The Little Brother: A Story of Tramp Life

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II

nlELLO, Kid; you 're the boy that I showed the way home last summer, ain't you? I thought you said that you were going to be good and not slope any more."

It was the aiternoon that Benny had taken advantage of the school recess to run away, and he had hidden himself in the corner of an empty box-car attached to the south-bound freight. A tramp had seen him scramble aboard, and a few minutes after the train had started the tramp slid through an opening in the roof of the car and joined him.

" Could n't you make it go, Kid ? " the man

continued, after they had opened one of the

side doors and seated themselves on the floor

beside it. "Did n't they treat you right?"

" They treated me all right," Benny replied impetuously, liis sharp little brown eyes wandering aimlessly over the whirling landscape outside while he spoke, ''but I get bad in spring. Sister calls it bad, anyhow, so I guess it is. I hate readin', spellin', an' jogerphy when the weather begins to get warm. I just like to ride. I 'm goin' on a big trip this time — 'way out to Denver, perhaps. Do you think I can get there alone ? " and he looked up into the tramp's face so innocently and confidingly that the latter repressed the smile which the situation prompted.

"What do you want to go to Denver for?" the man asked, overlooking the lad's query.

''Oh, nothin' special — p'r'aps I '11 go further. I want to get to a place where they do nothin' but travel. I been readin' about travelin' all winter, an' I want to find such a place. Do you think this freight '11 go far enough ? "

"I thought you told me, that time I sent you home, that you wanted to be a carpenter. You can't travel and be a carpenter, too."

" I 've changed my mind," the boy replied, with an emphasis on the word mind, as if he had seriously considered all the callings which men go into. ''I ain't made right to build houses. The only time I like houses is in winter, when I have to keep warm. I told that to sister, too, but she can't understand. She says 't I 'm peculiar, but I don't see why. P'r'aps it 's 'cause she 's a woman. Men an' women is differ'nt, ain't they? When I hear a train-whistle this time o' the year I just itch to run away, an' sister says she 's never taken that way at all. That shows that men an' women is differ'nt, don't it ? I s'pose I '11 get homesick for sister while I 'm travelin', but you get over that, don't you? You ain't homesick any more, are you ? "

The man looked at the boy. He was not altogether a new species, but that last query of the lad's struck home somehow, and he sized up the little runaway in that silent, studious way which old roadsters have. Human nature is as interesting in Hoboland as in drawing-room circles, and its men take note of new types, traits, and customs with the same determination to evolve little philosophies of their own about the world and the people in it that is characteristic of the trained literary artist.

The tramp saw a frail youngster about eight years old, with an interesting, inquisitive little face, the most striking features of which were the mouth and the eyes. The lips had a curious way of pressing themselves together after the lad had delivered himself of a remark which he considered final or important, and the eyes were so ignorant of what the lips were trying to do that, the remark once stated, no matter with how much emphasis, they would look up inquiringly into those of the person addressed, as much as to say, " I think I 'm right, but I 'm not sure."

He had a good forehead, a prominent chin, and for a provincial child modest and unassuming manners. He was dressed in short checkered trousers, a blue gingham waist, long black stockings, and brass-tipped shoes. For a hat he wore a round brown cap which in winter lets down a protecting curtain for the face. Taken altogether he was about such a boy as -one will find in the majority of our small Western towns, quick, bright, enterprising, full of mischievous Wanderlust, and with a promising future before him, perhaps, if fortune's wheel should whirl his way. He was exceptional only in that his nature required uncommonly careful attention until he should arrive at a point where he knew what fortune's wheel meant.

The man who made these observations while the boy sat at his side was a wanderer of whom Hoboland could have told but little more than Benny himself Hoboland receives its immigrants without passports of any description, and they take their places in the social arrangement with no more of their private history told than they care to tell themselves. They are given hobo names, and are assigned to particular classes and cliques, but otherwise they pass in and out of " hang-outs " unchallenged.

All that Trampdom knew of the man in Benny's company was that his road name was " West Virginia Blackie," that he was an agreeable companion at hang-outs, and one of the most successful *'snarers" and trainers of tramp boys that hobo life has produced. He was about forty years old, of medium height.

well dressed for a train-jumper, and there was at times a certain refinement in his speech which suggested that he might possibly have begun life in very respectable quarters. In the main, however, he looked his profession, and experienced observers would have readily picked him out for a vagabond. His face had been bronzed by the weather, his eyes had large wrinkles under them from train-riding and cinder-dodging, his hands were tattooed, and he stood, sat, and walked after the careless, slouching manner of tramps in general.

