I then left for the Labor Bureau of the Associated Charities. Perhaps I could get work with enough pay in advance for a breakfast. On reaching there I found twenty men and boys standing outside, and after waiting an hour there seemed to be very little work to be had. Only a few were supplied. During my stay in Cleveland, as a test, I went every day to this place but never succeeded in getting work. This was the only place I had been able to find in Cleveland which even offered work to a man without money. I then tried for an hour to do something for a meal, but was unsuccessful. Going back to the Square I sat down and considered my contract and my feelings. I had agreed with myself to do nothing that would make me lose my self-respect, yet I must eat or forfeit my contract. I glanced down at my hand. There was the golden circle of love,—my wedding ring. Other starving men had been forced to pawn this priceless emblem of sweet memories. I remembered a penniless man whom I met in San Francisco, weak from the suffering caused by extreme want. He was an engraver by trade. Hoping against fate that each day would bring him an opportunity, he walked and searched for the place which he knew he could so ably fill. As we talked he told me a story from the book of his life; of a girl wife and a baby boy whom the Angel had taken. While he talked he glanced down and turned upon his finger a slender thread of gold. I saw that to this man, there lay in that circle of love, a sacred memory,—the blossoming of an honest workingman’s home, attributes of which were truth, love, honor and eternal fidelity. The workingman’s home,—without the intrusion of poverty—is the stronghold of a great and good citizen, the steadfast guiding star of a great government.
Speaking to me with that freedom born of the sympathy which binds one homeless man to another (and he was a man, ambitious, free from the bondage of any bad habit), he said, “I will have to pawn my ring to-day, but,” with determined emphasis, “I will never lose it. Yet I am a little afraid of the pawnshop. Their rate of interest is theft, and the time for redemption limited to one month.”
We then talked of New York City’s Provident Loan Association, which is simply the poor man’s depository, the interest only one per cent, a month, and the time one year. The city that is without this social good is the city that does not belong to the present day progress, and must savor of betrayal, of artifice, of ill-gotten gains. As I left him, I said, “Should you have to pawn your ring, look the matter up. Of course, San Francisco must have so worthy an organization.”
Leaving the Square I found a pawnshop. Unlike the man in actual poverty, I had not the dread fear of losing the cherished momento. The pawnshop man scratched it, weighed it, raised his hand, shrugged his shoulders, and said, “I giff you vun dollar.”
“But it cost ten,” I said.
“Vell, all right, I giff you vun dollar.”
There was no other way, I was helpless. So I replied, “All right, take it.” He gave me the dollar and a pawn certificate demanding for the redemption of my ring a dollar and twenty-five cents if redeemed inside of thirty days. If redeemed within an hour, it made no difference.
I had already tested the institutions, religious and otherwise, which existed in Cleveland supposedly to shelter the destitute, and had been either locked out or turned back into the street. How big that dollar felt in my hand! I fancied it was a twenty-dollar gold piece. I did not dare let go of it. With my old “senator” friend in mind, I saw a sign which read, “Dinner twenty-five cents.” I could not get into the place quickly enough. I left greatly refreshed, but only half satisfied. I found the old “senator,” with whom I shared my fortune. He had been unsuccessful in finding a job. He did as I did, spent twenty-five cents for a meal and saved the other quarter for a bed. We were fixed for that night, at least.
The next morning I saw a prosperous looking young man, standing on a street corner. I don’t know what prompted me to do so, but I stepped up to him and inquired, “Do you know where a fellow can get a job?”
“Yes,” he replied. “Do what I am doing. I am taking subscriptions for a magazine and I am making two and three dollars a day, and it’s dead easy.”
He handed me a card on which was the address of the office. The agent told me he thought he had canvassers enough, but said, “You’re an intelligent looking cuss, I think I will try you.” He made the following proposition: “We offer five of our leading periodicals for twenty-five cents, providing the person will subscribe for four of them. These will come to him through the mail at twenty cents a month for one year. A collector comes every month for the twenty cents.” The twenty-five cents paid down for the five magazines was to be my commission. That night I had just two dollars, and I think I was the happiest man in Cleveland. I had landed a job, and I fully realized that I could have done twice as much if I had not been weakened by lack of nourishment and exposure while seeking work. After drawing my salary as “senator” and working like a Trojan through the day, the next Sunday found me at the Big Four Station with just six dollars in my pocket. Five dollars and twenty-five cents I paid for a ticket to Cincinnati. Spending the balance for food while on the road, I landed in that city at midnight, broke. I had no money, but I possessed a wealth of knowledge in regard to the city of high standards on the shore of the Erie inland sea.
