2

THE TRAMP

Looking out the window, I could see that he was a real tramp, all right. He was dressed up pretty good and neat, but there was a streak of red clay along the inside of the cuff of one of his trousers. I knew that he must have hoofed it all the way from Port Hampton, which was about fifty miles away. There was no red clay like that between our town and Port Hampton.

Aunt Claudia said: “Sir, your music will be more appreciated if you take it to another street in this town.”

The white dog sailed over the fence and stood up in front of Aunt Claudia, wagging his tail and laughing at her out of his little, bright black eyes.

“That is a fighting dog!” cried Aunt Claudia. “That is one of those nasty bull terriers! Call it away from me this instant! Heavens, what a person to allow wandering around the streets of our town. I suppose it will be the death of someone before it's done.”

“Come back, Smiler,” the tramp ordered.

Smiler sails over the fence again.

“The lady doesn't like us, Smiler,” said the tramp sadly. “We must go away.”

“Humph!” exclaimed Aunt Claudia. “I suppose there is a place for every one of God's dumb creatures…but not in my front yard.”

“Ma'am,” said the tramp, with his hat in his hand, “I am going right on. I was misinformed. I was told that the mistress of this house was a great lover of good music.”

“And who, pray,” asked Aunt Claudia, “might have given me a name like that?”

“A lady on the same street….” He waved to one side of him.

“Missus Rice?” asked Aunt Claudia. “Was it a Missus Rice?”

Mrs. Rice was the widow of the baker. She was pretty rich and always gave money to the school and the poor families across the track. She was terrible important in our town. She wore double spectacles and walked with a cane and had a stiff black silk dress.

“Yes, ma'am,” said the tramp, “that is exactly who it was. She said that she thought you would appreciate my art….”

“You step around to the kitchen door, will you?” said Aunt Claudia. “I think that I've got a snack of something for you. But mind that dog of yours don't scare my chickens…because I won't have it! It spoils their laying for days.”

Aunt Claudia come back into the house, walking pretty proud. She got noticed by Mrs. Rice about once a month, and she was set up, I can tell you. She give Mrs. Porson a family picture album to look at, and stopped only to point out the group picture of Cousin Minnie's children before she went on out to the kitchen to feed the tramp. I got caught with a terrible coughing fit right afterward, and went out to listen. I heard the tramp apologizing for interrupting the singing. He said that the wind had been blowing toward the house, and that he hadn't heard. That was a whopper, because, when I open up, they can hear me two blocks away. But when Aunt Claudia wanted to believe anybody, the facts never bothered her none. When she didn't want to believe anybody, all the facts in the world wouldn't have proved anything to her. I come around to the door and looked through. Aunt Claudia was sitting down with her back to me. The tramp was sitting sort of sideways and saw me right away, but didn't let on.

He was telling Aunt Claudia about his life, which had been pretty sad. He had been the son of an opera singer. Nothing had been too good for him until finally his mother died of a fever. He was left in the world with “only a few trifling thousands to complete my musical education.” When that was spent, he had to fall back on his fiddle to piece out, which was only natural.

Aunt Claudia pitied him a lot and hoped that he would soon be in better shape. He let on that he was saving enough money to rent a hall, and then he would start in to give concerts. Aunt Claudia said that she didn't mind giving a boost to a good cause and that there was ten cents for him. He thanked her for it, saying that if the world had more people like her in it, life would be like walking in a garden of roses.

Here she busted in: “Young man, did I see you give that piece of ham to the dog?”

It took a fast eye to see that trick, because he was mighty quick with his hands. Smiler had just opened up and swallowed that piece of ham like it was a gulp of air.

“It slipped from my fork,” said the tramp, finishing his lunch and standing up.

So I went back to the front room. There was no more singing that day, though. Because when Aunt Claudia sat down to the piano and started to nod to me, Mrs. Porson started talking about it being time for her to start. I knew that she wouldn't be going for a long time, so I winked at Jack, and we went out in the backyard together.

I hoped that the tramp might be around, but he was gone. Jack Porson didn't seem interested at all in what I had heard at the kitchen door. He kept a sort of a fishy eye on me, and in another minute he gave me a shove.

You would think that he would have let things alone as they were, because he had given me such a beating the year before. He was just as sassy as if he had licked me fair and square the last time out. Well, I hit him in the stomach the first pass I made at him, and after that it was easy. He tried to kick me as I was coming in, but I managed to get close, and then I fair ripped into him. Finally he couldn't stand it any longer, and he dropped on his face, holding his head in his arms.

