Hobo Camp Fire Tales by A-No. 1

Author:A-No. 1
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781891053795
Publisher: Garrett County Press

CHAPTER XI.

“The Tramp Who had Too Many Children.”

IT must be ten years since the day on which I was fired off a passenger train just at daybreak at a lone water tank in Western Nebraska. This water tank was situated almost exactly as the one at which we are left here, but with the additional unpleasantness that the country out there is almost a desert, with only here and there a scrub of a tree to vary the monotony of the landscape.

While sitting under the water tank awaiting the arrival of another train upon which to ramble onward, a track walker halted for a rest, who, upon inquiry, and to add to my distress, told me that trains rarely ever stopped to take water from this tank, but that at a junction thirty miles farther on every train stopped at a coal chute for a supply of coal. Adding further to my misery, he also told me that between the water tank and the junction there was just one human habitation—a cattle ranch—so that I not only had a long walk ahead of me, but, as I did not have a cent, a good chance to do those thirty weary miles without a morsel of something to still my very pronounced hunger, having already missed my breakfast that day.

There was no other choice, so I started upon the long thirty mile trip. Many weary miles had I covered, but not until I passed the eighteenth mile-post from the water tank did I espy the typical low dwellings of a Western ranch in a depression a short distance from the right-of-way. After arriving upon the railroad opposite to these buildings several well-worn paths leading towards them plainly showed that every tramp who had been forced to walk east or west, had tried to procure food at this ranch, and I judged by various other signs which I noted, that my chances for getting the much needed victuals were about thirty to one against me.

Through a dilapidated gate I entered the yard surrounding the roughly built residence of the rancher, and observing a broken go-cart, dolls, a swing and other children’s playthings cast about, I framed up a story that I thought would bring the best results.

I had not yet reached the house, when a large stockily built woman stepped out upon the porch, and in no uncertain tone of voice addressed me: “Well, sir, what might you be looking for?” I approached, but instead of asking for food, I humbly asked if I could be permitted to rest myself.

It must have struck her oddly that at least once since they had been running the ranch, a tramp asked for a rest and she told me so, and added: “All the other travelers always beg for grub, but John, my husband, has given me strict orders not to feed any tramps, and I am really glad to see one ‘gentleman’ among all those who have passed this ranch in the long years since we ‘homesteaded’ it.

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