Before the open door of a “side-door Pullman” I sit at ease on our bedding roll with my diary on my knees, watching the Iowa prairie billow past. What a relief to view the stretches of gluey, sloppy road, serene in the knowledge that for the present at least we are free from its sticky toils.

We lunched last Monday beside the Stockdale siding and while packing our belongings preparatory to another tussle with the bike, a freight train pulled in. The train crew surveyed us with vast interest, and as the engine backed slowly past, the engineer leaned far out of the cab window.

“Whither away?” he queried.

“California or bust,” yelled Dan.

The long train jarred to a stop on the siding. A brakeman appeared and entered into conversation.

“It must be pretty fierce to ride a wheel through that mud,” he volunteered.

“You bet it is,” agreed Dan, “and the track isn’t much better. If I bark any more hide off my shins, I’ll have to buy a pair of crutches.”

With a shriek and a roar a passenger train thundered through. The freight pulled slowly off the siding. The engineer leaned out as before, his big, good-natured mouth stretched in a broad grin, his right arm swinging with a scooping motion.

“Get aboard! Get aboard!” he shouted.

Dan and I exchanged glances. With one accord we jumped for the wheel which stood loaded for the start, and ran it along beside the track. Car after car groaned past. The caboose appeared. A brakeman leaned from the step and grasped the handle bars, the conductor lent a hand, and in a moment our old machine was being hoisted upon the platform while Dan and I scrambled up the steps.

Followed a detailed account of our aims and adventures, which was listened to with keen attention. The train crew held a council of war to determine the best means of procedure. About half way up the train was situated an empty box car, and to this we were transferred as soon as darkness had fallen. We spread our blankets on the floor and composed ourselves for sleep.

But alas and alack! A new crew had come aboard, who had chosen our resting place for a bumper and appeared to be switching all the cars on the middle division with it. We would enter a siding with much grinding and jarring, coming to a stop with a jolt. The train would be uncoupled in the middle, our car would advance with increasing speed, then—whang—we would bump the standing gondolas, the train would buckle at each coupling with a resounding thumping, the engine would jerk us backward, and we were off to repeat the performance.

Towards morning the door of the box car slid softly open and several men piled in. Dan asked them what they wanted and one replied, “It’s all right, Bo. We’re west-bound bundle stiffs same as yourself.”

Great was their amazement when the morning light revealed the presence of a woman. About sunrise, two jumped out to “rustle some grub” while the engine stopped for water.

The train was moving out and we had given them up, when here they came, helter skelter, and leaped aboard the speeding car. One had some slices of meat and bread in a newspaper, while the other carried part of a loaf of bread. The food was unhesitatingly divided among the five of us and was greatly appreciated.

The scant meal finished, we settled down to talk. I was amazed at the mentality displayed by the smallest fellow, a member of the I. W. W. He seemed conversant with all the questions of the day, and expressed in excellent language clear cut opinions on industrial subjects that were both novel and startling. They were all workers, but jobs were scarce where they came from, so they were going west in the hope of bettering their condition. The fact that thousands were at that moment travelling in the opposite direction, impelled by self-same conditions, failed to deter them.

One was a big, husky chap with rugged, honest features and the true brown eyes of a Collie. His story interested me greatly.

Born among collieries, he was driven to work as a breaker boy at a very early age by the wretched poverty of his parents. After several years of deadening toil at a time when he should have been in school, he drifted away to join the great army of migratory workers. He worked on a threshing machine while the harvest was in progress, and at its close what little money he had been able to save was consumed while searching for another job. Perhaps he got work with pick and shovel in some construction gang, but the contractor’s system of low wages, high board bills, charges for physician’s care—which most do not receive—and the like, kept him destitute. He called at an employment office, where he paid two dollars for a job, was worked just long enough to pay for transportation, board and monthly fees, then discharged without wages, his employer and the agent dividing up the original fee. From coast to coast he wandered, sweating in the dust and heat of summer through long hours of racking labor, in order to escape starvation in the idle months of winter.

His eyes grew dark and wistful as he shyly confessed his one love affair. He had secured employment in a little lumber mill and made such a good impression on the boss, who was also the owner, that he was taken to board in his own home. Here the poor fellow got his first idea of what home life might mean. He fell in love with the daughter of the house, who seemed to reciprocate, but before they could enter into any formal engagement the lumber trust put the mill out of business, ruining the owner, who was forced to leave that part of the country.

Try as he would, the young man could secure no steady employment and marriage without such foundation was out of the question.

