CHAPTER VII
HOBOES ON THE TRAMP
Although he realized that his lines had fallen in pleasant places for the enumeration work, it was not without a certain sense of satisfaction that Hamilton entered up what was marked on the map as the last house, and started for the supervisor's office. He was a day ahead of time, and was congratulating himself on his success in having covered the entire district in the appointed time. In order to make his record as good as possible the lad thought he would get an early start and be in the supervisor's office before noon, thus emphasizing his punctuality. Accordingly it was but a little after seven o'clock when he was in the saddle and on the road.
Knowing from experience that the highway made quite a circuit to reach a little group of three houses, which he had already enumerated, Hamilton struck out across country, using a little footpath through some woods. At that early hour of the morning he was not expecting to meet any one, and it was a great surprise to him when he heard voices. A moment later he reached a small clump of trees, and came right upon three men, one with a tea-pot in his hand, standing up and leaning a little forward as though ready to show aggressiveness to any intruder, the other two on the ground, one sitting, and one lying half asleep on some boughs carelessly thrown down. As Hamilton was still in his enumeration district and felt that here were some people who might not have been registered, he pulled up.
"'Morning, boys!" he said ingratiatingly.
"Howdy!" the impromptu cook replied, and waited for the boy to go on.
"I'm the census-taker for this district," the boy continued, "and I knew this was a short cut across the fields; but I didn't know I should find you here."
"Inform the gentleman, Bill," spoke the traveler who was lying down, "that we were equally unaware of the unexpected pleasure of this meeting but that we would have been better prepared to meet him had he sent a courier to announce his coming."
"You heard him," the first speaker supplemented jerking his thumb over his shoulder.