A hunt for supper in Cohoes afforded me a great deal of amusement, for I was entertained by an alderman's wife. At any rate, she told me, while I was eating my supper in the large restaurant dining-room, that her husband, eating his supper in a private room on the floor below, was a village father and a hater of tramps. "But don't worry," she said; "he shall not bother you while I'm around. I always feed a hungry man, and I always shall. I can't understand how some people can turn away from the door any one who claims to be hungry. If I should do this, I would expect to be hungry myself before long." A freight-train passed by the house while I was at the table, and my hostess noticed my anxiety to be aboard of it. "Never mind," she said; "there'll be plenty of freights along a little later, and this is a good place to catch them, for there is a grade here, and you can keep away from the station, where you might be arrested." I remembered this woman throughout my journey, and every tramp that I met bound in this direction was advised of her house. I think it would hardly be so good another year.
From Cohoes to Schenectady is only a short ride, and it seemed as if I had been asleep in the box-car only a few minutes when Ohio Red, who was with me, cried out, "Cigarette, we're in the yards; let's get out." We slept in a box-car overnight. This is an odd way of resting. The coat, vest, and shoes are taken off, then the shoes are made into a pillow, the vest is laid over them, and the coat is thrown over the shoulders. So sleep most of the tramps during the warm months.
After an early breakfast, we went over to the hang-out on the eastern side of the town. Thirteen rovers were already there, cooking a conventional meal. They had begged meat, potatoes, bread, and coffee, and had stolen some other vegetables, besides a kettle, and were now anxiously watching the fire. Two more vagrants, who had been looking for cigar-stubs in the town, came in later. Their pockets were well filled, and they divided equally their findings. This "snipe" chewing and smoking is the most popular use of tobacco in trampdom, and is even preferred to "store brands" of the weed, which are easily begged. About dinner-time a man came out to the camp, and offered every one of us the job of shoveling sand for a dollar and a half a day, the work to continue into November. He might better have stayed away. The tramps told him that they had just left as good a job as that in Buffalo, and were now looking for three dollars a day!
At nightfall sixteen tramps, including myself, boarded a freight-train bound west. I was now on the main line of the New York Central, and had no further need to fear any large amount of walking. During the night ride I had an interesting talk with the brakeman at my end of the train. I was in a "gondola" (open car), and he espied me from the top of a box-car, and came down. "Hello, young fellow!" he said. "Where are you travelin' to?" "Just up the road a bit, boss," I answered. "Well, let's go to the other end of the car, where we won't catch the cinders; I've got one in my eye now filin' it to pieces. Can you take it out, d' you think?" he asked. I held his lantern on my arm, and looked for the cinder, which was soon out. Just then the train whistled for Fonda, and the brakeman said: "You want to lay low here, for there's a watchman in the yards. I'll bring you a bit to eat out of my pail after we pull out." He returned, when we were again started, with a parcel of food, and began to speak of the towns up the road. "Utica," he said, "if you intend gettin' your breakfast there in the mornin', is sort of a snide place, this time of the year. You see, the hop-pickers are around there, and the police always arrest a lot of 'em, and you fellows are likely to be jugged too. This town that we've just left, however, is the meanest one on the road. I was comin' through here about a week ago, and didn't know there was a bum on the train. The watchman scouted around, and found three of 'em in a box-car, and yanked 'em all up. If I'd known they were round, I'd 'a' posted 'em about this town, but I hadn't an idea they were there. I hate to see a lad get pulled for ridin' a train, because I've been broke myself, and I know what it is to be on the road. I'll always carry a man on my train if I can. But of course you know that sometimes the con [conductor] is a mean devil, and we can't do anything that'll give him a grudge ag'in' us; if he should see a bum on the train, he might report us. So you see what risks we run. But I've given many a lad a ride, and I'm always willing to be square to a square plug [fellow]." This is a typical kind-hearted Eastern brakeman, and the tramps like him.
A DIVISION.
In Utica I made the acquaintance of a roadster called "Utica Biddy." I met him at the tramp camp just outside of the town, near the R. W. & O. R. R. tracks, where twenty-six other loafers were waiting for three of their fellow-travelers to return from the hop-country, in order to help spend their money. Biddy is one of the best-known tramps on the New York Central, and he gave me more information about the districts around Syracuse and Utica than I could possibly have accumulated single-handed. While riding in a box-car from Utica to Syracuse we had a long conversation, and the following is the substance of what he told me:
"I've been a bum on the division of this railroad from Albany to Syracuse for the last four years. I've had my three squares every day, and in winter I've had a bed every night. I know you'll hardly believe this, for some of you beggars come up to this country and curse it because you don't get on the spot what you want. Now, I'll give you a few pointers about these towns. We've just left a town [Utica] where I can go to over a score of houses and get a square meal whenever I want it. Of course I was born there, and that may make a bit o' difference, but I can do the same in Rome, Albany, and Syracuse. I've been on this beat so long and have watched my chances so carefully that I know now just where to go when hungry. I hear a great many tramps kick about Utica, its policemen and snide houses. But if a lad will just knuckle down for a month or so and hunt out the good houses, make himself acquainted with the tough policemen and keep out of their way, find good barns for a doss at night, and make a business of bummin' carefully, there's not a town on the Central that ain't good. The trouble with you strange blokes is this: you come up here, booze, draw your razors when you're drunk, do too much crooked work, and o' course the people get hostile. Why, see how many lads are workin' my racket over in Pennsylvania. You know yourself that on the Pennsy [Pennsylvania Railroad] line there are tramps who not only bum within a division, but inside of subdivisions, and can chew whenever they like. But they do this 'cause they're foxy and have had their boozin' knocked out of them. Now, those lads that we left back in Utica will more than likely get sloughed into jail when they get to boozin'. You can't expect the people to stand such stuff as that. And these are the kind of fellows, too, who jigger our ridin' on this railroad. They get drunk, and if they want to ride and can't find an empty car, they break a seal In Syracuse, Biddy, in order to prove his acquaintance with the town, told me of a house where I was certain of getting something to eat. I followed his instructions, and got exactly what I went for—a good dinner. The great excitements in Syracuse, I found, were a big drunk and the State fair. I have never seen such a number of tramps together at one time. Between De Witt and Syracuse there was a camp of fifty, and there were twenty empty beer-kegs lying around in the grass. Some of the fellows were sick, others had sick clothes, and many of the rest were in fine shape for a free fight. There were two well-dressed tramps whom I immediately recognized as "fawny men"—fellows who sell bogus jewelry for more than it is worth. One of these men was a notorious roadster of American birth, who, for purposes best known to himself, went by the name of "Liverpool George." He is the most successful fawny man that I have ever met. He earned twenty-two dollars in one day at the fair by selling for two dollars apiece rings which can be bought in Buffalo for two dollars a dozen. The tramps call this worldly success.