another meeting. That very hour I bought a memorandum book and wrote my mother’s address on its first page. America’s Most Celebrated tramp. 119 I carry this little book at all times, for should death overtake me, I know there will be one poor mother less mourning out her life in years of sorrow and despair, waiting in vain for a sign of life from her wandering, wayward boy. Chapter XVII. “ Tramping to the Klondike.” A LASKA’S gold discoveries in the Klondike region electrified the United States in the fall of 1896. The papers were full of stories of how poor men, who were lucky enough to be there when the places were first discovered, had made fortunes in al- most no time. They told only about the gold, but never of the hardshipsencountered. In the spring of 1897, I was tramping about the country, with no intentions of leaving the States. Every- body was talking gold, and at many places where I stopped, citi- zens were making up purses to send young men to Alaska to try and make all wealthy. 120 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF A-NO. 1, Seattle, Wash., in those days was the out- setting place for all these argonauts, and again it was the first port the miners would reach when return- ing to the States. All the dailies were telling of the arrival of the steamers at Seattle ; how many dollars’ worth of gold dust each miner had, and telling how many squandered fortunes in a few days in riotous living — fortunes that had taken long years of hard labor, under the hardest kind of privations, to ac- cumulate. People fitted themselves out there with all the things it takes to stay a whole year or even longer inside the Artie Circle and spent their money freely, and the papers were full, telling how prosperous times were, how real estate bounded upwards, etc. It was enough to make me wish to go there, and just see that lively city for myself. So I left Chicago for St. Paul. There I went to an employment agency that hired labor for railroads. I told them I wanted a job, and for one dollar (that is the fee they charge) they gave me a pass to Livingston, Mont., 890 miles west, and an order entitling me to work on the Northern Pacific at two dollars a day. These employment agencies are all over the West. In 1899 I was shipped for three dollars from Chicago to San Bemadino, Cal., 2,800 miles. I was to take the job of a striking union mechanic, as I told the agent I was a machinist. In 1900, I was sent from Omaha, Neb., for a fee of one dollar to Burbank, Cal., 2,700 miles, to work in a tunnel. Of course only a few out of a hundred ever go to work, but it is a good thing for a tramp to “railroad it” over the deserts, as the pass entitles him to a nice soft easy seat in a coach, and often on a fast train at that. America’s Most Celebrated Tramp. 121 I arrived at Livingston, Mont., like a gentleman ; then I hit the brakes again and reached Helena, Mont., before I was “fired”. The next morning, while loafing about the depot, a special train pulled in from the East. It stopped here to change crews and engines, and I made inquiries, and was told that this special had a party of 150 people who were go- ing to the Klondike, being sent there by different rich companies from the Eastern States, also a num- ber of newspaper correspondents, who were going to have a look at Alaska and write up the place for the dailies. Then there were a lot of speculators, who intended to buy all kinds of mines. When the special pulled out of the station, I was on top of one of the Pullman sleepers, perfectly satisfied thus to travel and view the sights. From Helena, Mont., to Tacoma, Wash., it is 800 miles, and for 450 miles I was not discovered. Then while taking water at a lonely tank a brakeman “spotted” my uppermost berth and ordered me to vacate my pleasant, cool- riding place. Climbing down, some of the passengers remembered having seen me early that very morn- ing in Helena, Mont., and finding that I had “hung on” up there without breakfast or dinner, they went into their dining car and brought me a nice lunch. By this time the brakeman had gone towards the front of the train and had forgotten me, so when the train started I made a dash underneath and seated on a brake-beam I was soon speeding over the rails at the same rate, only it was a little more jolting, dusty and dangerous below the bottom than on top of the Pullman. Being a special it had a “clear track” over all other trains, and by the time it reached the next 122 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF A-ITO. 1, stop it was dark. Then a few of the passengers came around again for they had seen me dive under the car, and began talking to me. I had eaten all of the lunch while the train was running, and while they brought me some drinking water one of them remarked: “Say, fellow, going to Seattle? Well, we get there early in the morning, if you can hold her down that far, I will see to your getting your breakfast.” Another gave me fifty cents and told me that I would get another half if I “beat her” into Seattle. It was now dark, and