The Adventures of a Woman Hobo

[Illustration]

New York George H. Doran Company

Copyright, 1917, By George H. Doran Company

Printed In The United States Of America

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Contents

ONE TWO THREE FOUR FIVE SIX SEVEN EIGHT NINE TEN ELEVEN TWELVE THIRTEEN FOURTEEN FIFTEEN SIXTEEN SEVENTEEN

One

_April 18th, 1908_, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

The Adventures Of A Woman Hobo

One

_April 18, 1908. Chicago, Illinois._

“Doctor Lynn, you are in the incipient stage of tuberculosis. You should return to California immediately.”

That is what Dr. Graves said to me to-day and he is in a position to know what he is talking about. But I can’t believe it! Why, I can do the work of two women. Haven’t I supported myself since I was fifteen years old, worked my way through Medical College and built up a city practice by my own, unaided efforts? Besides, every one says I am the picture of health. My five feet eight of energised muscle, my high colour, my breadth of shoulder, all seem to give such a diagnosis the lie.

Yet a still voice whispers in my heart, “It is true.” Since that last severe attack of grippe the buoyancy has vanished from my step. Life has become a drag.

But then, why not? The last two years have been strenuous. Just two years ago to-day San Francisco went down in earthquake and flames, scattering my growing practice to the winds. And of course Dan’s position went too. But we celebrated with an earthquake wedding, and it was not long until my husband had worked out his great invention, and we came here; he to gain financial backing for his project, and I to profit by the abundance of clinical material in a great city.

And then the panic of 1907 struck us. Why, the earthquake was nothing to that. Poor Dan was crushed. How can I tell him of this new calamity? And what will it profit to add to his burden, helpless as he is? For months now, he has walked the streets looking for any kind of employment at any wage, but none is to be had. This hopeless seeking, added to the stunning blow of the collapse of his company and the deadening pressure of debt incurred last fall when we borrowed to the utmost limit of all our friends’ capacity in a frantic endeavour to save the invention, only to lose money, company, invention—all in one universal crash—has completely unnerved him. To see his wife forced into the depths through his failure, even though that failure was no fault of his, has been gall and wormwood to him. Those days when we pledged every pawnable article in a dogged desire to hang on for just one week longer in the hope that the tide would turn; when we moved from lodgings to lodgings, each meaner and more squalid than the last, until the fathomless pit of hell itself seemed reached in this slum; when I gave up my work in the college where the wonderful experience gained was ample compensation except to those driven by grim necessity to seek for any work that would keep this vile tenement over our heads and put food in our mouths;—all these things have left him a broken-hearted man.

And there are many such. Months of idleness, a diet of bread and coffee, all the horrors of shivering nights in the open or in vermin-infested flop houses, the morning rush for the “help wanted” pages of the daily papers, the standing in line for hours waiting to apply for a job—a hundred men for a single position—would these things not take the heart, nay, the very soul itself, out of a man?

When I was discharged last month, losing my position because of a general retrenchment, never shall I forget the scenes at the Public Library when with scores of others I sought the protection of its sheltering walls at early morning to thaw the night’s coldness out of my half-frozen body, and search the papers for a possible chance of employment.

One young man in the huddled group interested me immensely. When the doors swung open, he bounded up the stairs like an athlete, well in the lead of the rushing horde who refused to wait for the elevator in their frenzied scramble for the first chance at a paper and possible employment. Well-dressed, palpably clean living and efficient, he was an excellent type of the successful young business man. I could picture him as a broker, in an insurance office or bank, or filling some responsible position in a business house. But in the fall of many such houses, his had evidently gone down to ruin and now the lad was beginning to feel the pinch that comes from weeks of idleness.

Morning after morning he appeared. His well-tailored suit gave way to a misfit piece of shoddy; his hat was replaced by a cap which failed to conceal his need of a hair-cut; his face became lean and haggard; no longer was his expression one of energy and confidence. A three days’ growth of beard on his jowls will take some of the confidence out of any man when looking for employment.

Then for days he disappeared.

Came a day when I saw him. It was blizzard weather; a sleety rain was carried on a high wind which swept through the city streets and wailed and whistled round the entrance to the Library building. A gaunt figure dragged its feeble way up the front steps to the semi-shelter of the pillars; from a face, piteously thin, hollow eyes looked out, their glance filled with a deep, an utter despair; a short coat pinned together at the throat revealed the absence of a shirt or underwear; through the cracks in the run-over shoes the bare flesh peered; wet to the skin as he was, he shook in the icy blast like a dog in a wet sack. As the doors swung wide at nine o’clock he did not lead the upward dash, but half way up the stairs sank down, overcome by a choking fit of coughing.

I never saw him again.

To live in a hovel; to drag my weary body for miles in search of work; to cough my lungs out like the man next door; to be submerged like a drowning rat in a sewer; this will be my life in Chicago. My eyes ache from gazing at confined spaces; across the way the bare walls rise; down the canyon streets I see the black ants of humanity crawl; overhead the sky is leaden.

Oh, my beautiful, my California! The whistle of the quail on the open benches is calling me; the mating songs of the mocking birds vibrate in my heart. Up the wide valley the warm wind sweeps, heavy with the fragrance of blossoming trees; on the uplands brilliant masses of flaming poppies and the silvery blue of slender lupines spread a feast of colour for my weary eyes; oranges blaze out in golden glory against the dark green foliage of the thrifty groves; the deep blue of the cloudless sky seems infinite in depth; and in the purple distance the white-capped peaks of San Bernardino and Grayback rear their lofty heads.

Two

_April 27th, 1908._

Two

_April 27th, 1908._

Eureka, I’ve found it—the Great Idea—the craziest scheme that ever popped into a woman’s head!

We’re going home—back to California on a tandem bicycle. We’ll carry a cooking and sleeping outfit with us, stop wherever the night finds us, work when we can get it, and somehow, with God’s help, we’ll win through.

And it has come about in the strangest way. Dan got a chance to help a man he knows clean out an old barn which is to be converted into a garage, and in the loft along with the accumulation of years, they ran across a tandem bicycle which is in excellent condition. The owner gave it to Dan’s friend who thought he could sell it for something, even though cycling is out of date.

When Dan told me of the occurrence an intense longing for the open road leading into the west surged over me, but I could see no way of securing the wheel since our funds totalled less than five dollars.

Then I said to myself, “There is a way. You must find it,” and resolutely set my subconscious mind to the task.

A day passed and another. Then over the threshold of consciousness came the recollection of my one cherished possession—a beautiful opera cloak.

On that fateful morning in April, 1906, after the rush to escape from the tottering building, I found myself on the streets of San Francisco in somewhat scanty attire, but folded warmly in my new biscuit-coloured evening wrap. Many thanks I offered up for its protection in the chilly days and nights that followed. Then, when conditions had returned somewhat to normal, a good cleaning and remodelling restored almost its pristine glory, and again it gave good service on the honeymoon. While the panic was sweeping away all our possessions, I laid it aside, resolved that it at least should be retained throughout the storm.

But a sterner necessity compelled, so taking it from the drawer, I wended my way to Oak Street and there held a colloquy with our friend’s wife. The cloak caught her fancy at once, the bargain was struck, and I trundled home my prize in triumph, to lean it carefully near the door of our crowded quarters.

Here at dusk, Dan, entering hurriedly, collided violently with an outstanding pedal. He hopped agilely about on one foot, clasping his left shin in an affectionate embrace.

“What in hades is that thing I just fell over?” he demanded hotly.

“That? Why, that’s our through ticket to California.”

As I turned up the ineffective gas jet he recognised the graceful lines of the machine.

“Well, I’ll be darned!” he ejaculated. “So you got the blooming thing from Dave, did you? How’d you manage it? And what do you mean, anyway, by a ticket to California? You can’t be aiming to ride that contraption.”

“Don’t you dare to call my beautiful green tandem a contraption. You’ll be glad enough to take your seat on a bicycle built for two as soon as I’ve explained my perfectly scrumptious scheme to you. We’ll fix up a light cooking outfit, tie our blankets on behind, and away we’ll glide out into the west. We’ll work along the way and have lots of interesting experiences; I’ll get rid of this tiresome cough, and after awhile we’ll get home—home, do you hear? Back to California.”

“Ride that thing to California! Why think of the country between here and the coast; look at the desert, look at the Rocky Mountains, to say nothing of the little old Coast Range. What do you think I am, anyhow, a cross between a camel and a mountain goat?”

“I’ll be sure you’re all goat if you butt into my cherished plan in that rude fashion,” I responded gaily. “Never mind. Wait till your shin feels better and you’ve had something to eat and we’ll talk it over.”

I drew the table closer to our tiny stove and set out the meal while Dan prepared for supper.

“You remember my telling you about that poor little couple that I used to see at the Public Library,” I began when we were comfortably settled, “the ones that used to come in about two or three o’clock and go off in a corner somewhere to eat a bit of lunch when the librarian wasn’t looking? She’s been going down very fast for the last few weeks, hasn’t been able to look for work at all, but waited in the library till he came in, half crazy from the continued failure to find anything, and then she’d try to comfort him while they shared the part of a loaf of bread that she’d have hidden beneath her old cape.

“When I was warming up in the library this morning she was coughing terribly and I talked her into trying the charity hospitals again. It seemed as if they must take her. You know she went a while back, but couldn’t get in; she was an ambulatory case. He came in about noon, all used up and they didn’t have even a crust of bread.

“We started out and just on the edge of the sidewalk she had a hemorrhage and before we could get the ambulance she was dead. I had taken her in my arms, her little body was light as a feather.” My voice failed.

“I’ll never forget the look in his eyes when he realised that she was dead.... Dan, I can’t die as she did. Before I go I want to see the open fields, feel the soft earth beneath my feet, draw a few breaths of real air. Since I’ve lived in this slum I’m getting so I can’t even believe in God.”

“Ethel, you’re getting morbid. What’s all this talk about dying? You’re simply upset over these people’s trouble.”

“No, I’m not morbid, Danny boy. I hate to tell you, but Doctor Graves says I have consumption and must go back to California at once if I’m to get well.”

“What utter nonsense. You’re the strongest woman I’ve ever seen. It’s ridiculous to talk of a strapping girl like you having consumption.”

“I know it sounds ridiculous, but I’m afraid it’s true just the same. I’ve had a good many symptoms ... but I won’t die like an animal in a trap. I won’t die in this pest hole. I’ve a fighting chance and I’m going to take it. We’ll ride that tandem west or die in the attempt. When I think of the terrors of the journey, the miles and miles of desert that I know so well, when I picture those tremendous mountains, my heart almost fails me, but nothing, nothing can be so terrible, so horrible to our souls as well as destructive to our bodies as these loathsome slums.

“We’ve got to get away from here, Dan. That’s all. And I believe we can go to California on that wheel. I’ve heard of people making the journey on foot, and in the early days whole families went with all sorts of conveyances. What we need is a little nerve and grit like the pioneers.”

Well into the night we argued, until Dan was finally silenced, if not fully convinced.

Then the question of equipment confronted us. A matter of a few tools for repairs on the journey, an extra tire and other insurance against accidents reduced our finances almost to zero. Also the problem of bulk and weight is a serious matter when clothing, bedding, cooking utensils and other necessaries must be carried on one small frame.

As usual, the front seat of the bicycle is arranged for the woman, and on the handle bars we have rigged a holder for the cooking outfit. This consists of a heavy frying pan with the handle removed, a fair-sized potato kettle with bail, useful for carrying water, nested inside, and within that again a strong tin pan with close-fitting cover which may be used as coffee pot, cocoa kettle or dish pan as occasion warrants. Dan has a pair of long-handled pliers to remove these from the fire. Inside the pan lie two tin plates and two tin cups for coffee; also a couple of forks, a sharp steel knife, one large and two small spoons and a small tin of salt. A cocoa can of sugar, one of coffee and one of cocoa fit together very nicely and complete the collection. Directly on the rack rest two heavy pieces of wire sharpened at the ends which are bent at right angles to the body, forming prongs about nine inches long. When the points of these prongs are driven into the ground so that the lengths are parallel and about eight inches apart, a convenient little support for frying pan and kettle is formed, under which a small fire can be kindled to great advantage.

Then Dan contrived a case to fit within the body of the frame, which, with careful packing, holds a small emergency case, fitted with simple instruments, bandages, etc., a few toilet necessities and a change of hose and underwear for each.

Behind the rear seat there is a large rack with leather straps for bedding, which is our worst problem. Dan made a trip to a big machine shop and returned triumphant with two large sheets of black oilcloth which had covered electrical equipment. To each sheet I sewed a woollen blanket, thus giving our future bed protection from damp above and below. When an extra shirt for Dan and a waist for myself was added to this bed roll, we found that we could just crowd in one soft old blanket for extra covering. When I consider sleeping on the ground with a combination oilcloth and woollen blanket below, and the two blankets above, my teeth fairly chatter with anticipation. But even a frozen death would be preferable to our present hopeless existence.

Inasmuch as our rent is due next Sunday, May 3rd, we have decided to start on that date. What the future holds, God alone knows, but at least we will live in the open, which will compensate for much.

Three

_May 4th_, IN A BIG BARN.

Three

_May 4th. In a big barn._

We are off!

Sunday dawned bright and clear and Dan and I were up with the first light. The neighbourhood assembled to receive our few poor sticks of furniture and household goods, for we deemed it best to give the things to our poverty-stricken neighbours rather than sell them for a few pennies to some secondhand dealer.

Our friends think us insane, as well they may, but crazy or no, we will see this thing through.

We surely made a picture at the start. Dan’s blue eyes were alight with eagerness, his fair hair tousled, while his sturdy body showed to good advantage in sweater, corduroys and cap. I wore a dark shirtwaist, short plaid skirt, blue sweater and straw sailor hat. At the last moment we fastened a small parcel of groceries atop the bedding roll—a bit of bacon, a loaf of bread, a pat of butter and one or two other odds and ends. Altogether, the machine was well loaded.

Then, followed by the cheers of the crowd who were busy carrying away the contents of our room, and accompanied by a horde of shoving, shouting urchins, we made our way up the street. At the corner of Division Street we paused to weigh ourselves and wheel, and found the combination tipped the scales at just five hundred pounds.

Pushing on to a clear bit of pavement, we mounted and were off toward the west side. Both Dan and I had ridden bicycles at earlier periods in our career, and had spent a little time in Lincoln Park practising on the tandem, but we were far from being expert riders. The double steering gear which should enable the man to help the woman steady the front wheel was broken, so, loaded as we were, I found the task of steering a difficult one.

As we wobbled our serpentine way through the streets, fortunately nearly empty at that early hour, it seemed to me that this was the strangest nightmare that ever vexed the soul of woman. There was a weird beauty in the morning light, the breath of freedom in the gentle breeze. The spirit of adventure rode with us. I had a feeling of detachment from earthly things while realising to the full the perils and difficulties of the venture.

An ash can in the street caught my eye. With incredible accuracy I headed for it.

“Hi!” cried Dan, “look where you’re going.”

“Good gracious,” I answered desperately, “that’s just what I’m trying not to do.”

Bang! Quite a spill, but no harm done luckily.

