Show f = Way of tbe Blanket t Stiff I Wandering Workers Extraordinary Story of Life Upon the U J RoadTells of Bums Gay Cats and Hoboes Quaint Philosophy in Queer Places Section Foremans Grandeur 1t tdt4E fill your heart with saQness I i4S > ju svalkefl nioiifr the tracks < To see the bums a coming 1 Tli 1r tr blankets on their backs They aI4 the work was neay I I Anl U1l grub they couldnt go JSrt Oat fan rsllroail tables I Avay iut In Io5io It bYnI Song The Oregon Short Line If you see a min 4n the Rock Mountain Moun-tain co1 Pacific coast stales carrying 1 j a Vuidie of blanltots = you may conclude i that his hands are Calloused Those I Who hjre foot loose laborers in these i states furnish th > Oi xvitli a place to sleep If the conditions are such that i two travelers thus Th Michigan Schlim an th Montreal Shorty I were here th daj They cut their mont golians on th water tank I tould em ye wanted min but th Michigan SehlinvstUd wor soiri a mouchin in Frisco An lh Montreal Sharty said be was goln down near Los where he cud slape under a Tucson blanket and shake his brikfast off a tree An th passenger came along an away they winl Some wor ridin what they call tli thrimmins an some wor on th I trucks of her an some were ridin th whustle an the aigle eyes whuskers Hark the Poet Sings I Tucson is an Arizona town He who I I 1 k it1 N tM Dt I c t1 I fl j 1TV I Will you get me a clean shirt maam while this other lady puts me up some lunch I fr r men will not sleep in the open The laborer funishes his own bedding Tramps call such laborers blanket stKs and gy cats Blanket stiffs call themselves such sometimes They also call themselves hoboes They call tramps professional hoboes bums stiffs and thoroughbred stiffs A blanket stiff may follow one kind of work only In that case he travels to locations where he thinks he can do best or he may hunt a climate to suit his joUles in which case he is probably prob-ably less particular about the kind of work ho docs Wandering Workers Srnr1 in on go to the Dakotas for hare har-e t and winter 1n Oregon and Washington i Wash-ington Many enter Colorado every sumrsifT from the south More than ar v > > rnrne go into southern California Califor-nia ani Texas every winter Some seek I R ft summer and go only 3 few hun tdrHi IT iles to a comparatively cool winter win-ter t mite A few save enough in I sum r to keep them in a city for the wir f others perhaps most simply k jgt > f > r one job to another blowing in and fe i < nc belly up between jobs A fov tiiourfc 1 instead of going belly up Kin r ul < to look for work willie they ha j Colorado stake left A Colo ii < = iakf t is r and a boFtle of vbi Jlir lr six bits and a plug of to PH PHTh Thi most ubiquitous blanket stiff is tir railroad section hand He is about f the prd paid laborer in the west Z to > Ht i s > always ready to bundle up iVs Maukets ani hit the road a welt as 11st i blanket stiffs are Section i jnft MT aHeJ suiiies Jerries tarriers ard f haws The section foreman is I callfd a king Tiirf Having full control con-trol of a crew of from one to twelve or nTorf men hE is the butt of many I jolir < His sltor i is supposed to be J filled with virms of switches and I ffvib broken al5 I = low join and I tr1ed hand oars Such sayings as j jj jI I I I jj j I c 1 j 1 l 1fsti r f I J Q I i I i I I i I 1 I W Now put it an agin Ill show yez 7hos Tjossjhere I II I P 1hc olhwini arS attrlbutato hun The Kingana Qe I 1m a king auth I never wore a j f crown Tkc the hand cyar off lh thrack NowrUt her on again PU show yez wileS b sa bere king who Ijed vi > men worlang I him frxJ one xif them tot t to-t ftf the force liesaid Tic sot 0 ihorc of yes potted I old qtiepzi is reporteS Ao hle said j old King in the doad of night I ito to hIm min aslapin and I An th rain 41 fallln outthere thrark thcr queen told her husband of z fi J uses a Tucson blanket flops on the desert with the stars for covering An eagle is a locomotive engineer In his song Jerry Go Oil the Car the Poet Riley gives one verse to the section foremans last words I hope my quotation is correct Let a spike maul rest Right on my chest And the gouge and the old claw bar And when I am dead Lay afrog at my head And tis Jerry go oil the car The Poet Riley is not to be mistaken I for any other Riley He is not Tree I Finger Riley nor One Eyed Riley nor i Gunny Sack Riley nor Box Car Riley I I He is Jim Riley the poet All of his I songs are connected with sections or i I railroad grading camps i j Hard Work and Small Pay I I It does not rain in higher Colorado I I except in summer The rain falls on i formations on which much snow has alternately thawed and frozen So it happened that we always knew when it had rained because we had to work till trains could run again Two thirty six hour stretches with one nights sleep between was the worst I happened hap-pened to catch I knew of one case i where a man was discharged because 1 I he refused to buck snow more than I three days and three nights without sleep It is not fear of discharge that keeps men at