The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-06-18
DIARY OF A HOBO
SECOND PApER-By A. B. BnALLn

April Five struck the open road out of Boyee, suburb of Chattanooga, at about 9:3J o'clock this morning and have just reached Summit. Rand McNally & Co.,, may not print Summit on their maps of Tennessee, but 1t exists nevertheless, about eight miles from C---- on the Southern railway. Tom and I ate din- her in a camp of the w. J. Oliver Con struction company, and a good whole some repast it was. More than ever I am of the opinion that MT. Oliver has been treated shabbiy by the federal gov ernment . Between whiles luxuri- atng With cigarette. 1 have been swap ping yarns with two Summittes-the brothers Nolen-both of whom Tive in these parts" l gave them some chewing tobacco and some cigarette papers, the last essential to a good smoke not being trafficked in in Tennessee. "Why can't you buy 'em here?' l asked
 Because" the elder replied "some dern church wimmen down to Nashvul got together and had the sellin of cigareets stopped They wuz too dam high-toned fer cigareets. Now, you kin buy all the snuff you want, anywhar in the state. They wanted snuff sold, all right, all right. Wonder why they didn't git that stopped too?"
 How could I answer. the man? Neither Nolen or I can explain the selhshness of
 
 Afternoon-We have just walked into Ootewah. Ootewah has six stores and S79 souls and bodies. I say 'souls and bodies,' for I wish to include all of the lnhabitants-even the town constable, who, l am informed, arrested hobo this morning for train riding and put him in the calaboose. No man with soul would do a thing like that. I didn't count the inhabitants, but I figured the number at | 379 after receiving some data from the druggist. We rendezyoused with this seller of ancient physical rather silent, good sort of chap, ready enough with answers. But the stiffness of Ootewah seemed to oppress him. 1 conclude this to be the case-not business reasons sure ly-for two possible customers entered his store in the last hour 1 saw no one enter the other five stores. Or, perhaps, he's an altrurian, and he sorrowed to see all the customers of the afternoon come to him. insist on the stiffness hypothe- sis as the most probable.
 April 27-Considering the price paid-a sleepless nght-I consider the experi- ence just had the one I'd most reluctant ly give up of all we've passed through. l Eager to get away from Ootewah, Tom and 1 loitered about the station, waiting for an eastbound freight train. Our ride from Fort Payne to Chattanooga proved so pleasing that we decided to take a trip on a somewhat bigger scale, viz: to Knoxville on a through freight We were told a train would pass about 4:30; in- stead it came at 7:30-Soutsern locomo- tive No. 19, with about -f cars attached. We boarded the sixth of the string which we found to be partly filled with immense cast iron pipes, twenty in all These were piled in two tiers of ten each, a space being left at either end of the car, which was an old-fashoned open freight. Be- tween the tiers a space was left of about eight feet providentially left, 1t seemed to us, making an ideal place to elude vlgiant eyes. Here we crouched, ex- ulting and shaking hands. for the first ten miles of the journey We decided that the car held, in addition to the big pipes two of the biggest brained, most saEacious tourists east of the Ohio We marveled at the good sense which prompt ed us to come to Ootewah, and again at our evasion of the train crew, and we shook hands again, and laughed good fashioned This joy-fest was ill-advised, I think for the fagman came over the car next us, with a flickering lantern. behind which showed greasy, tobacco sandwiched smile. At the moment 1t seemed quite -Mephistophelian.
 "Where yo' fellers goin ?"
 "Knoxville. That all right?" I said.
 "How much money yo' got?'
 "Dollar," I said, inwardly grieving, yet with apologies for offering such trivial amount to so august a person. With few parting words of caution that we Hay low" at stations, he passed on over the forward car on his business Of graft There was delay of two and half hours at Cleveland. When we had grown weary of waiting for the train to move, and had about decided to quit the train and find a bed to sleep in, the yard watchman informed us that our train would be delayed some time, but that another on the adjoining track would leave in A few minutes. And so we trans ferred our knapsacks and selves to car, open, as the one we were leav- ing, but in no other way identical. For