"Me betters, huh?" cried "Scotchy," ominously swinging his bucket. "This for you," and he brought the bucket perilously near one of the Kickers' heads. Matches were being struck on all sides, and it was not difficult to see. The Kickers framed closely together for their attack. They forgot, or did not know, about my poker. Pretty soon another match was struck. The Kickers had coupling pins, and looked formidable. I was in a shadow. They consolidated their forces against "Scotchy." His bucket, however, stretched one Kicker flat before he had time to defend himself. Total darkness and silence followed. Then a Kicker ventured another match. This was my chance. The long poker shot out, and the point must have hit hard in the temple; at any rate, the wounded Kicker sat down. The remaining Kicker risked still one more light, but on seeing his disabled pals, he made for the door. Too late! Other hoboes, not Kickers, had arrived, "dope" lights were secured, and the story was told. The poor Kickers were "kicked" out of that sand-house as never before or since, I am sure.
Such aggregations of tramps are met with throughout Hoboland, and there are constant clashes between them and itinerant roadsters traversing the gangs' districts. The only thing to do is to fight shy of them when alone, and if in force, to fight them; otherwise they become so arrogant and despotic that no one, not even the mere short distance trespasser, is left unmolested.
In spite of all the chances to get hurt, in feelings as well as physically, that Hoboland offers to all comers, I must repeat that I was able to explore its highways and byways with very few scratches to my credit or discredit. A small scar or two and some tattoo figures constitute all the bodily marks of the experience that I carry to-day. There were opportunities without number for fisticuffs, but, as I have declared, I had long since joined the peace movement, and regularly fought shy of them.
A thirty days' sentence to jail, toward the close of the eight months' trip, hurt and tantalized me more than any of the wrecks on railroads or disputes with bullies. It came unfortunately, in June, the hoboes' favorite month. Sleeping in a box-car at night was my crime. I have described the arrest and general experience in one of my tramp books, but I cannot forbear saying a few words about the judge who sentenced me. At the time, 1889 I think was the year, he was police judge in Utica, N. Y., where in company with a friend, I was caught. The night's batch of prisoners were brought before him at one and the same time—drunks, thieves, runaway boys, train-jumpers, bona fide hoboes and Gay-Cats. The court-room was a dingy little place with benches for the prisoners and officers, and a raised platform with a desk for the judge. I shall never forget how the latter looked—"spick and span" to the last degree in outward appearance, but there was an overnight look in his face that boded us ill, I feared. "Just ez if he'd come out of a Turkish bath," whispered an unfortunate who had been found asleep in the streets. The judge certainly paid little enough attention to our cases to have come from anywhere, but a Turkish bath ought to have left him more merciful. We were all punished according to the judge's whims and the law's limitations, the overnight look on the face of our persecutor, as we considered him, deepening, it seemed, with each sentence. My "thirty-day" fate rolled as easily from his lips as did the five and ten-day pronouncements for the "alcoholics"; he did not seem to know any difference between them. Perhaps, in the years that have intervened, he has been enlightened on this point. I hope so for his sake, at least.
Oliver Atherton Willard. Josiah Flynt's Father.
The sentencing over, we prisoners were taken to our different destinations, mine being the jail at Rome, the Utica prison being crowded. There is little to add here to what I have long since told in print about my stay there; but perhaps I have never emphasized sufficiently the tramp's disgust at having "to do time" in June. From May till November is his natural roving time, his box-car vacation; in winter, jail, even the workhouse is often more of a boon than otherwise. The Rome jail consequently harbored very unwilling guests in the persons of the few tramps lodged there. However, even thirty summer days, precious as they are on the "outside," pass away sooner than one at first expects them to, and then comes that glorious moment—thunder, lightning, not even a pouring rain can mar it—when the freed one is his own master again. There may be other experiences in life more ecstatic than this one, but I would willingly trade them all temporarily for that first gasp in the open air, and that unfettered tread on the ground, which the discharged prisoner enjoys.
Of my status as a tramp in the general social fabric in Hoboland, perhaps enough is said when I report that before quitting the Road, I could have at any time claimed and secured the respect due to the "blowed-in-the-glass" wanderer. Yet I could make myself quite as much at home at a "hang-out" of the Gay-Cats as among the hoboes. Begging for money was something that I indulged in as little as possible; at the start, it was impossible for me to ask for "coin." My meals, however, lodging and clothes were found by me in the same abundance as the old-timer's. I had to have such things, and as asking for them was the conventional way of getting them, I asked persistently, regularly and fairly successfully.
There is nothing to be said in defense of this practice. It is just as much a "graft" as stealing is; indeed, stealing is looked upon in the Under World as by all odds the more aristocratic undertaking. But stealing in Hoboland is not a favorite business or pastime. Hoboland is the home of the discouraged criminal who has no other refuge. His criminal wit, if he had any, has not panned out well, and he resorts to beggary and clandestine railroading as the next best time-killer. Punishment has tired him out, frightened him, and the Road looms up before him spacious and friendly.