work I think it is the inherited habit of labor and each mans wish to show that he is as tough as the others Poorly paid as they are section sec-tion men do lots of work when handled han-dled properly But they are ready to quit at the slightest provocation I One chilly morning we were carrying stones to turn the water away from I a track it was running Under A We i re rather careful A road master yelled Throw em in there Dont i be afraid of hurtin cm A Swede I turned in close to him and dropped a I flat sided rock with awkward carefulness I careful-ness The snow water caught tie road master between the collar of his rubber i coat and his ear Otto walked away with a wooden look on his face but hi eyes bubbled slightly He said afterwards after-wards He looked at me like hell But he didnt said a dam word Where there is danger from falling rocks and slides night track Walkers are kept on duty This is a dreary job especially in these frosty altitudes where the track often runs for Imiles through narrow canyons besides a roaring roar-ing river Night track walkers are not always entirely sane An Irishman said once when we were discussing our place in society that the section was a good place for a man I with a strong rck and a weak head j The Plaint of the Blanket Stiff IOn IOn I-On a work train in Arizona I heard 1 an American Brocky Kelly free his i mind The railroader is the worst i jumped on man in the country The I boss jumps on him and the straw boss I jumps on him and the boarding boss jumps on him and the lice and the bedbugs bed-bugs jump on him When he gets tired of being jumped on by them he goes to town and takes a running jump at himself Then the barkeepers jumpon him and the gamblers and tin i hon gamblers jump on him and the police jump on him and the judse jumps on him and the pallor jUT > son s-on him When he packs his blankets I i out of town he feels like hed been shot at and missed and he looks like a I scarecrow a bachelors ranch And be hykes along the track till he can I find an old jumper of a king snipe to jump cm him The next week Brocky went to Prescott I II I Pres-cott to set his pay He came by the work train again on his way to Colorado Colo-rado He was Hat broke and had walked about twenty mites without a drink of water One Sunday evening on a ranch I heard atsentimental kid of German descent ask another man for a definition defini-tion of home The Bother man said he owned two bilinkets and a quilt Wherever Wher-ever he spread them down was his home The building f tnew railroad takes quite nu < atmyH0 m jl especially in a rough country Skfnners teamsters dynamiters miners for rock cuts and tunnels tie buckers bridge carpenters murkern pick and shovel men track > > ta layers cooks and flunkies are all in 1 demand A flunky is a camp walter I dish washer and wood chopper Up near Canada tjie same animal is often caned cookee I Some men acquire a reputation and a nameat special lines of work Powder 1 Can MqCorniick is a cqok He once violently told a contractor who did not givehim enough tools that he was not the than to cook for fifty men in a powder can Tommy the Tacker is or maybe was a goqd hand at driving spikes Some men are In their glory when spiking iathe lead l of a track laying outfit Tlie loss of a single stroke puts one behind there Habit Too Strong to Stop I have heard it argued that following follow-ing grading ci1nws gets to be a disease dis-ease It is a fact that spine men will travel sometimes thousands of miles without a cent perhaps to get to the front of a new railroad Lhave only been in two such outfits but I have felt the fever when heard of others starting You live in tents Sleep probably with your clothes on on the ground with some blankets and hay if you are lucky Normally such work is hurried and goes on in all weathers sometimes night and day here is a rough tin plate plenty to eat Molasses is called the walking boss sugar the gravel train coffee the pup driver and butter the axle grease These names are not always used but they are always al-ways understood in grading camps Some contractors by means of a saloon discounting their own checks for cash and hospital fees try to get back all the money they pay out Many of the most successful contractors however run things en a more liberal plan Most all contractors take a monthly hospital fee out of employees wages but some really take good care of a sick or injured man There isa proverbial company doctor who gives his patients nothing but pills whether he has a tooth ache or a broken leg There is most always a commissary where employees can get blankets quilts and clothing afgood stiff prices Saloons restaurants and deadfal saloons follow grading camps Some men will work for months and then go with their pay on them into saloons where they know they will be drugged if there is any chance Perhaps they are lucky after all They are ready togo to-go to work again in a few hours Tale ofthe Blanket Stiffs After supper especially if there is a camp fire to gather around i3 i when one learns