The summer before the present meeting it stands to his credit that he showed Benny Myrtaugh the way out of Hoboland back to his home. The little fellow had wandered far afield in one of his runaway moods, and was at a loss how to reach Tonarga again. Blackie, acting on one of those generous impulses which the lowest tramp that exists experiences on occasions, put the boy on a freight-train, and told the trainmen where to put him off. And here he was a year later back again, and Blackie was looking for a Prushun to train and exploit !

tf

" So you want to go to a place where everybody travels, do you ? " he asked the boy at last. "You want to keep moving about — is that it, Kid ? "

" Yep, I want to keep movin' about," the lad replied enthusiastically, delighted to find some one who understood his desire. *' Course I want to come back sometimes and see sister, — when it gets cold, pVaps, — but I want to keep goin' as long as I can. PV'aps I '11 write sister an' tell her where I am, an' then she won't worry so much. I skun out durin' recess, an' she don't know where I 've gone. She teaches the school, you know, an' she could n't run after me, 'cause she had to take care o' the other children.

.' "I wish she 'd come with me sometimes, an'

then I would n't get so homesick. I 'm goin' to try an' not get homesick this time, though, 'cause I want to do a lot of travelin'. After I get to Denver I want to go on to that lake where you can't sink when you go swimmin'. I can't swim very well, an' I could learn there, could n't I ? I been readin' 'bout the lake, an' I tried to get Jimmy Ryerson to run away with me this afternoon, but he would n't go 'cause he said his father told him 't if your head goes under in the lake you can't get it up again, an' your legs stick out o' the water the way your head ought to. I told him 't I 'd pull his legs down if they went up, but he said 't I would n't be strong enough. He thinks that 'cause he can throw me wrestlin'; but I can beat him boxin' — I can get his cap off ev'ry time."

The tramp walked to the other end of the car, ostensibly to get an old newspaper that was lying there, but really to repress his laughter. The boy was a tenderfoot such as he had not seen in many a moon.

** Where are you going after you 've seen the lake ? " he asked, resuming his seat near the door.

** That 's what I don't know yet, but I was thinkin' this mornin' durin' jogerphy 't I 'd like to go an' see the Indians. I been readin' a good deal about them, too, an' I want to learn how to ride bareback. The boys at Tonarga make fun o' me 'cause Billy Wickersham an' me fell off his father's horse one day tryin' to ride without any saddle, an' when I get back I want to show 'em 't I ain't such a sissy as they say 't I am.

'* What a lot I '11 have to tell sister o' nights, won't I? She don't like my waterin'-tank stories, but when I tell her about the lake an' the Indians it '11 be differ'nt, won't it?" " What are your watering- tank stories ? " ** Them stories what you hear at the waterin'- tank in Tonarga. Saturday afternoons me an' Billy Wickersham an' Jimmy Ryerson go down there sometimes an' listen to the men what rides on the freights talk. Sister says it 's dangerous to ride freights, but, shucks ! she can't tell, can she? Jimmy Ryerson an' me were goin' to go 'way with some o' the men las' week, but Jimmy had to stay in his room the afternoon 't we was goin', so I just went down an' listened to 'em. My, but they can talk ! One man told me 'f I 'd go with him he 'd take me all over the country in a private car ; he called it a side-door Pullman. I felt like goin' without Jimmy, but, you see, I 'd promised to take him along, so I just told the man how it was, an' if he 'd come round again I 'd have Jimmy ready. This afternoon I could n't wait any longer, I just had to go. It 's gettin' started that 's hardest. I waited almost till sister was goin' to ring the bell for school again 'fore I could make up my mind, but I tell you I scooted when I 'd decided. Mr. Jameson, the carpenter, he saw me runnin', but I slipped by him all right. He would n't 'a' stopped me anyhow, I guess, 'cause sister don't tell anybody about my trips, so he could n't 'a' known where I was goin', could he ? " and he looked up into the tramp's face for a reassuring return glance.

