Trampas

“ This petty triumph of evil seemed scarce of the size to count as any victory over the Virginian. But all men grasp at straws. Since that first moment, when in the Medicine Bow saloon the Virginian had shut the mouth of Trampas by a word, the man had been trying to get even without risk; and at each successive clash of his weapon with the Virginian's, he had merely met another public humiliation. Therefore, now at the Sunk Creek Ranch in these cold white days, a certain lurking insolence in his gait showed plainly his opinion that by disaffecting Shorty he had made some sort of reprisal. ”

“ She'll go with some—takin' a kid along."
"Bah!" said Trampas.
The Virginian stopped looking at the sky, and watched Trampas from where he lay.
"I think she encourages a man some," said poor Nebrasky.
"Encourages? Because she lets yu' teach her how to shoot?" said Wiggin. "Well—I don't guess I'm a judge. I've always kind o' kep' away from them good women. Don't seem to think of anything to chat about to 'em. The only folks I'd say she encourages is the school kids. She kisses them."
"Riding, and shooting, and kissing the kids," sneered Trampas. ”

“ But all women ought to be somethin' to a man. So I had to give Trampas another explanation in the presence of folks lookin' on, and it was just like the cyards. No ideas occurred to him again. And down goes his opinion of me some more!
“Well, I have not been able to raise it. There has been this and that and the other,—yu' know most of the later doings yourself,—and to-day is the first time I've happened to see the man since the doings last autumn. Yu' seem to know about them, too. He knows I can't prove he was with that gang of horse thieves. And I can't prove he killed poor Shorty. ”

“ And next—it seemed a moment and it seemed eternity—she heard in the distance a shot, and then two shots. Out of the window she saw people beginning to run. At that she turned and fled to her room, and flung herself face downward upon the floor.
Trampas had departed into solitude from the saloon, leaving behind him his ultimatum. His
"'For my sake,' she begged him, 'for my sake.'"
loud and public threat was town knowledge already, would very likely be county knowledge to-night Riders would take it with them to entertain distant cabins up the river and down the river ”

“ Now, my friend, tell me what a tramp is?"
"Why, a tramp's a tramp," replied the prodigal.
"Concise, if not lucid," remarked Wasson.
"Yes, but what are they, who are they, where are they, what do they do and where do they go?" persisted Hough.
The prodigal quietly picked a gravel stone out of the gaping toe of the boot, and answered, "They're tramps; that's what they are. Dead-brokes; bums; beats; codjers; hand-out solicitors; cross-tie sailors; free-lunch fiends; centennial rangers; square-meal crusaders! They're everywhere, they do every thing, and go all over. ”

“ Men and women mingled in the ranks; tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp. The whole world seemed marching. Tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp; his brain was tramping. The garments waved onward, the faces poured by more abundantly.
Tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp; at Lincoln's pressure he turned towards the archway, walking unconsciously in that rhythm, scarcely noticing his movement for the melody and stir of it. The multitude, the gesture and song, all moved in that direction, the flow of people smote downward until the upturned faces were below the level of his feet. ”

“ The woman of the woods who dresses herself in flowers, and whose voice is as birds' songs, is the same yesterday, to-day, and to-morrow—not new-fangled. You must go to her; she will not come to you. You must live as she does.
Therefore the tramp moves naturally, on his feet. He comes into step. And sleeping out of doors, living in the sun, eating forest berries, washing in the stream or in the sea, all these are part of a coming into step. ”

“ All faces begin to look alike. All shouts merge into one uniform and solid roar. The tramp of the feet resembles the patter of raindrops upon the roof, a sporific, will-subduing sound which dominates consciousness. A gigantic roof, gigantic raindrops.
Tramp! Tramp! Tramp! One hour passes, then two, then three, and still they are filing past. The torches burn with a crimson glare and emit smoke. Both openings, the one through which the people enter and the one through which they file out are like yawning jaws ”

