The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-03-15
"HONLE. SWEET HOME"
The Preacher Moralizes Over Song of a
Tramp a Railway Train.


Tramp on a Railway Train.
From Burdette's Sermon, in Brooklyn Eagle.
Now when the day was far spent girded up
my loins and gat me to the train. And il was
No %. mail express, going east on l4s time, for
the snow was deep. Twenty-Five was three
hours late, and IA was abandoned. Dimly
lighted was the car and cold. Men curled up
in their overcoats and hated one another, and no
man spake to his neighbor by reason of the cold
and the delay. Twinkling past go the station
lights, white and cold lay the dlifted fields, and
with rattle and jar the train crept along. Two
seats ahead of me a seedy looking man, bereft of
his overcoat, and not fastidious as to collar. be
gan to whistle Usually the note of the rail
road warbler wakens our ire, but we all listened
to this man. Mellow as flute notes rose his
many puckered whistle "Home, Sweet Home. y
At the first line urly-looking men sat up to
hear, Mid pleasures and palaces" Not often
did the seedy whistler roam amid very gorgeous
palaces, we wot. Scant indeed must be the pleas
ures of a man without an overcoat on stormy
night in March. BE it ever so humble" we
followed the air with the words as we listened
and the stranger seemed to be breathing his
very soul into the song All, yes, humble his
home might be, as lowly indeed was his state
but welcome and warm love light from watching
eyes and the home light from the rudy hearth
the clinging arms of little ones waited for him.
and we were glad of it. The very car grew
warmer as he whistled Into the distant cor
ner, away down by the wood-box, the mellow
d
There's no place like home;" why it swelled out
into the very storm with its passionate longing
1t made those of us who were not going home
homesick down to the soul. IA wandrer from
home"-there were tears in the melody; no alien
splendor could dazzle a heart so home-loving
''Oh, give me the lowly matched cottage again, "
came fairly sobbng in the tender, bird-like notes,
and then again the Home, sweet home" refrain,
sympathetic rich, plaintive yearning.
The train slowed up, stopped the conductor
n abPuOt1V no mi viii q WAY
in a scarce audible sigh.
Come said the conductor, II can't carry
you any further"
The whistler rose, and as he vainly fumbled
for button on his buttonless coat, started for
the rear door.
This way" shouted the conductor, and the
whistler meekly turned and walked out by the
forward door. A lantern swings out from the
step, the train moves on. and the homeless whist
Ter is shivering out in the snow.
what station is this, CONDUCTOR"
''No regular station. It's crossing. Sta
TONS two miles further down. Don't stop
there"
where did that fellow get on?"
"Climbed on at the tank, when we took water
about twenty miles back"
Came from nowhere, got off at nowhere, had
nowhere to go, and whlstled Sweet Home" till
he made us all cry All me- | wish | had given
him quarter But that's me. My good i'm
pulses are always slow. l never think of the
quarter IN time, unless | am on the sleeping-car.
And then the porter, who is a believer in prac-
teal and prompt benevoence, always helps me
to think of it. But the tattered whistler, whose
lips dropped music like the singing of the birds
when the vines with the tender grapes give a
good smell, why should he be bounced out into
the night and the storm, when fare for his ride
and bread for his mouth were right here in a
dozen pocketsl Then | saw that the race is not
to the swift, the battle to the strong neither
yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of
understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill;
but time and chance happeneth to them all"