as I enjoyed the breeze on top the car more than the stones, dirt and cinders underneath, at the next stop I climbed up on the upper deck again, and laid myself behind a ventila- tor on the roof of the dining car, and thus kept the wind from bothering me. I was soon asleep, dream- ing about gold and the Klondike, never thinking about rolling down and out, wrecks, low tunnels or accidents. In the early morning the train reached Tacoma, Wash. The next place we stopped was Auburn Wash., a small hamlet where we had to wait two hours on account of a freight wreck. I climbed down from up stairs and found many gentlemen willing to treat me good. They called me their mas- cot, gave me a nice breakfast and made up a col- lection and handed me nine dollars. I was thankful enough for the breakfast, and the money came very handy. One of the donners was a Mr. Herman Carpenter, whom a hop merchant, Mr. Frank D. Miller, of Oneonta, N. Y., had sent to explore for him. We reached Seattle, and as the Steamer “ Cleveland” was not due to sail for four days, everybody, after seeing their baggage aboard, came ashore to have AMERICA’S MOST CELEBRATED TRAMP. 12S a good time before leaving for the cold, bleak Arctic region. In this way I met a good many of the passengers again, and heard them and others talk enough of the Alaska placers to give me the gold fever, and when the above mentioned Mr. Carpenter said to me : “ Say, if you can reach Alaska without any expense to me for a ticket, I will look out for you.” That settled it. I had the gold fever sure, not alone because there was a chance to get rich, but also a chance, that I had never given up ever since I promised my mother, trying to stop tramping, and I had an idea, that if I would have to stay nine months in one place, and away from any railroad, I possibly would break myself of the tramping habit. On the night of July 14, 1897, the “Cleveland”, with 400 passengers, and enough freight in the hold and on deck to nearly sink her, left the wharf, bound for St. Michaels, Ala., which is situated on an island at the mouth of the Yukon River, where she would connect with one of the large stem-wheel steam- boats of the Alaska Commercial Company, for Daw- son City and the Klondike. I was hidden under the berth in Mr. Carpenter’s cabin, he giving me food. J was dressed in the very thinnest of summer clothes and had exactly 75 cents in money in my pocket ; but I was going to Alaska and was resolved to make millions! I laid quietly underneath the berth for three long days and nights. When over 400 miles from the United States’ boun- dary line I made my appearance. First I hunted the captain and told him how I was locked up in the hold, but as the hatches had never been opened since leaving Seattle, he wouldn’t believe me, and started 124 Life and Adventures of A-No. 1 , swearing, seaman’s fashion, at me and threatened to throw me overboard or maroon me on some island. At this point Mr. Carpenter came in with this question : “ Say, young fellow, are you not the same one I saw in Tacoma?” I answered in the affirma- tive, and he then proceeded to tell the captain how I had beaten my way on their special train for over 800 miles. 1 I offered to work for my passage, but he already had a dozen working their trip, so he gave me another hard speech and told me that I would have to come back from Alaska the best I could, as he would leave me at St. Michaels. I was satisfied, and when Mr. Carpenter went among the passengers and made up a purse of $110, and besides this, he and others gave me a complete Arctic outfit, I thought I struck an “ El Dorado ” sure enough. This was a prize indeed, for the nights were getting colder and colder and the days longer. At lip. m. we could read books, and at 3 a. m. day broke again. We had fair weather all the way, and as we took the inside passage as far as Sitka, Alaska, with the mainland on one side and islands on the other, we had ocean water as smooth as a lake for nearly 800 miles. On the mainland, the snow covered Cascade Range and the enormous ice walls of the glaciers that extend into the ocean, gave us an idea of the cold that we would have to withstand during the coming winter. We coaled at Juneau, Alaska, even piling coal all over our decks, and wherever there was an open space for we had to steam 2,000 miles farther before reach- ing St. Michaels, the next coaling station. For three long weeks we steamed, passing through the Behring Straits, the Behring Sea into the Arctic itself. Ice- America’s Most Celebrated tramp. 