Twenty-Two

            A few days later we finally did stop at a ranch. It was only a few cattle but a couple hundred horses. They gathered wild ones and broke them then drove most of them to market or auction. Some of the fellows there was as wild as the horses and they let us try a couple of the horses that was half or third grown. They caught them and roped them to the fence to hold them so we could get on. When we said ready they let them go and we hit the ground. The horses didn't ever make one full jump. The fellows had more fun watching us and kept yelling "More! More!"

            We stayed there for three days. I got so I could stay on for about four or five umps but I sure was sore and lame each morning. I tried one of the young steers but once was all I wanted of them. I was too young yet and I didn't have the never. I was scared of the big horns they had but we sure had a lot of fun while there.            

            I did get to ride a few of the horses that was already broke to riding. they still were plenty fast for me at that time. I think that's were I started to like to be around horses and bulls and try to ride them later on at home on the farms.

            While we were around Wichita, Kansas we were told of a real big HoBo Jungle in Shawnee, Oklahoma so we were on our way to it. The ride was a couple of days but what a Jungle. It was right on a good river and there must've been three to four hundred HoBos. It was a regular camp with little shacks built out of everything you could think of, like blankets, tins, sticks, roofing paper. There was a great place to swim and wash clothes and the town nearby was fair size, a good place for food. Then Oklahoma City was only something like a couple of hours away by train. A lot of food was brought from there. I didn't do it but I bet it would of taken an hour to walk from one end to the other and everything was left there for the others to use or they came and went. All the old pots, pans, gallon cans for making coffee, even some half plates. When we was finished we washed the things in the river and moved on. There was some swing beds hung between trees made of two ropes or wire with sticks cross ways. Where ever there was an empty bed or shack that is the one you grabbed. Weather was nice and warm and something different. It sure was a lot of fun.

            At night when anyone was at one end and looked down across everyone I couldn't see the other end. it looked like one big Main Street in a big city only it was about four times as wide as any street today. All you could see was about one hundred little campfires lighting the whole place up and a crowd of people, some sitting, some standing, some walking around. Then there was a few loners off by themselves, sitting or standing by some lone tree. The ones that were sleeping was out of sight. They crawled off out of the light in the woods.  

            I often wondered what would happen if someone with a drum started running and yelling down through the woods in the dark. I could just see him stumbling over fellows and seeing others jumping up and going in all directions, knocking themselves out from running into trees. I had one fellow tell me while we were eating out of cans to never through the cans away off into the dark because I'd be sure to hit somebody sleeping, just set it down and forget about it.

            Then above it all there was a few that had their guitars. Once in a while a couple of them got together to play and sing but most of them would be scattered all over the place just about right so if you listened it seemed like faint music and soft singing was filling the air from all directions.

            It was impossible to see very far as a lot of the fire was getting low. Some was out. After a few hours, around one-thirty to three in the morning it began to quiet down as one by one gave it up. It took about an hour to slowly fade away and it seemed just like the woods went to sleep.

            I used to think of it just like one big home coming. Everyone laughing, talking, telling of placed they had been, what they done, where they were headed and I always knew where to find the next good HoBo Jungle. It seemed just like a few hundred friends got together, had a night on the town and still, never knew a single one by name.

            I sometimes wonder, fifty-three years later, when I see or pass some of the older fellows on the street or in Malls if we ever met or traveled together. Maybe gave one or the other a piece of bread or passed on or the other half a can of beans to share. Even ended up in a HoBo Jungle with a few vegetables, got together, threw them in an old tin can over a fire and made a gallon of stew or soup. Maybe he's one of those helping to send the sound of music and singing through the woods on one of them nights. He could of been the detective that put me in jail the first night I was caught riding the trains. Sometimes I'll be walking near some older fellow my age and wonder if he's the one that showed me or gave me some good tips on how to ride the trains in the beginning. 

Twenty-One

            The next train we caught, we had asked a fellow when our train would come out of the yard going our way. He told us but forgot to tell us it would be the second one and we took the first one. We rode all the way back across Illinois almost to the Indiana state line and a lot farther south We just had to keep going and around the line into Evansville, Kentucky where we would get a train going west.

            Kentucky is were we seen tobacco sheds and fields the first time, and the fellow we stopped to get something to eat, took us out and showed us there wagons and how the tobacco was hung up to dry. He let us sleep that night in the barn where the horses were kept. They had a lot of horses back them days. There was no tractors yet.

            Anyways, we where there a couple of days, doing odd jobs for him and had three or four good meals. They wanted us to stay longer but we just had to go. They packed some sandwiches for us to take along.

