CHAPTER XIAN OFFER OF PARTNERSHIP
HAD Joshua Cole been aware that the other tramp who rode on top of the train had “squared things with the brakeman,” he would not have been so surprised at the long ride he made without being ordered off by some train official. But he knew only that he was not disturbed throughout the entire night, as he lay in one corner on the hard floor, his head pillowed by an arm that ached when he awoke from time to time.
Joshua had talked with many boys in the House of Refuge who had been tramps. In fact, it seemed that the greater portion of the inmates had been committed because they had run away from home to seek adventures on the road. The stories that they told had fascinated him, and he had stored away much information as to how to conduct oneself in Trampdom. Thus it came about that, while having no practical knowledge of the ups and downs of the vagrant life, he was theoretically fitted for his big adventure.
In the middle of the night the train rolled into Pittsburgh and continued on, and still the traveler remained undisturbed. When morning arrived, however, his first knowledge of daylight came when the side door creaked open suddenly and let in a flood of sunlight, while the train was at a standstill.
“Here, you!” came a challenging voice. “Where you goin’?”
Joshua rose from the floor of the car, tucked his telescope and tripod under his arm, and went toward the door. Thehead and shoulders of a man showed there, as he looked in from the ground.
“Come on! Make it fast, Jack! Get outa here!”
Joshua’s blue-gray eyes studied the man as he stood back well out of reach.
“Huh!” grunted the trainman. “Who’s road-kid are you?”
“Nobody’s,” Joshua replied. He knew what a road-kid was in the parlance of Trampdom—a boy who travels with an older tramp for his “jocker,” for whom the boy begs and steals, and is paid in brutal kicks and cuffs. They had told him about “punks,” or “road-kids,” and “jockers” in the House of Refuge.
“Well, get out and stay out!”
Joshua watched his chance, and, clutching his burden firmly under an arm, ran to the door and jumped entirely to the ground. The brakeman aimed a kick at him as he struggled to rise from the stooping posture in which he had alighted, but he avoided the man and darted up the tracks toward a little town.
And in this undignified manner did Joshua Cole begin his tour as a lecturing astronomer.
All day long he remained hidden in the willow-screened bed of a river that paralleled the railroad tracks, hungry and afraid to venture forth. He slept a little, making up for his oft-interrupted slumbers of the night. His bones ached like the bones of an old man, for the boxcar floor had been even harder than the straw mattresses of the House of Refuge. But when darkness came he sallied out and sought the main street of the village, where men lazed in the moonlight under wooden awnings, and girls and women, garbed in flimsy lawns, paraded back and forth, with arms encircling waists, through a flower-perfumed night in early summer.
At the principal corner the hungry waif set up his tripod, adjusted his telescope, and trained it on the rising moon. Then his courage, cowed by hunger, bade fair to desert him, and to make him forget the speech that he had been rehearsing all day. But he girded up his loins, and in a squeaky, stage-frightened voice addressed a number of loafers who had been viewing his operations in silent wonder.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he quavered, “to-night the mu—moon is in the last quarter, and the black, pointed shadows of the towering peaks of the lunar Alps are—are very clear. To-night you can see plainly the longest mountain range on the moon. This great range is four hundred and sixty miles in length, and is called the Apennines. Three thousand sharp peaks in this range rise abruptly from theMare Imbrumto a height of from twelve thousand to twenty thousand feet. These are plainly visible to-night through this telescope that I have here. You may look at them for ten cents apiece, and each observer will be allowed three minutes at the telescope. While you look I shall explain the various moon objects that are of interest to you. Now, who—who’ll be the first?”
He looked, as he stood there timidly regarding them, like some young disciple of the eternal stars, sent on earth to scatter the fogs of prejudice and superstition. The pale light of the moon fell softly on his lean, ascetic features and threw them in sharp relief. His coal-black hair accentuated the steel-cut lines in the picture of his face. Even in the half-light those earnest, tolerant, gray-blue eyes seemed to plead; and at last a man, whispering to his neighbor, screwed himself sidewise and reached a hand into his trousers pocket.
“Le’s see what the kid’s got up his sleeve,” he suggested, and walked toward Joshua with his dime.
Being instructed, he placed his eye to the eye-piece.There followed a moment or two of silence, and then Joshua’s first patron breathed a deep sigh and fervently muttered:
“Gysh A’mighty!”
Wonders of which he had never dreamed suddenly were revealed to him. His phlegmatic soul had been whisked away from his game of horseshoes of the afternoon, his heavy supper of fried pork and gravy and baking-powder biscuits, and was borne up, up, up, as light as the perfume of the flowering night, to a mystic region that his imagination never could have pictured.
“Gysh!” he breathed again.
“Whatcha see, Henry?”—from the shadows under the awning where the man had rested.
“Huh!”
“See anythin’ o’ the cow that Bud Shamleffer lost last week up there?”