125 bergs became plenteous. We saw seals, ice bears, different kinds of birds and spouting whales. At St. Michaels our trip ended, and passengers as well as cargo were unloaded on the beach with the help of flat-bottomed boats. The “ Cleveland ” had, besides 400 passengers, nearly 3,000 tons of cargo that was due to go up the Yukon on one of the river boats. We had had a long, tedious and expen- sive trip, and to everybody’s consternation it was learned that the boat which was to connect with our ship had sunk 200 miles up the river. In those days the boats were not as numerous on the Yukon as they are now, and the passengers were informed that they would either have to pay $200 each for passage back to Seattle or winter where they were, with no better shelter or protection than the govern- ment tents would offer. Of our four hundred passengers only one hun- dred and twenty had funds sufficient to pay for their return passage, the others had only their tickets to Dawson City and very little money, as their meals were included with their tickets, and would have heen sufficient if they had made the expected connections with the wrecked steamboat. Now their only choice was to stay there at St. Michaels, in the Arctic Ocean, as they could not possibly find transportation until May, when the river would open again. I had still $60 and my nice warm suit, but that was all; nice prospects for staying in a place where an egg cost one dollar, a loaf of bread thirty-five cents, a pound of bacon a dollar and a half! I tried to induce the captain to carry me back for the $60, but he was sore already for carrying me up for noth- ing and he enjoyed nothing better than seeing me 120 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF A-NO. 1, “get it good and plenty,” as he expressed himself. There was another steamer due, the “Corwin” that was to bring another three hundred passengers, thus making the outlook darker still. At St. Michaels, besides a government post, was a missionary settlement. These owned a small sternwheel steamboat, “The Morning Star”, which they used in summer to carry supplies to their dif- ferent missions among the Esquimo settlements scat- tered along the bays and rivers of Alaska. About thirty passengers finally decided to contribute $800 a piece for the purchase of this boat. Then they put in a stock of provisions sufficient to last until Spring. Their intention was to reach the Klondike living aboard, thus paying for the boat with what their stay in camp would have cost them. Mr. Carpenter took one of the $800 shares and told me about the deal after it was closed. The boat being very small they could not and would not take another soul aboard even if paid $10,000. Outside of the captain, all members of the crew were shareholders; millionaires cooking, reporters 'steering, an engineer for a gold mining machinery concern, was the steamboat engineer. Mr. Carpenter was a waiter. This shows how close the quarters were, and yet it was my only chance to get away from St. Michaels. I didn’t care where I went, just so I got away from those three hundred passengers, who were groveling, kicking and growl- ing, and were about ready to commit suicide all in a bunch. The old stern-wheel boat was hardly able to steam, was leaking badly, was old and worn, still it was a boat — a heaven compared to St. Michaels. AMERICA’S MOST CELEBRATED TRAMP. 127 So while they all hustled to fit her out, I helped them and kept my eyes open for chances. The evening they were to leave I told them all good-bye, and they felt very badly to see me being left behind. I collected about $20 more and took the addresses of each, and they took my own to write to me. In fact Ibelieve some came near crying, for I had been their pet ever since the 10th' of July, and it was now the • 10th of September. Early the next morning they were to depart, and in the evening they held a farewell reception. At 7 p. m. while all were making plenty of noise in the cabin, I sneaked aboard with about twenty ship hardtacks in my pockets and a large jug of water, and stowed away under the canvas covering of the only life boat aboard. I could hear every word said in the cabin, could hear them laugh and crack jokes until I went to sleep. Early in the morning the old tub blew her whistle until the steam nearly gave out in farewell to the rest of the marooned passengers. The wheel began to turn and slowly and shakily we crept away. In the afternoon by peeking from under the canvas, I could see that we had entered the Yukon, and I then ate my first ship biscuit and took a small sip of water. In this way I passed five days, hardly moving as I lay on the hard boards of the life boat. I en- joyed the days but at night came near freezing to death. I had a few more crackers and a little water left, which I hoped to make last a few days longer, when all at once the boat gave a lurch and then stopped dead still. The captain miscalculated, and had the boat high and dry on a sand-bar instead of dn the channel of the Yukon. I didn’t know what 128 Life and adventures of a-No. l, had happened, but at break of day they came to fetch the life boat to use it, in trying to pull the “ Morning Star ’ ’ into deep water again, and then they discovered my hiding place. I expected to get hurt, but they seemed to admire my pluck, first in beating the rail- road special, then the ocean steamer and now even their rotten old river boat, and after looking me over to make sure it was me and not my ghost, they all shook hands with me and took me in the cabin and gave me a square meal, the first