The excitement of the stolen ride, together with the sympathetic companionship of one who must have seen so much of the world of which he had only dreamed, impelled the boy to continue his childish prattle, and he went on in his happy, reckless manner, telling now of Tonarga and the home and playmates he had left behind, and then again of the wonderful things he expected to see in the beyond. It was an exhibition of innocence and boyish romanticism such as one seldom sees even on the heavily traveled road of Hoboland, and the tramp, hardened though he was, was loath to have it end. There are life-term prisoners who get more diversion out of a chirping canary's companionship than from all the secret conversations with their fellow-convicts that their system of telegraphy permits.

" Ain't you got any daddy, Kid ? " the tramp asked, after a short pause in the lad's chatter, curious to learn more of his history, and amused by his way of telling it.

" No ; my daddy 's dead. I just got a sister," Benny answered unhesitatingly.

" Have n't got any mother, either ? "

" No ; just sister, that 's all. Sister an' me is all that 's left o' my fam'ly. There used to be more, but they died or got married, I guess, an' we 're all by ourselves. There 's another boy at Tonarga 't ain't even got a sister ; he just boards out. Him an' me use to play together, but we got mad one day, an' he said 't nobody knew where me an' sister came from, said somebody told 'im so, an' I punched him in the nose ; an' sister would n't let us go together any more after that. She said 't I should n't 'a' punched him, an' I said 't he should n't 'a' said what he did, but sister she called me peculiar. I 'm always peculiar, she thinks, when I do things like that, or take a movin'-about trip; but I ain't goin' to let a boy 't ain't even got a sister tell me 't I did n't come from anywhere. He was mad, o' course, an' did n't think, but I just had to punch him. If I had n't I 'd 'a' cried, an' then he 'd 'a' laughed at me. I hate bein' laughed at ter'bly. It makes me feel 's if I really did n't come from no place at all " ; and he pressed his lips together harder than usual.

** Course 't 'u'd be nice to have a daddy the way other boys have, but him an' me might n't get along together. Jimmy Ryerson an' his daddy have a dickens of a time some days — an' then sister 'u'd have a lot o' trouble. If you can have a big sister, p'r'aps it 's better not to have a daddy too. Have you got one ? "

The tramp evaded the question. A man's ancestry, like his own personal private history, is a tabooed subject among box-car travelers, even when a little child starts the inquiry ; and if Benny and he were to be pals the less Blackie humored him in such matters the easier would the training of the boy be.

"Tell me some more about yourself, Kid," he said in a moment. ' * What are you going to be when you 're grown up ? "

"When I 'm grown up?" the little fellow returned thoughtfully, studying the dented brass tips on his shoes while he spoke.

"Yes — when you 're big like me."

" I ain't thought much about that. P'r'aps I '11 be a conductor. Sister says she just wants me to be a good man, but that won't do alone, will it ? You can't just be good when you 're grown up, can you ? I think I could be good an' a conductor too. Sammy Wolton's father 's a conductor, an' he gives ten cents in the c'lection at church every Sunday. Sister only gives five, but that ain't because she 's bad — she ain't got any more to give.

" I ain't much on goin' to church myself. I don't believe it does me much good, either, 'cause I nearly always get to thinkin' about a movin'-about trip while the minister 's preachin'. Sister says 't I let my mind wander, but I tell 'er 't I can't help it. The singin' I like. I sing, too, when they come to somethin' 't I know, like 'Pull for the Shore.* But when the minister gets up, an' the rest of us has to keep still an' look at him, I can't keep track o' what 's bein' said, an' just think for myself Once after church I went off on one o' my trips, but I came back before night, 'cause sister an' me sing together Sunday evenin's, an' I did n't want to miss it."

** What are you going to do for singing while you 're traveling ? " Blackie queried, becoming more and more interested in his queer little companion. Runaway boys who got homesick and cried he had met by the score, had, indeed, trained some of them until Hoboland was the only home they cared for ; but a truant who gave up a projected "moving- about" trip because it was going to interfere with his weekly singing of gospel hymns was something that he had not run across before. Perhaps the youngster could be exploited as a strolling bar-room musical wonder, and he harked back in memory over the different Prushuns who had made names for themselves and money for their Jockers in this way.