When we reached Humboldt Park, we decided to take a short rest. Propping our machine against the curb, we sat on a bench beneath a tree. While aimlessly poking the litter at its base with my toe, I saw something glitter.

“Look, Dan!” I exulted. “See what I’ve found. Talk of manna in the wilderness.” I held up a silver dollar, a half and two dimes. “I feel sure it is an omen.”

“Yes, an omen of fresh eggs for breakfast to-morrow morning,” replied Dan prosaically.

Once again we were off. The day wore on. Streets gave way to dusty roads full of ruts, into which the wheel appeared possessed to stagger. Dust rose; sweat poured; our throats ached with unquenchable thirst. My arms seemed wrenched from their sockets. Human endurance reached its limit as the sun set.

Wearily we searched for a camping place. Finally, in a grassy hollow, screened from the road by trees, we unpacked our equipment. While Dan took the potato kettle to a near-by house for water, I set up our wire rack and kindled a tiny fire beneath.

After a meal which we were almost too tired to eat, we spread our scanty bedding on the ground and composed ourselves for slumber. An owl settled on a branch near our heads and surveyed us with amazement. Back and forth he flew, studying the strange intruders from every angle. Then with a “hoot” of protest and derision, he winged away to attend to the business of the evening.

“Ugh, this ground is hard,” grunted Dan.

“And none too warm,” thought I, but neither cold nor discomfort could prevail for long against our utter exhaustion.

I sat up with a start. A grey day was breaking; the trees rustled in a wind that moaned and muttered with chilly breath. Big drops of rain beat on my face.

“Quick, Dan, get up!” I cried to the snoring partner of my dreams. “It’s going to pour down rain in a few minutes.”

We scurried around, collecting and packing our scattered belongings, then decided to make a dash for a big barn which stood not far down the road at the foot of a hill, for the rain was beginning to fall heavily. Reaching the highway, we sprang to saddle and sped down the hill. With a sickening lurch the front wheel struck a slippery patch of mud at the bottom, the hind wheel skidding sideways. The heel of my right shoe caught in the pedal shaft and in a trice was torn from my foot and sent spinning ten feet away. Dan went sprawling on the wet earth, while I hopped awkwardly along, bruising my shins, but clinging desperately to the handle bars with both hands.

Dan picked himself up and came to my assistance.

“Pick up my heel, please,” said I, standing like a stork on one foot. Dan stared at me dazedly. “Pick up my heel,” I cried impatiently. He reached for my foot. “Do you think I’m a horse waiting to be shod? Don’t you see the heel of my shoe lying over there in the mud?”

With that he retrieved the loosened heel and we hurried through the steady downpour to the barn. The owner came out and, having listened to our tale of woe, gave us some shingle nails to repair the torn shoe and bade us build a fire beneath a shed to prepare breakfast. Dan fulfilled the augury of the previous day by the purchase of some fresh eggs, and soon we were feasting on bacon and eggs and pints of steaming coffee.

Good? Why nectar and ambrosia were stale beside it.

After the meal, we repaired to the barn loft and, easing our weary bones into the prickly depths of hay, awaited the end of the storm.

Four

_May 6th, 1908._

Four

_May 6th, 1908._

Dan found work! Only a day and a half, but a few hours were better than nothing, and gave us hope.

The sun was setting as a wagon rattled up the road with Dan dangling his feet over the endgate.

“Come on, Ethel,” he cried, “our friend here has offered us a place in his barn and plenty of dry corn cobs for the fire.”

I sprang up and we loaded the wheel into the wagon. Soon the driver entered a lane which ended in a large barnyard, and as Dan began to help with the team, I unloaded the cooking outfit.

The farmer was pulling some grain sacks from a large tub in the wagon bed.

“Here’s plenty of fish,” he said. “Just pitch in and help yourselves.”

Our eyes bulged in astonishment at sight of the silvery heaps that filled the tub.

“Where on earth did you get so many?” gasped Dan.

“South o’ the road where the river has overflowed its banks. The boys are heaving them out with pitchforks and spears and even bare handed. Take all you want. I’ve three times as many as Sarah Jane and I can eat.”

Nothing loath, I lifted out sufficient for our needs, and as Dan set to cleaning the fish, I collected corn cobs and kindled a tiny fire beneath the rack.

A short, roly-poly woman bustled out of the back door of the small but comfortable farmhouse and approached us.

“Dear me, dear me, a lady tramp!” she exclaimed. “Bless us, if they haven’t gone to running in pairs like animals entering the ark.”

Catching sight of the tandem still loaded with part of our equipment, she paused in amazement, pushing back her red calico sunbonnet and revealing wonderful masses of snow-white curls.

“But you’re not a tramp after all, are you? Tramps don’t ride bicycles. What a disappointment! I’ve always wanted to meet a lady tramp. But what are you up to anyway? Must be something interesting. You look interesting.”

I assured her that we were, indeed, up to something interesting, just how interesting we would probably fully realise later on.

“So you’re really going back to that strange California where it is always summer? What awful monotony. Come fall, I’m always glad, for I feel that summer has been here plenty long enough.”

She seated herself on the wagon tongue.

The barnyard world was settling for the night with much cackling, grunting, lowing and stamping. Under a near-by shed a flock of fowls was clucking and fussing as they sought the highest perches.

“Look at those chickens, now. Aren’t they just like humans?” demanded our visitor. “I sit out here and watch them by the hour.”

“Caw, caw-rr,” croaked a haughty grenadier of a hen, taking a sharp peck at a handsome young pullet who had endeavoured to perch on the topmost roost.

“Hear what she says? I’ll tell you,” the little woman interpreted eagerly.

“‘Get right away from here, you impudent, upstart dominick. Go back with the lower clawsses where you belong and don’t try to crowd in here with your betters.’

“Do you know, we got a woman living on the other side of town who’s the perfect spit and image of that old hen. There, hear her talking?

“‘These nobodies try to push in everywhere.’

“Now the old rooster is a cuttering.... ‘She seems rather a nice little thing, but of course, as you say, she’ll never be able to attain to any position in life, but really for one of her social standing, she’s quite chick.’

“Now the old hen’s talking again. ‘Fowls of quality can’t be too careful nowadays. These plebeian climbers are everywhere.’”

The haughty Plymouth Rock settled herself and preened her feathers with the conscious air of duty well performed, while the little woman laughed gaily.

“Now she feels that she has maintained all the traditions of her class. Oh, yes, they have classes in the chicken yard just as in the American nation. I was thinking of getting a good likeness of that hen and sending it to the _Chicago American_ so’s they could print her picture on the society page.

“You know, I find lots of interesting characters out here. There’s a hog over yonder. He’s stuffed so full he can’t swallow another mouthful, yet he keeps wallowing over the food so the shoats can’t get any, and they stand back and first one tries to get a bite and then another, when if they’d all rush him at once they’d get aplenty. When he grunts like that he’s telling them to be contented and industrious little pigs and that if they just start rooting early every morning, after a while they’ll be eminent and respected like he is and able to wallow in the feed trough.

“And Father’s got the big kettle all ready, and Saturday he’s going to butcher him.”

“Hi, Serjane, I’ve got the fish ready for the pan and there you set on the wagon tongue aletting the fire go out.” It was the querulous voice of the old man.

Sarah Jane hurried into the kitchen as Dan placed a fine mess of fish over the coals. We had just gotten well started to eating when the back door flew open with a bang and the little woman scudded toward us.

“Oh, I’m too late,” she cried breathlessly. “You’re already eating. Now why didn’t I ask you to eat with us before? Why? Why? Why?”

Each word was a tiny explosion.

“Just because I didn’t think! Didn’t think! That’s what ails the world. We don’t think, won’t think and can’t think. Now, which do you consider is the worst?”

“The _won’t thinks_ are the worst to my mind,” I assured her gravely, “because the _don’t thinks_ get waked up now and then, and after a while the _can’t thinks_ will grow some more brains, so that there is a chance of them getting started right, but as for the fellow who just naturally refuses to think at all, there is not much hope for him.”

“Dear me, dear me. I would just love to talk to you. You must come into the sitting room as soon as you are done eating and spend the evening with me. I’ll hurry and wash the dishes.”

She spun around and scurried into the house. We hastily finished our meal and prepared sleeping quarters in the hay mow.

Then, as darkness fell, the old man ushered us into the neat living room. The soft rays from a large lamp glimmered on the walnut furniture and illumined the family groups upon the walls. Braided rugs, round and oval, were scattered about the floor and a cheerful blaze in an open-front stove radiated a pleasant welcome in the chill of evening. In a few moments our hostess was extracting all the details of our journey with the neatness and skill of long experience.

After a while Dan rose with a sigh of weariness. “Come, Ethel, we’d better hit the hay. I’ve got to work to-morrow, you know.”

“Hay—hit the hay! No such a thing. Go right into the spare room and make yourselves uncomfortable.” Sarah Jane rushed to open the bedroom door.

I explained our plans for roughing it and said we should rest very comfortably in the hay mow.

“Dear me, dear me, you should always put off till to-morrow what you can get out of doing to-day. You can do aplenty of roughing it when you get to Wyoming. Go on to bed now and enjoy a good spring mattress while you have the chance.”

Daylight came all too soon, with Sarah Jane summoning us to a breakfast of cornmeal mush and cream, fried perch, buckwheat cakes with maple syrup and cups of amber coffee.

“Let me know if you find anything that I can do to help along. I’d like to be of more use in the world than I can be hibernating here,” she called after us as we pedalled down the lane.

I can still see her merry smile as she leaned over the gate, vigorously waving her sunbonnet in farewell.

Five

_May 7th_, AT CRAB-APPLE HEDGE.

Five

_May 7th. At Crab-Apple Hedge._

We are in a new world. All day long we press forward, sometimes riding and again on foot, for the roads are rough and often muddy; and on every hand the beauties of an Illinois spring unfold before our enraptured gaze.

With the western spring I am familiar. In March and April acres on acres of greasewood blossoms and wild lilacs were all swaying in the ocean breeze that sweeps the wide reaches of our Southern California valleys each afternoon. A wild spirit of freedom, an almost Pagan joyousness and gaiety is manifest, which speaks of primitive things and appeals to the elemental essence of the soul. But here Nature approaches in more tender intimacy. Little love flowers snuggle on her breast. The whole earth palpitates with a sweet warmth and promise of beauties to follow.

On our right stretches a crab-apple hedge in full bloom, a veritable glory of beauty and fragrance, which crowns a ridge whence rolling acres fall gradually away, revealing, here and there, farmhouses surrounded by kitchen gardens and groups of fruit trees, billowy plumes of soft colour, some outlined by the tender green of spring. The smoke of noontime fires lazily ascends from the chimneys, the cackle of hens and other barnyard sounds come faintly on the breeze. My heart aches with the homing impulse. My mind turns to the experiences of the past few days.

Wednesday the air was clear and balmy, and as night approached we stopped beneath a bridge where thick trees screened our camp from view. The wires were driven in the ground, the modest campfire lighted, and soon the delicious aroma of boiling cocoa and grilled steak whetted appetites already ravenous.

Our hunger appeased, we were settling for the night, when I was seized with foreboding of a coming storm. Dan laughed and called it a crazy notion and beyond all reason. But the feeling increased in intensity until I insisted on seeking the shelter of some building. Dan acquiesced reluctantly, but by the time we had repacked and loaded the wheel, night had fallen.

At the nearest farm we asked permission to sleep in the barn, but were abruptly denied. At the next house the inmates refused to answer our knock.

“Well, what are you going to do now? Walk all night?” expostulated Dan.

On our left a dark mass appeared in the darkness and proved to be the ruins of a race track grandstand. As I stumbled beneath the tiers of seats, hoping for some promise of protection, a man leaped up almost at my feet.

I sprang back, startled.

“Come,” said the stranger, “I know the way.”

As though in a trance I followed him, my hand guiding the wheel, while Dan pushed behind. We immediately came on a narrow board walk at right angles to the road. The man led on into the thick darkness, the two of us following blindly after. On and on we travelled as though impelled by some force outside our own volition. A huge building loomed on our right. Silently we skirted it, the clop, clop of our feet on the boards giving way to noiseless progress over grassy turf.

Suddenly the front wheel of the tandem struck some obstacle, and in the deepened gloom I could faintly discern the outlines of another building, the steps of which were before me. These I mounted, preceded by our strange guide, who said not a word, but rapped loudly on the door.

From some remote region came a scuffling, then the bang of an inner door, and down a long hall shuffled a tall, lean figure wrapped in a trailing dressing gown. An oil lamp in its hand gave forth a yellow gleam, which lighted up the old-fashioned interior and shone through the glass panelled door. The old man, for such it was, peered through the glass at our mysterious attendant, and then, after prolonged fumbling with lock and bolts and chain, slowly swung open the door.

“And who might yez be?” he inquired in a rich brogue, directing a keen Irish eye on Dan and me.

We explained our situation as briefly as possible and asked for the shelter of some outbuilding for the night.

“Faith, and ye’re wilcome to the house. Sure and it’s large enough for tin and but three av us to fill it.”

As he spoke there came a tapping and a little old woman with snapping black eyes skipped like a bird to his side.

“An’ indade they shall not come inside this house the night. Murdthered in me bed I will not be.”

“Hush, Katie,” querulously chided the ancient. “This is no time for to be exercisin’ yer conthrary timper.”

But the little old woman braced herself in the doorway as though to defy the world, and I hastened to state that we only wanted to sleep in the barn.

“Well, if so ye will. Arrah, the house is open save for this old spalpeen.” With that he shuffled off to fetch a lantern.

I turned to thank our guide, but he had disappeared.

Soon we were inside the big barn that we had passed coming in. The wavering rays of the lantern disclosed huge, cob-webbed recesses, rows of empty stalls, a tumble-down carriage, and near the sliding door, a small hillock of well packed hay. Otherwise the place was empty. On this hay we made our bed and were soon asleep.

I was awakened by the drumming of rain on the roof. Another wet morning was upon us. I leaned over to ask Dan what he thought of my “crazy notion” now. But he was sound asleep, so I conquered my feminine impulse and decided to get up and scout a dry place to cook breakfast.

“Ow-wow!” My bare foot splashed into a lake of cold water which, concealed by a layer of floating straw and chaff, covered the floor of the old barn to a depth of eighteen inches.

My startled howl brought Dan up with a jerk. Hastily we dressed and moved our footgear and bedding to the top of a grain bin. As we perched forlornly on this refuge in a watery waste, the door opened and the little old lady of the night before came in.

Perhaps we appeared less murderous by the light of day, or what is more likely, her “conthrary timper” was less in evidence when acting on her own initiative; at any rate, after a short chat, she cordially invited us in to breakfast.

Then followed a most interesting day. Jim, her husband, who was unusually well read, struck up an immediate friendship with Dan, and while waiting for the rain to cease, Katie and I visited in the kitchen.

There were but three in the family: the old man, his wife and the feeble-minded chore man who had brought us to their dwelling the previous night. Outside of an acre of orchard, a chicken run and a small garden, their great holdings of hundreds of acres were rented to tenants, one of whom supplied them with milk and butter.

The couple had emigrated from the old country when very young; had met and loved on the long voyage, and were married soon after their arrival.

