Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1906-05-13
PRETTY GIRL TURNS HOBO
said TO he the First of Her sex to
Make Ions Journey by
Stealing Ride.

An 1s-year-old Chicago girl enjoys the
distinction of being the first Of her sex
to make long journey by stealing a ride
on a freight train. 1t is not strictly true
to say that she enjoys this distinction.
When her experience was over she de-
clared emohatically that life on the
rolling freight did not appeal to her.
EMO more hobo life for me-" exclaimed
Miss Sarah Hansen, as she crawled out OF
q box car
Miss Hansen is a stenographer Her
parents live in Chicago but she had Job
in st. Louis. Thrown out of this by the
firms failure, she tried in vain to find an
other Job.
First her slender savings melted away.
Then she pawned her clothing, piece by
piece, till she had only one suit left. Her
parents were 2oor, so that she could not
appeal to them for help.
She did appeal to one of the firm for
whom she had worked asking him to lend
her the money for a ticket back to Chi
cago. The reply she received made her
decide that anything would be better than
to trust to appeals for help.
She was at the end of her resources,
when it suddenly occurred to her that
she had heard of people travelling without
railway tickets and that what other folks
had done Sarah Hansen could do too.
On the spur of that inspiration she made
for the freight yards of the Chicago &
Alton railroad. There she found an en-
barrassment in riches in the line of
| freight trains
They were scooting up and down and
switching back and forth in the most dis
concerning manner, for 1t was impossible
to this new recruit to the hobo profession
to decide in which direction any one train
would ultimately decide to depart. An
angel in the very unusual disguise of a
I small boy appeared and told her that No.
6, on the third track, was the Chicago
freight. That was welcome information.
Slipping away from the small boy angel,
Miss Hansen stole along in the shadow of
No until she came to the open door of
a box car half full of tiles. She climbed
in and crawled into the corner to await
developments.
shape of two other hoboes, who were not
pretty girls, or even girls at all. One of
them had actually climbed into the car
and had turned to assist his brother
knight of the road, when an approaching
brakeman caused them both to take a
hurried departure.
| Miss Hansen rode all night on her none
too soft bed of tiles. Morning came and
hour after hour went by without her icing
molested. At Joliet she crawled to the
door for the purpose of spying out to land
and discovering her whereabouts.
! Instead of discovering, however she
was herself discovered, for at the door
she came face to face with the brake
man. 1t was a tossup which of them
was the more disturbed by the encounter
When the amazed brakeman managed
| to demand the why and wherefore of her
presence in his car Miss Hansen burst
into tears and told him all about 1t.
WELL" said the brakeman: II thought
I'd seen every kind o. hobo that ever beat
a freight train. but you're the first lady
hobo that ever came my wayi" ,- %. n
Whereupon, like a gentleman and q
philanthropist. he emptied his pockets OF
their contents, which were 60 cents, and
handed the amount to Miss Hansen with
the advice to complete her journey via
the trolley line. The girl took both the
money and the advice got herself the first
food she had tasted in twenty-four hours
and departed forever. so she vowed, from
the ranks of the hoboes.-New York Sun