            The southern tip of Illinois is narrow so ti was only about a day and a half 'til we were across into Missouri again. We were close to the southern state line so we went over it just to say we were in Arkansas.

            By now we weren't so afraid of missing our train like in the beginning. We acted like there wasn't gonna be another train. We went over the corner of Arkansas on to Kansas, we went to Kansas City, also Kansas City, Missouri. We liked the bigger cities as there was more working people and it was easy to get a lot more food.

            We went over the state line into Iowa but we wanted to see more cowboys so we headed over the corner of Nebraska, down south into Alabama. Sometimes we didn't know where we was or where we were going 'till we came to some bigger city. That's where we'd find these C.C. camps, run by the government, for people to stop and get something to eat and a change clothes or a pair of shoes. We could sleep over night too. They were for fellows out of work, traveling around looking for work, but I always liked the HoBo Jungles the best.

            We rode a lot of local freight trains. They stopped at all the small towns to pick up freight cars or let empty ones off, take them to where the through freights stopped. It was the only way we could get off at the small towns out in the country. We seen one ranch where they were breaking some horses but they wouldn't let us ride any. They told us we'd get killed but there was always some of the fellows asked us in to have something to eat. Sometimes it was just under a big tent. We slept one time in a bunkhouse. It was hot weather anyways and some would just sleep outside on the ground.

            There was most always a small brook or a big watering trough where the horses drank that everyone washed up where the water was running out. It was most always a well with some kind of pump and was plenty cold, but by now we were used to cold water. The HoBo Jungles was always near a brook and everyone washed up and washed their clothes, hung them up on tree limbs and just waited 'til they were dry. 

Twenty

            By now I was over my fear of the trains. They didn't look so big and fearful. I was able to go from one end to the other by walking or running over the tops of the box cars to get to a flat car to sit and rid in the open. Sometimes if it started to rain we climbed over the edge and swung down into an empty boxcar if the door was open. It used to be black and dirty when the train went through tunnels. We lay down flat if we was on top and kept or eyes shut. It was almost impossible to breath with all the black smoke and ashes the engine threw off.

            On hot days I used to like to lay on the top of the box cars on the catwalk and get all the wind. there was some days I could look off in the distance for maybe thirty miles and see mountains that still had snow on the peaks. We began to see a lot of cowboys on horses and cattle. There were no fences at that time so they had to keep them from roaming too far away it was flat open land for miles and miles.

            One day we were riding in a boxcar with fifteen or twenty other fellows. After one or two hours I got up, sat down in the doorway with my feet hanging out, swinging my legs. I wasn't there more than two or three minutes when two fellows grabbed me under the arms from behind and dragged me back into the boxcar. I thought they were going to beat me up. They just said, 'We see you are new at riding freight or you would never sit with your legs hanging out the door. Certain things, like railroad signals and bridges, are built so they come real close to the train. They can catch your legs and drag you out, and that would be it.' I sure was glad they done what they did. It seemed most of the fellows traveling on the trains were kind of looking out for each other even if they didn't know each other. I know in the short time I was at it so far I learned a lot and I was just starting.

            A few of the fellows was old timers on the trains and had done it for years. They kind of kept to themselves but when I could get with one of them they could tell some unbelievable things they done and learnt and things that happened to them and the kind of people they met, where the best places to go and when. It was like traveling with a teacher. One thing I didn't believe was when they told me how they rode the rods under the train when there was no place to get on, but after three or four different ones told me the same thing I started to believe and wondered if I'd ever do that. I knew I had a lot to learn and I'd just wait and see.

            About six months later I did it just once on a passenger train but never did it again. There was too much dirt and small gravel stones flying all around me and a few hit me. I was glad when I got off. That ride we had to sneak on under the train before it started and couldn't get off until it come to a stop. There was two rods that ran from end of the car to the other end. I had to crawl on top of them and lay cross ways. That was a bad ride and was used only as a last resort.

Nineteen

            Later on, while we still lived there I had pneumonia and got pretty bad. Mother had the ambulance come. One of the men put my arms over his shoulders and carried me downstairs on his back. I passed out part of the time. I came to a day later in the hospital. I was there four weeks. Mother had the Minister come in. I remember when I opened my eyes he was standing at the foot of the bed praying for me. Mother told me none of them thought I'd make it.

            The only other thing I remember about it is about three and a half weeks in the nurse got me out of bed. When I slid off the bed onto my feet my legs buckled under me and I went to the floor. I took about three or four days to get my strength back and they brought me home. They told me later that i had double pneumonia and no one expected me to live.

