their main streets. It
was circus day when we came to town, and every day was circus day, for
there were many towns.

In the evenings our camps were invaded by whole populations. Every
company had its campfire, and around each fire something was doing.
The cooks in my company, Company L, were song-and-dance artists and
contributed most of our entertainment. In another part of the
encampment the glee club would be singing--one of its star voices was
the "Dentist," drawn from Company L, and we were mighty proud of him.
Also, he pulled teeth for the whole army, and, since the extractions
usually occurred at meal-time, our digestions were stimulated by
variety of incident. The Dentist had no anaesthetics, but two or three
of us were always on tap to volunteer to hold down the patient. In
addition to the stunts of the companies and the glee club, church
services were usually held, local preachers officiating, and always
there was a great making of political speeches. All these things ran
neck and neck; it was a full-blown Midway. A lot of talent can be dug
out of two thousand hoboes. I remember we had a picked baseball nine,
and on Sundays we made a practice of putting it all over the local
nines. Sometimes we did it twice on Sundays.

Last year, while on a lecturing trip, I rode into Des Moines in a
Pullman--I don't mean a "side-door Pullman," but the real thing. On
the outskirts of the city I saw the old stove-works, and my heart
leaped. It was there, at the stove-works, a dozen years before, that
the Army lay down and swore a mighty oath that its feet were sore and
that it would walk no more. We took possession of the stove-works and
told Des Moines that we had come to stay--that we'd walked in, but
we'd be blessed if we'd walk out. Des Moines was hospitable, but this
was too much of a good thing. Do a little mental arithmetic, gentle
reader. Two thousand hoboes, eating three square meals, make six
thousand meals per day, forty-two thousand meals per week, or one
hundred and sixty-eight thousand meals per shortest month in the
calendar. That's going some. We had no money. It was up to Des Moines.

Des Moines was desperate. We lay in camp, made political speeches,
held sacred concerts, pulled teeth, played baseball and seven-up, and
ate our six thousand meals per day, and Des Moines paid for it. Des
Moines pleaded with the railroads, but they were obdurate; they had
said we shouldn't ride, and that settled it. To permit