CHAPTER XXV
Cincinnati—Necessity’s Brutal Chains
“There is no contending with necessity, and we should be very tender how we censure those who submit to it. It is one thing to be at liberty to do what we will and another thing to be tied up to do what we must.”
I entered the depot and sank wearily into a seat. I felt pretty well and had a clear conscience. Had I not honorably paid my way from Cleveland to Cincinnati instead of trespassing on the property of a mighty railroad company? I found a place to sit down, dropped my head forward and was soon fast asleep. But the sleep was of short duration for in a few minutes I was rudely awakened by the depot policeman.
“Where are you going?” he said.
“Nowhere,” I answered. “I have no money.”
“Well, what are you doing here?”
“Can’t you see? I am trying to sleep?”
“Have you a railroad ticket?”
“No.”
“Well, you can’t stay here.”
“Have they a Free Municipal Emergency Home in this city?”
“Where would you have me go?”
“Some other place.”
Knowing too well the result to the homeless, destitute wage-earner of disobedience to the scion of the law, I quickly left. To be absolutely alone on the streets of a great, strange city at midnight, penniless, without a friend or acquaintance, was nothing to me, a strong, well man. But to the homeless woman or girl, or the frail sick man or boy, my homelessness held a great meaning. Going a short way up the street, I saw a man standing on a corner, and from his dejected mien, I knew that he, like myself, was a down-and-out.
“Hello,” I said.
“Hello,” he answered.
“Where can a fellow that’s broke find a ‘flop?’”
“Explore me!”
“They have just driven me out of the Big Four.”
“They have just kicked me out of the L. & N. I am going to Fountain Square. It is now one o’clock. There is a train that leaves at two-thirty from the L. & N. People are already going to the station. You can probably stay there unnoticed until the train leaves. I can’t go back for they would know me, but keep your eyes open for bulls.” And with this advice he pointed out the way.
I went, and unnoticed I slept an hour sitting on a station seat. When the train left, I was the only remaining individual in the waiting-room and, of course, very conspicuous. The hint of the law for decency and order at that station, came to me with the question, “Why didn’t you take that train?”
“I did not want it.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I have no other shelter.”
With the deep, low-bred voice of an unfeeling brute, he emphatically said, “Beat it.”
I, too, must now find Fountain Square. A switchman kindly pointed out the direction. As I walked up the street, I raised my eyes to see if the day was breaking, but I might have known better. Automobiles and hacks containing only men came down the street and stopped before the large, red-curtained houses, and from the sound of revelry, of jest, laughter and music, I realized that I was in the redlight district. A black slave standing in a dimly lighted entrance to a passage between two houses, said, “Hello, Honey, buy me a drink.”
“Why, girl, I could not buy a postage stamp that was canceled.”
“Why, what’s the matter?”
“I’m broke. I haven’t even a place to sleep tonight.”
“Come here.”
I stepped up a little nearer to her.
“Is yo’ sho’ nuff broke?”
“I most assuredly am.”
“Whah yo’ from?”
“From Cleveland.”
“What’s de matter wid Cleveland? Cleveland all gone to—?”
“It was for me, at least during part of the time I was there.”
“And has yo’ honest nowhah er to sleep?”
She put her hand in her purse and offered me a quarter. “Take that. It will buy yo’ a bed.”
Glancing up, I saw or fancied I saw the light of dawn. “No, girl. See, the day is breaking,” and as I went on to the Square, I knew that I had seen in that poor, black slave girl an expression of human kindness that could not be found in the vocabulary of the Christian, intelligent, cultured city of Cincinnati. She had offered me, the homeless, penniless, out-of-work man, a shelter.
Girl, for you and your kind, and your race, in the great South, the day is dawning.
