Boes


I WAITED today for a freight train to pass.
Cattle cars with steers butting their horns against the
Bars, went by.
And a half a dozen hoboes stood on bumpers between
Cars.
Well, the cattle are respectable, I thought.
Every steer has its transportation paid for by the farmer
Sending it to market,
While the hoboes are law-breakers in riding a railroad
Train without a ticket.
It reminded me of ten days I spent in the Allegheny
County jail in Pittsburgh.
I got ten days even though I was a veteran of the
Spanish-American war.
Cooped in the same cell with me was an old man, a
Bricklayer and a booze-fighter.
But it just happened he, too, was a veteran soldier, and
He had fought to preserve the Union and free the
Niggers.
We were three in all, the other being a Lithuanian who
Got drunk on pay day at the steel works and got to
Fighting a policeman;
All the clothes he had was a shirt, pants and shoes
Somebody got his hat and coat and what money he
Had left over when he got drunk.


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Boes