James Grogan was a remarkable man. Keen, shrewd, ambitious, he worked and saved and invested with all the energy and acumen that has enabled so many of his race to rise in the world. He homesteaded the original Illinois farm and to these hundred and sixty acres he constantly added. His passion was to leave his children educated and rich. He himself had learned to read and write when past the age of thirty; the struggle upward had been a hard one; his children should be spared all this.

And eleven babies were born to them. With bitter words old Katie painted pictures of the heartbreaking toil; the lack of ordinary conveniences; the goading tongue of her lord and master driving her on through the years while acre was added to acre, and the herds increased, and no barn was large enough to hold the abundant crops. Modern farm implements were purchased in plenty, but there was no money for the simplest household conveniences; outbuildings were snug and well built; but the home itself was ramshackle and poor.

It has been said that in earlier days the size of a man’s farm could often be estimated by the number of wives’ tombstones in his lot in the cemetery. But it was not true in this case. Katie had lived, but her babies died.

Her love for her husband turned to a cold hate, but still the babies came. Ten had been born and ten had died before Jim realised that Katie needed as good care as his animals—that she was more than any animal—that she was, in truth, the mother of those children—his children—whom he worshipped—and lost.

So the youngest boy was born and grew—a slender, delicate, brilliant lad—and all the facilities for education, and all the riches of cattle and horses and broad acres were his to command.

He was educated for the Bar. And while he was in college and while he studied law, his father and he built up a wonderful library and still more wonderful plans for the future, when James Grogan, Junior, should be a great jurist and statesman with a reputation nation wide.

Abruptly his health failed. Lack of vitality, his inheritance from his mother, made itself felt. He went to California and there died.

James Grogan, Senior, brought home that library and installed it in the old ramshackle house with its addition here and lean-to there. And here, alone, he read each volume.

Six

_Monday, May 11th_, IN THE MUD.

Six

_Monday, May 11th. In the Mud._

To you, and you alone, little diary, will I confess a sense of deep discouragement. Mud! Mud! Seas of mud and oceans of rain!

We have been out eight full days and have covered but sixty-five miles. The appetite that I have developed is truly amazing. As I sit by a fence, waiting for Dan to investigate those streaks of ooze and slush called roads, I’m hungry enough to eat Limburger cheese, which is saying a good deal for me. Yet I finished a hearty breakfast but an hour or so ago. I am ravenous, morning, noon and night, and Dan is nearly as bad. When I compare the size of our appetites with the cost of bread and eggs at farmhouses, the dollar and a half that Dan sweat like a stevedore to earn, looks woefully inadequate.

Saturday afternoon we cycled through the town of Morris, stopping long enough to purchase a few supplies. Two miles from town we passed a neat farmhouse, and just beyond found a most beautiful meadow surrounded by trees. The long shadows of late afternoon lay across the thick green sward which rose in a gentle slope.

Delighted with the spot, we cooked our evening meal and lay down to enjoy the glory of the moon, which, floating above the trees, bathed the earth with its soft radiance. The peaceful chorus of night insects and the gentle whisper of the wind in the tree tops soon lulled us to sleep.

I dreamed that we were riding over a long bridge that suddenly gave way with a deafening crash, precipitating us into the rushing stream below. I wakened with a start. Alas, it was more than a dream. The night was like ink. Lightning crackled, thunder crashed and rolled, rain descended in torrents and a fine young rivulet was bounding down the hillside and pouring directly over our bed.

Bewildered, we stumbled around in the darkness, collecting such clothing as came to hand.

“Come on,” cried Dan, “let’s make for the big barn up the road.”

Guided by the flashes of lightning, we hastened across the field and approached the barn from above. A momentary gleam disclosed a black opening before me. I made a dive for the shelter within. Followed a sickening sense of falling, and I spreadeagled onto some yielding, hairy object which heaved and scrambled madly with much blowing and bellowing. Thus I was made aware that my unseemly arrival had disturbed the gentle slumbers of a cow. At least I sincerely hoped that the creature belonged to the gentler sex as I backed out of the stall with more haste than elegance.

Dan, meanwhile, had located the hayloft and, guided by his voice, I groped my way to him, and notwithstanding the stimulating companionship of barley-beards and thistles, contrived to snatch a few hours’ sleep.

The rain ceased about daybreak, and we returned to the scene of the evening before to collect our scattered utensils and spread the soaked bedding in the brilliant sunshine. Most of our recent purchases were ruined, the bread especially being reduced to a soggy mass, so Dan sought the farmhouse to renew our supply. He returned rather indignant with less than a half loaf of bread, for which he had paid ten cents. It then developed that the bacon had disappeared and our dozen eggs were badly scrambled, so Dan reluctantly went back to buy eggs and bacon if possible.

In a few minutes he was back empty-handed, angry right through. The farmer had demanded twenty-five cents for a half dozen eggs, which had cost us twenty cents a dozen in Morris the day before, and when Dan declined to buy had grown insulting.

We made coffee and were drinking it when a roughly dressed man approached.

“Say, folks,” he began, “you better clear out of here. The boss up there is hitchin’ up a team to go to Morris after the constable. I hearn him vow to have you run in for trespassin’ on his land.”

We looked at one another in alarm. Hastily swallowing the last crumbs of bread, we rolled up our wet blankets and made ready for the road, the stranger doing all he could to help. Once on the highway we found riding out of the question because of the mud, and what to do we didn’t know, especially as our friend said that the constable would be glad enough to arrest us for the fee.

“But if your wife don’t mind,” he concluded, “you might come down to the river with me. We’re choppin’ wood down there and the bunch’ll hide you till the constable gets tired nosin’ around and goes back to town.”

No sooner said than done. The men took the wheel, and away we went through the underbrush to the woodchopper’s shack. There were four men there, washing clothes, shaving and attending to the usual Sunday chores. Our adherent explained the situation and they all hustled around to make us comfortable. One built up the fire to dry our things, another hid the wheel, one went out to the road to keep watch, while the fourth arranged a place of concealment for us in the rear of the room. Hardly were the preparations complete, when the watcher reported the coming of the farmer and the constable.

We ducked to cover, the door was shut, and after a bit we heard our hosts parleying with the newcomers and demonstrating their skill in the art of graceful lying. Soon they announced that the coast was clear, but advised us to remain in retirement for an hour or two at least, and, to pass the time, suggested a trip on the river. One got out some fishing tackle, another dug bait, while a third cut rods from the willows. We all followed a winding path to the river where row boats were tied, and stepping in, were off for a little fishing excursion.

The hours flew by on the wings of delight, while the men fished in cool, shady coves or rowed up stream with the oars glinting in the sun. We had a good catch, when dark shadows athwart our course and a gusty breeze that set the water rippling proclaimed the coming of another shower.

Returning to the shanty, the men prepared the glistening spoils, and before the savoury dish was ready for the table, the rain was pounding on the roof.

As the day waned, I became the prey of serious misgivings, but about an hour before sundown the rain slackened and four of the men declared their intention of going to town to see a show, adding that they did not expect to return till morning. Our first acquaintance cooked a hearty meal, then rigged a blanket curtain across one end of the room, and warmed and dried and fed, we retired to rest, giving thanks for the spirit of true brotherhood which often manifests itself in unlikely places.

Next morning our benefactor packed a substantial lunch and started us on our journey. But so far we have made poor progress.

Dan has just come up with the news that our one chance to proceed lies in following the railroad track, so I must up and away.

Well, we are making a little better time along the track than in the slush of the road, though this method of travel is far from ideal. We push the wheel between the rails, and the poor thing goes bump, bump, bump over the ties, while the cooking outfit jingles and clinks and the whole load threatens to fall off. When nerves can stand the strain no longer, we try the path at the side of the track. This we essayed to ride, but a shelving ledge where the path almost disappeared nearly sent us down the embankment, so we trundle the wheel and walk. The pedal barks my shins and I feel like saying something wicked. I hear Dan muttering under his breath and fully second what he is thinking. Just when I can no longer endure the pangs of starvation, he declares that it is time to stop for lunch. Sweet sound!

Luncheon over, I throw myself face down on the gravelled siding. When I consider the lack of money, the scarcity of work, the wretched roads and never-ending storms, my beloved California seems very far away.

Seven

_Thursday, May 14th._

Seven

_Thursday, May 14th._

Before the open door of a “side-door Pullman” I sit at ease on our bedding roll with my diary on my knees, watching the Iowa prairie billow past. What a relief to view the stretches of gluey, sloppy road, serene in the knowledge that for the present at least we are free from its sticky toils.

We lunched last Monday beside the Stockdale siding and while packing our belongings preparatory to another tussle with the bike, a freight train pulled in. The train crew surveyed us with vast interest, and as the engine backed slowly past, the engineer leaned far out of the cab window.

“Whither away?” he queried.

“California or bust,” yelled Dan.

The long train jarred to a stop on the siding. A brakeman appeared and entered into conversation.

“It must be pretty fierce to ride a wheel through that mud,” he volunteered.

“You bet it is,” agreed Dan, “and the track isn’t much better. If I bark any more hide off my shins, I’ll have to buy a pair of crutches.”

With a shriek and a roar a passenger train thundered through. The freight pulled slowly off the siding. The engineer leaned out as before, his big, good-natured mouth stretched in a broad grin, his right arm swinging with a scooping motion.

“Get aboard! Get aboard!” he shouted.

Dan and I exchanged glances. With one accord we jumped for the wheel which stood loaded for the start, and ran it along beside the track. Car after car groaned past. The caboose appeared. A brakeman leaned from the step and grasped the handle bars, the conductor lent a hand, and in a moment our old machine was being hoisted upon the platform while Dan and I scrambled up the steps.

Followed a detailed account of our aims and adventures, which was listened to with keen attention. The train crew held a council of war to determine the best means of procedure. About half way up the train was situated an empty box car, and to this we were transferred as soon as darkness had fallen. We spread our blankets on the floor and composed ourselves for sleep.

But alas and alack! A new crew had come aboard, who had chosen our resting place for a bumper and appeared to be switching all the cars on the middle division with it. We would enter a siding with much grinding and jarring, coming to a stop with a jolt. The train would be uncoupled in the middle, our car would advance with increasing speed, then—whang—we would bump the standing gondolas, the train would buckle at each coupling with a resounding thumping, the engine would jerk us backward, and we were off to repeat the performance.

Towards morning the door of the box car slid softly open and several men piled in. Dan asked them what they wanted and one replied, “It’s all right, Bo. We’re west-bound bundle stiffs same as yourself.”

Great was their amazement when the morning light revealed the presence of a woman. About sunrise, two jumped out to “rustle some grub” while the engine stopped for water.

The train was moving out and we had given them up, when here they came, helter skelter, and leaped aboard the speeding car. One had some slices of meat and bread in a newspaper, while the other carried part of a loaf of bread. The food was unhesitatingly divided among the five of us and was greatly appreciated.

The scant meal finished, we settled down to talk. I was amazed at the mentality displayed by the smallest fellow, a member of the I. W. W. He seemed conversant with all the questions of the day, and expressed in excellent language clear cut opinions on industrial subjects that were both novel and startling. They were all workers, but jobs were scarce where they came from, so they were going west in the hope of bettering their condition. The fact that thousands were at that moment travelling in the opposite direction, impelled by self-same conditions, failed to deter them.

One was a big, husky chap with rugged, honest features and the true brown eyes of a Collie. His story interested me greatly.

Born among collieries, he was driven to work as a breaker boy at a very early age by the wretched poverty of his parents. After several years of deadening toil at a time when he should have been in school, he drifted away to join the great army of migratory workers. He worked on a threshing machine while the harvest was in progress, and at its close what little money he had been able to save was consumed while searching for another job. Perhaps he got work with pick and shovel in some construction gang, but the contractor’s system of low wages, high board bills, charges for physician’s care—which most do not receive—and the like, kept him destitute. He called at an employment office, where he paid two dollars for a job, was worked just long enough to pay for transportation, board and monthly fees, then discharged without wages, his employer and the agent dividing up the original fee. From coast to coast he wandered, sweating in the dust and heat of summer through long hours of racking labor, in order to escape starvation in the idle months of winter.

His eyes grew dark and wistful as he shyly confessed his one love affair. He had secured employment in a little lumber mill and made such a good impression on the boss, who was also the owner, that he was taken to board in his own home. Here the poor fellow got his first idea of what home life might mean. He fell in love with the daughter of the house, who seemed to reciprocate, but before they could enter into any formal engagement the lumber trust put the mill out of business, ruining the owner, who was forced to leave that part of the country.

Try as he would, the young man could secure no steady employment and marriage without such foundation was out of the question.

“I saw enough of getting married on nothing when I was a boy,” he concluded. “Wages are set for single men, I reckon. And after a bit a fellow can’t earn a living for his family, so the wife and kiddies have to rustle out and work. Easy enough for them to get a job,” he added bitterly. “Many a time I’ve seen kids doing work that I’d been glad to get. But they can beat a man all out at working cheap. They got to work cheap or starve. I may be a good-for-nothing bundle stiff, but I’ve never got so low as to live off the work of little children.”

“Our good business men are not so finicky,” broke in the I. W. W. “A big profit looks good to them. If it comes from the coined sweat and blood of women and children, so much the better. Yes, women are cheaper than men, and kids are cheaper than women. After a bit they’ll get machines that are cheaper than kids, and then the brats can rot in the slums for all they care.”

“Why not let the people in general own the machines and run them for use instead of for profit? Then the men could do the work, the women could stay at home and the children go to school.” Thus spoke the quiet member of the trio.

“Shut up, you crazy socialist!” exclaimed the I. W. W. “You fellows won’t do anything but vote. You leave it to us. We’re the boys who’ll fix the machines, all right, all right. Yes, and the plutes, too.”

I remembered the many I. W. W. signs and notices that were posted along the way; the groups of men beneath the water tanks who listened eagerly to the harangues of such as he. Some even had told me that they had given up liquor because it blunted their faculties at a time when brains were needed in the workers’ fight against the capitalists. I seemed to hear a muttering as of a gathering storm; perhaps in the days preceding the French Revolution a similar murmuring rose.

There are so many like my dark-eyed acquaintance. He lost touch with his sweetheart, lost hope, lost ambition and now drifts aimlessly about the country in search of a bare subsistence.

It is he and the millions of his class who quarry the stone and hew the timber for our cities; they build the roadbed and lay the tracks for swiftly turning Pullman wheels; they mine the coal that warms our dwellings; they harvest the wheat that nourishes our bodies; without their labour industry would cease.

Yet life to them holds out no hope, no promise; their meagre earnings forbid the thought of marriage; their only home is some saloon; their final rest the potter’s field.

About ten o’clock a trainman poked his head inside the door.

“Hey, clear out, you fellows. This is no place for you when we enter the yard. Better beat it.”

The hoboes bade us adieu and sprang from the car. The brakeman leaped in beside us.

“We finish our run at the next stop,” he said. “The engineer will slow down at the outskirts of town and you jump off and hike out. You’ll find the main road over to the north.”

We thanked him warmly for his kindness and made ready to follow his advice. Soon the train slowed to a mere crawl. Dan leaped down and ran alongside, I swung out the wheel, which he seized, and in an instant I was standing beside him.

