, 1919-03-13
Poor, Crazy
Hobo"
oo
BY EDWIN BALMKR

mixed freight, west bound. Short
handed and overloaded Give in the
crew and eighty-three cars), she had
"broken'' twice, stopped for hot box
four times, and had been forced to
double over every hill from Crews to
Stockton.
Therefore, at Benton she had "laid
OUT No. II, east-bound passenger; at
Jefferson she had held up No 80, the
fast freight of refrigerated perishables
rushing to Chicago; at Evans she had
delayed passenger Nc. 10 for half an
hour; at Brunswick she had held back
passenger No. "a; and last, at Tavern
she had laid out, for almost an hour,
the crack Transcontinental Express No.
8, east bound.
In ten minutes No. 80 would com
plete the calendar by laying out No. 10
also, the twin Transcontinental rush
ing up from behind. The siding at
Stockton (Which the freight had been
allowed fifty minutes to reach from
Tavern, ten miles hack) was still eight
miles ahead, and forty of the fifty min
utes were gone.
The crew, out thirty-eight hours,
were exhausted, exasperated, humili-
ated. They had freighted too long
to mind the mere thirty-eight hours
exhaustion and evaporation, but this
time the humiliation was overdone.
Their superiors had Inundated them
personally and pointedly at the larger
towns and by wire at the stops between.
Their equals on the other trains had
humbled them as they skunk into the
sidings; but what was entirely intol-
cradle, their interiors and worse, the
very hobos stealing rides on the train,
had Knocked them and rubbed it in.
Thirty hobos a boarded the train
at the hill beyond Tavern, o%verborne
the weak crew, broken into a car Of
foodstuffs, and, after eating what they
wanted, had scattered the rest along
the right Of way till it had ceased to
amuse them.
The crew had found it best to sulk
very silently in the caboose at the end
Of the train till the volley of stones
smashing through the windows told that
the tramps had departed. Then, as
one man, the crew of No. 80 sprang for
ward for revenge.
The object was still asleep in the
empty" at the middle of the train.
The crew had come upon him some
hours before; but that was before they
had learned the personal advantages
Of enforcing the rule to eject tramps,
and before they had laid out the last
two passenger trains and the Trans
continental, and received the tele-
graphic comments thereon.
Harring kicked the object tt con-
sciousness while Kalvert and Bender,
n on each side, picked him up. One
Of the others opened wider the big door
of the box car.
"One," Harring remarked, with an
other kick, as Kalvert and Bender
swung the hobo between them.
"Two," Harring kicked again. No.
30, in a last squirt to. reach the siding
before No. 10 could overtake it, put on
speed and jumped ahead, but the men
in the car did not heed it.
"ThreeI" The hobo, at the touch of
Harring's foot, swung free from the
hands on either side and dove out
through the door in a low parabola. A
howl! and for an instant a gray gap
dppCulcu III liz uyluS HtuRt DtSlue the
track.
Hes hit the road" muttered Har-
ring. "What do you want to hurt a
man for?' He blamed 1t upon the
others. "Why couldn't you let him go
into the bush?"
Kalvert. spat upon the floor, but
turned his face away from the lantern.
Were hitting it up" he observed
carelessly. 'The damned hobo"
Bender grunted gruffiy.
The hobo drew himself up on his
hands. He felt stunned and deadened
all over, and was conscious more of a
battered dizziness than of pain. He had
a numbed understanding that he must
have been quite senseless after he
struck-not for very long, but for a
few moments anyway.
Yet as he dragged himself around
and sat up, he saw that he could scarce
~ have lost consciousness. They had
thrown him off halfway around a
curve, and the red light of the caboose
was still visible at the farther horn of
the crescent.
He gazed at 1t stupidity and rubbed
his eyes with his swollen knuckIes, but
still the red light persisted there, and
1t came to him slowly that the train
must have stopped.
The wagon road the tramp had been
thrown upon might lead to a town, but
he couldn't tell how far Off it might
be. or in which direction. The train
was there, n now that he was hurt
the hobo thought he might get the crew
to let him ride to the next station IL
not, he might hide himself somehow.
He was wondering only whether he
could catch them in time to ask them
to let him on again; and II they
wonidn't. he was planning where he
might hide from them.
Then he saw that something was
the matter with the train. The cars