Fountain Square is a strip of concrete about fifty feet wide, extending for a block. In the center is a large, magnificent fountain. This Square was acquired by the city as a gift, with a perpetual proviso that it should always be a market-place. Otherwise the city would forfeit the grant. Consequently, on one side, as a retainer, is built a six by ten foot iron, pagoda-roofed structure, under which are several tiers of shelves on which, for a short time each year, flowers are placed and sold. On either side benches were placed, but when I reached the Square every available place seemed filled. The shelves in the flower stand were crowded with homeless, drooping, broken human beings. The roof was a shelter from the frost. There were one hundred men in this Cincinnati “Free Municipal Emergency Home” that night. Nor was this even free, for frequently the police of this humane city raid the Square and drive all, to the last man, to prison. Exhaustion was beating me down, and there seemed no other alternative, so with palpitating heart lest I be singled out as a hopeless inebriate, thrown into jail and then onto the stone pile, I lay down on the frost-covered stone at the feet of my homeless companions and fell into a sleep. It was only for a short time, however, for the rousing up of the men on the bench awakened me and one said to me in a hoarse whisper, “For God’s sake, Jack, get up! Here comes a bull.” I quickly sprang to my feet.
As the men were leaving the Square I saw a number of them enter a dark alley, and asked where they were going. I was told the Enquirer posted the “want-ad” sheets of the paper at its back door an hour before daylight. A group of fifteen men and two young women were already there, striking matches and struggling to read the columns of “Help Wanted.” I finally succeeded in getting close enough to read them. There were a number of things I could do. I took the list and started out only to realize the absolute necessity of a breakfast. I tried several places to work for this essential reinforcement to health and strength, but failed. I thought over my effects again. No, I had nothing except my eyeglasses. After all they were only for fine print while reading. I thought of the watchmaker in New York who was resting from going blind and of the boy I had met, who, without his glasses, was almost blind but who had pawned them for food; of another, a boy without vice and industrious, selling the gold filling from his teeth to help him over a rough place; of men I had seen, through want, pawn their underclothing. It was a simple thing for me to part with my glasses. I got twenty-five cents on them.
After breakfast I began a strenuous search for work and at last, after explaining that I could handle horses, and was sober and industrious, I was hired at twelve dollars a week to drive a milk wagon at F—--, a big milk depot. But they did not want me for three days and there was the rub. The manager of a large restaurant told me that if I would come at two o’clock the next morning and work from two until four he would give me my breakfast and a quarter of a dollar. I was exceedingly happy, for I, at least, was rich in prospects.
I went to the public bath and was absolutely refused a bath because I had not a nickel. The Salvation Army refused me assistance in any way, shape or manner. The Associated Charities had nothing to give away. They did not even have a bed in exchange for work. However they had meals in exchange for labor. By sawing wood for one or more hours they would give me a meal. I knew what that meal would be, a decoction of stuff made mostly of water, and I said, “You must give a pretty good meal for one and a half hours’ labor at the hard work of sawing wood.” This seemed to touch the head of this Charity institution, for in an offended way he said:
“This is a Charity institution—not a Commercial one.”
The Y. M. C. A. refused me even a bath. I was beginning to get saucy and politely told the presiding officer of this commercial institution he had better take the word “Christian” out of their title. I was met with such violent anathemas that I felt I was in the wrong and speedily retired.
By this time circumstances were forcing my mental contract to assume an india-rubber character, like laws of justice and good books. There was a large religious convention in session in the city and if my contract would allow me to ask aid of those institutions which stand avowed to help a destitute workingman, and these gentlemen of the cloth posed as representatives of such heavenly safeguards against despair, I felt that I was justified (although it was against a city ordinance and, if caught, I would be imprisoned), at least in asking of these the price of a meal or a bed. So bringing into play a determined will and taking a stand at a convenient place where I was sure I would not be detected, I hesitatingly approached one saying, “Sir, would you kindly give an honest workingman the price of a meal?“ He replied, without stopping except to slap me cordially on the back.
"My dear boy, I have no money."
I then asked another, whose answer as he stopped for a brief instant was:
“My dear friend, I have no change.”
To this I replied, “I did not ask for change particularly. I am not hard to suit, at least just now. A dollar will go farther than a dime.”
He only smiled and hurried on. I was their dear boy and dear friend, but not precious enough to find a place in their hospitality. I could have rested again that night on the stones of Fountain Square, or suffered the insult and abuse of a Cincinnati prison, or have been forced into the hospital, or have ended the struggle in the Ohio river, for all that Cincinnati or at least these two satellites of this mighty convention cared.
