On a July evening at dusk, two boys sat near the crest of a grass-grown embankment by the railroad at the western side of a Pennsylvania town. They talked in low tones of the sky's glow above where the sun had set beyond the low hills across the river, and also of the stars, and of the moon, which was over the housetop behind them. Then there was noise of insects chirping in the grass and of steam escaping from the locomotive boilers in the engine shed.

A rumble sounded as from the north, and in that direction a locomotive headlight came into view. It neared as the rumble grew louder, and soon a freight-train appeared. This rolled past at the foot of the embankment.

From between two grain cars leaped a man, and after him another. So rapidly was the train moving that they seemed to be hurled from it. Both alighted upon their feet. One tall and lithe, led the way up the embankment, followed by the other, who was short and stocky.

“Bums,” whispered one of the boys at the top of the embankment.

The tramps stood still when they reached the top. Even in the half-light it could be seen that their clothes were ill-fitting, frayed, and torn. They wore cast-off hats. The tall man, whose face was clean-cut and made a pretence of being smooth-shaven, had a pliable one; the other was capped by a dented derby.

“Here's yer town at last! And it looks like a very jay place at that,” said the short tramp to the tall one, casting his eyes toward the house roofs eastward.

The boys sitting twenty feet away became silent and cautiously watched the newcomers.

“Yep,” replied the tall tramp, in a deep but serious and quiet voice, “and right about here is the spot where I jumped on a freight-train fifteen years ago, the night I ran away from home. That seems like yesterday, though I've not been here since.”

“Skipped a good home because the old lady brought you a new dad! You wouldn't catch me being run out by no stepfather. Billy, you was rash.”

“Mebby I was. But, on the dead, Pete, it was mostly jealousy. I thought my mother couldn't care for me any more if she could take a second husband. My sister thought so too, but she wasn't able to get away like me. Of course I was strong. It was boyish pique that drove me away. I didn't fancy having another man in my dead father's place, either. And I wanted to get around and see the world a bit. After I'd gone I often wished I hadn't. I'd never imagined how much I loved mother and sis. But I was tougher and prouder in some ways than most kids. You can't understand that sort of thing, Pete. And you can't guess how I feel, bein' back here for the first time in fifteen years. Think of it, I was just fifteen when I came away. Why, I spent half my life here, Petie!”

“Oh, I've read somewhere about that,—the way great men feel when they visit their native town.”

The short tramp took a clay pipe from his coat pocket and stuffed into it a cigar-end fished from another pocket. Then he inquired:

“And now you're here, Billy, what are you go'n to do?”

“Only ask around what's become o' my folks, then go away. It won't take me long.”

“There'll be a through coal-train along in about an hour, 'cordin' to what the flagmen told us at that last town. Will you be back in time to bounce that?”

“Yes. We needn't stay here. There's little to be picked up in a place like this.”

“Then skin along and make your investigations. I'll sit here and smoke till you come back. If you could pinch a bit of bread and meat, by the way, it wouldn't hurt.”

“I'll try,” answered the tall tramp. “I'm goin' to ask the kids yonder, first, if any o' my people still live here.”

The tall tramp strode over to the two boys. His companion shambled down the embankment to obtain, at the turntable near the locomotive shed across the railroad, a red-hot cinder with which to light his pipe.

“Do you youngsters know people here by the name of Kershaw?” began the tall tramp, standing beside the two boys.

Both remained sitting on the grass. One shook his head. The other said, “No.”

The tramp was silent for a moment. Then it occurred to him that his mother had taken his stepfather's name and his sister might be married. Therefore he asked:

“How about a family named Coates?”

“None here,” replied one of the boys.

But the other said, “Coates? That's the name of Tommy Hackett's grandmother.”

The tramp drew and expelled a quick, audible breath.

“Then,” he said, “this Mrs. Coates must be the mother of Tommy's mother. Do you know what Tommy's mother's first name is?”

“I heard Tom call her Alice once.”

The tramp's eyes glistened.

“And Mr. Coates?” he inquired.

“Oh, I never heard of him. I guess he died long ago.”

“And Tommy Hackett's father, who's he?”

“He's the boss down at the freight station. Agent, I think they call him.”

“Where does this Mrs. Coates live?”

“She lives with the Hacketts. Would you like to see the house? Me and Dick has to go past it on the way home. We'll show you.”

“Yes, I would like to see the house.”

The boys arose, one of them rather sleepily. They led the way across the railway company's lot, then along a sparsely built up street, and around the corner into a more populous but quiet highway. At the corner was a grocery and dry-goods store; beyond that were neat and airy two-story houses, fronted by a yard closed in by iron fences. One of these houses had a little piazza, on which sat two children. From the open half-door and from two windows came light.

“That's Hackett's house,” said one of the boys.

“Thanks, very much,” replied the tramp, continuing to walk with them.

The boys looked surprised at his not stopping at the house, but they said nothing.

At the next corner the tramp spoke up:

“I think I'll go back now. Good night, youngsters.”

The boys trudged on, and the tramp retraced his steps. When he reached the Hacketts' house, he paused at the gate. The children, a boy of eight and a girl of six, looked at him curiously from the piazza.

“Are you Mr. Hackett's little boy and girl?” he asked.