most about the pasts of his fellow workmen Perhaps one will tell about driving adray in a London fog Another about sealing or whaling in Alaskan waters Another about the price of cigarettes in Cairo Egypt Another about the queer noises adago once made with his legs sticking out of an ash barrel in an alley off Baxter street New York An Oregon man told us one time aboutbeing knocked endways while defending de-fending a pig pen He attempted to rest a gun across a bear to take a shoat sho-at a stump Sometimes California men tell about the big ranch where they had the plates nailed to the table and washed the dishes with a hose I think it was in Red Cliffe Colo according ac-cording to the story that a man founc an ear on the ground the morning after he came to town He discovered before baa that it was his own ear A cockney once went to a house where two doors opened onto one porch He pulled both bells and it happened that both were answered at the same time Madam he said will you please get me a clean shirt while this other lady puts me up a lunch Seen Better Days Men Seenbetterdays men are common among blanket stiffs Some are past redemption Others are only temporarily tempor-arily unfortunate or prospectors working for a grub stake Most men say that they will always go hungry two or three days before they can get courage enough to go against the backdoor back-door After they have fairly started they dont mind it I always had an idea that if I went broke I would start to beg right away for fearI would get hungry At the usual western rates of railroad fare 5 or C cents a mile a man can make wages walking Ien seldom beat trains with blankets except ex-cept for short distances In making long trips they either ship their bedding or leave it behind entirely A hobo stew or Mulligan has great staying qualities An Irish stew is a Mulligan But a Mulligan is not necessarily nec-essarily simply an Irish stew Anything Any-thing goes in a hobo Mulligan even if it is paid for It Is generally cooked in I a fivesallon coal oil can and eaten from tomato cans The commonestway to beat trains is I to get into an empty box car But on some western roads one would make slow time if he relied on empties alone Hoboes are close students of car architecture archi-tecture Refrigerator cars and cattle cars furnish many hidingplaces Eyejii the commonest games such as springing spring-ing doors of sealed freight cars and riding on top of passenger cars would make a long list An active man by I the help of the handle at the bottom of the side door can swing under a lox car after the train is in motion I have I I seen it done > A Wild Ride Beneath a Train On every standard guage passenger coach there are four places on the trucks where a man can ride Crawl over the axle and you will find yourself in a boxlike space About six or eight inches above the ties is a cross formed by two oneinch iron rods A man can sit on this cross facing the axle with his feet on the rod that he sits on that runs towards the axle Some professionals use a cleated board to make the seat more comfortable The rods that control thq brakes run I i I I I I I I > t < r Sleeping under Tuscon blanket I I parallel l with the shoulders and do to hold on by = 6 The back rests against the framework of the truck The head is near or against the Hoor f t the l car Dnless looked for a man on the rods can hardly be seen even in the daytime day-time The first time I rode the rods on a passenger train was on a doxvii grade in a desert mountain country Ihad a good chance to get on while the passengers pas-sengers and crew were at gupp r It was turning from dusk to darkwhen the whistle blew boaheelsturnd and the tics began osllf backwards slowlY then fast ana astertill 1o r was mly ayellowstreakunder rne The quiveringof the lods maele the muscles of mylegs tremble Thrills shot up my back VestrucU a curve A shower of sparks fell from the wheels J I as the brakes were seL The car swayed overhead I heard some one I walk over me I had heard stories of men who fell off the rods to be picked 1 up in a coal oil can or a gunny sack i While I canld not but see that being neither sUpy nor drunk I was in ho real danger the close quarters and the 1 impossibility of changing them till the train stopped made me feel pitifully I helpless But the whizzing dusty air the grand swaying racket and roar varied as we went through cuts or over bridges or plunged across the open had an intoxicatimr effect At times I shouted and sung like a maniac I could understand better snatch of song I had onee heard Oh do not be afraid Wheji youre going down the grade Putiyour faith right in the Lord Keep your seat upon the board When you ride the little rods beneath I the car I About the third or fourth stop a shack came mouching along and spotted spot-ted me with his lantern The conductor I was about to start the train But the I brakie said < Hold on Her s a friend of yours i Whatis he doing = t 1 Wearing his coat tail ouL > Get him out of there So I bad to change cars W H MCORMICK |