My Life

My first "baptism of fire," when the "Song of The Bullet" was heard in all its completeness, took place in Iowa, or western Illinois, I forget which, this forgetfulness being another testimony to the cold-blooded indifference of the Road and its travelers as to time, place and weather. Five of us were very anxious to "make" Chicago ("Chi") by early morning of the next day. Ordinarily, we had plenty of time, but we failed to consider the railroad we were on – the C. B. and Q., or the "Q," as it is more familiarly known. Some years previous the great "Q" strike had taken place, affording so-called "scabs" from the East, who were very liberally introduced into the "Q's" territory, an opportunity to manage things for a time. Their lot was not an easy one, and to be called "scabs" incensed them not a little.

We determined to ride on an afternoon "freight" at least far enough to land somewhere nicely about time for supper. I certainly remember catching the train in Iowa, but whether the "Song of the Bullet" was sung there or on the Illinois side of the Mississippi, I am at a loss to say. On one side or the other the crew discovered us, and insisted on our "hitting the gravel," getting off the train. We demurred.

"Get off, you dirty tramps," the conductor ordered.

We were not particularly dirty, and although we might be called tramps and live up to the "calling," we believed that even as such, we were higher in the social scale than were "scabs." The crew numbered four. As I have said, we were five strong. Finally, losing our tempers and judgment, we told the conductor that we would not only ride in his train, but his caboose as well, and we scrambled for places on the platform. He tried to kick at us first, but fright at our numbers soon overcame him, and, with an oath, he ran into the caboose, shouting back, "I'll soon see who is running this train." We knew only too well what his actions meant, and dropped off. In a minute he appeared on the back platform with a revolver and opened up on us. Fortunately, his train was moving ahead at a fair pace and he was a poor shot. As I recall the incident none of us was particularly frightened, and there was no such "Pingh-h" in the "Song of the Bullet" as I have so often heard described. The "Pingh-h" indeed I have never heard anywhere. The bullets that the conductor sent our way went over our heads and around us, with a whizzing whine. As Bret Harte suggests in his bullet verses, it was as if the disappointment at not reaching us was overwhelmingly acute. Since that experience other bullets have whizzed and whined about me – not many, thanks! – and it seemed to me sometimes that they went purring on their flight, and then again whining. Perhaps the purring bullets found soft lodgment after passing me, but I hope not if the mark was a human being.

An experience that I had in a railroad sand-house in Wisconsin illustrates the definiteness with which the hobo must frequently assert his rights. A man, called "Scotchy" by some, "Rhuderick" by others, was my companion at the time. We were the first-comers at the sand-house, and wholly ignorant of a Wisconsin collection of rovers, nick-named "The Kickers." These Kickers, it appears, had been in the habit of running all available tramp "stops" (sleeping places) to suit their own nonsense, and if their so-called "spots" at any "stop" were found appropriated by others on their arrival, no matter how late, they proceeded to drive the alleged interlopers out, if they felt strong enough. They were hoboes of a kind, but they were careful to travel incognito when alone. "Scotchy" and I quite unwittingly took three of the Kickers' places in the sand-house in question, and were comfortably asleep when the Kickers appeared.

"You got yer nerve on," said one of the burly brutes to "Scotchy," tickling him none too gently in the ribs with his toe-tip. "Get out o' there, an' give yer betters their rights." The rasping voice and the striking of matches wakened me also. Somehow, it may have been tramp instinct, for certainly the Road develops such things, I felt impelled on the instant to grab and capture the poker, and "Scotchy" secured the sand-bucket.

"Me betters, huh?" cried "Scotchy," ominously swinging his bucket. "This for you," and he brought the bucket perilously near one of the Kickers' heads. Matches were being struck on all sides, and it was not difficult to see. The Kickers framed closely together for their attack. They forgot, or did not know, about my poker. Pretty soon another match was struck. The Kickers had coupling pins, and looked formidable. I was in a shadow. They consolidated their forces against "Scotchy." His bucket, however, stretched one Kicker flat before he had time to defend himself. Total darkness and silence followed. Then a Kicker ventured another match. This was my chance. The long poker shot out, and the point must have hit hard in the temple; at any rate, the wounded Kicker sat down. The remaining Kicker risked still one more light, but on seeing his disabled pals, he made for the door. Too late! Other hoboes, not Kickers, had arrived, "dope" lights were secured, and the story was told. The poor Kickers were "kicked" out of that sand-house as never before or since, I am sure.