The nights were extremely cold but the days were bright and warm in the sunshine. Too weary to undergo further the trial without rest, I crept away to the river bank, far enough away to be unmolested, away from suspicion and question. Here on the sun-warmed gravel, with my little bundle for a pillow, I fell into a sweet sleep and pleasant dreams, not of pearly gates and golden streets, but of snowy beds and sumptuous tables. I slept for a long while and when I awoke the sun was setting in some dense black clouds and the air had the chill of an approaching storm. Remembering that I had a job at two o’clock on the coming morning and the thought bringing a certain degree of comfort and cheer, I strolled into a large saloon, where there was a bright fire. Here I sat and talked to many workingmen who came that way. I read the many papers scattered about until the place closed, at midnight, when I was forced back to a bench in Fountain Square. Just as I arrived there a gust of wind and rain swirled through the streets and into the Square with a mad force. It was a harbinger of what was to follow. A few moments later there broke forth the most piercing equinoctial storm of wind, snow and rain that I had ever known. It lasted for three days.
I crept into the office of an all-night lodging house. When it was discovered that I did not want a bed and had no money I was requested to vacate. I thought of going at once to the restaurant where I was to work in the morning but I remembered the manager had told me not to come before two o’clock. Already wet from exposure I sought the shelter of the flower stand. Eight men ahead of me had taken refuge there, but they kindly allowed me to crowd in. While we were protected from the beating torrent of rain, we were thoroughly chilled and suffering intensely.
After all, I was the favored one, for in a short time I would be in a big warm restaurant kitchen at work. It seemed an endless time before I found myself there with another man paring potatoes, and while we worked, he told me of the steamboat running from Cincinnati to Louisville, and of the opportunity many times for a man to work his way to the latter city,—a suggestion which I resolved, if possible, to profit by. Four o’clock soon came, and my breakfast was earned. It was not as I thought it would be,—a portion of all the good things that the restaurant afforded, and that I could eat against a week’s time of need. It was simply a twenty cent check for a breakfast at the lunch counter upstairs. I could have eaten four such meals without fear of any unpleasant results, but as he gave me the check he gave me my quarter also, saying, “We do not usually give more than a meal for the work, but I will make an exception this time, and as I told you, give you a quarter.” Why he did so, I have never been able to discover. That quarter meant a great deal to me, for I could spend it where I sought shelter, and feel a degree of independence and welcome. Don’t think for a moment the Y. M. C. A., the Salvation Army, or the Associated Charities got it! I was pretty sure, however, to save ten cents of it for a bed at the Union Mission on the levee. On going there I asked for the gift of a bed, and was decidedly refused. I was told it was not a Christian institution which gave gifts to the needy, but absolutely a business proposition with them. Whether that be true or not, I admired them for their honesty. This Mission was near the steamboat landing.
On the following morning I applied for the privilege of working my way to Louisville. I could do so, but the only work offered was that of roustabout, loading and unloading heavy freight before leaving and while en route. I would receive no pay for my work, unless I signed to return, or make a round trip. The deck passage was a dollar and a half. The next morning, with two white and twenty black men, associate workers, I was off for Louisville.
Life, in recent years, had not inured me to such arduous work. I think I could have stood the work more successfully than my trial in New York if I had not been weakened by starvation, but at the test of carrying a heavy barrel, box, or bundle, I could not stand firm and wavered as I walked, which frightened me. I realized that I must desist. I made an appeal to the boat officer to carry me to Louisville on the promise that I would pay as soon as I had earned the money. I was a weather-beaten hobo, and of course, not to be trusted, but my request was granted, providing I would leave my little bundle as a pledge that I would fulfil my promise.
As I was leaving the boat at Louisville, I stood with my little blue jeans bundle in my hand. The purser was there to see that I turned it over to the negro porter. The porter had an austere cruel expression, but instantly, as we stepped back to deposit it in the porter’s locker, his face turned to a glow of kindness and he handed me back the bundle, saying, “Hit the plank. Put it under your coat. You will not be noticed.” In that little package were all my earthly possessions. It meant a great deal to me. So taking the bundle I slipped away. I was again homeless on the streets of another great city, looking for work.
CHAPTER XXVI
Louisville and the South
“Kindness is wisdom. There is none in life but needs it and may learn.”
Shortly after my arrival in Louisville, Kentucky, true to the promise I made myself in Cleveland, I sent the Navigation Company the cash due them for my passage. I felt exceedingly happy that it could not be said of me that I had stolen my journey.
In Louisville, as in every other city of the Union I have visited, I found it very hard work to get employment. I found the white man working for the same wage as the black man, the black man working for just one-third of what he ought to have been paid. This is true all through the South. I found the white men greatly embittered against the black men and declaring that the negroes kept wages down by being willing to work for far less than the white workers. This was not true. The negroes were just as restless as the white men because of the small pay for labor. If the black workers were willing, or seemed willing, to work for less pay than the white workers, it was because they were forced to do so to keep from starving.