“H’m-m!”
And now Joshua, encouraged by the awe in the man’s voice, began speaking. He told in his soft tones of wondrous plains and craters and sea bottoms, and instructed his pupil where to look for them. The other men left the whittled bench and stood around, silent, listening intently to every word. Women stopped in their parade, and halted at the edge of the little throng. Some held youngsters by the hand. Girls giggled at they knew not what.
“Hush, Albert!” came a shrill voice. “Listen to what the young man is saying, can’t you? Yes, it’s a spyglass, and Mr. Haddon is looking at the moon. How much does it cost to look, Pa?... Yes, if you’ll be good and keep still Pa’ll let you look through it. Won’t you, Pa? Albert Washburn, if you don’t keep still Pa’ll—”
“The awe-inspiring Sea of Serenity embraces an area of one hundred and twenty-five thousand miles. It is almostentirely surrounded by mountains. The oddly twisted range seen running for—”
“Albert Washburn, will you hush?”
“—hundreds of miles along its western floor suggests the action of water, as does also the wrinkled plain ofMare Tranquilitatis. Note how marvelously interspersed are the light and dark regions—”
“C’mon away, Haddon, an’ give somebody else a look. Yer three minutes is up long time ago!”
So for more than an hour and a half the telescope followed the moon across the heavens, while the villagers found dimes and braces of nickels with which to buy a glimpse of the wonder thereof. Albert had had his yelled-for observation and was carried away squalling for more, unquieted by dire threats of what would happen to him when he reached home. But finally interest waned, and then the young astronomer folded his tripod and lashed it to the telescope, and sought a restaurant on the point of closing. In his pocket were sixteen dimes and six nickels, the first money that he had earned since he taught roller-skating back in Hathaway. And Beaver Clegg had called Science an indifferent paymaster!
Then a man slipped in after Joshua and took the stool beside him at the counter. He gave his order in a low mumble and sat with bowed head awaiting its coming. Joshua glanced at him and gave a start. Beaver Clegg had been ugly of face, but the great heart of him had glorified that ugliness. The man who sat at Joshua’s side was a living horror.
He wore disreputable clothes, topped by a black Stetson hat with a round, narrow brim. Dust and sweat had made a gray ring about the hat where the brim and crown were joined. There was a long livid scar on his right cheek, slick and red and hairless. But about it stood a week’sgrowth of stubble, which made the mark more hideous. The ugly mouth, twisted grotesquely to one side, was nothing short of repulsive, and as the dark little eyes looked up ratlike into Joshua’s the boy almost shivered.
“Say, Jack,” ventured the pitted lips, “dat was a nifty little performance youse put on for de hicks dis evenin’. W’ere’d youse get next to de look-see?”
Joshua was obliged to request an interpretation.
“De telescope—w’ere d’youse glom it?”
“Why,” replied Joshua, “it was given to me by my instructor in—in school.”
“She’s one nifty little money-getter,” vouchsafed the other. “I was lampin’ youse from acrost de drag. How much d’youse glom, Jack?”
Joshua knew now that he was speaking with a tramp. He realized, too, that here was an old-timer, one of the breed known in Trampdom as John Yeggs. To be called Jack bespoke all this, and Joshua became wary at once.
“I took in nearly two dollars,” he made reply to the direct question.
“Dat’s goin’ some! Cheese, I didn’t make four bits wid de skeletons dis afternoon! But dey’re woiked to de’t’ anyway dese days.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” said Joshua.
“De skeletons? Say, ain’t youse never seen a guy woik de skeletons on de hicks? Dere’s two of ’em, youse savvy, and youse set on a street corner an’ make ’em dance on a black clot’ by pullin’ a black t’read. De hicks usta fall fer dem, but not so much lately. Dat’s me graft, Jack—one of ’em. I got sever’l good lines. But dat telescope racket looks good to me. Say, youse’re only a kid an’ youse need a jocker. Youse’re on de road, I know, ’cause I see youse take a sneak from a boxcar to-day and hide in de jungles. Now, lissen, kid—youse’re new on de road an’ don’t savvywot’s wot. I do—I’m an ol’-timer meself. I c’n put youse wise, an’ youse’n’ me’ll make all kinds o’ jack wid dat telescope. Youse c’n run ’er an’ make de spiel, an’ I’ll mooch ’round and chase de hicks to youse. We’ll make it all over de country. Dat’s wot youse want, kid—youse wanta see de worl’, an’ I c’n show it to youse. Get me? Dey call me De Whimperer, an’ I’ll tell youse more about dat later. Wot d’youse say youse’n’me hook up togedder? Youse’ll be me road-kid, an’ I’ll perteck youse from a lotta dese no-good stiffs youse’ll be meetin’ in yer travels. An’ we’ll make a good livin’ wid no woik, an’ have a helluva time. What d’youse say, kid?”