CHAPTER II
THE MAN WITH THE COUGH
Thad seemed quite agreeable.
"Do you know I've never come in close contact with any tramp," he went on to remark, as they turned their faces toward the patch of trees where the smoke arose, "and I've always wanted to watch just how they managed. I note that this fellow has a couple of old tomato cans he's picked up on some dump, and they're set over the fire to warm up some coffee, or something he's evidently gotten at a back door. Perhaps he'll be sociable, and invite us to join him in his afternoon meal. I guess they eat at any old time, just as the notion seizes them, eh, Hugh?"
"They're a good deal like savages in that respect, I understand," the other told him. "You know Indians often go a whole day without breaking their fast; but when they do eat they stuff themselves until they nearly burst. There, he has seen us coming in, for he's shading his eyes with his hand, and taking a good look."
"I hope we haven't given him a scare," chuckled Thad, "under the impression that one of us may be the sheriff, or some indignant farmer who's lost some of his chickens lately, and traced them feathers to this camping spot."
The hobo, however, did not attempt to run. He watched their approach with interest, and even waved a friendly hand toward the two lads.
"Why, evidently he's something of a jolly dog," remarked the surprised
Thad, "and there are no chicken feathers around that I can notice.
Hello, bo', getting your five o'clock tea ready, I see."
At these last words, called out louder than ordinary, the man in the ragged and well-worn garments grinned amiably.
"Well, now, young feller," he went on to say in a voice that somehow was not unpleasant to Hugh's ear, "that's about the size of it. I haven't had a bite since sun-up this morning, and I'm near caving in. Out for a walk, are you, lads?"
"Oh! we live in Scranton," Hugh explained, "and I had an errand up beyond. We went by another road, and came back this way, which is why we sighted your smoke. Fact is, Thad, my chum here, has never seen a knight of the railroad ties cooking his grub, and he said he'd like to drop in and learn just how you managed, because he's read so much about how splendidly tramps get on."
"That's all right, young feller," said the other, cheerily. "Find seats on that log yonder. I ain't got much in my larder today, but what there is will fill a mighty big vacuum in my interior, let me tell you. This here is coffee in the first can—-mebbe not just what you boys is accustomed to at your breakfast tables, but good enough for me when it's piping hot. I don't take any frills with wine either, in the way of cream and sugar, leaving all that for those that sit at white tablecloths and have silver as well as china dishes. In this other can I've got some soup. Never mind where I got it; some ladies, bless their hearts, are pretty kind; and I always make it a point to carry several empty tomater cans with me wherever I go. Besides that, in this newspaper here I've got some bread, and two fine pieces of bologna sausage that I bought in a village I came through. So altogether I'm expecting to have a right swell feast pretty soon."
Thad looked interested in these things. He even peeped into the two cans, and decided that wherever the tramp got that coffee it certainly could be no "slops," for it had the real odor. The warmed-over soup, too, smelled very appetizing, Thad admitted. On the whole, he concluded that tramps were able to make out very well, when they knew the ropes of the game, and how to beg at back doors.
Hugh, on the other hand, was more interested in the man himself than in his limited possessions. He saw that the other was past middle age, for his face was covered with a bristly beard of a week's growth, verging on gray. His cheeks were well filled out, and his blue eyes had what Hugh determined was a humorous gleam about them, as though the man might be rather fond of a joke.
He was the picture of what a regular tramp should be, there could be no getting around that, Hugh determined. He rather believed that, like most of his kind, this fellow also had a history back of him, which would perhaps hardly bear exploiting. Doubtless there were pages turned down in his career, things that he himself seldom liked to remember, giving himself up to a life of freedom from care, and content to take things each day as they came along, under the belief that there were always sympathetic women folks to be found who would not refuse a poor wanderer a meal, or a nickel to help him along his way.
Apparently he had been just about ready to sit down and make way with his meal at the time the boys arrived on the scene; for he now took both tin carts from their resting places over the red embers of his fire, and opening the package produced the bread and the bologna. This latter looked big enough to serve a whole family of six; but then a tramp's appetite is patterned very much on the order of a growing boy's, and knows no limit.
Having spread his intended food around him as he squatted there, the hobo gave the boys a queer look.
"You'll excuse me if I don't ask you to join me, youngsters," he went on to say. "I'd do the same in a jiffy if the supply wasn't limited; besides, I don't know just what sort of a reception I'm going to meet with in your town."
"Oh! no apologies needed, old chap," said Thad, quickly. "We had our lunch only an hour or so ago and couldn't take a bite to save us now. But say everything seems mighty good, if the smell counts for much. So pitch right in and fill up. We'll continue to sit here and chat with you, if you don't mind, Bill."