one in six days. As all knew my history and took an interest in me, and as I offered to work and help all in my power, I soon had the best of treatment. After a few hours of hard work we at last cleared the “Morning Star’ r and proceeded up the river. On October 20, 1897, just as we reached Fort Adams, at the confluence of the Koyokuk River, an arctic storm put our navigation plans to a sudden end, as in forty-eight hours it froze four solid inches of ice clear across the river. We chopped with axes a channel four miles up to the Yukon to a high island, and there protected from the current but not from the arctic gales we cabled and anchored the “ Morning Star ” in the best manner possible. There we were, 630 miles from St. Michaels and about 1000 miles from Dawson City. We were not much better off than those poor fellows we left behind at the mouth of the Yukon. All hands went to work fix- ing up for the long arctic winter, millionaires, corres- pondents, etc., were cutting cordwood, covering the cabin with tarpaulins and tarring same, closing all windows, cutting and pulling to pieces old rope that after being dipped into boiling tar was packed into cracks to make them water and air tight as well. America’s Most celebrated Tramp. 129 Fifteen of our more daring members went to Fort Adams, where an Esquimo settlement is located, and made arrangements to be taken by dog sleds overland to Dawson City, 1000 miles in the interior. It was not so very cold yet, and even now (Nov. 1st) there were a few short hours of daylight, so with their share of the provisions, and with many bless- ings, they set out. Mr. Carpenter left our boat with the Esquimo expedition. The days became shorter, and about December 1st, we saw a little daylight for the last time. As soon as possible we cut holes in the ice and fished ; and the fish thus caught gave us a welcome change in food, but later on the ice extended nearly to the bottom of the river. Boiling coffee put outside of the cabin would be frozen hard inside of five minutes. Chxistmas, 1897, the thermometer registered 63degrees below zero. We only left our shelter when we had to cut wood. We had nice guns and rifles, expect- ing to find plenty of game in the interior, but only a few hares and birds were shot, and we had to live on beans, flour, canned meats, fish, barrel-pork and beef. About January 15, 1898, the Esquimos re- turned after landing our members safely at Dawson City, and told us tales of hard times there on account of low provisions and high prices; even beans were one dollar a pound and other things in proportion. Where at first we had fun, played games and joked and tried to be lively, gradually all began to be more quiet and languid. The long dark hours, nothing but the stars and moon, the blinding white snow that stung the eyes, the continuous cold, all com- bined was enough to make the liveliest man sad and miserable. Then on account of lack of vegetable 130 Life and Adventures of A-No. 1 , diet, about the first of March, some of us became victims of the scurvy. By the 20th of March all had been infected. There were no medicines, as in the hurry to fit the boat these had been forgotten. At Fort Adams, it being a small Esquimo settlement, they had none, but at Fort Yukon, 590 miles farther up the river, the Alaska Commercial Company had a large post and all supplies, and the only hope to save the lives of all was to try and reach that place. I volunteered to go with an Esquimo and try and procure the only known specific — citric acid, and thus save my own life, as well as those of the others. My own condition was something awful ; my jaws were swollen so that I could not even close my mouth, and the fever nearly set me crazy. Still for twenty-two days, or rather twenty-two arctic nights, on a sled drawn by three dogs, with an Es- quimo for a driver, against the cold arctic, far below zero weather, with just enough provisions to reach Fort Yukon, sleeping in bags made by Esquimo, wo- men from walrus skin, and stuffed with the fine feathers of the arctic goose, I made the journey. We had snow three and four feet deep. The dogs would scratch shallow holes in the snow to lie in, and after racing all day would quarrel and fight as bad as ever. When we reached Fort Yukon I was unable to say a word, and the Esquimo had to deliver the mes- sage for help. When I left the boat my hair was jet black, and now only twenty-two days later it had turned gray, such were my sufferings on that trip. For a couple of hours I sat silent, and they pumped medicines into me, but the trip was too much, and I was so far gone that I became unconscious and for America’s Most celebrated Tramp. 