knew that a heavy freight couldn't pull up there any too lively.
But how lively? On the opposite side of the track rose a high bank. On
the edge, at the top, I saw a man's head sticking up from the grass.
Perhaps he knew how fast the freights took the grade, and when the
next one went south. I called out my questions to him, and he motioned
to me to come up.

I obeyed, and when I reached the top, I found four other men lying in
the grass with him. I took in the scene and knew them for what they
were--American gypsies. In the open space that extended back among the
trees from the edge of the bank were several nondescript wagons.
Ragged, half-naked children swarmed over the camp, though I noticed
that they took care not to come near and bother the men-folk. Several
lean, unbeautiful, and toil-degraded women were pottering about with
camp-chores, and one I noticed who sat by herself on the seat of one
of the wagons, her head drooped forward, her knees drawn up to her
chin and clasped limply by her arms. She did not look happy. She
looked as if she did not care for anything--in this I was wrong, for
later I was to learn that there was something for which she did care.
The full measure of human suffering was in her face, and, in
addition, there was the tragic expression of incapacity for further
suffering. Nothing could hurt any more, was what her face seemed to
portray; but in this, too, I was wrong.

I lay in the grass on the edge of the steep and talked with the
men-folk. We were kin--brothers. I was the American hobo, and they
were the American gypsy. I knew enough of their argot for
conversation, and they knew enough of mine. There were two more in
their gang, who were across the river "mushing" in Harrisburg. A
"musher" is an itinerant fakir. This word is not to be confounded with
the Klondike "musher," though the origin of both terms may be the
same; namely, the corruption of the French _marche ons_, to march, to
walk, to "mush." The particular graft of the two mushers who had
crossed the river was umbrella-mending; but what real graft lay behind
their umbrella-mending, I was not told, nor would it have been polite
to ask.

It was a glorious day. Not a breath of wind was stirring, and we
basked in the shimmering warmth of the sun. From everywhere arose the
drowsy hum of insects, and the balmy air was filled with scents of the
sweet earth and the green growing things. We were too lazy to do more
than mumble on in i