Such aggregations of tramps are met with throughout Hoboland, and there are constant clashes between them and itinerant roadsters traversing the gangs' districts. The only thing to do is to fight shy of them when alone, and if in force, to fight them; otherwise they become so arrogant and despotic that no one, not even the mere short distance trespasser, is left unmolested.

In spite of all the chances to get hurt, in feelings as well as physically, that Hoboland offers to all comers, I must repeat that I was able to explore its highways and byways with very few scratches to my credit or discredit. A small scar or two and some tattoo figures constitute all the bodily marks of the experience that I carry to-day. There were opportunities without number for fisticuffs, but, as I have declared, I had long since joined the peace movement, and regularly fought shy of them.

A thirty days' sentence to jail, toward the close of the eight months' trip, hurt and tantalized me more than any of the wrecks on railroads or disputes with bullies. It came unfortunately, in June, the hoboes' favorite month. Sleeping in a box-car at night was my crime. I have described the arrest and general experience in one of my tramp books, but I cannot forbear saying a few words about the judge who sentenced me. At the time, 1889 I think was the year, he was police judge in Utica, N. Y., where in company with a friend, I was caught. The night's batch of prisoners were brought before him at one and the same time – drunks, thieves, runaway boys, train-jumpers, bona fide hoboes and Gay-Cats. The court-room was a dingy little place with benches for the prisoners and officers, and a raised platform with a desk for the judge. I shall never forget how the latter looked – "spick and span" to the last degree in outward appearance, but there was an overnight look in his face that boded us ill, I feared. "Just ez if he'd come out of a Turkish bath," whispered an unfortunate who had been found asleep in the streets. The judge certainly paid little enough attention to our cases to have come from anywhere, but a Turkish bath ought to have left him more merciful. We were all punished according to the judge's whims and the law's limitations, the overnight look on the face of our persecutor, as we considered him, deepening, it seemed, with each sentence. My "thirty-day" fate rolled as easily from his lips as did the five and ten-day pronouncements for the "alcoholics"; he did not seem to know any difference between them. Perhaps, in the years that have intervened, he has been enlightened on this point. I hope so for his sake, at least.

The sentencing over, we prisoners were taken to our different destinations, mine being the jail at Rome, the Utica prison being crowded. There is little to add here to what I have long since told in print about my stay there; but perhaps I have never emphasized sufficiently the tramp's disgust at having "to do time" in June. From May till November is his natural roving time, his box-car vacation; in winter, jail, even the workhouse is often more of a boon than otherwise. The Rome jail consequently harbored very unwilling guests in the persons of the few tramps lodged there. However, even thirty summer days, precious as they are on the "outside," pass away sooner than one at first expects them to, and then comes that glorious moment – thunder, lightning, not even a pouring rain can mar it – when the freed one is his own master again. There may be other experiences in life more ecstatic than this one, but I would willingly trade them all temporarily for that first gasp in the open air, and that unfettered tread on the ground, which the discharged prisoner enjoys.

Of my status as a tramp in the general social fabric in Hoboland, perhaps enough is said when I report that before quitting the Road, I could have at any time claimed and secured the respect due to the "blowed-in-the-glass" wanderer. Yet I could make myself quite as much at home at a "hang-out" of the Gay-Cats as among the hoboes. Begging for money was something that I indulged in as little as possible; at the start, it was impossible for me to ask for "coin." My meals, however, lodging and clothes were found by me in the same abundance as the old-timer's. I had to have such things, and as asking for them was the conventional way of getting them, I asked persistently, regularly and fairly successfully.

There is nothing to be said in defense of this practice. It is just as much a "graft" as stealing is; indeed, stealing is looked upon in the Under World as by all odds the more aristocratic undertaking. But stealing in Hoboland is not a favorite business or pastime. Hoboland is the home of the discouraged criminal who has no other refuge. His criminal wit, if he had any, has not panned out well, and he resorts to beggary and clandestine railroading as the next best time-killer. Punishment has tired him out, frightened him, and the Road looms up before him spacious and friendly.

