HOBO VERSE IN A LIGHTER VEIN
The characteristic hobo is an optimist who sees the humorous side of many an unpleasant or dangerous situation. The average seasoned “bo” with full stomach and money in his pocket can enjoy to the full the never-ending series of happenings on West Madison Street. If there is nothing else, he can be amused at the other man’s predicament. Many of these humorous experiences have found their way into poetry.
The hobo is ironic even in the face of death. The following poem, by an unknown writer, caricatures the contrast between the sentiment and the reality of the hobo’s existence.
The Hobo’s Last Lament
Beside a Western water-tank
One cold November day,
Inside an empty box-car,
A dying hobo lay;
His old pal stood beside him,
With low and drooping head,
Listening to the last words,
As the dying hobo said:
“I am going to a better land,
Where everything is bright,
Where beef-stews grow on bushes
And you sleep out every night;
And you do not have to work at all,
And never change your socks,
And streams of goodly whiskey
Come trickling down the rocks.
“Tell the bunch around Market street,
That my face, no more, they’ll view;
Tell them I’ve caught a fast freight,
And that I’m going straight on through.
Tell them not to weep for me,
No tears in their eyes must lurk;
For I’m going to a better land,
Where they hate the word called work.
“Hark! I hear her whistling,
I must catch her on the fly;
I would like one scoop of beer
Once more before I die.”
The hobo stopped, his head fell back,
He’d sung his last refrain;
His old pal stole his coat and hat
And caught an East-bound train.[63]
A. W. Dragstedt, a prominent personality in Chicago’s Hobohemia, is a man who goes and comes when he pleases. According to hobo custom, he goes to the country each summer, but he usually spends his leisure in town. He is an optimist. The following two verses were written at a time when he was down but not downhearted.
It takes a very little for me to be happy;
The world has a smile for each day that goes by;
My diet of coffee and doughnuts so snappy,
Makes me very clever and mentally spry.
My shoes are but uppers, pants full of patches;
My stomach feels pleased when I fill it with soup;
When sleepy and tired my slumber I snatches,
In haystacks and hallways; sometimes in the coop.
“No Matter Where You Go” is a humorous presentation of the futility of wandering. Where to go next when the hobo wants to move is always a problem. Usually the “bo” gives an unfavorable report of the district he has just left.
Things are dull in San Francisco,
“On the bum” in New Orleans;
“Rawther punk” in cultured Boston,
Famed for codfish, pork, and beans.
“On the hog” in Kansas City;
Out in Denver things are jarred;
And they’re “beefing” in Chicago
That the times are rather hard.
Not much doing in St. Louis;
It’s the same in Baltimore;
Coin don’t rattle in Seattle
As it did in days of yore.
Jobs are scarce around Atlanta
All through Texas it is still.
And there’s very little stirring
In the town of Louisville.
There’s a howl from Cincinnati,
New York City, Brooklyn too;
In Milwaukee’s foamy limits
There is little work to do.
In the face of all such rumors,
It seems not amiss to say
That no matter where you’re going
You had better stay away.