Beggars of life a hobo autobiography sample

View more libraries After killing her treacherous step-father, a girl tries to escape the country with a young vagabond. She dresses as a boy, they hop freight trains, quarrel with a group of hobos, and steal a car in their attempt to escape the police and reach Canada. A bestseller in , in this vivid piece of outlaw history Jim Tully takes us across the seamy underbelly of pre-WWI America on freight trains, and inside hobo jungles and brothels while narrowly averting the cops.

The author chose life on the road over a deadening job, through his teenage years of learning the ropes of the rails and living one meal to the next. The Kangaroo Court. A Switch Is Thrown. A MixUp. The Roads Diverge. A Woman And A Man. A Turn In The Road. An Election Victory. The Victory Ball. An Easy Ride. Places United States. Edition Availability 1.

Beggars of life , Kent State University Press. Paperback in English - Facsimile Ed edition. Beggars of life. Beggars of life , Garden City. Beggars of life , A. Classifications Library of Congress HV The Physical Object Pagination p. Number of pages I had another brother, Tom, killed long since in old Mexico. He died, a skull-cracked adventurer and prospector at twenty-five.

He was in Arizona at the time and I wanted to join him but he discouraged me. He wanted me to get an education. I wondered then why that loyal three always wanted me to go to school. I can hear the splendid dead rover still saying, "Jim boy, you're going to get somewhere some day just as sure as God put worms in sour apples. I j ust know it and I knew it when we were kids in the orphans' home.

Don't you never give up, Jim, by God don't you never, you got it in you, and by God you show all the bastards who think the Tullys are a lot o' trash, just because dad was a drunken ditch digger. The postscript was: "If I win out in this country, Jim, you will share it with me - if I lose I will share it alone. I recalled the time in Van Wert County when it was twenty-eight degrees below zero and my body had frozen blue because the tiller of the soil would not buy me underwear.

I God damned him in my heart and swore under my breath that when I got big enough I would go back there and trounce hell out of him. I glowed with this thought and nursed it as the train rolled along. I wondered why people were so mean to kids. Nearly every kid I knew who had been sent to farmers from the orphanage had run away because they could not stand the treatment.

Neither Ivy nor myself had reached the age of puberty though we had desire for each other. Boroff was a religious fanatic every winter and he would go to revival meetings and often take his half-crazy wife with him, leaving me with Ivy. Alone in the house, Satan would come to 7 8 Be g g a rs o f Li fe tempt us right near the large family Bible.

Ivy asked me not to tell, and I didn't, and neither did Ivy. She went to Sunday-school every Sunday and kept her secret well. I often smile when I hear people say that a woman cannot keep a secret. Ivy was a lovely little girl. Her breasts were as round and hard as apples and her limbs were white as marble. I met her years later and she gave all she had tried to give as a child.

But I digress. Women are such fascinating subjects. Her cheeks glowed red and her breath was hot. She died later of quick consumption. He used words I did not like, and a revulsion came over me. Strange, down, far down in the gutters where nothing but the sludge and murk of life rolled by, I was never to overcome my revulsion from the filth of it all.

If my clothing was lousy I watched clouds sailing across the moon and heard linnets chirping and larks smgmg. Even though the dupe of destiny I was a lover of beauty and saw it everywhere. Thinking of all things under the murk-hidden sun, I reached the end of my first journey. It took all day to make the trip, and we arrived in Muncie from the east at about the time a driving snow storm came from the west.

The snow fell steadily for hours, and was driven by the wind in all directions. Finally the wind abated and the snow stopped falling. It became intensely cold. Darkness came. The train crew had long since gone to warm shelter, and supperless, I searched for a warm place, which I found in a sand-shed at the edge of the railroad yards.

The shed was crowded with hoboes. They lolled on boxes, and broken chairs, and in the sand, which was boarded up like loose grain in one-half of the place. A large, round stove was splashed cherry red with the heat. The warmth in the room melted the snow on the roof, and the water dropped through a small space above and fell with a monotonous clatter on a piece of tar-paper in a corner of the sand bin.

There were some small lunches wrapped in paper, which the hoboes called "lumps" and "handouts. The speaker's mouth sagged at one corner, where a red sear led downward from his lower lip, as though a knife had cut it. He wore a black satine shirt, and a greasy red necktie. His coat was too small for him, and his muscular shoulders had ripped it in the arm-pits.

A decrepit, middle-aged hobo sat near him. He wore a black moustache and several weeks' growth of beard. His collar was yellow and black, and much too large for him. His few remaining teeth were snagged and crooked. A half-dozen other men looked cautiously at me. After I had greeted them, the first individual spoke again, "She's a tough night, Mate.

I come in over the Big Four to-day from Saint Louie. I wanta make it to Cincy an' beat it south. Pinchin' ev'ry tramp th ey see. A guy kin allus git by there, " spoke up another. Dynamite Eddie's in Chatnoogie. I'll turn a trick wit' 'im, an' stay down there. This God-forsaken j ungle is only good for Eskermos. It could b e heard puffing in the cold night air.