I have often been asked seriously, whether the Road can be looked upon as a necessary school of discipline for certain natures; whether, for instance, as an anxious mother of a wayward boy, once put the query to me, "is there enough that is worth while in it, if looked for, to overbalance that which is not worth while?" It depends both on the boy and the treatment he gives to and gets from his pals. In general, the Road is not to be recommended – not for morals, comfort, cleanliness, or "respectability." It is a backwater section of our civilization; it is full of malaria and other swampy things. Yet, with all its miasma, this backwater district has sent many a good man back to the main Road, which we all try to travel. In my own case, I can certainly say that many desirable truths were revealed to me while in Hoboland which it seemed impossible for me to grasp until having had the Hoboland experience.

But to speak seriously of the Road as a recuperating place for deteriorated morals, or as an invigorator for weak natures, I can only say – in general, don't try it. There are too many "building-up" farms and "nerve strengthening" sanatoriums to make it necessary to-day for any one to have to resort to Hoboland to be put right again. Yet the Road will probably be with us, for better or for worse, after the soothing farms and disciplinary sanatoriums have dwindled away; I mean such as may be patronized, say, in the next thousand years or so. There were tramps thousands of years ago, and I fear that they will be on the earth, if there be an earth then, thousands of years hence. They change[Pg 116][Pg 117] a little in dress, customs and diet as the years roll by, just as other people change. But, for all practical purposes, I should expect to find the ancient Egyptian hobo, for instance, if he could come to life and would be natural, pretty much the same kind of roadster that we know in our present American type. Laziness, loafing, Wanderlust and begging are to-day what they ever have been – qualities and habits that are passed on from generation to generation, practically intact.

My longest Wanderlust trip came to an end in the much maligned city of Hoboken, N. J. Some work done for a farmer, near Castleton on the Hudson River netted me a few dollars, and, one night in September, in company of an aged Irishman, I drifted down the river to the great city on a canal boat. The Irishman got separated from me in the crowded thoroughfares in New York, and I drifted alone over to Hoboken, bent on an important errand, but doubtful about its outcome. Little did I realize then what a hard task there was ahead of me, and how great the change in my life was to be, the task once finished.

CHAPTER VIII

MY VOYAGE TO EUROPE

Twenty years ago, and probably at an earlier date still, the traveler bound for Europe on any of the ships, sailing from Hoboken, might have seen, had he been curious enough to look about him, a strange collection of men of all ages, sizes and make-ups, huddled together nights in a musty cellar only a few steps from the North German Lloyd's docks. And, had he talked with this uncouth company, he would have learned much about the ways and means necessary to make big ships go and come on their ocean voyages.

Somewhat less than twenty years ago, say eighteen, a greasy paper sign was tacked to the door of the cellar for the benefit of those who might be looking for the dingy hole. It read: "Internashnul Bankrupp Klubb – Wellcome!" The words and lettering were the work of an Italian lad, who had a faculty for seeing the humor in things which made others cry and sigh. In years that have passed the sign has been blown away, and a barber to-day holds forth where the "Bankrupps" formerly lodged. The store above, a general furnishing establishment for emigrants and immigrants, has also given way to a saloon, I think, and the outfitting business of former days has developed, in the hands of the old proprietor's sons, into a general banking and exchange affair near-by around the corner. The old proprietor has long since been gathered unto his fathers, I have been told; but the boys possess much of his business acumen and money-getting propensities and are doing well, preferring, however, to handle the currencies of the various nations to selling tin pots, pans, mattresses and shoddy clothing, as did the old man.

Their father was a Hebrew, who may or may not have had a very interesting history before I met him, but at the time of our acquaintance he looked so fat and comfortable and money was so plainly his friend and benefactor that he was a pretty prosaic representative of his race. I had heard about him in New York, after making unsuccessful attempts there and in Brooklyn to secure a berth as caretaker on a Europe-bound cattle-ship.

