Bab Bab 9 · BOOK I CHAPTER IX

A few days in San Diego reduced my small capital to the vanishing point,

yet it was with a light heart I turned north again and took the All-Tie

route for Los Angeles. If one of the alluring conditions of a walking

tour is not to be overburdened with cash surely I fulfilled it, for I

was absolutely penniless. The Lord looks after his children, said I, and

when I became too inexorably hungry I asked for bread, emphasising my

willingness to do a stunt on the woodpile. Perhaps it was because I was

young and notably a novice in vagrancy, but people were very good to me.

The railway track skirts the ocean side for many a sonorous league. The

mile-long waves roll in majestically, as straight as if drawn with a

ruler, and crash in thunder on the sandy beach. There were glorious

sunsets and weird storms, with underhanded lightning stabs at the sky. I

built little huts of discarded railway ties, and lit camp-fires, for I

was fearful of the crawling things I saw by day. The coyote called from

the hills. Uneasy rustlings came from the sagebrush. My teeth,

a-chatter with cold, kept me awake, till I cinched a handkerchief around

my chin. Yet, drenched with night-dews, half-starved and travel-worn, I

seemed to grow every day stronger and more fit. Between bondage and

vagabondage I did not hesitate to choose.

Leaving the sea, I came to a country of grass and she-oaks very pretty

to see, like an English park. I passed horrible tule swamps, and reached

a cattle land with corrals and solitary cowboys. There was a quaint old

Spanish Mission that lingers in my memory, then once again I came into

the land of the orange-groves and the irrigating ditch. Here I fell in

with two of the hobo fraternity, and we walked many miles together. One

night we slept in a refrigerator car, where I felt as if icicles were

forming on my spine. But walking was not much in their line, so next

morning they jumped a train and we separated. I was very thankful, as

they did not look over-clean, and I had a wholesome horror of

"seam-squirrels."

On arriving in Los Angeles I went to the Post Office. There was a letter

from the Prodigal dated New York, and inclosing fourteen dollars, the

amount he owed me. He said:

"I returned to the paternal roof, weary of my role. The fatted calf

awaited me. Nevertheless, I am sick again for the unhallowed

swine-husks. Meet me in 'Frisco about the end of February, and I

will a glorious proposition unfold. Don't fail. I must have a

partner and I want you. Look for a letter in the General Delivery."

There was no time to lose, as February was nearly over. I took a

steerage passage to San Francisco, resolving that I would mend my

fortunes. It is so easy to drift. I was already in the social slough, a

hobo and an outcast. I saw that as long as I remained friendless and

unknown nothing but degraded toil was open to me. Surely I could climb

up, but was it worth while? A snug farm in the Northwest awaited me. I

would work my way back there, and arrive decently clad. Then none would

know of my humiliation. I had been wayward and foolish, but I had

learned something.

The men who toiled, endured and suffered were kind and helpful, their

masters mean and rapacious. Everywhere was the same sordid grasping for

the dollar. With my ideals and training nothing but discouragement and

defeat would be my portion. Oh, it is so easy to drift!

I was sick of the whole business.