till we
came to the railroad track. I was going back to Omaha to throw my feet
for breakfast; my companion was going on to Chicago. The moment for
parting had come. Our palsied hands went out to each other. We were
both shivering. When we tried to speak, our teeth chattered us back
into silence. We stood alone, shut off from the world; all that we
could see was a short length of railroad track, both ends of which
were lost in the driving mist. We stared dumbly at each other, our
clasped hands shaking sympathetically. The Swede's face was blue with
the cold, and I know mine must have been.

"Never again what?" I managed to articulate.

Speech strove for utterance in the Swede's throat; then faint and
distant, in a thin whisper from the very bottom of his frozen soul,
came the words:--

"Never again a hobo."

He paused, and, as he went on again, his voice gathered strength and
huskiness as it affirmed his will.

"Never again a hobo. I'm going to get a job. You'd better do the same.
Nights like this make rheumatism."

He wrung my hand.

"Good-by, Bo," said he.

"Good-by, Bo," said I.

The next we were swallowed up from each other by the mist. It was our
final passing. But here's to you, Mr. Swede, wherever you are. I hope
you got that job.

ROAD-KIDS AND GAY-CATS

Every once in a while, in newspapers, magazines, and biographical
dictionaries, I run upon sketches of my life, wherein, delicately
phrased, I learn that it was in order to study sociology that I became
a tramp. This is very nice and thoughtful of the biographers, but it
is inaccurate. I became a tramp--well, because of the life that was in
me, of the wanderlust in my blood that would not let me rest.
Sociology was merely incidental; it came afterward, in the same manner
that a wet skin follows a ducking. I went on "The Road" because I
couldn't keep away from it; because I hadn't the price of the railroad
fare in my jeans; because I was so made that I couldn't work all my
life on "one same shift"; because--well, just because it was easier to
than not to.

It happened in my own town, in Oakland, when I was sixteen. At that
time I had attained a dizzy reputation in my chosen circle of
adventurers, by whom I was known as the Prince of the Oyster Pirates.
It is true, those immediately outside my circle, such as honest
bay-sailors, longshoremen, yachtsmen, and the legal owners of the
oysters, called me "tough," "hoodlum," "smoudge," "thief,"