Eight months of roughing it on the Road had worked many changes in my temperament, ways of calculating, and general appearance. I was no longer the youth who had jumped out of that second-story window and made for parts unknown. Had it been necessary, so tough and hardened had my physique become, that on arriving in Hoboken, I could have done myself credit, I think, in getting out of a third-story window. I was thin and scrawny, to be sure, but such characteristics are most deceiving to the observer unacquainted with tramp life. They may mean disease, of course, but more frequently good health, and in my case it was decidedly the latter. Whatever else hoboing had done or failed to do for me, it had steeled my muscles, tightened up my nerve, and jostled my self-reliance into a thoroughly working condition. Many a vacation in recent years, so far as mere health is concerned, might have been spent with profit on the Road. But eighteen years ago it was a different matter. Die Ferne as such was at least temporarily under control; I had become tired of simply drifting, and whether I should find a home abroad or not, the outlook could hardly be much darker over seas than in my own country. I had some knowledge of foreign languages, and knew that, at a pinch, I could retreat to England, or to one of her colonies, if Germany should prove inhospitable. How to get across was the main problem. The cattle-ships were over-manned, it seemed, and the prospects of succeeding as a stowaway were pronounced bad.

I finally heard of the corpulent Hebrew and the "Bankrupps" Club in Hoboken. A German sailor told me about the place, describing the cellar as a refuge for "gebusted" Europeans, who were prepared to work their way back to their old country homes as coal-passers. The sailor said that any one, European or not, was welcome at the club, provided he looked able to stand the trip. The Hebrew received two dollars from the steamship companies for every man he succeeded in shipping.

My first interview with this man, how he lorded it over me and how I answered him back – these things are as vivid to me to-day as they were years ago. "Du bist zu schwach" (you are too weak), he told me on hearing of my desire for a coal trimmer's berth. "Pig mens are necessary for dat vork," and his large Oriental eyes ran disdainfully over my shabby appearance.

"Never you mind how schwach I am," I assured him; "that's my look-out. See here! I'll give you two dollars besides what the company gives you, if you'll get me a berth."

Again the Oriental's eyes rolled, and closed. "Vell," the man returned at last, "you can sleep downstairs, but I t'ink you are zu schwach."

The week spent "downstairs" is perhaps as memorable a week as any in my existence. Day after day went by, "Pig mens" by the dozen left the cellar to take their positions, great ships whistled and drew out into the mighty stream outward bound, my little store of dimes and nickels grew smaller and smaller – and I was still "downstairs," awaiting my chance (a hopeless one it seemed) with the other incapables that the ships' doctors had refused to pass. The Italian lad, with his sweet tenor voice and sunny temperament, helped to brighten the life in the daytime and early evening, but the dark hours of the night, full of the groans and sighs of the old men, trying for berths, were dismal enough. Nearly every nationality was represented in the cellar during the week I spent there, but Germans predominated. What tales of woe and distress these men had to tell! They were all "gebusted," every one of them. A pawnbroker would probably not have given five dollars for the possessions of the entire crew.

"Amerika" was the delinquent in each reported case of failure – the men themselves were cock-sure that they were in no particular to blame for their defeat and bankruptcy. "I should never have come to this accursed land," was the claim of practically all of the inmates of the cellar, except the little Italian. He liked Neuvo Yorko, malto una citt bellissima– but he wanted to see his mother and Itallia once more. Then he was coming back to Neuvo Yorko to be mayor, perhaps, some day. The hope that is in Americans was also in him. He believed in it, in himself and in his mother; why should he not become a good American? Why not, indeed?

But those poor old men from Norway! Theirs was the saddest plight. "The boogs" (bugs), one said to me, an ancient creature with sunken eyes and temples, "they eat down all my farm – all. They come in a day. My mortgage money due. They take my crops – all I had. No! America no good for me. I go back see my daughter. Norway better." I wonder where the poor old soul is, if he be still on earth. Ship after ship went out, but there was no berth for his withered up body, and after each defeat, he fell back, sighing, in his corner of the cellar, a picture of disappointment and chagrin such as I never have seen elsewhere, nor care to gaze upon again.

Our beds were nothing but newspapers, some yellow, some half so, and others sedate enough, I make no doubt. We slept, however, quite oblivious of newspaper policies and editorials. Looking for our meals and wondering when our berths on the steamers would be ready constituted our day's work, and left us at night, too tired out to know or care much whether we were lying on feathers or iron. I have since had many a restful night in Hoboken, and to induce sleep, even with mosquitoes as bed-fellows, nothing more has been necessary than to recall those newspaper nights in the Hebrew's underground refuge. I trust that he is resting well somewhere.

