Pictures
"What do it matter where or 'ow we die, So long as we've our 'ealth to watch it all?"
--Sestina of the Tramp-Royal
Perhaps the greatest charm of tramp-life is the absence of monotony. In Hobo Land the face of life is protean--an ever changing phantasmagoria, where the impossible happens and the unexpected jumps out of the bushes at every turn of the road. The hobo never knows what is going to happen the next moment; hence, he lives only in the present moment. He has learned the futility of telic endeavor, and knows the delight of drifting along with the whimsicalities of Chance.
Often I think over my tramp days, and ever I marvel at the swift
succession of pictures that flash up in my memory. It matters not
where I begin to think; any day of all the days is a day apart, with a
record of swift-moving pictures all its own. For instance, I remember
a sunny summer morning in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and immediately
comes to my mind the auspicious beginning of the day--a "set-down" with two maiden ladies, and not in their kitchen, but in their dining room, with them beside me at the table. We ate eggs, out of egg-cups! It was the first time I had ever seen egg-cups, or heard of egg-cups! I was a bit awkward at first, I'll confess; but I was hungry and unabashed. I mastered the egg-cup, and I mastered the eggs in a way that made those two maiden ladies sit up.
Why, they ate like a couple of canaries, dabbling with the one egg
each they took, and nibbling at tiny wafers of toast. Life was low in
their bodies; their blood ran thin; and they had slept warm all night. I had been out all night, consuming much fuel of my body to keep warm, beating my way down from a place called Emporium, in the northern part of the state. Wafers of toast! Out of sight! But each wafer was no more than a mouthful to me--nay, no more than a bite. It is tedious to have to reach for another piece of toast each bite when one is potential with many bites.
When I was a very little lad, I had a very little dog called Punch. I
saw to his feeding myself. Some one in the household had shot a lot of
ducks, and we had a fine meat dinner. When I had finished, I prepared
Punch's dinner--a large plateful of bones and tidbits. I went outside
to give it to him. Now it happened that a visitor had ridden over from
a neighboring ranch, and with him had come a Newfoundland dog as big
as a calf. I set the plate on the ground. Punch wagged his tail and
began. He had before him a blissful half-hour at least. There was a
sudden rush. Punch was brushed aside like a straw in the path of a
cyclone, and that Newfoundland swooped down upon the plate. In spite
of his huge maw he must have been trained to quick lunches, for, in
the fleeting instant before he received the kick in the ribs I aimed
at him, he completely engulfed the contents of the plate. He swept it
clean. One last lingering lick of his tongue removed even the grease
stains.
As that big Newfoundland behaved at the plate of my dog Punch, so
behaved I at the table of those two maiden ladies of Harrisburg. I
swept it bare. I didn't break anything, but I cleaned out the eggs and
the toast and the coffee. The servant brought more, but I kept her
busy, and ever she brought more and more. The coffee was delicious, but it needn't have been served in such tiny cups. What time had I to eat when it took all my time to prepare the many cups of coffee for drinking?
At any rate, it gave my tongue time to wag. Those two maiden ladies, with their pink-and-white complexions and gray curls, had never looked upon the bright face of adventure. As the "Tramp-Royal" would have it, they had worked all their lives "on one same shift." Into the sweet scents and narrow confines of their uneventful existence I brought the large airs of the world, freighted with the lusty smells of sweat and strife, and with the tangs and odors of strange lands and soils. And right well I scratched their soft palms with the callous on my own palms--the half-inch horn that comes of pull-and-haul of rope and long and arduous hours of caressing shovel-handles. This I did, not merely in the braggadocio of youth, but to prove, by toil performed, the claim I had upon their charity.