As the night came down I was forced to seek shelter at an Associated Charities lodging house, in front of which was an open surface sewer, so vile that it was nauseating, the disease-breeding odor penetrating the dormitory all through the night. I was met so gruffly that I felt as if I had offended someone by my application for shelter even though I was given to understand that I was expected to saw five barrels of wood for it. I asked for the privilege of washing my hands and face; for a sheet of paper and an envelope that I might write a letter home; for something to read, and a place to read it. All these little benefits, which meant just then so much to me and which cost nothing, were bluntly denied. I was told to go out in the rear yard among stacks of rubbish, where it was cold and damp, until the time arrived for offering the hospitality of the place. Before going to bed I was obliged to take a shower bath, which I thoroughly enjoyed, but which was spoiled by a small, dirty, rough towel to dry myself with. The bed, filthy, wretched and uncomfortable, I could scarcely have endured had I not been so bruised and weary.
The usual charity breakfast dope of water soup, water coffee, and coarse bread was given, for which I worked three hours. Edgeless tools made the work extremely difficult. Many of the men worked half a day for the night’s shelter. I would have enjoyed the exhilarating work on the wood for an hour if I had been given a breakfast. Any man would who was able, and who wanted to keep his self-respect. I left the place embittered. I felt that I had been robbed, as others did who were forced into it, but it was a shelter.
The needs of another night were near at hand, and I had a half-day left in which to look for work. I passed a fine restaurant where I noticed the windows needed polishing up a bit. I stepped inside and asked the privilege of cleaning them for a meal. My wish was granted. For my hour’s work I was given a delicious, wholesome meal and twenty-five cents besides. I felt like doing a great deal for myself and something for others. I was in luck.
After many trials I found work in a business place at five dollars per week and board, for seven days in the week. I was to begin the next morning. From exposure on the deck of the steamer I had contracted a severe cold which settled into neuralgia, and one of my teeth was aching beyond endurance. My twenty-five cents, which I was saving for a bed, I was now obliged to spend in having the distracting molar extracted. The first dentist to whom I described my pain and possessions, refused to pull the tooth for less than fifty cents, but the next man did it, and I was soon on the street feeling actually happy,—but my bed money was gone.
I could not have returned to the Charity lodging house even if I had cared to, as I was obliged to be at work at seven in the morning. As it was now growing cold and dark, I was told by another “under-dog” of the Hope Rescue Mission. I followed his suggestion by going there. Entering, I registered my name, and discovered that my presence at the evening meeting was demanded before I was eligible for a bed. I attended the meeting and discovered that one must experience a change of heart before he is actually certain of shelter, for the leader of this heavenly mansion said in his address, “You fellers need not think you can come here and make a big spiel, and get a bed unless you mean what you say.” Immediately after the service of song and praise, we were shown to bed. The door of this “heavenly refuge” was locked at ten o’clock for the night, and going to bed at this hour was compulsory.
As we entered, the light, which was so dim that we could scarcely distinguish one cot from the other, and which hid the filth in which we were to rest, was in a moment turned out and all was darkness. Without undressing, I fell upon my bunk exhausted and was soon sound asleep, but at some unknown hour in the night I awakened. Notwithstanding my precaution in not undressing I realized that I was covered with vermin. The filthy odor of sewer gas pervaded the place and poisoned every breath of air we breathed. My first impulse was to get out of the place, but where would I go? To go out onto the street at this time of the night would probably mean arrest. I slid down from my bunk to the floor and forced myself to remain there until we were called at daylight.
All of these houses where a pretense is made of caring, perhaps, for “angels unawares,” are run with the greatest saving of expense. They usually have a number of physically weak dependents who volunteer their services for an existence. While we were lined up in a room next to the eating place, we had prayer. As all the guests did not feel inclined to kneel, one of the religious attaches who seemed to regard it a religious duty to uphold the spirit of the institution demanded,
“What is the matter with you fellows, can’t you kneel?”
This demand caused some back talk and probably would have ended in a rough house if at that moment the names of the worthy for breakfast had not been called. The breakfast consisted of luke-warm brown water, called coffee, and coarse bread, lacking in quality and quantity. A number of the men received nothing, and as we sat down before this prepared infusion of warm water, one of the volunteers looked straight at me and angrily said,
“Say, can’t you ask the blessing?”