The man departed with the sand and soon the engine was heard puffing and straining down the track. Then quiet settled upon the shed in the railroad yards at Muncie. The man with the sagging mouth and the scarred chin offered me food and coffee, which I accepted greedily, as I had not eaten since early morning. I'd beat it back home 'fl was you till the bluebirds whistle in the spring.

His flash-light shone clearly above the blurred light that glimmered through the smudgy globe of the kerosene lantern. The hoboes in the shed were momentarily alarmed, while I was badly scared, as it was my first contact with the law. A Hobo A u tob iog r a p h y When the policeman had gone, a hobo said, "Some o' them cops are goo d guys.

The tramps on the sand slept peacefully through it all. She was rainin' cats wi' blue feathers an' green tails, an' I never woke up till mornin, an' I was wetter'n the river. Well, sir, I lays right between the tracks, an' the trains rolled all aroun' me. If I'd a stretched out my arms any they'd o' been on the rails, an' I'd a been a bum wit' out grub-hooks.

His weather-beaten cap sat back on his head, which was smooth all over, and round as a billiard ball. He had no eyebrows. They had gone away with his hair. His rheumy eyes blinked constantly, while his forehead twitched above them nervously. I watched him with fascinated interest. The man removed his cap and rubbed his rough hand over his smooth head, as though he were placing straggly locks in place.

The tramps laughed outright at the movement, and I joined them. The hairless tramp grinned crookedly as he looked at me. Some guy tells me to git it shaved an' it'd grow back in quicker. I ain't never seen it. Two flashlights shone in our faces. We were lined against the wall and searched. Our pockets searched, we were marched out of the shed to a spot where two other policemen stood stamping their feet in the snow.

Then all four officers marched us to a patrol wagon which stood at the edge of the railroad yards. When we reached the wagon a policeman said, "Jump in," and all obeyed. The wagon clattered over the rough streets until it reached the police station. Get me? Dreamt I was eatin' pancakes an' honey. That austere gentleman scanned us with a disdainful look on his face.

I was the first to be brought before the Chief, and I walked behind my captor with shaking knees, as though I were on the way to the gallows and had taken a last look at the world. The Chief's eyes were small, and his face was heavy. He wore a big red moustache, and his whole appearance reminded me of the pictures of brigands I had seen in books of adventure.

How long you been out o' jail? The Chief's face did not relax. The policeman rang an old-fashioned doorbell, and presently the door was opened by the most withered old woman I have ever seen. A garish light streamed behind her. Noticing the policeman, the old woman bowed obsequiously and bent her crooked back almost double. The drinker of vagabonds' coffee explained his errand, and gave the old woman the tramp's money, and hurried away with a parting farewell.

Lots o' room in the Work House for vags, you know. Her servile smile disappeared, and hard lines crept around her withered mouth. She picked up a small kerosene lamp, the globe of which was black with smoke on one side, and said, "Follow me. Two kerosene lamps, fastened by brackets to the wall, burned dimly. The snores of sleeping men broke the silence.

It had four panes of glass, from which the putty had fallen away. The old hag motioned us to the beds. She then held the lamp over her head and looked about the room. A man moaned in the bed next to me as he tossed uneasily on the mattress. The woman paused for a moment, and looked in the direction of the moaning man. She then turned toward the steps and went creaking down them.

The other sleepers had been undisturbed by our arrival from the street. I lay awake and wondered what would become of the food which was left in the box. I thought of the one-eyed young tramp I had met so long ago.

Beggars of life a hobo autobiography sample

Many things passed through my mind, but still sleep remained far away as I listened to the whistling of a railroad engine that shrieked through the still night air. Footsteps were heard on the rickety stairs, and presently the old woman's head appeared above the floor. Two men followed her. The old woman motioned the men to beds along the wall. Then, holding the lamp above her head, she peered about the room as before.

The steps could be heard creaking as she descended them. The men talked quietly for a few moments until they were ready for bed. One of them looked at the weakly burning lamp on the wall and said half aloud, "I think I'll douse this glim. The room was submjerged in semi-darkness. The other lamp threw dark shadows on the wall at the other end of it.

The man in the bed next to me kept moaning, as though he found it difficult to breathe. I rose from my bed and leaned over him, gazing down into his face, which looked ghastly in the half light. I then walked across to the bed that held the man with the scarred face. He was lying with his hands across his chest, staring up at the ceiling.

He then followed me to the man's cot. His action aroused other vagabonds, who sat up in their beds. The hobo shook the man's shoulder. The words travelled over the room, and brought several men from their beds. A vagrant lifted it from the bracket on the wall, and handed it to him. The light streamed over dots of blood on the soiled sheets of the bed.