Waving farewell to the train crew, who had all turned out to see us off, we struck out for the main road. The straggling outskirts of a good-sized town lay before us.

“Tell you what,” I remarked after we had traversed some distance. “Suppose we stop in the residence section and look for work. I’ll offer to do washing or cleaning by the day, and you can cut the lawn, wash the automobile or something.”

Dan replied with a snort of righteous indignation. “Ever since you were bit by the crazy bug and started out to be a lady hobo you have lost all your natural pride, Ethel. It was bad enough for me, a high-class electrical engineer with a paid-up union card in my pocket, to stoop to the job of a common labourer as I did last week for your sake. Now I’ll be damned if I become a dirty roustabout and have some old hen ordering me around while I sweep off the front porch.”

“Oh, all right,” I answered cheerily. “But the interesting hour of high noon approacheth. Will you please be so kind as to furnish me with exact information regarding your financial standing? I am pained to confess myself the victim of a too familiar craving which calls aloud for attention.”

Dan thrust his hand into his pocket and withdrew a solitary ten cent piece, nor did a prolonged search of numerous pockets yield further riches.

“’Tis sad,” I sighed, “but a still voice tells me that that bit of silver will prove strangely inadequate to the demands of nature. However, no doubt you can dine off your natural pride, served up on your paid-up union card, while I eat a dime’s worth of doughnuts or something.”

We approached a rather pretentious place as I spoke. A large brass sign announced “J. Stanchley Loane, M.D., Physician and Surgeon.” I paused to study the white house with the red-roofed garage in the rear.

“This looks like a good place to make a start. Think I’ll just go in and call on my fellow practitioner and see what happens.”

Dan stepped in front of me. “Now see here, Ethel!” he began angrily. “Don’t go to pulling off foolish stunts. You are my wife and I absolutely forbid you to go about like an Irish washerwoman and——”

“Now see here, Dan!” I mimicked, breaking in upon his authoritative harangue, “I am your wife, ’tis true, but sad to say, the fact does not prevent me from growing hungry. ’Tis also true that I am only a graduate physician with a high-class appetite. I have no paid-up union card to stand between me and possible employment with its promise of a square meal. Moreover, I have never felt myself to be so wonderfully superior to the Irish washerwomen who earn an honest living by honest labour. At any rate, I shall not attempt to hold myself above them unless I can prove by my conduct that I have that right. Just now I fail to see how either you or I can do better than by marching up to that back door and asking for work like the genuine bundle stiffs that we are. Of course if you desire to remain here on the curb, upholding your dignity while I ask for employment, you are entirely at liberty to do so. As for me, I’m going in right now.”

As I turned up the concrete driveway Dan leaned the wheel against the fence and followed. I rapped at the door of the screen porch. The inner door was opened and a heavy-set man with bristling, reddish hair stepped out.

“Good morning, Doctor Loane,” I began. “My husband and I are cycling to California, and being short of funds are looking for employment. My husband is an excellent mechanic and will be glad to go over your car for you. I can cook, wash, scrub or do any kind of housework.”

The doctor looked us up and down with an insolent stare.

“So you can cook, can you? Suppose you come in and show what you can do. I’m alone in the house to-day. We have a devilish time with servants. Our last maid—a pretty little fool—got on her high horse and quit us yesterday, and the old harridan of a cook followed suit. My wife’s gone to town to get another bunch.”

“Sit down on the porch, you,” he ordered Dan, “and you step in here. There is the pantry and the ice chest. Throw together some sort of lunch and call me when it’s ready.” He waved his hand with a lordly air and disappeared into the front of the house.

A short inspection enabled me to determine on a suitable menu, and soon a very fair lunch was spread on the dining table.

“Humph! You are quite a clever piece of goods,” the doctor volunteered, as I summoned him to the meal. “Go and feed your man now, and later we’ll find something more for you to do.”

The meal concluded, Dr. Loane took Dan to the garage, while I whisked the dishes away and tidied the kitchen. The doctor entered as I finished my task.

“There is some work to be attended to in my private office, and you are just the one to do it for me,” he grinned ingratiatingly.

I felt my face growing hot as I realised what he meant.

“What work do you want me to do?” I asked, rising to my feet.

He advanced with outstretched arms, a bestial demon looking out of his red-brown eyes. I backed behind the table, fury and dread causing my heart to beat tumultuously.

Just then a short ring came at the side entrance. Dr. Loane drew back with a muttered curse. We stood motionless for a moment. The bell rang again, insistently.

“You, you keep quiet now. Remember what you are,” he hissed, and strode to the door.

I lost no time in dashing to the garage, where I found Dan tinkering with the car.

“Come, Dan, quick! Let’s get out of here,” I cried.

“What’s up, Ethel?” He came out wiping his hands on a piece of waste.

“Never mind an explanation. I’ll tell you later.” I spoke imperiously. “Get the wheel now and don’t stop to talk.”

We started in the direction of the business section of the city.

“I think we had better take the wheel over by the railroad yard, Dan, and see if you can’t arrange for us to take a freight out of here. I’m a trifle nervous about that old beast of a doctor. He impressed me as the kind of man to make us trouble if possible, have us arrested or something.”

At the station I waited for Dan to see what arrangements he could make. In a few moments he returned to the waiting-room door with a troubled countenance.

“A freight is going to pull out in about an hour, but I haven’t been able to make any impression on the crew. You know, the rules are pretty strict against carrying passengers on freight trains and the boys are afraid of their jobs. I think we’d better give up the idea and ride out on the bike. I cached it down at the end of the yard.”

“I think I’d better talk to the trainmen, Dan,” I replied seriously. “I’d like to get away as soon as possible. I am afraid the doctor may make trouble for us.”

We walked up the track to where a freight engine was puffing back and forth placing cars in a long train, like a fussy old woman stringing beads. A lean-jawed man in blue denim with a conductor’s cap pulled over his eyes turned at our approach.

“Good evening, Conductor,” I began, looking him full in the face. “We have no money and we must get out of this town immediately. I should like to put our bicycle, which is down at the end of the yard, in some empty car that you are going to take out to-night, and get a lift for fifteen or twenty miles.”

His keen grey eyes bored into mine. “What’s the trouble that you got to get out of town? Been holding up somebody?” he queried gruffly.

“My husband and I rode into town this morning and started to hunt work as usual. We stopped at a doctor’s house over on the north side, Doctor Stanchley Loane’s, and he gave us work for the day. His wife was out, my husband was cleaning the auto in the garage, and while I was at work in his private office, he attacked me. I gave him the slip and got away. Now, if we ride the wheel out of town, I’m afraid he’ll make trouble for us. He expects us to go that way.”

“The old son-of-a——” the conductor stopped abruptly. “He’s a bad egg all right. We all know that, but I scarcely thought he’d dare go so far. Of course, your being a sort of hobo——” He stopped again. “Reckon he didn’t take a very close look at those shoulders of yours, or he wouldn’t have tried to get fresh. Well, we’ll see what can be done. Where did you say your wheel is?”

Dan described its location.

“All right. You go there and be ready. We’ll shunt an empty down that way and when the coast seems clear, you pile aboard and lie low. It’s a risky business, but it’s all in a lifetime.” He turned away and began signalling the engineer.

Dan and I scuttled down the track. When we had the wheel in hand, ready for loading, he turned to me.

“Did that old devil actually try to lay hands on you? Why didn’t you tell me when you came out to the garage? I’d like to go back and crack his nut for him.”

“I’m glad enough to get out of the nasty scrape without any skull-cracking. You must remember that we are looked upon as hoboes, and hoboes have no rights. I do wish the men would hurry with that car.”

As though in answer to my thought, a box car rolled gently down the track and came to a stop not ten feet from where we waited.

“Good shot,” said Dan as we slid back the side door, which was ajar.

A long look around and I scrambled in, while Dan hoisted up the wheel and quickly followed. The bottom of the car was packed solid with radiators, which were piled almost to the top in the rear end, each tier held in place by heavy braces. We stacked the tandem in a convenient corner and crouched in silence on the crates.

Soon there came a clinking rumble, there was a slight jar, and our car moved up the line to take its place in the outgoing train.

An hour or more passed while the train roared on. Dan sat by the door, while I, lulled by the clank of wheels and the panting breath of the engine that was whirling us homeward, leaned against the radiator braces in the centre of the car and lost myself in dreams.

Came a shriek of the whistle, a grinding crash, and the floor of the car seemed to buckle under me while something dealt me a terrific blow between the shoulders, lifting me clear into the air and flinging me headlong against the front timbers.

Consciousness struggled back from the void of nothingness and I heard Dan’s agonised voice in my ear.

“My God, Ethel, speak to me. Are you hurt? Oh, she doesn’t answer! She can’t be dead! Ethel! Ethel!”

As he dragged my limp body toward the door a flaming torture seared my lungs, my mouth filled with a hot, brackish fluid. “Wait,” I gasped, half strangled. “Let me rest a moment. I’ll be all right in a minute.” He must not know my plight. I turned my head away as his groping fingers caressed my hair, thankful for the thick darkness as I freed my mouth of blood.

“Oh, thank God! Thank God!” he was whispering softly as he tried to lift me in his arms.

“Let me lie flat for a little while, dear. Then I’ll get up. Are you all right?”

“Yes, I’m O.K. It wasn’t a regular wreck. We must have run into something. The shock threw the radiators about. The air seemed full of them, but I got off scot free. You and the tandem and the radiators were all in a scramble. I thought I should never get you out. You’re sure you are not hurt?”

“I feel rather shaken, but I believe there is nothing serious the matter. I had a rap that put me out for a few minutes, that’s all.”

“What happened?” called Dan to the conductor who approached with a lantern as I finished scrubbing the blood from my face.

“A drunken bum stalled his team on the crossing. The engine rounded the curve and was within a hundred feet before Sam saw the wagon. The good-for-nothing sot was off in front of the horses, else he would be in kingdom come. How did you come out? Did it shake you up much when Sam set the emergencies?”

“My wife had a pretty thorough pounding. The blamed radiators broke loose and piled up in the front of the car. Guess we’d better try another Pullman or clear out altogether. What do you want to do, Ethel?”

“Oh, let’s ride as far as we can. Even a freight train covers ground so quickly compared to our slow old wheel.”

“All right, but we’d better hunt another carriage.”

The conductor stood hesitating. “This radiator car is billed straight through to Frisco,” he informed us. “I picked her out for that reason. There ain’t many cars left open like she is. Don’t know how it comes she ain’t sealed shut. But if you have real good luck, you might be able to skate right through to Frisco in a week or ten days. It’ll be a pretty rough trip, but if you want to get to Cal in a hurry, it’ll beat pumping a bike.”

“Oh, Dan, we must try it. I’d ride the bumpers or the cowcatcher to get home in a week,” I cried, forgetting my pain in such a joyful prospect.

“It seems a trifle risky to trust those radiators again, but you’re the doctor, so here goes.”

As Dan settled down beside me the conductor slipped a bill into his hand and ducked away. The engineer signalled that he was ready to be off. When the train took the next siding to permit repairs on the engine, Dan secured a lantern and we straightened our tangled possessions and made ourselves as comfortable as possible for the night.

I was glad when Dan slept, for I feared he would notice my restless seeking for some posture in which I could forget my aches and pains in sleep. But my hopes were in vain, for mind and body conspired to hold my nerves at a tension. The events of the day, which seemed of a month’s duration, formed a kaleidoscopic jumble in my brain.

Morning dawned at last and I lay prone on the radiator crates, while Dan busied himself with the tandem, which had also suffered in the mêlée of the evening before.

It was nearly dark when we pulled into the railroad yard at Des Moines. Our car was switched off the main track, and Dan immediately got out to purchase provisions for the western trip. Trembling at every noise, I awaited his return, and it was not long till he was back with an armful of bundles and a kettle of water. Another train was being made up and soon our car was shunted into place. The engineer had given the signal for the crew to assemble and my breath had begun to come easier, when the door was jerked open and a man thrust in his head.

“Hey, yous! Come out of that,” he snarled. “Here, Tim, I’ve found a couple of boes. Come on out now,” as we made no move. “If you don’t, you’ll wish you had in about two seconds.”

Slowly Dan clambered out. I followed.

“What to hell have we here? Blamed if it ain’t a woman!” the detective cried.

Tim, meanwhile, advanced with a lantern, and having given us a close inspection, leaped into the car.

“What in blazes is this?” he exclaimed, catching sight of the wheel.

Dan explained shortly.

“Well, yank her out of here. This car moves in about two minutes.”

Dan sprang inside and lowered the wheel to me. Tim threw our bundles to the ground. “Toot, toot,” whistled the engine. The train pulled out.

As the familiar car moved away, my heart seemed breaking. All my hopes of reaching California in a few days crashed to the ground; thoughts of the fierce railroad detectives, the waiting jail, the courtroom in the morning, surged over me. I burst into tears.

“What ya goin’ t’ do wid ’em, Joe? Run ’em in?” queried Tim.

“Naw, don’t believe I will. Come, now,” turning to us. “Beat it out o’ here and don’t let me catch yous fooling around this yard any more. Go on. Beat it quick.”

Glad enough to escape, we stumbled up the track through the darkness.

“Aw now, aw now,” said a hoarse voice at my elbow. “It’s pretty fierce luck, all right. But never you mind, lady, we’ll get you out of here all right. Just come right along to our shack and we’ll fix you up fine.”

In a few minutes we came to a tiny one-room shanty, formed from an old car, which was fitted up with a stove, bunks, a table and chairs. My kindly guide set out soap, clean towels and a fine, big basin of hot water. What luxury! I plunged my grimy hands into the grateful depths and laved my blackened, tear-stained face.

When Dan had made a refreshing toilet, we sat down to the first real meal in two days. Our friends, the car inspectors, watched us eat with much satisfaction while discussing the best method of getting us safely out of Des Moines. Picking up his switchman’s lantern, one stepped out and soon returned with the report that an empty car would go out in a freight that left about two o’clock.

The men conducted us by a circuitous way to a cattle car, the bottom of which was covered with a thick layer of clean straw. The detectives had already examined and passed this car, so under the protection of the car inspectors, it was quite safe to climb aboard. Our wheel was hoisted in and laid flat in a corner, and after an attempt to express our gratitude—really too deep for words—we ourselves lay down and were well covered with straw. I fell asleep immediately.

The rays of a lantern, which was thrust within a few inches of my face, aroused me. The train was grinding to a stop, and as I blinked stupidly in the sudden light, I heard voices deep in argument.

“I tell you, they’re no spotters. She has an honest face.”

And another voice answered, “Well, let ’em ride to the next station and ask ’em a few questions.”

The lantern flashed the signal, and once more we were under way.

The “brakie” settled himself in the straw. Dan produced his union card, our marriage license and other papers to prove our identity; the wheel was uncovered for inspection, and a few questions confirmed the brakeman in his opinion of our honesty. At the next stop the conductor joined us and agreed to move us into a closed car before daylight.

So to-day we rest in comfort and despite the ache of bruised and stiffened shoulders I am happy in the thought that to-morrow’s dawn will see us close to Council Bluffs.

