"Let us hope so, for his sake anyhow," was the daughter's rather doubtful comment. Before leaving, the mother was rather insistent on my calling at the office of a local lawyer who was reported to be "much interested in young men, and their welfare." I promised to look him up, but somehow his time and mine did not agree--he was not at his office--and perhaps I lost another chance to be a legal light. As the weeks and months went by, the dream of "self-madeness," as I once heard a tramp describe it, became less and less oppressive; at any rate, I noticed that merely because a town or village harbored an academy and college, and possibly a philanthropic lawyer, did not suffice to tempt me out of the box-car rolling through the locality. Nothing else in particular had come to take its place, that I recall. But certain it is that the box-car, on a bright, sunny day, rolling along, clinkety-clink, chunkety-chunk, possessed temporary attractions which dreamy self-madeness could not offer. This particular time in my wanderings probably saw the height of the railroad fever in me. It burned and sizzled it almost seemed on occasions, and the distant whistle of a "freight" going my way, or any way, for that matter, became as sweet a sound as was ever the dinner call or the recess bell. To-day I can laugh at all this, but it was a very serious matter in those days; unless I covered a certain number of miles each day or week, and saw so many different States, cities, rivers and kinds of people, I was disappointed--Hoboland was not giving me my share of her bounteous supply of fun and change. Of course, I was called "railroad crazy" by the quieter roadsters in whom the fever, as such, had long since subsided, but I did not mind. Farther, farther, _farther_! This was what I insisted on and got. In the end I had seen a great deal, of course, but altogether too much of it only superficially. Later tramp trips, undertaken with a serious purpose and confined to narrower limits, have netted me much more lasting information and amusement.