“I saw enough of getting married on nothing when I was a boy,” he concluded. “Wages are set for single men, I reckon. And after a bit a fellow can’t earn a living for his family, so the wife and kiddies have to rustle out and work. Easy enough for them to get a job,” he added bitterly. “Many a time I’ve seen kids doing work that I’d been glad to get. But they can beat a man all out at working cheap. They got to work cheap or starve. I may be a good-for-nothing bundle stiff, but I’ve never got so low as to live off the work of little children.”

“Our good business men are not so finicky,” broke in the I. W. W. “A big profit looks good to them. If it comes from the coined sweat and blood of women and children, so much the better. Yes, women are cheaper than men, and kids are cheaper than women. After a bit they’ll get machines that are cheaper than kids, and then the brats can rot in the slums for all they care.”

“Why not let the people in general own the machines and run them for use instead of for profit? Then the men could do the work, the women could stay at home and the children go to school.” Thus spoke the quiet member of the trio.

“Shut up, you crazy socialist!” exclaimed the I. W. W. “You fellows won’t do anything but vote. You leave it to us. We’re the boys who’ll fix the machines, all right, all right. Yes, and the plutes, too.”

I remembered the many I. W. W. signs and notices that were posted along the way; the groups of men beneath the water tanks who listened eagerly to the harangues of such as he. Some even had told me that they had given up liquor because it blunted their faculties at a time when brains were needed in the workers’ fight against the capitalists. I seemed to hear a muttering as of a gathering storm; perhaps in the days preceding the French Revolution a similar murmuring rose.

There are so many like my dark-eyed acquaintance. He lost touch with his sweetheart, lost hope, lost ambition and now drifts aimlessly about the country in search of a bare subsistence.

It is he and the millions of his class who quarry the stone and hew the timber for our cities; they build the roadbed and lay the tracks for swiftly turning Pullman wheels; they mine the coal that warms our dwellings; they harvest the wheat that nourishes our bodies; without their labour industry would cease.

Yet life to them holds out no hope, no promise; their meagre earnings forbid the thought of marriage; their only home is some saloon; their final rest the potter’s field.

About ten o’clock a trainman poked his head inside the door.

“Hey, clear out, you fellows. This is no place for you when we enter the yard. Better beat it.”

The hoboes bade us adieu and sprang from the car. The brakeman leaped in beside us.

“We finish our run at the next stop,” he said. “The engineer will slow down at the outskirts of town and you jump off and hike out. You’ll find the main road over to the north.”

We thanked him warmly for his kindness and made ready to follow his advice. Soon the train slowed to a mere crawl. Dan leaped down and ran alongside, I swung out the wheel, which he seized, and in an instant I was standing beside him.

Waving farewell to the train crew, who had all turned out to see us off, we struck out for the main road. The straggling outskirts of a good-sized town lay before us.

“Tell you what,” I remarked after we had traversed some distance. “Suppose we stop in the residence section and look for work. I’ll offer to do washing or cleaning by the day, and you can cut the lawn, wash the automobile or something.”

Dan replied with a snort of righteous indignation. “Ever since you were bit by the crazy bug and started out to be a lady hobo you have lost all your natural pride, Ethel. It was bad enough for me, a high-class electrical engineer with a paid-up union card in my pocket, to stoop to the job of a common labourer as I did last week for your sake. Now I’ll be damned if I become a dirty roustabout and have some old hen ordering me around while I sweep off the front porch.”

“Oh, all right,” I answered cheerily. “But the interesting hour of high noon approacheth. Will you please be so kind as to furnish me with exact information regarding your financial standing? I am pained to confess myself the victim of a too familiar craving which calls aloud for attention.”

Dan thrust his hand into his pocket and withdrew a solitary ten cent piece, nor did a prolonged search of numerous pockets yield further riches.

“’Tis sad,” I sighed, “but a still voice tells me that that bit of silver will prove strangely inadequate to the demands of nature. However, no doubt you can dine off your natural pride, served up on your paid-up union card, while I eat a dime’s worth of doughnuts or something.”

We approached a rather pretentious place as I spoke. A large brass sign announced “J. Stanchley Loane, M.D., Physician and Surgeon.” I paused to study the white house with the red-roofed garage in the rear.

“This looks like a good place to make a start. Think I’ll just go in and call on my fellow practitioner and see what happens.”