"Can you sing anything besides 'Pull for the Shore ' ? " he asked eagerly, before Benny had time to think out a reply to his last question. " Do you know 'The Spanish Cavalier ' or ' The Wearing of the Green ' or ' Home, Sweet Home ' ? "

** I know ' Home, Sweet Home,' but I never learned the others. I can sing 'Marchin' through Georgia,' too. Would you like to hear me ? "

The train was rumbling heavily down a grade, and the trainmen could hardly have heard had they been on top of the car, and Blackie told the boy to "warble." He stood up on the floor, pushed his cap back from his forehead, and then, in a childish but sweet high treble voice, began to sing for the tramp the story of Sherman's march to the sea. When he came to the words, " Hurrah ! Hurrah ! " he threw his right arm theatrically into the air, and before long he was tramping up and down the length of the car, trying to keep step with the melody. He had hardly finished the song and received the tramp's enthusiastic congratulations when the train rolled into the division railway-yards. It was early in the evening, and the yard lamps were being lighted. The train came to a halt.

''Hustle, Kid; we got to get off here," Blackie whispered.

*' But I want to go to the lake an' Denver," Benny remonstrated, retreating to the other side of the car.

**We got to change here. You 11 get pinched if you stay in the car. The watchmen '11 see you. Hustle — quick ! "

Benny only partially understood the situation, but he allowed the tramp to lift him to the ground, and a half-hour later they were sitting alone in some woods around the local hang-out camp-fire. A few " hand-outs " that Blackie had saved from the noon hunt for dinner had sufficed for their supper, and the boy had seated himself on one of the railway-ties drawn up close to the fire, and was staring dreamily at the burning logs.

"I s'pose sister 's cryin'," he said pretty soon, with a pathetic quaver in his own voice, as if he would gladly lend her company if she were only there at his side to be sympathized with. At that very moment Janet was wandering through the streets of Jacksonville in search of her little brother, and there he was in the woods not a mile away ! Such is the geographical nearness of Hoboland to Civilization, and yet when you start out to explore it a journey to Africa seems more easily accomplished. To those who know its highroads and byways, however, it can be entered and left by the very thoroughfares which traverse our towns and villages, where its inhabitants knock at the doors for alms, and a few minutes later have returned to their mysterious country.

The man Blackie was about to bring another addition to its wandering population. There had been moments during the ride on the train, while Benny told his simple, boyish story, when the tramp had seriously considered sending him home once again; even to his debased sense of honor, it hardly seemed fair to send one so young on the long journey which the travelers on the "turf" have to make : but he had overcome these sentimental notions and decided that the lad was to become a Prushun.

" He 'd only riin away again if I did send him home," he reasoned during the moments when his better nature had feebly attempted to assert itself, " and then some one else would get him. I might as well have him as the next fellow, and I can probably make more out of him than anybody else. He 's born to slope anyhow, so what 's the odds ? "

And so, his mind made up, he brushed away all doubts about the justice of his resolution, and Benny was introduced to the conventional but always tantalizing ** ghost stories " of his first Jocker.

'*But think of the lake and the Indians, Kid," Blackie remonstrated in reply to Benny's remark about .his sister. ** Think what a fly kid you '11 be when you get back. You '11 be the boss of the town."

" Will I ? " Benny asked, half incredulously and half proudly, his eyes brightening at the alluring prospect.

"Sure. You '11 know so much that the other kids '11 just have to stand around and listen when you chew the rag."

" And do you think 't I '11 be able to throw Jimmy Ryerson when we wrestle?" the boy asked, as if this accomplishment were the ambition of his life.

"Well, I should say! Jimmy Ryerson won't hold a candle to you," Blackie went on. "And you '11 know how to jump trains, too. You '11 like that, won't you ? "

" Betcher life. I ain't very good at it now, an* the boys laugh at me when I stumble. Do you think I '11 get so that I can put my foot on the axle-box an' climb up the side of a cattlecar, the way the men at the tank do ? "

"Why, Kid, after a while you '11 get so slick that you can ride on the trucks and cook your coffee in a tomato-can on a hot box. Think

of that!"

" Goodness ! That '11 make the boys open their eyes, won't it ? Say, I tell you what I '11 do," and Benny fairly clapped his hands with glee. "When I get so 't I can do that, I '11 tell all the boys to be at the station some day, an' I '11 go up to the Junction, catch the flyin' mail, an' go by Tonarga on the trucks, drinkin' out o' the can. My, how the boys '11 stare, won't they ? How big will I have to be 'fore I can ride that way ? "

*' Oh, not very big. I Ve seen boys smaller than you riding asleep on the trucks. Course they 'd learned how, but I '11 teach you before you know it."