"Get up, presto! We're all going, presto!" It was five o'clock on a cool October morning, and my friend, the little Italian, was tugging away at my jacket. "Get up, fratello," he persisted. "Mucha good news." The light was struggling in through the cobwebbed windows and doorway, and the Norwegian was wakefully sighing again. I sat up, rubbed my eyes, and stared wonderingly at the Italian.

"Where's your good news?" I yawned, and pulled on my jacket.

"Mucha – mucha," he went on. "Policeman, he dead. Eighteen firemen and passers put hatchet in his head right front here. Blood on the sidewalk. Firemen and passers are pinched. Ship – she call the Elbe– she sail nine o'clock. The old Jew, he got to ship us. No time to look 'roun'. Mucha good news, what?"

I was the first to tell the Hebrew of what had happened over night, emphasizing the necessity of finding coal-passers immediately and the fact that we were the handiest materials. What a change came over the man's face! Sleepy wrinkles, indolent eyes, jeweled hands, projecting paunch were started into wondrous animation.

"You sure?" he asked eagerly.

"Absolutely. The men are all arrested."

"Ah, ha!" and the jeweled hands rubbed each other appreciatively. "Very goot! Now comes your Gelegenhei– that is goot. I see about things quick," and he waddled over to the North German Lloyd docks to assure himself that the news was correct – that the Italian had not made a mistake on account of using some dime novels for a pillow the night before. Thirty-six dollars were his if he could find the requisite number of men – a good wage for his time and labor.

"Ya, ya," he chuckled, a half-hour later, when I saw him again. "This time you go, ganz sicher. You a very lucky boy. Tell the others to stick in the cellar; I must not lose them."

At eight o'clock he appeared among us to select the most serviceable looking men. Again the poor old Norwegian was counted out – "zu schwach," the Hebrew thundered in reply to the man's entreaties to be taken, and once more he slunk away to his corner, weeping. There were still others who failed to come up to the Hebrew's standard of fitness, but no case was so pitiful as that of the Norwegian.

Eighteen men, some expert firemen found elsewhere, and the rest green coal-passers like myself, were finally chosen, lined up in the street, counted for the twentieth time, it seemed, by the Hebrew's mathematical sons, and then marched in single file across the street and down the dock to the Elbe's gang-plank, where the ship's doctor awaited us. The stoke-room was so short-handed that the man was forced to accept all of us, something that he certainly would not have done had there been a larger collection of men to choose from. He smiled significantly when he let me pass, and I was reminded of what a saloonkeeper had said to me earlier in the morning. I had gone to his place for breakfast, and he asked me whether I was looking for a job. I said that I was, explaining how long we all had waited for opportunities to ship.

"You goin' as a passer?" he exclaimed. "Why, boy, they'll bury you at sea, sure. You can't stand the work. Just wait and see," he warned, as if waiting, seeing and sea-burial were necessary to substantiate his words.

"Stay here with me," he went on, "and I'll give you a job."

"Doing what?"

"Oh, cleaning up and learning the business."

I thanked him for his kindness, but insisted that I was going to ship.

"Well, when they're tossing you overboard, don't blame me," he requested, replenishing my soup-plate as if it were the last "filler-in" I should ever have on land. When we were all in line, and marching to the ship, he waved me an adios with a beer towel from his doorway, and reminded me not to forget what he had said.

As in earlier days, when attending college and living in the lawyer's home, a lawyer's career had been ruthlessly thrown aside, I was now perhaps throwing away a wonderful chance to become a saloonkeeper – a great fat brewer, even, who could tell? Thus it is that opportunities come and go. I might now be living in ease and luxury in a mosquitoless palace on the Hoboken Heights. As it is, I am a poor struggler still – but for the time being unmolested by mosquitoes, thank heaven. Many and many times after our good ship had put to sea, and we had all been initiated in our work, I remembered my friend, the saloonkeeper, and temporarily regretted that I had not thrown my lot with his concern. Now, I know that it was all for the best that the coal-passer's job was preferred. Only the other day I learned with regret that the saloonkeeper became insane not so very long after I had known him, his monomania being sidewalks. They say he got so bad that he thought the ceiling of his saloon was a sidewalk, and it was when he tried to use the ceiling as a sidewalk for his empty beer kegs that he was pronounced incurably out of order.