Victims of Fakers.
"You can't get out into the country and walk five miles without finding a victim of the fakers. The farmer has invested in bogus mines, bogus oil wells, bogus stock and bogus other things, and not only lost his money, but come to know that he was as good as robbed of it. The villager has been trapped the same way. It has hardened their hearts and given them the worst view of mankind. You can know nothing of this by telling, nor of the ruin wrought until you get among the people.
"Up to a year or so ago it was seldom that a farmer turned me down. If he had nothing for me to do to earn a meal or lodging he would not turn me away. He most always took me on trust and had no fear that I was a rascal in disguise. It's all changed now. This last summer I was paddling the hoof in Connecticut and Massachusetts, making a sort of grand farewell tour, and it was hard work for me to even get a few apples of the farmers. They used to be full of 'chin' and gossip. They used to hold me for an hour in order to hear all the news. I found them last summer sullen and sulky and calling to me from the fields to move on. In other years the village landlord would set me at work in the stables or with a pail of whitewash in some of the rooms, and in that way I'd pay for my stay. I found a change there.
Hardened by Losses in "Prosperity" Times.
"Three years ago, if you had started out for a day's tramp with me along a country road every farmer we met would have had a 'Howdy' for us, and perhaps stopped for a chin. You'd have heard whistling or singing from every man at work, and the farmer's wife would have called to you that she had some fresh buttermilk. Take such a tramp today and you'll find a tremendous change. I can't estimate the sum the farmers and villagers have been robbed of during the past years of prosperity, but it is something appalling for the whole country. As much and more has been taken out of victims in the cities, but the case is different. The man in the city doesn't pin his faith to an advertisement. He speculates on chance. He is where he can use the law, if needs be. If he loses here he goes at it to get even there. With the other class it is a dead loss, and the swindler can give them the laugh. Take almost any highway you will, leading through almost any state, and eight farmers out of ten have been made victims. Even the man who has not lost above $10 has been hardened by it.
His Feelings Hurt.
"I said that this change hurt me, and so it does. You may be surprised to hear that anything can hurt the feelings of a tramp, but that is because you don't know him. He is looked upon as an outlaw in the cities, but ever since he took the road there has been a sort of bond between him and the dwellers outside. He has paid his way or been willing to. He has asked for little and done little harm. The newspapers have made thousands of farmers tell hard stories about the tramp, but it has been in the newspapers alone. The two have worked together harmoniously.
"Have you got any idea of how the professional conducts himself on the road? No? Well, it won't happen once in a week that you will find one without a little money. It has been earned by hard work. When he stops at a farmhouse he offers to work for a meal. If there is no work he pays cash for what he gets. If he has been padding along for three or four days he will stop and work for half a week if the chance is offered him. In his work he keeps up with the hired man. He washes before he eats. He knows what forks are made for. He carries a clean handkerchief oftener than the man he works for. The average tramp can dress a chicken, kill a pig, empty and fill a straw bed, whitewash a kitchen, paint the house or fence, hoe corn, dig potatoes, run a cultivator, drive a team, split fence rails, dig a well, shingle a roof or rebuild a chimney. He is a handy man. He eats what he gets, sleeps where he is told to and brings the farmer a bigger budget of news than any two of his county papers. When his work is finished he slings his hook and is told to stop again. That's the tramp and that's the farmer just as they have been for the last forty years, and that's the reason I bemoan this change in the farmer. He has been victimized by men he thought were honest, he has been robbed where he trusted, and in changing his feelings toward mankind he must include the tramp, who has never wronged him.
Driven to the Cities.
"Take a walk and you will find those same green meadows, those same brooks, those same lambs, but you won't find Uncle Josh and Aunt Mary any more. A city like this seems a hard-hearted and cruel place, and you shiver at the idea of being dead broke. Let me just tell you that tramps are driven into the cities to recuperate. All the clothing I have had for the last five years has been begged in the city. All the money I have had has come from the dwellers therein. The only kind words I have heard have come from the hurly-burly. Makes you open your eyes, doesn't it? You are still clinging to the old-fashioned ideas of the country.