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.”