"That's all right, governor, only my name don't happen to be Bill, even if I belong to the tribe of Weary Willies. I'm known far and wide as Wandering Lu; because, you see, I've traveled all over the whole known world, and been in every country the sun shines on. Just come from the oil regions down in Texas, because, well, my health is failing me, and I'm afraid I'm going into a decline."
At that he started to coughing at a most tremendous rate. Thad looked sympathetic.
"You certainly do seem to have a terribly bad cold, Lu," he told the tramp, as the other drew out a suspicious looking red handkerchief that had seen better days, to wipe the tears from his eyes, after he had succeeded in regaining his breath, following the coughing spell.
The man put a dirty hand in the region of his heart and winced.
"Hurts most around my lungs," he said, "and mebbe I've got the con. I spent some time in a camp where fifty poor folks was sleeping under canvas down in Arizona, and I'm a whole lot afraid I may have caught the disease there. So, being afraid my time would soon come I just made up my mind to look up a sister of mine that I ain't heard a word from for twenty years or more, and see if she was in a position to support me the short time I'd have to live."
Thad heard this with evident interest. At the same time it occurred to him the stalwart tramp was hardly a fit subject for a speedy death; indeed, he looked as though he might hold out for a good many years still, except when he fell into one of those coughing spells, and seemed to be racked from head to foot with the exertion.
Hugh saw that the fellow had an engaging manner, and a smooth tongue. He was trying to make out just what sort of a man this same Lu might be, if one could read him aright. Was he crooked, and inclined to evil ways; or, on the other hand, could he be taken at face value and set down as a pretty square sort of a fellow?
"Listen, young fellers," remarked the still eating hobo, later on, "didn't you tell me you lived in the place called Scranton, when you're to home?"
"Yes, that's so," Thad assured him. "Know anybody there, Lu, and do you want us to take him your best compliments?"
The tramp grinned amiably.
"I reckon you're something of a joker, younker," he went on to say. "Now, about the folks in Scranton, I suppose you boys know about everybody in town?"
"Well, hardly that," Hugh told him, "since Scranton is a place of some seven or eight thousand inhabitants, and new people are constantly coming in."
"All the same," added Thad, "we do know a good many, and it's just as likely we might be acquainted with your friend. What's his name, Wandering Lu?"
"First place, it ain't a he at all, but a lady," the other explained, looking a little serious for once.
"Oh! excuse the mistake, will you?" chuckled Thad, highly amused at the airs the disreputable looking grizzled old chap put on when he made this statement. "Well, we have some acquaintance among the ladies of the town also. They're nearly all deeply interested just now in helping Madame Pangborn do Red Cross work for her beloved poilus over in brave France. I suppose now you've traveled through that country in your time, Lu?"
"Up and down and across it for hundreds of miles, afoot, and in trains," quickly replied the old fellow, "and say, there ain't any country under the sun that appeals more to me than France did. If I was twenty years younger, hang me if I wouldn't find a way to cross over there now, and take my place in the trenches along with them bully fighters, the French frog-eaters. But I'm too old; and besides, this awful cough grips me every once in so often."
Even the mention of it set him going again, although this time the spasm was of shorter duration, Hugh noticed; just as though he had shown them what he could do along such lines, and did not want to exhaust himself further.
"But about this lady friend of yours, Lu, would you mind mentioning her name, and then we could tell you if we happen to know any such person in Scranton?" and Thad gave the other a confiding nod as if to invite further confidence.
"Let's see, it was so long back I almost forget that her name was changed after she got hitched to a man. Do you happen to know a chap who goes by the name of Andrew Hosmer?"
The boys exchanged looks.
"That must be the sick husband of Mrs. Hosmer, who sews for my mother," remarked Thad, presently. "Yes, I remember now that his first name is Andrew."
"Tell me," the tramp went on, now eagerly, "is his wife living, do you mean, younker, this Mrs. Hosmer, and is her name Matilda?"
"Just what it happens to be," Thad admitted. "So she is the lady you want to see, is she, Lu? What can poor old Mrs. Hosmer, who has seen so much trouble of late years, be to you, I'd like to know?"
The man allowed a droll look to come across his sun-burned face with its stubbly growth of gray beard. There was also a twinkle in his blue eyes as he replied to this query on the part of Thad Stevens.
"What relation, you ought to say, younker, because Matilda, she's my long-lost sister, and the one I'm a-hopin' will nurse me from now on till my time comes to shuffle off this planet and go hence!"
The two boys heard this stunning announcement with mingled feelings. Thad looked indignant while Hugh on his part tried to read between the lines, and understand whether there could be any meaning to the tramp's declaration than what appeared on the face of it.