IT was a raw, blustering September night when I rounded up
for the first time at the lake front in Chicago. There was just a
strip of waste land, in those days, between the great avenue and
the railroad tracks that skirted the lake. In 1876 there were no
large hotels or skyscrapers fronting a tidy park; nothing but
some wooden or brick houses, and, across the tracks, the waves
lapped away at the railroad embankment. I was something more
than twenty, old enough, at any rate, to have earned a better
bed than a few feet of sand and sooty grass in a vacant lot. It
was the first night I had ever slept out,--at least, because there
was no place I had a right to go to. All that day I had been on
the tramp from Indiana, and reached the city with only a few
cents in my pockets.
I was not the only homeless wanderer by any means. Early in
the evening a lot of bums began to drop in, slinking down the
avenue or coming over from the city through the cross streets.
It was early in the season; but to-night the east wind raked the
park and shook gusts of rain from the low clouds, making it
comfortable to keep moving. So we wandered up and down
that sandy strip, footing it like dogs on the hunt for a hole,
and eying each other gloomily when we passed.
Early in the evening a big wooden building at the north
end was
lighted up, and some of us gathered around the windows
and hung there under the eaves watching the carriages drive
up to the door to leave their freight. There was a concert in
the hall, and after it began I crawled up into the arch of a window
where I was out of the rain and could hear the music. Before
the concert was over a watchman caught sight of me and
snaked me to the ground. He was making a round of the
building, stirring up the bums who had found any hole out of
the reach of the wind. So we began once more that dreary,
purposeless tramp to keep from freezing.
"Kind of chilly!" a young fellow called out to me.
"Chillier before morning, all right," I growled back, glad
enough to hear a voice speaking to me as if it expected an
answer.
"First night?" he inquired, coming up close to me in a
friendly way. "'Tain't so bad--when it's warm and the wind
don't blow."
We walked on together slowly, as though we were looking
for something. When we came under the light of the lamps in
the avenue we eyed each other. My tramp companion was a
stout, honest-looking young fellow about my age. His loose-fitting
black clothes and collarless shirt made me think that he
too had come from the country recently.
"Been farming?" I ventured.
"Pine Lake, across there in Michigan--that's where I come
from. Hostetter, Ed Hostetter, that's my name."
We faced about and headed toward the lake without any purpose.
He told me his story while we dragged ourselves back
and forth along the high board fence that guarded the railroad
property. He had got tired of working on his father's farm for
nothing and had struck out for the big city. Hostetter had a
married aunt, so he told me, living somewhere in Chicago, and
he had thought to stay with her until he could get a start
on fortune's
road. But she had moved from her old address, and
his money had given out before he knew it. For the last week
he had been wandering about the streets, hunting a job, and
looking sharp for that aunt.
"We can't keep this up all night!" I observed when his story
had run out.
"Last night I found an empty over there in the yards, but
some of the railroad fellers got hold of me toward morning and
made me jump high."
A couple of tramps were crouching low beside the fence
just ahead of us. "Watch 'em!" my companion whispered.
Suddenly they burrowed down into the sand and disappeared.
We could hear their steps on the other side of the fence; then
a gruff voice. In a few moments back they came, burrowing
up from under the fence.
"That's what you get!" Ed grunted.
Well, in the end we had to make the best of it, and we
camped right there, hugging the fence for protection against
the east wind. We burrowed into the loose sand, piling it up
on the open side until we were well covered. Now and then a
train rushing past shook us awake with its heavy tread. Toward
morning there were fewer trains, and though it began to mist
pretty hard, and the water trickled into our hole, I managed to
get some sleep.
At daylight we got up and shook ourselves, and then wandered
miserably into the silent streets of the downtown district.
Between us we had fifteen cents, and with that we got
some coffee and a piece of bread at a little shanty stuck on
the side of the river. A fat man with a greasy, pock-marked
face served us, and I can see him now as he looked us over and
winked to the policeman who was loafing in the joint.
After our coffee we began the hunt for an odd job, and Ed
talked of his hopes of finding that aunt--Mrs. Pierson.
We kept
together because we were so lonesome, I suppose, and Ed
was good company--jolly and happy-hearted. That night we
slept on the back porch of an empty house 'way south, where
the streets were broad, and there were little strips of green all
about the houses. The owners of the large house we picked out
must have been away for the summer. Toward morning we
heard some one stirring around inside, opening and shutting
doors, and we made up our minds there were thieves at work
in the house.
Ed stayed to watch, while I ran out to the avenue to get
some help. It was a long time before I could find a policeman,
and when we got back to the house there was Hostetter sitting
on the curbstone hugging his belly. One of the thieves had
come out of the house the back way, and when Ed tried
to hold him had given him such a kick that Ed was glad to let
him go. The officer I had brought evidently thought we were
playing some game on him or weren't quite straight ourselves,
and he tried to take us to the station. We gave him a lively
chase for a couple of blocks; the last we saw of him he was
shaking his fist at us and cussing loud enough to wake the dead.
That day was much like the one before, only worse. The
weather was mean and drizzly. I earned a quarter lugging a
valise across the city, and we ate that up at breakfast. At noon
we turned into one of the flashy saloons on State Street. We
hoped to be overlooked in the crowd before the bar while we
helped ourselves to the crackers and salt fish. We were making
out pretty well when a man who was standing near the bar
and drinking nothing spied us and came over to the lunch
table.
"Wet day," he observed sociably.
"That's about it," I replied cautiously, looking the man over.
He wore a long black coat, a dirty light-colored
waistcoat, and
a silk hat, underneath which little brown curls sprouted
out. He fed himself delicately out of the common bowl, as if
the free lunch didn't tempt his appetite.
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