Beggars of Life (17 page)

W
HEN
I took to the road again, the entire force of the Southern Pacific seemed in arms against me. I was ditched three times, travelling the short distance to El Rio. I eventually arrived there, and shared some crude food with a Mexican. That night I rode a banana special out “on the rods.” It turned cold, and the wind whipped under the cars. The speeding train threw sand and stones upward, and they rattled against the bottom of the car like hail on a roof. I kept my eyes closed. Cords were tied about the bottoms of my trouser legs to keep the wind out. The wheels pounded over the steel rails in an endless rhythm, and the monotony of sound all but lulled me to sleep, in spite of the bumpy road, the flying train, and the volley of stones and sand.

I crawled from underneath with aching muscles when the train stopped at R———.

It was too early for breakfast, as the smoke was just rising from the cottages of the poor. I remember looking at the unpainted houses, the withered lawns, and the ugly streets, and feeling glad that I was a hobo on a long free trail.

The rising sun made the rude houses stand out in ugly outline. But as I was not in search of beauty, but of breakfast, I soon started “battering the back doors.”

There was a systematic unkindness about seven housewives in one dingy block. They treated me with no more courtesy than if I had been a book agent, or a minister begging funds for a new Church. One irate woman slammed the door in my face, and as I hurried away, a dog nipped the calf of my leg. The woman opened the door again and laughed. It was the hard laugh of a heartless woman. It echoed down the smudgy street, and could be heard above the barking of the class-conscious dog. Picking up a piece of brick sharper than the mongrel's teeth, I flung it viciously through the air, as only the son of a race of brick-throwing Irish could throw it. It hummed a red tune as it went. The woman, now silent, stood in the yard and watched the trained tramp-hater retreat in her direction. She yelled loudly at him. The brick hit him right under the tail. That end of the animal hunched down. The other end let out an unearthly yell, that reverberated through the quiet street. The woman shook her fist at me as I blazed part of a brick at her. The brick crashed against the side of the house. The dog, still yelping, hurried around the house, and left me the defiant and hungry master of the situation.

I finally got a “set down” several blocks away. Another woman made up for the harsh treatment accorded me, and my sensitive spirit was appeased. Her daughter stood near with the kindest dancing eyes. She was not any older than myself. Her hair, tied with a red ribbon, hung in a long black braid. Her percale dress outlined her lovely form. Her mother did me the honour to sit at table with me.

I expanded under such treatment and told a lurid tale, which ended when a knock was heard at the front door. The girl answered it. A man's rough voice asked, “Seen anything of a tramp this way? He like to cave in Mrs. Muldowney's house an' dog with a brick. He ran this way.”

There was a pause for a brief moment, and my heart pounded fast. Then the answer came clear and distinct, “No—we haven't seen him. We are afraid of tramps, and we never answer the door if we think one is near.” I heard the man grunt and the door close. I was flabbergasted when the girl returned to the kitchen. What could words of mine say to thank her? Unstrung from the hard riding of the night before, I choked back a sob.

I tried to thank her.

“You mustn't think of that,” she answered with a dimpled smile. “Brother was away on freights for two whole months. He told us all about it. He's in the Navy now.”

“I don't understand why boys knock about so,” said the mother as she watched the officer walking down the street.

Years later, when haunted by the ghosts of road memories, I have often thought of the woman and the red-ribboned girl with the dancing eyes of wonder. I can see them as I write, though seventeen years have staggered by like wounded drunkards in the rain.

I left the good woman's home and walked toward the centre of the town, carrying a “handout” which solved my eating problem for the day. As I reached the court-house square, a crowd yelled madly. They stood in front of the court-house jail yelling loudly at someone inside. Some broken iron bars hung from a third story window. Soon the end of a rope was thrown from the window to the waiting crowd below. Many men grabbed it. Framed in the window, with a rope around his neck, and men screaming behind him, was a negro, with eyes as big as eggs.

“Kill the nigger! Kill the nigger!” yelled many voices. “Pop his neck. Make it crack.”

The negro's face writhed in fear, as women, men and children hurried from all directions into the square.

A terrific shout went up, and the rope was jerked by many men. The black body shot into space, whirled, and fell crashing into a tree. “Don't shoot,” screamed a voice.

A man untangled the wriggling body, and, shaking and horror-stricken, it fell to the ground. They dragged the half-conscious negro to the business square, where a fire burned slowly.

He was placed upright above it, his armpits in heavy post-like crutches.

As the shoes were ripped off, the blaze burned his feet. He wriggled his body frantically as more fuel was placed on the fire and the flame shot upward. “Not too fast,” yelled a voice. “Let him burn slow.” The doomed Ethiopian's eyes rolled swiftly as the poles were knocked from under him and his body fell into the fire. A blood-curdling “Ouch, ouch, O God! Oh, ouch, 0 God, O God hab mercy.”

“We'll mercy you—you black bastard,” yelled a man.