Before I could, with resentment, ask what for, a man opposite looked at the fellow and said:
“Gwan, I’ll put a lump on your thinker in a minute. Can’t you see this feller ain’t no mission stiff?”
It was now six o’clock. I had just one hour before going to work. I realized that the annoyances I had contracted at this Rescue Hope Mission, which each moment seemed to increase with startling force and demand immediate action, must be gotten rid of. There was but one way open and that was the river. While hurriedly going there, I searched for some sort of vessel adequate to “boil up” with. Luckily I found a five gallon Standard Oil can, and reaching a secluded spot with available waste at hand for a fire, I hastily “boiled up.” I also took a bath in the icy waters of the Ohio. Using my jeans for underclothing, and rolling in a bundle my now-purified wet garments, which in the rear of the business house where I had been engaged I hung on some boxes to dry, I entered, serene and smiling and started to work just as the clock struck seven.
After working twelve long hours, which included time to eat two meals, I asked the manager if he would kindly advance me the seventy-one cents due for my day’s work.
“No, it is impossible,” he said. “It is not our custom. We pay only when the week’s work is done. If you have no place to sleep that is your affair, not ours.”
The reason the employer will not pay by the day is the same here as elsewhere,—because all working men are regarded as drinkers and they are fearful of losing the worker. I realized that I could not work without rest. Louisville offered such a privilege to no one without money, although I had become one of her army of toilers.
I strolled down to the river thinking of my objective point, the government works below Memphis, which would afford me both shelter and food. I decided to reach there as soon as possible. The steamer, Lucille Knowland, running between Louisville and Evansville, was then loading freight and was scheduled to leave the next day at two P. M. Approaching a pompous, uniformed officer I asked if there was an opportunity for a man to work his way to Evansville. “I don’t know,” he replied, “Ask the cook.” I left at once for the kitchen where I found a large, robust colored man,—the man I was looking for. In reply to my inquiry for the privilege of working my passage he kindly answered, “I think so, Jack. Come around at one o’clock to-morrow and see me.”
Going up the street I met another unlucky, a young man twenty-five years of age, a cabinet finisher by trade. We exchanged stories of woe, and unconsciously entered into a partnership of ideas for a resting place that night. While we sat on the stringer of a coal chute, a poor unfortunate victim of alcohol came drifting near. Overhearing our plans, he stopped and told us of a barber who was down and out when he first came to Louisville, and that he never refused an honest, homeless man the privilege of sleeping in a room in the rear of his shop. We followed the dissipated fellow’s advice. After asking the barber for a night’s resting place, he showed us the room. There were only a few old quilts on the floor, to be sure, but the place was very clean and a good shelter. When we awoke the next morning, the first words with which my companion greeted me were, “When I dropped to sleep last night, I almost wished I would never wake up. To-day is as yesterday,—the same uncertain struggle.” Then he whistled a little and hopefully said, “But I may get work to-day.”
We parted, and I never saw him again. I left for my place of work. At one o’clock sharp I was on hand at the kitchen on the Lucille Knowland. The big cook took me and I was soon busily preparing vegetables for my passage.
My day and a half of work I donated to the establishment I had just left. I have thought of writing them that they might use it as an advancement to some homeless man for a place to sleep for a week until he could draw his five dollars for seven days’ work twelve hours a day.
Just before the boat left, a negro boy, the second cook, appeared on the scene and I discovered that John Ray (that was the head cook’s name) was not taking me because he needed me, but simply because he wanted to help me. When night came he spoke to one of the officers who gave me as fine a state room as there was in the officers’ cabin. I fell asleep, but at midnight I was suddenly awakened by a black face thrust in at the door and a voice excitedly crying, “Get up! The boat is on fire!” In another instant I was out. I saw the darkies, with trousers in one hand and shoes in the other, scared speechless, skidding to the fore part of the boat. There was a fire down in the hold, but it was quickly extinguished without disturbing a passenger, and we of the crew were simply called to fight fire if necessary. I returned to my berth. It was the first time for many a night that I had enjoyed the comforts of a bed. I slept unruffled and refreshingly until morning.
The second morning we were in Evansville, and as I left John Ray I took him by the hand and said, “John Ray, if I ever get to Heaven I will surely find you there, for Heaven is made up of hearts like yours!”
