Tramps—that is, the bad ones among them—are very often insolent when they find no one but women in the house. Once a man I knew was working in Indiana, but having a bad headache he remained in one morning. By-and-by a truculent-looking tramp came along. "Kin you give us suthin' to eat, ma'am?" he growled. "Certainly," said the woman, who was always kind to travellers. She set about making him a meal and put out some bread and meat. The tramp, who certainly did not look hungry, eyed it with disfavour. "Bah!" said he at last, with intense contempt; "I don't want that stuff. D'ye think I'm starving? A'nt you got suthing nice—say, some strawberry shortcake and cream?" The woman stared with astonishment, as well she might. But the man with the headache heard Mr Tramp's remarks. There was a shot-gun hanging in the room where he was; so, slipping off the bed, he reached for the weapon, walked out quietly, and, thrusting the muzzle of the gun under the tramp's ear, he roared in a fierce voice "Get!" And, to use the vernacular, the tramp "got" instantly.
The last story I will tell of tramps is perhaps the most audacious of all. I met the chief actor in British Columbia. It appears that he and another man went one Sunday to a very respectable farmhouse in Illinois to beg for food. They knocked and there was no answer. They knocked again, and still without avail. Then they opened the unlocked door and went in. The dining-table was laid ready for a feast, as it seemed, for it was adorned with an admirable cold collation, including a turkey, several fowls, and a number of pies. The eyes of my acquaintance and his partner sparkled. Here was a chance, for the family was at church. They went out, got a sack, and hastily tumbled into it the turkey, the fowls, some bread, and the most substantial pies. Just as it was getting full one looked out of the window and saw a man coming up the path. They were struck with terror of discovery, but on watching they soon saw that this was a tramp like themselves. He came up and knocked at the door. "Can you give me something to eat, sir?" he asked humbly. "I guess so," said my acquaintance, coolly; "that is, if you ain't one of the tramps that won't work. Will you cut some wood for your dinner?" "Of course I will," said the tramp, gladly, and he went to the wood pile. While he was at work the two spoilers of the Egyptians departed through the back door, and went about a hundred yards to the corner of a wood, where they laughed till they cried. The result of their manœuvre was sure to be too good to be lost, so one of them climbed up a tree and watched. In about a quarter of an hour he saw a string of men and women coming towards the house, and still the working tramp made the chips fly. On entering the yard one of the men went up to interview him, and by the tramp's gestures it was evident that he was explaining that he had been set to work. Meanwhile, the women went in, but came out again in a moment, shrieking with indignation. The next sight was the farmer armed with a stick belabouring the astonished worker, who fled across the fence incontinently. He was followed to the very verge of the wood, and then the exhausted "mossback" left him to return to the house. "It was just the funniest thing I ever saw," declared my unabashed friend; "and to see that poor fellow get whipped for our sins nearly killed me. But I tell you we rewarded him for his labour after all. We found him sitting on a stump rubbing himself all over, and invited him to dinner with us. So, you see, he got the grub we promised him, and he didn't work for nothing, for that would just kill a tramp."
TEXAS ANIMALS
The fauna of Texas is very varied, and a naturalist may find plenty there for his note-book, and much to reflect on, if he be a contemplative man. A hunter may satisfy himself, too, if he goes into the extreme west and north-west, but he must be quick about it, for I received a letter years ago from a friend of mine in the south part of the Panhandle of Texas, in which he told me that all the land was getting fenced in, even in those parts that I knew in 1884 as wide and open prairie, and when fences come the beasts go, deer and antelope retreat, and "panther" or cougar are hunted and shot by those who own sheep, cattle and horses. I am no naturalist, and no great hunter. At the risk of causing a smile of contempt I must confess that I can hold a shot-gun, a "double-pronged scatter-gun," or a rifle in my hands without shooting at anything I see. I have let antelope and deer pass me without even letting the gun off, and have spared squirrels and birds innumerable that most of my friends would have promptly slain; but I take great interest in animal life, and am fond of watching the denizens of prairie or forest.
When on my friend Jones's ranche in 1884 I sometimes went wild turkey hunting or potting; we used to choose a moonlight night and lie under the trees, where they roosted, and shoot them on the branches. It was mere butchery, and the sole excitement consisted in the doubt as to whether any of the big birds would come or not, and the chief interest to me was the conversation of my wild Texan friends, who were stranger than turkeys to me.
There were not many birds of prey around us, except the big slow-sailing turkey-buzzards, which are protected by law as useful scavengers. Nevertheless, I shot at one once, and having missed it I never tried again.
My great friends were the hares or jackrabbits, which are fast, but very easy to shoot, for if I saw one coming my way, loping or cantering along, I stood stock-still, and he would come past me without taking the least notice of my presence, probably imagining I was only a curious-shaped stump. Sometimes I found them in the dry arroyos or water-courses, and threw stones at them. They rarely ran away at once at full speed, but for the most part went a little distance and sat up to look at me, waiting for two or three stones, until they made up their minds that I was decidedly dangerous.
Another little animal was the cotton-tail rabbit, so called from the white patch of fur under the tail, which is as bright as cotton bursting from the pod, I killed one once more by impulse than anything else. It ran from under my feet when I had a knife in my hand. I threw it at the rabbit, and to my surprise knocked it over, for I am a very bad shot with that sort of missile.