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.