The Morning News

They had come from New Orleans by steamer (paying 2 a head for a trip of about 1200 miles, if I remember rightly) to spend the summer at the north. With one exception, they appeared to be fairly decent fellows, and the exception seemed to be tolerated by the others because he was a constant source of merriment. I concluded to travel with them for a day or two. In the evening the gang took to the woods. There we started a roaring fire, collected enough wood to maintain it through the night (it was very cold), erected a low brush fence around the camp, filling it with leaves to keep out the wind, and gathered a vast quantity of leaves to rest upon: in less than an hour we were settled very comfortably, indeed. Next, some coffee was made in a six gallon pot, and we regaled ourselves with such victuals as had been bought or possibly begged. After supper pipes were lit, and yarns spun. Finally, the exception—a big Pomeranian, who unblushingly confessed to not having worked a lick in six years, begging his living during the summer around St. Louis, and during the winter at New Orleans, heaved a sigh and stated that not long before he had had a very unpleasant experience.

A TRAMP'S YARN.

"You know," he said, "I used to have places down in New Orleans where I got my grub regularly, and I managed to beg money enough to pay rent for a furnished room. Well, there is a restaurant in street where for several weeks I had gone for my dinner every day—a dinner of chicken soup, mind you! One day, about a month ago, in a fit of absentmindedness, I stuffed myself quite full before dinner at some other places, but concluded that I could try to stow away that chicken soup somehow, anyhow—chicken soup is scarce in my bill of fare, you know. Well, when I went to the restaurant to get the soup, sure enough—a great big bowl of it, more than I thought I could manage, but I got it down, because it was chicken soup, I guess. Then I was truly thankful that I had it down, and started to go out. But the boss was standing under the door with a big club—you bet it was big—and told me that he was getting tired of my coming every day; that I must then and there eat enough to last me two days or get hurt! Well, I did it. I added a great big bowl full of beef stew to the chicken soup, and then again started to go out. But the man with the big club—you bet it was big—told me that my duty was only half done; that, to aid my digestion, I must swallow a bowl of black coffee on top of the rest! Well, I did it. I don't know how. I can hardly believe it now, but I did it! For two days after that I was very sick: for two days it was all ups and no downs: and I ain't quite well yet."

I parted company next day: while I didn't value my life very highly, still I didn't care to expose myself to the danger of being hanged innocently, and there seemed to be at least a possibility of that if I didn't lose my "partners."

BREAKING INTO JAIL.

Not many days afterward, while I was resting by the roadside, a well dressed chap came along, who, after the usual preliminaries, stated that he was on the road too. How had the times been with me? he wanted to know. "Pretty hard!" I told him. About two months before, going along the Mississippi river bank, while passing through a patch of pipe cane stubble, I stepped on one of the sharp pointed stumps so unfortunately that it penetrated the foot for over an inch, giving me great pain. In that condition I was hired by a skinflint to work as woodchopper for "twenty-five cents a day and found." In short, it had been a very hard winter for me. "* * The well dressed chap snorted and promptly called me a dashed fool.

"Young fellow," he said, "don't you know any better than that? Now, you take my advice: next fall, when it begins to get cold, you go to — (I forget whether he mentioned Iowa or Nebraska—but possibly the case fits more than one state), to some county seat where they have a good jail and no workhouse. Go there just after criminal court has adjourned. Then, one day, fool around a store and steal something not worth enough to send you to penitentiary—a pair of boots or something, steal it so that it will be sure to be seen, and then run. Well, they'll lock you up; it'll be three or four months until court meets again, and the judge can only give you one, or two, or three months more. All that time you are in a warm jail, you have plenty to eat and you can play cards all day long. If you want clothes, just tear your rags to pieces some night—they can't let you go naked. By the time your sentence is out spring has come again and everything is lovely. See?" As to himself, he wanted to get settled for life. Said he: "I got me some good duds, you see, and I know a little about farming. Now, I am going to hire out to a nice widow with a nice farm somewhere around here, and get on the good side of her and marry her. See? By by!" While I was in absolutely no danger from the man, still, somehow, I felt more comfortable the night a catamount howled and prowled around my lonely campfire in a Florida wilderness than I did in the presence of this great strategist.

And I am quite sure, after reviewing the kaleidoscope of my tramping days over and over again, that the greatest danger which threatens the restless young or even unfortunate elder men who "go on the road" is from characters like the one last described, who sometimes cannot be avoided and whose insidious poison must operate the more surely on the weak and innocent, because the latter is in real or fancied distress and therefore predisposed to make war on society.