Eight

_June 3rd_, SOMEWHERE IN NEBRASKA.

Eight

_June 3rd. Somewhere in Nebraska._

At last I know the joys of domestic service. The pleasures of the “hired girl” and all the privileges and emoluments pertaining to her high estate have been mine.

Our good friends, the train crew, who carried us out of Des Moines, dropped us off at the first little station east of Council Bluffs early in the morning of May 15th. We determined to cycle into town, get breakfast and look for work. We were making good time and had entered the suburbs when, as we spun around a corner and approached a large red house, surrounded by a tall hedge, a series of brain-piercing shrieks rent the air. My control of the wheel was none too steady that morning and the shock was too much for frayed nerves and stiffened muscles. The tandem took the bit in its teeth and in a jiffy had buried its nose in the thick branches at the base of the hedge. I landed on my feet, and through a break in the shrubbery saw the cause of the commotion.

In an angle of the enclosure a red hen was flapping and squawking, her brood of downy chickens dashing hither and thither, pursued by a large mongrel dog. Within a high wire fence, evidently the chicken yard, a moon-faced woman stood like a marionette, her fat hands shooting into the air with a rhythmic precision which synchronised perfectly with the dropping of her lower jaw which opened widely with each vocal effort.

As I stared, the dog captured a tiny chick and tossed it high in air. I dashed forward and seized the brute by the scruff of the neck and dragged it, growling and struggling, to the break in the hedge where Dan came to my assistance and sent the animal howling down the road.

I turned back to the frightened brood and was joined by the female calliope. Together we gathered the cowering mites from their places of concealment among the grass and weeds and at last saw the mother safe in the coop, her decimated family huddled about her.

“You know chickens, oh, you know,” the lady puffed. “These are prize birds—all, all prize stock—I paid an outrageous price for them—Tamas said it was very shortsighted to do so—but you know chickens.”

“I couldn’t stand idly by while that hateful dog mangled the little things,” I interrupted.

“Of course not, with prize stock like these. You know, oh, you know.”

Dan approached with the tandem, the front tire of which was sadly flattened.

“Got a puncture when you rammed the hedge. Guess we’ll have to camp here till I can patch the inner tube. Maybe you can buy a few eggs and cook breakfast. I’m nearly starved.”

“Not these eggs. Not these eggs. These are all prize stock, every one a prize winner.” The arms of the moon-faced madam made an upward sweep. I clapped my hands over my ears instinctively. But a compassionate Fate in the shape of a young girl intervened.

“Breakfast’s ready, Ma’am,” she sang out. “Mr. MacBride says he will be right in.”

A tremendous struggle was mirrored in my lady’s open countenance. She looked at the “prize chickens,” turned toward the house, shot a covert glance at Dan, gazed anxiously at the chickens again. It was a solemn moment. But fear and hospitality triumphed.

“Maybe you better come in. I don’t know what Tamas will say. But the dog would have killed more—all prize stock—so shortsighted of me....”

Thus rambling on, she led the way into the house, while the maid stared unbelievingly. It came my turn for wonderment when I caught sight of the breakfast table. It was loaded with great bowls of oatmeal, cream, sausage, eggs, potatoes, and a heaping plate of graham or oatmeal gems. An odour of hot cakes spoke of more food to follow.

“You must wait till Tamas has finished. Just sit down here. I hear him coming now.”

Our hostess turned in much agitation as a long, cadaverous individual entered the door. He halted and fixed us with a hostile glare.

“Now, Tamas, now—this lady saved my prize doggins from a chick—oh, dickens from a chog—oh, oh, what am I saying!”

Dan uttered a strangled snort. The mingled horror and wrath on Tamas’ face was indescribable. His unfortunate wife once more essayed an explanation.

“He—he was going to suck the eggs. But I told him they were all—all prize eggs. Then I thought it best to bring them in here.”

“Probably under the circumstances it was the safest thing to do, ah. So you go about the country begging, do you?” He turned to Dan. “I am surprised, surprised and pained. Your wife—I presume she is your wife?—appears quite intelligent, ah.” He dragged out each word as from the depths of ultimate wisdom.

“Well, I’ll admit that my wife does show gleams of intelligence at times,” Dan responded gravely.

“Those thoroughbred fowls are provoking, most provoking, ah.” Mr. MacBride turned to his palpitating wife. “You see, my dear, how very shortsighted it was of you to bargain for them while I was in Omaha. Such a waste and loss—no profit. I shall be compelled to foreclose on old lady Martin’s poultry farm next week, which will give us some of the finest fowls in this county,—and at absolutely no expense for feed and care, no bother, no annoyance. All profit, clear profit, mark you that.”

He licked his lips physically and metaphorically as he seated himself at the table and attacked a bowl of oatmeal and cream. His performance reminded me of a dredger I once saw at work in the Sacramento Valley. The spoon work was wonderful—his only rival in endless chain effect being a Chinaman with chopsticks.

The girl removed the empty bowl and replaced it with a plate heaped with sausage, eggs and fried potatoes, which Mr. MacBride fell upon with undiminished zeal, his wife meanwhile plying us with questions.

“You, I take it, are presumably working people—that is, you will no doubt accept employment if such is presented to you,” he began after a prolonged period of uninterrupted labour. “Now, there is one grave failing to which the working classes of America abandon themselves, ah. They eat too much.”

With consummate skill he flipped into his thin-lipped, rapacious mouth an enormous forkful of sausages and potatoes, which he swallowed at a single gulp.

“I have read scientific articles, articles written by experts, which prove with mathematical accuracy that a workingman can live comfortably on nine cents a day, ah.”

“Tamas knows, oh, he knows,” chirped his wife delightedly.

“But the average workingman’s outlay is far, far beyond reason. This whole nation is suffering from extravagance and overfeeding, ah.”

“But thousands of people, in the cities especially, eat scarcely enough to sustain life,” I ventured.

“Slums, bah, slums, human dregs unworthy of an intelligent man’s consideration. Of course, they live in poverty. Why not? It is all their own fault,—lack of thrift, extravagance and laziness.” He paused to drain a cup of tea.

“But there is never any real poverty in the country districts. Now this community, for instance, is prosperous, most prosperous. I never get less than 8 per cent. on my loans.”

“That certainly does speak well for the community and yourself,” I conceded.

“I flatter myself that I am a good business man, an excellent example of the pure American type, conservative, patriotic, a solid all-round citizen. But our low, ignorant foreigners must be educated. I have endeavoured to collect a fund among our leading merchants to secure a teacher to inculcate an idea of thrift. Such work should really be done by the government. Thrift, ah—the lack of thrift is the curse of this nation. Just imagine the business gain if our extravagant working class could be brought to live on nine cents a day.”

“But I don’t understand,” I murmured, eyeing him with interest. “If your patrons ate less, they might save money, and then they would not borrow money of you at 8 per cent. interest, and the prosperity of this community would suffer.”

“Not at all, not at all.” He leaned forward with a first suggestion of animation. “With the price of land as it is, the cost of farm implements, the high taxes on improvements and the irregularity of crops, it is simply impossible for a man of small capital to escape a mortgage. Now the point is this. With the present high cost of living, the farmer pays even a moderate interest of 8 per cent. say, with extreme difficulty. But with proper instruction in thrift, I have no doubt rates could be raised to 12 per cent. and still not prove prohibitive.” He paused to butter a muffin.

“I hold land that I purchased for a song years ago. I hold it unimproved as the advance in land values, as the small farmers come in, amply repays me. But some of it I subdivided and sold at fat prices. Why, one of those farms has been foreclosed on five times in the last fifteen years. Each owner has added improvements, of course, but not what they should have done. If I could have had a series of really ambitious men on it, I now would own one of the finest farms in this section. But my farmers don’t seem to understand thrift.”

He sighed heavily as the maid set out the remains of the meal for our consumption. Dan, no doubt deeming imitation the sincerest flattery, seemed bent on equalling his host’s remarkable performance as trencherman. Mr. MacBride eyed each mouthful with scowling anguish, while with each succeeding minute his wife’s agitation increased.

“Really, my good man, your appetite is excessive, positively abnormal. I had thought of permitting you to work a few days for your board and lodging, but that is manifestly impossible. It would never do. Moderation, my good man, moderation should be the keynote in all things.”

We passed from the MacBride domicile in comparative quiet.

Dan soon had the puncture repaired and the wheel ready for the road. We mounted and presently were gliding through the streets of Council Bluffs.

A few hours’ inquiry convinced Dan of his inability to get work at his trade, but he heard that there was a chance of employment on a truck farm east of town, so we rode out to locate the place.

After some argument, we were engaged, I to do the housework, Dan to work in the fields. The farmer first offered a dollar a day between us, but we finally secured a dollar and a half a day and board. We were immediately put to work tying bunches of radishes, onions and other vegetables for market.

About ten in the evening, as we went to the bare room assigned us, the woman handed me an alarm clock set for four A. M. with orders to serve breakfast promptly at five so the men could be at work by five-thirty.

Nightmare days followed. Always up at four in the morning, I was kept constantly at work until after I had cooked the nine o’clock supper for two men who made the late trip to town each evening.

The house was a large one. There were four children, the man and his wife, an old aunt and five hired men besides Dan and myself to cook for. The laundry had remained undone since the last girl left, and present opportunities were not to be overlooked. Such heaps of soiled clothing I never saw before. Then, when cooking, cleaning, washing and ironing were done, if perchance there was half an hour to spare, I was set at the never-ending task of tying vegetables. On Sunday the mistress of the house wanted to know whether I could darn stockings, as I ought to be able to do a good deal of mending on that day. To cap it all, the couple quarrelled constantly, nagged the children and one another and railed at the poor old aunt by the hour. When not so engaged, the woman would snoop through our scanty belongings, ask me all manner of personal questions and follow me about with talk of the good home she was giving me and how few people there were who would take tramps and hoboes right into their own comfortable houses and care for them. Poor Dan was driven like a slave from dawn till dark and after, so at the end of a week, we concluded to take to the road once more.

When Dan informed the man of our intentions and asked for our money, such a storm of invective was loosed as is seldom heard. We were lazy, good-for-nothing bums who were too shiftless to do honest work, but wanted to live off thrifty, economical people who had some ambition in life. The woman declared that I was an ungrateful dog—only she did not say dog, but referred to the female of the species—that I had imposed on her hospitality for a whole week, but she supposed that was all one could expect for trying to do a good turn to dirty sewer rats. The man then burst into shocking profanity, which Dan cut short by suggesting the imminence of a stiff punch on the jaw.

As we were riding away from the “good home,” I recalled experiences related by servant girls with whom I had come in contact in the practice of my profession. I remembered the little maid who was on duty habitually sixteen hours a day in the mansion of a San Francisco millionaire. She became violently insane and was sent to the Napa State Hospital. I thought of the great number of household workers to be found in such institutions, and of the terrifying increase in insanity. Then my thoughts turned to those who go astray and others who lead lives of shame, and the large percentage that are recruited from the ranks of servant girls. My mind dwelt on the attitude of friends who counted the “good home” given a girl a large part of her reward for service rendered.

A good home. What is it? Food and shelter? Yes. But it is something more. Personal comfort, the exercise of individual taste in the choice of one’s intimate surroundings, the joy of ownership, the privilege of entertaining one’s friends, a sense of privacy, a certain liberty of habits—all these, added to that greatest of all great gifts, love, and the presence of the loved ones, make a true home.

We were approaching the Missouri River when black clouds heaped themselves across the horizon, and soon blasts of wind and rain forced us to seek the shelter of a rude shack on the river bank. A bent, white-bearded man opened the door and invited us in with all the warmth and grace of real southern hospitality. There was scant room for the wheel beneath the tiny porch, and the two rooms were already over-crowded.

A feeble old lady, swathed in shawls, sat in a rough box chair at the window. A young girl with a baby but a few days old on her arm lay on the bed, while a woman, evidently the daughter of the old couple, fussed about her. A tall, incredibly lanky girl was kept busy placing pots and pans to catch the drippings from the roof, which leaked in a dozen places.

In ten minutes we were chatting as freely as lifelong friends. The old man was a Confederate veteran, who had been wrecked financially and physically by the Civil War. He and his invalid wife had moved by degrees from Kentucky across Illinois and Iowa to their present location. One child only had survived the many privations. She had married young and been left a widow with two little girls. The eldest of these, the pale girl in the bed, had married a youth of eighteen when little more than a child. The baby which formed the fourth generation in this home of poverty awakened with a feeble wail. The mother showed me the wriggling red mite with an air of pride, but suddenly she turned her head away and burst into tears.

“Oh, Tony, Tony,” she moaned, “how can they keep you away from your own beautiful baby boy?”

“Her Tony’s in the jail,” the old man volunteered with slow bitterness. “In the jail because he couldn’t see his wife and unborn baby starve. We had bad luck last winter. I’m an old man. My right hand never has been worth anything since the War.” He extended his withered arm, drawn and distorted by an old wound. “I’ve done all I could, but work is scarce for such as me.”

“Folks won’t give Grandpap a job. They call him an old Copperhead.” The younger girl spoke for the first time.

“I fought for the South. I love her. Should my great-grandchild be starved for that?”

“The children had typhoid fever, Tony and Sadie and Stella.” The quiet, brown-eyed widow took up the story. “Tony took sick at the camp—he’d only been there a few weeks—and came home the last of October ready to die. Sadie took it next. She was carrying little Tony and it went hard with her. Then Stella came down. I thought we would lose them all. We had no money for anything. It was weeks and weeks before Tony got better and then he wasn’t strong. I took in washing when the worst was over, and Pap did all he could. Tony, he’s an orphan and Italian besides,—a Dago they call him.” Her voice trailed off despondently.

“Tony is as good an American as ever lived,” Sadie spoke up fiercely, “a sight better than the scrubs around here. Supposing his folks was Italian. What difference does that make?”

“Tony got work teaming,” the old man spoke again. “We had no food in the house, the weather was cold, Sadie was weak from the fever and crying with hunger all the time. He got to taking things from the cars and bringing them home. One time he brought a case of canned soup. How the girls did go for it. It was their salvation.

“Then one night it was snowing hard. Tony came in all tuckered out—he never was one of these husky boys—and he was sitting over the stove, with Sadie trying to cheer him up. All of a sudden the door flew open with a bang and in walks a couple of men—didn’t knock or nothing, just walked in—and put the handcuffs on him and dragged him away. I’ll never forget his black eyes, looking so big in his white face as he stared back at Sadie who had fallen in a faint.”

“And now he’s in jail, my Tony. He never knew what it was to have a single soul to love him till he met me. Just an orphan and a bound boy. He was always so good to me, working hard for a home and children. And now he can’t see his own son. Oh, Tony, Tony!” She flung herself about in agony.

“Hush, honey, hush. Think of little Tony. You’ll poison the milk if you take on that away.”

The frail mother quieted her grief and clasped her baby in an ecstasy of mother-love. “I must take good care of you, mother’s little angel. Daddy will come back to his own little baby boy some day.”

The rain had stopped, so we said good-bye to the unfortunate family and resumed our journey.

“There is no real poverty in the country districts, is there now?” I remarked as we pushed the wheel along the sloppy road.