“ Because the night is dark and cool and sweet I see the true colours of the day, and the noon sun does not dazzle me. The tramp's eyes open and then they open again: at midday his eyes are wider than those of indoor folk. He is nearer to the birds because he has slept with them in the bush. They also are nearer to him, for the night has left her mysterious traces upon his face and garments, something which humans cannot see, not even the tramp himself, but which the wild things recognise right enough. ”

“ Gliding past the pretty little islet that sentinels the entrance, the Arizona ran in and dropped anchor, while the rival steamer, came slowly up behind her.
[to be continued.] THE STORY OF A WINGED TRAMP. BY FLETCHER READE.
Tramps, you think, are a modern invention, and a very disagreeable one, too; but if you had chanced to live so long ago as when the earth was young, you would know that the institution is a very old and honorable one. ”

“ Every paper you pick up is full of them. Tramp, tramp, TRAMP, from one end of the paper to the other. There is not a chicken purloined off a roost; a man killed; a house fired; a train ditched; virtue outraged, vice embellished, or deviltry of any kind perpetrated, but this omnipresent scape-goat of the nineteenth century appears to be at the bottom of it all. Now I want to know what a tramp is."
"I am sorry that I cannot enlighten you, Hough, but—"
"But," exclaimed Wasson, interrupting Smythe, "if I am not very much mistaken, here comes a gentleman who can!" ”

“ He wonders at the moon, and the moon wonders. She is hunting on a dark mountain side.
The next sleep is a long one, a deep one, and ghosts may pass over the sleeper, imps dance on his head, rats nibble at his provisions; he wakes not. He is under a charm—nought of evil can affect him, for he has prayed. Encompassed with dangers, the tramp always prays "Our Father," and that he may be kept for the one who loves him. Prayers are strong out of doors at night, for they are made at heaven's gate in the presence of the stars. ”

“ True History of a Tramp He awoke in the Dark Ages and smelt dawn in the dark, and knew he was not wholly a slave. It was as if, in some tale of Hans Andersen, a stick or a stool had been left in the garden all night and had grown alive and struck root like a tree. ”

“ Tramps—that is, the bad ones among them—are very often insolent when they find no one but women in the house. Once a man I knew was working in Indiana, but having a bad headache he remained in one morning. By-and-by a truculent-looking tramp came along. ”

“ To calculate even roughly the final total of counsels' fees was no easy sum to be done on the fingers. After wrestling with it a little, the tramp leant back and puffed hard at his pipe—so hard that the sparks flew and the smoke became thick around him—so thick that "Bless my soul," said the tramp, rising hurriedly, "there's another stack I've been and gone and set afire!"
A tramp, a mere tramp going about the country and setting fire to stacks, is not even he to be reckoned with in the order of things? ”

“ A tramp is one who has fallen a victim of arrested development and never emerged from the nomadic stage; an artistic dilettante is one who has jumped the round where boys dig in the dirt and has evolved into a missnancy.
Young Carl Linnæus skipped no round in his evolution. He began as a savage, robbing birds' nests, chasing butterflies, capturing bees, bugs and beetles. ”

“ Roughly estimated, there are from sixty to seventy-five thousand tramps in the United States, and probably a fifth of all may be classified as "first-class" tramps. There is a second and a third class, and even a fourth, but it is the "A Number One men," as they call themselves, who are the most interesting.
The main distinction between these tramps and the less successful members of the craft is that they have completely conquered the amateur's squeamishness about begging. ”

“ A khaki blouse and knickers, green putties or stockings, and a stout pair of shoes are almost everything; very simple, very practical, and if one must think of looks while on tramp, not unbecoming.
Materials are more important than shapes. A homespun, a tweed, a cord, are better than flannel or serge or shoddy cloth. Tramping is destructive of material; sun, rain, camp-fire sparks, and hot smoke seem to reduce the resistance of cloth very rapidly. ”

