Tramping with Tramps: Studies and Sketches of Vagabond LifeFlynt, Josiah
History
Tramping with Tramps: Studies and Sketches of Vagabond Life
Flynt, Josiah
Tramps
The dinner of the lazy beggar is a very slim affair. It is either a free
lunch in a saloon, or a hand-out. This latter consists mainly of
sandwiches, but now and then a cold potato will be put into the bundle,
and also, occasionally, a piece of pie. After the tramp has had one or
two of these impromptu lunches he persuades himself that he has had
enough, and goes off for a rest. How often--but on account of
bashfulness, rather than anything else--have I done the same thing! And
what poor dinners they were! They no more satisfy a tramp's appetite
than they would a lion's, but the indolent fellow tries to persuade
himself otherwise. I once overheard a typical member of the class
discussing the matter with himself, or rather with his appetite, which,
for the sake of argument and companionship, he looked upon as a
personality quite apart. He had just finished a slim and slender
hand-out, had tossed into the bushes the paper bag that held it
together, and, when I saw him, was looking up into the sky in a most
confidential manner. Soon, and as if sorry he could not be kinder to it,
he cast his eyes pityingly on his paunch, and said in a sad tone:
"Poor devil! I feel fer y'u--bet cher life I do! But yer'll have to
stand it, I guess. It's the only way I know fer y'u to git along." Then
he patted it gently, and repeated again his sympathetic "poor devil."
But not once did he scold himself for his laziness. Not he! He never
does.
His supper is very similar to his dinner, except that he tries now and
then to wash it down with a cup of tea or coffee. Later in the evening
he also indulges in another hand-out, unless he is on a freight-train or
far from the abodes of men.
Such is the diet of the lazy tramp, and, strange to relate, despite its
unwholesomeness and its meagerness, he is a comparatively healthy
fellow, as are almost all tramps. Their endurance, especially that of
the poke-out tramps, is something remarkable. I have known them to live
on "wind-pudding" as they call air, for over forty-eight hours without
becoming exhausted, and there are cases on record where they have gone
for four and five days without anything to eat or drink, and have lived
to tell the tale. A man with whom I once traveled in Pennsylvania did
this very thing. He was locked into a box-car which was shunted off on
an unused side-track a long distance from any house or place where his
cries could be heard. He was in the car for nearly one hundred and
twenty hours, and although almost dead when found, he picked up in a few
days, and before long was on the road again. I saw him at the World's
Fair at Chicago, and he was just as healthy and happy in his own way as
ever.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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