“Oh, Tamas knows—he knows,” returned Dan grimly.

The old Confederate had told us of another truck farm not far distant where we could probably find employment, so we located a convenient clump of willows and made camp for the night.

Early next morning we applied for work at the farm and were set to the task of weeding onions, ten hours’ work for a dollar a day and board. Slowly the hours dragged past. The noon hour found me far too weary to eat, so I flung myself face down under a tree, while Dan sought the cook house with the other hands.

Once more I began work on the interminable rows. The sun beat down with intense heat, my back seemed literally broken. As I weeded in a daze, a peculiar illusion took possession of my mind. I saw a cosy room in San Francisco, caught a whiff of cooling, bracing fog, fresh from the Pacific, heard the unctuous tones of a well-groomed, fat-jowled, long-haired gentleman who was declaiming to a group of adoring females lengthy verses of his own composition on the “Joy of Labour.” Oh, grave and paunchy poet, would that thou wert here to busy thy soft white hands with gummy weeds and thistles and reap a harvest of joy and onions in my stead!

About three o’clock something happened. I found myself lying under the tree at the side of the field, with Dan pouring water over my face.

“What’s the matter, Dan?” I demanded, bewildered by my new and strange sensations.

“Oh, nothing much. You pitched forward on your head about half an hour ago and I thought you would never come to. You mark my words now. This ends it. You don’t do any more weed pulling or washing or scrubbing on this trip. If I can’t earn the living I’ll beg or steal.”

“It was my back, dear. I haven’t recovered from the thump I got that night in the radiator car. As soon as that spot gets well, I’ll be able to do any kind of work.”

“You may be able, but you won’t do it. I’ll see to that after this. You lie here and meditate on what I’ve been telling you while I finish this infernal day’s work. We’ll beat it into Omaha in the morning and I’ll look for a white man’s job.” With a farewell pat he returned to the weeding, leaving me to fall asleep in utter exhaustion.

We trundled over the long bridge across the Missouri River and passed through Omaha early the following morning. In a grove of trees on the western outskirts of the city, Dan pitched camp and made me as comfortable as possible, then mounted the wheel and rode into Omaha to search for work.

I was stretched full length on the ground, enjoying the rustle of the wind in the tree tops and the murmur of a tiny brook, when my attention was attracted by the sound of footsteps and a moment later a dainty child in a blue pinafore appeared at the edge of the little hollow. I smiled a welcome and she came closer and leaned against a near-by tree.

“Are you having a picnic all by yourself?” she asked, fingering her apron.

“Yes, a kind of picnic. I’m all by myself because my husband has gone to Omaha. You come over here and sit down by me and then I won’t be lonesome any more.”

She approached and snuggled by my side. We introduced ourselves and soon were deep in an interchange of confidences. She located various birds’ nests for me, described the latest family of kittens, discussed the number of eggs laid by her white pullet and many other matters of interest. Then I noticed that she seemed uneasy, examining our luggage with searching glances. Finally, eight-year-old flesh and blood could endure no more.

“Is the picnic in that bundle?” she asked wistfully. “When are you going to eat it?”

“There isn’t very much in that bundle. All I have is bread and butter, but I’ll get you some of that,” I replied, sitting up.

Her face fell, then brightened. “I know what I’ll do,” she cried, springing to her feet and clapping her hands joyously. “I’ll run home and ask mother to put me up some cookies—and some jam—and some hard-boiled eggs—and maybe some animal crackers, horses, you know, and cows and things—oh, I’ll get lots and lots of good things to eat, and then I’ll come back and we’ll have the very nicest picnic ever you saw in all your life.” She danced away with fairy-like grace, leaving me to picture her mother’s expression when informed of the woman who was holding a picnic all by herself on nothing but bread and butter.

Some fifteen minutes passed. Then I heard a gay “hoo-hoo,” and down the hillside came my girlie, skipping up and down and hastening the footsteps of a woman whom I knew at first glance to be her mother.

“This is Ethel, mother,” she cried as I rose to my feet. Then turning to me, “Now you can’t be lonesome any more, ’cause mother’s come her own self.”

There are persons to whom no introduction is necessary; we recognise them at once as old friends. Thus it was with Mrs. Patton and myself. She was soon in possession of my story and invited me to her home to rest and spend as many days as circumstances would permit. I pinned a note for Dan on the tree trunk, gathered our belongings, and set off for the house. Hazel piloted us over the ridge, through orchards and across fields until we came to a long, low farmhouse, cuddling between two hills and almost hidden by masses of vines and trees.

Mrs. Patton was a trained nurse and at once set to work to demonstrate her capabilities. She heated water, gave me a prolonged hot bath, followed by a thorough spine-stretching and massage, tucked me into bed, fed me a bountiful lunch, and then left me to dream away the afternoon in blissful comfort.

I awakened about six o’clock, wonderfully relieved and refreshed and found that my hostess had sent her son to watch for Dan at the cross roads and guide him to the house.

At dinner we were introduced to Mr. Patton and John, who were greatly interested in the story of our adventures. I told them of the old Confederate soldier, of Sadie grieving for her Tony in the jail, and they were horrified to learn that such misery existed so close at hand.

“Of course, I’ve been aware that there were all kinds of suffering and wretchedness in the slums of large cities,” Mr. Patton sighed, “but I thought there was no real poverty in the country districts.”

Dan shot me a covert glance.

“You’ll get the poor man out of jail, so he can see his little baby, won’t you, father dear?” Hazel inquired eagerly.

“Well, well. I’ll see what can be done. It’s a shame that such conditions should exist in a country as rich as this.”

When we had repaired to the living room, Mrs. Patton suggested music, and upon my delighted acquiescence, John set the Victrola to playing. Then for the first time I recognised one cause of my persistent heart-hunger. My soul was starving for music. Thrills of ecstasy agitated me almost to tears as the passionate strains of Tschaikowsky’s “Melodie” flooded the room with pulsating harmonies. Raff’s “Cavatina” seemed the divine expression of universal longing for home and love—_heimweh_ incarnate.

Once, when we had first moved into Chicago’s slums, I took my guitar and sang. Simple songs came to my lips, lullabies, songs of the South, the old, old songs that caress the heart strings. A noise at the door startled me. I swung it open and started back in surprise. Porch, stairway and area below were packed with children all absorbed in my poor performance. Many times thereafter I sat at the narrow entrance and sang while children and adults crowded about, always asking for more. But at last the increasing pinch of hunger goaded me into carrying the precious guitar, relic of girlhood days, to the pawnbroker, there to bid it good-bye forever.

Millions of acres of land lying barren in the hands of speculators, hordes of idle men roaming the country in search of employment, tons of delicious fruit rotting on the ground in California, hungry women, billionaires, destitute children, great masses of wealth producers starving mentally and physically while the fruits of their labor are denied them.

Would to God that the people of this nation could learn to think!

Dan’s efforts to find work in Omaha were unavailing, so after another day’s rest we struck out on the military road leading away from the city. Two days’ travel convinced us that we were hopelessly wrong.

I now look upon myself as something of an expert in mud, and I can truthfully recommend the Nebraska article to be superior in cohesion, adhesion, weight and quantity to any known combination of earth and water. After a few hundred yards of travel, the wheels and skirt guard would completely disappear in great masses of reddish adobe, while our feet assumed elephantine proportions. Standing first on one foot, then on the other, we would rid ourselves of a few pounds of mother earth and scrape the wheel as free as possible from its accumulations. A struggle onward of a quarter of a mile forced us to repeat the process.

A day passed—and another. Food ran out and farmers refused to sell; there were no stores, and the situation grew desperate.

We approached a school house one evening and stopped under a horse shed for the night. The teacher was passing and stopped to chat. Later she returned with a bottle of malted milk tablets, which constituted our evening meal.

Next morning we turned south to reach the railroad. About one o’clock we came to a little blacksmith shop, and after some haggling, bought a half loaf of mouldy bread for a dime. Pushing on for perhaps a mile, we stopped in a lonely spot to make tea. Everything was dripping with moisture from recent rains, so, despite Dan’s vigorous efforts, the fire refused to burn.

We were both on our knees blowing lustily when a shadow falling athwart the rack attracted our attention and, glancing up, we saw a bareheaded man standing with folded arms, fixedly regarding us. We sat back and stared, for we had seen no house in that vicinity.

“When you get tired exercising your lungs,” began the stranger, “just follow me and get a surprise.”

Thinking that any change must be an improvement on our situation, we gathered up the cooking utensils and obediently dragged the wheel after our guide, who plunged into a thick growth of trees on our right.

A few minutes’ walk brought us to an immense tent, from which issued a great noise of crunching, stamping and snorting. Passing around to the far end, we beheld, stretching down one side of the interior, a long row of horses and mules—perhaps twenty in number—busily munching their noonday feed, while the other side of the tent was fitted with a kitchen range, a gasoline stove, cooking utensils, table and chairs, and in the rear some bunks and a great pile of hay. Leading the way through the kitchen, the stranger pulled out a curtain strung on a wire, closing off the rear compartment, and brought a huge kettle of hot water, buckets of cold, a large tub, towels and soap, with directions to enjoy ourselves while he prepared a meal. And what a delight it was to have the use of such conveniences, crude as they were. My opinion of “dirty hoboes” has undergone a radical change since I have seen for myself the difficulties that beset the man who has nothing, in his efforts toward cleanliness.

Our ablutions performed, we entered the kitchen and found our host deep in the labour of cooking. And what a meal he set out. Hot biscuits, mashed potatoes, broiled ham and cream gravy, fried eggs and a pot of delicious coffee.

The meal was nearly over before his strange manner impressed me. Opening a large bread box, he took the entire contents and going down the row of animals fed the loaves to them, talking meanwhile in a most astounding fashion. Returning, he escorted us to the rear room and insisted on our lying down, saying that we must be tired, as indeed we were. The words were scarcely spoken when a heavy rain beat a tattoo on the tent walls.

“Confound this weather,” began our host, settling himself in a chair; “I’m two-thirds crazy now, and another three days of this beastly rain will drive me completely nutty.”

He held a large contract for road construction, the grading outfit was his, and “the darned cattle were eating him out of house and home while he was sewed up by the weather.” It seemed the grading crew had gone to Omaha to celebrate their enforced holiday, but should be back that day.

Reaching under the bed, the boss produced an empty demijohn and informed us that he had drunk the contents to cure the blues. He congratulated himself on our opportune arrival, declaring that he intended to keep us so long as the rain continued as an antidote to loneliness and its alcoholic consequences.

Just then the smith who had sold us the bread, appeared on the scene in search of the usual hospitable stimulant. Our host at once produced another demijohn and stood treat, imbibing freely himself. While the two men were thus engaged, a foaming horse, hitched to a covered buggy, dashed up to the tent door, and two women followed by a couple of half-drunken men clambered out. Fishing under the seat, one fellow drew out four good-sized jugs of whiskey.

Night had fallen and the rain was beating heavily, but Dan and I exchanged one glance, seized our hats and made for the wheel, which stood, still packed, just within the entrance. Hastily we backed it out and plunged into the stygian darkness. We had covered a bare hundred feet when wild yells and shouts for our return showed that our flight was discovered. The drunken crew came boiling out of the tent with lanterns in their hands and rushed hither and thither. We drew up behind a clump of bushes and cowered down with our hearts in our mouths. With an oath, the smith discovered the track of the wheel in the soft earth and with a howl of delight started to follow it. Attracted by the outcry, our erstwhile host lunged madly round the tent and collided violently with one of the newcomers. Over and over they rolled in the mud, cursing and slugging one another in drunken frenzy. The smith paused within a yard of our hiding place to watch the battle. The yellow rays of a lantern cast a circle of light at the tent door and illumined the struggling forms.

Cautiously we lifted the wheel, and guarding each step as best we might, made off in the direction of the main road. Doggedly we stumbled on, making as rapid progress as the rain and darkness would permit, falling at times in the slippery ruts, but always driving desperately ahead.

After what seemed an eternity, a light shone off to the left. Following a private road, we came to a gate. The shrill bark of a dog sounded from an outbuilding. I opened the gate and entered. A cold nose touched my hand and I felt the pressure of another against my skirt. I have no fear of dogs and have never been bitten, but Dan is not so fortunate, so he remained in the background while I explored the premises. Accompanied by the dogs, I marched boldly to the front door of a large house and rang the bell. It was opened by a man who stared at my dripping figure in amazement. His eyes travelled from me to the dogs, a Great Dane and an Airedale, and I realised the full significance of his glance. I explained the situation and asked leave to sleep in his barn.

“Well,” he answered uncertainly, “as a rule, I never let anybody sleep in my outbuildings, but a person who can get past those dogs must be all right, so wait till I get a lantern and I’ll take you and your husband over to the hay mow and make you as comfortable as I can.”

He turned into the house and soon came out with a lantern and an armful of bedding beneath an oilskin. Calling Dan and quieting the dogs, he conducted us to a large barn where we were soon settled for the night and glad enough to be under the shelter of a safe roof.

I was awakened this morning by the romping of two kittens and the fox terrier I heard barking last night. The sun is shining brightly and everything looks fresh and clean after the storm. The farmer showed us where to build a fire with dry corn cobs and supplied us with a brimming pan of new milk, a basket of eggs and a crusty loaf of fresh, homemade bread, for all of which he refused compensation.

Nine

_June 6th_, WITH A GOOD SAMARITAN.

Nine

_June 6th. With a good Samaritan._

While waiting for our things to dry, the day after the experience in the grader’s camp, we visited our host and his family, who were shocked at the dangers we had encountered unarmed. The eldest son brought out a sharp lath hatchet, through the handle of which a hole had been bored and a stout leather loop attached to slip over the hand. This he handed to Dan with the remark that while it could hardly be called a deadly weapon, it would do good execution in case of trouble and at the same time be useful in making camp. Little did I think, as Dan thanked him heartily and strapped it on the wheel, how soon that hatchet would prove the means of saving my life.

Later in the day we reached the railroad and that night camped in a ravine. The next day dawned hot and clear. Mile after mile we trudged down the track, for the roads were still too wet for riding. Houses were scarce and stood far away from our course; there were no streams near or other places to obtain drinking water. Our thirst increased as the day wore on, and when at last we saw a farmhouse in a group of trees some half mile from the track, Dan suggested that I remain with the bicycle while he crossed the several pastures that lay between and brought back a kettle of water. So I sat beside the wheel on the edge of the embankment while Dan climbed the fence and disappeared in the trees.

In a few minutes a dreadful commotion arose from the direction of the farmhouse. A great, roaring voice was booming like a cannon.

“Get out! ... ornery hide. You....” Inarticulate outcries and oaths mingled with scattered words and phrases.

I listened appalled. I knew the attitude that some farmers maintained towards tramps, and I trembled for Dan’s safety. The racket increased in violence. I became frantic and determined to go to the rescue. Unstrapping the hatchet from the handle bars, I slipped the thong about my wrist and plunged under the railroad fence and across the field, determined to take a short cut to the scene of combat. Worming a difficult passage through a barbed wire fence, I came to a black, sluggish creek or strip of mud perhaps eight feet wide, bordered by a thick row of trees, whose branches hung low over the surface. An extremely stout barbed wire fence stretched at right angles across this stream and joined a similar fence on the farther bank. I paused on the brink, for the black, slimy surface was repellent. The outcries redoubled and from where I stood whole sentences became intelligible.