The girl stepped back to the hall door and stood there. The boy looked up at the tramp and answered, “Yes, sir.”

“Is your mother in?”

“No, she's across the street at Mrs. Johnson's.”

“Grandmother's in, though,” continued the boy. “Would you like to see her?”

“No, no! Don't call her. I just wanted to see your mother.”

“Do you know mamma?” inquired the girl.

“Well—no. I knew her brother, your uncle.”

“We haven't any uncle—except Uncle George, and he's papa's brother,” said the boy.

“What! Not an uncle Will—Uncle Will Kershaw?”

“O—h, yes,” assented the boy. “Did you know him before he died? That was a long time ago.”

The tramp made no other outward manifestation of his surprise than to be silent and motionless for a time. Presently he said, in a trembling voice:

“Yes, before he died. Do you remember when he died?”

“Oh, no. That was when mamma was a girl. She and grandmother often talk about it, though. Uncle Will started West, you know, when he was fifteen years old. He was standing on a bridge out near Pittsburg one day, and he saw a little girl fall into the river. He jumped in to save her, but he was drowned, 'cause his head hit a stone and that stunned him. They didn't know it was Uncle Will or who it was, at first, but mamma read about it in the papers and Grandpa Coates went out to see if it wasn't Uncle Will. Grandpa 'dentified him and they brought him back here, but, what do you think, the doctor wouldn't allow them to open his coffin, and so grandma and mamma couldn't see him. He's buried up in the graveyard next Grandpa Kershaw, and there's a little monument there that tells all about how he died trying to save a little girl from drownin'. I can read it, but Mamie can't. She's my little sister there.”

The tramp had seated himself on the piazza step. He was looking vacantly before him. He remained so until the boy, frightened at his silence, moved further from him, toward the door. Then the tramp arose suddenly.

“Well,” he said, huskily, “I won't wait to see your mamma. You needn't tell her about me bein' here. But, say—could I just get a look at—at your grandma, without her knowing anythin about it?”

The boy took his sister's hand and withdrew into the doorway. Then he said, “Why, of course. You can see her through the window.”

The tramp stood against the edge of the piazza upon his toes, and craned his neck to see through one of the lighted windows. So he remained for several seconds. Once during that time he closed his eyes, and the muscles of his face contracted. Then he opened his eyes again. They were moist.

He could see a gentle old lady, with smooth gray hair, and an expression of calm and not unhappy melancholy. She was sitting in a rocking-chair, her hands resting on the arms, her look fixed unconsciously on the paper on the wall. She was thinking, and evidently her thoughts, though sad, perhaps, were not keenly painful.

The tramp read that much upon her face. Presently, without a word, he turned quickly about and hurried away, closing the gate after him.

When the two children told about their visitor later, their mother said:

“You mustn't talk to strange men, Tommy. You and Mamie should have come right in to grandma.”

Their father said: “He was probably looking for a chance to steal something. I'll let the dog out in the yard to-night.”

And their grandmother: “I suppose he was only a man who likes to hear children talk, and perhaps, poor fellow, he has no little ones of his own.”

The tramp knew the way to the cemetery. But first he found the house where he had lived as a boy. It looked painfully rickety and surprisingly small. So he hastened from before it and went up by a back street across the town creek and up a hill, where at last he stood before the cemetery gate. It was locked; so he climbed over the wall. He went still further up the hill, past tombstones that looked very white, and trees that looked very green in the moonlight. At the top of the hill he found his father's grave. Beside it was another mound, and at the head of this, a plain little pillar. The moon was high now and the tramp was used to seeing in the night. Word by word he could slowly read upon the marble this inscription:

“William Albert, beloved son of the late Thomas Kershaw and his wife Rachel; born in Brickville, August 2, 1862; drowned in the Allegheny River near Pittsburg, July 27, 1877, while heroically endeavouring to save the life of a child.”

The tramp laughed, and then uttered a sigh.

“I wonder,” he said, aloud, “what poor bloke it is that's doin' duty for me under the ground here.”

And at the thought that he owed an excellent posthumous reputation to the unknown who had happened to resemble him fifteen years before, he laughed louder. Having no one near to share his mirth, he looked up at the amiable moon, and nodded knowingly thereat, as if to say:

“This is a fine joke we're enjoying between ourselves, isn't it?”

And by and by he remembered that he was being waited for, and he strode from the grave and from the cemetery.

By the railroad the short tramp, having smoked all the refuse tobacco in his possession, was growing impatient. Already the expected coal-train had heralded its advent by whistle and puff and roar when his associate had joined him.

“Found out all you wanted to know?” queried the stout little vagabond, starting down the embankment to mount the train.

“Yep,” answered the tall vagrant, contentedly.

The small man grasped the iron rod attached to the side of one of the moving coal-cars and swung his foot into the iron stirrup beneath. His companion mounted the next car in the same way.

“Are you all right, Kersh?” shouted back the small tramp, standing safe above the “bumpers.”

“All right,” replied the tall tramp, climbing upon the end of a car. “But don't ever call me Kersh any more. After this I'm always Bill the Bum. Bill Kershaw's dead—” and he added to himself, “and decently buried on the hill over there under the moon.”