131 several weeks raved before I began to improve. The Alaska Company had sent, in the meantime, med- icines and a doctor back to the boat, and when he returned later the tale of suffering that the others had undergone was shocking. Two had already died, and their corpses laid in the cabin, as the others were too weak even to remove them. With the aid of medicine the rest were saved. In the middle of April an Esquimo came from Fort Adams bringing me a letter and in it an order for the Alaska Company to pay me $100, this amount having been made up among the thirteen survivors of the “Morning Star”. Further they sent me an address thanking me for saving their lives. This address I have to this day. ■The “Morning Star” share-holders had worse luck, for when in May the ice of the Yukon began to move, the boat being frozen into a large cake, simply broke the cables and started to drift down the swol- len current, and was caught in an ice jam and crushed like an eggshell; the men aboard having only time to save themselves. I left Fort Yukon on the 13th of May, 1898, and walked up the river bank to Dawson City, 375 miles. At Dawson there was not any gold, and I had to walk twenty miles to Discovery Creek before I saw the first gold placer mines — holes sometimes twenty feet deep cut into the hard frozen ground, and by burning cordwood on the bottom they loosen- ed the pay gravel sufficiently to be hoisted in small pails to the surface. I picked small nuggets from the dumps, but nearly all the gold was as fine as flour. There was not a job to be bought, as all work is done during the 132 Life and Adventures of A-No. 1 , cold weather and in the summer the gravel is washed. Gravel that it took ten months to dig and hoist is washed inside a single week. Disgusted with gold, Alaska and myself, I went back to Dawson, just in time to see the first mail brought in over the Chil- coot Pass from Sitka, Alaska, and the way those be- whiskered men cried and acted when they opened letters that were all the way from three to nine months old; how they showed them to each other, how strangers read each others letters; how they hugged and kissed them and acted like children was a sight indeed. Here at Dawson, I met Mr. Carpenter again. He had just returned from the Copper River district, where there was a rush of prospectors, as the rumor was that gold placers had been discovered there. As my money was nearly gone, Mr. Carpenter ad- vised me to return to the States and see his backer, Mr. Frank D. Miller, at Oneonta, N. Y., and said: “If I strike it rich, he must send help to me, and as you have been here, and furthermore have no one depending upon you, he surely will give you the first chance.” I thought his idea a good one, and the next day, the first of June, 1898, I set out to reach Seattle, 1,800 miles away, and then Oneonta, N. Y., 3,200 miles farther — 5,000 miles in all, with only four dollars and twenty cents in my pockets and a bag full of provisions slung over my shoulder. I walked over the trail to Fort Selkirk, from there to Lake Labarge. Here on a couple of logs tied together by a rope and equipped with a pole for a mast, and a couple of potato sacks held together by a few thorns for a sail, I traveled, propelled by a strong wind, America’s Most Celebrated Tramp. 133 twenty-eight miles in eight hours. I had covered in twenty days nearly 530 miles, and now climbed over the Chilcoot Pass, about 3000 feet above the sea level, and reached the summit on the morning of June 22, 1898, to see the Pacific Ocean for the first time since I left St. Michaels. It was twenty-eight steep miles down hill, and when I reached Dyea, Alaska, I was told that if I could reach Sitka where there is a coaling station, I would have a better chance to get back to the States. I did not have a single cent, but that evening I unhooked a small Esquimo canoe and with a piece of barrel stave for a paddle I crossed the channel, forty miles wide, to the island on the other side of which Sitka was situated. I reached there the next evening after paddling forty miles and walking ten miles without a bite or rest. Sitka is a large settlement and as plenty of miners returning from the Klondike landed here and spent their money I soon forgot my past experiences. I stopped here for two weeks, resting up the best I could. I still had the address with the resolutions from the members of the “ Morning Star” on it, and everybody helped me who read it. I found a chance to return to Seattle on a sailing ship, working for my passage. On the 15th of July, 1898, just an even year after leaving Seattle, I reached there again in the middle of an almost tropical hot summer, without a cent and dressed in my rough and heavy arctic clothes, with absolutely nothing to show for a long year of the roughest and hardest of adventures ; gray and aged with only the satisfaction that I was yet alive. The old say- , ing: “A rolling stone gathers no moss” was vividly 134 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF A-NO. 1, illustrated to me, and any person would have thought that after such hardships and privations I would have had enough, but — The very next day after I landed in Seattle, and after I went among the private residences and had hustled something like civilized clothes for my- self, I started East, via the Northern Pacific. Three weeks after I left the Pacific coast I climbed up the stairs and knocked at the door of Mr. Frank D. Miller’s office. I told him how I left Mr. Carpenter in Dawson, and that I would tramp it to Alaska again if he would only promise m^ employment when I arrived there. “Say”, Mr. Miller asked me, “did you Jiave your dinner?” I hadn’t, and told him so. He handed me a dollar and said : “ You come back here the first of October and I will see what I can do for you.” I earned a few dollars and promptly returned to Mr. Miller by mail the money he gave me. When I re- turned the next fall to Oneonta, N. Y., he did not yet have a job for me in the Klondike, but as I was dead-broke as usual, he *1 arrived in Seattle, Wash., in the middle of a tropical summer, dressed in Arctic clothes.” AMERICA’S MOST CELEBRATED TRAMP. 