“ If such myopic truantry is in you, there is much to be said for going afoot. In these days when motors are as plentiful as mortgages this may appear but discontented destitution, the cry of sour grapes. And yet much of the adventuring of life has been gained afoot. But walking now has fallen on evil days. It needs but an enlistment of words to show its decadence. Tramp is such a word. Time was when it signified a straight back and muscular calves and an appetite, and at nightfall, maybe, pleasant gossip at the hearth on the affairs of distant villages. ”

“ Equipped with a stout stick—with a view to dogs—a folding kodak camera, and your "goods and chattels" slung in a haversack across your shoulders, you feel independent of timecards and "routes;" and sally forth into the world with the philosophical determination to take things as they come; keyed to a pleasurable pitch of excitement by the knowledge that "Adventure" walks with you hand-in-hand, and that the "humors of the road" are yours for the seeing and understanding.
Chapter II
Inception of the Tramp. Stockton to Angel's Camp. ”

“ He reminds me more of the European tramp in general character than any other human parasite I can think of; and I shall be exceedingly sorry if he ever gets a foothold in the United States, because he is a vagrant down to the core, and this can hardly be said as yet of most American tramps. It is almost impossible to touch his emotions, and he usually looks upon the world as his enemy. He can hardly be called a victim of liquor, but rather the victim of an ill-matched parentage. ”

“ I had taken off my pack, but put it on again humbly and, somewhat abashed, prepared to leave. The family stood by staring. It was a very unusual thing for a poor tramp to come and ask hospitality. Tramps as a rule knew better than to come to their doors. Indeed, no tramp had ever come there before. It rather touched them that I should have believed they would shelter me. Their refusal troubled them somewhat.
"There's always plenty of room in the tavern," said the rich man to his wife. "And they'll be glad to have a customer." ”

“ Home county farmers, led by that unerring instinct which is the unconscious result of long experience, know the tramp at once, and can immediately distinguish him from the bonâ-fide ‘harvester,’ in quest of honest employment. The tramp, indeed, is the sturdy idler of the roads—a cousin-german of the ‘beach-comber,’ who is the plague of consuls and aversion of merchant skippers. In almost every port of any size the harbour is beset by a gang of idle fellows, whose pretence is that they are anxious to sign articles for a voyage, but who are, in reality, living from hand to mouth. ”

“ Bulls If the tramp were suddenly to pass away from the United States, widespread misery for many families would follow. The tramp enables thousands of men to earn honest livings, educate their children, and bring them up God-fearing and industrious. ”

“ This is the most notorious tramp-nest in the United States. I have walked along the Bowery of an afternoon, and counted scores of men who never soil their hands with labor, and beg on an average a dollar a day. Even the policemen of this city are often friends of beggars, and I have seldom met a hobo who was very angry with a New York "bull." As a rule, the police officer, when finding tramps drunk on door-steps or begging, says in a coarse and brutal voice, "Get out!" and possibly gives them a rap with his club, but it is altogether [Pg 98] too seldom that the beggar is arrested. ”

“ It is also the perfect child's prayer, and the tramp being much of a child, it is his.
Many people have their private interpretations of the prayer, and I have heard preachers examine it clause by clause. It can mean many things. It must mean different things to people of different lives. It is something very precious to the tramp.
The tramp is the lonely one: walking along all by himself all day by the side of the sounding waves he is desolated by loneliness, and when he lies down at dusk all alone he feels the need of loving human friends. ”

“ They are not pilgrims but outlaws, and many would be highway robbers had they the vitality and the pluck necessary to hold up wayfarers. Most of them are but poor walkers, so that the word tramp is often misapplied to them.
The tramp is a friend of society; he is a seeker, he pays his way if he can. One includes in the category “tramp” all true Bohemians, pilgrims, explorers afoot, walking tourists, and the like. Tramping is a way of approach, to Nature, to your fellowman, to a nation, to a foreign nation, to beauty, to life itself. ”