The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1907-10-26
TRAMP TALKS.
The Dilapidated Gentleman as a Story
Teller.

THE popular idea of a tramp said
the D1lapidated Gentleman as he pock-
eted quarter on the c. o. d. principle
lis that he is a liar and thief. Moth
ing could be more erroneous. He has
less cause to lie than the merchant.
There is more thievery among ten clerks
in store, than among 80 tramps.
F1rstly, tramp simply asks for food.
lodging and old, clothes. There is no
call for him to lie about anything. He
is tramp, the people know him for a
tramp, and they give or refuse because
he is tramp.
Secondly, neither the tramp nor the
farmer considers ut. stealing when the
former gathers asrfew apples or turnips,
or raises a chicken from the roost to
broil beside the roadside. The tramp
that would even steal an ak from the
farmers woodptle would be called
fool by the fraternity.
Il was once arrested on charge of
having stolen calf from a farmer.
They said the case looked black against
me, but when my lawyer arose and
asked what l could do with a calf the
affair went to pieces in a jiffy. Nine
tenths of the crimes charged to tramps
are committed by persons supposed to
be honest.
"A farmer wakes up in the night and
finds his barn in flames. 1t is laid to
tramps who were lodging there. If
tramp had bed on the hay he was a
heap more careful than the farmer him
tramp food that evening there was no
spirit of revenge. The tramp expects
about so many rebuffs and takes them.
philosophically. He likes his freedom
too well to commit crime that's going
to shut him up for years.
when l spoke about the average
tramp not being liar didn't mean to
imply that he never yarned it, The sue.
cessfu1 tramp is a good story-teller. He
has to be. The people he meets ex-
pect him to be. The man who sticks
to the solid truth starves to death in
side of year. No matter how ragged
and unkempt he is certain halo of
romance surrounds him. If he has got
a yarn to spin he is listened to and
fed; if he hasn't he can hump along,
for the farmer has no use for him.
Il learned this fact early in the game,
and L am still working on the idea. I'll
put good yarn against dollar green
back any day in the year and win out
SO times in a hundred.
What sort of yarns do tell? That's
accoring to time, place and circum-
stance. Well say that I strike a farm
house along about 1 o'clock in the after
nocn. That's good hour, for the men
have had good dinner and gone back
to the fields. find a woman, or mother
and daughter IN the kitchen. 1 look
earnestly at the woman and ask if her
name is Green y No, it's Brown, and
why do 1 ask? Because 1 met a young
man on a highway in louisiana in u
his last he appealed to me to let his
mother in Ohio know that his last
thoughts were of her, and her name was
Green.
That's the opening chapter. If she
has son the chances are that he is in
the field with his father but she is in
terested in that dying boy~just the
same She puts the remains of the din
ner on the table and asks me to sit
down, and while eat she asks me many
questions and has tears in her eyes be-
fore she is through. I don't lie to her
yarn. I describe that dying boy to
hair I remember every word he utter
ed I recall how a shudder took him at
last. L tell how I went for help, and
how with my own hands, 1 dug the
grave in which he was buried. 1t al
ways means a full meal to me, and often
am invited to remain over night
That's a pretty good yarn to work
off on a rnother1y woman 1t does no
harm whatever On the contrary it
keeps her heart sympathetic towards
humanity If it be an old maid instead
of a matron L work the racket little
different. 1 simply ask for a drink OF
water lifting my old hat and smiling at
the same time. She cannot refuse that
When I have drank I remark:
Missy, I beg a thousand pardons.
but We're you not in New Orleans at
the time of the last Mardf Gras?
% Never was there in my life "
Then it's a most singular thing.
Please don't think me rude for staring
"'Pd take my dying oath that you
were the young lady who was queen Of
the festival and rode in the gileed char
lot drawn by six white horses !"
'ewell. I'm not telling the truth, but