135 handed me another dollar, but this time he said : “Look here, A-No. 1, why don’t you save a little spare money so that you will have funds to fall back upon should you take sick, or become crip- pled by some accident, as has happened to so many poor fellows ? It seems hard for you to do so, doesn’t it? But it’s not half so hard as it looks when you once get started. Send me your surplus money and I will keep it for you, and you can have it any mo- ment desired.” On this suggestion I acted. It was a hard mat- ter, and after six months, when I returned to One- onta I found I had only saved nine dollars. In the coming fall I had the munificent sum of seventeen dollars to my credit ; a year after this, the sum be- came so large that I deposited it in a savings bank. Mr. Carpenter returned from Alaska in the fall of 1899, not having made a cent in the Klondike, and besides having lost his health. Thus a kind Providence had turned all the hardships and dangers that I passed through since childhood to final advantage, for through the acts of Mr. Frank D. Miller, it taught me something far better than any Alaska gold mine. It showed me a way, not alone to save money, but by doing so, to gain the estimation of my fellow beings, something that I had, up to that moment, thought to be im- possible to attain for those who follow the road of “The Restless”, and made it possible for me to be proud of my record, even when I am called in dis- dain — “a tramp.” 136 Life and Adventures of A-No. 1 / Chapter XVIII. “ Conclusion.” W ITH this description of my trip to the Alaska gold discoveries, I have told the most inter- esting part of my foreign tramping journeys. To give a narrative of the adventures I encountered on my other trips, six different ones to Europe, one each to Japan, West Indies, China, New Zealand, etc., would be to a large extent a repetition of the ex- periences already narrated in this book, and it would be only tempting the patience of my readers to do so. For over a quarter of a century I have now led this hard and thankless life, a nameless wanderer, driven on by an irresistible longing to rove, and dur- ing all these years I have tried to do the “square thing” by all who befriended me the least, never forgetting any kindness done me; never having touched liquor and tobacco, nor gambled, and if I have done wrong (outside of beating the railroads) I am sure I have more than evened this score a hundred-fold by doing good to those less fortunate, and I have documents from different railroad com- panies, thanking me for having prevented, at the risk of my life and limbs, over twenty different wrecks, etc., etc. Many times in my wanderings, strangers as well as acquaintances, interested in the tramp prob- lem, have asked me, “What is the reason, ‘ A-No. 1,’ that you should tramp?” I will confess here that I, AMERICA’S MOST CELEBRATED TRAMP. 137 a sane man, with such a talent for sculpturing, that a few lessons would not only bring me a famous name, but easy fortune as well, with the ability to carve the most beautiful as well as the most ugly images out of wood or vegetables, with none of the bad habits that nearly every tramp is a victim, with the ability to fead, write and speak French, German, Spanish and English languages fluently — yet I cannot stop, in spite of all the numerous attempts to conquer the “Wanderlust”! Ask any other victim of this strange malady — tramp, commercial traveler, rail- road man, circus follower, etc., and all these will attest to the very same inability to shake off the desire to wander. During all these long years of restless roving, I have carried a small memorandum in which I have kept a list of the many humoristic, as well as pathetic experiences, which can happen to no other class of human being but the homeless, wandering tramp, and I will publish these under the title of “ Confes- sions of A-No. 1,” and sincerely hope that this book also will have the approval of the reading public. In this memorandum I have kept an exact account of every mile I have tramped from the first day I “hit” the road on the 24th of August, 1883, and the total mileage on the 1st of May, 1910, was 471,215 miles, and my cash expenditures for trans- portation, exclusive of unavoidable street car and ferry boat charges were $ 7 . 61 . THE END. ■ “ Ready for the Road.” •Vf-.-’fc