Dan stepped in front of me. “Now see here, Ethel!” he began angrily. “Don’t go to pulling off foolish stunts. You are my wife and I absolutely forbid you to go about like an Irish washerwoman and——”

“Now see here, Dan!” I mimicked, breaking in upon his authoritative harangue, “I am your wife, ’tis true, but sad to say, the fact does not prevent me from growing hungry. ’Tis also true that I am only a graduate physician with a high-class appetite. I have no paid-up union card to stand between me and possible employment with its promise of a square meal. Moreover, I have never felt myself to be so wonderfully superior to the Irish washerwomen who earn an honest living by honest labour. At any rate, I shall not attempt to hold myself above them unless I can prove by my conduct that I have that right. Just now I fail to see how either you or I can do better than by marching up to that back door and asking for work like the genuine bundle stiffs that we are. Of course if you desire to remain here on the curb, upholding your dignity while I ask for employment, you are entirely at liberty to do so. As for me, I’m going in right now.”

As I turned up the concrete driveway Dan leaned the wheel against the fence and followed. I rapped at the door of the screen porch. The inner door was opened and a heavy-set man with bristling, reddish hair stepped out.

“Good morning, Doctor Loane,” I began. “My husband and I are cycling to California, and being short of funds are looking for employment. My husband is an excellent mechanic and will be glad to go over your car for you. I can cook, wash, scrub or do any kind of housework.”

The doctor looked us up and down with an insolent stare.

“So you can cook, can you? Suppose you come in and show what you can do. I’m alone in the house to-day. We have a devilish time with servants. Our last maid—a pretty little fool—got on her high horse and quit us yesterday, and the old harridan of a cook followed suit. My wife’s gone to town to get another bunch.”

“Sit down on the porch, you,” he ordered Dan, “and you step in here. There is the pantry and the ice chest. Throw together some sort of lunch and call me when it’s ready.” He waved his hand with a lordly air and disappeared into the front of the house.

A short inspection enabled me to determine on a suitable menu, and soon a very fair lunch was spread on the dining table.

“Humph! You are quite a clever piece of goods,” the doctor volunteered, as I summoned him to the meal. “Go and feed your man now, and later we’ll find something more for you to do.”

The meal concluded, Dr. Loane took Dan to the garage, while I whisked the dishes away and tidied the kitchen. The doctor entered as I finished my task.

“There is some work to be attended to in my private office, and you are just the one to do it for me,” he grinned ingratiatingly.

I felt my face growing hot as I realised what he meant.

“What work do you want me to do?” I asked, rising to my feet.

He advanced with outstretched arms, a bestial demon looking out of his red-brown eyes. I backed behind the table, fury and dread causing my heart to beat tumultuously.

Just then a short ring came at the side entrance. Dr. Loane drew back with a muttered curse. We stood motionless for a moment. The bell rang again, insistently.

“You, you keep quiet now. Remember what you are,” he hissed, and strode to the door.

I lost no time in dashing to the garage, where I found Dan tinkering with the car.

“Come, Dan, quick! Let’s get out of here,” I cried.

“What’s up, Ethel?” He came out wiping his hands on a piece of waste.

“Never mind an explanation. I’ll tell you later.” I spoke imperiously. “Get the wheel now and don’t stop to talk.”

We started in the direction of the business section of the city.

“I think we had better take the wheel over by the railroad yard, Dan, and see if you can’t arrange for us to take a freight out of here. I’m a trifle nervous about that old beast of a doctor. He impressed me as the kind of man to make us trouble if possible, have us arrested or something.”

At the station I waited for Dan to see what arrangements he could make. In a few moments he returned to the waiting-room door with a troubled countenance.

“A freight is going to pull out in about an hour, but I haven’t been able to make any impression on the crew. You know, the rules are pretty strict against carrying passengers on freight trains and the boys are afraid of their jobs. I think we’d better give up the idea and ride out on the bike. I cached it down at the end of the yard.”

“I think I’d better talk to the trainmen, Dan,” I replied seriously. “I’d like to get away as soon as possible. I am afraid the doctor may make trouble for us.”

We walked up the track to where a freight engine was puffing back and forth placing cars in a long train, like a fussy old woman stringing beads. A lean-jawed man in blue denim with a conductor’s cap pulled over his eyes turned at our approach.

“Good evening, Conductor,” I began, looking him full in the face. “We have no money and we must get out of this town immediately. I should like to put our bicycle, which is down at the end of the yard, in some empty car that you are going to take out to-night, and get a lift for fifteen or twenty miles.”

His keen grey eyes bored into mine. “What’s the trouble that you got to get out of town? Been holding up somebody?” he queried gruffly.

