The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1893-05-01
THE OLD TRAMP.


ed, and as it may appear strange that .
tramp stealing ride will abandon il
unless assisted in SO doing by some
brakeman it is best to explain that he
intended going west and found himself
nicely slowed away in boiler on a cal
going east. This was unpleasant, anc
as he stuck his head through manhoe
and realized he was going back over the
weary miles of the previous days tramp
he did what many another man and
brother has done-jumped.
1t was not a successful Jump. He
turned over endwise number of times
and lit on his head in a swamp. He
was pretty firmly planted, and he kick
ed worse than a towpath mule. He
had been in that fix before, and he
knew that the kicking would loosen his
head in the mud. 1t did, but somehow
it loosened a shoe and sent it flying in
the water where he failed to find it, and
there he sat on the log tying himself
together after he had taken an inven-
tory to learn if he was all there.
Disguised with railroads he struck
for the interior. His prospects were
not promising Locomoton was not
good with only one shoe, so he cut a
crutch and got along better for the first
day as a lame man, wounded in the
charge on Vicksburg, in the Thirteenth
army corps. This secured him an old
shoe at a country store, and collection
was taken up for him. 1t netted him
cents, but he believed it would have
been II had it not been for loose lin
ing in the hat of the benevolent indi-
vidual who took up the collection.
Throwing away the crutch when be
got over the hill, he stopped as an able
bodied man for two days at farm and
helped repair fences; then he wandered
on westward, sleeping in a barn the
first night afterward and losing the tail
of his coat the next morning through
the united sentiments of dogs jaw, as
the canine remained upon one SIDE of
a fence, and the tramp went over on
the other.
After that he travelled better; he was
lighter; besides the old Coattails used
to scare him, tapping around in the
wind suddenly and Unexpectedly, and
make him think he was going to be
robbed. A tramp generally hasn't got
much, but sometimes an old string that
keeps his shoe on is as precious in his
sight as a womans new spring bonnet
The next night he stopped at large
old farmhouse, where he had soon the
sympathy of the farmers wife and was
comfortably seated in the kitchen wait
ing for supper when her husband
returned home He had told her
apparently the true and pathetic story
of his life. Raised on a farm in
Missouri, he had in his early manhood
taught school and then clerked in a
store, and afterward selling his little
patrimony invested the proceeds in a
country store, which the bushwhackers
of the late war had robbed and burned,
then he drifted away and taught school
again and did most anything for a living,
until at last, a poor, solitary old tramp,
there he was in her kitchen asking for
food and shelter for the night.
"Come, get out and travel, " exclaim-
ed the farmer as he saw the tramp;
"you can't stop here"
"Now, John, let him stay; it's dark
and looks like rain," said the farmers
wife pleadingly; "he's been as well off
once as we are.
ooh, that's what these tramps all
say-all rich, first families in the land,
blueblooded stock all of them; can't
any Of them eat pork and potatoes
raised on chicken. We haven't got
anything he'd eat"
"Hush, John; don't talk that way
Remember he is a human being,
and we ought to do unto others as we'd
have them do unto u.s. We might be
homeless some day"
Reluctantly the farmer yielded to
his wife's wishes, and after a good sup
per the old tramp was permitted to
sleep in little room in the back porch,
used as a granary or harness room.
Suddenly, in the dead hour of night,
the household was aroused, and there
was terrible excitement.
The house was on fire, all in blaze
around the stairway, burning like a
finder box and rapidly cutting off
access to the upper rooms, in which
three children was sleeping, Farmers
seldom know what to do in case of fire.
They GO rushing around, all excited,
catching up old saddles and bookings
chairs and forgetting more valuable
things. So it was some moments after
the farmer and his wife and one OF
two farmhands, and the tramp had
rushed out in the front yard before the
children were missed from the group,
and all that time the flames and smoke
had been filling the lower rooms and
rapidly working upward.
"Oh, my children, my children p
shrieked the poor woman, rushing
around frantically "Save them, John;
for Gods sake, save them p
The farmer rushed into the room,
and looking hopelessly upward at the
burning stairway was driven back by
the heat and dropped down in despair
with his hands over his face.
"Too late, too late, they are gone p
exclaimed one of the farmhands.
"I'll get 'em out for you, ma'am.