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.