Produced by Chris Curnow, Barry Abrahamsen, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) A DAY WITH A TRAMP ------------------------------------------------------------------------ A DAY WITH A TRAMP AND OTHER DAYS BY WALTER A. WYCKOFF ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL ECONOMY IN PRINCETON UNIVERSITY; AUTHOR OF “THE WORKERS” NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 1901 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ COPYRIGHT, 1901, BY CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER, 1901 TROW DIRECTORY PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY NEW YORK ------------------------------------------------------------------------ PREFACE The following narratives, like those published in the series of “The Workers,” East and West, are drawn from notes taken during an expedition made ten years ago. In the summer of 1891 I began an experiment of earning my living as a day laborer and continued it until, in the course of eighteen months, I had worked my way from Connecticut to California. In justice to the narratives it should be explained that they are submitted simply for what they are, the casual observations of a student almost fresh from college whose interest in life led him to undertake a work for which he had no scientific training. W. A. W. PRINCETON, October, 1901. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CONTENTS PAGE A DAY WITH A TRAMP 1 WITH IOWA FARMERS 41 A SECTION-HAND ON THE UNION PACIFIC 91 RAILWAY “A BURRO-PUNCHER” 127 INCIDENTS OF THE SLUMS 163 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ A DAY WITH A TRAMP ------------------------------------------------------------------------ A DAY WITH A TRAMP He was an American of Irish stock; his name was Farrell; he was two-and-twenty, a little more than six feet high, and as straight as an arrow. We met on the line of the Rock Island Railway just west of Morris, Ill.