Ryerson Johnson

The Hobo Diaries 1921- 1926

1921

Tuesday, May 17

Put finishing touches to things and left about 5 O'clock on a streetcar for Belleville. I walked into the station at Belleville wearing my good clothes and carrying a suitcase. I walked out of the station about three minutes later wearing my travelling clothes and carrying a suit case. mailed the suitcase home and thus crossed Rubicon, as it were.

Waited only a few minutes about the tracks, when the shreik of a whistle and the creak of brakes announced the arrival of my means of locomotion. It was a fast banana train which stopped only for water, and it was on it's way again. So fast did it pick up speed, that I was afraid to wait longer, so nailing the third car from the engine, I climbed to the top and commenced to adjust my goggles and neckercheif. Smoke and cinders descended upon my me from the engine like hail and the shades of everlasting night. The puff of the engine and the clicking of the car wheels on the track became as swift and regular as the rythmical tonation of a smoothly running high powered multiple cylindered gasoline engine, such as a Hudson super six, for instance.

Ah, it was a fine, glorious! My trusty goggles and neckercheif deflect the flying cinders. The night was cool; resplendant in the glory of the full moon. The light from the blazing firebox of the locomotive showered forth upon the hissing turbulant steam, and dyed it in a never to be forgotten crimson color.

Ah, to go on and on - bump, bump, bumpety bump, bump, bump - what the hell? I found myself lifted clear off the top of the car and violently dropped down again, all with machine like regularity of a clock. Jolt, jolt, bump, bump. I felt myself slipping, made a wild grab for the runway on top of the car, flattened out on my stomach and held on for dear life.

Gone were all thoughts of beauty and grandeur. I prayed only that I may be allowed to live to nurse the countless bruises I was receiving, as, despite my grimmest efforst to stick to the top of the car, I kept bouncing up and down with exactly the same motion as is imparted to a swiftly repeatedly batted rubber ball.

Then it all quit as suddenly as it had begun, and the train was once more speeding smoothly through the night. I relaxed my hold a triffle and attempted to better my position. "Like an elephant shaking the slimmy" I though grimly.

2

Than bump, bump, jolt, jolt, with the rapidity of a ticking watch. It was the same thing all over again. And now to add to my discomfort, the smoke from the plunging locomotive poured down upon me in colomnous billows. I gasped, choked and than spit on my handkercheif and experienced a little releif from this source. But this was not all. With a zip and a whip, a live spark flattened itself out on my neck. Wow! I let go of my moistened handkercheif which I was holding to my nose and slapped frantically at the spark. I breathed in a great gulp of hot smoke. I ripped out some loving words and lowered my face to the top of the car in a wild attempt to hold the neckercheif in place. Whack, my chin connected with the vibrating car top, and it's sore yet, six days later. I glanced deperatly around. There, just within reach, was my knife dancing merrily up and down. With some more loving words, I grasped it viciously and managed to put it in my pocket, though all this time my chest was thudding murderously on the car top.

"Damn , is this going to be like this all the way to New Orleans?" I thought.

Tap, tap, tap, my knife was again doing a jog on top of the car. I collected it a second time and than my flashlight started roaming. I don't win any way you take it. I did render reverenced thanks for one thing though, at the last minute I had mailed my camera ahead.

Well, it was the same thing over and over for the rest of the ride. There were moments of calm and moments of turbulation. During one of the more severe seiges, I promised all the angels in the sky to get off that train if it ever stopped before heading to the next division.

And than with a shreik of airbrakes and a gradual dying of the train noises, the train came to a stop at a little water station.

Did I get off? I did not. Why? I don't know. Didn't have sense enough, I guess. I probably figured that since I had safely gone through it all once, I could do it again. Anyway, the train started and I was still hugging the runway.

And if it was torture before it was slow murder this time. I can't explain it exactly except to say that when it quit and the train ran smoothly, you experienced the same sort of releif, infinitley multiplied, as when you are bare riding horseback for the first time and your demon horse changes from his killing trot to a smooth gallop.

This time the intervals of trotting lasted longer and were more severe. My head was kept violently bobbing in the air, till everything became a blur. I couldn't see straight and my neck seemed ready to crack at any minute.