"An' can I learn how to ride bareback with the Indians ? " Benny questioned, shifting the subject, determined to make sure of all the ways in which he was going to be perfected before making up his mind, which Blackie, however, had already made up for him, although the boy did not and could not know it.

"Cert. And you 11 learn how to shoot, too," Blackie replied reassuringly. "Why, I Ve been on trains out West when you could sit in a box-car and pick off Indians with your rifle as easy as birds on the telegraph-wire."

"Say, but that Vd be fun. The Indians can't shoot at you, can they ? "

" Oh, they try to, but the train 's going so fast that they only hit you once in a while, and you get so tough that the bullets don't hurt anyhow. I used to have a pal out in the Indians' country that was just full of bullets, but they only made him weigh a little more, that 's all."

" My, but would n't the boys at home look at me if I came back that way ! " Benny exclaimed. "The grown-ups 'u'd be surprised, too, would n't they ? "

** I should smile ! Why, Kid, you 11 be so changed after you Ve traveled with me a year that Tonarga, grown-ups and all, won't know you." This statement contained no "ghost story," only Benny failed to see its entire significance.

"Have we got to be gone a year?" he asked. " Sister 'II get scared if I 'm away as long as that."

"Oh, but think what you '11 be when you show up again ! A year ain't no time at all when you 're riding on trains and shooting Indians."

"How are we going to live while we 're ridin'? I 've only got ten cents."

This was the first practical question the boy had put, and Blackie deemed it wise to sound him in regard to his manner of living on his previous short excursions. A Jocker always likes to know beforehand just how much wisdom his new Prushun had acquired before he " snared " him.

" How did you live when you took the other moving- about trips ? " he asked.

'* I was so busy seein* things," Benny replied, "'t I mostly forgot about eatin'. Once when I was off for nearly two days I just drank water an' ate berries. I had a whoppin' big appetite when I got home, though. Mother Deane said she 'd never seen a boy eat so much, but she ain't seen much anyhow. This time I guess I '11 have to have somethin' more 'n berries an' water, I 'm goin' so far. I 've heard the men at the tank tell how, when they have big appetites an' are travelin', they go and ask somebody for nourishment, — that 's what they call it, — an' I guess I '11 have to do somethin' like that One man told me once 't if I 'd go on a movin'-about trip with him we 'd get so much just askin' for things 't I could n't bring 'em all home, there 'd be so many. I 'm goin' to ask for more things this time, would n't you ? "

" Sure ; that 's the way to do it," Blackie declared, not a little pleased to learn that Benny understood the necessity of begging on " moving-about" trips, if not its true significance. " You and I '11 get along together fine. Now, so The Little Brother

you He down and take a snooze, and in the morning we '11 start out again."

" Do you think I ought to say my prayers? I do at home, but there ain't any bed to kneel down by here, is there ? "

*' Say them in your sleep. Kid ; it *11 be just the same."

"Will it? I used to tell sister that, too; but she said that God wants you to exert yourself — that 's the word she uses — when you ask him for things, an' I had to kneel down. I guess I '11 risk sayin' 'em lyin' down to-night. I know what I want, anyhow, without tellin' God anythin' about it."

" That 's the idea. Now, you curl up and pound your ear, and I '11 keep the fire going."

Blackie arranged the railway-ties in the shape of a triangle, and Benny curled up on the ground in the corner and was soon asleep. There was a look of peace and contentment in his face, as he lay there, such as the road seldom exposes. "The poor little greeny," the tramp muttered, and then rolled himself up into a ball and "pounded his ear," also.

Ill

JHE next morning after Benny's departure saw Janet on the early passenger-train from Jacksonville, I reaching Tonarga in plenty of time for the opening of school. She would gladly have walked every step of the way ; to be in physical pain and weariness would have been a happy expedient, if in its most miserable instant she might have sloughed off this heavy, close-fitting garment of despair. But she must be at her post on time, after the long night of searching, watching, and fruitless agonizing. Life and its contracts were still in force, all of them, and must go on forever, maybe, whether Benny ever came back or not. At nine o'clock she must be ringing the bell at the school-house door, just as she had done yesterday when she first knew that Benny was gone — and there was this long, dreadful night between.

For how should she, a woman alone and a stranger, how could she know even a small provincial city as it must be known if one is to thread its dark ways, where men are wont to hide when their own ways are dark ? It had been the most foolish thing in the world to attempt it — she knew that now ; but it had perhaps saved a night of even wilder madness had she stayed, or tried to stay, at home.