The poles were made upright, and the negro's armpits were fitted into the crutch-like end of them. Wriggling loose, the black mortal tried to eat fire to end his agony. That boon was denied him. A club crashed his wrist. His head went on his breast. His eyes closed a moment, and as the blaze shot higher, they opened in awful pain.

The clothes burned first, and then the flame ate the hair from his skull. The ears charred and melted on his head. He moaned in prolonged and dying pain, “ooooo-ooch, oo-oh-oh-oh.”

The burnt body fell from its moorings, and the poles dropped over it. Kerosene was thrown on the hissing fire.

Sick at heart, I turned away. Some children skipped the death-rope gracefully.

T
HE
November rains poured steadily down and bathed all Texas in bedraggled wretchedness. At times, the slowly falling rain seemed to pause in mid-air, as if weary of the monotony of falling downward.

El Paso was the next division point—and it was a day's ride away. The distance across Texas is one-fourth of the distance across America, or more. It stretches a thousand miles.

I succeeded in riding a freight train about two miles out of one division. It was stopped and searched vigorously. I was discovered clinging like a wet rat to the rods underneath. Two other hoboes were also ditched.

A young brakeman explained tersely, but not unkindly, that the conductor had been given a three months' lay-off because tramps had ridden his trains in great numbers. The train went on without us. A fire burned in the woods some distance away. A roof was built to keep the rain out. A hole was cut through the top to allow the smoke to escape. An open place in the woods afforded a view of the tracks.

Hoboes crowded near the fire. Their steaming clothes hung wrinkled on their bodies. Some elbowed their way to the welcome blaze as politely as respectable citizens crowding on a street car. Others held back that some more wet and wretched vagabond might be given a place near the fire.

There was one sickly looking tramp, with weak face, yellow as gold and shrivelled like parchment long dried in the sun. A brutal-appearing tramp pushed the half-dead vagabond in front of him, while others gave way. The wasted wretch muttered an ineffectual thanks and rubbed his clammy hands together.

In one corner of the place, a “mulligan” was cooking in an immense pot. A mulligan is a combination of nearly everything cookable. It is the common fare of hoboland.

When the food was ready, we gathered ravenously about it. There were not enough tin cups, or plates of any kind to hold it. The “jungle” had recently been raided by the citizens.

We looked under the dripping trees for rusty dishes that had been scattered about.

An engine whistle was heard. It startled the vagabonds. Surprise, chagrin, dismay registered in turn on their faces. “Damn the luck,” a tramp said, “but I stay here'n eat.”

None of us moved in the direction of the train, which rolled slowly westward. “If you were on that baby, you'd be in El Paso in the mornin',” grinned a hobo with a hangman's expression.

“Oh, well, somethin' else'll pull out before sundown,” added a tramp consolingly.

“Afore sundown, hell! The sun ain't been up for a week,” snarled another.

When the stew was eaten, we held the dishes in the rain to be cleaned by nature. The day wore on, and not a living thing moved. Birds huddled in the trees. It became dark by the middle of the afternoon. Clouds of misty fog settled everywhere.

A half dozen hoboes went for water in the direction of the railroad. They could not be seen a hundred yards from the fire.

There were only potatoes left, and it was the intention to make soup. They were peeled with pocket knives, called “frogstickers.”

When the men returned with water, the potatoes were thrown into the vessel and it was splashed on top of them. Some wet salt from a rusty can was added.

While the soup cooked, we returned to the business of keeping up the fire, the hardest job being to find wood that was dry enough to burn.

When the soup was ready, we crowded about it. A whistle blew. A light pierced through the fog. A train was creeping west. We made for the rods, which would keep us out of the rain.

“Let them jungle buzzards have that junk. It's no good anyhow,” said the man with the hangman's expression.

As I started to crawl underneath a car, I heard a loud clicking, as of loose iron striking the rails underneath. For fear of the danger involved, I clambered between two cars and stood on the bumpers. On many “hostile” divisions a long wire is fastened to the cars, at the end of which is an iron coupling which lies on the ground between the cars. As the train speeds along, the iron weight is thrown upward under the cars, dealing out death to the tramp whom it strikes.

The train ran a short distance and stopped at a water tank, near which were a few scattered houses.

I left the train, feeling that anything was better than the misery of the ride through the rain. Other men joined me, among them the man with the face like a hangman.

“That rattler's got irons under her. I near got nipped twice. No wonder they didn't try to ditch us—thought we'd git killed anyhow,” he said.

The only shelter available at first was the water tank. It stood high above the track on wooden beams, down which the water ran.

The train melted into the rainy night. Then all that could be heard was the far-off whistle of the engine and the maddening patter of rain. Our spirits were as low as the ground. To cheer our water-soaked hearts, we talked of California, still a thousand miles away.

Many wet hours dripped by before another train crawled over the rails.

When it finally came, we boarded a coal car loaded with railroad ties, as all the other cars were sealed. We were not molested, as the train men did not look for hoboes on such a night.

