Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1890-07-18
WHERE rRAMPs FIND A HAVEN

WHERE TRAMPs FIND A HAVEN
Welcome for All who Come in Need to
Farmer B~eckenbach's Barn.
In Camden County, not far from
Delair, at Worthwhile, lives a plain old
German farmer blessed with q big farm
and abundance of this worlds goods.
his hospitality to the houseless and
homeless wanderers the world call
tramps is known from Maine to New
Orleans and from ocean to ocean. On
the B~eckenbach place is a big barn.
In this barn, in winter and in summer,
and on any day of the year, whether it
be Christmas, New Year, or the Fourth
o July, can be found women with chill
dren in their arms, a shiftless fisher.
man with a ragged suit on him and o
shlllalah in his hands, or some sturdy
and homeless German ~outcast, perhaps
with o trunk on his shoulder trudging
over from the railway station to the
Beckenbach barn, which. by some fine
treemasonry among the tramps of
America, is known as o Saints Rest"
for the homeless wanderer q thousand
miles away, seeking rest or idleness, or,
1t may be, a days work with pilgrim
schoon and scallop she'll"
Ii the stranger sits on the porch of
any one of the farm houses on the main
road leading to Morrisville he will be
greeted at any hour of the day with the
inquiry:
us this the way to Beckenbach's
barn?"
And you can tell with your eves shut
That the inquirer, be he q man or a wo-
man, is seeking q temporary refuge un-
der the of Beckenbach's barn.
Now it will be q frowsy-looking wo-
man, with draggled skirts, half a bon
net, and an old shawl, in one corner of
which is wrapped q baby, not old
enough to walk or talk. If it is a warm
day, she may sit down on the grass,
after getting her bearings and distances
to the barn, with her back up against q
tree, and she may pause long enough to
take O nap, with her head hanging over
one shoulder, while her prattling babe,
unconscious of its shabby personal sur
roundings, crawls through the high
grass or plucks, with tiny fingers, the
daffy-downdillies which dot the sward
like day stars.
Next it may be a great hulking Ger
man, with a military Dir, as if he had
fought with Won Moltke, or in better
days taken q schooner" with Bismarck.
This man wear high-topped boots, with
o great box like a sailors chest, which
is strapped on his shoulders, and
the Teutonic traveller with a big pipe in
his mouth pauses long enough to say
"Vere vos dot Beckenbach's barn %
There will be a score or more along to-
day. looking like F~alstaff's ragged regi
ment, all kings and queens in shreds
t%atters, and patches. And it is a sub
stantive fact that a tramp in Texa.
made an engagement in midwinter witt
a fellow nomad at Ell Paso, saying
"Yah! Jacob, I meets you again wher
dose pease all must be pick't down by
dot Beckenbach barn il jersey" Ant
when the voice of the turtle dove wa
heard in the land, the two tramps dranl
bottled beer together in Beckenbach'
barn after an honest days toll in tn,
generous Germans pea patch at Morris
vile.
Most of these picturesque tramps al
lege that they are seeking work. Som,
of them are, and none go away empt,
handed from the honest Germans plan
tation who are willing to do q fair day.
work for good wages.
They begin by picking peas. Becken
bach's barn is q sort of agricultural ex
change when tho Beloir farmers com
to get field hands, male and female, 70.
the busy season. After the pea season
is over they struggle through the straw
berry furry only to tackle the tomato
vines, which yield the nomad workers
financial harvest Of no mean measure
Then come the red raspberry, the cult
waited blackberry, cherries, and currants
down to the peach season, citrons
canteloupes, and watermelons, anc
when Jack Frost comes the colony o
skies.
There is a boss even among tramps
Spanish Dick is boss of the Becken
bach barn. DR.. Dunbar Hylton says
that Spanish Dick is descended from {
Spanish hidalgo, with a bar sinister
He speaks six languages, and was once
an impresario in Jenny Lind's time a
Castle Garden, but has now descended
to be a boss among the pea-pickers or
the old Germans farm. There are
traces Of dignity and erudition in the
way Hidalgo Dick issues his orders in {
strawberry patch.
Amused at the novel sight of this red
painted barn sheltering so numerous {
family of seemingly contented tramps
I sought the comfortable mansion O.
the German farmer to get from him the
true inwardness of his hospitality to the
transforming nomand.
Beckenbach is a typical German
farmer. Short, even stumpy, in stature
blue-eyed and with gray hair, we'll fed
and evidently a scholar and practica
philosopher.
When I asked him the true history O.
his tramp colony, he said:
II comes to dot place ten years age
when no Beckenbach barn was now al
ready on desc places. In summer time
and in de wedder ven it is d-n cold
come dose tramps, men and women,
JUS like a small army in Alsace. 1t wa
in December month when first dey