“Come on now, you ... son of a gun! Get out of that gate, you. Oh, if I could only reach you with a club. I’ll shoot your hide full of holes in about a minute.”

I gazed anxiously up and down. My only course was to wade across. Grasping the hatchet firmly, I swung my arms, made a little run, a jump and plunged in. Down, down I sank, deeper and deeper. I laboured furiously to reach the further bank, but my struggles only increased the rapidity with which I sank. The thick, black slime rose higher and higher about me. I tried to scream, but my parched lips could utter no sound. We have no quicksands or sloughs in my home country, but I have read of such places and heard of horses and cattle and sometimes human beings going down, never to be seen again. I thought of Dan escaping from the farmer and returning to find the abandoned wheel. Of his wife, there would be no trace. My end would always remain a mystery. As the black mud sucked me down, I could imagine it rising to my chin, my lips, my nostrils. I could picture the inky surface closing over my head, shutting out the sunlight forever.

In a frenzy, I threw my arms above my head. The blade of the hatchet caught over a bough. Cautiously I pulled. It held firm. A gleam of hope illumined my dark despair. Grasping the handle with my left hand, I tried to lift myself out, but the slough refused to give up its victim so easily. The blade slipped a little. My heart seemed to leap from my body. My senses reeled. Fiercely I called on all my forces of reason, will and self-control.

Placing just enough weight on the hatchet handle to prevent my sinking deeper, I studied the situation calmly. My one hope lay in securing a firm hold on the large branch above.

Little by little I began to spring the smaller shoot up and down. Harder and harder I pulled on the hatchet, at the same time forcing the blade firmly over the limb. The leaves swung closer and closer. Emboldened, I worked harder than ever. At last I was able to abandon my hold on the hatchet and secure a firm grip with both hands on the tough wood.

But the slough dragged me down with a grip like an octopus. A ton weight pulled at each foot, my skirt seemed grasped by a thousand clutching hands. And then I gave thanks for my broad shoulders, and for the violent exercise of steering the tandem, which had developed the sturdy muscles of my hands and arms. Slowly, slowly I made headway against the treacherous depths; slowly, slowly, the vicious grip was broken, till with a gasp of relief I dragged myself out upon the bank.

I sank down exhausted.

Then from the farmhouse the undiminished sounds of conflict forced themselves into my consciousness and suddenly I burned with a reckless berserk rage against the whole world.

Springing to my feet, I hurled myself upon the barbed wire fence that crossed the slough, and clinging with hands and feet to the thorny strands, edged my way across. Skirt and stockings were torn in a dozen places. My heavy coils of hair slipped down. My hands bled profusely. Forcing my way through the second fence, I started across the meadow. As I rounded a clump of bushes a large red bull, with head to ground and pawing hoof, barred my way. But I was far past caring for such as he.

Snatching up a stick, I began clapping wood and hatchet together and charged directly at his lordship. He stood his ground till the hatchet was almost touching his nose, then, with a bellow of fear, turned tail and raced across the field with me in close pursuit. Gaining the fence, I tumbled over and arrived panting at the back of the farmhouse.

In a beautiful kitchen garden a farmer stood as though rooted to the ground with amazement at my grotesque appearance, as with hands and face streaked with blood, clothing in shreds and bedraggled with mud, I stood before him with a club in one hand and a hatchet in the other.

Eyes bulging, nostrils flaming, tail in air, a fine bull calf was careering madly among the vegetables.

“Wh—wh—why, my good Lord, woman,” began the man as he recovered his breath. “What’s happened to you? Where in the world did you drop from?”

“Where is my husband? What have you done to him?” I demanded hotly.

“Well, now. Let me see.” He scratched his head perplexedly. “Seems like I recall a man askin’ for a bucket o’ water something like a half hour back. Might he be your man now? I was so plum frantic with this here pesky calf, that I didn’t pay no attention to the man.”

“But who were you going to shoot?” I persisted. “I could hear you swearing clear over to the railroad.”

“Sho, now. Is that so? ’Scuse me. I’m plum bad about swearin’. Wife, she’s after me all the time, too,” he apologised. “Now, the wife’s right set on her posies, and this here —— calf—’scuse me, seems like I just can’t stop cussin’—got in and trompled ’em all down, and while I was a trying my darndest to get him out, I’ll be damned if he didn’t bust through into the vegetables and cavort all over them.”

Meanwhile, the innocent cause of the commotion had taken advantage of the lull in the storm to make his escape from the garden.

“You didn’t get in the slough, did ye?” continued the farmer, eyeing my skirt. “Didn’t ye see all them fences? We had so much trouble with the stock gettin’ in the —— hole—’scuse me, beats the devil how those words will come apopping out—that we fenced her all in. But what gets me is how ye come to get past that bull ’thout being gored to death. He’s turrible dangerous. That’s why we got all them high fences about. Kill’t two men, he did, ’fore I got him. Bought him cheap, but the wife just raises a hell of a row—’scuse me—at keepin’ him.”

I asked for water, for my thirst was intense, and after drinking deep from the dripping dipper and washing off the worst of the blood and dirt, I followed the farmer to the main road, where he pointed out a short cut to the railroad.

There I found Dan rushing frantically about, for having found the wheel with the hatchet gone, he felt sure I had been kidnapped.

It seems that he had gone to the house, found the farmer chasing the calf, secured the water, then thinking it would be difficult to carry the kettle through the fences, tried another route and got on the wrong road. Before he could find the right path and return, I was in the slough.

We slept that night in a tumble-down shed—or rather, Dan did. Each time I dropped to sleep, I could feel myself sinking in the slough, and would wake up with a start.

Next day we rode a good deal and covered a long stretch of territory. The country was flat and uninteresting and my strained muscles occupied most of my attention as I tried to confine the rebellious wheel to the smoother stretches.

At noon we pitched camp near the railroad track and had the meal well under way when a passenger train pulled out of a station a mile or two ahead and thundered toward us.

“Look,” exclaimed Dan. “What’s the matter there? The train is going to stop.”

Sure enough, it was losing speed. People were thrusting their heads from windows while the fireman was looking back at a group of men on the blind end of the baggage car. Just as it ranged alongside us, a small figure catapulted from the platform and rolled almost to our feet. The train gathered way and sped on.

I rushed forward and fell on my knees beside a grimy, tattered boy of some twelve years, who was clutching his fiery red head in both hands and cursing like a pirate. Blood was spurting from a deep jagged gash in his left wrist, which he had struck against the projecting fragment of a broken bottle in his descent. I seized his arm and applied pressure to control the hemorrhage. He fixed me with an uncomprehending glare. Then his eyes fell on his dripping arm.

“Oh, Lord,” he gasped, “oh, Lord, I’m bleedin’ to death—I’m goin’ to die. Oh, Ma, Ma.”

“Nonsense, kid, you won’t die. That blood looks a lot worse than it is. Just be a good boy and hold still for a few minutes and I’ll fix you all safe. Quick, Dan. Hand me that kettle of boiling water. Now, unpack my emergency case.”

By the time Dan had the kit unpacked and contents laid out the water had cooled enough for use. I cleansed and sterilised the wound, tied the artery, and soon had the arm bandaged in scientific fashion. The boy had made no sound, but gazed in fascination at the shining little instruments, the vials of antiseptics and rolls of gauze.

“You see, this case proved useful after all,” I remarked to Dan as I gathered up the implements. “If such things are needed at all, they usually are needed badly. This boy would have bled to death without proper attention.”

At my words the lad burst into tears. “The —— sons of ——” he sobbed. “They all jumped me at once. They wouldn’t let me alone. I wasn’t doin’ no harm. It—it don’t cost the old railroad nothin’ if I do ride the blind. I want to go home. I want to go ho—ome.” Tears washed pallid channels down his sooty cheeks.

“Do you think you can take a little nourishment, young man?” queried Dan as he busied himself with the meal.

The boy checked his sobs. “I dunno what that is, but I kin eat any old kind of chuck. You just try me once and I’ll show you. I ain’t had nothin’ but one little old hunk of bread in two days.”

“Well, take this pan of water and see if you can remove some of that make-up from your manly countenance and then pitch into the grub. I’ll die of starvation myself if I don’t eat soon.”

I set another kettle of water to boil for tea, and we all fell to with avidity.

“Say, I made good time last night,” the boy volunteered, as he finished his third helping of canned beans and bread. “Rode the Overland Limited. Gee whiz, but she does burn up the rails. If I only could a stuck, I’d been home to-morrow. But those boneheads chucked me off this morning. Then I landed that old hearse they thrown me off of just now. Suppose I’ll have to hoof it till night.”

“Why don’t you catch a freight? You wouldn’t be nearly so likely to get into trouble.”

“Huh, a freight! Me? Not on your life! What do you think I am, a dead one? I’m a live guy, I am. No bundle stiff about me. Say, do you know, I’ve beat it clear from northern Wyoming. I’ve been workin’ a long time there as a cowboy on a great big cattle ranch. Say, that’s the life.”

“Seems to me you’re travelling in the wrong direction for a cowboy,” I observed. “The cattle ranges all lie west of here, and you’re heading east. How does that happen?”

“Well, you see, Ma she wants to see me, so I thought I’d make a short trip home. Me and the old man had a falling out, and I beat it west. Say, do you know, he expected me to milk two cows, milk ’em and feed ’em and wait on ’em hand and foot. No fun nor nothin’. And weed the garden! Say, I bet you never saw as big a garden as we got—great long rows—and say, I bet you never saw weeds grow as fast as ours do—big, tall weeds. But Ma wants to see me, so I gotta go home.”

“Did your mother write to you to come?” I enquired gravely.

“No, she didn’t write. I’ve never stayed very long in one place so I never wrote to tell her where I was.”

“Oh, my! She must be terribly worried about you. How long have you been away?”

“Why, let’s see—it must be nearly six weeks now since I beat it. I met a gang of hoboes the first day I was out and they took me right along with ’em to northern Wyoming. Say, that’s a great country, all right, all right. But, of course, when Ma wanted to see me I had to leave.

“I tell you where’s a bad town you gotta fight shy of. That’s little old Cheyenne. There’s a gun man there, Jeff Farr’s his name. Say, he shoots a Bo for breakfast every mornin’. You folks want to watch out when you go through. They run you in for nothin’ at all. I met a nigger just the other side o’ there. Say, he was runnin’ in circles like a fitty cat. They had chucked his pal in the can just for nothin’ at all—vag charge maybe—and no tellin’ when he’d get out, and here’s this poor coon, can’t go off and leave his pard, can’t find work, can’t get nothin’ to eat, can’t do a thing in the world but chase around and bawl. Say, I felt awful sorry for that poor coon.”

We raided our scanty stores to pack a lunch for the boy. I instructed him in the care of his wound, described the location of various houses along the road where I knew by experience he would be sure to find help, gave him a little note of recommendation and explanation to use when applying for assistance, then started him on the way to his waiting mother.

Just at sundown we came to the town of Wood River, a place I am destined to remember. Storm clouds were piling on the horizon as Dan hurried to the shop to buy some meat for supper. While he was gone, some Greeks approached and with much gesticulation endeavoured to explain something to me. I gathered an idea of trouble of some kind, but exactly what they were driving at I was unable to determine.

We camped on the outskirts of the village, and had hardly finished our simple meal when gusts of wind and great drops of rain proclaimed the coming of the storm. We looked anxiously about for shelter. There were no barns near, but not far from the railroad track stood a house in process of construction, and while doors and windows were lacking, the roof and outside walls gave promise of sufficient protection. To this we hurried and lifted the wheel onto the veranda just as a flood of rain burst upon us. After a little search we found some nail kegs and sat down in the front room. We were dozing when footsteps sounded on the porch. I strained my eyes, but could see nothing in the pitchy blackness.

Suddenly a light flashed in my face, the cold muzzle of a pistol pressed my temple, and a hand gripped my arm.

“Get up there. None of your tricks now,” snarled a harsh voice.

The flash was turned on Dan, who was ordered to throw up his hands by a second man, who flourished a revolver in his left hand. We stumbled to our feet, dazed by the unexpectedness of it all.

“You’re under arrest. Better come quietly,” growled the first man gruffly.

Dan tried to explain that we had only taken shelter from the storm and had no intention of doing any damage, but was savagely ordered to shut up. Grasping me tightly by the arm, the first fellow led the way out of the building and down the road to the village.

Arrived at a tiny, wooden shanty, the man unlocked the door and crowded us in. They slammed and bolted the door behind us and we heard their footsteps retreating up the walk. As we stood, too bewildered to move, a match flared in the darkness and in a moment the feeble rays of a candle revealed the interior of the lock-up. It consisted of a single room, partially divided by a partition, and containing two bunks. On one of these sprawled a man, while a big negro held aloft the guttering candle end. At sight of a woman the recumbent man sprang to his feet and courteously bade us good evening. Without further ado or questioning, he removed his hat and coat from the bunk where he had been lying and suggested that we make ourselves as comfortable as circumstances would permit.

At once the negro blew out the candle with the remark that we might need it before morning.

As we settled ourselves as best we might in the darkness, flashes of lightning revealed the dimensions of the one small, barred window, which furnished all ventilation to the unfortunates within. Furniture, drinking water or conveniences were utterly lacking and my flesh crawled at the thought of the straw-covered bunk on which we must rest in the confined space.

Hardly had we lain down, when the door was opened and a fifth person was hustled in. Again the negro lit his candle stub, and we saw that the newcomer was a boy of not more than sixteen years.

The officers had paused just outside the window and one remarked that it was time to go home. There were no occupied buildings near the jail and I could not help but consider what our fate would be should lightning strike the flimsy wooden shack or a fire start from match or candle. When I realised that I was locked within those constricting walls, it seemed that they were crowding in and smothering me. I wanted to scream, to beat my hands against the bars, but reason forbade. I settled down and strove to cultivate the non-resisting attitude of our cell mates, but my mind kept busy with the wonders of our boasted American civilisation that permits such occurrences as this. I thought of the churches throughout the land—no doubt there was one in this very community—and of the teachings of One who had no place to lay His head.

“I was a stranger and ye took me not in ... sick, and in prison and ye visited me not.”

How many of the good people of the nation have ever even so much as thought of visiting those cast into their barbaric prisons?

At sunrise our jailers returned, unlocked the door and set us free. There was no charge against us and no legal formalities to go through apparently. Retrieving the wheel, we hastened out of town.

Beside a small house some miles away we stopped to get water for breakfast. A motherly woman came to talk to us. Hearing of our recent experiences, she took us into her home, provided us with hot baths, and sent us to bed while she cleaned and sterilised our contaminated apparel. Completely exhausted, I slept the clock around and woke next morning to find my clothing, clean and neatly mended, piled on a chair at the bedside. So, thanks to our good Samaritan, we are able to go forward with renewed strength and courage.

Ten

_A Day in June_, ON THE OPEN ROAD.