Fat boys are like that. They ain't apt to have any nerve. I asked him if he had enough. He said that he had, but that he would lick me to a pulp the next time he came over, and that he would start in and train for me. When he sat up and I saw his face, I knew that I was headed for plenty of trouble without Jack Porson being mixed in it at all.

His face was so fat and soft that I had cut him up pretty bad. He had two black eyes and his nose was all blood, and there was a tooth missing from in the front of his mouth. He was still dripping, and the blood was running down from another cut in his lip, so that he looked pretty bad.

I wanted to clean him up. But he said that he would take care of himself. He went straight on into the house the way he was. You can see that he wasn't no sort of a man. He was just a mean, low-down welcher that wanted to have me get a licking.

I knew that, after one look at him, Aunt Claudia would be ready to give me one of her best. Well, there are different kinds of lickings. Dad used to lay into me with a lot of muscle, but he was always so mad that he couldn't pick out the places that hurt the most. Aunt Claudia said that she always believed it was a sin to whip a child when anybody was in a temper, so her eyes were wide open all the time. She picked tender spots every lick.

Knowing what was coming, I decided that the whipping wouldn't be any worse if it come a little later. I lit out for the swimming pool as hard as I could split so that I would be out of hearing before she begun hollering for me.

It's a queer thing that when somebody calls you, you sort of got to go home so long as you can hear it. If you can't hear, you feel a lot better, and pretty soon you forget what's going to happen when you do get home. Then you go along and have a mighty good time, mostly. Aunt Claudia had a fetching sort of voice; it ended up with a squeak that traveled like a bullet. She would call—“Sam-meeee!”—starting down low and ending up high. When the wind was with her, I could hear her eight blocks away, and even when it was against her, I could hear her a good three or four blocks.

With one dive I took the fence and cut across the fields. Every minute I thought I heard the beginning of her siren call. I legged it out longer and longer and pretty soon I was taking the big barbed wire fences, sailing.

When I got to the top of Gunther's Hill and I rounded over to the other side of it, I knew I was out of earshot of Aunt Claudia. I sat down and got my wind. Then I peeled and slid in Gunther's Pool.

I just lay there on the flat of my back with my head in the shadow of the willow tree and my toes wriggling out where the sun was the hottest. I just had to keep my hands flapping a little to keep the current from floating me down—which was about all that kept me from falling to sleep. However, sleeping ain't half so much fun; the best part of being asleep you never know anything about.

“How's the water, kid?” sang out a voice on the shore.

You know how sudden a voice comes clapping into your ears when you're lying in the water? I rolled over, and there I seen the red-headed gent that played the violin left-handed. He had his dog with him and everything.

I told him that the water was pretty good.

“I don't think that I'll go in,” he said. I'm worn out with travel. Do you live around here, my young friend?”

I could see that he didn't recognize me. You could hardly blame him, having seen me only once. Besides, being peeled and in clothes is a lot of difference. So I just said that I lived pretty close.

“Ah, well,” he remarked, “there are some cold-hearted people in that town.”

I allowed that was right and asked him how he had found out. At that, he lifted up his head and stood there sort of sad and noble.

“Why should I tell my troubles to a child?” he queried. “Ah, well!”

“Have you lost your suitcase?” I asked.

“My uncle, the wealthy Sir Oliver Radnor,” he replied, “was parted from me in Ashton by mistake. I found myself alone on the train. However, it is impossible to persuade the townsmen. I was about to walk back to Ashton….”

This yarn didn't hitch up with the one that he had told at Aunt Claudia's house about being the son of an opera singer. I could see what he hoped was that I would ask him home to supper, and maybe then he could get something out of my father, if I had one. So I rolled over on my side in the water and winked at him.

He stopped right in the middle of a sentence with a little frown. “Where have I seen you before, youngster?” he asked, a little sharp.

“Back in the last house,” I answered, “where you was the son of an opera singer.”

You would think that he might get a little red or something like that, but he didn't. He just grinned at me as much as to say: “How do you do?” Then he peeled down to his undershirt and took the air in the shadow of the tree.

Looking at him then, you could tell that he was pretty strong by the way his chest stuck out and his stomach stuck in. He had a thick neck, a pretty deep chest. His arms were big, but over the muscles there was a little soft layer of fat, like there is on the arms of women that don't do much work. He had red speckles over his shoulders and down on his wrists, and there was a big white welt along his left side by the ribs. I would have give fifty cents to know what had made that white place on him. But he wasn't the kind of a fellow you could rush with questions. I saw that I had better take my time a little.