“My husband and I rode into town this morning and started to hunt work as usual. We stopped at a doctor’s house over on the north side, Doctor Stanchley Loane’s, and he gave us work for the day. His wife was out, my husband was cleaning the auto in the garage, and while I was at work in his private office, he attacked me. I gave him the slip and got away. Now, if we ride the wheel out of town, I’m afraid he’ll make trouble for us. He expects us to go that way.”

“The old son-of-a——” the conductor stopped abruptly. “He’s a bad egg all right. We all know that, but I scarcely thought he’d dare go so far. Of course, your being a sort of hobo——” He stopped again. “Reckon he didn’t take a very close look at those shoulders of yours, or he wouldn’t have tried to get fresh. Well, we’ll see what can be done. Where did you say your wheel is?”

Dan described its location.

“All right. You go there and be ready. We’ll shunt an empty down that way and when the coast seems clear, you pile aboard and lie low. It’s a risky business, but it’s all in a lifetime.” He turned away and began signalling the engineer.

Dan and I scuttled down the track. When we had the wheel in hand, ready for loading, he turned to me.

“Did that old devil actually try to lay hands on you? Why didn’t you tell me when you came out to the garage? I’d like to go back and crack his nut for him.”

“I’m glad enough to get out of the nasty scrape without any skull-cracking. You must remember that we are looked upon as hoboes, and hoboes have no rights. I do wish the men would hurry with that car.”

As though in answer to my thought, a box car rolled gently down the track and came to a stop not ten feet from where we waited.

“Good shot,” said Dan as we slid back the side door, which was ajar.

A long look around and I scrambled in, while Dan hoisted up the wheel and quickly followed. The bottom of the car was packed solid with radiators, which were piled almost to the top in the rear end, each tier held in place by heavy braces. We stacked the tandem in a convenient corner and crouched in silence on the crates.

Soon there came a clinking rumble, there was a slight jar, and our car moved up the line to take its place in the outgoing train.

An hour or more passed while the train roared on. Dan sat by the door, while I, lulled by the clank of wheels and the panting breath of the engine that was whirling us homeward, leaned against the radiator braces in the centre of the car and lost myself in dreams.

Came a shriek of the whistle, a grinding crash, and the floor of the car seemed to buckle under me while something dealt me a terrific blow between the shoulders, lifting me clear into the air and flinging me headlong against the front timbers.

Consciousness struggled back from the void of nothingness and I heard Dan’s agonised voice in my ear.

“My God, Ethel, speak to me. Are you hurt? Oh, she doesn’t answer! She can’t be dead! Ethel! Ethel!”

As he dragged my limp body toward the door a flaming torture seared my lungs, my mouth filled with a hot, brackish fluid. “Wait,” I gasped, half strangled. “Let me rest a moment. I’ll be all right in a minute.” He must not know my plight. I turned my head away as his groping fingers caressed my hair, thankful for the thick darkness as I freed my mouth of blood.

“Oh, thank God! Thank God!” he was whispering softly as he tried to lift me in his arms.

“Let me lie flat for a little while, dear. Then I’ll get up. Are you all right?”

“Yes, I’m O.K. It wasn’t a regular wreck. We must have run into something. The shock threw the radiators about. The air seemed full of them, but I got off scot free. You and the tandem and the radiators were all in a scramble. I thought I should never get you out. You’re sure you are not hurt?”

“I feel rather shaken, but I believe there is nothing serious the matter. I had a rap that put me out for a few minutes, that’s all.”

“What happened?” called Dan to the conductor who approached with a lantern as I finished scrubbing the blood from my face.

“A drunken bum stalled his team on the crossing. The engine rounded the curve and was within a hundred feet before Sam saw the wagon. The good-for-nothing sot was off in front of the horses, else he would be in kingdom come. How did you come out? Did it shake you up much when Sam set the emergencies?”

“My wife had a pretty thorough pounding. The blamed radiators broke loose and piled up in the front of the car. Guess we’d better try another Pullman or clear out altogether. What do you want to do, Ethel?”

“Oh, let’s ride as far as we can. Even a freight train covers ground so quickly compared to our slow old wheel.”

“All right, but we’d better hunt another carriage.”

The conductor stood hesitating. “This radiator car is billed straight through to Frisco,” he informed us. “I picked her out for that reason. There ain’t many cars left open like she is. Don’t know how it comes she ain’t sealed shut. But if you have real good luck, you might be able to skate right through to Frisco in a week or ten days. It’ll be a pretty rough trip, but if you want to get to Cal in a hurry, it’ll beat pumping a bike.”