In Evansville I got work with the hope of being able to save my railroad fare to Memphis but the pay was so meager I could scarcely exist. On the return of the man whose place I was temporarily filling, I found myself, one Sunday the last of October, almost broke and a long way from Memphis. As I was walking that day I met a young carpenter standing on a corner with all he possessed on this earth in a suitcase, and moneyless. He told me briefly his situation. He was married,—had a beautiful wife and a little golden-haired baby girl. But his wife—Ah, well, why go into details! Circumstances made a tramp of him. That was enough. It was the old story of poverty, fatal to the American home. He was unable to get work in Evansville and was going on to Birmingham, Alabama, where he was sure of employment. He had spent the past night in an office chair, with the permission of the night clerk of a hotel. Several times he had dropped asleep and been awakened (although he was not on the street) by the police with insulting inquiries. I discovered that we were of the same mind in many things. He did not want to beat or steal from the railroad by riding a blind or a box car. Both of us wanted to work our way, if possible. He decided to peddle or pawn his suit case and clothes. Not being able to sell them, he was obliged to let a second-hand dealer have them for two dollars. Their value was fully thirty-five.
We were directed two miles out of town to a place called Howe, where we might be able to catch a local freight, but we were disappointed in an opportunity to work for our passage. There was the great Ohio river, spanned by a ponderous iron bridge, miles long, which must be crossed, and as no one was allowed to walk this bridge, our only alternative was to steal a ride. Many trains passing through Howe were obliged to slow up and soon we were safely ensconced in a side-door Pullman and swinging far out on the mighty trestle of iron which arched the stream. I had broken my contract. We soon discovered that we were in a car which had been in a wreck and was probably on its way to the shops. The ponderous sides and great heavy roof were held up and in place temporarily by two-by-fours. After we crossed the bridge, the train seemingly attained a never-ending mile-a-minute speed, over cross roads, switches and springing piles. The roof and sides of the huge car would bend down and groan and tremble and swerve. We were positive that the next instant we would be crushed to death, from which there seemed absolutely no retreat. To have leaped from the fast-moving train among the rocks which lined the right of way, would have been fatal. So having nothing else to hang to, we hung to each other. This was the only available car. A submarine boat or an aeroplane was a life preserver compared to our vehicle. But a shrill, sharp whistle, coming at that time, was music. We were actually stopping. The train pulled out and left us at a water-tank, happy in our release. We might have been in Kansas for all we knew, but looking up and across the fields we saw a big house with a huge sign, “Whiskey Distillery.” We knew we were still in Kentucky.
A track man told us all trains stopped there, which was encouraging. It was now late in the day and there would be no more trains until morning. The track man told us of an inn not far away. We went there and spent the night.
The next morning we found ourselves waiting at the track, broke, except that I had a nickel and the carpenter a dime. Soon a train swung into sight, and not having time to ask permission to work our way, we quickly boarded an empty gondola. It was a mixed train and we discovered that it was a freight which was very late. Immediately at the first station, we did not wait for the train crew to hunt us out and probably shovel us off, but leaping out, we ran ahead. Scarcely before either the crew or ourselves knew it, we were helping to carry sacks of oats, and what not, from a car into the station. The conductor looked at us curiously. When the work at that point was done, he said, “Come on back, boys, and ride in the caboose. No use of you fellers sitting out there in the cold.” When dinner time came, the train crew shared with us their dinners, and so we worked along with hand and heart, laughing and singing, until ten o’clock found us in Princeton, Kentucky.
While sitting in the depot, with no place to sleep, one of the station employees, kindly inclined and suspecting our position, said, “Boys, if you think of trying to spend the night here you had better not try it, for you are liable to be picked up. They arrested a bunch of out-of-work men here just the other night.” We then crept up into the railroad yards, to a cheap, all-night lunch place where the owner kindly allowed us to lie down in a dark corner until morning. Then my pal decided to take another and a quicker route to Birmingham than the one I had planned, which was to go by way of Paducah. So we separated, he to find his desired train, I to find mine. I was told by a switchman that by walking out about a mile to the signal-tower I could catch a freight. What I did catch was a ponderous coal train, and mounting a gondola which was loaded with fine nut coal heaped up very high in the center, I was soon off.
Custom had not filled me, as yet, with courage sufficient to ride the bumpers between the cars where the slightest accident meant instant death. I crawled on top of the coal and into a small vacuum in one corner which was caused by heaping the coal high in the center. I felt very comfortably fixed and everything worked smoothly up the long steep grade we were climbing until we began to descend. When we commenced plunging like a cyclone through woods and fields, down hills and hollows, I saw that the coal was fast shifting down, seeking its level and crowding me out of my pocket. I finally reached a point where I was hanging on to the corner of the car by my fingers and toes and feeling every moment that I would be dashed to the earth, for my strength was almost gone. Then we began to slow down.