Ten

_A Day in June. On the Open Road._

The days go by as in a dream. We seldom see a newspaper and seem out of touch with the world. At night I am too thoroughly occupied with my blistered feet or else too busy “spouting for the eats,” as Dan expresses it, to keep track of diary or calendar.

“Spouting for the eats” has come to be quite a joke with us. We stop near some farmhouse and Dan goes in for water. Presently along come the kids and watch our camp preparations with much interest. Usually they are followed by father or mother, or, perchance, a grown son, who at once becomes absorbed in the tale of our adventures. Soon the whole family may be seen crouched around our little fire, which illuminates the eager faces as they drink in every word with ears and mouth and eyes. Dan fumbles about with the camp kettle and I break off in the middle of some exciting incident to attend to the preparations for supper. Somebody wakes up to the need for milk and eggs, which, of course, are difficult to carry with us. It is usually about milking time, and at a word from some grown-up a child scurries off and proudly returns with a pail of new milk and a hatful of eggs, which he shyly presents to me. The eggs are boiled and eaten from the shell, and the cocoa made from undiluted new milk is a beverage fit for the gods.

In other instances, we are invited into the house and sit down to a real country supper. After the meal I resume the interrupted narrative and entertain our hosts with descriptions of life in Chicago, the San Francisco earthquake, and incidents of interest along the way. Quite frequently I advise a change of diet and care for some puny infant, or diagnose the case of an ailing mother and risk the leaving of a prescription to be filled when we are well on our journey.

Next morning the family assembles to see us start. We exchange names and addresses, and as we ride away, we feel that a new bond of friendship has been established.

Near a little place called Gibbon our rear tire gave out, and while making the change, a farmer invited us to his home to eat supper and spend the night. After considerable trouble with the wheel, we started on shortly after noon next day, but had not gone far when we saw dense, black clouds piling up ahead. We rode hard for some time, then rain began to fall and we stopped beneath a cattle shed. The rain slackened and we rode on, but had not proceeded any great distance when we noticed a very severe storm raging in the northwest.

Soon great gusts of wind came whirling across the prairie, while rain and sleet whipped our faces. There was no shelter near, so we determined to struggle on and reach Kearney if possible. A train steamed past, with passengers leaning from the windows and waving their arms in great excitement. Glancing about to learn the cause of the commotion, I looked toward the south and nearly fell from the wheel. A cyclone was bounding across the country and as I gazed it whirled a building into the air, then dashed it to earth, where it flew into a thousand fragments.

Suddenly we were picked up, wheel and all, and the next thing I knew, were rolling over and over in the ditch at the roadside, while the tandem lay twenty feet away. As I struggled to my feet I saw another cyclone, which had just given us a playful flip, scudding away in the north. Hailstones as large as pigeon’s eggs now began to pelt us, and to add to our discomfort, we found that both chains and the steering gear had been broken in the crash and Kearney was still at least two miles distant.

We had pushed the damaged bicycle a scant hundred yards when a two-seated automobile, guided by a man with a white-faced woman at his side, drew up beside us. The man invited me to ride into Kearney with him while Dan brought in the wheel. Dan urged me into the back seat and the machine plunged ahead. With a wild yell, the driver whipped off his soft felt hat and began to beat the steering wheel with it.

“Whoop-la!” he howled. “Go it, Nellie! Go it, old girl! Show the natives what you can do.”

The car careened from side to side across the wet and slippery road. At tremendous speed we struck the railroad crossing at a tangent. Tossing us high in the air, the machine leaped for the ditch. With a powerful wrench the driver whirled the car, which poised on two wheels at the verge, then headed straight for a telegraph pole on the other side of the road. Once more he veered, and the brass hub of the hind wheel bit into the wood as we shot past.

But Providence was with us, and in a few moments the car drew up in front of a hotel in Kearney, while the half-drunken owner staggered out and, conducting me within, engaged and paid for the best room in the house for Dan and me. The other poor woman, who had been picked up from the roadside like myself, made her escape.

Dan came in, drenched and weary from the buffeting of the storm, and threw himself on the bed. I heard a terrific, roaring, crashing, rending sound, and rushing to the window saw another cyclone sweeping through the outskirts of the town. Large trees swayed and whipped madly, then were whirled into the air.

“Cyclone! Cyclone! Quick, Dan, here comes another cyclone,” I screamed above the roar of the tempest.

“Darn the cyclone,” Dan replied; “I’ve seen enough for one day.”

Nevertheless, he came to the window just as the great, black, swirling funnel passed from view, and, gazing at the sky, enquired where all the books had come from. Sure enough, something floated in the heavens that resembled the scattered leaves of volumes. An instant later these pages came down and disclosed themselves as the sides and roofs of houses.

Next morning Dan took the wheel to the repair shop while I studied the ravages of the storm. No lives were lost in that immediate neighbourhood, but much property had been destroyed. The brick foundation of one home had been scattered in every direction, while the wooden frame, apparently unharmed, had been set down on its original site. In another instance a parlour wall had been neatly removed and a marriage license torn from the frame which still hung in its place, while furniture and pictures remained untouched. This peculiar phenomenon gave rise to considerable comment and jokes concerning the domestic felicity of the married pair.

We were eating our lunch in a vacant lot when our friend from Gibbon drove up. He called Dan over for a short talk, then drove rapidly away. When Dan returned and held out his palm, I cried out in surprise, for in his hand lay four shining five dollar gold pieces. When we had gone and the storm came up, this man had worried over our probable fate, and early next morning had driven the twelve miles into Kearney to overtake and give us this money to ease the journey across the Rockies. Thus we were able to renew our shoes and stockings, which were in shreds, pay for new parts for the wheel, lay in a stock of groceries and still have a little money in our pockets.

If grateful, loving thoughts have power to benefit the recipient, then surely our benefactor will receive some reward, for my whole soul pours itself out in deepest gratitude for his gracious, generous act.

Leaving Kearney, we were able to do a good deal of riding, but suffered severely from heat in the middle of the day. For miles we rode beside stock fences where groups of horses with heads tossing, nostrils flaming, manes and tails floating like pennons in a breeze, raced beside us to the confines of their pastures, there to stand with stamping hoofs and outstretched noses, eyeing us with the greatest curiosity. Once a steer, grazing by the roadside, started to run ahead of us, and lumbered along a full mile, then, in a panic of fear, he reared and up-ended over the fence in a comical fashion and stood blowing wildly, watching his strange pursuer glide past.

The road became wretchedly poor. Again and again the wheel would slip into the deep ruts filled with choking dust in spite of every effort. In places where the surface was hard, innumerable small gullies from the winter rains crossed at right angles, so that riding became unsafe from the strain on the heavily-laden tandem.

Mosquitoes bred in the sluggish streams, full-fed by recent storms, and when evening fell surrounded us in dense clouds. Their bites are almost as painful to me as bee stings, raising great, red wheals, which itch and burn for days, so that I was nearly wild from the irritation. To add to the general discomfort, my new shoes, which were very heavy for the coming trip across the desert, blistered my feet atrociously, so that when the rear chain broke in crossing a bad gully, I was scarcely able to hobble.

And each succeeding day made greater demands on one’s endurance. The country became hilly with stretches of treacherous sand. High bench lands, seamed with narrow ravines, skirted rugged buttes, while to the south and west one caught vistas of barren plains. Small farmhouses perched on the hillsides, and here and there great fields of grain or sprouting corn appeared, with groups of animals grazing in the distance.

Dan had managed to mend the damaged chain, but his natural recklessness chafed constantly against my caution, so that each steep descent provoked an argument. At last I flung discretion to the winds and down the hills we flew, bounding from hummock to hummock, swaying, lurching, recovering ourselves by seeming miracles.

We had been riding across a jutting arm of bench land, and as we approached a sharp turn in the road, the ground began to fall away abruptly. I endeavoured to slow down, but Dan was of a different mind. Spurred on by his words of ridicule, I permitted the wheel to gain momentum and we spun around the curve at racing speed.

A tremendously long and steep declivity lay before us, the strip of road disappearing from our sight in another turn at the bottom of a ravine. My heart leaped convulsively as the wind whistled past my ears, but I had scant time to coddle fear. The strain of handling the heavy tandem at such a speed took all my attention. The pitch increased; we seemed to fly through space. Then the front wheel struck a bed of heavy sand at the curve, and I knew no more.

My next sensation was of a shaking, joggling motion and by degrees I discovered that I was lying on my back on the bottom of a farm wagon that was jolting slowly up a rutty hillside. Dan, very pale, was bending over me, and the wheel with twisted handle bars and dangling chain was propped alongside. In answer to his anxious inquiries, I undertook a few investigative movements and soon was able to assure him that I suffered from nothing worse than some severe bruises and slight concussion from alighting on my head. He had received a rather deep scratch in the _mêlée_, but otherwise was uninjured.

The wagon turned abruptly and I struggled to a sitting posture, as our driver, a lad of some sixteen summers, halted his team of mules in front of a low, unpainted farmhouse. A motherly woman hurried out in answer to his call, and in a moment was all solicitude. With tender care she guided my reeling footsteps into the house and I was soon ensconced on the living room lounge while Dan occupied a rocker at my side. After seeing that we were both as comfortable as circumstances would permit, our hostess left the room to prepare supper.

The outer door swung open and a handsome, blue-eyed boy about twelve years old, dressed from head to foot in blue denim, passed slowly through the room and, with a shy nod to us, entered the kitchen. Scarcely ten seconds later the same door opened and the boy again appeared and with another little duck of the head disappeared in the rear. I was marvelling at the speed he had shown in encircling the house in such a short time, when the sound of the latch caught my ear and I turned to confront the same blue-clad figure. But was it the same? No, this lad was larger. It must be a brother. He also passed through and vanished with the peculiar sideways nod. Almost before I could wink an eye, his double followed, using the identical gesture of his predecessors. I turned to Dan, who was staring round-eyed after the vanishing figure. Just as I opened my mouth to address him, the door opened and a fifth youth appeared. He too was blue-eyed, blue-clad and strikingly good to look upon. Dan rubbed his eyes; then ran his hand through his thick curls.

“That jolt must have done something to my brain,” he declared with a worried look at me. “Do you see whole droves of kids, all looking the same, all dressed the same, all acting the same, all going from the front to the back of the house? First I thought a kid was running round the house to fool us. Then I thought I was seeing double, but they keep getting bigger all the time, till darned if I know what to think. What in blazes do you suppose is the matter with me?”

“It’s as much a mystery to me as it is to you,” I replied. “Whatever it is, it affects us both the same way, for I saw them just as you did. There were five, all dressed in blue, all with blue eyes and light hair, and about the same size, though the first seemed the smallest and the last the largest. At first I thought they were twins, but there could scarcely be five twins.”

At that instant the boy who had rescued us from the roadside appeared, and as he advanced to speak to us, another lad, a size larger, entered from the kitchen and was joined in a moment by boys number one, two, three and four. The room was of fair size, but it seemed to overflow with blue-clad youths.

“Well, what do you think of my little brood?” cried the laughing voice of our hostess, who had entered unobserved.

“Are these all your boys?” I gasped, gazing at her still youthful face and figure. “It doesn’t seem possible. I had about concluded that the fall from the bicycle had affected my brain or my vision; I wasn’t sure which.”

“Indeed, they are all mine, and not all my family either. My two oldest sons are still in the fields. I have nine in all. The eldest has just turned twenty-three, while the youngest two are twelve. The next two are twins also, and only fifteen months older.”

As the lads were introduced, it seemed that a more remarkable, handsomer group of youngsters would be difficult to find. In spite of the utmost care, I was unable to identify the younger ones, so that they must linger in my memory as a group.

All were eager to be of service and assisted Dan in putting the tandem in shape for further adventures. It was with regret that we bade them farewell next morning, and I often think with envy of the happy mother of such a delightful family.

One evening we stood beside the railroad track while the Overland Limited shot by. As we crossed behind the vanishing train, I saw a strange object moving between the rails. Closer inspection disclosed a large terrapin crawling over the ties as fast as he could scramble. I gathered him up and took him back to Dan.

“Now for some real turtle soup,” cried he, making a grab for the creature. But the terrapin resented such tactics with so fierce a snap that Dan, perforce, released him.

Sitting beside the campfire that evening, I bored a hole in Mister Turtle’s shell and attached a stout string. Next morning we rigged a large square can atop the bedding roll and daily the turtle rode in state on a bed of fresh leaves, while at night he was staked out in whatever water was available. He attracted much attention along the way, for his shell was very handsome, but his jaws proved to be so savage that nobody dared to touch him but me. I named him Bird and, while resting, would frequently take him from his bed and gently stroke and tickle his neck or leg, which he would stretch out to be petted.

Some time later we camped on the bank of the North Platte River and as usual I staked Bird out at the edge of the stream. Next morning I was busy with the laundry, so did not call for Mister Turtle until nearly noon. What was my amazement to find him flat on his back at the extreme limit of his string, while a large bird stalked round and round him and aimed vicious pecks at the soft folds of skin between the edges of his shell. I rescued my poor pet, who seemed completely exhausted, and, conscience-stricken, loosed the string and gave him his liberty. A last glance revealed Bird paddling down stream. He will surely be a well-travelled turtle by the time he reaches the sunny south for which he so boldly headed.

The scene on the river seemed very charming after our hot and dusty ride across the arid plain. Masses of wild roses in full bloom glowed against the soft green background of willows. Birds had woven a hanging nest over the water, and the little mother sat demurely on the eggs, while her mate swung on a slender perch and fairly burst his throat with song. They reminded me of some wrens a few miles back who had built their nest in an abandoned mailbox, but I suppose they could scarcely belong to the same species. In the rippling water beneath, fish of many sizes darted to and fro, while a fitful breeze set the silvery foliage to glimmering.

Reluctantly we said farewell to river and birds and roses and, skimming over a long bridge, entered a sleepy little town. Here we loaded the wheel to the limit with groceries, for the country grew wilder each day.

The weather was fine and we were able to camp out in accordance with our original plans. Still, we thought it best to follow the railroad as closely as possible in the event of more rain and muddy roads.

While boiling our cocoa in a lonely spot, our attention was attracted by the fine soldierly figure of a man who stood on the railroad embankment about fifty feet away, gazing down at us. He was dressed in khaki, sombrero, and leggings, and seemed preternaturally tall, silhouetted on the dull red evening sky.

“Hello, comrade,” called Dan. “Want a bite to eat?”

The man strode down the bank and approached our fire. He was tall indeed, with the slim waist and long limbs of a track athlete. His smooth, deeply-tanned skin set off his bright blue eyes and white teeth to advantage as a real Tipperary smile curved his humorous lips. As he removed his hat, a thatch of white hair added an incongruous touch to his appearance.

Squatting on his haunches like one accustomed to that posture, he explained that he had just eaten a hearty meal, but accepted a cup of cocoa to keep us company. After listening to an account of our experiences, he stated that he was an ex-soldier, now walking from San Francisco to New York on a wager. He had made the trip from east to west in ninety days and was bent on returning in ten weeks. So far he had made good time and felt confident of winning. With scant regard for the property of the railroad company, he insisted on carrying a great pile of old ties to a secluded spot and there started a bonfire. When I considered the forty-odd miles that he had covered on foot tha