“Oh, Dan, we must try it. I’d ride the bumpers or the cowcatcher to get home in a week,” I cried, forgetting my pain in such a joyful prospect.

“It seems a trifle risky to trust those radiators again, but you’re the doctor, so here goes.”

As Dan settled down beside me the conductor slipped a bill into his hand and ducked away. The engineer signalled that he was ready to be off. When the train took the next siding to permit repairs on the engine, Dan secured a lantern and we straightened our tangled possessions and made ourselves as comfortable as possible for the night.

I was glad when Dan slept, for I feared he would notice my restless seeking for some posture in which I could forget my aches and pains in sleep. But my hopes were in vain, for mind and body conspired to hold my nerves at a tension. The events of the day, which seemed of a month’s duration, formed a kaleidoscopic jumble in my brain.

Morning dawned at last and I lay prone on the radiator crates, while Dan busied himself with the tandem, which had also suffered in the mÊlÉe of the evening before.

It was nearly dark when we pulled into the railroad yard at Des Moines. Our car was switched off the main track, and Dan immediately got out to purchase provisions for the western trip. Trembling at every noise, I awaited his return, and it was not long till he was back with an armful of bundles and a kettle of water. Another train was being made up and soon our car was shunted into place. The engineer had given the signal for the crew to assemble and my breath had begun to come easier, when the door was jerked open and a man thrust in his head.

“Hey, yous! Come out of that,” he snarled. “Here, Tim, I’ve found a couple of boes. Come on out now,” as we made no move. “If you don’t, you’ll wish you had in about two seconds.”

Slowly Dan clambered out. I followed.

“What to hell have we here? Blamed if it ain’t a woman!” the detective cried.

Tim, meanwhile, advanced with a lantern, and having given us a close inspection, leaped into the car.

“What in blazes is this?” he exclaimed, catching sight of the wheel.

Dan explained shortly.

“Well, yank her out of here. This car moves in about two minutes.”

Dan sprang inside and lowered the wheel to me. Tim threw our bundles to the ground. “Toot, toot,” whistled the engine. The train pulled out.

As the familiar car moved away, my heart seemed breaking. All my hopes of reaching California in a few days crashed to the ground; thoughts of the fierce railroad detectives, the waiting jail, the courtroom in the morning, surged over me. I burst into tears.

“What ya goin’ t’ do wid ’em, Joe? Run ’em in?” queried Tim.

“Naw, don’t believe I will. Come, now,” turning to us. “Beat it out o’ here and don’t let me catch yous fooling around this yard any more. Go on. Beat it quick.”

Glad enough to escape, we stumbled up the track through the darkness.

“Aw now, aw now,” said a hoarse voice at my elbow. “It’s pretty fierce luck, all right. But never you mind, lady, we’ll get you out of here all right. Just come right along to our shack and we’ll fix you up fine.”

In a few minutes we came to a tiny one-room shanty, formed from an old car, which was fitted up with a stove, bunks, a table and chairs. My kindly guide set out soap, clean towels and a fine, big basin of hot water. What luxury! I plunged my grimy hands into the grateful depths and laved my blackened, tear-stained face.

When Dan had made a refreshing toilet, we sat down to the first real meal in two days. Our friends, the car inspectors, watched us eat with much satisfaction while discussing the best method of getting us safely out of Des Moines. Picking up his switchman’s lantern, one stepped out and soon returned with the report that an empty car would go out in a freight that left about two o’clock.

The men conducted us by a circuitous way to a cattle car, the bottom of which was covered with a thick layer of clean straw. The detectives had already examined and passed this car, so under the protection of the car inspectors, it was quite safe to climb aboard. Our wheel was hoisted in and laid flat in a corner, and after an attempt to express our gratitude—really too deep for words—we ourselves lay down and were well covered with straw. I fell asleep immediately.

The rays of a lantern, which was thrust within a few inches of my face, aroused me. The train was grinding to a stop, and as I blinked stupidly in the sudden light, I heard voices deep in argument.

“I tell you, they’re no spotters. She has an honest face.”

And another voice answered, “Well, let ’em ride to the next station and ask ’em a few questions.”

The lantern flashed the signal, and once more we were under way.

The “brakie” settled himself in the straw. Dan produced his union card, our marriage license and other papers to prove our identity; the wheel was uncovered for inspection, and a few questions confirmed the brakeman in his opinion of our honesty. At the next stop the conductor joined us and agreed to move us into a closed car before daylight.

So to-day we rest in comfort and despite the ache of bruised and stiffened shoulders I am happy in the thought that to-morrow’s dawn will see us close to Council Bluffs.