When we reached the end of a thirty-mile run we stopped for water. I had about decided to walk to Memphis, but just then an old darkey came along with a span of mules hitched to the running gears of a wagon, who was going five miles on my way. I asked could I ride. “Sho’ nuff, sho’ nuff,” was the answer, and we were soon astride the reach, exchanging black and white thoughts. Everything was serenely pleasant. The old darkey had just been praising his mules for the virtue of being reliable when an automobile hove into sight, coming directly toward us. Those mules jumped straight up in the air, plunged past the automobile, and with the swiftness of a scared wolf ran down the road to the first turn to the right, which they took in spite of the old darkey. In turning they tipped the skeleton of the wagon to such a degree that we were both spilled by the roadside. Luckily the earth was deep and soft, and we escaped injury except a few bruises, but it was a sudden parting of the ways. I caught a last glimpse of the old negro at the brow of the hill, on the run after the mules, just as I reached the railroad track, quite content to try walking again for awhile.
I kept near to my beaten path, the railroad, and was told that five miles beyond was a point where all trains stopped. I discovered I could not walk much further. I was lame and sore and my shoes were worn out. I had now become, in the eyes of both the railroad and myself, a hardened criminal and could steal a ride without self-imputation. After walking what seemed to me a very long way I found myself exhausted. Having eaten nothing since the noon before, that which I had then being given me from the dinner pail of the railroad man, I felt the need of food. Seeing a large Kentucky farm house crowning a hill not far away, I approached it.
Sitting on the wide piazza, in struggling rays of sunlight which played through golden autumn leaves and vines festooned with an aftermath of purple blossoms, sat an elderly gentleman whose very mien seemed bubbling over with good nature. Beside him sat his motherly-looking wife.
“Will you give me the privilege of working for something to eat?” I asked.
“Ma, can you give this hungry man something to eat?” But Ma was already up and half way to the kitchen. They gave me all I could eat and a nicely tied-up lunch, as they said, “for a time of need.” When I had eaten I asked,
“Now what can I do for you?”
“I have nothing for you to do. You are very welcome. We are always glad to help a tired man. No one is ever turned away from the door of old Colonel Chandler’s.” Then, in response to a question of mine, he replied, “No; Ma, there, is the Christian side of the house. With me it is just a spiritual law, I guess.”
I caught a train of empty flat stone cars. Lying prone on one of these I rode five miles. We stopped. It was the terminal for that train, and a stopping place for all trains. I waited. In a short time another freight pulled in. From an empty box car came a familiar voice, “Hello!”
I sought the voice and found it was my pal, the carpenter, who had not succeeded in going his way and so had decided to come mine. He was famished from hunger. The lunch from Colonel Chandler’s was already needed to raise a man from the dust. “The time of need” had come. The night was upon us, and we were yet twenty-two miles from Paducah. We were suffering intensely from the cold, and while we waited for a relief train we built a fire by the track. No sooner had we done so than from out of the darkness somewhere we were joined by three other destitute men, bound our way.
Immediately a train came in sight. It was made up mostly of oil tanks and the only possible way to ride, except on the rods and brake beams, was to lie flat down under one of the huge oil tanks and hang on. But it had rained somewhere and the rain had frozen as it fell. The train was covered with ice. The three other men took the advantage offered, regardless of all danger, but my pal and I, both novices, had not the courage, and as one of the men swung on, cognizant of our fear, he called out,
“Oh, come on. You can’t beat a train and be an old woman.”
I began to realize the physical courage necessary in the make-up and character of the man obliged to work and wander, to beat a railroad, braving dangers which from 1901 to 1905, inclusive, killed twenty-three thousand, nine hundred trespassers, and injured twenty-five thousand, two hundred and thirty-six, and each year shows no decrease. In this wonderful example of physical courage in these migratory workers, worthy of our deepest concern, we cannot help but catch the spirit of a greater courage in other workingmen—of one who freed four million slaves; of one who, nearly two thousand years ago, dared to enter the temple and cast out the thieves and the money-changers.
We had not long to wait. A moment later my companion and I were hidden in a box car of a following train. After an hour’s ride in the darkness, we found ourselves seeking in a strange city (Paducah, Kentucky), a place of rest. As we passed through the yards we saw a policeman striking matches or throwing bulls’ eyes into empty cars, looking for such men as we were.