To Him, The Humor Of A Brother Tramp Refusing A
Ride - In An Autocar, At That - Appealed With Irresistible Force.
To walk in the middle of the road is characteristic of the genuine
tramp.
There must be some occult reason for this peculiarity, since in a
general way, it is far easier going on the margin. Perhaps it is because
he commands a better view of either side, with a regard to the possible
onslaught of dogs. There is something about a man with a pack on his
back that infuriates the average dog, as I have on several occasions
found to my annoyance. Robert Louis Stevenson, in his whimsical and
altogether delightful "Travels with a Donkey," thus vents his opinion
anent the dog question:
"I was much disturbed by the barking of a dog, an animal that I fear
more than any wolf. A dog is vastly braver and is, besides, supported by
a sense of duty. If you kill a wolf you meet with encouragement and
praise, but if you kill a dog, the sacred rights of property and the
domestic affections come clamoring around you for redress. At the end of
a fagging day, the sharp, cruel note of a dog's bark is in itself a keen
annoyance; and to a tramp like myself, he represents the sedentary and
respectable world in its most hostile form. There is something of the
clergyman or the lawyer about this engaging animal; and if he were not
amenable to stones, the boldest man would shrink from traveling a-foot.
I respect dogs much in the domestic circle; but on the highway or
sleeping afield, I both detest and fear them."
I confess to a feeling of sympathy with the men we so indiscriminately
brand with the contemptuous epithet, "hobo." In the first place, the
road itself, with its accompanying humors and adventures, forms a mutual
and efficacious bond. How little we know of the "Knights of the Road,"
or the compelling circumstances that turned them adrift upon the world!
"All sorts and conditions of men" are represented, from the college
professor to the ex-pugilist. I have "hit the ties" in company with a
so-called "hobo" who quoted Milton and Shakespeare by the yard,
interspersed with exclamations appreciative of his enjoyment of the
country through which we were passing. And once when on a tramp along
the coast from San Francisco to Monterey, I fell in at Point San Pedro
with a professional, who bitterly regretted the coming of the Ocean
Shore Railway, then in process of construction. "For years," said he, "I
have been in the habit of making this trip at regular intervals, on my
way south. I had the road to myself and thoroughly enjoyed the peaceful
beauty of the scene; but now this railroad has come with its mushroom
towns, and all the charm has gone. Never again for me! This is my last
trip!"
I have not the slightest doubt that sheer love of the road - and only a
tramp knows what those words mean - is the controlling influence which
keeps fifty per cent of the fraternity its willing slaves.
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