W
E
quickly built a wall of ties in a corner of the car, and then placed other ties above for a roof. One of the men extracted newspapers from an inner pocket. We fastened them on the rude ceiling and walls to keep the rain from seeping through the cracks. We then placed ties in front and crawled through an opening which we left near the top where the wall nearly joined the ceiling.

The noise of the bumping train did not entirely diminish the rattling of wind and rain outside.

All the derelicts smoked, while I huddled in a corner and watched the matches glow against their road-marked faces. The brutal-looking befriender of the yellow man smoked a pipe, the stem of which curved downward over his square chin. The bowl of the pipe was large, and the burning tobacco glowed within.

Wet gypsies of life we were, asking little, and getting less, and deserving less than that.

I left the rovers in El Paso, determined to make more progress in the remaining eight hundred miles of the journey to Los Angeles.

After begging a late breakfast, and a “handout” in the Mexican quarters, I again returned to the yards.

The railroad detectives were particularly vigilant at this time, as tramps had left the hatchways of banana cars open, and five carloads had frozen.

The trains were watched closely, and many vagabonds were arrested and taken to the city jail. I watched four of them being led away by two railroad bulls. Among them was the man who looked like a hangman. He saw me peeking at him from around the box car, but he gave no sign of recognition, for fear, no doubt, that it would direct the attention of his captors toward me.

I hurried westward until the web of tracks merged into two single strands. These I followed for several miles in the hope of finding a grade that would compel the trains to run more slowly.

It had turned much colder, and great snowflakes fell. A flurry of wind came and the atmosphere cleared slightly in the west for a brief space of time. Outlined in the distance was the high, uneven ridge of a mountain that crawled darkly like a long reptile above a grey mass of snow-dripping clouds.

The mountain outline faded away, the air became still, and the day became darker. Even larger flakes of snow fell.

I was miserable and wretchedly cold. My shoes were soaked, and my numbed feet struck the ground heavily.

Arriving at an elevation, I waited for hours in the white wet weather. Not a soul drew near, and not a sound was heard. I ate the “handout,” feeling all the while that I would gladly trade all the food in the world for a warm stimulant. I became obsessed with a desire for warm coffee.

Suddenly, far off, a strong light made the falling snow glisten in the air. A whistle rumbled low and long.

My heart beat with nervous tension, as the train thundered on toward me.

The great engine approached in a blinding flash of light. I circled about a telegraph post until it passed. The head brakeman, and another man, possibly a dick, stood in the cab of the engine.

Several cars passed me, and I started forward, while scanning the ground for an even spot on which to run with the swiftly running train.

I was determined to hang on even if my arms were jerked loose. With that resolve, I picked out a car and ran with it. My hands clutched the iron ladder, and held fast. My neck creaked, and my muscles ached.

When I recovered my faculties, I climbed to the top of the wet car and crawled to the centre of it. I stretched, head downward, on the slanting roof and felt the edge of the door. It was open about six inches. I knew from the general make-up of the train, its great engine, and the red tags tacked to the cars, that it was a fast freight, second only in running time to a mail train.

I wondered what could be in the car, a carload of coke for which a factory waited, perhaps. It was the only kind of a car that would have open doors. Hoboes would not steal coke, and besides, its gaseous quality might cause spontaneous combustion if it were tightly sealed.

The train came to a grade. The puffing engine covered the train with a cloud of black smoke. I leaned halfway over the car, and braced my feet against the board walk on the roof, and heaved at the door with all my strength. It opened about a foot. I then turned about and slid down, feet foremost, clinging desperately all the while to the smooth wet boards. One slip, and I would roll on the ground. The door swayed a trifle while I held on and leaned far out. At last my feet touched something hard inside the car. Working my way inside, I found the car was loaded with large pieces of coke.

The jagged pieces of coke scratched my hands and tore my wet clothing. With only room enough to crawl, I made my way slowly to the end of the car.

There was a high embankment of coke at the end. I crawled over this, and there, sitting in the corner, was a little hobo with a ferret face. He was smoking.

“Hello, Kid, you made 'er, huh! She's some rambler.”

The light from the door streamed weakly over him.

“I'll say she's a rambler,” I replied breathlessly.

“Yep, I spotted 'er in the yards. This car's red tagged for Los Angels. I sneaked in an' fixed the coke this way. Them bulls hate to crawl over coke. If any of 'em comes to the door an yells, ‘Hey, come on out or I'll shoot,' shy, jist lay still. They can't shoot through coke. That's a stall they have.”

The tramp kept chattering, while I, weary and worried, stretched my coat on the coke, and adjusted the pieces so the jagged ends were as comfortable as possible. I then slept soundly.

The train stood still, and I rubbed my eyes. The little hobo near me was smoking.

“Where are we, 'Bo!” I asked.

“I don't know. It oughta be Maricopa. You been poundin' your ear since yisterday. You must be all in.”

“You think you kin stand it to Los!” the tramp asked.

“I can if I don't starve,” was my reply.

For hour after hour we rode through the desert into the green heart of California.