            I almost turned around and went back home. I guess I must of been home sick but the thought of seeing cowboys and the west was stronger so I kept going. The thought of what my Father and Mother might say and do helped to keep me gone too.

            We managed to catch a train from Chicago ok but it was a long ride to Kansas City, Kansas. The train stopped to take on water from a water tower along the tracks then one time to change engineers. Sometimes they only went so far then other engineers took it from there but when we got into Kansas City we got caught again and had to stay overnight in jail again. At least we had breakfast again.

            We decided this time not to let them catch us again so when we see them after that we just took off. We knew by now what they looked like and no more. Detectives just walked up to us and we got so we didn't mind asking to do a little work for something to eat. Sometimes we pulled weeds in gardens or doing a little hoeing or yard clean up. We seen and met so many fellows. There was hundreds of them so we soon fit right in with the rest.

            That next night we slept in an empty boxcar while riding but the following night we had to get another train so we decided to wait until morning. We went for some woods we could see to sleep. We cam across a path and followed it for about two hundred feet and run into about fifty fellows around eight or ten fires. They were all fixing something to eat 

            We just stopped and looked. They seen us and yelled to 'come on into our jungle and join up'. We said to each other, 'Jungle? What are they talking about?'

            We soon found we were in our first HoBo Jungle. We had nothing along to eat but a lot of them joined in and gave a little. We had more than enough. We seen all kinds of fruits and vegetables being cooked in pails, old kettles, frying pans, cans, and square gallon cans that was cut off. Some was being held over the fire, some set in the fire, some being hung on sticks over the fire, some had rocks in the fire to set containers on, a few had wires hung down from the tree limbs. It sure was something for us to see.

            There wasn't much sleep that night as there was a few that had something to make music and there was a few that played and sang most of the night. It sure was something to see for any one that never see it before. Where ever anyone was sitting, when they got ready to sleep they just lay down and went to sleep. It looked to us like they just died and fell over. In the morning we all had leftovers and black coffee and was on our way. 

Eighteen

            We happened to be pretty close to the yard limit and when we saw it coming we just stood there and looked at the two big freight engines and one about two-thirds of the way back. We never saw anything so big before. The fellows said there were one hundred and fifteen cars and was heavily loaded so it was only going about fifteen or twenty miles an hour until it could pick up speed. They told us to wait until the third engine went by. There wouldn't be so much smoke and dirt way back.

            One fellow stayed with me and the other took my buddy with him. He said for me to go first then he'd go and come up to where I was so when the train car was half way past me i started running and when the ladder steps caught up with me I grabbed ahold and jumped for the first step.

            I thought my arms was coming off and my world was gonna end but I hung on as the fellow told me, 'whatever happens don't ever let go'. I just stood there on the first step and held on. He told me to go right up the ladder and sit on the top and wait for him.

            I looked up and the top looked so far away. I don't know how long it was before I tried to move. I hardly dared to leave loose with one hand to reach up for the next step but when I did get to the top there the other fellows was waiting for me. He had caught the next car and jumped to the next car, walked the top, sat and waited for me while I was climbing up the side of one car.

            He sure at home on a freight. He told me I'd soon be the same. I soon found out he was right even if I didn't think I would.

            I was so scared and I'll always remember the first time I caught a freight train. I done what I thought was a lot of crazy things but grabbing hold of this thing tipped them all. I never thought a train could look so big.

            The trains used coal back in them times an there always was a lot of black smoke and cinders in the air the whole length of the trains. Where I came from the country and never seen a train up close. It sure was something new and different to me.

            It took this train tow or three days just from Ohio to Chicago. We didn't know it but we got on what is called a local freight. It stops everywhere to set cars off or pick cars up. A through train goes right through but then we were just learning but once we got to Chicago it took us two days to walk and get to where we could get another train as we were afraid to ride into the yards so we had gotten off a lot sooner than we had to and had a lot of walking to do as Chicago is a big place to get through and we learned it the hard way.

            I began to know I was hungry a lot of times as I wasn't used to asking people for something to eat as we always had plenty of food at home and that's the thing I kept thinking of a lot of the time and how I used to sneak a little on the side and take it upstairs. Then I'd go to bed, pull the covers up over my head. I had the flashlight too and I had a late night lunch. Mother asked me a couple of times how crumbs got in my bed that she found when she fixed the bed but I never knew anything about that.

            One night she sneaked upstairs, took hold of the covers and yanked them down and there I was, making the crumbs she asked me about and that was the end of my late night snacks.